Welcome

I wanted to let everyone know that I have invited Katya to be a writer for the Mean Green Girl. She started her journey around the same time I did and I feel that she will be an excellent source of information. So woot, a new author is added and my readership is cut in half.

I am not your personal carbon offset

I really feel like I should post something about how awesome it is that I sold my car and that we are now a one vehicle family, but really it's not that big of a deal. John and I sat down and tried to think of a time in the past year that we actually needed both cars and couldn't think of a single one. So yeah, we're down to one car with the eventual goal of no cars and a flexcar account for those times we really need a vehicle.

However, what has really been getting my goat lately is the patronizing attitude people direct towards my attempts at being as green as possible.

Oh look at the silly hippie printing on the back of things. Isn't that cute? I'm so glad she's doing that kind of stuff so I feel better about being a lazy slob.

Well I'm here to set the record straight, I am not your personal carbon offset. Don't you DARE feel okay about not being part of the answer because I work so hard. I don't do this so you can feel good. I do this because I FUCKING CARE. I work hard to make a difference because I don't see that there is any other way, kind of like if I saw a woman being raped I wouldn't see continuing on to the grocery store as being an option.

We as a culture have a tendency to view everything as someone else's problem. Well you know what? The welfare of the planet is EVERYONE'S PROBLEM. We ALL live here, our future generations will live here and if you can't bring yourself to care about your neighbors at least attempt to care about the future of your children.

This blog is my way of sharing with the world all of the ways I have found to live a slightly greener life. I'm not asking that everyone go as far as I do, though it's NOT hard and is VERY rewarding, I'm just asking you to THINK about how you live and maybe take some small steps. Before you know it those small steps turn into bounding leaps and then you are running through the trees.

Mean Green Greeting

I've been putting off starting this blog for a while. In the beginning it was because I couldn't think of a pithy name. Then it was because I was embarrassed that my writing style wasn't as thoughtful and intelligent as my blogging friends. Well, screw it. This is important so I'm just going to have to sit down and write and you are just going to have to deal with my less than elegant style.

I really started this journey about a year ago when I moved with John from Austin, Texas to Seattle, Washington. We were basically dissatisfied with the directions our lives were taking (read that as nowhere) and needed a change. We then got rid of like 80% of what we owned, packed the rest into our two little cars and drove up here.

I was amazed at how liberating it was to go through my stuff and get rid of things (except for my books, that was not fun) and at how much stuff I had accumulated over the years that I really didn't need. This also made me think differently about buying things used at Goodwill since we donated A LOT of nice stuff.

After we got up here I've been constantly moving forward in my quest to reduce my impact on the environment. This blog will be a resource for what I have discovered, my experiences, product reviews, project ideas and anything else I can think of to help other people take the step towards living a greener life.