Today is Blog Action Day http://www.blogactionday.com/, and so untold numbers of bloggers around the net are blogging on the same subject- the environment.
It’s kind of a trendy subject nowadays, what with all the green products on the market, and Al Gore (go Al!), but it’s also related to one of the only New Year’s Resolutions I’ve ever been able to keep.
Two years ago, I decided to resolve to only use green cleaning products in my home. I had already started using cloth diapers with my kids, and we try to eat vegetarian when possible, as much for the environment as for health and economic issues. But I did love my bleach and caustic yet pine smelling cleaning solutions.
I gave all my cleaning products to a friend and stocked up on some green certified, organic, natural brands. Toilet cleansers with essential oils, bathtub scrubbers with finely ground marble, vinegar solutions for cleaning the shower. You name it, I bought it.
And two years later, my house is just as clean, the products cost no more or less than the ones I was buying before, and I have just a little bit less guilt about what I’m pouring down the drain.
This one small New Year’s Resolution was the starting point to a period of awareness in my life that has led to many other changes, too numerous (or boring) to list here. A small change in my purchasing has had many effects on my life overall. And that, Mother Earth, is what I have done for you lately.
And Now We Are Five 
I got into the green cleaners when I was boycotting Procter & Gamble some years ago. It was difficult to give up my hand dish soap, but almost impossible to give up my dishwasher detergent. Then I found a brand that did my dishes proud. As long as I was giving up the comfort of my familiar brands I plunged head-first into the green cleaners and haven’t looked back. Still, it somehow seems more exciting as a resolution. The only resolution I can recall ever keeping was the year I vowed not to be pregnant again next New Year’s. I’m rambling. I miss you.
There was one other year that I kept my New Year’s Resolutions- but I’m not going to publish what they were on a public blog!