Our house gets overrun with “stuff”, which ebbs and flows according to my tolerance level. Some days I’ve had enough, and out go the magazines/newspapers/computer printouts/child art project stacks that would be more than happy to take over if I’d let them. Another major offender? Shopping bags; specifically, plastic shopping bags. We live 1.5 miles from Target. It’s dangerous. I have no problem running over there daily to pick up whatever I’m “needing”. And the Starbucks inside isn’t helping – hmmm, a green iced tea and errands completed in one stop? The result? Lots and lots of plastic Target shopping bags. While we do reuse the bags as our under-the-sink garbage bag, our inventory was far greater than our needs. So, I decided to finally get with the program. I bought the shopping basket pictured above from Garnet Hill a few years ago. Real Simple (I think) featured it, and I thought it was so cute, and versatile – perfect for pretending I’m in the city (but really, my life is as suburban as it gets). Stored in my trunk, it was ready to go. Except I wasn’t ready. Yet. Finally, this spring, it just felt right. I’ve been taking it on my smaller Target runs, to the mall, to the farmers market …. and while the initial reactions were of confusion (“Do we sell these baskets?” “You want us to put the stuff back into this?”) , now it’s more of a “hey, that’s cool” look. It’s a small step on the way to greener living, but I’m trying …. and more importantly, I’ve made it a habit ….Today’s NYTimes also talks about ways to cut down on the plastic shopping bag glut (Anya Hindmarch’s canvas bag is the hot alternative to have – get in line!) Did you know that less than 1% of plastic bags are recycled? Read about it at nytimes.com.