The Four As Of Living Small

    SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE, in the middle of everything
else we've been doing around the house, 1 ended up with
these four words rattling around in my head: reduce, reuse,
recycle, refuse. Over and over. It was maddening. Worse than
that song 1 promised to not sing for you. Still, when you think
about it, those four words do accurately describe the whole philosophy
of living small. It is all about reducing your use, reusing
what you can, recycling as much as possible, and even refusing
to accept (to buy or whatever) things that you honestly do not
need in the arst place. Reduce, reuse, recycle, refuse. Sing it with
me - you know the words!
    Reduce? Yes, that is, despite the irony, a very big part of 让.
This is where most people can make the greatest change, and
the easiest. Simply use a little bit less. Not a lot, mind you, just
a little. Say, ten percent. A little bit less electricity, a little bit less
water, a little bit less of everything. Could you get by with a little
less food? Ten percent? Maybe so. Not a lot, just a little. One
tenth. JoAnn and 1 started with trying to generate a little less
trash (those newspapers, remember?). From there, we worked
on using a little less electricity for a little lower power bill. After
that, it became a game we're still playing: How much less can
we use and stilllive our lives the way we want to? How much
before we say, no, that's too much. That's too big of a cut. I'lllet
you know when we get to that point. I'm still snifing around
the house, looking for places to save energy and money. It's a
challenge, like limbo. How low can we go? Ten percent is a good
start. A reasonable goal.
    We have, over time, reduced our overall electrical use to one
 of the regional average. Our water use is minimal.shoe store, 1 went
looking for a plastic bag in the house the other day and couldn't
find one. (We usually do have at least a few, but fewer all the
time.) We are steadily reducing the miles we put on our truck,
and find our lives to be more enjoyable the less we drive (traffic
here is really bad). Living small is funny that way. 1 keep waiting
for this living-small thing to be annoying, and it never is. Well,
not for us, an沪.vay. Maybe it would be if we had to have done it
all at once, or if we had been doing more to begin with, but because
we chose to do it as we did and started where we did, it's
an intriguing, fascinating game.
    Now, do keep in mind that we do not live our lives in a bare,
empty home with hollow rooms that echo. We do not sit quietly
in the dark and do nothing. Quite the opposite. Quite. Our home
is overwhelmingly full, making it easier, 1 suppose, to say no to
even more and still have plenty to do. Yes, we still do buy and
add things to our home, but we have (1 hope) become somewhat
more selective in our acquisitions. We're kind of out of room.
That makes it easier, 1 guess. Still, we do look at every potential
purchase in terms of how badly we really need or want 让. There
is a difference between the two, and just because we don't actually
need something doesn't mean we don't really want it - and
that doesn't mean we're going to say no. If we have a place for it,
it usually comes home.
    The moral here is to reduce what you can willingly, but don't
get all hinky about iιSmall reductions do add up, and it's better
to increasingly reduce what you use over time, rather than try to
reduce too much too fast and find yourself reverting back later
and regretting what you threw away just last week. Baby steps.
A little bit at a time. You can do this.
    Reuse? Oh, I'm big on that despite my height. You've probably
heard the old line, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without"?
We11, this takes that a step further. After I've used something
for its original, intended purpose and it no longer works
for that, 1 wonder what 1 can use it for next? Yes, this is a form of
recycling. Maybe its purest form, as it takes the least amount of
energy and effort to transition an item from one use to the next.
You want examples? Examples l've got aplenty.
    Let's sort with a quick, easy one. We get fake plastic credit
cards in themail with applications that we shred and recycle.
The fake cards are of the "Your name here" variety, and maybe
we could throw them in the plastics recycling bin, but they do
make great bookmarks, so we save them for that. joAnn and 1 always
have a stack of books to read, and it's always nice to have
a few extra bookmarks at the ready. These fake plastic credit
cards work great for that. And they're free!
    1 do a lot of fussing around with bicycles (big shock there,
1 know) , and it always grated on me to have to throw away old
bicycle tubes when they could no longer be repaired. Yes, I'd remove
the valve core and add 让to my now endless supply thereof
(and geez, Louise, how many do 1 rea11y need?) , but the tube
itself? There must be something 1 could do with that. One day
1 was rebuilding a bicycle with drop (racing style) handlebars,
and 1 didn't have any handlebar tape for the bike. And, since 1
planned to simply give the bike away, 1 was somewhat reluctant
to go out and buy a brand-new ro11 of handlebar tape for a bike
1 was just going to offer out for free in the driveway. 1 did, however,
have an old tube off the bike that was blown out. No way
to repair that. l'd have to pitch it. It wasn't even recyclable. Then
it dawned on me: 1 cut the valve stem section out of the tube,
split the rest of it long ways, and then cut that in half long ways
again. 1 now had two perfectly good long lengths of black rubber
handlebar tape, and they worked like a charm. Strips of bicycle
inner tube are stretchy, making them easy to apply, and very
cushy and grippy for your hands. It was perfect! All 1 threw away
was about two inches of the old tube where the valve stem was.
Much better. Now, these days, that's all 1 ever use for handlebar
tape. 1 have a nice, steady supply of the stuff from all the old
tubes that can't be repaired. Reuse is good!
    Broken spokes get reused as wire hangers (when 1 paint
bike parts) , the twist ties from bread wrappers hold bundles of
spokes for later use and even those wide-mouth plastic peanut
butter jars (low 臼t， of course) are perfect for storing small bike
parts. Everything we recycle gets scrutinized before it goes into
any recycle bin, and certainly before it's thrown away. Can we
use this again for something else before it goes wherever it's
going next? What else could this be? Once you start looking at
everything you use in your life, reusing things from one activity
in another becomes second nature and a great challenge as well.
Pick it up, turn it around, and look at it again. What else could
this be? Maybe I'd better save it. You never know.
    And of course 1 reuse (or do 1 recycle?) entire bicycles. I'm a
nut about this. Just ask my wife. We have several bicycles in our
collection that came off of trash piles and at least one that was
pulled out of a ditch. (For a while there, we had a nice one we
pulled out of a lake!) More often than not, whatever bike 1and
in my travels gets pxed up and given away. I've probably given
away hundreds over the years. 1 get them to work, then simply
wheel them out to the end of the driveway with a "FREE!" sign
on them. They are usually gone within minutes. 1 really do like
looking up from whatever I'm working on in the garage and seeing
one of my former free bikes go by with its happy new owner.
One less car, one bike at a time. Found bicycles that honestly
can't be fixed are salvaged for their usable parts to help other
bikes, and their unusable components really are recycled. 1 currently
have an old Schwinn 1Yphoon frame hanging from the
rafters, in need of wheels before 1 give it away. Interested? 1 just
found a set of wheels on my morning walk. We can make this
work!