mistressofmuses | Weirdly productive/unproductive day!

We got a fair amount done: Spent the morning reading rather than wasting time on my phone, then did a grocery store trip where we got quite a few things we'd been forgetting, then got home and put stuff away, actually made lunch, watered plants, did a couple other tiny chore things.

We had to buy some reusable bags for the groceries - as of January 1st, Colorado is charging a fee for single-use bags. Denver county already was, but now it's state-wide. A few stores have already stopped stocking ANY single-use bags, which is going to be the statewide rule next year. In preparation for that, we dug out our reusable bags and bought a couple more... but we're still pretty bad at remembering to actually bring them with us! We forgot them this morning, so bought a couple more. Maybe we'll wind up with enough that there are always some empties in the truck, lol. [Wow, does that feel like a "you can see the population of the website aging..." thing to even talk about, lol.]

Then I napped for like three hours, which sort of killed the momentum from all the stuff I did, lol.

Mildly worried about the nap, just because I was SO tired, and I hope it's not a "coming down with some sort of sick" tired. I slept all right last night, so shouldn't have needed to catch up on that much sleep.

After getting up, I did get some more of the general habit tracking stuff done that I'd been intending to. (I fell behind in a few things - got calendars drawn, but no dates written in; still didn't have any sort of artwork on my January calendar.) I drew a lighthouse for January, and I'm actually quite happy with it. :)

And then we heard several gunshots outside a couple hours ago, which is never my favorite thing. Couldn't see anything from where we are, so it was probably around the building. (And yes, it was definitely gunshots - we do have jackasses across the street who set off fireworks VERY regularly, and it's not really all that similar a sound!)

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We've had the reusable bag thing for several years now, and it does get easier to remember to take one with you.

The trick is to get the ones that fold up very small and then keep one in the pocket of every coat. Even five or so years down the line, I don't remember to take big rigid bags that I have to pick up separately, but small ones that are already in my pockets come without thought.

It's easier to remember to empty the bag, fold it up and put it back in your pocket when you're unloading than it is to remember to pick it up when you go out.

We've been doing better than I expected - we remembered them on the trip before yesterday's, forgot yesterday, but remembered today and put extras in the truck cab.

Ah, I like that idea of having very foldable ones and keeping them in pockets! We only have one that folds up that small at the moment, but getting a few more for emergency pocket-storing sounds like a good idea. That is an easier habit to follow through on, just putting the bag back in a pocket after emptying, rather than having to re-remember to grab it the next time you head out.

Yes, and even that is not absolutely perfect - I still forget occasionally. But once you have bags that live permanently in your pockets and in your bicycle/car glovebox it does become much rarer to be caught out without one. And even if you occasionally forget, it's still better to use one plastic bag every six months than two every trip :) (And if they're your own bags you can get ones you actually enjoy. I have some lovely silk bags made from recycled saris, which look beautiful and are nice to touch, and I wouldn't go back to plastic even if I could.

That definitely will improve the odds, haha.
We do have a few nice canvas bags that we've gotten from organizations at Pride or ones with nice designs we sought out. We got some really cute vinyl ones at Halloween, but now Alex is afraid to use them and wear them out, lol.

I'm honestly kind of glad that they've started requiring the reusable bags - we've had them and INTENDED to use them for quite a while, but always forgot and never got any better at remembering. This is forcing us to!

I think that's always the way - no matter your good intentions it really helps to have a push from the outside to get you started. It certainly wasn't until the UK government did the same thing that we started doing it on a regular basis. That was a few years ago, and now everyone's got so used to it it's rare to see anyone with a plastic bag at all.

(Some of our grocery shops provide their own paper bags, and that's what I use for kitchen bin liners :) )

Yeah, that outside pressure definitely helps! I wish I could be the kind of person who was that internally motivated, but alas!

I am wondering what I'll do for bin liners... we buy bigger trash bags, but little plastic grocery bags are the perfect size for the bathroom trash, ha. I think even paper bags are being banned under our new rules, and I feel bad BUYING small plastic bags, but we'll figure it out.

A lot of our supermarkets now sell small bags made of plant cellulose that look like plastic but they biodegrade and can be put in the compost. I don't know if you can get something like that?

Ooh, that sounds excellent! I would definitely prefer something biodegradable/compostable. I'll have to see if there's something like that I can find.

I try to remember to return my bags (all folded and stacked into one bag) to the car (truck or behind the front seat, depending). There have been times I've gotten to the store and done a *head desk* on the steering wheel, but mostly I remember. I like to hang them on the door knob so I don't miss them when I go out, or put them by my purse.

Yeah, we're trying to figure out a system... it may just be a matter of having to "chain" the habit - like checking to take bags down to the truck each time I grab my purse or something. Or maybe we'll stick a hook on the door for them to hang on so we can't miss them, ha.
The truck cab is very small, and while we have a box in the bed for storage, I'm afraid bags would get stolen out of it, but they can fit behind the seat or in the passenger footwell.

We do re-usable bags here and the worst part is like passing a grocery story on your way back from something and going 'shit... no bags'. Also, for pet owners it means buying boxes of plastic bags anyway.

Yeek, gunshots are scary.

Right? I think we'll get pretty good at remembering when we're planning on going to the store, but I'm sure it'll continue to trip us up when we aren't planning on it before we're already out, ha.
And yes, it does mean now we have to buy poop bags for Cy, lol. (Some parks have bag dispensers, but the one at our apartment is empty about 75% of the time.) And what am I supposed to use for small trash cans, now? Buy small trashbags too, I guess, lol.

Yeah, gunshots aren't my favorite thing to hear at night. :/ Hopefully just dumb shits trying to show off or something as opposed to serious crime.

Sounds like a rough day! I hope you're not coming down with something and that nobody got seriously hurt.

Yeah, same here. I haven't really felt sick, so fingers crossed there's no crud!

And definitely hopeful there was no one hurt - didn't hear any reporting on it, so we hope it was just someone being an idiot and "showing off."

Weirdly productive/unproductive day!

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