Week Three and Thanksgiving

The third week of the project was probably my worst week. I guess I thought I did a pretty good job with week two and forgot to think about it as much on week three. I did well with the not-eating-meat part of the project as well as the water and electricity parts (including turning off my roommate's room lights and the tv when she wasn't there!) but I did terribly with the trash part. I guess I was discouraged after feeling sick and throwing away so many tissues and other trash. Thanksgiving was also difficult. I did eat the free range turkey my family made, but I made an effort not to use the paper plates my family used throughout the week in efforts to limit the amount of dishes they had to wash. So I used other plates and washed them which made me think: is it better to use paper plates and throw them out or use water to wash plates? I decided water to wash plates because I could limit the amount of water I used whereas the whole paper plate would go to a landfill or wherever. It was also difficult to watch the amount of electricity that I used and that my family used. We had twelve people staying at our house and I know we used so much electricity it's scary. Overall I think that I have decreased the amount of electricity, water, and garbage that I have used. I haven't had a bad day yet, but I can imagine the one thing that I will probably fall back on is the water usage for my stressful-day shower. Also, I would like to continue eating a mostly meat-free diet but I think that I will be up for eating the occasional free range chicken or beef product. I think now I'll always take recognition of the amount of garbage, meat, water, and electricity that I'm using. The difficult part will be permanently changing my actions to permanently use less.