Disappointed

Life is wonderful, but the purpose of posting, besides that it has been a long while since I've updated, is to share some of my recent disappointments related to the plastic challenge.

We had a great day being out as a family today, but we were supposed to be at our house cooking and eating Thanksgiving dinner with Tim's family. His brother was going to arrive with the plastic wrapped turkey and essential canned (lined in plastic) cranberry sauce bought by him, and we had been excitedly planning, but not yet fully deciding the rest of the meal without consuming any plastic. All of our plans were canceled today due to my brother-in-law being very very sick with what is most probably meningitis. We are super concerned, yet hopeful he'll be better within the next few weeks in order for us to have our meal closer to Christmas...during reduce electricity use month! :)

Ok, so some not so concerning disappointments...
Chick-fil-a will NOT put coffee into my travel mug, nor will they allow me to provide any container at all for soda. It's emabarrassing to share that I tried several times, but um, I do love fountain coke zero (in moderation, of course..lol). No travel mug, no dish from my kitchen, and no paper cup from another restaurant. Their use of styrofoam for all drinks was already sad to me, but now I am incredibly disappointed. Thank goodness for all of the coffee shops around here, local and Starbucks, that have no problem filling up my cup with coffee...and for cheap. Speaking of cheap, Krispy Kreme, gave us coffee for .25 in our cups and a free refill when we were there as a family last night getting fat and watching them make doughnuts.

Secondly, I was wrong about the Biokleen laundry detergent. The box is all cardboard and the detergent shakes like it is in there loosely, but in fact, it is in a plastic bag with a plastic scoop. ooops. So...I'll have to say that I still have not figured out a no plastic solution for laundry detergent.

Thirdly, I went out shopping on Black Friday because I love being out early in the holiday chaos, buying a few items on my shopping list, and drinking a yummy coffee drink, then returning home with the rest of the day ahead. I had a great morning roaming and finding a good deal on our Christmas Eve pajamas and a couple of holiday shirts for the kids, but I was highly aware of the absolutely astonishing amounts of plastic bought that day, the smells of different stores, the credit cards swiped, the items bought that will not be well loved, yet threw TONS of toxins out into the air to produce and may not be safe to have in our homes, etc. As highly aware as I was, guess what I brought home...2 plastic bags! oops again! I have been using reusable bags for years...way before this month's challenge.

Along the same lines, we were relaxing at dinner out the other night and looked over to realize that the kids had been brought their water in styrofoam cups with plastic lids and plastic straws. ugg. It's so hard to be on the ball all the time. We have been asking for the water in regular glasses, which has gotten us the "you give your 2 year old a real glass without a top?" look. Wouldn't it be great if people were more surprised that we gave our 2 year old plastic instead?

Well, enough telling on myself. :) On a positive note, our life has changed drastically in some areas due to not consuming plastic for almost a month. Cloth diapering again...on a 2.5 year old who had gotten used to wearing disposables, the people we've talked with, the amount of trash/waste we have, and our grocery shopping and what we have to eat in our house have been the biggest...off the top of my head.

Finishing this month strong, and planning on continuing most of what we're doing now into next month!