First Post

What do people write on their first posts?  I haven't really been following blogs long enough to know.  I guess I should tell you a little about why I decided to write this blog.  I only started to follow blogs (anonymously) this summer.  I had always assumed that blogs were a 'vanity project' in our age of diminishing privacy and Reality TV.  

But, I was soon inspired by the blogs and bloggers that I was reading (many are linked herein).  I found the bloggers so honest about their everyday lives and everyday challenges.  I was captivated by their efforts to reduce their impact on the environment, I was thrilled by the things they scrounged up on the street or in their cupboards, and I lived vicariously through their garage sale finds.  I have changed my perceptions; we should not be modeling our behavior and lives on the people we see on television, we should be modeling ourselves on real people --- each other!  


This blog is a modest attempt to share my passions.  I am not perfect, but I try to live a lifestyle that reduces waste and carbon, and is also beneficial to my health and happiness.  I am a bit of a Luddite, so this blog is a real stretch for me.  I also extend my Ludditism to everyday life; I believe that the 'old' ways were, largely, the correct ways.  Carrying your own reusable bags to the grocery store, eschewing plastics, and cooking and eating whole foods are lost arts that are being rediscovered.  It is important to our planet and ourselves that they are.


Now to thrift shopping.  Growing up, my family went to the occasional garage sale, but in adulthood my sisters and I returned to the frugality of buying perfectly functional used products that come with no packaging.  This summer I also read Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell, which reminded me that today's goods are inferior in ascetics and quality to those of the past.  I will discuss this in my next post, where I compare my last winter coat (purchased new at a posh boutique) with my current one (bought used at the Salvation Army).


So, I feel that I am really stretching myself with this blog, by learning a new skill and by being so 'out there' on the internet.  Until today, I always used the internet as a one-way mirror, I never (and I mean never) participated.  But, I was so inspired by the blogs I was reading, that I felt compelled to join them.