Blog

Today I am terribly excited because our family is in the local paper, the Wilmington News Journal! It is a fantastic article and I am so grateful to Kelly Bothum for allowing us to be a part of it.

Journal readers, welcome to our website!
Today’s article referenced my Green Cleaning 101 posts. You can find them here:

Green Cleaning 101: Day One lists non-toxic cleansers and how to use them;
Green Cleaning 101: Family Edition showcases how we turn cleaning into a family endeavor;
Green Cleaning 101: Social Responsibility discusses how we can take the life lessons of shared family responsibility and apply that on a global scale.

On this site you can also find information about my family’s attempt to maintain a worm farm for compost, how we save money on our energy bill, and my love for laundry hung on a clothesline.

In addition, I post a daily quote to inspire readers to look for the beauty in our daily lives, accompanied by a photo from my own backyard.

Who am I and why do I do this?

My name is Robin. I am a mother of three; Jacob (10), Maverick (7), and Cassidy (nearly 4). I started this blog six short weeks ago.

I have always attempted to instill a love of Nature in my children, but found it largely unnecessary; children yearn for wilderness. We need but to lead them to it.

They will in turn point out to us all the things we have been missing in the hustle of our lives- the blade of grass, the woodpecker’s tap, the fleeing caterpillar. Children have an inborn sense of stewardship, and carry that burden squarely and cheerfully on their shoulders. Given a chance to experience Nature and their place in it, they readily acknowledge that it is only right that they do their part to preserve it.

As we grow to adulthood, we lose this sense of stewardship. What I am trying to do with this website is to remind people, particularly parents, of the children we once were, and how we felt we could change the world. The world is in need of changing.

What can we do? We can lead by example. We can take those first steps towards living a green life and lessen the destructive impact we have on our shared environment. We can do charitable things to help our fellow man. We can learn to look for and embrace, that which binds all of us together.

We can teach our children well. And we can listen to what they have to say to us.

I hope that you will keep tabs on us, as we move towards an ever greener life!

This week:

• We’ll reveal the many ways we implement the “Reuse” in “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.
• I will be holding forth on “Recession does not mean Regression“; how adopting frugal ways does not mean a return to canned vegetables and boxed mac-and-cheese, and how a tighter budget can mean a simpler and more enjoyable lifestyle for families.
• I will be continuing an ongoing conversation on charity, and how it benefits the giver.
• I’ll discuss how to hold to green principles while remaining a good wedding guest.
• I’ll review the books I read for the Be A Bookworm Challenge: Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (multiple authors).
• I’ll unearth my Victory Garden and share what food we manage to grow in our small vegetable plot, and how we prepare them.

In the next month:

• I’ll talk about recycling. A lot.
• I’ll continue to chronicle the ways we try to tread lightly: in particular, our participation in the One Local Summer challenge, wherein we eat at least one meal a week comprised entirely of locally found ingredients; and the Clothesline Challenge, for which we are attempting three months of 100% line-dry.
• I’ll have tons of easy backyard activities for kids to do during those long summer days.
• I’ll chronicle my husband’s valiant attempts to build a solar powered kitchen fan. (Any input is appreciated.)
• I’ll post more ideas and tutorials on how to save money and how to simplify your life, to open up room for the things you’d rather be doing.
• I’ll periodically take, and answer, questions from readers.

Comments are always welcome! Questions and suggestions can be emailed to simplegreenorganichappy@gmail.com. I will answer anything sent my way.