Cloth Everyday

Spread the love

by Guest Blogger Sarah Harrison Roy of Running Girl Eats

Best Investments in Sustainability

Cloth napkins: why even bother to write about something so ordinary?

Well, to me there’s nothing ordinary about cloth napkins. To me, they are gorgeous works of art that lighten up and decorate the kitchen table. To me, they are an outstanding way to save money and our gorgeous forests. To me, they are a way I nurture myself, my family, and give meals a special ritual and celebratory feel.

I grew up using cloth napkins as there was no such thing as a paper napkin at the time, at least not to my knowledge, and my mother NEVER would have used paper napkins at our kitchen table.
I grew up in a house of hanging laundry, homemade bread, and lots and lots of canning from the gigantic garden we grew out back. My mother sewed our clothes, my father built our dollhouses and furniture, and my mother prided herself on re-using everything that came into our home.
She made our meals special. We set the table with silver for each meal, matching place settings, placemats or table cloth, and of course beautiful napkins.
I still use cloth napkins at my kitchen table. I use those same dishes and placemats, as they were handed down to me at my wedding. I learned to make meals feel special; to make the meal a time for the family to gather together. To talk and listen to each other. To share about the day and enjoy the homemade food at the table.  We sit and slow down. We put our phones away and shut the computers off. We join together to share what was good about the day and possibly what wasn’t so good. We laugh, we give each other high-fives, and we offer support.
 
The dishes, placemats, and napkins are symbols that tell my family it’s time to settle down and come together.  By using these items, I’m able to give our meals some history and ritual.
Using cloth napkins makes our meals just that much more special and in the process I’m able to do my little part in saving a few trees. Using cloth doesn’t take much effort. Simply wash, hang dry in the sun, and re-use.  It’s that easy. If everyone used cloth at their meals, just think of all the trees and money that could be saved.
Why not add a special ritual to your family meals and put a few cents back in your wallet at the same time? Do something good for you and for our Mother Earth. I purchased some of these gorgeous napkins on Etsy.com. Go take a peak.

About Sarah Harrison Roy and Running Girl Eats

Holistic Nutrition Coach Licensed * Institute for Integrative Nutrition, MBA * Simmons College

My goal is to help people move beyond emotional eating and to healthier more desirable habits.

I combine philosophies of a few great experts, licensing as a Holistic Nutrition Coach, and a lifetime of experience in my own battle with emotional eating, anorexia, and addiction. I offer to you what has worked for me and my clients. Together we get to the root cause of your eating struggles.

No more dieting, depriving, calorie counting, product testing, disappointment, and distress around what we see as our lack of willpower.

I choose to see that our eating struggles exist as a doorway into the other areas of our life that need love and attention. Our struggles with emotional eating habits shine a light on what we can learn and change in order to feel more life satisfaction in our relationships, career, physical body, and spiritual world.

Please visit my website at Running Girl Eats and schedule an Introduction if you would like to get to know me better and hear more about how I can help you.

—————————————————————–

Learn more about From the Shaker: Best Investments in Sustainability

and make sure you don’t miss another one by subscribing:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Or contact us to become a guest blogger! We want to hear about the Best Investments in Sustainability from your home.

 

Published by Laura Parker Roerden

Laura Parker Roerden shares a love of what nature can teach us. Writer, public speaker and supportor of youth to boldly know and save the wilds. She is the founding director of Ocean Matters and a fourth generation farmer and thinks today’s young people are reason to be hopeful about the many environmental problems facing us. She lives on a family farm in Massachusetts with her husband, three boys, and an assortment of fruit trees and farm animals.

One thought on “Cloth Everyday

Tell us what you think!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: