3 gifts on Thursday: "re"gift edition

***Remember: silent auction over at Jen's til midnight this Saturday.***


No, I'm not re-gifting previous gifts. Nor will you be receiving something I've already gotten (not sure about the grammar on that one, but we'll run with it anyway). To continue with the green theme of last week's gift, here's are three gifts in the form of reducing, reusing and recycling.

For previous 3 Gifts installments, click here. If you would like to have a "gift" featured in this series, please see the bottom of this post for details.


1. the gift of reducing

I saw in a recent Heifer's World Ark magazine (I think it was in their 2011 Holiday issue) that industrialized countries throw away a ridiculous amount of food - 925 million tons! With people starving in this world that just is unacceptable. Our family is guilty of it, and I've tried to reduce our percentage over the years. One thing I've found which helps immensely is planning our meals weekly. Since starting this practice a several years ago, I no longer arbitrarily buy items thinking they'll come in handy for a meal. Now I know what I need and on what day I'll use it.

Bonus side effect: No longer wondering what we'll have for dinner one hour before we need to eat. The hardest thing to account for is whether one or more child will decide they no longer like the food item placed in front of them.

Further reduce waste going to landfills by composting your plant-based foods and eggshells. Even if you don't use it in your garden, you may be surprised how much less garbage you toss away.


2. the gift of reusing
Ever buy food items that come in resealable bags (e.g. craisins)? Instead of tossing the packaging, try using them in packed lunches or when you need to bring a snack on the go. I was going to make Brianna and Reese cute reusable sandwich keepers when they started school, discovered these resealable bags did the trick and saved me time.

3. the gift of recyclying
When my husband recently began a job with Habitat for Humanity we discovered a large part of their funds come from their ReStore - a shop which resells donated items for the home. It's a mystery how this store remained undiscovered by us for so long given our close proximity to its location and that fact that we've renovated so many homes. If you've never heard of this yourself, you can see if there's one near you by clicking here. Consider it as a good place to donated new and gently-used household goods and building materials too. So far we've found a new back door for our garage, a great kitchen chair and vintage white ceramic drawer pulls for my third floor update project. Happy hunting!

If you have a "gift" you'd like me to consider wrapping into a 3 Gifts on Thursday package, please email me the details. It can be anything you are hosting or have heard about: from a giveaways to service projects, household/parenting tips, resources, promotions/coupon codes, items such as books, music, movies, etc (ones available for purchase online). If I choose to incorporate your gift suggestion into a 3 Gifts post, I will email you to let you know when it will be featured.