31 Days of Healthy and Sustainable Living (Day Uno)

About six months ago I read Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. She’s my people. We don’t know each other, but she is my favorite christian author/speaker/blogger/reality tv star. She’s hilarious and wise and loves the Lord but she is loud and opinionated. She is the person that allowed me to see that you can be loud and still be a woman who is at peace and who is after God’s heart. When I read her book I spent most of it literally LOLing, and the other half of it feeling very convicted. She brought to light the ways that I live a life of excess, and inspired me to start making some changes. The main ones were to start recycling like a maniac, obsessively turn off lights to conserve electricity, grow a garden, and be more intentional about the way I spend money. As a result of that journey I also started evaluating some other areas of my life, like what kind of food am I buying and eating, am I treating my body like a temple, and am I being a good steward of the earth. This reflecting has started to change the way I live and see the world. So in an effort to gain more knowledge and also share that knowledge with you for the next 31 days I will be blogging about healthy and sustainable living. Sometimes it will be about essential oils, other times it might be about how to clean your house using sustainable products, and another day it might be about why you should buy organic (if you can). I have a wide variety of ideas in mind and I’m excited to learn and share with you! In a lot of ways it feels like I’ve been living life without glasses and all the sudden those corrective lenses have begun to shed so much light on the world and the way I can make it a better place just by living in a way that is more God honoring and sustainable.

Sometimes changing the world can feel overwhelming, all of the problems feel so big and I feel so small in comparison. But I’m learning that I’m responsible for my choices, and mine alone. I’m responsible for how I treat the earth, for how I treat my body, and for how I treat my fellow man. By living in a sustainable way not only do I treat myself better, but I treat the world better. Throughout this series I hope to continue to grow in my awareness of how my choices impact me, my family and friends, and the earth.

This is definitely a journey for me, because it’s hard to change all your habits at one time. So slowly but surely I am attempting to change the way I live. I am definitely not perfect. Like for our 9 monthiversary Steve and I went to a pizza place in town that we LOVE. I didn’t just eat one piece like a good girl, between the two of us we ate almost the whole pizza PLUS these garlic knot type things. Also, sometimes I forget about the kitchen light and literally leave it on alllll day while I’m at work. But it’s little changes every day, and every day I get better at sticking to them. I know that knowledge is power so I’m hoping when all of this is said and done I’ll be filled with the power that all the research will bring. I may not be a no shoe wearing, vegetarian hippie, but I am a reclining, energy conserving hippie and right now that’s good enough for me.

I hope you’ll join me this month, and that when we’re done we’ll all be challenged and encouraged to be more conscious of our choices and then together we’ll change the world!