Eco-tips without the Eco-guilt… WAHMs, you can Celebrate Green!

I met Lynn Colwell through a social networking site (Savor the Success), where we are both “official” bloggers. Together with her daughter Corey, Lynn has self-published a great new book: Celebrate Green!

I don’t know about you, but I for one have been increasingly attentive to trying to live more “green” in the last couple of years. A couple examples:

• My husband can’t stand grocery shopping with me because I shop by reading the ingredients on the back to determine how natural and/or organic an item is. Needless to say, unless it’s something I regularly buy, all that ingredient-checking really slows me down. But it makes a huge difference – when I first started avoiding processed ingredients and “natural” corn syrup, that alone made me drop pounds. And I’m so unaccustomed to processed stuff now that indulging in a soda or a few meals out have a direct physical impact. (A side note: My husband recently begged me to buy Hot Pockets so he would have something to snack on. After trying 3 kinds he admitted they sucked (ha ha told you so). Kashi dinners are the only frozen meals in the freezer now.)
• We recycle – and having a second bin for recycling was seriously the make or break feature when we shopped for our kitchen cabinets.
• I live for June – because that’s when my favorite farmer’s market opens. Buying local, and my girls love to play hide-and-seek for the resident cats.
• I hijacked the thermostat in my house to save energy. Adjusting the temperature settings saved us money to boot!

Anyway, I have to admit that while I try to do my part and certainly advise others to eat more naturally because of the impact I’ve felt on my own health, I’d hardly consider myself a full-out eco-star.

Honestly I feel a little inadequate when I’m around women/moms who I KNOW are more devoted than me to living green. But the reality is that there is only so much time and money to go around, especially in a WAHM’s world. Sometimes life requires compromises.

My point: this is where Celebrate Green! succeeds so tremendously. The authors don’t preach – you implicitly understand that THEY UNDERSTAND. It’s not eco-guilt-inducing, but ECO-INSPIRING.

Lynn and Corey write conversationally – you feel like you’re learning over a cup of coffee with them. Tips are simple, easy-to-do, and backed by interesting and enlightening statistics. They walk you through ways to transform a year’s worth of holiday celebrations into opportunities to celebrate the earth – in addition to the holiday. And they make you understand that it’s okay to change just a little – because you are still changing, and are that much more aware.

It would be impossible for me to pick just a few tips from the many in the book – but the great thing I noticed is that after reading just a bit of it, I was already inspired to start thinking in a more green mindset. For instance:

• I don’t think I will ever buy another roll of wrapping paper. For one thing, I have about a million gift bags I’ve saved to recycle when I give gifts. And even though I only get the business weekly paper and the Sunday local paper, we always have a ton of newspaper – and my daughter loves to stamp and decorate so why not let her be creative!
• I had a party last weekend and needed to package “goody bags” as my daughter says. I was going to buy something to put the gifts in, but after reading the book: why? I found some medium-sized brown paper bags (from the farmer’s market!) and had my daughter decorate each one with a unique “work of art.”
• I bought recycled paper napkins instead of regular. (I try to use fabric, but realistically the paper kind are still needed in our house.)
• I am REALLY going to try to remember to bring fabric bags and boxes to carry my groceries.

Anyway, this is a fantastic book and will be a wonderful gift. I’m looking forward to involving my 5-year-old in making some green holiday plans. I’m sure I will be ordering some books for my friends and family. And you couldn’t ask for a better fundraiser for a group with green ideals. Get your own now!