I was in Bellingham, Washington this Friday. I love that place, have loved it forever. It’s a great hippy, college, bike friendly town with a beautiful view. I took this one from the beach next to the old boardwalk.
Tully’s “green” cup
I was given a Tully’s gift card a couple of weeks ago. Out of the city of Seattle it isn’t as popular as Starbucks, but if you pay attention there is probably one near you. I went into the Bothell store on Thursday, which is a few minutes from my office to get my drink, a tall vanilla soy latte. Waiting patiently by the counter I marveled at how much it looked like Starbucks and yet how different it was. But that is not why I post. My coffee came in a more squat cup than Starbucks uses and it said, “ Tully’s Green Cup is 100% Compostable”. Really? Well that’s cool, only wish I had a composter to use.
This morning I hopped online to see what I could learn about this thing. I have read the press release from Tully’s
, a Seattle P.I.
article and a quicky post on the The Resposible Marketing Blog.
It seems that the cup is compostable because of it’s bio-plastic lining that replaces the petrol based lining to prevent leaky cups. Great! Tully’s has also implemented a recycling option for customers. Bring in your cup and they will send it out to be composted for you at one of two locations in either Everett or Maple Valley. That means that it is up to us to bring back our cups to be properly, eco-friendly disposed of. Also great! Right? Well, the liner is made out of corn. I don’t want to criticize a company that is trying, whether for the good of the world or the good of their bank accounts, to better themselves. But corn isn’t the best thing in the world. It is the first completely genetically altered “food”. Corn came from maize, and through hundreds or thousands of years, farmers altered it to produce more to feed more. Problem with that is we do not digest it, so it is only a filler food. Do we really want fillers composted into our soil? In turn it will end up in our food as it is used for fertilizer. As many of us know, compost is very nutrient rich and many times is used in place of synthetic fertilizers.
I think in this case, it is the lesser of two evils – for now. It is much better than our beloved coffee cups ending up in landfills, though to be fair, many of these “green” cups will end up in landfills anyway. It is a start, and hopefully more companies will follow suit. Hopefully, also a new option will be discovered and thoroughly researched that isn’t corn based.
Rituals
In the last couple of weeks, since moving to north Everett, I have felt lost. Not horrible, just misplaced and out of control. It seems that control can sometimes be an illusion. You may decide what to wear in a day, what products to use in your home and on your person. You may even have control over what you do for a living and how often you do it. However, in the end, at least right now, it is the large companies and government whom run the “important” things, such as the stock market and taxes. In the end after bad choices made by strangers, you may loose control of your life by loosing your job and health insurance.
Being a control freak, I had trouble with accepting that many things are/were out of my control. I cannot control my clients or their jobs and bosses to keep them returning to me each week. However, I can control how I react and pro-act for more things to come. School seems to be in the near future for me. Though massage is a great profession, it is viewed as a luxury by most people, even though it should not be. The whole business is struggling. This is not my fault. It really sucks. I’m not going to wallow though, but jump into a new experience with gusto.
What will be my newest excursion in the professional world? Even I am not completely sure about that. That’s okay, I have a few months and a vague goal in mind..
Aside from setting goals, I have been withdrawing from things that make my mind feel cluttered. Clutter itself is going to be cleared. Unneeded things will be donated or given away. While reminiscing about simpler days, spent as a nanny up north, I thought about how I managed stress, how I went to bed each night and cleared my mind. I had rituals, though sometimes silly, they served the purpose to clear my mind and settle my soul and help me enjoy life more. One that I developed for early mornings in the summer was coffee on the second story patio, watching the sun rise above the hills. Breathing the aroma of coffee and birch and pine trees helped me start the day right. In the evening, during the summer, I would sit outside – sometimes without a book, sometimes with one – and sit on my first level patio and listen. I love to listen to the natural world. Though sometimes it is noisy, it is usually very calming and even spiritual. The family cat would come down and wind circles around my legs, purring a simple song for herself.
What rituals can I have here, in the heart of the suburbs, blocks away from downtown Everett? So far, Rick and I took a quick walk to the end of the block and around the corner. It was great. As long as we are not too drawn up in little things around the apartment, we will be doing that. For now it is too cold to sit outside on the steps and drink tea or coffee.
I have turned off the TV more in the last few days. It’s boring, always the same old thing that fills my head with senseless noise. I started going to bed a little earlier, reading for a few minutes and then turning off the light and laying still. I focus on enjoying the stillness and the nearness of my dog and husband whom at the time is usually still on the computer. Today, I lit a candle and it has been burning for a few hours. Candles help with rituals. I have hung up two shelves in the bedroom and I think I will put candles there. I listened to music while doing housework, instead of listening to the TV. I actually finished folding the laundry today. That was big victory for me.
Though to some people rituals may seem boring, a sign of someone getting older (I’m only 24 by the way), I think they should be appreciated for what they can bring – calm and peace to the mind, body and spirit.
Just thinking about all these ideas is making my heart settle. I could go down to the waterside and walk along whatever is down there. I do love the water. Have I mentioned that I love walking and want to do more of it? If I can only find my mp3 player, I can listen to music while I walk.
I think an important thing to do is to have some rituals that include those you love – Rick for me – and some for yourself only. It is okay to be selfish sometimes.
Confession
I have a confession to make. Whilest changing many of our every day things to more eco-friendly options I have one big thing that I have refused to change, due in part to a little old lady I met a few years ago.
I formally used dish clothes to do dishes and cleaning around the kitchen. I tried hard not to think about how gross it was that the dish clothes progressively got stiffer and almost crunchy the more I used them. If it got bad, I would throw them away.
Then on a day at work – doing in-home care – I met a lovely little old lady. She was funny, tiny, short and hump backed. It was almost unnecessary for me to be there as can be the case with in-home care. She was reasonably self-sufficient and stubborn. She wanted help on her terms.
I went to do what I could, get the mail, sweep, offer to make her food, which she refused because according to her she does not need me to tear off the plastic top for a microwave dinner. I cleaned for her. I looked around the little trailer for a dishcloth or sponge. Finding none, I asked. She explained that she had few fears, but one of them was germs. She does not use dish clothes, don’t I know how many germs those spread around? She used paper towels. After one cleaning, she threw them away.
At the time, I considered this wasteful, but one part of me, the clean freak, thought about the crunchy dish clothes at home and shuddered. Thus started my affair with paper towels.
Now, three years later, I still use paper towels. While deciding to become greener I “forgot” about my paper towels. The crunchy dishtowels dance little gross jigs in my imagination, taunting me: “You think you are cleaning, but you are just spreading germs, that will make you sick later, which you will blame on someone else!” I was not ready to give up the disposable towel.
Now several months into my change I am being pulled in a different direction. I know that it is bad to throw away so many paper towels. I did not see an out, a good fix for me. Now however, I have an idea. While packing I came across knitted wash clothes from my grandmother-in-law. They are adorable. I have never used them because they are too pretty. What if I made my own, on which I will have not emotional attachment? I have extra yarn from projects. I could use it up, which will allow me to declutter and upcycle at the same time. I’ll use them until I deem they need to go to the garbage pail. And once they are gone I will replace them with 100% cotton or bamboo or wool cloths that I will crochet or knit (once I learn how). It seems a good idea, what do you think? By switching to cloth, I will be throwing less away. I can also choose to clean them more sufficiently, by boiling in vinegar and then washing.
I am nervous about the dancing germ cloths, but realize that I must compromise to achieve my goals and be a better Earth-steward.
More goals and desires
I have already shared some of our goals for 2009. One of them was paying off bills, which seems to be a common one for many adults – I am not sure if I would consider myself an adult yet, but I am of that age. Rick and I have spent hours talking about what we want in life. Several of our conversations – during which I re-realize that I am lucky to have someone so likeminded as myself – have led us to thoughts about this silly race to have things.
America, it seems is very much about what you have and do, not who you are. I found it frustrating as a teen because I never seemed to reach the ideal. I feel it now, having tried on our own to have what we thought we wanted. In the end, after a few years of leaving our roots behind, we have found that it is not worth the sacrifice one must make to work too much in order to have those fabulous shoes or the latest HD channels to watch on our HD TV.
We were not completely superficial. We dif try to be good people. But in looking for what would make us happy – I think we let the superficial world in too much – we found that it is each other, not a great TV that makes life full.
I felt a little lost over the last couple of years. I slaved over books to finish school, then slaved over bodies at two jobs, self-employment and working for a company, waiting to feel fulfilled. It never happened. I feel like I have been pretending since graduating, afraid that my business would not succeed; I pretended to be what I thought someone else would like. I did not think that most people, especially in the area of my business, would like or tolerate who I am.
I do not regret the adventures we have had in Snohomish County. I came from a small town, a small family – very “crunchy” and frugal – and wanted to experience a different life. Now that I have, I’m done. I want a small town again. I want to work a little, but I don’t want it to define me. I want to work so that I can play, so that Rick and I can spend as much time together as possible.
Faced with possibly more serious health problems led us to realized that we are what matters. Being together is the priority, not having stuff. So this year we will strive to get back to our roots.
On the agenda is paying off those bills. Once paid off, it will free a large amount of money. (You may think that we have a large amount now, we don’t. Rick was laid off remember. But it will relieve pressure.) We may even be able to save a little.
Also this year will be more of a purging year. We have realized, moving into a smaller place, where we could take only what we needed, we do not want or need most of our stuff. Our needs are a lot less than we thought. They are clothing, food of course, a computer for each, my books and art supplies and a couple more electronics for Rick, and camping stuff. I’m not ever sure what all that other stuff is.
So we will be downsizing a lot this year. I want to be able to pick up and go anywhere in the world, not worrying about storing things back “home”. I’ve felt tied down and muddled with all our clutter. That will change.
Yes, I mentioned that I want to be able to leave for anywhere. That does not mean that we are going to do that this year. I want to live in Skagit Valley for a little while. The plan seems to be to get a little bitty house in the valley and be there for a couple of years. But after that, we both would like to live somewhere else. San Francisco is appealing to both of us. Spain and Italy or Greece appeals to me. I do not want to settle there and raise babies – at the moment – but I want to experience living there, perhaps for a year or so. Life is meant to be lived, experienced not let to go by without affecting your existence.
So along with paying and purging there are a couple other things. First is to try to find something that will allow us to leave and go anywhere. Does that mean my blog? I have no idea. It is for fun now, but if it allowed me to travel that would be awesome! It could also mean that I turn my love of crocheting into something more productive. I am a lot better and not worried about failing. I want to learn to knit as well so I can make fun cute things when we decide to have kids and so I can make something else a person may wish to buy.
A huge desire is to be self-suffient. Due impart to a problem with authority and the arrogance that I can do it better, I don’t want to work for someone. I may have to but that is not my goal for my whole life. Though massage is great, it will not allow me to travel, as I want. You have to stick to one place to build a clientele. It is also very discouraging to tell someone that their insurance will not cover massage even though they need it.
So what will allow us to be self-sufficient? I have no idea, but am willing to try different things.
Another consideration is something I didn’t think would happen for many years. I was bitten hard by the “baby bug”. I don’t want to go out and have one now, but I am 99% sure that I want kids and that I want to birth them myself. Crazy. Just because I am not in a hurry, does not mean that I am going to leave all the research I consider essential to the 9 months of growing a babe. This desire has further supported my desire to get back to my roots and pay off bills and be self-sufficient. To me it is very important to live the way I want to raise children for a little while before having those children. That means living as natural and mainstream free as we can. Let’s become more crunchy.
Listing off these goals does not mean that I am doing a 180. We have already turned in the direction that we wanted. We already live crunchy, eating naturally, unprocessed foods, recycling or upcycling, donating what we don’t need or want. But we have a long way to go. Besides if it was easy or fast, it would be boring.
Switching dog foods
Xiann
I think that I have mentioned that we put our little dog, Xiann, on a partially raw diet a few months ago. As a caring pet parent, I want her and Milo to have the best nutrition that I can provide. Milo refuses to eat raw anything so he’s still being fed kibble. You can’t make a cat do something they do not wish to do.
So I have done some things for Xiann. She no longer eats the typical meats for raw or kibble. Not that they are bad but because I have read that some dogs have slight intolerances to severe allergies of common meats like chicken or beef. Also, having read that it is better to rotate different protein based foods to allow for proper nutrition, I have been doing that at the end of each little bag of kibble. Makes sense to me, we don’t eat the same thing everyday and expect to have all our needs met.
I thought things were going well. Then in the recent month or so she has been throwing up a lot. She has also been refusing to eat the kibble anymore. Of course, she loves the raw and would eat it all day if I let her. We have been watching her closely, hoping that she is not sick and it is just dealing with an upset, sensitive tummy.
On Monday, I gave her allotment of raw and kibble and she let the kibble sit out and refused to eat it. Rick, later that day, enticed her to eat some kibble. Not long after, she went to sleep on the couch with us. A couple minutes after I woke her up to potty she regurgitated again. Looking closely, I saw the kibble. Poor baby. A few minutes after this, she started to act hungry. I gave her a small piece of raw and watched her. She acted close to normal. She was tired, but she never acts completely normal after puking. However, she did not look “yucky” anymore. Her belly was not tender and her tail was wagging.
Due to this, Rick and I have decided that she will go on a pure, natural diet of no kibble. She will eat the safe foods for dogs to eat, cooked lightly by yours truly. I’ve done a little research and have found lists of safe foods for dogs to eat. Those are the foods that you find in kibble. This way however, I will be able to control the quality of her food more closely.
So here it is, the list of dog safe and unsafe foods.
• Meats cooked rare such as chicken, turkey, beef. But not salmon, pork, or lamb which due to parasites should be thoroughly cooked. ( A couple of the sites do not recommend feeding raw because of the slight chance that a dog will get salmonella poisoning. Though I wish to feed raw, I am not set up to do it at home, by hand, at the moment.) I am considering supplementing her diet with some raw from the feed store because if you get a good raw, it will contain bones and liver, which dogs need.
• Some veggies such as lettuce, carrots, green beans, potatoes, red and green bell peppers, and yams are safe. I do however have hesitations feeding dogs potatoes and yams due to what I have read about those foods raising blood sugar in people more than sugar. I will due more research.
• Some grains, but not in large quantities: rice, oats and whole grain breads that due not have sugar added.
Do not feed onions or garlic. Nor pits or seeds of apples, cherries, peaches or other such fruits as some of them contain cyanide. If you feed your dog any of theses fruits, be sure to core and pit them because they don’t know to avoid those things. No chocolate, or any form of caffeine. No nuts, especially macadamian nuts, and no nutmeg. An exception would be natural, no sugar added peanut butter. (That means no Jiff, but Adam’s Peanut butter would be okay.) No tomatoes or mushrooms. Nor animal fat or fried foods which are also high in fat, they are not good for us, so don’t give them to your dogs. No cooked bones because they can splinter and poke holes in the digestive track which is very dangerous. No raisins or grapes or uncooked eggs. Absolutely no xylitol, sugar or corn syrups. As a rule, you don’t have to sweeten a dogs food. However, honey and molasses is okay in very small quantities.
If you read something, you do not believe to be accurate, please let me know. I do not want to be providing inaccurate information. Also, because I wish to give my dog the safest foods, if I learn anything more I’ll make another post.
Goals versus Resolutions
I don’t do resolutions, I do goals
I used to be among the many “resolutioners”. In my old journals, you will find pages written around January 1. At the end of the year, I cap my progress. Nothing ever got done. So now, instead of waiting for January to start something new, I start it when I think about it, or after I have done enough research to see if it is a good idea for me. Let me recap what happened last year, what changes have stuck.
• In the spring we changed our diet to exclude processed, unnatural things. We have “cheated” a few times, but I can probably count the times on one or both of my hands. Much better than every meal being unhealthy for us and the environment.
• Last summer, I bought and started using cloth grocery bags. I don’t always remember to bring them, but I remember them more than I forget them.
• I buy organic when I can, which due to Rick being laid off is less often.
• The meats I buy are hormone and antibiotic free. The other stuff just tastes gross now.
• As I run out of beauty products I replace them with safer, more eco-friendly options. I have been doing this since late summer/ early fall.
• Started recycling and researching what is actually recyclable.
• Read more books than the year before.
• Paid off most of the medical bills. Only one old one remains and one “new” one.
• Switched Milo and Xiann’s food to more natural options.
What are my goals for 2009? Once again, I will make changes as I can. They are goals, not absolutes so if it takes them three months to be started or finished it’s okay.
• Pay off final medical bills and two credit cards. (this will take several months)
• Do not use credit unless there is an emergency.
• Read more books than last year and different kinds of books.
• Use the library.
• Buy more organic foods.
• Continue to make most meals from scratch with natural and organic ingredients.
• De-clutter (so far, I’m off to a good start, having rid my closet of four bags of clothing already!)
• Research a new career option that would provide more stability for us, and not require Rick to work (health reasons may prevent him).
• Get our passports!
Goals versus resolutions. What do you do? Do you make lists of things at the beginning of the year or throughout the year? I think it is better to have goals, because there may be something that you end up changing without thinking about it a lot. It may just be something that you didn’t know you wanted to do. Add it to your mental or literal “goals achieved” list. It is a positive boost to give your brain. Hopefully, in the end you will feel accomplished, not bogged down with unfinished resolutions.
One final idea is if you have goals in mind, have fun with them. Add a mini-vacation to your list. Or a shopping spree to your local vintage shop. There is no reason to be uptight about goals, some of them should be fun.
