I’ve learned a lot of things from my commenters. Things that have BLOWN my mind! Like, you don’t all call shopping carts buggies? Really? Or - that some of you? Put your salt in the shaker with the fewer holes because you WANT to, and not because your husband MAKES you. I mean…diversity? Right here!

But I found something HUGE out yesterday. Blew my damn mind, people. And I feel like I need to seek out the truth of this accusation. I heard yesterday, that some people dont have any organization to their food in cabinets and pantries! What? As in - each grocery trip just has them throwing things in all willy nilly! No rhyme or reason! Can you believe it?

Now…Mine is no Sleeping With The Enemy or anything. But - if there wasn’t the slightest bit of order to it, I fear none of us would find what the other people put away after a grocery run. The cans have a place, the boxes have a place, the formula and baby food has a place. They aren’t lined up perfectly and facing one direction…but they have a place.

So, dear internet. Tell me…does your food have a place? Is it because there are 5 people in my house that I’ve adopted this habit? If I lived alone (which I’ve never done, for the record) would I put things in different places every week? Does it change for you because normal people buy different items every week (our groceries are pretty consistent) and can’t keep order if the items are changing? I MUST KNOW.

And then…on an unrelated note:

Hi! I’m happy because I’ve created the diaper from hell! Solid foods are AWESOME!

Happy Monday! I’m feeling incredibly out of sorts as I try to master my new 2009 daily schedule which will allow me time to meet a lot of my resolutions. I’m trying not to be hard on myself for messing a few days early on as it’s hard to remember the new changes when I’m used to the old way of life. For example: Daily Showers. I mean, how am I supposed to remember that when I’m used to going a whole week without one?

(Hee.)

I mentioned last week that I want to do more to stimulate my the right side of my brain. Be more creative. More artsy. More inspired. This goal was born over this past year as I’ve opened my Google Reader to more than just parenting sites. Many of those parents, like me, have more interests than their children’s potty habits or daily menus. So, like them, I’m going to try to do more for the other sides of me.

One of the blogs I discovered in 2008 that has done the most in awakening the creative soul in me, is Hey! It’s Sierra. Her photography and her words always make me feel so excited about art. And for a left-brained geek like me? That’s an accomplishment. She has inspired me to do the 52 Blessings project this year. All you do is post a photo of something you’re grateful for once a week. Easy, right? And also a way to motivate me to photograph things other than my children.

Hmm. That makes it sound like I may not be grateful for my children. Which - after last night of hourly wake-up calls from the baby and a short span of sleeping in the twin bed with the 3-year old - might not be that far off base.

Either way - that’s one of the things I’m going to be thinking about this week. I hope you’ll join me!

Happy New Year! I started the year by…not posting to my blog! I promise you that’s not a sign of things to come. That’s just a sign of me having a great first day of the year because I was busy with my kids. We fed the ducks in the freezing cold - which turned out not to be that great of an idea. The ducks in Huntsville are not scared of people and when they’re hungry? Will essentially walk up and take the bread out of your hand. I know it’s probably pretty lame to be afraid of ducks…but I’ve never claimed not to be lame. I tried to act brave for NikkiZ, but eventually I dumped the bread in a pile on the ground and ran away screaming. Or something just as inspirational.

We also discovered last week that NikkiZ seems to finally be old enough to sit through a movie at the theater. So, we took her to the second one in a week: Bolt. It was a really cute move but I would rather have not seen it in 3D. 3D movies are fun to me for the first 15 minutes, then they get on my nerves because I hate wearing the glasses. Also - is it just me or does Miley Cyrus kinda sound like an 80-year old smoker when she talks? I love her, don’t get me wrong, but her voice is very raspy.

I also got to do the one thing I think about the most often in my life: nap. LilZ watched AndyZ while NikkiZ and I took our naps yesterday. 2 solid hours. Of course, I had to bribe him, but still! Best! New! Year’s! Day! Ever!

I am so incredibly optimistic about this year it’s not even funny. I feel like I’ve found so many points of inspiration in 2008, I can’t wait to finally do something with all of that energy. I’ve found amazing artists and bloggers this year that motivate me to wake up the right side of my brain a little bit (It is the right side that does the creative crap, right? Maybe I should read up on that a bit first?) and quit depending so much on the inner math geek to get me by.

Not that there’s anything wrong with her…she led me to my career and my husband. But she can be a little drab sometimes, you know? I blame her for the boring wardrobe choices and crappy taste in light fixtures. I’m just kinda wanting her to be a bit cooler, you know?

I also want to spend more time laughing this year. It’s not a pretty sight, me laughing. But it sure does feel nice.

This kid CRACKS ME UP, people. And have I told you he has a tooth now? He does! A tooth! Next thing you know he’ll be asking me for a cell phone. Damn kids and their need to continue growing. What’s up with that?

He’s mobile now, even thought his method lacks a little grace. He does get to Those Things That Shouldn’t Be On The Floor in record time now. He has been grabbing tails of animals and drooling on Playstation controllers. It is officially time to childproof the house. Which we should have done back when…NikkiZ started crawling? That might have been a good decision. Maybe we’ll do better this time.

In terms of childproofing - what have you considered the most important part of that practice? Aside from the outlet covers, of course. We actually put those in years ago simply because I have a weird phobia of exposed outlets. But beyond that? What do you do to protect your child from household dangers? Do you just let them play in their room and their room only? Do you add padding on anything? Do you remove electronics? Because we have animals we really have to keep our kids in sight at all times…so childproofing is more about NEVER LETTING THEM OUT OF YOUR SITE. Lest you end up with baby eating dog food while the dog chews up the teething ring.

But in your home…what’s the procedure? Chain them up until their old enough to read?

I’m doing something insane, guys. Seriously. Even crazier than I usually do around here. I’ve joined a challenge posed by a new Green Blog I found to keep my trash in my garage for an entire week to see how much garbage I create. And if you think that sounds crazy, consider that the guy issuing the challenge is one day away from finishing one whole year of doing the SAME THING. As in, as we speak, he has a year’s worth of garbage in his basement. It’s a fascinating story you should totally check out if you get a chance. But in the meantime? Let’s ponder what the HELL I’ve signed up for here!

Why, exactly, are you doing this?
If you’ll recall, my family decided to make the effort some time last year to start taking anything to the recycling center that we could. Especially the things that they don’t want in the bin: like glass and cereal boxes. (Huntsville residents, find the list of what goes in the bin here.) This made a HUGE impact in how much garbage we created every week as before that? We were about to have to ask the city to give us another garbage bin. And that’s kinda disgraceful. Since then, some weeks have gone by where we forget to but the garbage bin on the street, but we have enough room for TWO weeks of garbage in it now. So it’s not a big deal.

I’d like to try to make that amount even smaller this year. Just find ways to reuse, avoid over-packaged items, recycle more, anything to reduce what we send out in our garbage bin every week. I thought, in order to see how much of a change we make, monitoring it for a week would be a great idea! I decided we’d do this project for a week now, and a week in six months and compare the lists to see how much we reduce.

What Exactly Will You Be Putting In Your Garage This Week?
Essentially I’ll be removing all trash cans in the house for the week, forcing everyone to give their garbage to me so that I can sort it in the garage. We’re going to keep our recycling pile, but not take it in for a week so that we can see that pile after a week. All of the garbage without food or grime on it will go in another pile, compartmentalized if there’s a lot of repeats. Anything that we can wash clean will go in that pile, but anything that we can’t get clean enough for me to feel comfortable leaving in the garage…that will go in the outdoor garbage bin. But not until AFTER I’ve documented it and photographed it.

How Will You Document The Results?
At the end of each day I’m going to photograph our garbage before dividing it up into the areas we’ll keep it in for the week. I’ll also document it in list form so that at the end of the week I’ll have that list along with the photographic evidence of how truly wasteful we are. So my children can hold it against me in 10 years.

Will You Try To Create Less Garbage Than You Would Normally To Make Yourself Look Better?
No. The point of this is to see how much we waste normally. In 6 months, when I do this again, hopefully we’ll have adopted new habits that will reduce our garbage production, but I’m not going to do those things this week. That said - I’m sure I’ll avoid certain things because I don’t feel like carrying the trash around with me, but I’ll do my best to keep things wasteful as usual!

What about diapers
I will count how many of those go in the outside bin, but that are indeed GOING IN THE BIN. I’m not going to take this so far to photograph dirty diapers or keep them for a week. There are several reasons why we don’t use cloth diapers and while I’m sure we could change this year, and we might decide that - it’s not something I can up and decide to start tomorrow. And also? We’re trying to show how much garbage we create and we use disposable diapers, so changing that now wouldn’t give us a clear picture.

Is your whole family participating in this insanity?
We are participating as a household, and then I’m participating fully. In other words, any garbage the household produces will be documented. Any garbage I produce outside of the house I’ll bring home to document. But - my family won’t have to do that part. I’m not going to inflict my own insanity on them.

Now - Starting when I wake up tomorrow morning (good timing, huh?) until when I wake up next Thursday - I’ll be doing this. This week will be my baseline so that in six months I can try to calculate how we’ve improved throughout the year. Hopefully seeing this garbage in a pile in my garage will really help me see how wasteful we are and will inspire me to make changes in our lives this year.

Either that, or it will gross me out so much I run away screaming and continue my life living in the woods and surviving off of fish and berries.

We’ll see.

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Next are the series of questions Dave posed to those of us participating. He has an “After” set of questions for us to answer as well. I’ll include those when I’m done.

What do you think makes up the largest part of your trash?
I think diapers would be the most by weight, however. Especially if I brought home the ones they change at daycare. (Which I will NOT be doing by the way. They already think I’m weird enough there.)

What do you think makes up the largest part of your recycling?
In terms of space? It’s boxes and cans from dinner prep every night because I rarely (never) cook from scratch. Lucky those are recyclable so that eases my guilt a bit. But I have a feeling I may find that my diet coke consumption will actually be the most. I’m curious to see.

Are you saving everything or keeping a list of what you would have saved?
Saving for a week, keeping a list, and photographing.

If you are saving everything, where are you keeping it?
In the garage. Except for diapers and any item I worry may attract mice (that I couldn’t clean enough or something like that). I’ll list those out, and then I’ll put them in our outdoor garbage bin.

Do you compost and if not, what will you do with your food waste?
We don’t compost now, but that is one of the things we are going to start this year. Our food waste (which there’s usually not much) will just go into the garbage disposal. If it can’t, we’ll put it in a bag and put it in the outside garbage bin.