Sustaining

SO in my previous post I mentioned that Ryan and I were redoubling our efforts to be a more sustainable family.  That means so many different things to different folks, so I guess I better explain what it means to us.

As an adolescent my family converted to Buddhism.  I spent a lot of time traveling to hear our Tibetan teachers speak and to go on religious retreat.  It was a huge part of my teen years and development as a person. I'm no longer a formal practitioner (with a special needs kid I never ever go on retreat), but the basic teachings have become central to my values and outlook on life.  I don't believe in shortcuts and carry deep-rooted feelings for taking personal responsibility.  I need to know at the end of the day that I did everything I could to make choices that were the most beneficial and least harmful to everyone and everything around me.  If I didn't it eats away at me like crazy.  I'm still a curmudgeon, but at least I'm a conscientious one.

Of course the first thing that comes to most minds about sustainability, is the idea of "environmental sustainability."  We agree. We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to preserve what's left of this planet.  For us that means not using an air conditioner even though it's often in the 90's here.  It means hanging the laundry to dry whenever possible, not using paper towels (oh yeah, we seriously don't own a single roll of paper towels and haven't for the last four years!), using cloth diapers on little Lyra, and using as little electricity as possible. You get the picture.

 But it's more to us than those basic steps families can take.  It's being healthy and well-rounded.  It's eating well! We're growing our own food and buying local when we can. We cook as much as we possibly can from scratch.  A bag of flour carries your pennies a long way! We walk instead of drive (I walk 3 miles round trip with the kids to make a basic grocery run). Basically sustainability can mean doing things that take a little longer, but make us all healthier in the long run, not just the planet so we see it as worth the time and energy.

Lots of folks these days avoid these kinds of measures because they think they don't have time and or can't afford it. Well for us the third leg of sustainability is in fact financial sustainability. Ryan and I are in the "lower" lower middle class financially, so if doing these things didn't help us pinch pennies we wouldn't be able to do them.  Walking saves gas money, and it keeps away nasty doctor bills as it keeps us healthy. Using less electricity lowers our energy bill and growing food lowers our food bill.

Now time, time is another matter.  Time is something Americans are always running out of. There are never enough hours in the day but we make some sacrifices so that we can do all of these time consuming things.  We get up VERY early, and we drink a lot of coffee.  I also work from home and Ryan works odd hours.  I wanted to be able to be at home to take care of my kids and live more "slowly," so I developed a business model that matched my sustainable principles and made it happen. Obviously as a business owner I have to work a lot, but if I need to water the yard in the middle of the day I can do that as a "lunch break."  That is the best decision I could have made for my family and I feel really fortunate to be able to do that. A big part of making it all work however, is redefining your activities and how you plan for them.  I make my weekly plans around the fact that going to the store is going to take 2 hours.  At first it is inconvenient but after awhile it just becomes a part of your life. I actually enjoy it a lot because I like to be outside!

 Another Leg-up we've had for this lifestyle is our area's infrastructure.  We don't live downtown, but the entire Denver area of Colorado has worked hard to create open space trails, bike lanes, and sidewalks that make leaving the car at home possible.  I hope that the rest of the country starts to create this option for its citizens. 

I've expressed our ideals here, but living sustainably isn't always easy and we fail/make mistakes all the time, but that's life. Overall it is my hope that living this way will teach my children that the quickest, shortest, easiest, way from point A to point B isn't always the best way.  Fast does not = best.  We want them to relish life not sprint through it (at the cost of their own health and the planet's), and that's what we're attempting to do ourselves!