Animal, Vegetable and a Day Off

Indulging my Slow Living side, I find myself at 10:30 in the morning, still in my pajamas, sitting alongside Rosie the Cat, reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's an uncharacteristically sunny day in Pittsburgh, and my apartment gets fabulous morning light. I highly recommend this book by Barbara Kingsolver.

M and I have made some choices about food and living habits in an attempt to be more healthy for our bodies and less harmful for our planet. But around every corner appears another environmental dilemna. We've been eating vegan for a while, but if we aren't careful about buying local, our grocery bags might as well be filled with oil, for all the energy spent on transporting out-of-season, organic produce from California to Pittsburgh. I started to be much more aware of recycling all newspaper, plastics 1-5, glass, cans, and metal containers, but it would be even better to reuse these items a few times first, before recycling. M and I are aiming for a car-free life, but yesterday, while fixing up an old bike, I had to use mineral spirits to get the chain clean (Simple Green wasn't going to cut it), but how am I supposed to get rid of that? And is pouring it down the toilet a more serious pollution sin that driving my car to dispose of it at the Home Depot? Hmmm...decisions, decisions.