I wake up every morning with my nearly one year old daughter and feed her breakfast. Since she was able to eat semi-solid foods, we've been feeding her baby oatmeal with applesauce mixed in. I mix up the oatmeal, spoon it into her mouth (and hope she doesn't raspberry it out all over me) and then give her some Cheerio's while I eat my cereal. In the few seconds after we're both done eating and before I get her out of the high chair, I rinse out both of our bowls. I take them from the table and place them in the sink and run the water over them. Sometimes, if I mixed a particularly sticky batch of oatmeal, I will use the sprayer on the faucet to get all of the chuncks and bits off the bowl.

I make the water do all of the hard work.

I could easily put some water in the bowl and use of the of 3 different scrubbers we have around the sink to get the bowl clean. Instead, I turn the water on a temperature setting that can only be referred to as 'scaulding hot' and move the bowl under the faucet over and over again until the bowl is clean. This is just one instance of me being wasteful without even knowing it.

As normal as it seems, we're still very blessed to have clean, running water on demand. Over half the world can't say that much. But instead of using just a little bit of that water and a little elbow grease to clean the dishes, I waste a lot more water and use a lot more energy to heat the water...and be lazy.

I've been very conscious of how I use my time and resources lately. With the baby and the constant home improvement, every free moment is precious. But even then, it's hard not to waste that time. I spent last night playing XBox instead of cleaning the house, working on a side project, writing in my daughters journal, cleaning the house, or just about anything else. Ever wandered over to Facebook because there was nothing else to do? You just wasted time.

Everyone knows the recycling is better than throwing stuff away. I'm starting to also realize that using your time and resources wisely is better than throwing them away.