sustainablity....how do you do this again?

Firstly, I want to thank everyone for their suggestions on forming a simple hobby. I have some herbs planted, but my darling cats have already eaten the flowers!
I have also picked up knitting....again. I actually picked it up awhile ago, but in the rush to finish off my labwork it fell by the wayside. I am in the middle of some potholders for our kitchen and we will see how those go.
I have had the pleasure of spending most of the week in Norfolk with my husband. It has been so long dealing with being apart and now it is finally happening in a matter of weeks that we will be together in the same household again. However, this does bring something up....
When we are together we tend to do two things that aren't exactly great for simplifying your life:

1.) we tend to eat out a lot. Part of the reason is that being my husband lives essentially like a bachelor, keeping food in his house besides beer is a foreign concept to him.

2.) we tend to shop more. Sometimes its because we have waited to purchase something until the other can be there but still...we need to find some more frugal and simple activities!

This isn't easy at the moment. He lives in an apartment complex at the moment and it gets boring. We read a lot, I knit, but you can easily go stir crazy and sometimes we just want to get out. As far as eating out is concerned, until I am up here full time there is no way my husband will actually grocery shop for himself, that is pretty much up to me.

In a few weeks, a lot of habits will be changing drastically or even eliminated. I am blessed that my husband is very open to all the changes towards simple living and reduced consumption. He is also impressed with all of the progress I have made on my own and it will hopefully inspire him a little.

In addition, we are finally buying our own home, with a yard and garage so we can both "piddle" around, garden, and make further progress towards sustainablity. We plan to buy a very very small previously owned home. There is the garden of course, but we are going to work towards making this small house as energy efficient as possible. Since I will be around all the time we can make simple meals from scratch, eliminate fast and packaged food from our diets, and take the time to live a little more slowly and deliberately. We are really looking forward to it! I welcome any suggestions and changes that others have made towards more sustainable living!