Day 1: A seed is planted

Sunday, January 7, 2007. I'm something of a procrastinator, and I'm just now getting around to pulling together a few New Year's resolutions. This year, I am focusing on the renewal of my pledge to The Compact, considering how compacting fits into my life and my family's life, and adding a few resolutions on top of not buying new things for the year. One of the things that led me to join the Compact in July 2006, and that my involvement in the group's email list has continued to inspire, is my desire to be more mindful of the impact of my life and lifestyle on other people and on the planet. I am reminded each day to be thoughtful about even the smallest choices--from what I do with an empty jar to how much soap I squeeze into the dishwater.

I am particularly impressed by the volume of the little things coming into my home with the groceries and the mail and leaving my home in the garbage and recycling bins. I've been gradually finding myself hanging onto potentially useful bits and pieces I might once have gotten rid of. With this in mind, I write the following, which you will find buried near the end of my resolutions:

I'll continue my ongoing attempts to reduce the amount of garbage I have through recycling and reuse. My goal is to compost more, and to reuse at least once things that I might have otherwise thrown away or recycled. If I can't reuse it myself, I'll collect and freecycle.

This is how the fr(ECO)logy project begins. At the moment I have no real concept of the magnitude of this resolution. Then, on January 8, I bring the mail in, and it hits me...

Written January 29, 2007, and adapted from my journal entries from the first days of the project.