Going Green - Losing my Bottle

If you're wondering why I haven't posted for a week, it's because I've misplaced my camera. I say misplaced (rather than lost) as it turned up this evening in the laptop bag. What a ridiculous place to put a digital camera! Far more sensible to store it, for example, in Munchkin's bedroom under the futon, or in the cat food cupboard. Which were among the many, many places I looked for it before I found it in the laptop bag :) So although I have had a very crafty week, including drafting my very first pattern for Munchkin and sewing a fully working , non-wonky garment from it, I haven't taken any photos :( So I thought I'd let you know how my green resolutions were going instead, and illustrate them with rather random photos that I've found in the depths of my pc.

Because of the snow, our bins haven't been emptied since before Christmas, and as I went to try and squish one more yoghurt pot into the recycling bin I was horrified by the amount of plastic our household gets through. We do recycle it (or at least the bits we're allowed to, there seems to be a very complicated coding system when it comes to plastic, and the tub you're looking at invariably is PET 74.5 rather than one with a swirly arrow symbol and a number 1), but it's much better not to have it in the first place.

Milk is the biggest culprit in our house, as we go through litres of the stuff and it all comes in big plastic bottles. My mission this week is to try and find out who our local milkman is, as this must be miles more environmentally friendly than buying milk from a big supermarket. Primarily because when your milk bottles dance home behind the milkman you send your glass milk bottles back they get washed and then can be used again, rather than going through all the energy-heavy processes plastic needs to be turned into something new. Dairy Crest offer an online service where you can place orders and your local milkman will then deliver them (so much more sophisticated than notes in bottles :).

The other thing I've been doing - and I loved this one because it involved shopping - was de-plasticifying the shower. No, not taking out our plastic shower tray and replacing it with one made of hemp or anything, but aiming to have a plastic free shower routine. It was easy enough to stop buying shower gel as I have 4 lovely bars of soap that I have received as presents over the last year, and until last week they were languishing in my underwear drawer acting as drawer fresheners. Now one's in the shower and ones on the side of the sink - bye bye liquid hand soap!


Shampoo was a bit more difficult, as I'd seen shampoo bars for sale on Etsy, but as they all seemed to be from the States it seemed silly to buy a product that needed flying halfway across the world in order to be a bit more environmentally friendly :) Lush seemed to be the only high street retailer who sold shampoo bars, so I pootled along to my local shop. I bought New Shampoo Bar and Jungle conditioner. I am a complete and utter convert. I will never go back to a bottle again! The shampoo bar is meant to stimulate hair growth, and as mine is weak, wibbly and falling out a bit, I thought it would be the best one for me. I haven't noticed masses of new hairs sprouting from my noggin, but my hair seems stronger. The conditioner leaves it lovely and silky, and I've stopped using the multitude of de-frizz products I used to slap on my hair after a shower, and just blow-dry and leave it. My hair smells lovely and looks very shiny.

I thought I'd give bottle free moisturising a go as well, and bought a Therapy Massage Bar. The woman in the shop said although it was called a massage bar it worked well as a body moisturiser as well. It is made mainly of cocoa butter, and so when you rub it on your skin it melts just a little bit and is absorbed. I only shower every other day, and I've noticed that my skin still feels smooth and soft the day after I've used it. It has a really velvety scent, and even mr pickledweasel has commented on how nice it smells. I don't think it'll last very long though, so it might work out to be a bit pricey, but it's worth it! I've started alternating it with body lotion I got for Christmas so I can make it last until pay day :)

So, in summary - I'm getting a milkman, have softer hair, and smell nice. This green malarkey is pretty easy, n'est ce pas?

Going Green. And Grey.

Happy New Year! Hope you all had fun on NYE. Me and mr pickledweasel watched The Turn of The Screw, shared a bottle of red, and were in bed by 11pm :) We've never been much into NYE, it's always seemed a bit of an anticlimax. The new year had still arrived when we woke up the next morning, so I'm guessing we didn't miss much.

On New Year's Day we went to watch the Whitworth Duck Race in stupidly cold weather. We didn't stay until the bitter end because it was just too cold, but we saw the winner cross the line. 800 plastic ducks floating down a weir is truly a sight to behold. Here's Munchkin and mr pickledweasel in the hats I made them for Christmas, trying not to look like they've lost the feeling in their faces because it's -1.

So on to the inevitable resolutions. I'm always really wary of making a big long list of things because I'm often unrealistic about what I can achieve and end up feeling despondent by November because I haven't done have the stuff I wanted to do.

So I've decided on a theme - green. I'm going to try and do my bit for the environment, because I've seen far too many tv programmes in the last month about how we're messing up the world and it scares the bejeezus out of me. They're tiny little resolutions, but hopefully they'll add up to making a bit of a difference. I'm not going to bore you by listing them all here, but I might write the odd post about how my efforts are going as the year progresses.

The other thing I'm going to work at is me. Not as in some massive personality overhaul or extreme diet or anything, but just at being more comfortable with myself. And confident! Gah, if only you could buy confidence in a bottle. Staying at home with Munchkin is good fun, but it has properly wibbled my sense of self. I'm still not really sure who I am any more, whereas I had quite a strong sense of identity before popping a puppy.

So there are little things I'm going to do to try and help. It's not about getting the old me back, because I'm not that 'me' anymore, but it's about relaxing a little and accepting who I am now. The first thing is to stop dyeing my hair. After munchkin was born I had a colour put through it to help me feel a bit more glam, and then as the colour grew out I noticed how much grey I had and so I started to dye it on a regular basis. But it's a faff, and it's very bad for my hair (which has become horribly thin and weak - oh the joys of motherhood!), and it's lots of nasty chemicals too. I'm going to grow grey gracefully :)

Munchkin is going through the lovely imitation phase of play, where she copies everything I do. As I was standing in front of my mirror a couple of weeks ago, slapping on a full face of make-up after having straightened my hair, I could see her watching me as she was sitting on the bed. I started to think about the example I'm setting her. I don't want her to grow up thinking that this is what women have to do every day before the leave the house in the morning. I don't want her to see grey hair as something to be disguised. It's normal! It's just society that says it's not. So here's my beautiful grey roots in all their glory. I'm hoping I won't end up like my Dad, who had a full head of white hair by the time he was 40...