Back again...

Well, it's been a while. Again, the new baby keeps me busy, even though he is 4 motnhs old by now.
The main reason I am posting is that I managed to find more blogs of people who seem to be of the same mindset that I am. I had a very hard time recently, feeling like an outsider. I have been feeling like the odd one out in my neighborhood and really wondered what I was doing here in suburban hell.
But it feels good to find like minded folks, even if it's on the net. So I am plodding on. Just wanted to write this down for me, and in time, I will try to link to those other blogs. Some of them are fairly professional and I feel a bit unworthy, since I only post once in a blue moon :-)

Playborhood III

My son has a best friend.
Unfortunately, his mother doesn't like me very much. At least I assume so, because it is so darned hard to get playdates with them.
I feel so sorry for my son, because he knows her name, and he shines up every time he hears me calling her. And he literally wilts when I must tell him that no, they can't come, or can't have us over.
It's even worse when I call her and she cuts me off and says she's busy and will call back and then she never does.
I wish they would live next door, so the boys can play without me having to deal with that ditz.

Playborhood II

Yeah well it is all admittedly not always easy to have an opinion...
The other day I took the kids to Rockwood Park. It was early in the morning, not too humid yet, and the park was packed.
At some point, some daycare or summer camp unleashed its kids unto the playground, and boy were they OBNOXIOUS.
They ganged up and bullied other kids. They mouthed off to the grownups who tried to control them. They used foul language. And they were pretty unpleasant in general. Slack jawed and defiant faced. The older girls already strutting their stuff to be, although I doubt there was anybody older than 10 among them.
And I thought: There ARE some advantages to not having a vibrant street life. I mean, I certainly would not want my kids to play with those kids.
But the kids in my neighborhood are good kids, so I really wouldn't mind if they hung out unsupervised.
Well, in a few years, I guess we'll see...

test

test

Playborhood

Well, with the new baby I have not had too much time to write.

I also have not had too much time to go to playdates either, or to take the kids to the playground. (My youngest is ill, so I have a good excuse to park them in front of the TV to make her stay still on the couch.)

In times like this, it makes me sad/annoyed that the kids in my neighborhood don't roam around. They play fairly little with each other or outside in general, I have the impression.
In general, our development is good, for American standards. There are Trick or Treaters at H'ween and you do see the occasional tween or teen walking somewhere.
But my older kids are 5 and 3. Too young to roam the neighborhood? Don't know. When I spent some time in Europe, all the neighbor's kids between 3 and 6 (the preschool pack) ran around the neighborhood, only supervised by a few maternal glances out the window and whoever happened to be outside doing grown-up things.

Granted, the houses in European villages/towns are often closer together and the area we were visiting is still very much agricultural, so people have stuff to do in their courtyards, so they are outside their houses more often, repairing their tools or whatnot.

Also, since most Europeans still are less mobile than Americans, there is often more of a social net, esp in smaller towns, i.e. everybody knows everybody and so have their parents and grandparents. That leads to more trust.

I can't help wishing I was back there and have my kids run around with the others, maybe having an impromptu kiddie pool party...(And don't get me started on how free and unstructured MY childhood was, in whatever European country I happened to be!)

Here I will have to formally invite my neighbors for a playdate. They might or might not come. There will def be at least one parent and up to 2 younger or older siblings. Since it gets to be a bigger gathering, there should be refreshments, one is polite, after all.

And all that with a colicky baby who insists on breastfeeding marathons?

I think not!

I mean, I'll do it for the kids, to alleviate their boredom, but it is not exactly giving me a break. And whom do I try to kid? Unstructured play it isn't.
Since I was once again annoyed over this situation, I did a web search, trying to find out if there were more people as annoyed as I was. Turns out, that is the case.
http://playborhood.com
Read esp "Mike's Manifesto", which can be found in the "About Us" part.
They basically echo my grumblings and want to change things. I want to do that too, but don't exactly know how. I was about to mail them to suggest that they create a database with likeminded parents for cities/towns/places, but then what? While it might be nice to know more people who think like I do, it would only result in more playdates at best. I mean, what good is it to know likeminded people, if they don't happen to live in your street/neighborhood?
Although by now I would even be willing to move to find for my children what I had (and my nieces and nephews have) in Europe.

Testing

The World needs your help

Now and then I find very interesting blogs. Here is one of them:
http://theworldneedsyourhelp.blogspot.com

g-diapers

Haven't written in a while. I have now a five day old baby boy, and it has been a bit rough, already before he was born.
But what I really wanted to write about are g-diapers. g-diapers are compostable disposables.
I have tried cloth, but between an uncooperative husband, having to change diapers at 3 am, issues with storage and washing and a red raw bottom, I figured they weren't for us.
But I have always been unhappy about the disposables we bought. Sure, you can get them chlorine free, but that didn't seem to be enough.
So I was very happy, when an acquaintance told me about g-diapers. They are compostable and flushable. If it is only urine, they can go out to the compost heap. If you have poop, you can flush them down the toilet.
http://www.gdiapers.com/
Here in Rmnd, they can be bought at Ellwood Thompson and Babies R Us. And they aren't any more expensive then ordering them from the website.
As for use: Supereasy!!! Work really well. I absolutely love them and wish they were a tad less expensive. And so far I haven't had to deal with diaper rash from hell either.

All in Espaniol

Hmmm...
I was a bit bored and just surfed around the different blogs. For some reason about 90% of all blogs I got were in Spanish. Is that a coincidence or are there just that many out there?

Why is it so hard to get rid of stuff?

I must confess: I am a pack rat.
This has mostly two reasons. First of all, I live frugally. Therefore I have a great urge to hold on to stuff, just because I might need it again at some point. And wouldn't it be silly to give away something just to pay money for the same item again later?
Also, I try to live green. So I hate to contribute to the landfill thing. I try to reuse and recycle everything. Often that isn't easy. I don't know if an item can be recycled and trying to find out and recycling it properly takes a long time.
Giving away or selling items is often hard too. I have ads out on Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist and Freecycle. This takes time I often don't have as a 38 weeks pregnant mother of two kids under five.
So stuff keeps piling up. I try to give stuff to Goodwill, since I buy a lot there and keep thinking that I also ought to contribute. But even that stuff keeps piling up, because I usually try not to make the trip to Goodwill for only three items or so.

Often I try to declutter, and I realize I can't let go of things. I used to make jewelry, so I have a tone of jewelry making stuff and material around. I know I should sell it. I have changed and I am not sure if I will ever return to jewelry making again.
But I can't.
There is the nagging voice in my head telling me that I might take it up again and then what?
I guess that all that stuff is somehow also a manifestation of our hopes and dreams. Things you once were and things you want to be or wish you were.

Why is it so hard to give away free stuff?

We have bought a new dresser (on Craigslist) for my little girl. Her old dresser was falling apart and the drawers were fairly hard to pull out and push back in again.

Well, since I wouldn't use it for clothing any more, I thought that maybe somebody wanted it for his/her shop or garage, just to store stuff. It has ten drawers. So I posted it on Craigslist under "free stuff". (You can go and see the ad under Sat, May 30th on Richmond Craisglist, if you are quick. I intend to pull it soon.)

Wehell...

I used to belong to our local Freecycle.org group here in Rmnd. But I eventually gave it up, because I just had bad experiences with annoying people. However well I thought I described the item, there always were people not showing up or showing up but not taking the item, because it was not what they had imagined it to be. I was hoping that Craigslist would be better, mostly because you can post pics. So I took a pic and added a description, more or less warning people that the thing was falling apart. However, the pic somehow made the dresser look GOOD! It looked seriously good and my mailbox was overflowing with mails from people who were clamoring for it.
Since I am an honest soul, I explained in my emails once again that the dresser was falling apart and that it probably would be ok as a storage unit in a workshop, but not for clothing. And every one of the interested parties withdrew. Every one of them. Do those folks not read the initial post, or what?
We ended up putting it in our garage. My dh now stores nails etc in it.

No TV

Like I said, my children are watching a lot less TV than they used to.
We never watched all that much lately. At least I am trying to tell myself that.
We were never background tv people. Those are the ones who have the TV on constantly to provide some background noise. Sort of like a radio. We at least never did that.
During his first 18 months, my son didn't watch TV at all. But then my daughter was born. (They are 20 months apart.) And I was just totally overworked with two small children. That's when I turned on the TV, just to have some time to do some basic household chores. I think I was always trying to limit their TV time, but there also have been days when they watched for two, three hours. (I like to think that it was not too often.)
Now, I can't really defend that. I just can say that in spite of playgroups etc, you still don't have the support you would have if you live close to (a lot of devoted) family members.
A long time during my upbringing, I grew up living on the same property (but not in the same house) like my grandparents. My father had three siblings, so aunts, uncles and cousins were constantly around. They all lived in the same small town. (That's Europe for you.) There was a real neighborhood. People in my town have known each other for generations. And since it was an agricultural area, a lot of the daily work went on outside, so there was always someone around, when we as children played outside. I don't think anybody could have snatched us away.
Anyway, since a lot of people just don't have those resources, the TV has to play babysitter sometimes.
But a week ago, I decided that I didn't want to let them watch TV anymore, at least not their usual hour a day.
In the beginning, it was rough. But now they seem to have gotten used to it. While they do monopolize quite a bit more of my time, they also play together more.

It's getting warmer

Haven't written in a while. Mostly because I seem to have less time. I have decided a while ago that the kiddos won't watch TV anymore, except in emergency cases. So I hardly have a chance to drop a note during the days.
I am only writing now because my daughter is napping and my son is playing for himself. Whohoo...
Well, since it is getting warmer, here come some of my ponderings:

How to make do in Richmond, VA without antiperspirant!
Yucky? Certainly. But my mother and her aunt, my grandmother's sister, had breastcancer. And since I am in danger, I will most certainly try to avoid everything that could even be remotely dangerous. And antiperspirant has been discussed in that respect.
First of all: Forget all I wrote about only showering two or three times a week. That was in winter. I do shower more often in summer. I am a big believer in sunscreen, spending time outside and not having the air conditioning at 72 degrees year round, so I do get sweaty and grimy. (I do however challenge myself how long I can make it without.)
:-)
To get off to a good start: It gets a lot easier if you don't consume any caffeine. I am not only talking about coffee, but also about (green) tea and chocolate. The latter is sometimes hard to avoid, since it is not considered as a caffeine carrier, but believe me, it is. After not having consumed caffeine in quite a while, a piece of chocolate has the same effect on me as a cup of java.
You might get withdrawal symptoms, when you quit caffeine. I know I get them. Usually splitting headaches, sweating and grumpiness. I also get deadly tired at weird times during the day.
I was told that stinging nettle tea helps, when detoxing from caffeine and for me it certainly did.
Now, when you don't consume caffeine, you might sweat less and your sweat will not end up stinking as fast. At least that's how it works for me.
Now to the deodorants. I strive to keep it all natural. Herbs like sage and lavender are antibacterial. Burt's Bees Sage deodorant is nice, although it seems to me that it is more suited for guys. (I have however used it for a while.) Weleda has a nice selection, and currently I am using their citrus based deodorant.
Sweat stains: Yep, that can be a problem, especially if you wear backpacks. Powder is always good for soaking up sweat. I like Burt's Bees baby powder which doesn't contain talcum. Lose fitting clothes are best, made out of natural materials. Non stretchy fabrics seem to me to be better than sweats. Patterns are better than mono colors. (Patterns hide stains.)
Last but not least: Sage is supposedly a sweat inhibitor. I was told that drinking lots of sage tea would be good. I have however not had a chance to do that.

Just read about the Biggest Green Comebacks, i.e. "how a focused effort can repair the effects of human-caused pollution…and illustrate just how resilient our Earth can be." (See web page):
http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/living-green/staticslideshowgreenchan.aspx?cp-documentid=18995576&GT1=45002
For my taste, it all doesn't go far enough, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I have started to read the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver (and Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver).
Ms. Kingsolver is a funny writer and the book is right up my alley with its focus on local and seasonal eating. (I even can use all the wisdom these folks can glean, because they live in VA. In fact, Steven L. Hopp teaches at my sister in law's old college. How cool is that?)
I am very glad that this book is a bestseller. It makes me realize how big this whole thing about living consciously and environmentally friendly is. More and more people are interested. More and more people care.

Homemade laundry detergent

On MSN Money's SmartSpending Moneyblog, they had an article about homemade laundry detergent today.
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2009/04/17/the-lowdown-on-homemade-detergent.aspx
I myself have been making my own laundry detergent according to a recipe I found on this website:
http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm
It is a lot cheaper than my regular detergent. For the recipe you basically cook soap, washing soda and borax together and let it gel. It works ok for me. I can't really claim that I notice much of a difference compared to the HE laundry detergent that I used to buy.
I have however changed Crystal's laundry soap recipe, mostly to make sure that it really would deliver. Usually I use a whole bar of soap and I use whatever all natural castille soap I can find cheapest. For my last batch it happened to be Kiss my Face Soap. I doubled the washing soda and the borax. The final detergent actually has a really jelly like consistency.
Since I have a HE machine, I usually dump two scoops of the jelly directly into the drum. The first time I used it I didn't and the jelly actually clogged up the washing machine's dispenser chamber. That was scary. The incoming water kept gushing out of it and onto the floor and I feared to have mucked up our relatively new washing machine. (My dh didn't say anything, but I could tell what he was thinking.) Thankfully it eventually cleared out.
What I also do to make laundry more gentle to the environment is sorting my laundry according what needs to be washed hot (Mostly only kitchen rags and bedsheets, since I am allergic to dust mites.), warm (Stuff with ingrained and greasy stains and underwear. The borax is antibacterial and will render the underwear hygienic enough.) and cold (Everything else. Stuff with superficial stains and stuff that smells worn.), regardless of colors. Greasy stains will get a little pretreatment. I either rub in some detergent or use a stain stick.
Like I said, it works and it is cheaper. And probably much easier on the environment.
Finally, I try to airdry my laundry as often as possible. Out knuckelhead homeowner's association has outlawed clothing lines, but we have a walk up attic and I hang my laundry there. It needs a little bit of planning, to make sure that the hanging laundry has dried before you bring up a new load, but so far it works ok. Last week, I only needed to use the dryer once.
Since I am 30 weeks pregnant, I don't know how long I can keep doing this.

Donated Stuff

I like to buy second hand books. Specifically educational material of any sort for my children.
Very often I come across exercise books for math, writing etc. I like those. I like coloring books as well.
Sometimes however, people donate books which are pretty much already totally filled/colored in and I wonder what is going on in those people's heads.
"Oh, there are three pages empty and we used mostly pencil. Maybe somebody can still use it! They could go ahead and just erase all 100 pages and it would be as good as new!"
Greeaat...
I mean, seriously: Who would by a book that is pretty much unusable. OK, maybe they just told their children to get rid of everything they didn't use any more, because Saturday was Goodwill day. But even then they ought to take a look at the goods. You don't do Goodwill any favor by giving them trash. On the contrary.

I nearly jumped for joy today, when my husband showed me an article about how VA is trying to change suburbia into something more environmentally friendly and realistic. Basically, they are hoping to abandon this pesky cul-de-sac scheme, that permeates the neighborhoods here.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032102248.html?hpid=topnews



I hate living in the suburbs. But it's where my dh's job is and I do not care for him having to commute for ever to get to his job. We happen to live in a cul-de-sac.
Is it better than to live on a thoroughfare? Well, yes. But like the article says: The cul-de-sac scheme is just a band aid for over engineered streets, which are far to wide and which let cars go far too fast. The whole cul-de-sac-scheme results in clogged collector roads. And very often you have to take those collector roads to be able to get to the nearest store or nearest anything.
While growing up in different European cities, I have lived on roads that could be classified as thoroughfares. But those roads were much narrower. In fact, very often two cars couldn't pass each other without one having to stop completely. We played all day long on those roads.
It would be nice with a grid of roads with proper sidewalks, so you actually could walk or bike to places.
Yes, I am a new urbanism junkie.

Our Washing Mashine II

I have been thinking about our washing machine and I think I know why I am so disappointed by an appliance that has been rated as eco-friendly:
It's an appliance for those who don't put too much thought into being eco-friendly in the first place, but still want to be environmentally conscious. (Boy, English is hard sometimes.)
Not to insult anybody, I really don't mean to. Every little bit counts. But our machine is a machine for people who wash with warm/hot water and detergent, no matter what happens. If you do that, yes, our machine probably will save some energy, water and maybe even money eventually.
But if you only used cold water and a little soap and soda before, you might not be faring that much better with a machine like ours, which forces you to use warm water and detergent to get the same results.
Just my thoughts.

GT's Kombucha II

Well, I got a reply. And since it was signed GT, I assume the man himself answered. I am almost feeling starstruck :-)
Anyway, he said they were already looking into the labeling thing. Maybe he was just being nice, but still.

GT's Kombucha

I love GT's Kombucha. I also love to reuse their bottles, since they are just the right size for a water bottle or a salad dressing bottle. (And most plastic caps for vitamin bottles will fit, if you don't like the original cap which will eventually rust.) However, it is pretty much impossible to get rid of their label. And after several washed the label will get nasty and moldy. So today I wrote an email hinting that they might consider using a different glue. I don't expect to get an answer, but I thought that if nobody told them, they might not even get the idea that people are reusing their bottles before it goes into the recycle bin.
In the end it is reduce - REUSE - recycle.

Our Washing Mashine

The other day, one of dh's coworkers, looked astonished, when dh mentioned that we were washing our clothing with warm water mostly. (I don't think he mentioned why they were talking about that in the first place.) She apparently only washes with cold water.
I figured that she had one of the old fashioned washing machines, the ones with the agitator in the middle. (I shouldn't say old fashioned. I do understand that those machines still comprise the majority here in the US.) Growing up in Europe I only encountered this kind of washer when I came here. We only had the spinning drum ones. (And no, they aren't necessarily front loaders. We only had top loader ones.)
I have read a lot about how the washers with the agitator used both more water and energy. That made us buy a front loader, when our old washer finally broke down.

Ho boy...

So far it is the crappiest washer I have ever dealt with in my whole life. (And for those who are interested: It is a LG WM2455HW.)
Yes, we did research when we started considering buying a new washer. But we were sort of forced into action when our old washer gave up the ghost. (We had gotten our old washer with our house. The previous owners were destructive knuckleheads. Will write about those later.)
For some reason all models, which had gotten good ratings, were gone, in the sense of discontinued. Since LG had gotten good ratings overall, we decided to take the model that was available and which was recommended by the salesperson.
Well, that was a mistake.
Pretty much from the beginning, I noticed that it didn't take out stains properly. Even worse, it was summer, and after a while, our freshly washed clothing began to stink. Like the washing machine couldn't handle all the pee, vomit and general crud and dirt that children will dispense on their garments.
I think that was the point when we should have just returned the darned thing. But I kept trying to make it work. I had always washed in cold water. Now I tried warm. I tried different kinds of laundry detergents. We did have some phone calls with Sears, who did send people to check if the thing was installed correctly and if anything was wrong with it. (Nothing wrong with their customer service.) Eventually we were enlightened that anything with children's bodily fluids would have to be washed in - well - the baby clothing setting. (Which is HOT.)
Together with a new laundry detergent we finally got our stuff reasonably clean, and we decided to keep the thing, since we had definitely used it A LOT already. It just felt wrong to return it.
I am not altogether happy though. I always used to wash in cold water. Now it is usually warm, so I wonder how much energy that thing really saves. It does save water though.
I was usually able to wash with soap. Now I do need a specific he laundry detergent. So it is expensive in its own way.
And I can't get over the fact that I never had problems like this with any washer I encountered in Sweden, Germany or wherever I happened to live in Europe. (I know that LG is a European brand, but still. Maybe they ship their crappy models to the US?)
Sometimes I wished we had an old fashioned model again, to be honest.

Hair

We were all soooo ill last week. Some stomach virus.
Yesterday I heard a report on npr morning edition about not washing your hair every day.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102062969
I have in fact been practicing that for a while.
Not washing my hair every day that is.
At some point I noticed that our visitors from Europe didn't shower every day. In fact, they didn't even shower every second day. However, I really couldn't claim they smelled bad or had greasy hair.
I remembered that when I lived in Europe, I didn't shower every day, except for maybe the worst times of puberty, when not washing my head meant to go to school with greasy strands.
When I came here, I worked for a jeweler in production and repair for a while. Tinkering with metal had been a hobby of mine and I couldn't get any higher paying job at the time. So I figured I might as well doing something I loved doing.
Anyway, as maybe a few people know, fabricating and repairing jewelry is a relatively dirty job. There is a lot of filing and polishing. The dust gets everywhere and I had to shower every evening. Somehow I just kept doing that, even when I stopped working there.
But at some point I gave it some thought. Mostly because I wanted to save water. I was wondering about the hygiene point, but like I said, I soon realized that the Europeans who visited didn't stink, and that I didn't use to shower every day either, so...
It is not easy. You scalp gets used to being washed at certain intervals. In the beginning my hair did get greasy the second day. But I persevered. Putting baby powder in my hair helped. It absorbed enough grease to make it look decent. I have since stopped doing that. Firstly, I wasn't sure how far it defeated the purpose and secondly, I wasn't sure whether the baby powder would serve as an extra snack for the dust mites in bed at night.
I now wash my hair every third day. I could get by even longer, I guess. Last week, when everybody was ill, I got by for six days without washing. It didn't look too great though.
My daughter has gotten ear tubes, because she constantly got ear infections. Washing her hair has turned into a nightmare. Whenever she gets water in her ears, her eardrums will get inflamed. The expensive earplugs from the doctor's don't work. Eventually I told my husband we just wouldn't wash her hair more than once a week. After his initial protests about the lack of hygiene, he went along, and it works great. Her hair doesn't get greasy or stinky at all!!! I guess that's because puberty hasn't hit yet.
So, it saves water, it saves shampoo and it is good for your scalp.

Sieben Linden

In the Economist (Feb 28th - March 6th 2009) I read an article about Sieben Linden. SL is a social and ecological settlement in the Altmark in the region of Sachsen-Anhalt (former East Germany), i.e. a self proclaimed eco-village. "The 120 inhabitants have decided to live in as green a manner as possible. They are trying to wean themselves off fossil fuels, grow their own food and timber, acquire fewer frivolous possessions and produce less waste." (p.16) "...the main reason the inhabitants buy less and waste less is that they have a rich community life which does not revolve around trips to shops, restaurants and cinemas." (ibid)
They have several different "neighborhoods" which feature different models of alternative living.
Sounds like a great place that really inspires hope.
http://www.siebenlinden.de/content.php?p=0000
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13135425

My day today

Let's see...
Today's triumphs:
1. Bought two full meals worth of all natural and humanely raised pork and 1 meal of natural chicken breasts at Ukrop's (plus some sausage and cream cheese) at the bargain bin for $24!
2. Got my farm fresh milk (more about that another day when I am not tired)
3. Spent over an hour helping out at my kid's preschool. (Hurray for involvement!)
4. Spent an hour with my kids learning about the number 3, the letters R and S and about life in Afrika. (I'm thinking about homeschooling. More about that later.)
5. Checked out my nearest Goodwill Store, mostly to see the prices for maternity stuff, so I could compare with Craigslist. Saw a toddler bike for $15 that I might want for my daughter. (She has a toddler bike that I got for $5. For reasons that are absolutely beyond me, it doesn't have any brakes. Call me clueless, but I didn't even check for that when I bought it. it just didn't cross my mind that somebody would manufacture a toddler bike without brakes. )
6. Drove around the two stripmalls closest to our house to check out what businesses are there, so I can chose to use them instead of anything further away.
7. Checked my local Craigslist for maternity clothing. Found an entry that looks promising and wrote an email to the seller to see if she was willing to take less $$, since her initial price is too high for me

Trials:
Well, I drove a lot, esp. in the morning, when I brought the kids to preschool and picked up the meat and milk. But I guess it wasn't all that much for American standards...All the stores were sort of on the way.

I hate Walmart

I hate Walmart. Most of all, their unavoidable plastic bags are getting on my nerves. Since I (have to) buy the bulk of our purchases there, I get a lot of them.
Yes, they do have their "good conscience" recycling containers. And boy, do I use them. They get every single plastic bag back that they force upon me.
I have tried to bring my own bags. But I usually don't have enough of them. Also, Walmarts cash registers are designed in a way that makes using your own bag fairly impractical for both you and the cashier, resulting in more time being spent and angry people behind you in line. Walmart used to have a big "tub" at the end of the cash register, where your goods would accumulate and where you yourself could start packing, if you - like me - didn't mind doing that. Now they have their little plastic bag carousels, where the cashier dumps every purchase directly into a bag.
In most European countries I lived, it works like this: The conveyor belt pretty much stops right after the cash register and the cashier dumps your purchase back into another shopping cart. Once you pay, you take your cart either to your car, where you can put your stuff in your own bags or laundry basket or whatever, or you take your cart to a table, often opposite the cash registers, where you can pack you purchases into your own bags. (That is the option for people who walk or bike to the store and who only purchased as much as they actually can carry home.)
And no, it is not really all that bothersome.
I do believe that Walmart doesn't want you to bring back your shopping bags for recycling. They want you to use them as trash bags. I first had this impression, when they changed the bag color from noxious blue to white. Would you rather use a blue shopping bag as a trash bag - thereby outing yourself to the world that you shop at Walmart - or a neutral,white one? Seeeeee...
And lately, I made another discovery. They perfume their bags. I am fairly chemically sensitive. (And yeah, I also thought that that was ridiculous, before I started suffering from it.) One day I drove home after my hated trip to WM, and I was feeling slightly nauseated/lightheaded. I also noticed a strange, fake-fresh flowery smell in the car. First I couldn't figure out, what it was. But after unpacking at home, it hit me: The bags stank! And they stank exactly the same way that those perfumed trash bags smell. (And just for your info, I once bought them by mistake and we had to give them away because they gave me headaches. So I know!)
That absolutely convinced me that they are trying to make people use them instead of returning them.
I read somewhere though that WM is going to try to encourage people to bring and use their own bags. I am just curious how they intend to do that, since the cash register layout is so problematic.

Walmart and other shopping

I hate Walmart.
Yet, I probably purchase most of our stuff there. Why? Affordability, of course.
Here in Richmond, we have our local grocery chain, called Ukrops. I would absolutely love to do my shopping there exclusively. But alas, I can't. I tried, for a while, but it just wasn't financially possible.
I a lot of other stuff second hand. Goodwill is my favorite. I know that there are stores that have better prices, but they are further away. I do have however two Goodwill shops fairly close by, so I can make it a habit to drop in and check things out.
I pretty much buy all children's clothing there. And I have so far bought most of my pregnancy stuff there. I also buy misc household items.
Yard sales don't really work for me. Too much planning and too much driving around. I know two fairly well off neighborhoods that have neighborhood yard sales, and I do try to go there, but I just would not sacrifice every Saturday for driving around many miles to hit several single family yard sales.
I have tried Craigslist too, but unfortunately made a few too many bad experiences...

Gratitude

I like reading discussion threads about healthy and frugal living.
Right now I am reading a thread about healthy foods and how to maintain a healthy diet with as little money as possible. It seems that the current recession/crisis/whatever you want to call it is hitting some families pretty hard, in the sense that they simply can't afford meat and veggies and have to go for cheap refined flour and potatoes more often than not.
I must say that I am very grateful that we can afford to buy veggies, meat and organic/specialty foods. Don't get me wrong. I shop around, compare, clip coupons and go to Walmart. And I don't by everything we want, by all means. But I think I am doing OK providing three picky eaters with a fairly healthy diet. I am grateful for that and wish everyone could do so.

Edible Landscaping

Since I would like to garden a bit - to have fresh produce and because I just plain like it - I have been preparing a small raised bed I have right under the kitchen window. Seeds are bought, books are being studied, and I am just waiting for the last of the snow to go away, to plant some frost hardy varieties like spinach and a lettuce called "Feldsalat" in German. They have predicted temps up to 83 degrees for Sunday, so...
Here in the South, I always have to take care to plant early enough, since it will get so hot so fast. The first year I planted lettuce, it first didn't germinate at all, then it did and immediately shot up to go to seed. I have learned since then and start early...(Although I feel that I am already sort of late this year.)
My German grandmother always had her own veggies growing. They also had a fruit yard. But as a kid I wasn't interested in growing the stuff. I only ate it. Very often straight out of the ground or off the tree. I'm a bit sad/annoyed I never paid attention to the actual gardening part. Now I am so into it and I study as much as I can.
My Homeowners Association isn't too fond of gardening. Our subdivision is in a very natural, forest-like setting, and they see it as their goal to preserve that. Preferably we should only plant native plants. But some of the people before us already broke that rule. We have several fig trees in the front yard, grapes on a trellis in the back and two pear trees. I wouldn't mind to plant more.
I love Edible Landscaping, i.e. gardening with plants that have at least one edible part. I am fairly "lucky" to have quite some Greenbriar in the more woody parts of our property. Briars are actually edible, esp in spring, when the leaves are tender. I have been pulling out Poison Ivy, to give the Briars more space to grow. (And because of the kids, obviously.)

Heating and Temperature Settings

We keep our house fairly cool.
"Fairly" means between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. During the day we usually have around 64 degrees and during the night we scale down to 60.
When my youngest daughter (3 years) is old enough to pull up the blankets she kicks off during the night, we will set the heater to 55 degrees over night.
(I have realized by now that I should have made her some sort of sleeping bag, like those sleepers she wore as a baby. But I was concerned that it would be too confusing at night if she had to go potty.)
The benefits? Well, for one, it saves heating costs and is good for the environment. But it saves in other areas too. We don't need humidifiers any more. Our skin has gotten better. (Both my son and I have dry skin.) And my children seem to get less colds. (I read somewhere that that has something to do with the decreased difference between inside and outside temperature.)
It has its challenges. For one, we need to dress in layers, so we can add and shed whenever we need to. I am not talking about tons of clothing. I'm talking tights/long undies, pants, undershirt, warm sweater and slippers. You don't have to run around in socks. My children (and husband) refuse to do so sometimes. (And get surprised when they are cold.) My husband is in fact the type who would love to run around in wife beaters and shorts all year long. (Grow up. It is winter! Wear a sweater!)
It can be challenging when we have guests and I forget to turn up the heat. Sometimes I noticed only while saying goodbye that our visitors never took off their jackets. (Again, if it is in the 20s outside, you don't have to wear a dress shirt. There are tons of stylish wool sweaters you can wear over a shirt and still look business casual.)
It's also hard to adjust to those who seem to need 72 degrees year round. I noticed the other day at our local library that they don't have hooks or lockers for clothing. They seem to expect people to come into the building dressed for summery temperatures, not for reality. (We had had one of the worst snowstorms in recent years.) So besides a big book bag, I also had to lug sweaters, scarfs, hats, mittens and jackets for three people around the building. This however seems to be a sign of our recent, wasteful times. In the main library building in the city of Richmond, they do have a coat room. The place was opened in 1956. People were smarter in those days.
My son's preschool is another example. They crank up the heating so high that some of the students wear short arm t-shirts inside while the temperature outside is below freezing.
But like I said, the benefits outweigh the annoyances for us, so we just plow on.

A sunny day...

Today is a cold but sunny day here in Rmnd, VA.
I have finally decided to start my blog. The goal is to chronicle my own quest for authenticity.
I have moved here from Europe over 8 years ago and unfortunately have a hard time to feel at home here. Besides the obvious reasons - I miss my friends and my family - there are also subtler ones. I happen to live in the suburbs. (Not really by choice, but because my husband works in an suburban office park.) And to my European mentality suburban life seems to be incredibly isolating. It also has a huge cost in regard to the environment. (I am a hippie at heart.)
So enjoy my attempts to live environmentally conscious and my ponderings about life. Both here and in Europe.