Racism in America: Becoming an Anti-Racist

Racism in America: Becoming an Anti-Racist

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

There is a big difference between “not being a racist” and “being anti-racist.” An anti-racist actively denounces racism in all its forms and promotes equality for all races. To be anti-racist implies action.

anti-racism (noun): the policy or practice of opposing racism and promoting racial tolerance.

Since I learned about the existence of systemic racism and white privilege several years ago, I have been asking, “What can I do about it?” I read book after book discussing the history and the reasons and the causes and the effects, but what do I do??? I basically wanted someone to say, “Call this number. Say ‘Black Lives Matter.’ And done. Problem solved.”

As if it was going to be that easy. But that’s what I wanted. I wanted an easy solution. I wanted something I could do quickly, that wouldn’t interrupt my day or challenge my lifestyle or disrupt my status quo. I wanted a solution that didn’t cost me anything.

Unfortunately, that’s not how change works. So I stopped asking, “What can I do?” and started asking “How much do I care?”

Turns out, I care enough to give money to the cause, to show up at the protests, to speak to all of my friends and family about race, to spend hours reading and re-learning history, to teach to my kids about racism, to fill my home with diverse toys and books, to participate in my communities interracial programs, to celebrate other cultures, to learn more about my own heritage, and more. The opportunities for involvement are endless, but first we must be willing to make some changes.

So, here’s how I’ve become an anti-racist, and how you can too, should you want to make the world a more just and fair place.

#1. Get Angry

I had to get angry enough to do something about racism. I cared before, but I wasn’t angry enough to do anything. I had to confront all of the uncomfortable truths about race and racism and how white people have treated people of color throughout history. I had to read the true stories of slaves being beaten, families being torn apart, segregation, lynchings, suffrage, black people being wrongfully accused, convicted, and murdered by the government, redlining, mass incarcerations, and voter suppression – many of these things continue to this day.

Last year, when the miniseries “When They See Us” was released on Netflix, I watched the preview and looked up the case of “The Central Park Five” since I had never heard the story. I was so horrified that I told Brett that I couldn’t watch it right then because I knew it would be very upsetting, but I added it to my list for later.

I should have watched it right away. I should have been willing to get angry back then. Instead, I preferred to not look too closely, to not confront the truth, to not get too uncomfortable, to not get angry.

As a white person, I don’t feel the effects of racial inequality personally, so it is easy for me to deny or forget that it exists. But when I watch an unarmed man being killed in the street because of racial bias, I get angry. When I watch the portrayal of Bloody Sunday in the movie, Selma, I get angry. When I read Solomon Northup’s story of being kidnapped and sold into slavery, I get angry. When I hear my brother’s stories of his best friend being harassed by police because he’s black, I get angry.

Anger at injustice is the fuel we need for change.

The black community in America is already angry, and rightly so. But as white people, we also need to get angry. And in order to do that, we need to know the truth. As James Baldwin said, in the film, I Am Not Your Negro, the problem is not that white Americans have anything against black people, the issue is apathy and ignorance. And we can solve both of these problems by opening our eyes and ears to the truth.

Relearning the Past

First, I had to understand the history of racism and how it remains deeply imbedded in our current society. If I don’t know how systemic racism came to be or how it still affects people of color today, then I won’t be of any use putting an end to it.

It continues to shock me that we actually have a “Black History Month,” practically admitting that we spend the other eleven months studying white history. The fact that this month exists shows that we have a problem. It is proof that we have not given black history enough of our attention in the past. If the schools won’t teach it, then we must teach ourselves.

Here are three sources of information that have had the biggest impact on my understanding of racism:

  • “Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap” – a 16 minute Netflix show explaining how the wealth gap is a result of systemic racism
  • 13th – a documentary by Ava DuVernay about the connection between our current system of mass incarceration and the racism that it perpetuates
  • Waking Up White – book by Debbie Irving about understanding racism as a white person

I have read many, many books, but I still have a very long list to read. I have watched numerous movies and documentaries that deal with race and racism, but I am still learning. This self-taught class on black history will most likely take me the rest of my life. But that is okay, because I need to be continually reminded that my life of privilege is at the expense of another life. This is what motivates me to take a stand against racism.

Listening to the Present

Besides just re-learning history, we have to learn about the current experiences of people of color. The best way to do this is to listen to the people of color around us. Sometimes it is easy to try to explain away a racist comment or make excuses about it or simply not believe someone’s experience, but if we want to know the truth, we have to be willing to listen and accept it.

As my friend Brianne puts it so well, “I don’t want people to feel ‘guilty’, but I do want them to acknowledge the things they have that others do not, and that one reason they have them is because of their skin tone. I would want them to try and be empathetic to the plight of millions of their countrymen and to listen to them when they try and explain how they feel. Don’t be defensive. Don’t tell me how you didn’t personally own slaves. Just listen to someone when they tell you the things that happen to them on a daily basis.”

We need to do more listening and less defending.

I attended a few “round table” discussions so that I could hear the responses of the black community to George Floyd’s murder. I also learned a lot from at my city’s protest about what it is like to be a person of color living in my town. And here are two more ways that I learned about what it is like to be black in America today:

  • “Where Do We Go From Here” – Oprah Winfrey’s Town Hall Special available on Youtube
  • Between the World and Me – a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I love this article by NPR, because it is 100% true. Educating ourselves about racism is just the first step to changing the system. And it’s also not a one-time fix. White America needs to be continually educating ourselves about race so that we do not allow the strong emotions surrounding George Floyd’s murder to slowly fade back to business as usual. In order to truly create change it will take time. We cannot correct five hundred years worth of wrongs overnight, or even over several months. It will require that we get angry, and that we stay angry until the problem has been solved. Which is why we have to move from being angry, to the next step.

#2. Show Up

Once I was angry enough to do something about racism, it was time to show up. I thought about saying “step up,” but the truth is that white people have a tendency take over. If history has taught us anything it is that white people always believe that their way is best. Sometimes, however, like in the fight for racial equality, it is best for white people to take a supporting role. It is not our job to dictate how or when or where protests happen. It is not our job to criticize or correct or give our unwanted advice. It is not our job to patronize or discredit the stories and experiences of people of color. What we need to do is be supportive and show up. Not take over. Just show up. We provide support with our presence, with our voices, with our fists in the air, when necessary, but always in support.

That being said, there are a lot of great ways to show support for the racial justice movement, and these are the ones that I am doing:

  • Giving money. As a white middle class American, throwing money at the problem is probably the easiest thing to do, so it was the first thing I did. If you are uncertain where to give money, look up organizations in your area that are promoting racial justice and policy change. Or you can give to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP, or the ACLU.  
  • Talking to people about race and racism.In the white culture I grew up in, no one talked about race. And when I did start talking to friends and family about race, it was not received well. I was viewed as “liberal” and “divisive” and “argumentative” and “accusatory.” Navigating these discussions can be tricky and you may upset a few people.  [I read the book Talking Across the Divide by Justin Lee to help me communicate more effectively with people who disagree with me on these issues. I highly recommend this book.]
  • Voting in local and federal elections. It is hard to admit that I didn’t used to vote at all, especially now that I understand how hard people of color and women have fought to have the right to vote. Voting is not the cure-all, as it is sometimes believed, but with the help of social change, voting can make a big difference. We have to vote for the people who will promote equality and justice, and we have to vote for the policies that ensure fair treatment for all people.
  • Signing petitions, making calls, and writing letters. Once we understand the issues, we have to make our voices heard to our local governments, our schools, our police departments. We have to ask for change.
  • Getting involved in protests. We show our support for the cause when we physically show up on the day of the march with our signs and say, “We care about your rights as much as our own.”  I went to my first protest a few weeks ago and it was a moving experience. If you believe in the movement, then I highly recommend you physically participate.
  • Examining my own racial prejudices and changing myself. I’ve done a lot of this work already, which I talked about in my last post, but it is an ongoing process. I still have work to do. Our worldviews are deeply ingrained and very hard to interrogate objectively, but we have to consider the possibility that we are in some ways [or many ways] part of the problem of racism in this society. And then, once we can accept our responsibility, we must commit to changing ourselves.
  • Breaking the cycle of racism by raising anti-racist kids. I will talk more about this in my next post.

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are many, many ways to promote equality, and I intend to continue to improve in this way over time.

I found that for myself personally, I wanted to do something, but not know what to do was becoming an excuse for not doing anything. I realized that if I really want to see change happen, I have to push myself out of my comfort zone and do things that are hard. It is easiest for me to give money and tell myself that I am doing my part, but I care more than that. I can do more than that.

Change never comes easy. I’m a personal trainer. I know. I work with people who want to change all the time, but the truth is, no one can change themselves or their community and definitely not their world without digging deep and doing the hard stuff.

That brings us to the final thing that I am doing about racism.

#3. Break the cycle.

As a white parent, the most important and most challenging responsibility I have is to raise anti-racist kids who will not only accept and embrace people of all colors and orientations and religions [as most of us were taught to do], but will actively take a stand against injustice at its root which is in the system and within ourselves.

Because this area is so important to me, I’m going to post separately about how I as a white parent am teaching my kids to be an anti-racist.

✊🏾✊🏿✊🏻

Karis

Racism in America: My White Awakening

Racism in America: My White Awakening

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

The current events around the murder of George Floyd have brought a lot of attention to racism in America and I want to share my story of how I became aware of my own whiteness and the ingrained racism that comes with it.

As a white person, I had the luxury of growing up without ever thinking about my race. This is one of the greatest privileges of being “white” – never having to feel like an outsider in my own country, never experiencing an act of racism or being called a racial epithet, never being in a situation where my race was not represented. In fact, I lived in a totally white world and my concept of race and racism was always in the context of other people.

My journey to racial awareness began in 2017 when I read Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community by Martin Luther King Jr., which was the first time I really confronted the issue of racism and began asking questions. Shortly after reading the book, I watched an episode of Netflix’s docuseries “Explained” entitled “The Racial Wealth Gap.”This sixteen-minute show was the first time I really saw how unfair our current system is and I could not believe it. I began talking to all my white friends and family about race. I was amped up. I could not believe that no one had told me how unfair our system was. No one told me that there really was legitimate injustice embedded in our policies that has caused the wealth gap and ghettos and mass incarcerations and other forms of oppression that still exist today. I immediately began telling everyone that we had to do something. My understanding of the problem was very limited at the time, but I told my white friends and family that we [being all “white” people] had to correct this injustice by #1) apologizing to the black community for allowing this to continue and #2) providing reparations in the form of money or housing or land or whatever is necessary to right these wrongs.

Let me tell you, I was met with such a strong and powerful resistance from my white community. I have had many white people – God-fearing, Bible-believing, good white people – sit on my couch and tell me that there is no such thing as systemic racism or white privilege. That we don’t owe people of color anything. That slavery was unjust, but it is in the past and we don’t have to pay for the sins of our ancestors. That giving people handouts just makes them lazy and not want to work for anything. That handouts are what has caused the problems for poor communities to begin with. That people claim to be oppressed because of their race, when they are really just wanting special treatment. That reverse racism is the real evil in the world.

In my opinion, these statements are just excuses that we [white people] make to protect our wealth and interests. I believe that if white Americans took responsibility for the injustices that continue to oppress the black community, we would have to make sacrifices in order to right these wrongs – sacrifices that we, as of yet, are unwilling to make. If there is anything that I know about America [and maybe all of humanity], it is that we base our social, financial, and political decisions on protecting our wealth. If the love of money is the root of all evil, then America has to be the most evil place on this planet.

White Lies

There are so many white lies [and by “white lies” I’m talking about lies that white people tell themselves] that are purely for the purpose of justifying our selfishness. For example, white people love to tell themselves that they are not wealthy, despite being in the top 1% of the wealthiest people on the planet. White people love to tell themselves that they have worked hard for what they have and are entitled to it because of their efforts, completely ignoring the 400 years of slave labor they received which created their wealth in the first place. White people love to tell themselves that if other people worked as hard as they do, then they would also have plenty, despite the overwhelming evidence that all of our current systems work to assist white people and hinder people of color. But the most heinous of all the white lies is that racism doesn’t exist and the white community is not responsible for the suffering of the black community, when our success is directly related to their oppression.

These are the lies that I heard from the white people I discussed race with. And it simultaneously broke my heart and pissed me off. I can only imagine how infuriating it is to be a person of color in this country where racist ideas are so deeply ingrained that the majority don’t even believe that they exist. That is when I discovered that racism runs much, much deeper than just mean-spirited acts of racism or overt racist jokes and slurs. Racism is a much more subtle, insidious disease that affects even the most well-meaning white person.

Turns out, before I could even deal with what racism means for people of color, I had to confront my own whiteness and discover what racism means for me.

Growing Up White

I have started my own racial healing, by way of the book, The Racial Healing Workbook by Anneliese A. Singh. The first exercise in the book asked me to think about my own experiences of “race” and “racism.” It took me a while to even think of anything, but over several days, memories began coming out of nowhere to remind me that I was not isolated from the affects of race and racism. I am sharing these memories with you now in the hopes that you will see that even good, Christian white folks have experiences that shape their understanding of race and often times, though not mean-spirited, these experiences perpetuate our culture of racial prejudice rather than putting an end to it.

My first memory of recognizing a different race was when I was a little kid I saw a picture of myself as a baby being held by a black man. I was told that I loved this man, which surprised everyone. They had expected me to be afraid of him because he was “so black.”

Later, as a kid, one of my favorite movies was the Disney film, Polly, which [I’m horrified to admit] we always called “Black Pollyanna.” I didn’t even know the real name of the movie until I was an adult trying to look it up so I could revisit some of my favorite songs from the film.

In seventh grade, my private school performed the play, Helen Keller, and because there was only one black student in the school [a problem in and of itself], I was cast as one of the “servants” in the show and they literally painted my face black.

In my Christian High School and my Bible College, there were only one or two black students and everyone talked about them being the “token black kids” who were always called on for the school photo shoots to give the impression of a multi-racial campus life in the school brochure.

When I was growing up in Flint, Michigan, my church was all white, except for one family who attended for a short time. My father, the pastor of our church, told me how he had to ask a greeter in the church to stop wearing a confederate flag pin because it was offensive to this black family. What I don’t remember was him using that opportunity to explain to me all of the hatred and oppression represented by that one symbol. Then, just three years ago when I moved into my current home, I complained to my mother that my neighbor proudly hung a confederate flag. My mother defended him saying “Maybe his grandfather fought for the confederacy,” as if that makes it ok. [Side note: my neighbor’s flag has since been taken down.]

My grandfather, the wonderful man that he was, was apparently “uncomfortable with having a black pastor,” which is a nice way of saying that he was racist. But this was excused because he was living in Flint during the time of the race wars.

I have Native American heritage on my mother’s side of the family, but no one knows who or when or how. It’s as if this part of our family history has been completely expunged, my grandmother preferring to be proud of her Irish ancestry. I find it ironic that the most American part of my heritage is the part that no one wants to talk about.

I don’t share this to give the impression that my family or schools were “racist,” because they were not. I could give you a list of a million memories to prove that they were kind, well-meaning people who taught me to love my neighbor and give generously and not judge people based on outward appearances and all of those important lessons about inclusion. However, whether it was unintentional or not, these experiences of race and racism definitely affected my worldview.

Besides my family stories, I also had to admit that I have made many racist assumptions and remarks due to my own ignorance. I have asked people “where are you from?”, minimized black experiences by doubting their truthfulness, been unnecessarily fearful around people of color, made assumptions about a neighborhood based on the race of its inhabitants, and even claimed that people of color use  “the race card.” There was a time when I was against affirmative action and reparations and didn’t believe that black kids my age had it any worse than I did.

Look, I am ashamed of all of this. I feel really badly even writing it. But this is the truth of the subtle and insidious way that racism seeps into our culture. It’s small things, like an off-handed comment about babies being afraid of black men. Or growing up surrounded by all white people so that other races are always viewed as different. Or not feeling safe in a community of colored people.

As I’ve thought over these experiences, I can clearly see how my whiteness has informed my view of the world and impacted my beliefs about other races – whether I like it or not.

And I do not like it. Not one bit. I have gone through the first three stages of grief regarding my own participation in this racially unjust society. I spent the first thirty years of my life denying that racism existed. Then, when I discovered that it did exist, I was really angry about it. Then when I realized that I am a contributing part of it, I was overwhelmed by shame and grief. Now I am on way toward accepting my whiteness so that I can take the appropriate action against racism.

From Grief to Action

Thus far on this journey, I’ve been spending my time trying to learn and understand and become racially aware because these are things that I wasn’t taught. I mean, to me, Christopher Columbus was a hero, and Thanksgiving was when the pilgrims and Native Americans sat down for a happy meal together. I have had to literally go back and relearn history through a more inclusive lens. But despite all of my reading and listening and watching, I’ve only been passively anti-racist. The more I learned about the problem, the more I felt overwhelmed by how massive it is, how insignificant my contribution would be, and how isolated I felt in my own white community.

In March, I read Waking Up White by Debby Irving, which was the first time I had heard a white person confirm that systemic racism and white privilege exist. I felt such a deep appreciation to Debby Irving for helping me to not feel so alone. Then I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and I felt terrible for even being white. Then I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and my heart broke for all of the unspeakable crimes against black people throughout our country’s history. Then I read about the wrongly convicted “Central Park Five” and I was livid that this type of injustice is possible during my lifetime.

And then I heard about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and I was so upset that I couldn’t sleep that night. I was enraged and devastated and so frustrated that something as heinous as this crime could happen in my country let alone go unpunished for so long.

And then, I was sitting on my brother-in-law’s couch on the evening of May 26th, when Brett said to me, “You’re going to want to see this.” He sent me the video of George Floyd’s murder.

In that moment, I – like so many other people in this country – had finally had enough. I had to put my foot down. I could not be passive about this war on colored bodies any longer.

Since George Floyd’s murder, I have immersed myself in the voices and stories of people of color. I have soaked in the music, the podcasts, the posts, the articles, the movies, the documentaries pretty much non-stop. I went to my city’s protest, which was one of the most powerful and inspiring things that I have ever experienced. I watched Oprah’s two-part special called “Where Do We Go From Here?” I watched the movie Selma and the Netflix mini-series, “When They See Us” and the documentary 13th. I have been so upset that I sat down at my computer and typed away long into the night. I have had passionate discussions with family members and friends. I have been overwhelmed by sadness. I have been uncomfortable and upset about every new heartbreaking injustice that I have learned about.

I have been sitting in this grief for several weeks now. But all this grieving – though it has an important place in healing – isn’t changing anything.

Now it’s time to do something.

Tomorrow I am going to talk about how I have chosen to support the important work of racial equality and justice – and how you can too.

🗽🗽🗽

Karis

May Shopping Audit [and why I’m auditing my shopping]

May Shopping Audit [and why I’m auditing my shopping]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

Now that we are almost halfway through the year, I have started asking myself why I even bother to track my purchases. It is a hassle since I am really only tracking my partner’s purchases because I never buy anything. It has also lead to a few passionate [aka heated] discussions between the two of us on what constitutes a “necessary” expense.

But that is exactly why this is a helpful endeavor [despite the nuisance]. It forces us to consider each purchase, instead of just buying whatever we want whenever we feel like it, which is what we used to do.

But it’s not easy to stop impulse buying. The very definition of the word “impulse” implies that it will be hard to stop. The American consumer culture preys on our inability to control ourselves when it comes to spending. Advertisers use all kinds of tricks to get us to spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need. But we have the power to choose more intentional spending habits. It takes discipline and practice, which is exactly what I am doing with this shopping audit.

Questions to Ask for Intentional Purchases

Before we buy anything, we ask ourselves a series of questions.

  • Do we need this?
  • Can we use something we already have?
  • Can we make it ourselves?
  • Is it reusable?
  • How often will we use it?
  • How long will we need it?
  • Can we buy it used?

Honestly, the first two questions usually rule out the purchase. But if we do determine that we really do need it and it can’t be found used, we ask more questions – and these questions are just as important as the first set.

  • What business do we want to support when buying it?
  • What is the most environmentally friendly option for this product?
  • Where can we buy this to ensure it was manufactured ethically?
  • What is the plan for disposing of it at the end of its life?

I will once again share this graphic by Sara Lazarovic [youre going to see this a lot from me].

(c) Sarah Lazarovic

The point is not to keep us from making any purchases, but rather to help us make intentional purchases. And, also, it doesn’t mean you can’t ever buy anything you want ever again. We still buy things that we technically want more than need, but we are intentional about it – which makes all the difference.

For example…

The Story of Our Bike Pump

We needed a new bike pump. Our kids are biking every day and I have two jogging strollers [a single and a double] that I use very frequently that needed the tires refilled. Our bike pump broke last summer. So, once we determined that we needed a new one and couldn’t buy one used, we agreed to buy one. However, instead of running to Walmart or Target that day to pick up the cheapest one we could find, we waited until a local bike shop in our town was open so that we could support a local, ethical business with the purchase.

The bike pump was technically a want, not a need, if you define “need” as something needed for survival. I mean we don’t have to go for bike rides or walks. But, let’s be real, this is a source of enjoyment and health and stress relief and quality time and immersion in nature that our entire family adores. We live on a bike path and use it every single day. And in order to continue, we “needed” a bike pump.

So was it a need or a want?

🤷‍♀️

We made the decision that it would be used a lot and could support a local business and would enhance our lives and so we bought one.

I’m sure your thinking [like my partner did], Geez, what’s the big deal about buying a bike pump? But this bike pump is one of many, many purchases that suddenly pops up. Each time, we try to make intentional purchases. In the case of the bike pump, we purchased a new one from a local business. But in many other cases, we choose to do without, or to wait, or find an alternative.

(c) Sarah Lazarovic

A few weeks back, I chopped my hair shorter than Brett’s and wanted headbands to make me look less like my little brother. I could have immediately ordered a set from Amazon, but instead I made some out of the old clothes that are too shabby to donate. When we needed to install a French drain in our yard, Brett could have gone to Home Depot straightaway to buy the necessary piping, but instead waited and – lo and behold! – found someone giving away enough tubing for the whole project. And when I wanted cute little bumblebee candies to put on my baby’s first birthday cake, I did some research and found a cute way to make them myself using almonds instead. There’s also the tea kettle that would be handy for heating water and the bathmat that I’m now making out of old towels and the new television because ours keeps shutting off on us randomly – but none of these purchases are necessary, so we haven’t bought them…yet.

Usually buying less just requires taking a pause before buying the first option that comes to mind. And in the end, if the choice is made to purchase new, then “where” and “what” become important questions to consider.

As Anna Lappé said, “Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” We have the choice to buy cheap and support big businesses who promote greed in our economy and ourselves. Or we can buy ethically and environmentally and support small businesses – the businesses of our neighbors and friends and our community – and find ourselves less concerned about the money and more concerned about things that truly matter.

So, without further adieu, here is our purchases for May.

What We Bought

Bike pump: $40 – I’ve already discussed this purchase at length above [you should have heard Brett and I discussing it for DAYS].

Mother’s Day Gifts: $184.10 – We sent gifts to both our moms, both of our living grandmothers, and my sweet Auntie Paula who is like a mother to me. Especially during this time of being separated from our loved ones, I thought it was important to send special gifts. However, even these were ethical and intentional. We sent two gifts through Etsy in order to support small businesses. We sent two gifts of Fair Trade coffee from Grounds for Change, which is a family-owned and operated business in Seattle that we frequently support because they are ethical and eco-friendly. And we sent a candle that supports one of our favorite charities, Charity:Water, the proceeds of which will help provide clean water to people around the world. So even in buying gifts, we try to make intentional and ethical purchases that support causes we care about from companies whose values align with our own, while at the same showing our family that we love them.

Diapers/Diaper Cream/Toiletries: $22.57 – I have to include this purchase, though it pains me. We did some traveling last month and so we bought disposable diapers and some disposable toiletry items. At home, we use exclusively cloth diapers and I use a menstrual cup and reusable menstrual pads, but when traveling to stay with family this becomes…uncomfortable. So we typically buy disposables for travels.

Brake parts for van: $96.88 – At least we didn’t have to pay the cost of labor to have the brakes changed because Brett has picked up this skill [among many other mechanic skills] and saved us lots of money over the years.

Bike: $10 – We bought a used bike for Evangeline because she outgrew the one she had been using. Now her old one is being used by Josephine.

Connectors for French drain: $5 – Oh, the joys of home ownership. But again, Brett is saving lots of money by digging the draining and doing all the work himself.

Tube for kids bike: $5 – One of the kids’ bike got a flat, so we had to replace the tube. I told you we ride A LOT!

Total spent: $363.55

Over budget: $134.10 [We weren’t over budget on the month as a whole, but we did technically overspend in the “gift” category – we just love the moms in our life so much!]

What We Are Going To Do With It

Everything we bought [with the exception of the disposable products] will receive lots of love – especially those new brakes for the van.

😜

What We Got Rid Of

This month we went through the kids toys. I recently read Simplicity Parenting, which reminded me once again how important it is to keep the levels of toys from overwhelming me, and our house, and even the kids.

Thirty-five total books and toys have been temporarily removed to a safe place where they will wait to see if anyone misses anything [they won’t]. Then off to Salvation Army.

The kids’ room is once again under control.

[Speaking of Simplicity Parenting, over the next few weeks I am going to be posting about how we’ve been simplifying our mealtimes, schedules, possessions, and food choices to improve our time together and provide our kids with plenty of opportunities to just be kids.]

Even though we spent quite a bit, we also gave away a lot of money in May to important organizations such has No Kid Hungry, Save the Children, Charity: Water and our local food bank. We spent over $300 on ourselves, but we gave over $1500 away to help people impacted by this global crisis.

Brett and I are both still furloughed from our jobs, but this time has only made us more aware of how blessed we are and rather than stressing about money or worrying for ourselves, we have turned our attention to people less fortunate than ourselves and given what we are able.

This is a very stressful time for our country and our world, so I hope you all are doing okay, staying safe and healthy, and taking care of yourselves and your loved ones!

✌🏻 ✌🏻 ✌🏻

Karis

Happy 2nd Birthday to my Blog 🥳

Happy 2nd Birthday to my Blog 🥳

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Today I turn thirty-three years old and my blog turns two. It’s kind of fun sharing a birthday with my blog. She has become a close friend of mine – the sort of friend who listens without judging or offering advice and never hates me despite how weird I seem to the rest of the world.

My birthday is not a special affair – not because my partner doesn’t try to make it a huge deal [he tries throwing me a party every frickin year], but because I don’t like a lot of fuss about my birthday. I prefer quiet time at home with my family instead of a big celebration, and this year that’s exactly what I’m getting [thanks, Coronavirus!].

My plans include a movie with chocolate and champagne. Sounds absolutely perfect.

In honor of my blog’s birthday, I’m doing some reflection on the past two years.

As someone who gets bored very quickly and has started [and stopped] multiple “blogging” endeavors in the past, I am quite surprised that I’ve managed to keep this thing going for two years.

I’m grateful to everyone who has stuck with me through my motherhood adventures, my dabbling in veganism, my purging of our belongings, and my attempt a [nearly] zero waste living. It’s been an eventful two years.

Looking back over my posts, I realize that this blog is very scatter-brained [which I suppose is only natural since I’m very scatter-brained]. In the past two years, I’ve written about minimalism, simplicity, zero waste, DIY, healthy living and motherhood. I’ve posted about clothing purges, my farm share, time outdoors with my kids, craft projects, grocery shopping, books I’ve read, my home birth, and even my trash can has made several appearances. It’s been weird, I know.

But, believe it or not, in the midst of all this randomness, I have been pursuing one main goal – which is the goal of this blog.

To live a simple and intentional life

Doesn’t sound too tough, but turns out this is a very counter-cultural way of life – at least, counter to my American culture which is focused on convenience and consumerism and accumulating wealth and working yourself to death in pursuit of it. American culture also has a tendency to glorify busyness, as if the people who are going the fastest, filling their schedules the fullest, collapsing into bed at night the most exhausted are the ones winning at life.

When I talk about my kids playing outside all day instead of watching television, or taking my own mason jars to the grocery store, or using bar shampoo, or [god forbid] not buying paper towels, I mostly get eye-rolls.

Living simply and intentionally has not only been challenging – it has also been lonely.

This blog has served as my personal sounding board and safe space for reflection [made all the safer by the small number of people who read it] and also a means of finding connections with other like-minded bloggers.

This blog is not about giving people advice or tips or how-tos. This has been my own personal exploration of how I want to live my best life.

Simple Living

Yvon Chouinard is a rock climber, environmentalist, and the founder of my favorite ethical clothing brand, Patagonia.

Thus far, I’ve focused mostly on the simple side of things. I’ve been working on reducing clutter [physical and otherwise] and stopping the constant influx of new stuff. I’ve been avoiding further damage to the planet through reducing our waste and recycling what we can and repurposing what we can’t. I’ve been spending more time with my kids outdoors enjoying nature, creating works of art at the kitchen table, and engaging in their world of make believe. We’ve been doing more reading and baking and building.

Intentional Living

Joshua Becker is the author of several books on minimalism and simple living.

We’ve gone back to the basics. Back to a simpler way of life. But something has been missing [from the blog, at least] — the intention.

So this year I am going to spend more time focusing on the intention behind these outward manifestations. I will be sharing more about our charitable contributions, humanitarian efforts and the reasons that go deeper than simply living with less clutter and screen time. Though I haven’t written about it [other than once about a year ago in this post], all of my lifestyle changes have been motivated by a desire to live an intentional life.

This blog is not just about simplicity – it’s about living a life of meaning and purpose.

Simple living and minimalism and zero waste save a lot of money, but for what purpose? Just to hoard my abundant resources until I die? To increase my already luxurious existence? To ensure that I can live out the end of my days without a care in the world? Is that what life is really all about?

These are the ideas that I have been exploring personally and that are going to show up more regularly in my writing.

Also, this blog is in dire need of a redesign which I will hopefully get done soon.

Stay tuned!

🥳🥳🥳

Karis

Lessons in Motherhood and Modeling Screen Time Limits

Lessons in Motherhood and Modeling Screen Time Limits

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 5 Comments

When I was a little kid, we had one HUGE desk top computer in our basement that we could power up to play a game if we had the patience and determination to actually get the machine on and the floppy disk running. But today, my kindergartner has spent the last three months doing her school work on an iPad – watching YouTube videos, playing math computer games, and reading digital kids books.

Times have definitely changed.

I know that opinions are very strong on both sides of the screen time debate, and so I have no intention of weighing in on how much screen time kids should or should not have. I’ll leave that to the experts. But I have realized that even more important than setting healthy boundaries for my kids is modeling healthy screen time usage for myself.

While reading Carla Naumburg’s book, How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids, it dawned on me that I am breaking many of the screen time rules that I would want my kids to follow. So I decided to set some boundaries for my own screen time.

I don’t have Facebook, but I still often get sucked into spending a lot of time staring at the screen. Sometimes I pick up my phone to check the weather and realize an hour later [after checking emails, responding to texts messages, practicing Spanish, and catching up on news] that I still don’t know the forecast.

But even still, I don’t believe that using my phone is bad [or that you shouldn’t use yours as much as you want]. I have just realized that if I expect my kids to have healthy boundaries for screens, I need to have healthy boundaries as well. While adults may not have the developmental issues associated with screen time that kids do, we still risk negative side effects such as trouble sleeping, weight gain, and a general loss of time.

My Screen Time Limits

I am not trying to say that everyone should follow these specific rules. Your usage will depend on how your phone serves you. [And it’s important to remember that the phone, tablet, computer or device is there to serve you, not the other way around.] For me personally, these changes over the past few months have provided me with more quality time with my family, less time wasted wandering aimlessly on my phone, and a better example of how I want my kids to manage their own screens when they are old enough.

1. No screens during mealtime. I’ve been working on table manners and dinner time routines with my kids. One of the new standards is no screens at the table. Right now my kids don’t have their own devices, so it’s really just a rule for my partner and I. Sometimes our phones are so attached to us that they come to the table with us, but this just causes a distraction from the focus of time together as a family during meals.

2. Absolutely no phones while driving. This rule is a no-brainer especially since it is now a law, but it is still a struggle. I have a habit of checking my phone at stop lights and using it for directions or even occasionally making calls. Could these things wait? Most definitely. Do I want my kids thinking that it is ok to use their phones while driving? Absolutely not.

3. No television when the kids are awake. Oh, man. This is tough. Television is such an easy and convenient distraction. A few years back, I would start reaching the end of my rope around dinner time while I was waiting for Brett to get home and trying to make dinner and the baby was screaming and my emergency response was to turn on the television. And I wasn’t even putting on kids shows. I would turn on The Great British Baking Show or American Ninja Warrior. I wasn’t trying to distract my kids. I was trying to distract myself. Talk about setting a bad example for my children!

Once I realized my unhealthy tendency, I decided to move the television to the basement and not turn it on [outside of family movie nights or agreed upon screen times] until the kids are in bed for the night.

It has been a game changer. And not just for me, but also for my kids. We watch WAAAAY less television and my kids are much less dependent on it for their own entertainment. We have all learned how to handle boredom or stress without the television.

4. Phone away when playing with the kids. I knew something had to change when I found myself playing with my kids while responding to text messages. How terrible is that? I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I’m sure my kids could tell that I was not 100% present. Sometimes the kids and I are in the middle of an epic story about Brown Puppy [my daughter’s favorite stuffed animal] rescuing Super Chase [my son’s favorite Paw Patrol character] from the hot lava on Daisy Island [that’s our dog]…and all of a sudden, I’m thinking about my to do list and that I need to call the doctor to reschedule the baby’s appointment and I need to text Brett to remind him to pick up extra peanuts because I need to make peanut butter for tomorrow’s lunches…

The next thing I know, I’m on my phone and telling my kids to just hang on for one second.

For me, this is a major parenting fail. I want to spend time with my kids. I want to play. I will only have the opportunity to make these memories and share these times with my kids for so long. But I am so easily distracted by everything that I have to do that my brain can’t stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time.

So, I don’t keep my phone within reach when I play with my kids. I set it far away – usually out of the room, sometimes even up stairs charging by my bed.

Not everyone has the ability to do this, since many people have to be available at all times, but I have found that even the conscious effort to set the phone down and focus on my kids has improved my ability to set my “adult stuff” aside and slow down my brain for a bit.

5. No screens in bed. The last rule I have set for myself is to not sit and stare at my phone [or any other device – though I don’t have any other devices] before I go to sleep at night. Screens have been proven to cause interrupted, restless sleep when used right before bed. Plus, it’s not a calming way to send myself off into sleep. I often read books on my phone, but for just before bed, I use a physical book. Or I just climb into bed and go to sleep, which is great because sometimes phones create this crazy time vortex where you lose three hours without even realizing it.

Anyway, these are just some of the things I’ve been personally working on in my own life as a mother – trying to do the best I can for my kids. It’s my job to protect them from things that will harm them, but it’s also my job to set the example.

Parenting is TOUGH! Am I right???

📱 📱 📱

Karis

[Nearly] Zero Waste Groceries In a Pandemic

[Nearly] Zero Waste Groceries In a Pandemic

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In the past, I’ve written about my experiences with [nearly] zero waste grocery shopping at Aldi, Walmart, and Fresh Thyme — now here is how my family is shopping [nearly] zero waste during a pandemic.

Don’t judge me by the ramen noodle purchase–that was my husband’s choice… 😆

My husband [who has done all our shopping since the shelter-at-home order began] went to Jewel-Osco [our local grocery chain here in Chicagoland] on Wednesday for groceries. As you can see from the photo above, he brought home a lot of plastic. And that’s totally ok. This is one of the side-effects of the pandemic, but it does not in any way change my obligation to reduce my waste.

Before COVID-19, I always bought the following foods from bulk bins:

  • Oats
  • Raisins
  • Flour
  • Pasta
  • Rice
  • Beans/Lentils/Split Peas
  • Nuts
  • Peanut butter
  • Maple Syrup
  • Vinegar
  • Honey
  • Candy/Chocolates

Now, we buy all of these items in packaging.

But all is not lost! This doesn’t mean we have to throw in the towel on reducing our waste. Here is how we are continuing to reduce our waste in the grocery department:

1. Buy the biggest package available. When this all started, Brett bought the biggest bag of rice at the store. It will probably last us the rest of the year – but that is better than buying a bunch of plastic bags. [And, trust me, we have very little storage space, but we made room the big bag in our laundry room storage area.] Whenever applicable – and for shelf-stable items only – buying a bigger package cuts down on the waste.

2. Buy only what we need. This may sound contrary to my previous point, but I’m not talking about buying big packages of shelf-stable foods that you will definitely use. I’m talking about buying the store out of everything that you may possibly, potentially have an urge for in the next century. If you don’t eat it, don’t buy it. This is common sense. And especially don’t stock up on fresh foods. Despite good intentions, this always leads to food waste. We buy enough fresh produce for the week and that’s it. We never buy frozen food [apart from the occasional carton of ice cream] because the packaging isn’t recycle able, but we have bought some canned items because you can easily recycle the cans.

[P.S.A. This is partly to reduce food waste, but also to just be a kind and considerate person during this time of panic. If everyone only bought what they actually needed we wouldn’t be running out of stuff like toilet paper and disinfectants and BREAD FLOUR!!! The problem becomes more compounded when people want something and can’t find it. The next time they see the product they buy more than they need out of fear it won’t be available again. I BEG OF YOU: RESIST THIS URGE. Just buy what you need.]

3. Choose glass over plastic. If you have to buy food in packaging, it is best to always choose the most easily recycled type of packaging. Glass is best as it can be continually recycled without losing quality or purity. So we choose to buy our milk in glass bottles instead of milk. We buy pasta sauce in glass over plastic jars. We buy jams and syrup and honey in glass even though cheaper alternatives are available in plastic [the price difference is really minor.] When glass isn’t available, we choose the next best thing. For instance, we buy our pasta in cardboard instead of plastic bags. We buy our vegetables in aluminum cans over frozen plastic bags [when fresh isn’t available] because plastic bags in the freezer section can’t be recycled.

4. Choose loose over bagged. When it comes to produce, we choose loose over wrapped in plastic. This may seem unsanitary at a time like this, but we wash our produce before eating and sometimes loose produce is actually more sanitary because produce that is wrapped in plastic often leads people to believe that it doesn’t need to be washed before consuming – but it does. Some types of produce can only be found in plastic at the grocery store [such as berries, green beans, grapes, and cauliflower]. In those cases, we buy them less frequently and always recycle the plastic containers and bags [through store drop-off recycling programs].

5. Recycle everything possible. So, yes, we are bringing home more packaging because it is unavoidable. We are even bringing our food home in plastic grocery bags [oh the horror!], but that doesn’t mean we give up. It just means we are more diligent about what we can do, which is recycle. It’s true that recycling is just a bandaid, but it’s still important to do our best to keep stuff out of the landfills. We rinse every jug and jar and carton and container and put it out for recycling. It may be a hassle, but it is important.

6. Reuse or recycle plastic bags. We previously shopped with reusable bags, but now that we are bringing plastic bags home we use them as doggy poop bags [since Daisy is getting lots of walks these days] and trash bags. We haven’t bought trash bags in over a year and since we only produce less than one grocery bag of trash per week, this actually is pretty convenient. While I wish we didn’t produce any trash at all, it isn’t realistic for our family of meat eaters and little kids, BUT we have been actively pursuing [nearly] zero waste so that we reduce our negative impact on the environment as much as we can. These bags are recyclable through store drop-off programs though, so if you don’t have a way to use them, recycle them!

Our lovely collection of plastic grocery bags from one grocery trip.

Since the pandemic began, I’ve been saying [so frequently that your probably sick of it] that this doesn’t change our obligation to take care of our planet. The way we go about it has changed and will continue to change, I am sure. But what is the point of surviving this pandemic just to get back to a world of pollution and waste?

[And as a side note, I know a lot of people “don’t believe in global warming” and whatever. But environmentalism isn’t just about doomsday, it’s about simple stewardship. It’s about sustainability. It’s about being responsible and kind to the planet so that all of god’s creatures can survive and thrive here – us humans included.]

I hope these ideas encourage people to make small changes that can have a big impact if we all start adopting them.

So happy grocery shopping! [Don’t forget your face mask and social distancing!]

🛒🛒🛒

Karis

April Shopping Audit [No Spend Month]

April Shopping Audit [No Spend Month]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 9 Comments

April was a “No Spend Month” which I don’t think we have ever successfully done in the past – and I’ll let you know how successful we were this time after a brief COVID-19 Update…

***Carlson Family COVID-19 Update: We were under stay-at-home orders for the entire month of April.

Health: We are all healthy. In fact, no one in our extended family has been sick with the virus either, so we are very grateful. We have been faithfully respecting the stay-at-home orders to protect the vulnerable people in our community – even missing Easter brunch which is my FAVORITE.

But we had a nice Easter at home.

Job: Brett worked from home until he was furloughed on the 24th. With no confirmation of when the baseball season will start (if at all), he may be furloughed for a while. My job is on indefinite hold, but I’m certain I can have my job back when the gym reopens. We are considering having one or both of us get another job for the interim.

School: Evangeline attended kindergarten virtually all month, and it was announced that Illinois schools will not reopen this year, so we will finish out the school year with this format. Monday-Thursday we receive a PowerPoint presentation from her teacher which contains the lessons for the day. It is labor intensive for me to ensure that she is doing everything, but not as bad as for some parents because at least Evangeline can read. I can point her toward the assignment and she can read the instructions herself. School usually takes two or three hours in the mornings. Every day she has a conference video call with the teacher to go over phonics and sight words. Friday is for catching up on anything we missed, but we get it all done so that Friday is like an extra weekend day to spend playing outside.

How adorable is this color wheel art project Evangeline did???

Family life: We spent lots of time outside and working in the yard. Brett and I have been doing lots of running. Our dog has taken more walks in the past month than in the entire last year combined!

We FINALLY decided to pick up one of the playground sets that are always being offered for free and Brett spent three whole days tearing it down and rebuilding it in our backyard. The kids LOVE it. I have imagined having one of these in the backyard since we bought this house – and now the dream is a reality! Thank you COVID-19.

With salons closed, I’ve started cutting Brett’s hair – and now he’s started cutting mine – which is nice because a trip to the beautician for me usually costs over $100.00!

The move: We are not certain that we will be moving to the city at all now. It depends on how this pandemic and subsequent recession impacts the housing market.

Ok, so there you have it. Now on to the April update.

What We Bought:

We did really well for the most part. Here are the only things we bought (outside of consumables like food and salt blocks):

Medication for baby: $4 – Eleanor needed a medicated cream for a rash. Didn’t see any way around this…

Tool for building playground: $11 – Brett needed a specific attachment for his drill to unscrew all the pieces of the play set (and put them back together).

Total spent: $15

Over budget: $15 (not perfect, but I still consider this a win)

What We Are Going To Do With It:

The medicated ointment will obviously be used and the tube throw into the trash. In some cases, waste is necessary. Medications is probably one of them.

The tool will be added to Brett’s collection and used again, I’m sure.

What We Got Rid Of:

This time has allowed us to go through even more stuff in the shed and get rid of excess. [Originally I was planning to get rid of most of our Halloween and Christmas stuff, but now that we may be here another year, I am going to keep some of it.]

Also, with the weather warming up, I traded out the kids clothes for the new season and am able to get rid of the baby’s clothes and my son’s clothes.

We even created a corner of the house to put all the things that will be given away as soon as the restrictions are lifted.

Donation bin

The contents of the bin total forty-four items.

Then there is what is on top and this overflow section.

Donation overflow pile

I think we are around 100 items leaving our home…as soon as we are able to leave our home, that is.

Now that we are both out of work for the time being, it is more important than ever to watch our spending. While we don’t plan to do a total no spend month again, we are cutting out unnecessary purchases – other than the bike pump we just bought yesterday…

😬😬😬

Karis

The Story of My Worn-Out Boots

The Story of My Worn-Out Boots

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

While the coronavirus pandemic has made some aspects of zero waste living more challenging [such as refusing plastic bags, shopping from bulk bins, filling reusable cups, and the war on disposable plastics in general], there are some aspects of low waste living that are becoming more popular as a result of this unprecedented time [such as unpaper towels, cloth diapering, baking from scratch, sewing, and gardening].

Well, there is one more low waste principle I would like to recommend as being ideal in this situation: repairing our stuff rather than throwing it away and buying new. Since shopping malls are closed now and a lot of “retail therapy” has been exchanged for outdoor exercise [👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻], you might be forced to make do with what you have in your closet anyway.

Of course, there is always Amazon [and other online retailers] to order from, but why not give mending a chance? Especially at a time when everyone at least appears to be extremely concerned about their finances, now would be ideal to practice all those forgotten resolutions of not buying a bunch of crap we don’t need.

So, along those lines, here is my story of repairing rather than replacing.

[Don’t worry – it’s a short story.]

The Story

Before the stay-at-home order went into effect for Illinois [which was one of the earliest states to go into lockdown], I decided to have one of my boots repaired rather than throwing the pair away.

These boots are nothing special. They aren’t fancy. They didn’t cost very much money. But they are my only pair of black flat boots and I have worn them all fall and winter for the past five years. So when the sole ripped apart from the rest of the boot, I was bummed.

Brett immediately suggested throwing them in the trash – even offering to do the job for me since he knows it pains me to throw anything away [what a guy]. But I told him I would see about getting them repaired. Of course he laughed at this and told me that it would cost more to fix the boot than it would to buy a new pair.

Still, I liked these boots and I didn’t want to buy a new pair. I have developed a very strong aversion to new things as it is. Add to that my dislike of throwing things away and I knew I had to at least attempt to get them repaired.

I found a cobbler. [It took a while for me to even remember what the term is for someone who repairs shoes, my only knowledge of them coming from the old story about the elves and the cobbler…oh and the Adam Sandler movie.]

I have never been to a shoe repair shop. I had absolutely no frame of reference for what this might cost. They could have told me it would cost $75 and I wouldn’t have known if this was highway robbery or if shoe repair really is that challenging of a job. But when I told the man the problem, he said he could glue the sole back on for $10.

Ten dollars! What a steal!

I dropped the boot off that day and picked it up the following week, good as new. [Not really, it is still a worn-out boot, but at least there isn’t a huge hole at the heel anymore.] I am confident that I will get at least several more years out of these boots, and in the very likely event that another part wears out, I will return to the same repairman again.

So there you have it. These poor, innocent little boots would have been rotting in some landfill by now if the kind shoe repairman hadn’t fixed them for $10!

[Also, I don’t think I could buy a pair of new boots for $10 – so there Brett!]

The Moral of the Story

Our society has been trained to believe that everything is disposable – even our clothing and shoes. Oh, those pants don’t fit just right? That zipper is broken? The heel snapped off your shoe? There is a stain on your sweater? There is a hole in your jeans? Missing a button??? Well then, just toss it in the garbage bin and *POOF* it magically disappears and you can go buy another one [or two or three] at any time.

The problem is that clothing and shoes are NOT disposable. They are not meant to be treated like tissues, used once and then thrown away. Clothing has a very high price – in natural resources, in skilled labor, in transport and energy. And we keep churning it out and tossing it away like there is no end in sight.

Unfortunately, the end is coming. The clothing industry [as far as it stands in America] is not sustainable, and I’m not even talking about environmental sustainability. I just mean that it literally cannot go on like this. The model takes too much and abuses too many and creates an exorbitant amount of waste.

Even donated clothing has become a huge problem for non-profits and [even worse] impoverished communities to deal with now.

Do we really believe that we can keep creating and buying and discarding textiles to the tune of over 15 million tons of waste per year? Without something breaking eventually?

So, honestly, I hope that America makes a shift from buying cheap, crappy clothing on repeat and instead repairs and mends and tailors and darns and modifies and, heck, if all else fails, repurposes what they already have.

And I’m not saying this as someone who doesn’t have substantial skin in the game. My partner has been selling clothing for the past ten years. Our family’s primary source of income is clothing retail. But especially as someone who has seen the background of these businesses, I can promise you that the whole machine has been slowly grinding to a halt even before this pandemic. Big name clothing brands are shutting down stores, filing bankruptcy, continually missing sales projections, clearancing surplus stock just to get rid of it so that they can make room for the new collections that are coming in every month [or more frequently]. By dropping their prices, stores are training customers to wait for low prices, which creates a cyclical effect that is basically a death spiral for the clothing retailer.

This has been coming long before the coronavirus existed.

Anyway, how great would it be if we could trade fast fashion retailers for, say, a booming seamstress and tailoring industry? Or make thrift shopping the primary source of clothing rather than the shopping malls [which have also been on the decline for years now], so that resale shops around the country have to hire tons more employees and move to bigger locations to meet the demand? And what if cobblers become so common that everyone knows where their local shoe repair shop is, rather than wondering where to even find such a thing? And maybe people will start getting creative and turning their old clothes into new, unique one-of-a-kind pieces that they truly love, rather than having to search through racks of the same pants that fifty other people will buy that same day?

Sounds good to me.

Don’t worry – the clothing industry will never go away completely. We obviously will always need clothes. But imagine a world where we only buy what we need, then we would have money to pay more and we would buy better quality and clothing manufacturers wouldn’t have to be constantly cutting their costs to appease the American demand for cheaper and cheaper clothing. This would be a win for everyone.

For more information on the clothing industry, I highly recommend the following:

  • Overdressed by Elizabeth L. Cline
  • Wardrobe Crisis by Clare Press
  • The True Cost [Documentary]

Happy mending!

👢👢👢

Karis

Book Reviews [2020 Q1]

Book Reviews [2020 Q1]

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 2 Comments

In the past three months, I have read some of the most profound and transformative books of my entire life. So, rather than wait til July, I’m switching to quarterly book reviews.

But first, I want to preface my reviews by saying that I don’t pretend to be an expert on…well…anything and these comments are just my own personal responses to reading the books.

I’ve come to see how books are a huge part of my journey and that the timing of reading a book makes a big difference in how I will receive it. I think this is true for most people. For instance, several years ago I read many books about minimalism, simplicity, and decluttering. Each of these was helpful at the time in teaching me how to simplify and organize my life. They served as an important first step toward a more intentional and less egocentric existence. I found many of these books to be transformative [such as The Year of Less by Cait Flanders and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and Slow by Brooke McAlary]. However, I tried to read another one a few weeks ago [When Less Becomes More by Emily Ley] and I just couldn’t do it. I’m at a different place in my journey now and while these books set me on the right path, I’m ready to move to the next level of intentional living. [You’ll see what I mean as you look at the books I’ve read so far this year.]

All that to say, I have read these books because they challenge my worldview and challenge me to change and that is what I love most about books.

[Also, the star ratings are purely for fun and only reflect my own personal enjoyment of the book.]

So here we go…

January

milk and honey by rupi kaur

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a very short book of poems which is on Emma Watson’s feminist book club list. Clearly, I really enjoyed it [hence the five stars]. It was beautiful and powerful.

One of my favorite things about Kaur’s poetry is that “I” is never capitalized [actually nothing is capitalized]. It reminded me of a brilliant guy I dated in college who always used a lowercase “i” to refer to himself in writing because he didn’t think it was right for us to only capitalize the word referring to ourselves, but not the other pronouns. I LOVE that. I don’t know if it was Kaur’s intent, but the lack of capitalization created a unique, visual equality in her work.

I definitely recommend this book – but I also know that some people will be offended by it [as people are offended by anything feminine and frank] and that others will think it’s plain nonsense.

Truth is uncomfortable sometimes.

Hunger by Roxane Gay

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was another book from Emma Watson’s book club list. I had anticipated it being feminist, but I wasn’t prepared for how it would affect me as a personal trainer. Everyone needs to read this book to better understand the complexities surrounding body image in our culture. Although I have always been a strong advocate of “healthy over skinny” and “strong is the new sexy” kind of stuff, I have never experienced what it is like to be obese in our culture. This book was eye opening into the pain and discomfort that comes with living in a world designed for skinny people.

The most important lesson of all, however, is the age-old and yet still unmastered rule of etiquette: stop judging people by their outward appearance! [Geez. You would think we would have this one down by now!] This applies to so many people today. No one wants to be instantly judged because of the way they look – even if their appearance is their choice. We don’t know the whole person and the small glimpses we get are just tiny fragments of the whole reality. Roxane’s story is proof that sometimes even the people closest to us don’t know the whole truth.

“He said/she said is why so many victims (or survivors, if you prefer that terminology) don’t come forward. All too often, what “he said” matters more, so we just swallow the truth. We swallow it, and more often than not, that truth turns rancid. It spreads through the body like an infection. It becomes depression or addiction or obsession or some other physical manifestation of the silence of what she would have said, needed to say, couldn’t say.”

Roxane Gay, Hunger

And, then, if that wasn’t enough of a reason for this book to be awesome, it is also full of amazing truths about how frickin sexist our society is.

I was angry because young men in politics were treated like rising stars, but young women were treated like — well, young women. I was angry about all the women candidates who put their political skills on hold to raise children — and all the male candidates who didn’t. I was angry about the human talent that was lost because it was born into a female body and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one. And I was angry because the media took racism seriously — or at least pretended to — but with sexism, they rarely bothered even to pretend. Resentment of women still seemed safe, whether it took the form of demonizing black single mothers or making routine jokes about powerful women being ball-busters.”

Roxane Gay, Hunger

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

⭐️⭐️

This is the only book I’ve read all year [so far] that I didn’t really like. I chose it because I love to read books that are being made into movies before I see the films. Unfortunately, this one was just like The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which was also totally predictable. I don’t know if this is a result of all of those creative writing courses I took in college, studying how to create a good plot twist, but I have read very, very few books that have legitimately surprised me. I should probably just give up on the suspense/thriller genre altogether, as it is usually a disappointment.

[Some exceptions are The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton and Where the Crawdad’s Sing by Delia Owens – both of which I loved and highly recommend.]

My sincere apologies to Mr. Finn…

February

How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids by Carla Naumburg, PhD

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everyone who has kids should read this. Even if you are thinking right now that you don’t need to read it because you would never lose your shit with your little angels [you’re totally lying to yourself], you should read it anyway because it’s HILARIOUS. This author is the funniest I have ever read [though I am severely sleep-deprived due to having four little “button-pushers” so I may be very easily amused].

Last year I read Now Say This [for the second time], which was all about how to respond to your children and nurture them and empower them and teach them a sense of morality etc. Well, How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t is basically all about how to nurture yourself.

It was AWESOME.

It is also so full of wisdom that I would love to quote the ENTIRE BOOK right here, but you should really just go read it for yourself…because that’s obviously why it’s in a book form. In fact, I will probably start buying this book for new parents because it is that essential.

Many parenting books focus on how to get kids to stop with all the [button] pushing already. While it is technically your job as a parent to teach your children to keep their hands to themselves, both literally and figuratively, this is not the best tactic for managing your shit. Do you really want to hinge your sanity on the behavior of someone who licks walls and melts down over the shape of a piece of toast? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Carla Naumburg, PhD How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids

Since I can’t quote the whole thing, I’ll share one of the impactful nuggets of wisdom for me personally: STOP MULTI-TASKING! It seems so obvious to me now, but as soon as she said it I realized that I get super irritated with my kids any time I am trying to get something done AND spend time with them. In these situations, I think I’m being productive [and I highly value productivity], but in reality nothing gets done with quality and I just get upset more easily. So, I’ve been practicing being completely present during my time with the kids – setting the phone far, far away, focusing on my kids instead of running through my mental to-do list, engaging in activities with them instead of setting them up to play and walking away.

This was just one of the major helpful tips, but trust me, this book has TONS of excellent advice. You will definitely find your triggers and learn how to manage them, which is essential to avoid losing your shit.

“Screwing up and being awesome are not mutually exclusive.”

Carla Naumburg, PhD

Carla, I freaking love you.

Religion As We Know It: An Origin Story by Jack Miles

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My relationship with religion is very complicated. In spite of that [or maybe because of it], I enjoy reading religious books of all sorts. I picked this book up because I have been studying philosophy and world religions in my spare time and this book [which is apparently the expanded preface to Norton’s Anthology of World Religions] piqued my curiosity.

In the end, this book turned out to be different than I expected, but had a profound effect on my belief system regarding religion.

“Religion seems to me to bear one aspect when considered as a special claim of knowledge and quite another aspect when considered as a special acknowledgment of ignorance.”

Jack Miles, Religion As We Know It

I don’t really want to get into my history with religion, particularly Protestant evangelicalism which was the most important part of my life for twenty-seven years, but I will say that while I have intentionally rejected religious practice in my own life and don’t hold any religious work as the “inerrant word of god,” Jack Miles made an excellent point that even fiction can be used to teach spiritual truths.

“Religious truth can be conveyed as well through fiction as through history. Patristic and medieval Christianity were content for centuries to search the Bible for moral allegories rather than for historical evidence…But because Protestantism, rejecting allegorical interpretation, had consistently emphasized and valorized the historical or “plain,” non-allegorical content of the Bible, Protestant Christianity has particular trouble entertaining the notion that the Bible could be historically false in some regards and yet still religiously valid.”

Jack Miles, Religion As We Know It

This kind of blew my mind. I’ve been wandering in this strange unfamiliar space of not believing the Bible to be without error, and yet not really being able to throw it out entirely. Of course, I was raised just as he stated, that the Bible is to be taken literally and believed as the final word on everything – scientific, historical, and spiritual. So I reasonably believed that if I can’t accept a part of it, I have to toss the whole thing. But, turns out, hermeneutics really are everything. [I learned that in Bible college —but unfortunately I also learned the wrong hermeneutic.]

If this is all sounding a little deep, well, it is. I enjoy academic books, but geez, I had to reread each sentence in this book about three times! Still a worthwhile read for anyone interested in religious studies.

Now let’s move on to something more light and fluffy…

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Please read this book.

Well, first, read Backman’s first novel, A Man Called Ove, which still might be my favorite fiction book of all time.

After that, read this book.

Just when I thought Backman couldn’t possibly be any more brilliant [no seriously, I read his third novel and was disappointed so I thought he exhausted his brilliance writing Ove], he writes a book that is so beautiful, so imaginative, so powerful that I literally cried. [Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to make me cry, but still…] This man has a way of telling a story that I simply ADORE.

I cannot WAIT for the libraries to reopen so I can get my hands on Beartown!

March

Waking Up White by Debby Irving

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(⭐️)

This book is an absolute must read for every white American who has ever said that they aren’t racist, mentioned “the race card,” complained about affirmative action, stereotyped someone from a non-white race, or believed that they earned their wealth and status by hard work and determination. In other words, this is book is an absolute necessity for every single white American.

A few years ago, I read Where Do We Go From Here, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was simultaneously inspired and ashamed —inspired to continue the important civil rights work that began over sixty-five years ago and deeply ashamed to find myself among the white population of America that thought the work was already done. While the idea of racism has always been utterly appalling to me, I finally realized that I was complicit in the ongoing inequality that people of color endure in America simply by believing that we had done enough to right the wrongs.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ve been working since then to unpack my own biases and trying to truly and genuinely and humbly understand the issues surrounding racial inequality in America – including the implications of my own whiteness. However, I have continually hit brick walls when trying to discuss the topic of race with any of the white people I know – all of whom believe themselves to be entirely free of any guilt and without any obligation to right anything because nothing is wrong.

“The story emerging for me, however, tells a tale of black and brown people being held down so long that white folks have come to believe they got there on their own. The removal of legal barriers that once separated the races has done little to change the distorted belief system that lives on in the hearts and minds of millions of individuals. At this point, the only thing needed for racism to continue is for good people to do nothing.”

Debby Irving, Waking Up White

Then came Debby Irving, who I don’t know at all, but feel like is a kindred spirit because we are so much alike [and I listened to her read the audiobook so I felt like she was talking directly to me].

Let me tell you, no book has ever been so transformative for me. Maybe it’s because I was prepared by other race related books and documentaries and television shows and biographies, that I could easily soak up every truth in this book. I don’t know if I would have accepted it in previous years. It is not an easy truth to accept about myself. But I hope beyond hope that more people will read this book and discover like I did that my own whiteness has shaped my identity and just because I live in a white world doesn’t mean that everyone should have to do things the white way.

“In policy after policy, act after act, the United States has reaffirmed its commitment to being a melting-pot society adhering to Anglo-Saxon standards, as opposed to a mosaic nation built on the diversity of multiple cultures.”

Debby Irving, Waking Up White

We still have a long way to go, but we can get there if we stop denying that there is a problem and start working toward a solution. And the place to begin is by understanding the culture of whiteness.

Awake by Noel Brewer Yeatts

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s impossible to read this book – a compilation of true stories from all over the globe – and not be moved with compassion for the half a billion people on this planet who live in extreme poverty.

This book led me to Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save and these two books combined have changed me forever – starting with the commitment to donate 100% of my income to charitable work easing poverty around the world. I’m not the sole breadwinner in my family, obviously, but I want to give whatever I have so that fewer children will die because of drinking unclean water, fewer young girls will be kidnapped and sold into prostitution, fewer women will be raped and impregnated and infected with AIDS, fewer kids will drop out of school, fewer people will live on less than $2 a day.

“Too often we want to settle for a god who knows and loves everything about us. A god who takes care of us, who makes all our dreams come true, and who keeps us safe. And we are comfortable letting god keep the hurt and pain in the far corners of the earth all to himself. He can keep all of that; just let us keep living in our world – our cool, clean, and comfortable world.”

Noel Brewer Yeatts, Awake

We are so privileged in America that we can actually forget that these tragedies are every day realities in some places in the world right now. But we cannot turn a blind eye to these desperate needs, no matter how far away they may be.

We have the power to change these things, if we choose….and really, there is no other choice.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I saw that Harrison Ford was going to be in the new film version of The Call of the Wild, I was SO EXCITED, so I decided to re-read the book [by listening to the audiobook] before seeing the movie. About halfway through, it dawned on me that I’ve never read the book before. I thought I had read it in high school but maybe I had it confused with White Fang. Honest mistake…now that I’m fifteen years out of high school. [What?!?]

Anyway, I loved this story. As a nature lover and a dog lover this was a very enjoyable read [though at times sad]. I listened to it while running through my local forest preserve during this pandemic quarantine and it provided a nice escape.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I am SO EXCITED about it. [I’m a little bit of a Ford fanatic.]

Well, that’s what I’ve been reading. I’m always open to book recommendations!

Happy reading!

📖 📖 📖

Karis

March Shopping Audit

March Shopping Audit

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I ended my last shopping audit [here] by saying, “February was nuts, but I think March is going to get even crazier!”

…I had no idea.

Of course, I was referring to the sale of our home and our impending move and our apartment search in Chicago – all of which is now on indefinite hold – but it definitely was a crazy month. I think March 2020 was the craziest month of my life thus far!

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we spent the second half of March on lockdown, and as a result, we didn’t spend much money. Mercifully [and for the first time in recorded history], all six of us were well the entire month and so we didn’t even need to pay doctor co-pays or buy medicine. We also didn’t spend money on family activities [for which we budget $50/month]. We didn’t get haircuts [$25] or buy any clothing [$50] and I even had to cancel my tattoo appointment [which saved me at least $100 of my fun money]!

We did, however, spend more money on restaurant food delivery to support local businesses and we spent more on groceries than we normally would. We brought home WAY more packaging than usual [all recyclable, but still made my heart a little sad].

We bought extra rice and canned vegetables and dry beans…you know, typical pandemic stuff. BUT, on the flip side, we went for three weeks without toilet paper because we couldn’t find any until just YESTERDAY! But, no worries, our “wee wipes” have been a big hit with everyone except my partner. The kids and I may never go back…

Anyway, we did buy some stuff though, so here is the full report:

What We Bought:

[My audit only includes physical items and does NOT include consumables, such as groceries, pet food, and toilet paper.]

House maintenance/yard supplies ($60) – Now that the weather is warming up, we needed to buy some things like mulch to fix up the outside of our home. Of course, the sale of our house is now on hold, but we do intend to sell eventually, so we have continued to improve the house.

Legos for Theo’s birthday ($22) – March 19th was Theo’s birthday. We already had a gift for him that we had been saving since Christmas [a used Paw Patrol Sea Patroller] but we decided to pick up a few [ok, 10] used sets of legos. We gave him some for his birthday and used the rest to entertain the kids during quarantine. [Definitely money well spent.]

Brita water dispenser and replacement filters ($40) – We had planned to buy a Brita for our move to the city anyway since we won’t be taking our Primo water dispenser with us. The coronavirus pandemic scared us into getting one early just in case stores were to shut down. I’m genuinely ashamed to admit this third world problem, but our well water tastes terrible and I have a really hard time drinking it [I’m genuinely working on this area of my born privilege].

Beats wireless earbuds ($90) Brett bought me these as a gift, using an old gift card, money from selling stuff and his own fun money. My old headphones had fallen out of my pocket in the driveway and sat in the rain until I found them – by which time they were so damaged that they would literally shock my ears when I wore them. And since our library is shut down, I have been pretty much relying on audiobooks during my outdoor walks, so this was a very helpful gift.

Lush toiletries ($40) This seems expensive, but because of a free shipping deal, I went ahead and bought four months worth of bad shampoo and two bars of deodorant for myself to try. We budget $20/month for toiletries but didn’t use any of it last month so this was still in budget.

Total spent: $252

Over budget: $0

What We Are Going to Do With It:

Some of these things, the mulch and toiletries, for example, will be used for their intended purposes and won’t need to be thrown out. Some things will stay with us for a very long time – hopefully their whole lives – until they are no longer functioning and will be recycled [the Brita and earbuds] or will be passed on to another person to enjoy [the legos].

What We Got Rid Of:

We’ve used this time to go through more of our stuff that we don’t want to take with us on the move, so now Brett’s car is entirely full of donations waiting to be dropped off once the Salvation Army and pregnancy center reopen.

Also, Brett went through his closet and set aside a huge pile of clothes to donate.

So, once again, we’ve removed more things from our home than what we’ve brought into our home.

Now that we are officially quarantined for another month, this seems like a great time to do a “no spend” month… what do you think?

✌🏻

Karis