Yes, it’s time for me to write some more but I’m feeling a bit lazy. So instead I offer up another excerpt for your entertainment…
So from “Mr. Porter Builds His Dream Green House”:
The good news is that we do continue to learn (I hope!) and weaning ourselves from shopping as some form of hobby or extracurricular activity has been one of our educational goals. This may, at first glance, seem terribly un-American and downright anti-capitalist but I like to think that in the end it would be better for all of us to buy less stuff and spend our money—and therefore our time—on things that enhance life like good food, good wine, friends and family.[1]
We’ve been doing such a good job of learning to “reduce” that we have actually been improving the “reuse” part of the environmental cycle. Of course, some people think we’re taking that whole principal a bit far. Our local jeweler thinks I’m off my rocker for spending $100 to repair a $65 watch. Maybe so. Maybe not. After all, it is my favorite watch and garners many unsolicited compliments from even total strangers! It’s actually an investment in my fashion statement! Even more important it keeps one more thing out of our landfill. And although one might argue that it’s such a small thing that it couldn’t make much of a difference one has to remember that I would not have been the only one to throw such an item out that day. Every day millions of Americans are throwing millions of small things away. And those small things add up to something huge when there are millions of them.
I also paid $30 to replace the zipper in a favorite, well-worn hooded sweatshirt. While some might think that’s nuts I defend my sanity by pointing out that I would have paid the same or more to replace the sweatshirt and probably with a sweatshirt that I don’t like nearly as much. Plus, that’s one less sweatshirt in the landfill which is already filled with everyone’s broken watches!
[1] Though, of course, we now are learning that our eating and drinking habits are also contributing to the planet’s demise. Sheesh!