I love sushi.  I tried it for the first time with my husband a little over a year ago.  He thought it would be fun to try something new on my birthday.  I was very skeptical but took one bite and fell head over heals in love - with the sushi that is.  It was a thrill!  I do not eat sushi all the time but I eat it enough that it no longer feels special.  It has gone the way of most things in my life which is to say it has become a fairly ordinary activity.

As you may recall from my post, What Would Grandma Do For Fun, I manage to go to a restaurant or order take out at least once a week.  That feels like a lot when I see it in print.  I do not even want to think about how many times my husband or I grab a coffee to go in a given week but I am afraid I am going to have to.   

According to David Bach, author of Go Green, Live Rich, ”Americans spend over $134 billion a year on fast food.”  He goes on to say that packaging from take out food results in 1.8 million tons of trash in the U.S. alone every year.  And then there is all of that lovely coffee I enjoy drinking from various coffee houses around town.  Bach writes, “Every year, Americans drink more than 100 billion cups of coffee.  Of these, 14.4 billion are served in disposable paper cups, enough to wrap the Earth 55 times if placed end to end!  Plus, those paper cups contain a plastic lining made from a petrochemical that would produce enough energy to heat 8,300 homes for a year.”  I have a plastic trash bag full of take out coffee cups sitting in my van right now.  I used to think I could recycle them but probably not because of that “petrochemical” coating.

My friend Lavonne shared the following story about her mom in a comment to What Would Grandma Do For Fun?  “My mom would look forward to going to the county fair once a year because her parents would buy the kids a corn dog.  She looked forward to this corn dog all year because it was the only time her family ‘went out’ to eat.”  I bet Lavonne’s mom ate that corn dog very slowly, savoring each and every piece, not letting a single crumb fall to the floor.  That was one sacred corn dog!

Each of my grandparents confirmed that going out to eat was a special treat that really only occurred once they were young adults and were starting families of their own.  They never recall going out to eat when they were children.  I am sure this was true of most people who lived through the Great Depression.  And they never, ever would have dreamed of ordering a four dollar latte.  Come to think of it, I never would have thought of ordering a four dollar latte just 10 years ago.  I am sure the statistics on take out containers and disposable coffee cups would have looked very different in the 1930’s and 40’s!

I want to use my year of living like Grandma to help me make the act of eating sushi feel sacred - just like when Lavonne’s mom ate that corn dog so many years ago.

When something is sacred, it is special.  It is given a place of honor and deemed worthy of respect.  I will never be able to capture that special thrill I felt when I ate sushi for the first time but it can feel more special, more sacred if I choose to eat it less frequently.  And if I eat out less, order in less and give up my expensive lattes, not only will sushi (and pizza and coffee) feel special again, I will also be taking a few big steps toward living more sustainably and simply.

So here is my next Grandma Challenge.  For the remainder of my year of living like Grandma (which officially ends on June 23, 2009), I am not going to eat out or order in unless there is a truly special reason.  I will make an exception on the rare occasion that my husband’s parents offer to take me and my family out to eat.  I also will not prohibit my kids from eating out when they spend time with friends or family.

I am also going to give up coffee purchased in to go cups.  From now on, I will brew my coffee at home and tote it with me in my own stainless steel mug.  If by chance I need to meet up with someone at a restaurant, I will allow myself to buy coffee but only if I can get it in a ceramic mug or use my travel mug.  I will buy a plain cup of coffee, not a fancy latte.

Do you want to join me for this Grandma Challenge? Why or why not?  You do not have to give up all three things - eating out, ordering in and coffee to go.  You can pick one or two.  You can also decide to abstain for a shorter period of time versus a whole year.  Any duration of abstaining from something can help you step back and gain a different perspective.  I read a great little book last year called, Give It Up: My Year of Learning to Live Better With Less by Mary Carlomagno.  The author picked one thing to give up each month for one year.  It is a great way to experiment with living more sustainably and simply!

The little picture above is of some items I bought today for myself and my kids from a wonderful local bakery.  We usually do this at least one to two times a month (at my suggestion because I need want coffee).  It may not seem like a lot of waste but when you consider a bunch of people doing it one to two times a month it quickly adds up to those statistics I quoted earlier!

As part of my two week break from blogging, I spent three days at a monastery called, St. Gregory’s Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan.  There is almost no quieter place on earth than spending time in the company of monks.

It was just what I needed.

From the moment I arrived until the minute I left, I found myself pondering one thing - the fact that my life has grown too noisy (again).  I knew very little about the blogging world prior to starting my own and while this has been a deeply satisfying journey, it does not fit well into the other parts of my life.

And so it is with a true sense of sadness that I have decided to close down My Grandma Was Green. 

I have struggled with this decision because on the surface it seems my reason is as simple as my life has grown too busy and full.  And in the American culture where a full schedule is praised, personal busyness hardly seems a reason to step away from something.  However, I have discovered that busyness can be and often has been a source of disconnectedness and pain in my life.  Consequently, busyness hardly lends itself to creating a more sustainable and simple lifestyle.

I never took time to define the word sustainability while writing my blog but I think I have started to form a working definition for my own life.  I believe living sustainably means taking only that which I need to live a meaningful, generous and connected life. 

In order to do this I need to be diligent in learning how to distinguish between wants and needs - no small feat in a culture that is saturated with advertising aimed at turning every single thing into a need!  I realize my definition is somewhat ambiguous because the words meaningful, generous and connected can be defined in a variety of ways.  However, when I view sustainability in this context, it puts me on a path of wanting to take less and give more.  It breaks down the walls of my everyday, ordinary life and forces me to consider the well-being of others in each decision I make.

I seem to have a passion for “s” words such as simplicity and slowness.  I am now committed to moving forward in my journey with another “s” word to pursue - sustainability.  Each of these words is connected in so many ways but the tie that binds them together for me is relationships.  I believe I can pursue deeper and more meaningful relationships with self, God, my family, friends, neighbors, community and the world if I commit myself to simplicity, slowness and also sustainability. 

Therefore, I am going to persist with the changes I have made and I will continue to make more changes in the future.  Only now I will have to record my journey in the old-fashioned way - in the pages of my journal, through conversations with friends and family and in the quiet moments of my days.

I am not sure which part of this short journey has been the most important - recommitting myself to a slower pace, my growing awareness of important changes I need to make toward a more sustainable lifestyle, or reconnecting with my grandparents and my own history.  I guess each one is important in its own way.

If you are interested in learning from and connecting to your grandparents or any older person who is significant to you and/or learning about sustainability by looking to the past, I would encourage you to make use of the extensive questionnaire developed by Virginia Allee called, A Family History Questionnaire.  It proved to be an invaluable resource in asking my grandparents to share their story.  I trust you will find the same.

Thank you for all of your support in this endeavor.  I have learned a lot and will continue to be inspired by the stories I have read and by those individuals who are making great changes through the blogging world.

Goodbye for now,
April

Today is an anniversary of sorts for My Grandma Was Green.  I have been writing this blog for exactly three months and have managed to see my way through twelve Grandma Challenges. 

It is time for me to pause.

The chair in the picture is my favorite reading chair.  It is tucked into a corner in my living room next to a table with a lamp.  I love to sit in this chair at night when the house is quiet and my kids are in bed.  It is a precious moment of the day when I can read, reflect and rest.

I have not been able to sit in my favorite chair nearly as much since starting My Grandma Was Green.  I am okay with that since I knew this would be a season of action.  However, I do feel the need to take a little break in order to rest, regroup and reflect on what I have learned so far.

Stay tuned for for my next post on Tuesday, October 7.  I will share some of my reflections and return with a new set of Grandma Challenges as well as some updates on the ones I have already implemented. 

In the meantime, please continue to collect your best “grandma” stories and dig around in the archives if you are new to my site.  Although I am taking a little break, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a note at april@mygrandmwasgreen.com  I will still check my site and take time to respond to your comments and stories!