It is time to check how I am doing with my goals to help reduce my impact on the environment. It has been about 5 weeks since making my 4 goals and my progress has been very slow. So it is time to reevaluate my goals and make adjustments. Here is where I am at right now:

Goal 1: Ride the bus to school 4 out of the 5 days if not everyday, or walk if it is a nice day since I do not live far from campus.  

I did not do this very well in the first couple weeks after making this goal. It has taken some time to get in a routine of not driving to campus and being lazy. If I want to take the bus I have to get up a little bit earlier than normal which was a struggle, but I can say that I rode the bus to school all 5 days last week which was a success. Already drove to campus once this week, so hopefully I can continue my success.  I was trying to limit the amount of driving I do, but this quarter it has been difficult to avoid with family being in town and having to drive south to go home and visit. I did make an improvement and instead of take a short flight home I carpooled with my roommates, dramatically decreasing the footprint for that trip. 

Goal 2: Replace my lunch sandwiches that consist of meat with strictly peanut butter sandwiches, this should be easy since peanut butter is one of my favorite food items. I will not but anymore lunch meat for the remainder of the quarter.  

This goal has been accomplished in a round about way. I have not purchased anymore lunch meat and have made a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, but I also do not make any sandwich some days and this causes me to purchase a lot of food. Most often at subway, which does not help me achieve this goal. Spending more time on campus requires more planning of meals so that I do not need to buy more processed foods. So this goal can use some improvement on my part by not being lazy and taking some time to plan. 

Goal 3: Visit a couple local farms to purchase my fruit and vegetables, Joe's Garden is a mile away from my house so it could be an easy adjustment. 

With this goal I have to be honest, I have failed miserably. I have only been to one local farm and that was for a date with my girlfriend to pick out pumpkins for Halloween and have a good time. But, I did pick 5 pounds of apples while I was there, so I did get some locally grown vegetables. I need to make major steps to achieve this goal. Joe's garden does not have all the vegetables and fruit available that were available earlier in the fall. I need to do some research to find other farms in the area that I could shop at. 

Goal 4: Also, my roommates and I used to recycle a lot but we have lost our commitment to that and I would like to restart our recycling process. We have done it before, so I know we can do it again. 

This goal has been achieved in moderation. It is difficult to get roommates to buy into recycling. Our trash can is constantly filled with recyclable items. I have to do more to encourage recycling in my house. I could make us more organized when it comes to recycling so that it is simpler for everyone. 

A new goal that I want to set for myself is to watch the amount of electricity my roommates and I use. Over the past few weeks I have noticed the amount of lights that are left on in my house and have decided that I am going to start making sure all unnecessary use of electricity comes to a stop. Hopefully I can stop coming home to an empty house fully lit up with lights.