Simple, green skin care

 
Although I've always loved skin lotions and creams,  I've honestly been fairly lazy when it comes to skin care. Soap (most of the time), moisturizer (sometimes) and sunscreen (always because I'm a ghost). Despite being so transluscent that you could map my circulatory system from a good five feet away, aside from a bit of blotchiness, I don't think my skin looks too terrible. So I've never really bought into the idea that I need 12 kinds of product to look decent. As a teen, I loved to spend my babysitting money on St. Ives masks and different kinds of creams for fun but never really kept up a serious skin-care regimen.

About 7 years ago I started to break out in hives after using my moisturizer. I switched to something more "natural" which I now realize was more expensive, but more or less the same. Very quickly, I became unable to use anything with fragrance and most drugstore skin care brands were off-limits. My dermatologist then told me that most eye creams, wrinkle creams and the like are pure bullshit - its about making money and doesn't make any appreciable difference to one's appearance.

Since then, I've become really interested in (actual) natural skin care. Coconut oil was the gateway drug - luscious and moisturizing, plus the BEST eye makeup remover I've ever tried. A few years ago I added shea butter, for areas that need a bit more moisture. Recently I've started using rosehip seed oil on my skin at night, jojoba oil on my legs after a shower and argan oil on my freshly washed hair.  It doesn't have to be complicated. I've even heard of people using pork fat and ghee as facial moisturizers, believe it or not (my dogs would lick me to death).

I'll do some posts on natural skin care in the near future with some recipes and ideas. Suffice it to say,  you can use bulk goats milk or olive oil soap and pure oils and have lovely skin. As well as a fatter wallet and less crap on your face.

Living Our Values in the Day-to-Day

It is so very easy to lose sight of the big picture, particularly when it comes to making mundane, daily decisions in an ethical way. Budget, convenience, location, aesthetics, all of these factors have interfered at one time or another with trying to live our lives in a more sustainable way. There's also the fitting-in factor; its not uncommon to see people towing their groceries by bike in the city but it sure is weird out here in the suburbs.

As I reflect on the past few years of our life as a family and focus my energy on the forthcoming year, I find myself feeling sheepish at how much we've slipped away from our intentions. Its an ebb and flow, really, and we're not totally lost. Our ideals are still there, the intentions, the discussions - the foundation is solid. Its in the day-to-day that we really screw up.

I took the trash out two weeks ago and was gobsmacked by how much we had accumulated in one week. We're some of the most "sustainable" people we know and yet we throw out so.much.crap. I stumbled upon zero-waste blogs through an article about a Paris capsule wardrobe and I've gone down the rabbit-hole. I cannot stop thinking about ways to reduce our waste and remove poorly-made, disposable or shortly-lived items out of our lives.

I read somewhere that the practice of sustainability is like a table, held up by concepts like frugality, simplicity and some other good stuff that I cannot remember for the life of me now but I'm sure I agree with. Reading the article, I thought "yesssssss". Gardening, permaculture, and the big picture concepts are what turns Jay's crank when it comes to "greening" our lives. For me, its the smaller details that get me going: buying less and buying with quality in mind, choosing fair trade and ethical products, thinking of how our daily choices impact the earth and other people. That $5 t shirt is a bargain for me, but it sure costs a lot to the earth and the person who made it. Minimalism and simplicity appeal because life with young children is chaotic and my brain naturally hums along at a good clip; I crave space and peace and time not spent consuming or cleaning what has been consumed. Jay and I will each play our part in holding up our sustainability table, by focusing on what we are naturally drawn to. That's a comforting thought.

I've been furiously "Pinning" and scribbling notes in my notebook as I come across ideas, blogs and articles. I've decided to organize my thoughts a little bit. Going forward, here are some of my areas of focus (noting that its all connected, buying less is minimalist but its also frugal and sustainable)

1. Making our upcoming renos more sustainable. Some materials have already been purchased from big-box stores, but other purchases can be made more mindfully while staying in budget.

2. Slowly moving away from plastic and disposable items. We've done without paper towels for a few years now (which people think is SO WEIRD when they come over), but there's so much more we can do. Kiss your Spider-man toothbrush goodbye kids, its going to be bamboo from here on out.

3. Buying less, buying in bulk, buying second-hand and buying items with non-toxic ingredients. Buying only what's needed, repairing what we can, making what cannot be purchased frugally, mindfully or fair-trade.

Daunting? Perhaps. Inspiring? Hells to the yes.

This blogger is my spirit animal

I discovered, and devoured, a new blog last night over a glass of wine.  Called Paris-To-Go, it is written by an American living in Paris (jealous), who is passionate about minimalism, sustainability, fashion, travel and healthy living. Pretty much all of the things that really get me going.

I was so very happy to stumble upon this gem because I sometimes feel a bit lost in the world of "green living", permaculture and sustainability. Although I know this is silly, it sometimes feels as though there isn't a place in that world for someone who feels naked without a good red lipstick. I've often had to encourage myself to find a balance between the side of me that loves being stylish, having a nicely decorated home, and eating delicious food with the side that is passionate about homemade things, sustainability and minimalism. Its nice to see an example of someone who is really living those values, something I'm still and always striving to do.

Its worth reading the blog simply for the author's writing style. A sample, about eating out gluten-free "I have one rule when dining sans gluten - it should taste like gluten. I don't go out to eat healthy. I eat out so I can press the skin on my arm down afterwards and feel coagulated blood." 

Amazing.

Project 333

Although I tend to jump into new things with both feet, minimalism is something I've been working at slowly. I was initially coming from a place of great excess, spending more than I was earning and using "things" to make me feel better about myself. I didn't see it then, but these days I'm often struck by how far I've come in my approach to consumerism and money. Mind you, I still have a long way to go.  Its not a race, its a process that can take a lifetime and in order to fully learn from the experience, I can't rush through it. So far, the journey has been messy, flawed and full of learning.

One of the areas of minimalism and simplicity that has always been difficult for me is paring down my closet, makeup and accessories. I've always been conflicted about these things; on the one hand, I've loved makeup and fashion since I was a little girl, on the other hand I don't like how important our appearance seems to be, particularly for women. There's two sides of me constantly debating the joys and merits of indulging in this guilty pleasure while recognizing its inherent superficiality. As a result, I've struggled to keep my clothing to a minimum and to truly embrace this aspect of living a simple life.

After grumping around one morning last week, lamenting once again that I had "nothing" to wear, I stumbled on Project 333 again. I've read about this concept before and thought it sounded like a great idea, but I wasn't really interested. Something about it spoke to me this week though, and I decided to give it a shot. Two days ago I picked out 33 items from my closet including clothes and accessories (I didn't include shoes because I love them too much. Baby steps.) I boxed up the rest and vowed to wear only these 33 items (not including outerwear, underwear and gym clothe

s) for the next three months.

Already, I'm amazed at how peaceful I feel looking at my closet, with so much empty space and so few choices. I'm amazed at how many combinations I've already thought of for those few items, and how much easier it is to get dressed in the morning. I'm hoping I'll learn alot over the next few months about what I really like and don't like. I'm hoping I can redefine the word "need" when it comes to clothes, and find a way to embrace both fashion and simplicity.

“That’s Just Psycho” : On Being a Hippie Weirdo In the ‘Burbs

Sometimes I forget that we’re a bit “different” than a lot of folks in our immediate community. We don’t have cable, so we aren’t exposed to a lot of advertising. Some of our friends share a bit of our weirdness and those that don’t are used to us by now. Our families will sometimes ask questions, and our neighbors did double-takes last summer when we turned our front lawn into a garden, but overall I don’t often feel like the way we live is that far outside of the “norm”.

Don’t get me wrong, we are by no means cutting-edge in our approach to life. Our commitment to environmentalism, simplicity, frugality and breaking free of consumerism is deep and true, but in practice we are still refining things and finding our own way. We are relatively new to this urban/suburban homesteading thing.  There are far “greener” families than ours, that’s for sure. 

So I was really surprised a few weeks ago, when at a housewarming party for a work colleague, another colleague referred to me making my own yogurt as “psycho”. I don’t think she meant the comment to be terribly negative, but I found it odd that such a thing would be considered all that weird. The next week at the office, I overhead a group of women talking about it: “Did you know Kathryn makes her own yogurt?!” “Really? WHY?” “I could never do that”.

Last week my oldest son didn’t eat his school lunches. As it turns out, one of the other children told him his quinoa burger looked “weird” and “gross” and wondered why he didn’t have a “normal” lunch. Never mind that my son had been scarfing down the quinoa burgers like they were chocolate while helping me pack the lunch. He wanted a “normal” lunch too, which he informed me was things like chicken nuggets (store-bought), cheese strings, yogurt tubes and the like. He’s only 4. I thought I had more time until this stuff came up.

Last summer we put a garden in on the vacant lot next to us, with permission from the owners. You would have been forgiven for thinking we were planting pot, if you’d gone by the neighbors reactions. People looped around the street twice in their cars, slowing down to stare. People stopped us and asked us about what in the heck we were doing. Did we own this land now? Why would we put a garden in there? Does this mean anyone was allowed to eat the food ? People dumped their garbage in the garden. The by-law office was called because we used wood chips as mulch and someone didn’t like the looks of that. We were a bit flabbergasted – it wasn’t a meth lab for goodness sake, how can a garden be so controversial?

I’m not trying to sound self-righteous. We are by no means a family of eco-warriors, although we do aspire to be. We’re a two car family (for now) and we make many choices that are less than ideal from an environmental perspective. And while I do understand that some of the things we value and ds are not, shall we say, mainstream, its a little bit strange and isolating to feel so different from my peers. Moreover, I really worry about our kids feeling different as they get older. I believe in what we're doing, wholeheartedly. I truly feel that the only way we're going to make an impact on climate change is to stop trying to make everything convenient and easy, and rather re-learn some "old" skills like frugality, gardening, and cooking and most of all, learn to consume less. Its going to take a radical shift in values but its the kind of change that's actually achieved in small steps in our day-to-day lives with those little choices, like whether to bike or drive to the library or whether to make some yogurt at home or buy a 12-pack of disposable little containers of it.

Its a journey not a destination, and I don't think anyone should be criticized for whether they are on that journey. While I do think we are all going to have to change whether we like it or not because, lets face it, our current levels of consumption are completely unsustainable, we'll all have to find our own way in our own time. I'm in a much different place today than I was three or four years ago and I'd like to find a way to use my experiences as examples to my peers, so that growing much of one's own food on a suburban lot while working and raising young children doesn't seem totally impossible. I've spent a lot of my life trying not to be different or weird or anywhere outside of the norm. Its a silly and ultimately futile exercise anyway. Perhaps now is the time to just accept that as a family we do march to a different beat and that's ok. Hopefully we'll get some folks to join us along the way.

Giving less

image courtesy of apartment therapy.com

Its not a new idea, but I like it. The idea of giving LESS but more meaningful gifts really resonates with me, particularly as it relates to kids. About 6 times a day I give the hairy eyeball to our toy area, brimming with half-forgotten items and mismatched toys, despite several trips to Value Village already to donate things.  I know that our oldest son, about to turn 3, is only even aware of a small fraction of his toy collection. I worry because I want him to value his stuff, and take care of it. Moreover, he definitely gravitates towards books and simpler toys, ones that require his own imagination, rather than flashy, trendy toys.

 We have the fortunate "problem" of being blessed with a number of generous relatives, so the idea of ourselves giving him more and more and more stuff on his birthday and at Christmas makes me uneasy. I'd rather pare it down to 4 gifts - something he wants, something he needs, something he'll wear and something to read. He's so young that I think he'll make the transition to a more minimal celebration quite well. And we'll feel good knowing we're not adding to the pile of stuff in the toy corner that taunts me on a daily basis.

Scaling back

(source)

We honestly didn't realize how much stuff we had.

Take two somewhat impulsive shoppers with a hankering for a good deal, a few stuff-intensive hobbies, a really handy hubby who has a LOT of tools, and a couple of kids and you have...... way too much crap.

I knew we were in trouble when we moved to a 3000 sq foot home and still had stuff everywhere. When Jay's clothes still had to be stuffed into his closet and dresser, despite all the space. When R had enough toys to fill up a bedroom, a playroom and part of the family room.  When we had to store kitchen stuff in the basement because our huge kitchen still didn't have enough storage space.  For months I devised new organizational tools and storage solutions. We just need another bookcase, another set of shelves, more rubbermaid containers and a better system. At some point last fall, I looked around, exhausted from constantly organizing, cleaning, and storing.

We have too much stuff.


That was the problem. Not a lack of shelves, or drawers, or handy dandy organizational systems. We just have too much. We buy too much, we hang on to things too long, we falsely convince ourselves we need all this stuff. We don't need it. Not all of it, anyway.

As the plan to move and set ourselves up to build our dream home started to take shape, we realized the life we were heading for was much simpler than our current one. There just wouldn't be room for all this stuff. I suddenly felt free. And slightly panicked, and very ruthless. Jay and I discussed it and agreed we'd need to get rid of a good chunk of our stuff. As we prepared to list the house, I went through every room and tried to make an honest evaluation of its contents. Anything we hadn't used in the last 18 months (since our previous move) was out. Several bags went to Value Village for donation. We hired packers but still, I tried to go through each room periodically and toss/donate what wasn't useful to us.

Through another blog that I absolutely adore, I discovered Minimalist Mom and Simple Mom, two blogs which inspired me to continue scaling back. Reading about these moms' journeys to minimalism and simplicity made me feel...peaceful. The idea of living intentionally, free from the shackles of a constant consume-waste-consume cycle, really resonated with me and I've continued to sell and donate what we don't need even after the move was complete.

I wish I could say this process has been streamlined and systematic, but alas, there's nothing streamlined about me these days, not with a three month old in tow all the time! While the process hasn't been perfect, the idea remains powerful: buy less, consume less, live with less. I really do think our life will be richer if we maintain this as our mantra.