I’ve shared my first world problems on this blog in the past. It’s true – my life is a veritable vale of privileged, petty tears. Did you know, for example, that I’ve been meaning to do some laundry all day but I keep forgetting? Of course, I could do it right now, but I don’t want to get out of this chair. I sense the laundry may never get started. Oh, woe is me!

Okay, so nobody’s about to organize a telethon on my behalf, that much is clear. All the same I’ve recently encountered another first world problem to add to the list: I have way too many reusable bags. Some of them I purchased, but just as many were given to me (or someone else in my family) as part of some promotion or other. In an effort to appear green, many businesses and event organizers are giving away reusable bags like they’re candy. On one level, that’s great. On another level it’s even worse than giving out plastic bags. Many reusable bags – and certainly most free ones – are made out of materials that won’t biodegrade, like recycled plastic bottles. These bags are much heavier than disposable bags, and they generally can’t be recycled into something else. If you’re going to reuse a bag hundreds of times over a period of years, you’re clearly coming out ahead. But if you never actually use it at all, it’s not what I would call sustainable.

I’m not the only one with this first world problem. Many people talk about their reusable bag overload. So, what is one to do when faced with an overflowing pile of bags? Some people suggest giving them friends and family, but with the way my friends and family are constantly trying to pawn their own reusable bags off on me, I don’t think that would fly. Other people suggest donating them to your local thrift store, using them as gift wrap, or making crafts out of them. Some folks have even organized bag-sharing programs to find good homes for surplus bags.

The biggest solution to having too many reusable bags, though, is stemming the tide. Don’t bring more reusable bags into your home than you need. I have a few nylon bags that fold up really small, so I can carry them in my purse and use them wherever I happen to be. It keeps me from using plastic, or buying another reusable bag to add to my collection. If you’re at a conference or event, you can always decline a new reusable bag, especially if you have one on hand already. I’d also like to suggest to event organizers that if they need a single use bag – and something you’re stuffing with coupons to give away can really be considered single use – paper may be a better option than reusable.

I’ve donated my current bag surplus to a local thrift store. For now, my bag cubby is manageable. We’ll just have to see how long it stays that way.

Do you suffer from reusable bag overload? How do you handle it? I’d love to hear!

Last month, I told you that I’ve decided to take one small step each month to become more green during 2012. It feels manageable, and tangible, and hopeful. I started by looking at PVC.

I had some reasonable success with reducing the amount of PVC in my home. I bought a new yoga mat, cleaned out the old (and frankly kind of yucky) bath toys, got new PVC-free lunchboxes for my kids, and started going through my kids’ toys. Did I clear out all the PVC? No. I didn’t throw out every single toy that may contain PVC, and I am not about to take steps to replace my PVC piping with something else. But I did make some tangible changes, and I plan to make more as I work my way through the PVC items in my house. Up next? I need to buy some PVC-free binders.

This month, I’m tackling something with a more clear-cut impact on my personal carbon footprint. Donating my old yoga mat and buying a new one might reduce the number of toxins I’m exposed to, but it does require the use of new materials to manufacture something. When I clear out the PVC, I’m not exactly taking steps to fight climate change. For February I’m changing that by putting my driving habits under the magnifying glass. I want to reduce the number of trips I take in my car this month.

I have my own car, which I purchased new in 2000 after graduating from university. It’s a Honda Civic, and at 11.5 years old it’s clocked less than 95,000 kilometers, or 60,000 miles. In recent years, as a work-at-home mom, I drive it even less. My car currently clocks about 5000 kilometers, or 3100 miles, each year. Most of my trips are short – driving Jacob to or from daycare, running errands, going grocery shopping or heading to the farmers’ market. Sometimes I’m not even entirely sure I need my own car, given how little I drive. But since my husband takes his car to work every day, having a car of my own really is a huge convenience thing for me. I’m not going grocery shopping via public transit with two kids in tow when I have an easy alternative, you know?

Given how little I drive, trying to reduce the number of kilometers I travel in a month feels like a tall order. Instead, I decided to target the number of trips I take. To give myself a baseline, I kept track of every trip I took in my car in January, and the grand total was 36, or 1.16 per day. I’d like to get that number down to less than one trip a day, on average. A 20% reduction would take me to 0.93 trips per day, or 27 trips during the month of February.

Steps to Reduce my Car Trips

I plan to reduce the number of car trips I take in three ways:

1. Combine trips whenever possible. Instead of heading to the bank on one trip, and to the store on another trip, I’d like to plan it so that a single outing takes me to two, three or even four places. This should mean less driving, as I won’t be heading home and back out between each errand.
2. Run less errands. Do I really need to check my mailbox twice a week? Probably not – I bet once would suffice. Can I make do without rice for 48 hours, until my next planned grocery shopping day? I bet I can. If I can cut back on the number of stops I’m making, I’ll spend less time driving.
3. Get out and walk. I already walk Hannah to school and home each day, but I bet there are more outings that I could complete on foot. For instance, that mailbox I don’t need to visit so much? It’s within walking distance. I have three days a week when both kids are in school, and heading out for a walk would probably be good for me, and I’d reduce my carbon footprint in the process.

Really, the best way to reduce my carbon footprint would be to get rid of my car altogether. Maybe using it less will be a step on the path to becoming a one-car family, as I become less dependent on motorized transportation. Or maybe it will just reduce my overall carbon footprint. Either way, it feels like a worthwhile goal.

Do you take any steps to limit the amount of driving you do? I’d love to hear your tips, if you have any!

I have always had a tenuous relationship with my skin, at best. I am naturally blond and pale, which means that I sunburn easily. I can spend two weeks in Hawaii, and when I get back people ask me if I hid in my hotel room. To my constant chagrin as a teenager I just don’t tan – or at least not enough that someone who can’t see me naked would notice. (When I’m naked, my tan lines show, and there is some visible contrast.) On top of that, I’ve been prone to break-outs since I was about 10 years old. I remember getting my first pimple. I was in grade four. No one else in my class knew what they were. I was such a trailblazer.

I expected that my skin would clear up when I left my teens behind. It didn’t. I used all sorts of products, which promised all sorts of results, and nothing really worked. I visited a dermatologist one time when I was about 20 because I had a mole that I was concerned about, and she prescribed me something for my face. It worked reasonably well, but then I moved and I didn’t refill the prescription. Plus, Jon complained that it made my face smell bad. In retrospect, it was an antibacterial cream and I’m pretty sure that it contained triclosan, so I’m glad I stopped using it.

When I was pregnant with Hannah, my skin was at its hormonal worst. I never would have posted this photo without running it through Photoshop first. In fact, it’s seven years later and even today I don’t really want to post this photo, but I’m doing it. This was me:

More than five years ago I started washing my face with honey. It was the first thing that really helped to clear up my skin. It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But I think its relative gentleness, coupled with its natural antibacterial and exfoliating properties, helped to calm my skin down. This is when I discovered that the answer wasn’t to beat my skin into submission, it was to treat it with respect. Piling chemicals on it only dried it out and irritated it more, exacerbating the break-outs. Honey was my first answer.

This fall I went gluten-free in an extremely round-about and backward manner. One of the things that sold me on giving up wheat was the fact that I saw a noticeable improvement in my skin. Once again, it wasn’t what you would call an instant miracle cure, but just one more thing that seemed to help. It was also a relatively convincing sign that giving up gluten made a difference. I could be imagining that my digestion is better, and the fact that eating wheat now makes me feel pretty bad could all be in my head. But my skin? If believing that I’d found the answer was enough to stop the breakouts, my first bottle of anti-acne face wash would have done the trick back in 1987.

A week and a half ago another piece fell into place, skin-wise. I had a coupon for a free facial, and after evaluating my skin the esthetician decided to apply a hydrating mask. This was exactly the opposite of what I expected, given my skin’s tendency to oiliness. She believed that applying moisturizer could curtail that, since my skin wouldn’t be working overtime to counteract any dryness. After the facial my skin felt really good, and it looked really good, too. I decided that maybe she had a point about the moisturizer, and I decided to take a page from every other hippie mama and try coconut oil. I’m only a week and a bit in, but I’m quite happy with the results. One more pillar in my skin-care regimen, one more step forward for my face.

Is my skin perfect? No. It’s still sensitive, and prone to redness. It can be more than a little blotchy, too, which just comes with the territory when you’re as light-skinned as I am. If I treat it badly, it will show it. But I’m finally making my peace with it, and learning to treat it gently. I’ll never have perfect skin, but I can accept my skin for what it is, and make the most of it, putting my best face forward.

What’s your skin like? How has your relationship with it evolved? And what does your skin-care regimen look like? I’d love to hear!