Its great seeing more and more people jump on the green band wagon but I can't help but think "why isn't everyone jumping on!?!  Its obvious this planet is in a state of peril but most people are too busy being selfish and ignorant to bother looking around them and noticing it all.  Ever since I knew what the environment was I was worried about it.  I wish there were a way for us greenies to educate and help everyone else not aware.  I do feel like we're getting to that point.  Tv (although not the greatest thing ever) is great for the fact that it has channels like the Green Channel, National Geographic, The Science Channel, etc.  All those help educate.  We have stuff like MySpace and Face Book that promote environmental sites (well, at least some times and better then never!) That is all great but right now it isn't enough!  I hate politics and know nothing about politics except that our government needs to majorly endorse green methods of living and sustaining.  But then, we're just one nation.  What about all the other nations that are causing even more damage then us.  How do we reach them? Are they aware? What are they doing to help stop this crisis?

A person who eats meat might see a video of a cow being brutally murdered for meat consumption and from that day on decide to never eat meat again.  I had a moment sort of like that tonight involving the brutal murder of the earth.  (ok, a bit dramatic but demonstrates a point :P) On the show Ecopolis they were showing alternative ways to produce energy and the last one was a solution of cleaning the CO2 out of coal energy.  My first thought immediately was that unlike all the other options showed this still wastes vast amounts of land and resources.  How is that a solution!?! But it got worse when I saw a horrid giant machine ripping out tons and tons of coal out of the earth.  It was very sad and depressing to see.  I don't have numbers but I'd imagine they are able to tear exponantial amounts of coal from the earth every day.  Why would we want to destroy the beautiful earth like that? :(

On a lighter note :)...I work at a business that has 3 locations.  The location I mainly work at is 20 miles away from where I live! One of the locations is probably only about 6 miles away from where I live. Originally they were going to have me start working at that one primarily but not sure why but they haven't switched me but I did get a chance to work there today.  I was thinking that being that close to where I live I could totally ride my bike to and from work!  The only problem is....I am really afraid of riding bikes in the street sharing it with cars.  Even when I'm driving my car and there's a bicyclist on the road it freaks me out.  They seem to close to the cars.  For the first time about 2 months ago I did a 12 mile ride with Aids Life Cycle where we were riding in the road with cars.  I was with very experienced bikers and it wasn't so bad.  But by myself and on streets much busier?  I don't know if I could pull it off.  And even if I do decide I want to pull it off I'm not sure how I would get use to sharing the road with a car.  If I do eventually start working at this other location I'd like to ride my bike there I just don't know how I'd accomplish that.

I was reading something that suggested keeping a "consumer diary".  You write down everything you buy, the reason you bought it and what you were thinking at the time you bought it.  I think I'm going to try it.  At first I thought it would be a great idea to do it here (Benefit is that it would save paper!) but I don't know if I want to jumble up my blog with lists and...it might be embarresing admitting all the junk I buy :/ But I don't know, maybe that would prevent me front buying things I don't need.  The shame of having  to admit on here the stupid stuff I buy would maybe make me think twice about buying something :P I guess I'll give it a try.  I'll go ahead and list the stuff I've bought in the past week.  I'll omit food since I kind of already mention that and the improvements I'm trying to make in that area

List of things bought in the first week of January: 

-2 10 pound bags of soil and some seeds-I am determined to grow my own fruits and veggies! I hope this project doesn't fail like it has in the past.  Unfortunately the soil came in plastic bags :(

-two plastic owl plates and a glass owl mug-I didn't need plates or mugs but they had owls on them and I couldn't resist buying them :( Going threw that battle to decide to buy them made me realize that I don't  need every single thing ever made that has an owl on it.  I can appreciate the things I already own that have owls on them.  Do I really want a house full of owls?

-a plastic spray bottle :( My roomy needs one to spray my cats whenever they try to enter his room.  

-two books and a desk calender.  I had a gift card to Barnes and Noble so I went.  I had two books, one about sustainability and one all about the brain and how we learn.  I couldn't decide which one to get so I got them both :/  I didn't need a desk calender but this one was 365 ways to living green.  I'm hoping it will have some insightful ideas I can learn from.

-a sweater and a vest.  I don't really have very many sweaters to keep me warm and I had a $20 gift coupon to Kohls so I went and picked out a sweater.  I still had $9 left on the card so I picked out a cute vest.

-5 mini "green living for dummies" to give to friends and families in hopes to encourage green living.

For someone who is trying to reduce their consumption and someone who doesn't really have money I feel like I have bought waaaaaaay too much this past week.  I could say I got it all out of the way the first week of the year so I won't buy anything else this year :P One can hope but knowing myself I know I have a lot of obstacles  in my mind to over come before I could be completely consumption free but I know some day in the not to far distant I'll be there :)