Welcome to The Goode Life!

Welcome to The Goode Life:  going Eco without going loco! 

Why do people think that in order to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle you have to give up all your modern day comforts?  You can be green and still own a dish washer. You can care for the earth and still drive your car. 

Many people think a "green friendly" home is about using eco-paints and bamboo floors.  While that is a goode start, there's a lot more to it.  This site will show you how. 

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My father used to make my brothers and I pick up cans for recycling, my mother only cooked with fresh ingredients.  I had never tasted white bread until high school when I took a bite out of friend's sandwich.  Yuck!  It tasted like glue.  When my friends where busy hanging out at the malls I was in tai chi/karate/ballet class (take your pick).  My mother used to make my clothes (we sometimes matched, hey it was the 70's!) she believed you could still look chic even in homemade clothes and my father's favorite mantra was "Turn off that light!"

My father is from the rural part of Honduras near the coast of Puerto Cortez, for those of you who have never been to Honduras, I guess you could say most of the country is pretty rural!  I spent every Summer and then some in my dad's hometown.  There was no electricity, and very few homes had indoor plumbing.  We had to take our baths in the river, grow the food we ate, use horses and bikes as transportation, pumped our water from a well and you went to sleep when the sun went down.  As a child I thought how fun!  What a way to live.  Complete freedom.  As a nine year old I couldn't understand why my American mother complained so much.  My dad always had to put her in a near by hotel after a week of living off the land! 

My American mother grew up with all the conveniences of modern living: grocery stores, gas powered cars, HVAC, refrigerators, washing machines, indoor plumbing, and of course electricity to make all these things run!  My mother is such the lady, she doesn't like to get her hands dirty but she is a staunch believer in taking goode care of yourself; hence the homemade, organic meals.  In fact my father wouldn't have it any other way.  Eating out was only something we did if my mom hadn't made it to the farmer's market; it wasn't a leisurely indulgence.  My mom once remarked, "remember when conventional farming used to already be considered organic."  Although my mother couldn't possibly see herself living without her dish washer, it's through her I learned that using a dish washer actually conserves more water than washing by hand.  My mother has found the happy medium of being an environmentalist without the sacrifice (as she would say!).

I learned very early on; (partly because I saw the difference in lifestyles from my father's country and my mother's) not to be wasteful.  Growing up with five siblings you re-use and re-use and re-use! As I got older and didn't spend as many summer's back home I started to get sucked into the instant gratification this culture here is so famous for:  bigger is better, fast and now, more,more, more. I was gonna work hard so I could live the American dream.  Work hard I did.  I worked as a carpenter for a number of big construction companies.  I used to joke that we could build a mansion just with the lumber we threw away on a daily basis!  It was so wasteful, it bothered me.  We often time threw away perfectly goode items that may have been ordered wrong or didn't fit.  I couldn't take it any more so I started my own company.  I knew there had to be a better way.

The path was shown to me rather quickly.  It's true when they say "ask and you shall receive".  I immediately began to come across things related to green building, environmentally friendly products and sustainable living.  Had this stuff been right in front of me all this time?  Was this a case of not being able to see the forest because of the trees!? Motivated beyond belief and enthusiastic as a child on Christmas I ditched my old ways and decided to go back to the life my parents had shown me as a child. As I looked back on my childhood I really appreciated the natural simplicity of that life.  It was a goode life.

I was determined to become an a Earth first activist, to right the wrongs, and to show others the way, but I must admit I had become rather accustomed to my car and I liked all my modern appliances...thank God my taste buds never changed though, most fast food restaurants make me sick.  So what was I to do?   With a combination of my father's live of the earth philosophy and my mother's respect yourself mentality I could do both.  It was challenging in the beginning.  I drove myself loco trying to go Eco, but eventually I got the hang of it.  I wasn't too hard on myself if I forgot to bring my canvas shopping bags to the store, I've always wrapped presents with pages from my fashion magazines (people always want to open up my gifts first!), I started to make my own home cleaning products, I started to shop at the local farmer's market my mother used to frequent.  Little by little I made steps and changes in my life, and in my work that didn't seem so daunting.  And please note EVERY step makes a difference. 

So I'm here to share with you what I've learned and I hope you will follow me as I bring you the Goode Life.   

The Goode Life Arcadia eco-friendly