GON Reader Letter #1
He sat my purse on the scale and noted the weight...
A chiropractor I went to years ago had a scale similar to a baby scale in his treatment room. When telling him about my back pain, he glanced at
my purse as it sat in the chair next to me. He asked me to hand it to him.
He placed my purse on the scale and noted the weight on my chart. "No one should be carrying a purse that weighs
more than 6 pounds."
His prescription was to go home and take out all the non-essential items. The non-essentials are all the things a person does not need for that particular
trip.
It was amazing how I felt after I followed the "doctor's orders" for just a few days...and continue to this day. My posture even improved.
Organization can do wonders for the body too!
-- Melinda Deanna
GON Reader Letter #2
When I got out of the car, I got an ovation!
Dear Maria,
In response to your December 27 issue, I just have to share with you
that having learned to drive in New York City, where there was nothing but parallel parking, doing so has not been a challenge for me.
A few years back here in upstate New York where I live
now, I was parking on a commercial street, right hand side, and managed to perfect parallel park in one move. There were a couple of older fellas leaning against the building watching me do it.
When I got out of the car, I got an ovation! It was pretty funny.
Thank you for all of your wonderful insights and heartfelt essays. Here's to a happy, peaceful, and prosperous new year for us all. Take care,
-- Shari
GON Reader Letter #3
Our shower was loaded with huge, plastic bottles of body wash, until we did this...
Hi Maria! We've been working hard to reduce our plastic use in the house and our shower habits became
glaringly apparent when I realized that my children's shower was loaded up with huge plastic bottles of body wash that were almost empty, but the pump assembly wouldn't reach the bottom of the bottle and the kids were too lazy to take it off while they were showering.
There were bottles on top of bottles in the shower and I knew it was a great place to make an easy change to not only reduce our plastic usage, but also ensure the kids used up the soap products, rather than let them go to waste.
We purchased bar soap, shampoo bars, and conditioner bars that are sustainably produced and sustainably packaged. So far, it seems like each bar will last just as long as one of our bulk-sized bottles.
We purchased them in advance of running out of our plastic bottle soaps, so we could test to see if they would be realistic solutions to our problem and, I'm happy to say, they work far better than I imagined they would.
To avoid soap residue and allow the bars to fully dry between showers, we purchased bioplastic soap lifts which we can also use as loofahs if desired.
As our body wash bottles and shampoo bottles are
emptied now, we're clearing them out of the house and won't be replacing them!
-- Dusty
