Looking Back on 2008

As I look back over the past year, I am absolutely amazed by how far Ben and I have come on our quest toward sustainable living. Our lifestyle is much different than it was just a few months ago. This is inspiring to me as I look forward to a new year. Many steps toward sustainability seemed far out of my comfort zone when I started them. With practice, however, they've become normal.

In that vein, I think our three largest lifestyle changes this past year have been as follow:

1. Organics: We took the Mission Organic 2010 challenge and just kept going. Now we buy about 90% of our groceries organic. We've also made commitments to organic clothing, which greatly reduces our impulse purchases.

2. Plastics: We use cloth shopping bags almost exclusively now, and we've eliminated the vast majority of plastics in our kitchen, including plates, bowls, cups, spatulas, tupperware, etc. We're starting to eradicate the plastics in the rest of our house (BPA-laden toothbrush bristles will be the next to go!).

3. Driving: Our progress in this category is far from complete, but we are much better than last December. Ben carpools to work, I bike to my volunteer job, and we both really think before just getting in the car and going. We've cut down on our driving around town, and we've taken most of the excess weight out of our cars (car mats, CD cases, ice scrapers -- in FL). When we do drive, we've been learning to incorporate some of the basic tenets of hypermiling.

We still have plenty of room to grow in each of these categories and will actively work toward becoming better in these ways.

I issue you a challenge. If you are can only commit to a few new sustainable behaviors this coming year, I encourage you to consider one or more of those listed above. These are excellent beginning steps toward making your lifestyle more sustainable, happy, and healthy.