Mom is Just a Nickname

I used to think I had a green thumb in high school. I had a jungle in my bedroom..from standard houseplants to various bonsai plants I’d acquired.  I also had a plot in the family garden which I “landscaped” with shade loving plants: hosta, ferns and a bleeding heart which came to us broken and wilted, but was huge and thriving by the time my parents moved away from that house.

I’ve felt like I have a black thumb since then though. Whether my time and energy were being given to the creation of other things or I just didn’t care enough, I’m not sure.  I have been killing the unkillable houseplants for ten years now.   But now I’m back to trying for that green thumb again.

I’ve got a garden which is slowly becoming lovely, abundant and colorful.  Today I spent two hours planting new plants (strawberry, pansies, lavender, plumbago, bee balm and lemon balm) and the other day I spent awhile planting things a friend had shared (joe pie weed, elephant ears, lantana and a few others).  My garden is a nice mix of herbs, flowers, and edibles right now. It’s pretty nifty to walk out and pick a radish to put on my salad!

I’m also really enjoying the wildlife that’s drawn to my plants.  There are a handful of tree frogs and lizards which occupy my container garden by the front door. There’s also a toad which hops through on occasion.  And then I’ve got a lizard buddy who hangs out by the hose in the garden on the side of the house.  I’m hoping that once some of my newest plants begin flowering, the bees, butterflies and birds will be drawn in to the area too.

I guess most important is that I’m really enjoying my garden – be it the plants or the wildlife.  My grass may be brown, crackling and full of weeds, but my garden is shaping up beautifully.  The grass…well, I’d rather a garden than a lawn. I wonder if the landlord would mind if I ripped the lawn out and replaced it with a meadow of wildflowers?

Hard financial times lead us to thinking of what luxuries, pleasures, and possibly necessities would we give up if we had to.  It’s been on my mind lately.

I realize that I’ve been slowly letting go of a number of things which previously I would have thought of as necessity.  Yet there are other luxuries which I keep buying. I rationalize that they are things that would be useful to have, should the need arise, but the flat out fact of the matter is that at this point, they really are luxuries.

Here are some things I’ve let go of in the last few months and years:

• Cable/Satellite TV.  Toph and I have let this go a number of times since we got married.  For one reason or another, we sometimes decide it’s worth the cost, but at the moment we are without…and functioning just fine without it.  We have a digital converter, so when need be, we can watch the news and such.  Otherwise, we get movies from the library or from the Red Box, or *gasp* we do things which are not TV related.  (Oh, the horror! heh.)

• Shaving.  What? Shaving?  Well, I haven’t shaved in almost two months. Not my legs, anyhow.  This was less a matter of ‘letting go’ for the sake of our financial security and more a matter of me rebelling against the establishment, I think.  I kept asking myself, “Why am I shaving? Who am I making happy by doing it?”  I decided that I’d let my legs go furry and see what I actually thought of it.  So far, I like the freedom of not having to shave every other day or every day. I like not having little razor burn bumps on my legs. And I feel like my legs are finally getting a chance to heal all the old shaving wounds they have received in the past.  And in the meantime, I’m saving money by not going through razorheads.

• Shampoo and Conditioner.  Another case of doing it for something other than money matters, but it is saving us money.  I began to investigate going ‘No ‘Poo’ years ago, but never got up the nerve to do it.  Then my head began rebelling. No matter what brand, formula or frequency I used, my head was itchy and flaky. Yes, I even tried dandruff shampoos.  Almost six months ago, in my last fit of frustration, I began to reduce how often I shampoo until I was down to only once a week.  Then about a month ago, I began to use baking soda, apple cider vinegar and if I really need some deeper conditioning, olive oil.  I’ve heard that you can use lemon juice instead of apple cider vinegar, especially if you have or want more blonde highlights.  I’m happy with my head of reddish highlights at the moment, so I haven’t tried it.  The bottom line of the switch is that I’m not buying shampoo, conditioner or any of the other miscellaneous hair products that were previously so necessary to me to have a nice head of hair.  And, after an initial period of frizziness, my hair is settling down and looking fine.  Happy head, less money spent. It works for me.

• Meat. Could you go vegetarian?  We are working on reducing our meat consumption, for our health and wallets, as much as any environmental reason.  We have been discovering quite a number of delicious and filling meals with our experimenting…and they are cheaper!

• Paper Products such as paper towels, napkins, plates, tissues, feminine products.  We have reduced our paper towel usage by using (and reusing) cloth rags for most things.  We use cloth napkins most of the time, and, with rare exceptions, we use our regular dishes and cutlery instead of paper dishes and plastic flatware.  The tissues we haven’t given up.  I’m still wrestling with the sanitary issues of handkerchiefs.  I did give up most disposable feminine products almost 8 years ago, though. I use cloth pads most of the time now. (Sorry if that’s TMI, but it falls in with this category and it’s an important, money saving, switch that I made.) I also used cloth diapers on X when he was little, for the most part.  X hasn’t reached nighttime dryness yet, so sadly we do spend money on pull-ups, but part of that is my own reluctance to invest the time and energy into finding a good overnight cloth diaper that doesn’t seem like a diaper for him…only to have him give them up a week later.  I have hopes he’ll nighttime train soon.

• Newspapers.  Instead of getting a newspaper delivered, read it online.  The downside of this is that you don’t get the coupons without a Sunday paper.  Most of the sales flyers are available online or can be sent in email, though.

Anyhow, the point of all of this is just to point out how many things we use which have less expensive alternatives that have all but been forgotten about in this age of convenience and disposables and expectations.  We have options, if we but take the time to look around and commit the energy to changing our ways.

What have you or would you give up in order to live on less money?

Waiting for things to happen is the big news here at the moment. We’re waiting to see what Fay will do, waiting to see what Fay will bring, waiting to see what Thursday will bring.

The good news, despite my extreme dislike of waiting, is that the NHC has let the Hurricane Watch expire. Northeastern Florida is now only(?!) under a tropical storm warning.

Outside, the air is humid. It’s not all that hot, actually, but it is oppressively humid. The skies are gray and to the East, we can see the defined clouds of the storm. The winds are steady but not particularly strong at the moment. We are far enough inland that we won’t feel the full force of Fay’s winds, in any case.

I guess I’m somewhere in between the panicking people and the apathetic people as far as preparing for the storm. I’m worried about the storm, but I feel that we have most of the practical preparations made. We did pick up some more water, because we only store so much unless a threat is imminent. We did that before the Hurricane Watch was posted yesterday, though. We always keep a fairly well stocked freezer and pantry, but we also picked up some canned soups to supplement what we have. We brought in our lawn furniture and I will be pulling my patio plants before too long.

There are still some preparations I need to get done, but I’ve been tired and draggy all day so I haven’t been moving very quickly on anything. The adrenaline impetus of a hurricane watch is gone now, and I’m falling back towards the apathetic side of the waiting.

Here’s to Fay, in all her fickle and fraying glory. Hopefully, she’ll treat the First Coast kindly.

Kermit was always my favorite Muppet, so I’ve aspired to “be green” for a lot of my life. Now, I guess that’s taken on new meaning for me. Now, I’m just doing my best to make my family’s footprint on the Earth smaller, rather than trying to live in Kermit’s swamp!

We’ve taken a few more baby steps in the last few months. I’m using tote bags instead of plastic ones when I grocery shop. Sadly, they aren’t homemade bags, like I was hoping. Still, they are sturdy and handy. I always feel good when I remember to bring them along and use them. I’m remembering them more than I’m forgetting them these days, since I now keep them stashed by the passenger seat of my car. Any that are brought into the house after shopping are set under my purse so that I grab them on my way out the next time I leave the house.

We just changed another of our light fixtures over to CFL’s this weekend. There is only one light fixture left to change out now. All of the rest of the light bulbs in the house are CFL’s or regular flourescents. As expensive as the CFL bulbs can be, they last so much longer than incandescent bulbs! We are still using some that we got as a gift back in 2006 (or was it earlier than that?) and they are in heavy usage light fixtures! (Thank you, John, for making the investment on our behalf. We teased you at the time, but we really do appreciate them!) We have moved them with us twice now and they will continue moving with us as long as they last.

I think the next “green” step I will take is composting. I’m still weighing what kind of composting I want to do. I’m pretty intrigued by worm composting, or vermicomposting. Toph’s not all that keen on having a worm composting bin in the house though, and that’s the only way we could do that. I like the idea of having a composting pile outside, but I’m not sure the neighbors would think it was so cool! So, I guess that leaves an enclosed pile. I just have to figure out the best way to do it.

Composting has two huge benefits: For one thing, it reduces the amount of waste going into the landfills. So much of what I throw away, I guiltily realize could be composted or recycled. We do recycle, but our city’s recycling program only accepts a few different types of things. So, other things that seem perfectly recycle-able to me end up pitched. The second benefit for me is that compost provides excellent nutrients for my garden. My garden is growing in leaps and bounds right now, and not having to buy fertilizer or other things to improve my soil would be a definite bonus.

What do you do to save resources, to be “green”? Do you vermicompost or have a compost pile? What have your experiences been with composting?

Also about my adventures in Greener Living: Disposable World

I’ve been making bread at home more often than I usually do. I use my bread machine, so it’s really a matter of dumping in the right ingredients and hitting some buttons. No big deal. It is amazing to me how a few hours later, my whole house smells of yeasty goodness though.

Then I think of when I have made Easter Bread. It’s a whole different process. Things have to be the right temperature, you have to know the right textures of the dough at certain points in the process, you have to know if it’s risen enough or not enough…the list goes on. It’s so much more involved. It’s so much more satisfying to eat the rolls at the end of the process!

On the other side of the spectrum is buying a bag of bread at the grocery store. No work involved, right? Just shell out some cash and pick your loaf. There’s a wide range of choices for size, taste, and texture. No muss, no fuss, no real thought or effort involved.

No muss…no fuss…no real thought or effort…That applies to a lot of modern convenience foods. We no longer have to think about dinner too far ahead of time. Even something as easy to make as a pasta sauce comes in a jar. Salad comes ready in a bag!

But consider what we lose when we use these foods of convenience. We lose the connection with our food. We lose the knowledge of the steps that food took, from raw to edible. We lose the anticipation that builds as that product goes from many individual ingredients to one cohesive, aromatic whole. We lose the magic of every day creation.

“Every Day Creation.” To take some tomatoes, some spices, some herbs, maybe some veggies and/or meat and combine it into a pot. To let the contents of that pot simmer on the stove all day, stopping to stir it occasionally as if you were a witch stirring the contents of your cauldron. To see those ingredients meld into a spicy, aromatic sauce fixed just the way you like it: chunky or smooth? Lots of garlic or none at all? Onions?

“Every Day Creation.” To take some flour, yeast, milk, an egg, some honey, some salt and combine it all into a lump of unappetizing dough. To knead it, to let it rest and rise as it fills the air with rich, yeasty delight, to shape it into a loaf and then bake it….it’s magic. To take such ordinary ingredients and have a perfectly shaped loaf of bread at the end. What else could it be, but magic?

I love making food “from scratch”. It puts me at the heart of the creation process and makes me feel powerful, like a Goddess in my kitchen, putting order into my world. How powerful we humans can be when we put our minds to it…to use this magic of every day creation.