Thinking About Conservation

Over the past few months as ideas came to me (those who know me well know that ideas come often) I often put them aside until "after graduation" to seriously consider them. Take a look at my "tasks" in my phone and you'd see:

-acting classes
-cleaning my apartment
-installing window air conditioning units
-cooking class
-improving my home repair skills
-setting up quicken (has been on my task list for a while...)
-joining a CSA (community supported agriculture)
-buying clothes/food thoughtfully

It's the last two tasks, along with a third (being more energy efficient at home and beyond) that I've been thinking about lately.

I've felt good about some of my energy saving ways over the past year.
- Composting
- Using reusable bags when grocery shopping (cutting down on my plastic intake)
- Walking and bike riding whenever possible
- Recycling paper, cans, cardboard, etc. (though not sure if I'm recycling correctly or the fate of what I put in the recycling bins).
- Buying books less (mostly about cost, but also saves paper and utilizes the library)
- Take train for work trips to Harrisburg and DC instead of driving
- Vegetarian for one year (not contributing to costs associated with growing, hunting, killing, processing, shipping seafood products. I gave up meat years ago, but my giving up seafood was in part due to the environmental costs associated with food production and distribution).
--- I'm eating seafood again...

Potential To Do's to be more energy efficient and environmentally responsible

- Get an Energy Audit of home and make repairs (like changing and insulating windows, changing light bulbs, turning off the electric power at night to TV, computer, stereo, etc).

- Buy food more thoughtfully - farmers markets, too late for a CSA?, read labels. Buy fewer packaged products

- Watch TV less and instead read and be outside more

Message to myself:

Realize that change is a process. It's not all or nothing and doesn't have to happen in a set period of time. Don't be hard on myself but do push myself to look into and follow through on the above because it's important to me.

These potential energy/environment related behavior changes is connected to a larger feeling that I need to take care of myself first before and perhaps instead of working for change in others. The only person that I can fully change is myself and if I take greater responsibility for myself than perhaps my desire to organize and facilitate change will be better satiated. That said, I am not trying to quelch the organizer in me, just re-focus the energy inwards for a little while and see what the results are.