It is obvious what my kids play with - a mountain of plastic.  Actually, it is obvious what my kids think they want to play with because they do not play with most of the toys you see in the picture.  Right next to this mountain is a ”camper” my boys built out of blankets and chairs which they prefer.  This picture only represents one third of the toys in my house.  Toys seem to have a life of their own.  It is like they multiply when I am sleeping.

Unfortunately, most of the toys in my home will go the way of the landfill.  Plastic cracks and breaks and cannot be repaired.  Toys from my grandparents’ generation were most often made of metal and wood.  Metal and wood dent but rarely do they crack.  My grandparents did not buy plastic toys for their kids and they turned out just fine - some would argue better because they more readily engaged their imaginations. 

This is one of the primary reasons I decided to start My Grandma Was Green.  I realized if my grandparents could teach me a thing or two about living without plastic products - toys included - they could probably teach me about other issues related to sustainability and simplicity.

With that said, I know plastic has brought me a lot of benefits.  However, I want to reduce its presence in my life and use it when I really need it - like when I had emergency surgery a couple of years ago.  There was a lot of plastic involved and it may have literally saved my life.  That may sound a bit dramatic but I think it represents how difficult it is to sort through these issues.  There are no easy answers, but I think there are better answers.  I know I can learn a lot from my grandparents as I go looking for those answers.

What Would Grandma’s Kids Play With?  This is a picture of a toy made by a distant relative from my grandparents’ generation.  It is a wooden board with a series of metal hooks.  To play the game you had to try to toss the paper rings onto the hooks.  Each hook represented a different amount of points.  Apparently it occupied kids for hours.  My kids would probably enjoy it today.

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!