Safety and love

After the wordy musings of my last post, this one will be nice and short.


This wasn't an easy week for the little lady. She started off not feeling so great, and we had some pretty rough nights. But she handled it well, managing things in her own way by retreating to "safe mode", which included wanting to be as close to me as possible at all hours and wearing her bike helmet everywhere.

She's a tough little girl and I admire her strength, but I also needed to learn more about my own. It's hard, when you have been up and down all night, to have to continue giving that same level of love all day, when there is work to be done but a little person breaks down into tears when you step away for so much as a second just to go to the bathroom. But I am learning that I can do it. Needless to say, it is nice to see her feeling better again now.

Earth Day and the little changes everyday

So as I mentioned in some previous posts, I've been attempting to implement various earth-friendly changes into my life in recent months via the "One Small Change Challenge". Not to say that I'm not usually doing that, but I was making a particular effort. I discovered a few things along the way.


First, April:


During the month of April I was trying not to buy anything packaged in plastic. I did pretty well but found a few weaknesses - cereal and crackers. Brant likes them, the little Miss C likes them, and yes I like them too. I suppose I could start making my own, but realistically I don't have the time for it. We could stop eating them, but with a daughter who loves crackers and a husband who loves his Grape-nuts, I just don't see that happening anytime soon.


A bit more bad news? Economically speaking, I didn't find my plastic-packaging fast to be all that rewarding. In some cases, it was actually more expensive to buy the bulk items. Never mind the fact that I also needed to haul all my own containers to the store. At my local market which features many bulk bins, the cost of a pound of whole wheat pasta was roughly $3. The cost of a pound of pre-packaged organic whole wheat pasta at Safeways? $1.50. A pound of bulk tofu? $2.89. At Safeways (14 oz) in a convenient plastic tub? Again, $1.50. From that standpoint, it can be hard to justify the bulk purchasing - other than as a way to give myself an earth-friendly pat on the back.


That said, there were some bright moments to this effort. Since I was really thinking about this, I ended up discovering that there are some interesting and creative packaging options being attempted - and it was a pleasure to support them. One of my favorites was the reusable glass bottles of Strauss organic milk. Although this is the most expensive organic milk on the shelf, Strauss is a local dairy and they sell their milk in reusable glass bottles. You make a bottle deposit when your purchase, which is refunded when you bring the bottle back. Good local milk in a reusable container? Yes please. 


While this one involves plastic, another interesting option I discovered was a pizzeria that does reusable pizza boxes. The boxes are made of plastic, but you can purchase one with your order and then get $1 off all future pizza orders when you bring your box. I love hearing about companies that are thinking "out of the box" (haha) in these kinds of ways. And I want to support and encourage them whenever it is possible for me to do so.


I also discovered, while examining my plastic-packaged granola (conveniently abundant at the Grocery Outlet right now), that the company that makes it actually invites you to return the packaging to them! They then recycle it into other cool stuff that you can get as you accumulate "points" by returning your bags. I love these creative approaches!


As for the other part of my plan, that was to not buy anything new for the month of April. In this area I also didn't completely succeed, but shopping was definitely much reduced, and it actually felt good to decide not to go shopping because I made this pledge to myself. So what was our weakness? We made a trip to REI to take advantage of the limited time member discount and got a new bike helmet for Brant and a hat for me. I would love to keep this up as much as possible - not buying anything new unless we really need it and buying used isn't an option.


I'd like to do better with reduced packaging, and it was cool to discover companies that are making a conscious and sincere effort to take this into consideration, but it remains a challenge when the economics and practicality (not every store has bulk bins) don't support making this change easily. I think what I will try to do is identify the products that I feel are really doing a good job (like the Strauss milk) and focus my efforts on supporting them, even if they are a bit more expensive. I'll try to find the savings elsewhere - if we can keep up with an overall reduction of shopping, I think we should even come out ahead!


Now, in general:


I really enjoyed thinking about small changes, and I think the fun thing about this effort is seeing how I have integrated them into my daily life. I like watching aspects of each change roll forward from month to month. In February, my change was to "do more of what matters". I'm still consciously making the choice to get us out and engaged in activities that make us feel like an active part of our community. I think this choice has helped with reducing our consumption of "stuff" and increased our consumption of good, quality living. This past weekend we took part in a fun farm tour to support local farms and Cassidy got some time up close with sweet little baby goats (I'll say more about all that later). 

In March we tried to purchase less plastics. As I really took a critical look at the amount of plastic that we so easily buy, it opened my eyes to just how much of it there is out there. While there is some stuff where plastic still seems like the best option, I'm now trying to gradually replace more and more of it with other, more sustainable options. I think more about what I buy. I am one who can easily be talked into a good deal, but I'm starting to realize that just because plastic is often the cheapest choice, that doesn't mean it is the one I should get. As I think about things we need for the home, I'm putting questions closer to the forefront of my thinking. First "Can I choose another product that is not made from or heavily packaged in plastic?" If that other option is out of my price range, I can simply ask "Can we live without it?" The answer is that, often, we can.


What I'm thinking about as I continue to carry these changes forward is, how can they make me feel good about our lives on this beautiful planet? I don't feel like living in a world of eco-guilt (for all the things I'm not doing) is all that conducive to a healthy and productive life, but I also don't think we can go on blithely consuming as much as we want without thinking about the consequences. What I am loving is the feeling of control over the decisions I make - each small change - the decision to buy the Strauss milk for example - or each small choice - getting up and actively getting out to support our community - make me feel like if I take enough of these little baby steps, eventually they will lead up to a full run. Since I feel I'm fortunate to have these choices available to me, I want to embrace them. I am excited to continue discovering the creative ways we can continue making the changes that will invite a more harmonious relationship with all the other living things on this planet. Happy Earth Day!


(And if you made it this far through my Earth Day/small change musings, my congratulations to you as well!)

Saturday mornings are for plant sales

There really is nothing like a good spring plant sale on a moisty, misty Saturday morning. Well, to tell you the truth, that thought never actually occurred to me until this weekend, but it still seems right. On the hot, sunny days of last week, spring was coming down upon us in full force, but on yesterday's cool grey morning, it was back to more of a slow creep...


We drove out through white-blossomed apple orchards towards the coast. Our first stop: an amazing organic bakery with a wood-fired oven for baking their breads and gardens and a miniature pony out back:

The end point of our drive was the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) and the plant sale for cool-weather, spring crops. Air hung damp and cool on the forests and gardens around us and two guitarists serenaded shoppers with some folksy music, as we perused brassicas with intriguing names like "Shiney Diney" (yes, I had to buy that one), lots of lettuce, herbs, edible flowers and perennials. We also came away with some hot flamingo chard (bright pink stems apparently), pacific beauty calendula, white-flowering borage and cilantro. 


I hadn't been back to OAEC since I took a two-week residential permaculture course there eight years ago, and we enjoyed the chance to explore the gardens once again. C took a particular fancy to a circular teaching area full of chairs suitable for climbing. Other than that, we tried to keep her careening baby steps from landing on any tender new growth in the gardens.

It was interesting to me, as we walked around the grounds, to think back on my eight years ago self and everything that had transpired between my last visit to the gardens and now. Would eight years ago me have expected today's me to be the one that returned? That course had been a special experience for me, at a particular point in my life. Then, I was a senior in college, new to California, fully captivated by a place and people and ideas about living that were new and exciting to me. Then, my post-graduate life waited like a mysterious gift, ready to be unwrapped. Now, I'm well into post-graduate life and I know something about the different places and people and job experiences it contains - not to mention marriage and motherhood. Some of it has indeed been magical and mysterious. Other parts have been fairly mundane. And now, here I am living actually quite close to OAEC. 


It's interesting to me to note which roads in life wrap back on themselves, and which ones don't. As I walked up through the gardens following the little miss C, I felt grateful that this road was one that brought me back. 

Happiest little hippy baby...striding into spring!

April Small Change

So as you may remember our change from March was to buy less plastics. I can't attest to 100% success, but then I suppose "buy less" is more relative than "buy none", so maybe any small effort qualifies as success...I didn't buy any new plastics for the home (whether in the form of gadgets, ziploc bags, whatever). One happy coincidence came in the form of the Easter egg dilemma. I'd pretty much convinced myself that I wasn't into the whole Easter as another commercial holiday thing, and thus was satisfied not to indulge in any of those plastic eggs to be filled with candy; however, as the month wore on and I reflected more on the Easters of my childhood, I remembered how much I enjoyed cracking open those little eggs filled with treasures, and then I kind of wanted Cassidy to have that experience too...alas. Just then another mom in one of our local mom's groups posted that she had a ton of those plastic eggs that she wanted to get rid of and I happily scooped up a bag from her. Yeah I know they are kind of cheesy, but kind of fun too. 

enjoying an egg full of cheerios

At any rate, even though we were able to cut down somewhat on the general plastics, plastics in the form of food packaging continue to flow in at a disheartening rate. Even though for the last few months I've been eyeing what all I can find in the bulk bins, and often purchasing from them, it's sometimes discouraging when stuff is actually more expensive bought in bulk than it is handily packaged for me. I know there are a bunch of weird economics that make that the case, but let's face it, it can be all too tempting to go for the easier option. Plus, when Brant and I both work (albeit part-time in my case), I don't always have time to hit the shops with the good bulk bins when I need something. But still, despite these words of discouragement, hope springs eternal and I'm really going to try to not buy any new plastic-packaged food items as my small change in the month of April.


On top of that, April being the actual month of Earth Day, I'm going to throw in a bonus round and try not to buy anything new whatsoever (except for food, obviously, and things like toothpaste or shampoo or whatever). I think this will be a good chance to really rethink our purchasing habits. I was recently reading this blog posting from YES! magazine, which inspired me with some helpful questions in thinking through each time you want to purchase something. How will I do? Well it will be interesting to find out - I may be setting my expectations a little too high - but it will be fun to try at least!

Ice Cream Ride

Last Sunday we did a little ice cream bike ride with various friends and associates to one of our favorite nearby ice creameries. Featuring unique flavors such as olive oil and lavender, it's a fun place to go even just for the chance to test out some of these interesting ice cream tastes. The bike ride was beautiful - mostly along a bike trail with green and yellow fields of mustard along the side. All around us other people were enjoying the afternoon on all kinds of bikes, or on foot, or as we saw one guy doing, on a motorized kid-style scooter. I wasn't so sure about the last option, but it was nice to see everyone out and about. 


Cassidy was in her element at our ice cream stop, since she had many interested people to lavish her with attention.

I love all her little expressions as she goes stomping around in her little mushroom boots (she has these little brown boots decorated with red and white mushrooms in the super mario style...), doing her funny waddle. Checking out the world and demanding that the world check her out too.


Really, a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Felt kind of European (as I imagine it at least), to be able to bike to the next town for ice cream and playing in the park and then back home for dinner.


We even took it one step further by stopping for dinner downtown on our way home, something we never do. But, we realized, if you like having local businesses then you'd better be supporting them. We stopped at our favorite Chinese place, unsure of how Cassidy would take to it, but turned out - she loved it! Veggie dumplings were a bit hit, along with big handfuls of rice, bits of mango from a chicken and mango dish, and some tofu and veggie soup. She also enjoyed the fact that the restaurant was right next to a fountain, which she got to splash her hands in prior to the meal.

All in all, discovering many wonderful ways to spend a Sunday!

Stop and smell the flowers

This was not the best week. Monday started off to the sound of chainsaws and a woodchipper. Our neighbor across the street was removing the large front tree in their yard (apparently the root system was beginning to interfere with the foundation of the house), but in order to bring the tree down safely it had to be removed piece by piece. It's always sad to see a big tree coming down, and it doesn't help when chainsaws always seem to start buzzing right when it's supposed to be naptime...


The chainsaw days were followed up with the car getting broken into in the Target parking lot. They stole the stereo and, as if to add insult to injury, they also took a big grocery bag filled with a bunch of Asian sauces we'd purchased over the weekend in Chinatown and I hadn't yet gotten around to bringing into the house. Fortunately nothing else was taken and no damage was done to the car in the process, but it just seemed so random and pointless. I was upset about losing the stereo and groceries, but more than the stuff it's that feeling of having your space violated that is so distressing. 


So between the tree, the no naps, the car break-in and a few other things that don't require further detail here, mid-week found me feeling very glum and wondering what I had done to so offend the universe this week. One afternoon Cassidy and I were hanging laundry and playing out in the backyard (rather she was playing and I was lost in my own pity-party) when she broken my train of thought by suddenly announcing "La! La!" "La" is her word for flower (I think it comes from the way you say the "lo" in the word flower). I looked to where she was pointing and was surprised to realize one whole wall of our garden was in bloom. There have been some flowers here and there that I had noticed, but now it seemed like everything was out and announcing that spring is really here. I noted azaleas, bleeding hearts, peonies, and more I couldn't identify (and actually I'm not totally solid on the peonies either). But it shifted my perspective right there to stand for a moment and soak in the beauty of all these springtime flowers, right in my own backyard. I ran back inside for the camera to capture these moments of spring. I continually have Cassidy to thank for reminding me to notice everything that's good.