So, I’m at the fabric store, and nowhere can I find organic materials. Is that strange? Do specialty stores only carry organic or sustainable materials, like organic cotton and bamboo?

Because I’m going to start making my own clothes, bags and accessories, I really need to find somewhere to buy slightly affordable sustainable fabrics. Because if I don’t, I might as well just be buying retail. 

I’m sewing my first big project: a bag. It’s going to turn out so well!! Tonight I’m going to cut out my patterns and tomorrow is going to be a day full of sewing =]

I need advice on how to make quinoa tastier… I made it with vegetable stock and peppers as a quick dish, but I feel like it has the potential to be better. 

Since it’s basically all protein, I’m going to eat that (along with other foods) in my replacement of meat.

As a freshman at a small, liberal arts college last fall, I was enrolled in a Living and Learning Community that focused solely on Sustainability and Simplicity. We had a class that was specifically about said topic, but I wasn’t 100% into the idea of living without, and the concept of “less is more.” Throughout much writing, reading and self discovery, I still was not sold on the idea. But I remember in one passage of an essay I read, the author entertained the notion that the reason a lot of people fail at reducing and being sustainable and simple is that they are pushed into it or coerced into doing so at the wrong point in their lives. I believe that first semester freshman year was just the wrong point in my life.

I revisited my texts from that class and reread my thesis on alternative energy and something kind of just clicked in my head.

A self proclaimed pack rat, I was convinced that I was going to be on the next episode of Hoarders. But one afternoon, I took a look around my room and almost hyperventilated. There were just waaaay too many… things! I felt claustrophobic and unsettled, and I tried to make a mental list in my mind of every object I had and I didn’t even know where to begin.

My first step has been to clean out my closet and pick out clothes that I could sell to a second hand clothing store. My next step? Deal with my… things. I don’t even know what to call them, other than things. They have no sentimental value to me, nor do I use them at home let alone in my college dorm. 

Somewhere along my path to simplicity, I’m going to become craftier… making my own clothes, reusable snack bags etc., and trying to make the most out of my possessions that I can; which includes, but is not limited to: making new clothes/bags/stuffed animals (my one true love) out of clothes I have retired, giving new life to shoes, boxes, bottles as planters, organizers and decorations and donating toys and books to others who need more than I. 

Oh, and I’m also going to try to give vegetarianism a shot. Let’s see how long I can live without bacon =]

I hope I can inspire a couple others out there to become cleaner, greener human beings.