Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Greening the home more and Sustainable Works

Ahhh, my efforts to green the home... good, but a lot of time and research. I'm retraining myself out of what I learned in suburbia growing up. It was a comfy life in the OC (thanks mom and dad), but not enough awareness. Now I am creating cozy and aware. Right now it seems Santa Monica is my best resource. Walk around and they have the ideal California - beach, nature, sun, climate which also means they have the most to protect. I realize that this is one of the reasons why they are so forward about being green.

A few weeks ago I started a 6 week workshop with Sustainable Works in Santa Monica with my friend Sabine. It's one of the best things I've ever done. For those that think they are already being green, you have to take this workshop. It will take you to the next level in terms of tweaking your everyday habits. I'm happy that it's not about spending thousands for solar panels, even though we may just do that before the kitchen, but doing things like always doing laundry with cold water because the detergent does the cleaning, tinting our windows for more insulation, and eating less beef because it takes so much water to raise a cow. We recycle, turn off lights when we're not in the room, bring our reusable bags to the store, but there is so much more than that.

I'd like to document my progress. We were asked to take a life assessment survey at the beginning of the workshop and will be taking one at the end to get a sense of our progress and the difference it will make. I can't wait to see the numbers!

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