Author: No Makeup Mama

Goodbye, Old Friend

Goodbye, Old Friend

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Tomorrow is trash day in our neighborhood, which always has me thinking about our trash output. As I mentioned before, we are not exactly without waste, but we are making improvements. Today’s improvement happened to have a visual impact.

We have had a large black trash can in our kitchen since Brett and I got married 7.5 years ago. I don’t actually remember buying it [maybe it was a wedding gift], but it is one of the few possessions that have stood the test of time [others being our wedding rings and childhood photos], until now.

[I should mention as a side note how pathetic it is that we have had so few belongings actually last seven years. It is proof that we have spent most of our married lives prioritizing the cost over the quality and it is further proof of our desire for a constant influx of new “stuff.” Sad, but true – until recently.]

Anyway, today we gave the old friend a demotion and have sent him to the basement, where he won’t collect any garbage at all, but just sit around waiting for us to determine his fate [anyone need a trash can]?

After collecting the trash this week, we realized that we no longer need a tall trash can. [I also realized that we have a lot of trash cans sitting around not collecting any trash at all.] So, we took a small can from another room in the house and put it under the sink. The size difference is significant. But how nice not to have this huge trash can in our kitchen anymore!

This is partly a big win, and partly a leap of faith. Will our trash for a whole week actually fit into this teeny-weeny can? We will see, I guess. Worst case scenario, we have to change the bag mid-week…but I’m not planning on giving myself permission to do that. I’m just going to go for it.

It’s like I always tell my personal training clients – you’ll never know what you’re able to do unless you give it a try.

[Nearly] zero waste, here we come.

Karis

30 Day Minimalism Game: Days 1 & 2

30 Day Minimalism Game: Days 1 & 2

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Starting yesterday, Brett and I are playing the 30-Day Minimalism Game.

The game is played by each person getting rid of one item the first day, two items the second day, three items the third day, … you get the idea. Whoever is able to make it the furthest in the challenge wins – though the only thing at stake is bragging rights – and whoever makes it to the full 30 days will have rid themselves of 465 unnecessary possessions. If Brett and I both complete all 30 days, then we will have gotten rid of 930 items from our home in one month – a great start on the road to minimalism!

Truthfully, we probably won’t make it that far because Brett is doing this reluctantly to begin with and already on day one he tried to get rid of our baby monitor [that was currently in use] and my brand new running shoes. I’m not sure he understands the point of the exercise. Regardless, I’m going to have to set some guidelines [if you ever saw Brett and I play a game together, you would understand why written rules are an absolute necessity].

The 30-Day Minimalism Game Rules:

#1: No tossing the other’s personal belongings [but kids’ toys and things we share are free game].

#2: No tossing things that we are actually currently using and serve a good purpose.

#3: No tearing a piece of paper into however many pieces and trying to count that as your day’s quota.

#4: I can’t toss clothes unless they are in addition to my 26 items already getting donated each month.

#5: Items must be donated, recycled, or given away to friends/family [in other words, not trash]. Things bound for the trash should just be thrown in the trash and not counted for the game.

I’ll be posting our donation items periodically throughout the month so as not to drive everyone crazy by posting every single day.

So, on day 1, I chose to rehome our beautiful bassinet, which I love. But it is too big for our space and won’t get any use until I have another baby – which may never happen. So it might as well hold another little baby rather than serving as a second laundry basket in my bedroom. I am hoping to find someone I know who would like it and use it [please let me know if you are interested!], but if I can’t I will donate it to a local Crisis Pregnancy Center.

Brett chose the kid’s old race track which has been replaced by a “new-to-us” track [Thanks, Aunt Mary!].

Our day two choices weren’t as exciting. But, as always, if you see something you want/need, let me know! Free to a good home. Otherwise, it is all being donated.

I can already tell that this is going to be an eye-opening endeavor…

Karis

Our First [Nearly] Zero Waste Grocery Trip

Our First [Nearly] Zero Waste Grocery Trip

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 1 Comment

Reducing our waste to [nearly] zero – the way I like to describe our efforts at sustainability – has been a process. Not to imply that we have arrived, because we are continually making small [and occasionally large] changes in our habits that we think benefit the planet. But we hope to arrive someday at [nearly] zero.

I say “nearly” because I know I won’t be storing a year’s worth of trash in a mason jar any time soon…or maybe ever. My goal is to aim for zero but be satisfied with nearly zero.

We’ve been slowly reducing our waste for a few months. We now compulsively recycle and religiously compost [which is “rot” for our list of sustainability R’s]. Those two things alone reduced our trash output to less than one full kitchen trash bag per week – which is significantly better than it was, but we could do a lot better [like stop using trash bags, for instance]. We also always shop with our own reusable canvas bags and bag produce in our mesh produce bags. And today we made our first bulk bin purchases at Whole Foods using our own cotton muslin bags.

Here is our haul.

The only waste was the stickers that we had to print in order to purchase and the receipt.

Then we got home and reorganized our pantry so we could store all of our newly acquired zero waste bulk goods.

Something about the zero waste life appeals to my inner neat freak. But even more than that, it appeals to my inner health nut. Look at all of that plant-based, healthy food!

Today is also the first day of a new month, which means we refilled our cash budget envelopes [yay!] Also, we are doing the 30-Day Minimalism Game this month. More on that tomorrow.

But for now, I’m happy with the efforts we’ve made toward being [nearly] zero waste.

Karis

May Clothing Donation

May Clothing Donation

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 1 Comment

Only four days since I began my clothing ban and it is already time to make good on my first promise. So, I’ve chosen the 26 items of clothing that I am donating for the month of May.

For being only the first month and having already admitted that I have so much I don’t wear [or have never worn], this was surprisingly difficult.

For example, the top two items on the pile are the same style half-zip fleece sweaters, just in different colors. And I really like them a lot. They fit great, the look good, they are very comfortable. But I have another one of the exact same sweater in white – which I like the best. When I had the choice [which I always did], I always wore the white one. As a result, these other two sweaters have each been worn maybe once [probably when I first got them]. So I have decided to donate them. Unfortunately, a ton of my wardrobe is duplicates. In fact, the majority of this pile is made up of duplicates. What was I thinking buying all this extra clothing?

This has been another reminder of what a privileged life I live compared to most people. I never thought of it this way before [actually I never really thought about it at all], but I realize now that it is a luxury to be able to go shopping for anything I want at any time, much less to find a shirt that I like and then buy it in five different colors. These are luxuries that the majority of people on this planet do not have. In fact, a lot of people are just happy to have clothes to wear. Shame on me for ever thinking of myself as not being wealthy when here I am with so much clothes that I don’t even wear half of it.

I used to think of my wealth in terms of what I didn’t have, rather than everything I already do have. And what I had was never enough – especially when it came to clothing. While it is partially the result of being surrounded by good old fashioned American consumerism – it is also a result of my own willingness to be convinced that I need more than what I already have. That is partially what this clothing ban is about – realizing that I already have plenty. I don’t need more. And I won’t let clever marketing or special sale prices or even my own insecurities tell me differently. Especially when the cost of feeding my constant desire for “more” is the safety and well-being of people around the world.

Well, I hope these items find new owners who show them more love than I did!

Karis

Repurposed Wall Art

Repurposed Wall Art

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For as long as I have known about the phrase “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” I literally never even thought about the first two words. The phrase [and the accompanying symbol] always just meant recycling to me – until recently. I now realize that reducing waste to begin with and reusing what I already have are actually the more important of the three principles. My goal now is to reduce the amount of waste I create to as little as possible, and then use reusable products for everything I can, and then, when all else fails, I will recycle what’s leftover.

The most effective way to reduce waste is to not create it in the first place. Making a new product requires a lot of materials and energy – raw materials must be extracted from the earth, and the product must be fabricated then transported to wherever it will be sold. As a result, reduction and reuse are the most effective ways you can save natural resources, protect the environment and save money.

– Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov)

I’ve been adding my own sustainability R’s as well, and one of them is “repurpose.”

Brett is really the master at repurposing, since he has created countless things for our home and yard out of reclaimed pallet wood. [I’ll brag about his pallet wood raised garden some other time.] But today I repurposed some old decorative signs that had been hanging in the bathroom at our old house. The set of three small wooden signs have been adding to the clutter in our lower level for a year and a half and today I decided to give them [well, two of them for now] a makeover.

There was a lot going on [as you can tell from my messy table], so it took me all day, but I got them done and up on the kitchen shelves.

I painted the signs white, then created the design on my computer, and drew it on with sharpie markers. I usually use paint, but I don’t even own a paintbrush small enough to get those thin lines perfect [trust me, I tried].

Well, those are two things at least that don’t have to be recycled now – and I get to enjoy them once again!

Karis

The Clothing Ban

The Clothing Ban

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

Today is my 31st birthday, and the perfect time to make a change for the better. So I have resolved to not buy any clothing for one year AND to donate 26 items from my current wardrobe each month until my next birthday.

Last night, I finally worked up the nerve to watch The Total Cost – a documentary about the clothing industry and how “fast fashion” is impacting the global economy – not to mention thousands of people around the world. I have been asking Brett to watch it with me for a while now, but finally gave up and decided to watch it by myself – except I was hesitant because I suspected it would mean I would have to make a change and I wasn’t quite certain I was ready for another big change just yet.

But Brett was working late last night, and the kids were all in bed, and I had a pint of dairy free Haagen Das [a birthday treat]…so it seemed like the perfect time to relax in front of a documentary [my favorite!]. Besides, putting it off wasn’t going to make the problem go away and clinging to my willful ignorance was only preventing me from making what little difference is in my power to make.

[Willful ignorance is the absolute worst offense, by the way.]

So, here I am, trying to make a difference. It won’t be a big difference, but I will at least be putting my consumer dollars where my mouth is, so to speak.

To start, I am not going to purchase any clothing [or accessories or even shoes] for myself for one year. [The only exception being piercings which require the purchase of earrings]. If I have to buy something for my kids that I can’t borrow, I will buy second hand.

Also, I will be donating 26 items from my current wardrobe each month for one year. Today, I spent a significant amount of time taking inventory of all my clothes. I have 486 items of clothing (not counting shoes, hats, coats/jackets, winter accessories, and a huge bin of maternity clothes in the shed).

This is crazy. I only wear about 10% of this stuff. Half of it I had literally forgotten existed. And most heinous of all – an embarrassingly large number of these items have never even been worn.

After logging everything by item type and evaluating my needs, I determined I can comfortably get my wardrobe down to 175 total items. [That number is still so HUGE!]. Maybe some day I will reduce it even more, but for now, that’s my goal and it equals about 26 items per month.

Instead of donating to a business that will profit off of the sale of my clothes, or ship overseas to hurt local clothing industries, I’m going to donate to a church in my neighborhood that does a “community closet” every couple months and gives the clothes away for free to people in need.

Finally, when I do purchase clothing again in the future, I will purchase from fair trade organizations and pay more money for quality clothes that will last a long time and that have been ethically sourced.

I’m sad to say that I used to justify buying clothes because they were so cheap without even thinking about how they were produced so cheaply or who the industry may be hurting in order to give me cheap stuff I don’t even need. I have probably even said that it doesn’t matter if the quality is bad because it is so cheap I can just toss it and buy another. Wow. My perspective has done a total 180°. Of course, I knew sweatshops existed. I just didn’t think of myself as being a direct part of it. But now I see how my demand for inexpensive products has added to the suffering of others around the world. And trying to excuse poor wages and dangerous working conditions as “helping the economy” is no longer going to cut it for me.

[I realize that my family’s income is from the very industry I’m talking about. I’m not trying to be hypocritical. I’m not ignoring it, I’m working on that too. But some changes can’t happen over night.]

Anyway, now I have to go put all my clothes back away.

Karis