Todd Horn

This challenge for me was pretty difficult.  I support a lot of local restaurants and drinking establishments but locally shopping for items instead of on-line is, for me, a huge headache. I wanted to challenge myself and this was one of my biggest challenges so far.  As many of us, in the US, we have gotten bit by the Amazon/On-line purchasing bug.  I,for one,  when this kind of shopping came out thought it was the best thing ever invented.  While I enjoy socializing at a restaurant or the local grocery store I despised going shopping for other goods.  My wife this week needed a new dress for a social gathering in a couple of weeks.  I said lets go shopping at a local boutique.  After she almost had a heart attack from hearing me say lets go shopping we adventured out.  To make a long story longer, we went to CurveJunkie Plus Size Boutique.  It is off Manchester in the Grove and honestly it was one of the more pleasant experiences that I have had shopping.  The two employees that were in the store took care of my wife's needs and desires for the dress that she wanted and she was pleased with the price and the product.  She said that we needed to start shopping more locally and I believe this will start a going trend for us

I found an interesting article when I was on line today.  This seems like an excellent and sustainable way of doing clean up and yard work for not only the abandoned spaces in our city but also our personal lawns as well. Hopefully I posted the link correctly.

 https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/photos-goats-make-quick-work-of-urban-clearing/collection_f1a82ec7-206b-505f-8444-29045f3abb02.html#28

The challenge that I completed for say no to plastic was one of the most difficult challenges I have had to do in my life.  I just never realized all of the packaging that is plastic based.  A good thing that came our of this was we have more room on our shelved and in our refrigerator with all of the packaging removed.  It has also made my wife and I shop more often at local vendors rather than the big box stores.