Karen's Low Impact Goals Day 8

My four goals are:
1. I want to use my paper recycle more effectively, and keep old paper to use later.
2. I want to reduce the amount of pages that I print and that I use for homework.
3. I will try to put my computer in sleep mode whenever I am not using it.
4. I will try to work a little in the garden daily, and move towards leftovers or unprocessed foods rather than things from a box for snacks.

My challenges have not been very active for the last couple of days. I think that my computer is shut off most of the time when I am not using it, although I will try to get into this habit more consciously later on. It has been hard to really think about the challenge at all, because I do not get home until around 4:30 P.M and then I have much homework to do. It is worse when I am not even at my house in the evening, like last night, and like tommorrow night. I have still been surviving off much less paper than before the challenge, but I sort of wish that I had started with new paper instead of having to find empty pages throughout my binders. My social studies project was completed in a very environmentally friendly way, all our scripts are on school recycled paper or recycled paper at my house. I also tried to only use a few sheets for notes, both of which already had notes on them before. It does seem that even though I am trying to cut down on paper use I might still use more than most people, because I like to write everything down. I also never thought about class handouts. In English and Social Studies we don't really have any, and we have not had any in spanish, but in chemistry we had a practice quiz. Does the paper I used for that count as new paper? I also have my lab notebook, and in my lab notebook I never write on the backs of pages, because I assume that this is the norm. My work in it was not really completed during the challenge, but I handed it in during the challenge period.

Today I planted basil in the garden. I did not have much time so that was all I did. I love working in the garden, but it is time consuming, which is different from my other challenges. Last night I had homemade apple pie for snack, and this morning for breakfast, so eating less processed foods was fairly easy for me. Today, though, I ate crackers for snack, and I cannot decide if that is breaking my challenge. Mostly, however, I am finding that these challenges are difficult to focus on, and I wish that I had chosen ones that required more of my attention, so that I could feel like I am doing more to reduce my energy use.