Small change successes

It's Tuesday, but somehow I already find that I can barely remember what happened last week. As it turns out, I hardly took any pictures, so all I have to share here is Cassidy having a Zen-like moment on the couch holding a Tibetan butter lamp. She took it off the table herself to examine, and I thought she had a sort of Buddhist monk look in her orange dress, holding the lamp:

So anyway, that's that. How did we do on our monthly "doing more of what matters challenge?" I guess my feeling is that the results are mixed. I can't say the whole month was life-changing, or that there weren't moments "what do we do now?" or shopping trips to Target that turned bigger than expected, but overall I found myself thinking more about our challenge as we went about our days. When I found myself feeling bored or isolated, I did more actively try to get out and reach out. I think we spent more time playing in park, with other kids playing at our homes or theirs, in the library. I guess I'd need to crunch more numbers to determine if we actually spent less time "consuming" in February than in other months, but I feel we did. Even with the necessary shopping trips we did make, I think we did less aimless wandering around shopping centers.

Fittingly, our month ended with a sunset picnic on the beach. It was a perfect example of what really matters. Hanging out on the beach as a family, eating sandwiches (well, Cassidy eating equal parts sandwich, baby puree, and sand), and watching C excitedly exploring in every direction was a wonderful way to end the weekend and the month. I think Brant took some pictures, but they aren't uploaded yet, so I'll post them later if I can.

I think the best part about this "one small change" for the month of February is that it is something that will continue. I plan to actively continue pursuing more and more of the activities that matter to fill our weeks. It just feels better. For March, however, we are also adding our new challenge, which I have decided will be to buy less plastics. Even though a lot of different kinds of plastic are recyclable here, there are still plenty that aren't. Plus, just filling my recycling bin each week is not really that satisfying. Energy is still needed to break all those plastics down in the recycling process. Not to mention all the non-renewable resources and energy that went into making them in the first place. So, the plan is to purchase as few things contained in plastics, or new things for the home made of plastic. I will look for alternatives or try to do without.

I am hoping another upside to this change is a reduction in clutter around the home. I think a lot of junk that just crowds around the house is due to all the little bits and pieces of plastic and packaging that we buy or otherwise obtain - for example plastic bags of different types (I am one of those weird people who wash and reuse ziploc bags - I even have a special drying rack for this purpose - but bags are always floating around in a state of reuse), little junky gadgets that somehow find their way in and easily break, etc... So I'm looking forward to it - we'll see how we go!