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My husband is on the road this week, travelling for business.  His flight was in the middle of the afternoon and so he drove himself to the airport, leaving his car there.  While I haven’t sold my car (yet), it was in a fender bender and is awaiting a new taillight.  I don’t feel comfortable driving without one of the taillights and not sure that it would even be legal.  To add to the situation I haven’t been grocery shopping in awhile. 

So my husband’s car is at the airport, mine is out of commission, and we have very little food in the apartment.  What is a girl to do?  And no, the answer is not order out for pizza delivery.  I figured out that if I wait to take the local train home (instead of the express), I can get off one stop earlier where there is a grocery store.  This allows me to pick up a few ingredients for dinner and easily carry them home (especially with my canvas reusable bags) without much extra effort.  My amount of walking to get home would be roughly the same since we live half way between the two train stops.  I just have to remember to take my bags with me in the morning.

What’s my point?  When someone is put in a situation where they have to be bit more creative on how to get things done, solutions will come forward.  In this case, I’m not driving my car to get those few things I need from the grocery store.  It just requires a little bit of planning ahead.  Makes me wonder what other things I could figure out how to do without driving.

So I’ve been contemplating lately what to do about my wedding dress.  It has been almost 3 years now and it is still in the dress bag (and it has even moved from my house to my apartment).  As expensive as wedding dresses are, I did not spend that much, maybe $300 at most including alterations.  I don’t necessarily want to save it for my daughter (if I ever have a daughter) because I know styles will change and I want her to be able to wear what she wants.  I also don’t really see the point of preserving it in a box, to only remain in a box for the rest of my life and my grandkids wonder what I was thinking.  So here I sit with a really nice slightly used wedding dress, trying to figure out my best choice and I have found a few options.

• Goodwill – Definitely a charitable organization that could sell it.  I do donate clothes to Goodwill all the time.
• Burial Garments – There are two different charities I’ve found that will take old wedding dresses and turn them into burial garments for infants.  They may also accept old prom dresses, so if you have those laying around you could donate those too.  The two I found are Heavenly Angels in Need and From Wedding Gown to Burial Gown, Give an Eternal memory.
• Brides Against Breast Cancer – This is an organization that will take donations and sell the dresses to make money to fight breast cancer.  They travel around the country and also accept gowns to be mailed in.
• I’ve also heard of people turning their gowns into a christening dress for their children.   

Come November I will see the folks at Brides Against Breast Cancer in Drexel Hill (outside of Philadelphia).  They also have upcoming events in Cleveland, OH and other areas all around the country, so check out their calendar.  I like the fact that they specifically deal in wedding dresses.  While I feel the charities that create burial garments are doing something really great, I just get depressed thinking about it.  Any of the above options will ensure that your wedding dress will get another use, and that is a very green option.

I just finished paying the bills for the month and guess what!  There was no paper involved.  I do all online banking, so all my bills are emailed to me and I logon to a few websites to see my bank statements and authorize some transactions.  While I’ve been paying my bills online for awhile, I’ve recently gone through each bill I receive and make sure that I request to no longer receive paper bills but rather they are emailed to me.

There are tons of benefits of online banking but I’ll only focus on the environmental impacts here. The bills aren’t being printed out, shipped to me through the mail, no paper checks, forget driving to the post office, buying stamps, and no transportation of the all that paper back to the company I’m paying.  So it’s not just eliminating the paper but also the environmental impacts of transportation.

Do you receive and pay your bills online?