What a long and strange trip it has been

We have a internet connection at last! For a while there it really did seem like we were never going to get it.

It took almost a month for the broadband company to get everything setup and turned on.

But now we can finally start re-engaging with all of you!

So what have we been doing over the past month and a half since the last blog post?

I will be talking about all of that and more after the break.

Six items or less - Moving forward

So as I mentioned in my last post I have just finished a month of the six items or less challenge. Now what? Well first off the great thing about doing challenges like this is that it proves to yourself that you can do it and that its really not that bad.

When trying to live a more sustainable way of life it is incredibly easy to get to overwhelmed and give up before even starting. Secondly, a lot of the arguments against living more sustainable is that somehow our quality of life will be lessened by doing it.

What tends to happen when people take challenges like the six items or less is that they realize that its really not that hard and in many cases people report feeling like their quality of life had improved.

For myself I did not notice much of a change one way or another. Really this was due to the fact that the challenge was only one month and that I had already committed myself to consuming less in general. But by choosing to do the challenge and completing it I was able to prove to myself that six items or less was something I could do long term.

Plus one big quality of life improvement that came out of all this is that my closet has a lot less items in it. To me this is just awesome! More after the break.

Six items or less... Its over!

So its now August 31st and that means the end of the six items or less challenge for me! Its been a fun and wild ride but really not as hard as I expected.

I had written out a whole long break down on how this went for me but then my internet connection messed up and I lost all of it. I will be writing a more extensive post later on but for now enjoy the following video about six items or less:

There and back again... on a bike!

I just had to make a reference to The Hobbit aka There and Back Again by J.R.R Tolkien. I still have not read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings trilogy but I did just add them all to my Kindle and my goal is to read all four books while Michaela and I are in the UK. Should be awesome reading these books in the country where they were written!

But anyways, onto the point of this post. I just hit a couple days ago the one month mark at my job as Volunteer Coordinator for the Campaign to Re-Elect Bonnie Mager! During this time I have managed to put a little over 400 miles on my bike.

Not sure if there is enough time left but I really want to try to hit the big 1k mark on my bike before Michaela and I head off to the UK.

With gas prices averaging around $3 a gallon and the average US car getting 20ish miles per gallon I have saved $60! Of course that is not taking into account the cost of car insurance. Plus this is only for one month.

Basically biking is awesome and I encourage you all to bike at least some of the time!

Six clothes for one month

So today was the first of August and that means I get to start my Six Items or Less challenge. I am actually looking forward to this challenge. Not only is it a great way to help break my own addiction to consumerism but it is also means less laundry! I really hate folding clothes so this will be great for me. But back to seriousness after the break.

Six items or less

Michaela recently showed me this awesome site www.sixitemsorless.com. Starting on June 21st according to the site:

... "a group of people from California to Dubai are going to take part in a little experiment: each participant gets to choose six (and only six) items of clothing and pledge to wear only these six items of clothing for a month."

What is really awesome about this is that everyone who is taking part is encouraged to share their experiences over the course of the month on the Six Items or Less blog.

For the love of stuff (part 3)

Well its been a while since my last post. It seems like the hardest part of blogging is not coming up with ideas but simply the posting of those ideas. But oh well I'm posting now.

For the love of stuff I decided to buy some more stuff. I wonder if one day that may be a commonly used curse... anyways I know I am supposed to be getting rid of stuff but there was a good reason.

My two recent purchases are a lovely new metal lunch-pail and a Amazon Kindle. Though the Kindle was actually a gift from my lovely and beautiful wife Michaela. Thank you my love!

The lunch-pail shown in the picture here will actually help me decrease the amount of stuff I have and purchase. In the past I would use plastic bags or paper bags for my lunch. Now that I have this metal lunch-pail I can stop buying and throwing away all those bags. In addition this lunch-pail is a lot more durable and will last longer then the re-usable plastic containers I used in the past.