Good & Fair

I wanted to let you know about a great place to get underwear. Good and Fair was started by Shelton Green in 2010. He’s a great guy who was motivated to start the company as a way to do something about human trafficking. We now have a t-shirt made by them, and all of Charlie’s boxers come from Good & Fair. Their clothing is very well made, and the fabric is very soft and comfortable. It’s both organic and Fair Trade.

Hundred Dollar Holiday

I re-read Bill McKibben’s Hundred Dollar Holiday this summer, and I loved it just as much as I did the first time I read it. It was one of the main texts used in a lecture at L’Abri, which was given by my tutor, Mardi Keyes. I love and respect her, and I enjoyed her lecture. So, I bought the book.

It’s a short and easy read. I’m a slow reader, and I finished in two days. My friend Laura just finished it in a day. I’m going to give you a very quick and dirty synopsis of the book. But, I can’t encourage you enough to read it for yourself. McKibben spends the first third of the book giving a brief history of Christmas. For me, it was so helpful to see the history of Christmas as a construction. It helps me to be less sentimental at Christmas (not in a way that makes me feel cynical in hearing Silent Night; but more in a way that helps me question it when I see images of children with lots of lavish gifts on Christmas morning). The second third of the book talks about the current state of affairs in celebrating Christmas. Essentially, McKibben sees the current situation as being one of excess for most of the year. Because we live with so much throughout the year, in order for Christmas to feel special, it’s gotten more and more elaborate. With this elaborate Christmas, we’ve also gotten more frenzy, chaos and debt. In the last third of the book, McKibben helps the reader to envision another alternative. An alternative that focuses on Christmas as a deeply meaningful time. A time that focuses on family and friends. A time of preparation for celebrating the birth of Jesus. A time of giving and service.

The first year after I read the book, my husband was unemployed. In light of the richness of our time at L’Abri and with the helpful perspective given in this book, we had one of the simplest, least materially bountiful and most joyful holidays that we’ve ever had. In the two years since then, we’ve continued the journey. Two years ago, we gave the book to all our adult family members, and last year, we did mostly charitable giving for our family. It’s never simple to fundamentally change the way that you celebrate a holiday which is so bound in the tradition of gift giving. Never easy. It’s a slow process. It may be messy. People may not understand. I think it’s helpful to think of this journey as a process- one that may take several years. But, let me share what we’ve gained:

• We’ve gained re-set expectations from our children.  They now expect to give lavishly to children in need.  They had a great time going through the toy store last year and filling our basket with gifts for children that we didn’t know.  They were so excited about giving this basket full of gifts so that lots of children in our area would have a few gifts on Christmas morning.
• Their “normal” Christmas has been re-set.  They now expect to get just a few well-chosen gifts.
• We’ve gained a wonderfully relaxed Christmas season.
• We’ve gained a mom (that’s me) who is sane in December.
• We’ve gained white space to do crafts and cook together during the holidays.
• We’ve gained the tradition of our Christmas Day St. Francis walk- feeding the birds as we walk as a family.
• We’ve gained the tradition of the Jesse Tree.

I also want to share a few ideas for gift giving that I’ve done over the last few years.    If you want to give small gifts to your family and friends, now is a great time to think about what you would like to do.  It will help December to be less stressful if the gifts are already taken care of.  So, here we go:

• Hand made stationery
• Hand made soap
• Honey from our hives
• Dried herbs from our garden
• Cookies and candy for the neighbors
• Give your loved ones the gift of a gingerbread house party.  You can do this so easily by purchasing the kits from Trader Joes.  Heads up my friends, I’m wanting to do this in December with a group this year!    Click here if you want to read about our experience doing this with our kids last year.
• Get together with good friends and cook a meal together.
• Host an Open House in your neighborhood to nurture your neighbors.

If you have ideas, I would love to hear them.  I would also love to hear from you if you’ve read the book.  Many people loved Hundred Dollar Holiday, but McKibben also took a lot of heat for the book.  What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

On a related note, you can read here about my thoughts last December as I was celebrating a Christmas with White Space.

A Bowl of Water

Our water heater went out last Wednesday, and we made do over the weekend. This experience has been the source of some great conversations between my husband and me. Interestingly, our kids have been oblivious. Tells you how much of a priority bathing is for them. But, I really love a hot shower. I was pretty irritated that I would have to go through a weekend without hot water. It’s turned out to be a really wonderful experience. It gave me perspective. I might add that this perspective is from the cheap seats. I have the luxury of having drinkable water coming out of my tap whenever I want- however much I want.

The more I read about water, the more I am completely grateful to have water

coming

out

of

my

tap

I read a story in a magazine last month about the impact that a well makes in a community. Women in this community spent about four hours a day just toting water. Walking to the creek. Filling your jug. Carrying 50 lbs of water on your back all the way back to your home. They call the dry season the “season of miscarriages” because pregnant women miscarry their babies more frequently during the dry season. Charlie was talking with our friend Isaac about our water experience over the weekend. Isaac shared about communities that he’s visited where hotels bring you a bucket of water to bathe in. Understanding how time-consuming water acquisition is in many parts of the developing world helps me to see what a complete act of hospitality this is. A whole bucket of water.

What Charlie and I have noticed since our hot water went out is how decadent a bowl of warm water is. I’ve been using a bowl of heated water to wash the kids’ hands and faces. What’s been completely surprising has been my feeling of intense gratitude for this warm bowl of water to wash my children. I had a wonderfully touching conversation last week with a woman who I deeply respect about this need we have to meet our children’s basic needs. We were talking about people who live in refugee camps and can’t ever get their children really clean. The larger issue is meeting the needs of your children. But this smaller issue of bathing our children spoke to my heart. Then, my hot water went out. I realized how spoiled I am. I was put out that the water coming out of my tap wasn’t warm. When I lived without warm water for a few days, I realized how decadent it was. My children genuinely enjoyed getting their faces and hands washed with a bit of soap and a clean warm washrag.

I guess I’m slowly learning how little I really need to be happy. The repair person is coming to fix the hot water heater today. But, I don’t want to forget this. I want to remember to be grateful. I want to remember to savor the luxury of bathing my children.

TMI

Ahem. Deep shaky breath.

For some of you, this is going to be way too much information. You’ve been warned.

For those of you who were brought up in the south, yes my mother did teach me not to talk about things like this. I’m sorry, mom.

About a year ago, Charlie and I gave up using toilet paper. About a week ago, we got the kids going with the program. If this is completely disgusting for you, stop reading now. If you’re interested, read on.

First off, I want you to know that I’m not trying to convince you to give up toilet paper. What I am trying to do is to give you the information you need if you’ve ever considered doing this. I’m hoping to demystify the idea and to let you know that it’s not as icky as you might think- at least I don’t think it is.

My husband was very reluctant at first. I bought our first set of wipes. He smiled and said that he would give it a try. No commitment. After about a week, we both saw that it was no big deal. After a year, we’re both wondering why we waited so long. We both prefer the wipes to toilet paper.

Why?

We’ve been slowly going off paper products for the last several years. First came paper napkins, then paper towels. Toilet paper was just the next step for us. We’ve done this for two reasons. First, we wanted to decrease the number of trees being cut down. Second, we wanted to decrease the amount of waste going into the landfill. As we learned at our tour of the waste water treatment plant, solid waste does wind up in the landfill. That includes toilet paper.

How?

I’m going to share how our family deals with bathroom wipes. I’m guessing that other families do it differently. But, our method is super easy and sustainable for me in terms of the work involved. The supplies are simple. You need wipes and a trash can. I posted on freecycle to try to get wipes, but I didn’t get any responses. Baby wash cloths would work. I wanted some that were a little nicer, so I ordered organic bamboo flannel wipes from Eco Ellie on Etsy.

You will need to put a container of wipes in each bathroom. I have mine in baskets. Here are pictures of ours:

Forgive me. I’m going to use the terms “big job” and “little job” here. I don’t think I need to explain.

For a little job, you just use the wipe and throw it in the trash can.

For a big job, you use the wipe (damp or dry, depending on your preference). After you’re done, rinse the poop off the wipe in the sink and squeeze the water out. Usually, this is no big deal. Place the rinsed wipe over the edge of the trash can to dry and wash your hands. Once it’s dry, tip it into can. I let the wipes dry on the edge of the trash can so that they don’t mildew. When I do laundry, I throw the used wipes into my normal laundry. Because the poop has been rinsed off, I don’t feel the need to take any other measures. You could save the wipes and do a hot water load of wipes all at once if that increases your comfort level. We’ve been washing the wipes with our other laundry for a year, and it’s worked well.

I’ll just add that we can do this now because our kids are 6 and 8. I had a couple of sessions of teaching them how to do this, and we were done. It would be very challenging to do this hygienically with younger children.

Oh, and if you come to my house, I promise to have recycled toilet paper for you .

Back to My CSA

Back in March of last year, Charlie and I started an ambitious project. We were going to use John Jeavons’ Grow BioIntensive method to try and grow all of our vegetables. We decided not to renew our CSA. We had been buying from our CSA for several years, so this was quite a step for us. We loved the high quality and wonderful variety that Two Small Farms provided us. I already gave it away in the title of the post- we’re going back to our CSA. Yes, we’ve just moved, and I no longer have my wonderful garden. But, even if we still lived in our house in Belmont with the great garden, we would still be going back to our CSA. Here are some things that we learned last year in terms of the Biointensive method, gardening in general and our relationship with our garden:

• Biointensive gardening was too intensive for us.  I love Jeavons’ methods.  Truly, they do provide a way for the developing world to raise their own food in a sustainable way.  But, the amount of work that is required for this method was just too much for us.
• I’ll reveal my inner lazy slug.  I pretty much want to garden on my own terms.  When my basil is flowering, I’ll get to it when I get to it.  In case you don’t already know this, flowering is your enemy- it’s the plant’s attempt to reproduce before it dies.  So, with basil, when it’s doing well, part of maintaining the plant is keeping all the flower heads pinched off.  When I feel like gardening, it’s great.  But, I don’t want to have to cut back my basil when I don’t want to cut back my basil.  I know.  Lazy slug.
• Double digging, which is one of the pillars of the Biointensive method, is a ton of work.  A TON.  They say you don’t have to do it that often.  But, seriously, back-breaking.  Those who say that I’m not doing it right and that it’s all about technique truly probably don’t have a temperamental back like I do.
• It’s really hard to get the variety in your back yard that you get from a good CSA.  I found myself buying much more produce from the grocery store,  which often said “grown in the USA” on the label.  Seriously?!  That’s all you can give me?  Grown in the USA?  Can’t you at least give me a state?  With grocery store produce, I can’t ask questions about the practices of the growers.  It’s also difficult to know anything about how they treat their employees.   For the most part, I really don’t want to spend my money on grocery store produce.  More on this later . . .
• I love the way that a CSA structures our family’s eating.  Basically, with a CSA, we eat around what comes in the box.  Which means that we get a terrific variety, and we try things that we would have never tried.

So, there it is.  All in all, trying to raise all our food ourselves was more work than we could keep up with.  There is so much that I love about growing my own food, which is why I’ll probably always be growing a portion of it.   I love seeing my kids pick and eat their own peas.  I love cutting my lettuce five minutes before I eat it.  But, it’s nice not to have to grow all of it.  This year, for the most part, I’m going to leave my veggie growing to my wonderful CSA, Two Small Farms.  We’ll probably try to raise all our own veggies again at some point, taking the aspects of Biointensive gardening that worked for us.  But, for this year, I’m going to enjoy picking up my veggies each week and letting Elizabeth eat the strawberries in the car on the way home.

Shedding Stuff

My oh my. We’re moving this coming Monday. I’ve been shedding stuff like mad. Over the last month, we’ve seen three dressers leave the house. Ten bags of stuff to Good Will. Plus, hundreds of items via Freecycle. Then, you can read here about all of our stuff that went to the landfill in June. Hoping to get another dresser, plus our deep freeze out today via the free section of Craigslist. We’ve expended a ton of energy trying to get stuff out of our house. The kicker is that when I look around at what needs to go into boxes over the weekend, we still have a lot of stuff. Sigh.

Charlie and I have been reading about the growing Minimalism movement quite a bit, and we’re both very attracted to the philosophy. The idea is that having all this stuff around us has a cost. I’m using a liberal definition of cost. It includes money and time, but also emotional, spiritual, moral and environmental costs. The cost when you buy it. The cost of maintaining it. With more expensive items, the cost of keeping it safe. The cost of the natural resources that were used to make it. The environmental cost of disposal when you’re done with it. Then, there’s the person who made it in the first place. Did they have a safe working environment? Were they paid fairly for their work? Does the clutter stifle your creativity? Or your ability to relax and take a full breath in your own home? All this stuff is costly.

As we move into our new 1100 square foot house with very little storage space, we want it to feel roomy. My kids opted for extra play space over dressers, so we got rid of them. We got a shelving unit for each of their closets. If their clothes don’t fit, we’ll simplify their clothing until it fits. Charlie and I aren’t going to have a dresser in our room. We’d rather have a reading nook. We just want to live well in the space that we have, and excess stuff gets in the way.

If you’re curious, I would encourage you to check out the Miss Minimalist blog. Charlie and I drank in Francine Jay’s new book, The Joy of Less, over the holidays. I don’t think we’ll ever be true minimalists. I love a lot of art on the walls. I love lots of color. But, the book definitely made a huge impact on us.

Meanwhile, back to packing boxes. I would love to hear the strategies that you’ve employed to keep the stuff in your life from taking over.

Queen of the Sun

Thanks to my friend John for letting me know about this new documentary. From what I can tell, the film explores possible contributors to colony collapse disorder. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

It’s all about the ingredients

Well, ingredients and a smidge of skill. But, the ingredients are one of the main reasons that I’m making soap . . .

I’ve been re-evaluating all the ingredients that I use in my soap. After trying time and again to make the ethically produced unrefined palm kernel oil work (from Togo in west Africa), I just couldn’t get it right. You can read about that here and here. There are “organic Fair Trade” palm oil companies working in Brazil- but frankly, I’m skeptical of palm oil made in that region. And, the main company that I found there is also involved in biofuel, which makes me suspicious.

So, I’m making soap without palm oil. So far, so good. I’ve gotten some really nice bars. We’ll see how they do in testing. At this point, I’m using only olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter as my fats.

I’m very comfortable with Canaan Fair Trade olive oil. It’s organic, and they’re doing good things in their community.

I also think that Agbanga Karite is doing great things in terms of addressing poverty in Togo. They are not certified organic, but they state that they use “organic practices”. I’ve got an e-mail out to them figure out exactly what that means.

And then there’s coconut oil.

One of the problems in Fair Trade (I’ll be writing about this topic soon) is that when your product is labeled “Fair Trade”, you can charge a premium for it. Because of that, I have to be super careful as I’m evaluating suppliers. Are they truly honoring the spirit of Fair Trade? Or, are they just using the term in order to charge a higher price? I’m usually quite skeptical when I see a new producer. Are they truly paying their workers fairly? Are they doing anything about education and healthcare in their communities? Are they addressing the needs of women (and thus their families)?

Back to coconut oil. I’m having trouble finding a supplier. I’ve found a company that sells organic, Fair Trade coconut oil, but there’s just something in my gut that doesn’t feel right. Here’s the crux of my gut check- is addressing poverty (or other issues such as human trafficking) via Fair Trade entwined in a company’s DNA? The company that I’m looking at has been in existence since 2007, but they just started their Fair Trade initiative in 2009. It almost feels like a marketing campaign. I’m traversing the knife edge of being discerning without being judgmental. Wanting to give companies a chance to “come to Jesus”, as it were. But, in my gut, I’m a bit suspicious of companies that join the Fair Trade movement as an after thought.

So, I’m looking for help. Do you have a great organic Fair Trade coconut oil to recommend?

As a post script, I wrote to Canaan Fair Trade to ask them about their micro loans, and I just heard back from them. I’m suspicious of micro loans because of Kiva’s habit of partnering with banks that charge exorbitant interest rates. Thus, my skepticism in backing companies that use micro loans. Any way, I was so pleased to hear that Canaan Fair Trade charges no interest. They also support the women who take out their loans with training- and then they market their product at the end. To me, this seems like a meaningful way to address poverty.

Good Guide

Check out this website called Good Guide, which was recommended in The Story of Stuff. As I’ve learned more about the impact of consuming stuff, it’s become more stressful to buy anything. Good Guide is a great tool. They score products based on the health, environmental and social impact of a product.

Let me give you an example:

I was curious about the Banana Boat sunscreen that I’ve been slathering on my kids over the last few years, so I searched on the Good Guide website. As it turns out, our sunscreen contains oxybenzone, which is a developmental/reproductive toxin. The website Cosmetics Database gave oxybenzone a 9 out of 10 in terms of toxicity and listed it as a “high hazard”. Click here to see more about the social and environmental impact of my sunscreen. Not so good.

Oh man! My daughter is very, very fair, and she burns easily. I’m a very liberal sun screen user. That won’t change, but is there a better product? I looked at Good Guide’s recommended sun screens, and I’ll likely change back to Badger, which I’ve used in the past. It’s more expensive, but it doesn’t contain any toxic ingredients, and it does pretty well in terms of its social and environmental impact. Click here if you want to see Good Guide’s ratings for Badger sunscreen.

Also, check out their iphone app, which lets you scan products and check them while at the store. I don’t have an iphone, but if I did, this is something that I would definitely use. Click here to get more information on the iphone app.

Poop Tour

My friend Jacki organized a field trip to the wastewater treatment plant in Redwood Shores last week.

I thought you might be interested in some highlights from our stinky adventure. First of all, let me just tell you, once is enough. I feel no need to go back. That being said, I’m so glad that I went. And, I’m glad that my kids got to see it.

Above, the kids look down into the settling tank. This is where the solid and liquid waste is separated.

These signs were posted throughout the facility. None of us were tempted.

The tank above is where the liquid waste was aerated and mixed.

Our guide told us about all the tests which are run on the waste water before it is released back into San Francisco Bay.

Below are some take-aways for me:

- Treating waste water is very resource intensive. Lots of people, chemicals and energy are involved.

- The release of heavy metals into the Bay is regulated. Pharmaceuticals are not regulated. For me, this was very disturbing.

- Solid waste goes to the landfill. I’m not sure where I thought that it went, but indeed it does go into the landfill.

- The right way to dispose of unused pharmaceuticals is to grind them up and put them in the trash.

I’ll be organizing a tour of Ox Mountain, which is our landfill in Half Moon Bay soon. Will let you know how it goes.