Living Green with Elegance and Style

This whole thing about living green has gotten off to a bad start with the general populace. Never mind whether global warming is a real danger or a trumped up power play. The global economic meltdown has made it necessary for people everywhere to economize. Which means spending less on resources. Which means using resources less. Living greener is becoming more and more an economic imperative.

And that's where most of us wrinkle up our noses in distaste. Who wants to give up their iPods and Starbucks and live like those green fiends, growing their own vegetables - organically for Pete's sake - and cutting their own firewood and collecting rain water for their laundry? Some people consider those green fiends to be front line saints. They may be, but saints are always vastly outnumbered by the general population. The rest of us would rather live in the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. Besides, who can afford all those solar and wind collectors. What are we to do?

I have some good news for you. Living greener really can't be bought - isn't that a relief! - any more than elegance can. Both are more a matter of mind set and share many qualities. Both depend on simplifying and streamlining your life, making considered choices, and optimizing what you select.

Streamline

Do you really need 47 different cleaning products for your home? Are there clothes and shoes in your closet you never wear because they don't go with anything? Is your utensil drawer full of gadgets you don't even remember what they're for?

Try this. Empty that utensil drawer into a baking pan and leave it on the counter for a week. As you use utensils, put them back in the drawer. At the end of a week evaluate what's still in the pan. Things you haven't used this week because they're seasonal, like the turkey baster and the strawberry huller can go back into the drawer. Tools that are only used outside with the grill might be better stored elsewhere, with all the other accessories for the grill. Pick up each utensil that's left and try to remember the last time you used it. Did it really work for you? Make every item earn its way back into the drawer. What's left goes in the thrift store box.

Next? Do the same thing with your makeup and toiletry collection, with the cleaning supplies and the cleaning tools. Do it mentally with the dishes, pots and pans, baking pans, spices, the pantry, the refrigerator, your desk, your jewelry... Look at every drawer, shelf, closet and work area in your home, shop, garage, and office. Get another box for the thrift store.

You can take a similar approach to streamlining your closet. Starting today, clear a bit of space at one end of your closet. Or, push all out of season clothes to one side behind a marker of some sort and start your cleared space in front of that. As you replace clothes that you have worn, hang them there, separate from what you haven't worn yet.. At the end of the season, evaluate everything you could have worn but didn't. If it doesn't fit or is uncomfortable, put it in the thrift shop box. If it needs repair put it aside. If you couldn't wear it because it doesn't go with anything else, you have two choices. Get something to go with it or send it to the thrift shop. Repeat the process for the other season's clothes. By this time next year, there should be nothing in your closet but clothes you actually wear.

Optimize

Beauty is an important element in elegance. While you're eliminating extraneous items from your life, be sure the choices you make don't sacrifice something you love. On the other hand, kitchen utensils don't have to be ugly to be useful. Replace the uglies with tools that look good and feel good in your hand. You may find cooking just a tiny bit more fun and satisfying when you have beautiful tools.

Ditto with dishes and glassware. Whenever you get down to one or two glasses, you buy a new set but keep those orphans, right? Wrong. How can you feel elegant when your cupboard looks like a thrift shop display of glasses and mugs, most of which you don't use anyway. To the real thrift shop with 'em! A friend of mine closes her emails with the quote, "Life is too short to knit with ugly yarn." We should all take this principle to heart.

Simplify

Easier said than done! Let's agree on that at the outset. Finding ways to simplify your life will be different for each person and each family. One big step most of us need is to develop some sales resistance to marketing. That's how we acquired those 47 different cleaning products and all those specialty gadgets. We were promised they would make life easier, but if they did, would they be languishing in a drawer or under the sink? Instead of stuffing all our extra clothes into those bags that suction down to nearly nothing, maybe we could just give those clothes to someone who needs them. Think of all the wrinkles you won't have to iron out.