Doing it myself

I was inspired a few weeks ago when I watched a short, 2 minute video about a family living in California who decided to live a "no-waste" lifestyle. The mother, a stunning 40-something who spent most of the time slicing portabellas on a tiny wooden cutting board, explained that they make all of their own cleaning supplies, buy everything in bulk and compost almost everything else, including their toothbrushes. I'm interested and intrigued by stories of people who live simple lives, and was fascinated by this family. I thinking seeing the clip was a challenge. If they can do it, why can't I?

In the shower at the beginning of this week I reached down for my shampoo, a stupidly expensive, cruelty free and "natural" product purchased from the shelves of Whole Foods, and had a flashback to this family. I started doing some internet searches and came across diynatural.com . I made myself a to-do list of diy projects. Financially sustaining myself is something I am seriously thinking about. Toothpaste and haircuts may be an easy way to start, but for me my list of projects is more about shifting a thought pattern. I want my first instinct to be searching for an alternative way of getting what I need. CVS, Target and Whole Foods took the majority of my dollars last year, and I'm hoping to shift that percentage.

The List: (to be updated, edited, crossed out)

-toothpaste

-shampoo

-deodorant

-conditioner

-laundry detergent

-hair gel

-hair cuts

-socks

-dish detergent

The Edible List:

-tortilla chips

-english muffins

-energy bars

-a bread habit

-almond milk

-pasta

-nut butters

The edible list is something I'm already well versed in. I have enjoyed making granola, bread, pasta sauce, salad dressing etc. since I started cooking for myself. I have an obsessive need to shorten the ingredient list of every food I consume by making it myself, from scratch. Also- it tastes better. I am, however, always looking for ways to improve my cooking skills and to better understand where my food comes from and how it gets to me. My goal in food stuffs is to think about the products we consume the most of, and figure out ways to make them myself or find more sustainable ways of procuring them.

As is we have a farm share where we get all of our produce, I buy bread from a local bakery and we get perhaps 25% of our other groceries from local or small business owned sources. Whole Foods does take the majority of my grocery money, however, and I'm looking to solve that.

I have already begun chipping away at the list, and will be posting on my diy adventures soon, stay posted for self-induced hair cuts and home fried tortillas.

Baby Steps

Hello, blog world. I've been toying with the idea of creating a blog for some time, convincing myself of a thousand reasons why I shouldn't start. The biggest reason (and possibly this is some too-true blog foreshadowing) is that I'm busy. I might forget about this and leave it to wither in blog-land like so many others before it. But that would defeat my point.

I'm beginning an adventure, or continuing an old one, depending on how you look at it. I'm in a space that makes me feel comfortable, confident and connected to the way I live my life and the people I am lucky enough to share it with. The concept of sustainability is one which I've been toying with since I could spell it. As a proud co-founder of the Eco Club at my high school (which had approximately 6 meetings in its entire existence) I was determined to prove that sustainability came from turning lights off when leaving a classroom. At the ripe age of 18 sustainability was proving that I could buy my toothbrush and groceries all by myself, my parents didn't need to do it for me. Today, the concept has an ethereal quality; in some conversations it means buying food from local sources, others it means rejecting corporate products and in more recent conversations it has been complicated and torn apart by stories from coal miners in Appalachia and Colombia.

But that is what I want to blog about. I'm in my 20's (just barely), taking the time to slow down and think more extensively about the choices I make is something I have the luxury and foresight to do at this moment in my life. Exploring options like making my own toothpaste, eating local, playing games, running and reading for pleasure are things I want to do in order to discover what my life looks like; sustained.