New Year's Resolutions... part two

I forgot to add some stuff I've been thinking about.  There's a few things I want to start doing this year, I've always been meaning to start them and the New Year gives me a motivation to.

Monthly Trash, instead of weekly
First one is to only have our garbage picked up once a month.  A long time ago I was reading my friend and old neighbor's blog, Lisa_C, and she talked about how they only get their garbage picked up once a month.  I knew we could do that too but we couldn't start while we were in the process of moving.  I knew they're would be more things (even though I didn't like it) to throw away.  Now that we've moved and are in our new house, I'd like to move down to once a month.  It's better for us to not be as wasteful and to choose things that aren't as wasteful.  Plus it saves a bunch of money.  As my husband would say, it's a 'two-fer' (two for one). 
Things that go along with that are composting.  Now that we have a house that we're going to stay in for a while, I'd like to start composting.  Probably at least 50 percent of what we throw in the trash is food scraps.   It's easy and will cut down a lot of trash.
This is stupid and simple but I go through a lot of toilet paper being pregnant now. (Peeing every 5 minutes)  And inevitablely a lot of those toilet paper rolls get thrown in to the trash. They aren't trash, they can be recycled.  I need to put a small recycle bin in the bathroom so I don't just get lazy toss them.  But even better, use a small piece of cloth to wipe instead (pee only).  I used to do this before we moved and before I got pregnant(and felt really lazy and sick).  We wash cloth diapers a couple times a week- its easy enough to throw a cloth wipe in the diaper pale.  It seems like kind of weird thing to do but it's really really easy if you are already washing cloth diapers and pee a lot.  (In case you were wondering, I will use toilet paper to wipe for poop :) )


Dinner Dishes
Next is try and clean up dinner dishes after dinner.  This goes for both me and my husband.  We just eat and then leave our dishes there on the table and sink and don't bother to just put them in the dishwasher.  It's a pain because then usually one of us (mostly my husband) has to stay up late and clean up... or, even worse, we leave them overnight.  It's just so easy to rinse and put them in the dishwasher.  Even if we don't clean any of the pans, the plates should be done right after.



Ok, that's it for now... before I get waaay too ambitious.  I just wanted to list things I was thinking about starting.  I'm really excited to try the trash thing.  I've always knew we could do it, just haven't had the time or motivation to start yet.  So, here I go New Year... just try and stop me!

Minimizing

There's been a lot about no shampoo on blogs like I mentioned earlier. Many are using baking soda instead. Then there's been some posts about Dr Bronner's soap and the many uses. So now I'm thinking about the millions of bottles of chemicals we have in our house (from before we started using baking soda and vinegar) and I want to get rid of everything. It is just a waste of space, the cupboard that holds all the cleaning stuff. I want to use just a few things. Here's what I do so far...

vinegar and water spray bottle- used to clean counters, stains, just kind of an every day cleaner type thing.

vinegar- almost everything, cleaner, laundry, etc etc

baking soda- also used as a cleaner, deodorizer, laundry, and just recently for shampoo

I have some bleach too. We do EC and we've had some poo misses...and I just feel the need to use it sometimes. But I just read lemon can be used for that?

Now I see that I can use Dr Bronners soap for so many different uses. So, now do I really need anything else? Wouldn't it be nice to have just a few things laying around, instead of the whole cupboard full? I know there are many moms out there that have already done this. What are the few things you use?
How do you do things like... clean toilet? clean up something that needs to be sanitized (raw chicken, poop, etc)? windows with out windex?

I'm turning into a 'Crunchy' hippie

Ok after all the talk about shampoo on the blogs I usually read, Edenwild and Cave Mother,I decided to give washing my hair with baking soda a try. I don't know how it will turn out. But I'll give an update post tomorrow or the next day to let you know.