Disposing of Disposables

I was excited to find an old, wadded up handkerchief in the back of my drawer this morning. You read that correctly.

This week, I’m giving up Aisle 11: no paper towels, no napkins, no disposable Ziplock baggies, picnicware, and…Kleenex. Hence the excitement over the discovery that I own a reusable cloth hankie! I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is NO. I’m not giving up toilet paper. Kudos to the environmentally-conscious folks who compost their, um…leavings. I’m not going that far. I will, however, make a trip to one of the health food stores & check out the options for biodegradable or recycled toilet paper made from corn husks and old cereal boxes (or whatever it is that responsible people put on the roll).

The hankie is great, but I’m already realizing some supplies I’m missing: a terrycloth towel to dry my hands at work, a regular set of flatware for my lunch, and a cloth napkin. Unless I attempt to eat lasagna with my bare hands, I’m going to have to make a trip home over the lunch hour.

Sticky update

Just a quick update, since I’m not currently in the middle of “a week without”:

The cleanse seems to have…worked? I’m still craving healthy stuff instead of fast food. Despite that, lack of preparation has led to a lot of drive-thrus this week, so I went on a cooking blitz tonight to remedy that.

• More of the roasted winter vegetables just came out of my oven
• I made roasted chickpeas for the first time
• Ben’s pick: a quinoa egg bake is cooking now
• Plus, I’ve got the ingredients for a whole wheat veggie lasagna &/or pizza

More stuff that stuck:

I go without makeup &/or my purse pretty frequently. I choose water over pop a lot more. And we’ve been turning off the tablet in the bedroom earlier. Sometimes. Ok, we’re still pretty hooked on electronics.

Right now, I’m trying to decide my next week without. I have two ideas:

• A week without Aisle 11. That is, no paper towels, napkins, disposable plastic baggies, press-n-seal, etc. But I draw the line at toilet paper. I’m not that hardcore yet.
• A week without nagging. I think Ben will love this idea. J

So, what should I give up?

Night Owl for Life!

Electronics were banned from the bedroom for this whole week. If you read the rules of this project, you know that I can’t give up anything that directly affects my fiancé without his consent. Well, he agreed to it.

First off, I have been sleeping well this week. Second, we will not stick with this.

The biggest and only challenge has been bedtime. We’re used to watching a rerun or two before falling asleep. To get around the no-electronics rule, we both still stayed up to watch TV…we just watched in the living room instead and stayed up WAY too late as a result. I self-imposed an 11pm curfew, but ended up doing crossword puzzles in bed…alone. My fiancé had major trouble falling asleep without TV, and slept on the couch a lot. I DID convince him to come to bed early one night, if I let him use his Kindle Fire with headphones (he gave up). Just like the Kindle, things have slowly been migrating back into the bedroom. I ordered that the alarm clock (he insisted on) be hidden under the bed where it’s little light wouldn’t shine. And after 5 days of making a zombie trek across the hallway to hit “snooze” and stumble back to bed, I caved & twice brought my phone back into the bedroom…but only to hit snooze at arm’s reach. (No Facebook, no texting, no Words With Friends).

Because I slept better this week, I woke up refreshed and got to work early each day. Just kidding. That didn’t even happen a little. Despite sleeping a little better, I was still a Crankasaurus Rex, hit snooze several times, skipped breakfast, and got to work around 9am. Not quite the result I was hoping for.

When I gave up pop for a week, I realized my “addiction” wasn’t nearly as severe as I’d suspected. This week has shown me how horrible my bedtime routine really is. While I’m willing to make some gradual changes, I’m not ready to give up this bad habit quite yet – You may have noticed I posted this after 11pm. J