March One Small Change Update

Well, we are midway through March, and my change is going well. I cut up an old t-shirt to use as "family cloth" and I love it! So soft and it cleans well. Occasionally I just forget and use toilet paper, but that doesn't happen often.

As far as using my vintage hankies to blow my nose on... I haven't had much occasion to use them! I haven't been sick and I don't have allergies, and I haven't cried much this month. :)  I did use them a couple times at the beginning of the month. At first I felt weird blowing my nose on such pretty, delicate fabric - but hey, useful things can be pretty too, right? And they are super easy to launder, along with my cut up t-shirt squares.

A couple challenges I've run into: Sometiems I don't have enough of my t-shirt cloths to last me til the next laundry day. I could of course easily solve this by cutting up another shirt. The more major challenge is this: I'm moving at the end of the month. My boyfriend N and I are currently renting the finished attic of a house, and we have our own half bath upstairs. Thus the other members of the house aren't subjected to our weird toilet rituals, including the family cloth and "if it's yellow let it mellow." I'm moving because N is doing a six-month farm internship about 2 hours away from here, and I need to live somewhere cheaper. So the new house is smaller, and has only one bathroom. I met the roommates on Craigslist, and while they seem concerned with environmental issues, I was too embarrassed to bring any of this up.... We'll see how it goes.

There are really good things about this house though, and these are a big part of the reason I chose it.
1) It is small. There will be 3, sometimes 4 people living there, and I'm excited to share the small space. Small means less heating and lighting, less building materials that went into the house, etc. etc. I've been obsessed with Tumbleweed Tiny Houses for several years, so moving into a smaller house is a step in the right direction for me!
2) The owners have spent the last three years fixing up the house, and installing all energy efficient appliances: washer and dryer, fridge, dishwasher, etc. Woohoo! A big change from my current house.
3) There are chickens!! Five of them. I've been wanting chickens, but since I move around so much I didn't think it was really feasible. I'm so excited to move into a house that already has them, and to try my hand at caring for small livestock.
4) The backyard is sunny and has two big garden beds, with room for more. My current house is shaded by two immense Doug Fir trees, and only has a small area suitable for gardening. I'm so excited to get in there and plant a big veggie garden! There's also a compost pile already going. My current house has a worm compost bin, and I love that. I would want to set up one at the new house, but I have a feeling that the chickens will probably eat a lot of my kitchen scraps.

So overall, I think this move will be a positive one environmentally, even if I do wimp out and stop using the family cloth.