Tip #27: Enjoy the new, greener you

 Sometimes moving and living overseas makes us green with envy at all the stuff we’re missing back home.Pumpkin Spice Latte notifications on Facebook every September."Leaves are changing!""Gorgeous fall day!""Look I’m wearing a sweater and a scarf and not sweating!"That’s for those of us in the tropics.For all y’all in Northern climates…"Got my pedicure ready for the beach!" (and the subsequent “feet” photos propped up with a sandy shoreline in the background)"Spring Break!""Gah! I got sunburnt today mowing all the green grass growing in my yard!"But just you hold back your comments and despair as you look at the never-ending summer (or never-ending snow) out your window.We, who exist in the non-Walmart, nothing-is-ever-ready-made reaches of the world have something….nay, we perpetuate a lifestyle that everyone back home can’t touch.Green. Living.Oh yeah, baby.I’ll see your Pumpkin Spice Latte and raise you a clean, homemade, vegetarian, creamy spinach thin crust pizza (that costs like 75 cents).Clothes?Dried in the sunshine.Food?Bought local. Everyday. Sometimes it’s even from your own backyard or your neighbor’s.Petroleum Consumption?You walk or ride a bike or take public transportation daily.Energy Consumption?You participate in environment-saving blackouts often.Now, this is not to say you LOVE the crunchy feeling of sundried towels (I’ve always wondered how cotton could cut skin). Or that adding an extra 45 minutes to your commute because you have to take a stroller on public transportation brings you feelings of serenity and awesomeness because you’ve saved 15 baby Pandas.But "Going Green" is often something we find laid in our laps overseas and embracing it can help us learn to appreciate our new homes in a good way.Seriously folks, I’ve totally learned to make my own yogurt and feel a twinge of pride at how good homemade granola tastes with it. And even though I can’t get bagels at the grocery store, by golly if the whole world was forced off the grid, I’m comforted by the fact that I can clean a fish and make my own pancake syrup , bagels, and that my babies won’t go without diapers.So, when that blackout occurs during the hottest night ever, just you be patient. You will be able to get back on the internet when the power comes back on (probably) and when you do, you’ve got a whole Pinterest-board list full of ideas to offer the world about “How to entertain kids without the use of electricity” and any number of Facebook statuses claiming the virtues of your new green, crunchy way of life.Kudos to you, you hippy.