I was listening to a local radio show a few weeks ago and a couple of hosts from a local television show called Take Five and Company were on.  They were promoting their program because it was changing from an afternoon show to a morning show.  At the end of the segment, the hosts from Take Five said something to the effect of “We are always looking for great local stories!  Let us know if you hear about one!”  And the little voice in my head replied, “Hey!  I am a great local story!”  Before I could talk some sense into that little voice, I drove home and emailed Take Five and Company about my blog.

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

I was interviewed for Take Five and Company on Monday and it aired on Wednesday.  I was a nervous wreck the night before the interview.  The little voice inside my head seemed to have come to its senses as it shouted, “What in the world have you gotten yourself into?!”  After I calmed myself down, I realized I was not crazy for doing a little shameless self-promotion.

Each and every Grandma Challenge is a new experience for me.  If I choose to take my blog into a second year, it will not feel the same as my first year.  I will never again experience the excitment of successfully canning my first batch of strawberry jam.  I will never experience those triumphant feelings of cloth diapering my daughter for the first time.  I will never experience the thrill of eating my first homegrown cucumber.  I will never experience my feelings of frustration over learning to line dry my clothes for the first time (I hope).

I want to share my first year experiences and all of the ups, downs and in betweens of learning to live a more sustainable and simple life as honestly as possible.  I hope my story will encourage you wherever you are in your own journey.  So come along for the ride!  The more the merrier!  However, I must admit that living sustainably is not always easy.  My story may convince you to run the other way!

Either way, here is your chance to see my “grandma hair” live.

By the way, I only have 40 or so tortilla chip bags saved.  They will be the subject of a future Grandma Challenge, along with changing my water usage habits!  Yikes! Oh, and the pages of writing you see in the video represent each Grandma Challenge I have done so far.  I have them taped to my dining room wall so I can take notes on how each one impacts my day to day living.

There is this guy who calls himself No Impact Man.  He lives in New York City and he recently spent one year, along with his wife and daughter, living a carbon neutral lifestyle.  His story is inspiring and his site has been rated one of the top 10 “green” sites by Time magazine.  You will hear about him soon enough as there is going to be a book and a movie about his journey.

No Impact Man was a big inspiration behind My Grandma Was Green.  I thought if he could manage to do such an extreme experiment for one year, surely I could challenge myself to make some changes.  However, I have a few limits as I try to live like Grandma.  I feel hesitant to post them because you may find them laughable or disagreeable.  However, I am committed to documenting the changes I make with as much honesty as possible and these limits reveal where I am at right now.

Limit #1 Health: My year of trying to live more sustainably and simply will be much more enjoyable if everyone in my house stays healthy.  My kids and I take a few nutritional supplements every day.  I also order a couple of food items online and have them shipped to my house.  I hope I can learn a thing or two from my grandparents about healthy living but until then I am going to stick with the supplements and a few imported foods.

Limit #2 Sleep: Things will go down hill really fast if I or anyone else in my family end up suffering from “Grandma” induced sleep deprivation.  My husband and I have agreed to not put an air conditioner in our bedroom window.  We are also going to try to do without one on the main floor but we do have a window unit in each kids’ rooms.  We generally turn them on when the kids first go to bed and turn them off after their rooms have cooled.  Incidentally, you have to walk through the master bedroom to get to our daughter’s bedroom.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the fact that her air conditioner cools off our room a bit too.

Limit #3 Safety:  I am a fairly paranoid person (I think I have read far too many “Drama in Real Life” Reader’s Digest stories over the years).  Ideally, I would like to walk or ride my bike more places to save on gas but I will not walk or ride after dark if I am alone.  I also happen to think a secure window air conditioning unit is the safest way to cool my 2 year old’s bedroom versus a box fan stuck in the window.  Safety is another argument in favor of the air conditioner.

Limit #4 Marital Happiness: I currently stay home full-time while my husband works full-time but this project is not an argument for a return to the gender roles that were present in my grandparents’ generation.  I fully respect women who work as well as women who stay home and any combination in between.  Although I am spearheading this project, I am happier knowing my husband is willing to make these changes with me.  With that said, a great deal of waste is generated by the way we manage our home and so this project will deal with a lot of domestic issues.

I am sure I will revisit each of these limits over the coming year and that is a big reason I want to do this project.  Trying to live like Grandma will force me to examine my choices and the impact they have both locally and globally.   

I have developed the following 5 questions to help me determine which practices from my grandparents’ generation I will keep or toss out.  These questions will form the basis of each Grandma Challenge.

1.  How did my grandparents do it?
2.  How do we do it now?
3.  Which way seems most ideal as I try to live a more sustainable and simple life?
4.  Can I maintain my ideal within the context of my current life situation?
5.  If not, what changes do I need to make to close the gap between my reality and my ideal?

I am not advocating for a return to everything my grandparents did because they certainly did not do everything right.  They were probably only “mostly green” and not everything they did was simple.  I purposely chose to examine my grandparents’ generation because their stories provide a measure I can relate to and learn from at the same time. 

These five questions will help me determine if I should do something my grandparents way or if our current way of doing it is better.  I know we have made progress in many areas.  I suspect I will often end up doing things in a way that honors the spirit of my grandparents while bringing the best of both worlds together.   

These questions are also important because I do not live in a bubble.  I am a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister, and a neighbor.  I plan to make some significant changes in my life this year, but I have to weigh my desire to learn to live more sustainably and simply with the impact it will have on those who live directly around me - especially my husband and three children.

My changes will not have staying power if I am driving myself and those I care about stark raving mad.  If a particular change is creating an enormous amount of stress, I may have to try it on a smaller scale or ditch it altogether until my circumstances become more accommodating.  This is a key part of the process.  If I find I cannot maintain an action or attitude in the short-term, all is not lost because I can make a plan that will allow me to implement it down the road. 

Throughout the course of this year, I am going to challenge a lot of my own long standing assumptions about what actions and attitudes I have a right to as well as what creates a genuine sense of well being in my life.  I hope I discover a life lived sustainably and simply is infinitely more satisfying, but I cannot say for sure.  I only know I am willing to try.