Fair Trade, Buy Handmade

A while ago, I was trying to make a black and white decision about what I thought was better for my family: local or organic. What I’ve learned since starting those questions is that in our area most of the time local means organic, though it may not be certified organic. Either way, right? So, I’m tending toward local, even if it doesn’t have the organic sticker on it. Am I missing something here? Let me know, if I am.

Another thought came into my head later: What about Fair Trade?

It depends what it is… Coffee needs to be fair trade, since there is such a history of people trying to make a living off of very little in this field. Most things local will be fairly traded, but you must be cautious. There are companies who say they are local but their goods are manufactured in China. I don’t have a problem with China; it’s with the companies in the United States that pick China to do their dirty work. Cheap labor is not good for anyone. I know times are tight (I know I’m feeling it) but cheapening the work of others, despite the fact that we don’t know them, lowers their worth and in my opinion lowers ours as well. I’m learning this from living in Vermont; from having two little kids who are so pure and so giving to others. Bilingual baby even said that I made her baby brothers scooter simply because she saw me put it together- quite a feat, putting together something with all those tiny pieces, with two kids wide awake, ready to help- though it was more fun to have them help me than to have it appear in all its red shiny glory. In her eyes, people make things. I love it!

So, if a kid is going to ask, wonder and beg you to tell them who made this or who painted that, who grew the food, who put it in the silo (still with the silos), who made it? I can see why people take pledges to buy handmade. When you buy handmade, you get to know the person (even if only briefly) who has made whatever you’re buying. You get to know pieces of their life- you get a story with your purchase. If you buy something at a farmers market, you’ve probably seen the person under their tent several times, looked at their creations and talked to them about how they make it, what gives them inspiration, etc. Can you imagine knowing the first and last name of the person who made your dish towels, your spatula, or your … whatever? I know most people have a little mug that someone made. It was either a family member who took pottery classes or someone local who sells them in town. You treasure that mug. You pull it out when you have a friend come over for tea. You talk about it. You are so proud of the fact that someone- a person, not a machine- put time and energy into making the mug (or mugs) you love to use the most. It’s a great feeling.

We don’t buy handmade all the time, but we do try to go out of our way as much as possible to reach for handmade. It’s simpler when you have a sewing machine to reach for that fabric and make the thing that your family member needs. Bilingual papi kept using plastic grocery bags for his gym clothes. I stumbled upon a tutorial on how to make a cloth bag that looks like a plastic grocery bag. Need met. It felt really good, too.

I think the next step for me is to buy handmade (or make) the gifts I give to others. Most times I try to since I have a hard time shopping for gifts. However, when I find something cool to make, I can just make it and prep it for giving. I don’t know if I’m ready for the pledge but for now I’ll show you the button that you’d see if I were ready to make the pledge to buy handmade.

A couple of months back, I wanted to take the Wardrobe Refashion challenge, where you pledge to make all your clothes for a determined period of time from preloved clothes or from fabric, etc. Basically, you aren’t supposed to buy new for yourself, and you get to take it as far as you want (i.e. your family, gifts, etc).

Where does that leave me?

Lots of ideals. I like being an idealist, even if people peg me for a dreamer.

My first Garden

Here I go. I’m planting my first veggies ever. I’ve got all the support and expertise a girl would want. I going to plant lettuce and spinach in the area below. I’m also going to add some fennel, echinacea, catnip and chamomile.

I’m also going to plant carrots, beets, squash and cucumbers in the area seen in the picture below. Though I may add my seeds to my neighbors patch. They have had pity on me and don’t want me to break my back trying to make this area into a viable growing ground. Right now it’s really sandy and would take heaps and heaps of compost.

I’m still in planning phase and prep phase. I have to get my bootie in gear so that I won’t miss the planting phase.

Used is still new to me

I love used clothes. Here’s why:

1. I don’t worry about it being organic for the kids because I know it’s been washed a ton.

2. A new item, while nice from time to time, has used recent resources. A used piece of clothing gets used many times over but only used those resources to make it once. Pretty cool.

3. There’s a bit more freedom from the concerns of whether it’s fairly traded and such.

4. Most times, if you buy used, the money goes to a good cause.

5. Sometimes you get lucky and have a friend giving away their used clothes, so they get to give you something they loved and you get to love it up until you’re ready to pass it along.

This last point brings me to our local freecycle. A woman just gave me a bunch of gently used sweaters and tops in my current size. Now I don’t have to deal with shopping (something that a fluctuating body would rather not do) and I can still wear non-pregnancy clothes (I’m desperately tired of wearing maternity clothes). Funny thing about this is that I don’t have an aversion to a larger size. I do have an aversion to buying a size I may not be wearing in a couple of months when it’s new.  A hand me down, a gift, a used purchase I seem to be just fine with. I did just buy a pair of pants at the used store but they are still too tight. Why didn’t I get the size that fit? It was part tired child, part lack of appropriate size. Bleh.

Did you really need to know all this? Sorry if you’re bored to tears now. I’ll try to make it up with an entry I’m working on about the connection between Chinese medicine and winter. I’m enjoying the reading so far.

Dear Savvy Rest,

Thank you for making such a comfortable bed. We bought one (rather, two twins) to make our family bed a king rather than the full that we had from before. It took a while to get all the pieces and we weren’t expecting we’d have to return anything. Thanks for making it easy to return the mattress that came in the wrong size. We’re also really thankful that you didn’t charge us for another foundation. I do remember the woman who sold us the bed said that it would come by curbside delivery. Being as pregnant as I was, I couldn’t open everything to double ckeck that it came without a scratch. When we found out later (when my husband got home) that one of the foundations had broken wooden pieces I almost flipped. I worried all night that we would get charged and our “bed budget” had already been overlooked (by us).

Thank you. We hope that these twin beds will be used by our family and later by our kids (when they want their own beds) for years to come.

sincerely,

Leila

Phasing-in organics: Part II

… continued from yesterday…

Okay. Now that I’m done with that I can share with you what’s on my mind now. Let me tell you the story of how I’ve come to this new position on organics in our home, in steps:

1. Back in December, I wanted to make some money by having a job. I also wanted this job to allow me to bring bilingual baby to work with me. The purpose was to have a little more income, even if it was just for miscellaneous things like an outing to the coffee shop or a skein of yarn or a yard of fabric.

2. I did some searching for what other moms were doing who were in my situation- what kind of jobs did they have? I found moms saying that having a job doesn’t always mean you’ll make money. Some of them said that staying at home can save you money. These moms talked about finding sales on clothes and other needed items, making whatever they needed themselves. For some reason, this didn’t really click until recently.

3. Recently, I found myself doing searches for organic cotton/organic wool mattresses (as our current bed isn’t fit for four) and the issues surrounding conventional mattresses. I wept at the $4,000 price tag but was soon after relieved to hear more people complain that their organic mattresses weren’t very comfortable (though I’m curious to hear from anyone who thinks their organic mattress is comfortable). I then found a reasonable option: buy an organic wool topper, which is like a really thick mattress pad; buy organic sheets and find some other blanket to replace the one we currently have (though that’s lower on my priority list.

4. After finding peace with the mattress thing, I found myself wanting to use organic cotton for the kids (I’m using plurals already, yay!): diapers (though that’s also a phasing project as we have enough diapers right now for baby 2.0) and underwear. We’ve been using conventional cotton receiving blankets on top of the wool puddle pad on our bed and now I want to find a way to switch that over, too. Add to that pajamas, since they’re in those for long periods of time.

5. I realized that with the high price of all these items I had to find an economic (without cheating people) way to make this happen. My priorities for our second phase of organic introduction was pretty set (the first phase was the fruits and veggies). It consisted of four things:

Diapers/Underwear, pajamas, sheets and towels. First, for the kids. Then, for us (maybe even years down the road). It’s all happening in phases.

6. Then, it dawned on me that I could make some of these things. The sheets, because of sizing, I would try to find on sale, mismatched, and/or seconds- my priority is organic cotton and don’t care about things not matching. Underwear I’ve made for bilingual baby and can make more. Pajamas aren’t hard to make, either. Last, towels. As I searched Near Sea Naturals online fabric store, I found toweling fabric. Brilliant! I could make organic towels, too. Now, I was set. I had even done some price checking to see if it was worth it. Luckily, I love crafty projects. So, in effect, this would double as a crafty project for me AND a needed project for our phasing-in organic cotton. I could also make some organic diapers…

This phasing-in project may take some time and that’s the most economic way to go about it as far as I’m concerned. We won’t be starting a spending spree just to have organics in place today. It’ll take time. Not only to phase in products and phase out the conventional, but to get used to choosing organic over conventionally grown cotton.

Here are some resources you might want to consider if you’re interested in adding some organic cotton to your home:

Gaiam’s Outlet Sale

Under the Nile : organic underwear for kids

Hanna Andersson : organic underwear for kids (and some other organic clothes)

Don’t forget to do searches for coupon codes. I just got an organic flannel sheet (just the flat) for our soon-to-be new king size bed and searched for a coupon code and came up with this.

Here’s my new favorite diaper for bilingual baby:

Sandy’s Organic cotton fitted diaper (and I love that it’s unbleached!) Scroll down to find the organic option. We’ve only bought two so far (cos I wanted to try them out before going whole hog) and as much as I really like them I’m not sure I want to buy any more seeing that bilingual baby’s using the toilet more and more now. (I am thinking of getting rid of some of the diapers we’ve used on her this past year- i.e. Fuzzibunz and Kissaluvs. I’ll explain in another post.)

New favorite wool cover for summer:

Swaddlebees Merino Wool Cover – It even fits over her toddler-sized flat diapers, which are huge. It’s not organic merino like the Disana wool cover my mom bought her but it’s a nice (thinner and trimmer) summer option.

Phasing-in organics: Part I

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how far I want to take our entry into the organic world. It’s expensive… but I keep finding myself reading reports that talk about the amount of pesticides and other chemicals that are used on fruits, veggies and especially cotton. It’s amazing and depressing. It’s not quite a “keep my baby safe” thing. I know there are battles I can’t possibly fight- but I also feel like every little bit that I can do to keep toxins a little further will help. There are a lot of chemicals and toxins that I will never be able to keep my family from but it seems obvious that there are routes I can take to lessen exposure. This computer I’m on is emitting who knows what… and don’t even bring up our wireless router. It’s all emitting stuff… and nobody knows the potential long-term effect of all of this. We’re just blissfully blogging, emailing and ordering online. Well, we are, at least. Sometimes I do turn off the router and sometimes I don’t. With that I’m not consistent. There are other avenues where I try to be more consistent in making my little effort. For instance, food. That’s probably the first thing that we started going organic on. There are a number of fruits and veggies that absorb way more pesticides than others, so we buy those organic. Other things like bananas and mangoes, to name a few, we buy conventionally grown.

Another effort we’ve started is our family earth hour. Most nights, around sundown, we avoid using lights (and most electricity) for an hour. It usually coincides with dinner and bath time/bed time. It’s a real relaxer for bilingual baby. The artificial lights sometimes wind her up so having candles or no/little lighting (as the sun sets) is a nice gentle way to remind her body that it’s nearing bed time. She also enjoys having the candles lit and it’s a nice relaxer for all of us. It helps us slow down. Our daily earth hour started after the yearly earth hour. I started using candles at night when bilingual papi was at work late and little by little we added earth hour days to the week. Now, we’re pretty accustomed to it and do it almost without thinking- much like we used to turn on the lights the second the sun edged toward the horizon.

I’m also happy to report that with all the warmth in the last month or so, I’ve enjoyed hanging the diaper laundry to dry outside in the sun. One of the perks is that the sun bleaches and removes foul odors the wash couldn’t manage. And, of course, the avoidance of the dryer is the enviro-perk we all know about. We have also been using reusable bags for every trip to the grocery store (and sometimes we remember them for other stores, too)- that took some time to really get the hang of.

Before I get to what has been on my mind I want to preface it by saying that I’m not trying to be boastful. I’m really being sincere in my efforts and telling you about our successes is not my way of saying that I’m better than you are or more conscientious. This is all really new to us and I hope that what we’re trying will be more of a reach out in solidarity than anything. We’re all in this together and we’re all learning from each other. The moment we place ourselves above anyone based on our life choices (I am a hippie, I know) we have lost sight of how connected we are. Honestly, though, we could all use a reminder (obviously, I mean I could use a reminder) of what’s going on in the world so to better balance out our world view.

… to be continued tomorrow…

EC starting up again

It’s been a long winter and if you’ve been keeping up with bilingual baby you know it’s been a time of growth for all of us. With bilingual baby’s hunger attacks all day and all night now long gone (or so it seems, but it really just ended after we got back from California) she’s giving signs again that she’d rather use the toilet (her little potty, that is) than her diaper. I’ve even gone back to using the ec pants (split crotch) and the tiny undies I made for her… and even leave her diaper free a couple hours during the day.

I had heard that this might happen: after a long “potty pause” they come back to ec’ing. We’re still not back full-time but we’re also edging further and further from full-time diapering. I just bought her one pair of undies to see how I like the cut on her. They’re from Under the Nile, who offers organic Egyptian cotton clothing and I just have to say I love what they make… so far. We’ll see how these undies work out. As I mentioned, I did make some tiny undies for bilingual baby a while back and I’ll probably go back to making them myself but the next pair are going to have to be organic cotton. After buying this new pair for $8, buying a couple of yards of organic cotton at over $10 a yard (and sometimes well over that) doesn’t seem too bad.

First, I need to prioritize my projects:

1. Keep making baby.

2. For Pete’s sake, finish that sweater you started almost 4 years ago.

3. Finish the knit pants you started to make- they just need to be sewn together!

4. Work on a knitting pattern for a light sweater- maybe a shrug-type thingy.

5. Make the outfits for bilingual baby and baby 2.0 you intended to make with the fabric you’ve already bought!

6. Choose yarn and start knitting up a sweater for baby 2.0’s first winter.

7. Open an Etsy store.

Earth Hour

Last night we turned off the lights from 8-9 pm to participate in Earth Hour. It was nice to sit there with my parents without electrical distractions. We said some prayers and then ate popcorn and chatted. It was so quiet. So. nice.

If you didn’t get a chance to participate in Earth Hour, there’s always next year. You can also participate every day with Earth Hour Every Day. It’s simple. Turn off the lights for one hour a day (or a year if you’re not ready for the daily route). Unplug yourself from the electrical world.

I admit that we were checking our watches to see how much time was left in our hour without lights. I’m sure if we got used to doing this everyday we might not be checking our watches.

What did you do during the hour? Or, if you didn’t get to participate this time around, what could you do to pass the time during your hour without lights?

Tip # 6

Here’s a list of things you can do conserve water at home. This is borrowed from Organically Inclined:

1. Turn off the tap. Very simple. When brushing your teeth or anything else, turn the tap off! The average bathroom faucet runs 2 gallons of water per minute – do you really need 2 gallons to brush your teeth. On and off.

2. Install a low-flow shower head. You could save up to 70 percent of the water you use in a shower. We have a simple one we purchased for about $9, but they sell other models with features that are a little more expensive. Spending a little more on your shower head will save you a lot in the future.

3. Water your garden in the morning. Cooler air helps the water seep into the roots, rather than evaporating before it gets there. Watering in the evening promotes bacteria and fungi growth because the sun doesn’t warm things up. Don’t even ask me about watering the lawn…I don’t believe in lawns.

4. Don’t wash your car. OK – maybe once in a while, to get the mud off or the salt from the roads after winter. But if you’re the guy who is out there every weekend wasting water and waxing his F150, you need more help than just a few water saving tips.

5. Fix leaks right away. We had a leak on the valve where the washer meets the pipe. It didn’t look like that big a deal, so I put a bucket under it and decided to wait until I was headed into the big city to get what I needed to fix it. Do you know that leak dripped a full gallon of water in one day? I was stunned. I asked my husband to pick up a new valve on the way home from work and we fixed it that night.

Visit Organically Inclined. They’ve always got a host of great tips on ways to go greener.

* I am not being paid to link them. I just appreciate them and what they contribute to the blogosphere*

Catalog Choice

I’ve signed up at Catalog Choice where I can cancel any catalogs that are coming into our home- with or without being invited. If you’d like to sign up, it’s free and will just take a couple minutes of your time. Have the customer code handy so that you can get rid of an unwanted catalog for good. They do say it could take up to 10 weeks. Eep.

I’m sure you’re aware of the environmental costs of catalogs. Here’s one to whet your appetite:

Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.

If you like getting catalogs, consider getting rid of the ones that you don’t even look at- or don’t look at often enough to necessitate receiving it. Then, to cut down further, try looking at the catalogs online. Most, if not all, companies have an online equivalent of the print version. If after a month, you think you could cancel another catalog, well then congratulations. Little by little you can rid yourself of unwanted paper.

I say this, as I sit at the computer almost entirely submerged under paper bills and receipts. {Sigh}

Check out this CNN spot.