Wellness Wednesday - Cloth Napkins

I view many of these Wellness Wednesday life updates more as sharing ways Patrick and I have chosen to alter our lifestyle with health and wellness in mind. Patrick and I started dating at a pivotal moment in our lives - after college graduation - and I've noticed a lot over the years that we've drastically changed our health and wellness habits since then. I'm sure the majority of these decisions are based on maturing and become adults but I do believe we strive together to be the best we can be for each other and it takes a lot of effort!

And now I'm thinking, Whitney, today's post is about cloth napkins... you're being weird, but I like pointing out how our Wellness Wednesday updates came to be and share that as well. Saying "Hey, switch to cloth napkins. They're awesome and you won't have to keep buying and throwing away paper napkins" wouldn't be very beneficial. So, with my ramblings, I'll tell you why we made the switch.

I originally started this post with this sentence: "At some point last year I decided to stop buying paper napkins." And that got me wondering why didn't I do it sooner? It made me connect the dots and see how Patrick and I slowly transitioned our early dating lives into married adults who try to maintain a sustainable household (and thus my current intro emerged). I chatted a little about these dots in our Wellness Wednesday post on switching our facial cleanser and moisturizer. I truly think everything stems back to us using a CSA and from there continuing to ask what else can we do?? The answers to this have always been small changes and one at a time but I think they're really amounting to large lifestyle changes. By implementing small changes and continually asking ourselves how we can improve, six and a half years later the changes do seem drastic. Our right-after-college-lives would seem quite foreign to us now.

Last year one of the answers to what else can we do was stop buying paper napkins and invest in cloth napkins. And we did. Two sets of 6 white buffet napkins later we've completely stopped using paper napkins. One of the drawers in the buffet is dedicated to napkins. I have our white napkins, our formal napkins, and red napkins which we exclusively used in November and December. I thought two straight months of usage would validate a second color (and maybe we'll pull them out this week for Valentine's Day).

I love these because...
   ... they're "everyday" napkins so we use them at all of our meals for just us but the cloth napkin always sets the tone for hosting friends for dinner. I do have a few patterned napkins that I'll use for various entertaining evenings if I'm feeling particularly jazzy.
   ... they're all white so I use them interchangeably with all my decor. See above for occasional patterned napkins use.
   ... they're 100% cotton so I can compost them after their lifespan is over (whoa, crazy idea!)
   ... they're reusable so Patrick and I may use the same napkin for a few meals as long as nothing is particularly messy before tossing them into a "dirty" basket in the laundry room
   ... they're easy to wash so I typically throw them in the towel load each week.
   ... they're not disposable as paper napkins would be so we're keeping a lot of stuff out of the landfill
   ... they're one of the "simple joys" because using cloth napkins makes me feel fancy

Here's our table setting set for dinner with friends and our white napkins.

Hopefully after reading through this post you'll ask yourself what one small thing can I do that would impact how I live my life and be more sustainable for the planet and maybe you'll find the answer is swapping your paper napkins for cloth (if you haven't already).