Be mindful about all purchases, choose local/organic/small businesses when possible

I had fallen into the bad habit of ordering pizza from a national chain, mainly I think because I had coupons from them. We only order pizza a few times a year but tonight, with this goal in mind, I ordered it from a small local pizzeria. I talked with Isadora about why I was ordering from them instead, it made a great teaching moment.
When I went to pick it up it was such a nice environment to walk into. Cool music playing, a nice commeraderie between the people behind the counter, including the owner who is right there spinning dough with the employees, not hermeticaly sealed up in some corporate office. Hard to explain but it all felt real, not prepackaged and canned.
The pizza was great, Isadora declared it her new favorite. It leaves me looking forward to discovering more small local businesses.

I’ve just stumbled across this great documentary about big corporations v. small local businesses and their impact on local economies and communities. A husband and wife team travelled across the country and made this film, which you can see clips of here http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs17327 .
Watching this and reading the articles really strengthened my commitment to this goal.

I might not be able to avoid places like Walmart altogether, the store choices where I live are very limited, but each purchase I am able to make in a mindful manner helps.
I am also finding that it often boils down to deciding on the lesser of the two evils. I had been buying organic milk, but it is very expensive, comes in plastic bottles and is trucked halfway across the country. So I’ve switched to milk from a local dairy store. It is from regional farms which are almost all small family run businesses around here, none of the farms that supply the milk use artificial hormones and the milk comes in glass returnable bottles. It also requires a seperate shopping trip, but I think in the end it outwieghs the organic milk as far as por’s and con’s go.
I want to make the 45 minute trip to Ithaca at least once a month so I can shop at the co-op, bring my own containers and buy in bulk. We usually make a day of it when we go to Ithaca, stopping at the children’s museum, the park at the lake and a lunch of curry (which you can’t find where I live :( ) so it helps justify the gas used for the trip.