This blog was started, and is intended to illustrate that environmentalism happens through small acts, is not difficult, and that it does not always have to be some big life changing event that forces you to live in the tree tops with no electricity. All that being said, one of my small acts was to start this blog to gain some friends to help me save the world.

Monday, September 16, 2013

It's called downsizing

The good thing about me is that I am always right.  Now I am humble enough to admit there may have been an odd one or two times when I may have been sort of, slightly, less than 100% correct, but those times are so very rare.  One of those times of being less than 100% right I was reminded of recently which, geez I hope, brings me back to the blog.  It is good to have those reminders you know because as mentioned they are such rare occurrences, cough cough, no direct eye contact.  On with the post.

Anyway, it is downsizing that I was sort of wrong about.  Now downsizing is what I see as a "first world" problem.  That is the nicest way I know how to say it, and I am not even sure if that is politically correct.  It is only in those developed nations do you have issues like getting of rid of stuff, rather than say, having to find clean water in order to survive.  Let me get to the point here.  I few years ago I bought a gift for a wonderful person in my place of residence.  This was a pretty expensive gift, and when purchasing it there was a lot of eye rolling and huffing and sighing because I saw what I was buying as an over priced toaster oven.  At least that is how I saw it at first.  But I now have to eat those sighs and eye rolls because I have learned it is so much more than a toaster.  It is a tiny oven that has essentially replaced our big, less efficient oven and helping our kitchen be slightly more environmentally friendly.  In this toaster you can yes make toast, but you can also do anything else that you would do in a regular oven.  Now my cooking skills I admit are limited, but I can bake some things, and well that is really where my skills end.  And as I am not really sure what else you do with ovens I cannot list the other features, so I will stop there, but if you are knowledgeable in the area of food then you can fill in the many blanks that I am leaving.  The point is we (I can say we because I knew what I was doing the whole time, ok ok I had no clue but that point is not important) downsized to make our kitchen slightly more efficient.  One of the most obvious ways that the this oven is more efficient is because it is smaller so takes way less time to heat up using much less electricity.  I make smaller portions of everything so there is very little waste, and if there is leftovers they are eaten the next day.  And although I did not see the many benefits of this toaster at the start I now fully appreciate it so many ways.  And I can admit I was less than 100% right on this one :).

I get that for some downsizing may not be easy, but it is not as hard as you may think.  We do not always need the biggest and shiniest.  When we remember that most of human population does not have a fraction of what people in "first world" have it should make downsizing a little the bit easier.  Be grateful for what you have but always try to remember need vs. want (trust me when I say talking to myself here).  I may want the biggest oven, but do I need it, no, because I can burn cookies in my smaller oven much faster :).   So there,
don't judge a toaster until you have baked in it a few times.  Now feel free to go out and save the world by downsizing.

P.S.  I saw a guy washing his car in the grass the other day.  Made me pretty happy.