With a little imagination, you can turn otherwise useless items into festive and artsy adornments for holiday gifts. Old wrapping paper or gift bags can be cut down to wrap small presents. Cut the front section of last year’s Christmas cards into colorful gift tags. A few strands of yarn or funky twine can be tied to old drawer pulls, vintage bracelets, holiday cookie cutters, buttons, and those oddball found baubles as hangers to replace commercial bows. Be creative — and have fun!

For months, marketers have been designing ways to tempt you to overspend today. It’s Black Friday, the retail kickoff to the holidays, and virtually every retailer has some sort of door-buster special engineered to get you into their store and spending money. If Buy Nothing Day isn’t for you, make a written buying and plan and stick to it like glue. Watch for bait-and-switch tactics, be wary of expensive upsells, and remember that living green means ending the day with a little green left in your pocket.

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

Our planet isn’t in very good shape right now. The air is polluted. The ocean is becoming plastic soup. We’re in a financial crisis.

Things don’t seem to be looking too good, huh?

There are a lot of people, that have a lot of answers. Everyone things their answer is right. We need cleaner, natural sources for energy. We need biodegradable products that if dumped, will simply disintegrate within a few weeks. As far as the financial crisis goes, that’s a little trickier. Some people say we need more regulation. Others say we need more jobs. Others still say the cost of living is increasing too fast for our incomes to keep up.

Everyone has answers.

The problem is, none of these answers address the fundamental problem:

We don’t need to do anything about it.

No, I didn’t stutter.

The answer isn’t in better solutions, fixes and different angles. The answer is… we need to do less.

There’s a fundamental rule in physics that says, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred. I’m sure you’re familiar with this, we all learned it in school. And the same rule applies to everything in life, but I guess we didn’t listen very well.

See, the problem we’re in this big mess is really simple. It may seem like there’s so much we need to do, to make things right. And that’s the problem. We don’t need to do more. We don’t need to make more of an effort. We need to do less.

That’s why I don’t understand a lot of these “green enthusiasts.” They say we need greener products, with less of an environmental impact. They want to make our consumables more eco-friendly. I agree this is part of the answer, but the issue is really only a sliver of the type of things we consume. It’s how much we consume.

Consuming has caused the majority of our financial and environmental problems. We take more than we give. We know that we’ll need to repay our debt sooner or later, but we put it off. Interest accrues, financially and ecologically. It’s not until the problem gets so huge — and we can’t ignore it anymore — that we take action.

Just like energy cannot be created, or destroyed, we can’t magically make our financial or environmental debts disappear. The rubber band can only bend so far before it swings back.

So why do we avoid using less? Why are we so hungry to consume? Maybe it’s because we’re looking for the wrong things. Maybe what we really need is an internal revolution.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways we can use the power of less to restore balance.

• Driving less, walking more. Not only will you be saving the environment, you’ll be saving your heart as well. Bonus!
• Wanting less, appreciating more. Instead of wanting a big home you can’t afford, maybe you should settle for living in smaller home in a less expensive area. Enjoy your space more. By spending less money on mortgage, you’ll be saving more time. Time is life. Win/win.
• Talking less, listening more. We spend most of our time listening formulating our response. You’d be amazed how much people never really hear each other at all. Think about how your life can be improved by understanding people better. You’ll probably avoid a lot of unnecessary drama do to misunderstandings. When I do this, my wife gets mad at me less for not listening. That’s always nice. =)
• Buy things that are more expensive, but last longer. A double edged razor will last a lot longer than disposable razors. You’ll save money too. Use real dishes instead of plastic/paper. It may seem like a little more work to wash them, but it really isn’t. It takes more energy to mine that plastic, manufacture, package, distribute and purchase then it does to wash a dish. Rethink convenience.
• Spend more time being mindful. The more mindful we are, the more we’ll save. We often waste a lot of time rushing around, trying to do too many things at once. We try to print a report, make coffee, and talk on the phone at the same time. Doing this we run the risk of printing the wrong pages, accidentally forgetting the coffee filter and saying the wrong thing. We spend more time correcting ourselves than we would save simply being mindful.
• Less things. The more things we buy, the more we resources we take from the planet. The more we consume, the larger that debt becomes. Buying new clothes, appliances or phones isn’t really a bad thing. It’s our addiction to buy the newest and greatest each year or every few months that is dangerous. After all, that old thing has to go somewhere. And it’s probably in a landfill somewhere.

How can you use the power of less is to help save the planet? I would love to hear your ideas.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to do less (and get more), grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd.

—
If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it. :)

And the best part? There is no temporary license. I will not be legally able to drive the whole time they fumble around with their procedures. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

After taking months to get the car inspected and registered, I thought that I was in the clear (I will most certainly post more details on this in a future posting). I already expressed some of the challenges opening a business as a non-Dutch speaking, non-Citizen. In that case, I can simply put my ambitions on hold and start a business in about 5 years. In the case with my license — no matter how inconvenient it will be over the next 6 weeks — I have no choice.

And get this — the town told us I need to come with my US license. That’s it. We asked them directly what we needed to bring. Of course, knowing how Belgians operate, my wife did a bit more digging. It turns out that we also need to bring some passport photos, my resident card, and 16 Euro. Thanks Mrs. Town Hall Worker! I may have just been dumb enough to come with my license and a smile, only to be turned away — and likely to have to take yet another day out of work.

I should say that when the government says it takes 6 weeks, it will likely take 3 months. Here’s how they do their math: The “6 weeks” will likely start when the right person assigned to the task actually starts working on the task. As I have seen, this could take a few weeks for someone to even look at it. Then, there are vacations and holidays. These periods do not count, so figure in at least 2 or 3 weeks for that. Then, inevitably, there will be some commotion that will need some official response or document. Who knows — they’re likely to give me problems about a speeding ticket from 5 years ago. Ugh.

The painful part about this system is that it promotes breaking the law. Do you honestly believe I can go without driving for 6 weeks (i.e. 3 months)? I have 2 kids; I work in Brussels. The train workers strike all the time (another annoyance here in Belgium). So when there is a strike, am I to just take a holiday?

If they can manage to get this done within 6 weeks, not only will I be amazed, but I would also call it a Christmas Miracle and post back here just how wrong I was.

This week, we sat down with our girls and talked about what we’re thankful for. Some thankful mentions were Mommy and Daddy, family, puppies, chocolate milk, books we love, food, the beach, flowers, bananas, big and little sisters and of course, cookies. Considering we make a special effort to give thanks to loved ones on a regular basis, I’m not sure if this is a momentous occasion for my kids. It’s refreshing, however, to mark the day with special foods and customs, and to spend the day with friends as well as family this year.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing, fun and fulfilling Thanksgiving day! Whether spending the day with family or friends, far away from home or right where you’ve always been, make this a day to always cherish and remember. I’m sure my fellow green bloggers and I agree that helping to bring more green to Thanksgiving adds an extra element to the holiday season - and taking care of the Earth as well as our family has it’s own, amazing rewards!

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. It’s the traditional start of the holidays — and leftovers season. So what to do with all that extra holiday food? If you’re trying to live a lighter lifestyle, it’s a good idea to avoid plastic food containers. Go for washable, durable Pyrexware or similar oven-safe storage dishes. In most cases, you can go straight from the freezer to your microwave or oven. And you won’t have to worry about plastics leaching into your food or cluttering the landfill.

Both Americans and Brits have been targeted in an attack on multiple hotels in Mumbai. At this time, at least 90 are dead.

Mumbai Rocked by Deadly Shootings

To make things worse, the BBC is reporting that there are hostages.

When I first moved to Belgium, I knew that starting a new business would be more difficult than in the US. Boy was I wrong! It can be damn-near impossible! I’ve been reading a short introduction to starting a business in Belgium. The book is aptly titled “local knowledge guide to setting up and running your business in belgium”. A bit of a long title, but it matches the process.

For most businesses, the government boasts that you can start up in about 3 days. This assumes, of course, that you have all your paperwork in order, you know exactly where to go and who to talk to, and you know exactly what questions to ask. For a foreigner, all three of these conditions can be tricky.

Then there are more issues to overcome. For an SPRL(U) — the popular private limited company — you need 18,550 Euro in capital to start (an SA, a public limited company, needs 61,500). Depending on where you plan to run your business, you’ll also need to have all your documents in either French, Dutch, or German. As I am only learning Dutch, I would need a lot of help establishing the paperwork for the business. Not to mention that the details of all the social laws are only available in Dutch or French. This would require me to not only rely upon, but to trust, another party with ensuring that I meet all the requirements, file all the right reports, and pay the right fees and taxes.

There is also a potential issue — which should be a minor formality and nothing more — about proving your competence in basic management skills. I would think that my BA in Business Management would be an easy score. But after reading about some of the horror stories online about other non-EU folk trying to start a business, I’m not so sure. Non-citizens also seem to face additional difficulties, although I’m not sure what they are (likely some procedural red tape).

In the end, I’m looking at about a 5 year wait. By then, I should a good understanding of the Dutch language, my citizenship, 5 years of managerial experience, and money in the bank. And in the meantime, I can simply freelance, provided my income is low enough.

Whether it’s wall-to-wall carpeting or area rugs, your floor coverings will eventually need a good cleaning. But the last thing you need is chemical cleaners. 

One of the problems with indoor carpet — other than offgassing of Volatile Organic Compounds in some synthetic weaves — is that they are the ideal home for mites, molds, and dust.

Vacuuming is your first line of defense. But carpet eventually means carpet cleaners, many of which contain the infamous dry cleaning agent, perchloroethylene (perc). We’ve written about this substance in the past. Another common nasty is naphthalene, a possibly carcinogenic solvent linked to red blood cell damage.

Beyond the potential cancer-causing risks of both perc and naphthalene, many people report dizziness, nausea, and irritation for their fumes. Pets are equally effected. Neither substance has any place in a healthy home.

If you decide to hire a professional cleaner, inquire about plant-based alternative solvents and insist on non-toxic steam extraction methods. There are also green carpet cleaning solutions available for home use, suitable for some carpet machines and spot application. Their ingredients are generally agreed to be safe for people and pets. Seventh Generation Carpet Cleaner and a similar product by Simple Green aren’t hard to find at local whole food and natural health stores, and can be ordered online.

Postpone a general cleaning with spot maintenance. Here you have some natural options: salt for mud, dirt, and red wine; club soda for coffee stains; and cornstarch or cornmeal for grease. To control odors, liberally sprinkle carpeting with baking soda and allow to sit overnight before vacuuming. Direct sunlight is also a great deodorant. A couple of hours in the sun does wonders to freshen bathroom mats and area rugs.

Renting a commercial steamer? Rinse out the cleaning chamber with warm water and flush the residue. It’s not the best solution, but it beats recirculating the pesticides and chemicals from other people’s carpets through your home. Invest in your own steam cleaning unit, and you’ll have peace of mind knowing only natural cleaners are keeping your home fresh, clean, and healthy.

With Thanksgiving coming up tomorrow in the United States, a lot of families are getting ready for holiday travel. If you’re planning a drive, spend a few minutes making sure you car is out of summer mode and ready for the road. Remove unnecessary sporting equipment from roof racks. Open the trunk and take out that scuba gear or bag of golf clubs — every extra pound means wasted fuel. Check your tire pressure, and consider a quick oil change and tuneup. Have a safe (and eco-friendly) holiday!

I subscribe to A LOT of email newsletters, blog and website feeds, updates or anything to keep me up to date about being a green mom. The problem is, I don’t get to read many of them, and I end up either deleting them or playing bad games of catch up with my emails! One site that I click through to every day is Ideal Bite. Like the name implies, a small “bite” of news is all I need for ideas and valuable information about being eco-friendly and hip all at the same time (it’s really possible, really!)

I’m loving their just launched Mama Bite, a daily dose of Ideal Bite for moms and moms-to-be (and dads for some of them, but the name pretty much sums it up. Each weekday, Ideal Bite brings thorough yet quick to consume facts and products relating to being a good green parent). Today’s Mama Bite features the email of the day, but you can always dip into the archives for the complete Mama Bite library. Mama Bite features IB’s signature subtle snarkiness, ability to “rate” the bite for feedback, the “Personally Speaking” column from an Ideal Bite writer who’s in the know about the topic, and a great set of links to further highlight the subject. They’ve already covered cloth diapers, farmer’s markets, eco soaps for babies and non-threatening, organic cookies. This is a well-organized and awesome place to come for research, without having to bookmark a billion websites!

Oh, and it’s free! How could I have forgotten to mention that before?

Article by Leo Babauta. (Follow me on Twitter.)

The holidays are a time of celebration for many — good food, lots of parties, gift-giving, family and friends, — but they can also be a time of mass consumption and hyper-consumerism.

I think with all the stresses of this season, and the expectations of our society, we often feel that we must give expensive gifts and throw lavish parties and cook up incredible amounts of food and drink — let’s admit it — what can only be called an unhealthy amount of alcohol.

It’s easy, with all this going on, to forget the true spirit of this season.

Recently I had a talk with my kids about how we shouldn’t think the holidays are all about getting gifts. How we should try to find other ways to celebrate, and get more into the spirit of giving. I’ve been reflecting on this a lot recently, and while none of this is anything original, I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts in hopes that it can keep things a little more sane for some people — and a little more joyful as well.

A Time for Gratitude

For those of us in the U.S., this is Thanksgiving week. That often becomes a day of overeating more than anything else, but what I love about it is that I get to get together with my family. I see grandparents and parents, cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and half-siblings — people I see only intermittently throughout the year, not enough to be honest.

We get together and catch up and share our joys and sorrows. Yes, we overeat. But who among us can resist homemade pumpkin pie? It’s my favorite all-time dessert, actually. :)

But what should Thanksgiving really be about, besides family and friends? It’s about giving thanks, and too often this fades into the background of the holiday.

So I’d like to take a moment to give my thanks, briefly:

• I am deeply grateful for my wife, Eva, and my kids (Chloe, Justin, Rain, Maia, Seth and Noelle) … I love them all, overwhelmingly. I am grateful for my mom, Shannon, my dad, Joe, my sisters Katrina, Ana, Tiara, my brothers Joe, Brandon, Austin, and everyone else I’m lucky enough to call family.
• I am truly, truly grateful to all of you, my readers, for your continual encouragement on this blog, for making my dreams of doing something I’m passionate about come true, for making this job an incredibly fun and gratifying job. I am blessed to have all of you.
• I am blessed to be healthy, to have a great job, to have all my needs and desires fulfilled, to live a simple and joyful life.

What are you grateful for? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Take time this week, and all through the holidays, to cultivate the gratitude habit. It can change your life.

A Time for Reflection

The holidays being at the end of the year, I also like to remember to take this time to reflect on my life, the year so far, and the direction I’m headed in. It’s a great time to take assessment, to adjust as needed, to figure out what you want to do in the upcoming year.

I like to use this time, also, to simplify my life. To remember what’s essential, to eliminate the non-essential.

It’s also a great time, as you’re simplifying, to get rid of clutter. I like to get rid of stuff that’s accumulated throughout the year — and even the best declutterers among us have this happen — and Eva and I also help the kids go through their closets to make room for the crazy amounts of stuff they’ll be getting in December.

A Time for Celebration

While I know many of you are not Christian, for those of us who celebrate Christmas this season is really about celebrating Christ, as well as all that he stands for. The rest of you, I know, have other reasons for celebrating, religious or not.

I think this act of celebration is important, because it helps us to remember what’s important, and brings joy into our lives. It spices up life, and who doesn’t need a little merry-making in their life?

I love the traditions that come along with this season. Yours may be different, of course, but these traditions become important, no matter how small. My mom always invites me and my sisters, for example, to come over to make Christmas cookies. The kids get involved and it’s so much fun!

There are lots of little traditions like this, from decorating the Christmas tree to kissing under the mistletoe to exchanging gifts that are a lot of fun. What are your traditions?

I think it’s important to find ways to celebrate without having to spend tons of money. Christmas and the other holidays you might celebrate are not about getting deeply into debt. And it doesn’t have to be that way — if your family usually spends a lot of money to celebrate the holidays, it might be a good time to have a talk and see if there are other ways that you can be merry without Visa or Mastercard.

Some ideas:

• Exchange home-made gifts or consummables.
• Go caroling.
• Volunteer for charity (see next section for more).
• Have a party with singing and dancing and games and food, but no gifts required.
• Get together to do a community project.

I’m sure you can think of many others.

A Time for Giving

Receiving gifts is always fun, of course, as is giving lots of gifts. But this season of giving doesn’t have to be about buying in order to give. You can make things, for example … or better yet, you can give in other ways:

• Volunteer for charity. We do this with our kids, from Salvation Army bell ringing (lots of fun because you sing carols and give people candy) to cooking and serving food for the homeless. It teaches the kids a lot about giving, and warms your heart to help others.
• Do something nice for people you love. Wash their car, do chores or errands for them, babysit so they can go on a date, cook them their favorite dish or treat, help them with a project.
• If you have a lot of money to burn (as it seems with all the spending we do!), give it to someone who needs it more. Donate to a good cause.

On Consumerism and All That Jazz

I’ve mentioned consumerism a few times now and I think I should say a few words about it. First, let me start by saying I am in no way immune from consumerism — I am a part of it just as much as anyone else, and so I criticize it from within the system, not from without.

What’s consumerism? Basically, equating happiness with material goods. Buying in order to bring happiness and solve problems. Spending more and more — and earning more and more to support the spending — in order to realize the dreams given to us by advertising and a consumerist society.

It’s good for the economy but bad for the individual. We end up in an endless cycle of spending and debt and working more and more, and end up with lives filled with goods but empty of meaning and happiness.

It gets to its worst point during the holidays — we become engaged in a consumerist frenzy that frankly scares me sometimes. Debt becomes a huge problem for a lot of people, and for what? So that people can end up with a mass of stuff they don’t need and often don’t really want. Even kids, who love getting gifts more than anyone else, don’t have time to play with all their new toys. They rip through the carefully-wrapped packages, take a quick look at their gift, and then move on to the next present. And here’s the kicker: they already have enough toys and gadgets! My kids have more than any kid should ever have (I didn’t buy all of it, in my shoddy defense), and they’re at the point when they’re really having to dig deep to think of things they want this Christmas. It’s too much.

So what’s the solution? Well the simple solution is to stop spending, to find other ways to give and to celebrate. But often that requires some changing of deeply-held traditions, and some uncomfortable discussions among families and friends. It means agreeing to do things differently, and perhaps being seen as a weirdo for doing so.

It can be done. We just need to realize that this season is not about buying stuff. It’s about celebrating, giving, spending time with family, reflecting, and gratitude.

Want to enjoy a reminder of spring through the coming winter months? Stock a bird feeder in your yard. You can build your own — or buy a commercial model made from recycled materials. Some feeds, such as millet, can simply be scattered. The kind of feed you place will help determine the varieties of birds which might turn up for a cold weather meal. Whatever your choice, be consistent once you begin feeding. You’ll be rewarded with extra color and birdsong for your trouble.

My sister-in-law and son, this past Sunday, built a killer snowman. As I watched from the warmth of the living room, through the large plate-glass sliding doors, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the quality of snow falling from the Belgian sky. Don’t be mad at me though. I fell off my bike last week and was nursing a bum knee (a likely story).

I honestly thought that my snowman-building days (or at least watching others build snowmen) were over once I moved to Belgium last winter. I honestly thought that good quality snow for snowman-making was something we could only look forward to on our winter trips back to the US.

Pleasantly surprised is an understatement. I grew up playing in the snow — red fingers, icy feet, runny nose — so to see my son (who is 3) out there braving the wilds of nature to roll some frozen water around the yard was great.

Kudos to his aunt who did all the real work. She was the muscle behind it all. But I must say it took quite a bit of coaxing for her to create a 3-balled snowman; she was happy to make a short, fat two-baller. In the end, Mr. Dingledobe (ok, I just made up that name now) had 3 parts, a carrot nose, walnut eyes and buttons, and two sticks for arms.

I’ll post pictures as soon as they become available!