The Lost Art of Mending

There’s something very satisfying about the act of mending. I don’t know why, but it gives me a little kick to make things ‘whole’ again, whether it’s stitching up a rip or just sewing on a button that’s fallen off.

When I was a kid, my Grammie was always mending something. Most often it was my dad’s handknitted wool socks or the mittens that she made for us kids. Sadly, mending appears to have fallen out of favour. It seems people would rather throw out something rather than fix it.

Case in point: a while back I found a high quality women’s shirt at the local Sally Ann that looked like it had hardly been worn. The only problem was it had a button missing. There was an extra button on the inside bottom of the shirt, so it wasn’t even that the previous owner couldn’t find a match to it. So for a couple of bucks, and less than five minutes’ work, I have a new shirt that I love.

And just today, I found this Gucci leather backpack/purse on eBay that was going for peanuts because one of its zippers was broken. Gucci, for Pete’s sake! They sell for between a few hundred and several thousand dollars. But for $34 Canadian, I was able to buy it. I will have the zipper repaired or replaced the next time I’m in Vancouver for what I’m sure will be a reasonable price, and that will be that!

Anyway, today was a mending day for me. I sewed on missing buttons, secured buttons that were loose and thinking of dropping off, stitched up a rip in the lining of my winter coat, repaired a tear in one of Jamie’s t-shirts, sewed up a little rip in one of my gloves, and then…because I was on a roll….I pulled out my shoe shine box and polished most of my shoes and boots until I could almost see my reflection in them. Most satisfying!

Hittin’ the Road

They’re off! Alan’s band Sanktuary left today for their Western Canadian tour.  I won’t see him again until shortly before Christmas. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they won’t run into any major snowstorms, or if they do they’ll know enough to hunker down somewhere.

By the way, the band turned up on some international heavy metal CD…bands from all over Europe, the U.S., and them: the only Canadian one among the bunch. I have no idea how this all came about, but I guess someone heard their stuff on their MySpace page and decided they liked it. Cool!

Opening for Three Inches of Blood

A Blur

This week-end went by faster than a speeding bullet. There was Joe’s birthday dinner on Friday night (just the family), Halloween on Saturday (which really seemed to be a non-event for us this year: only about 30 kids and no terribly creative costumes; maybe some were at home with the flu?), a birthday brunch for Joe yesterday morning (eggs bennie for 18 people – it was quite a production in the kitchen!), and East Indian food at a friend’s house last night. Phew!

Oh, and those turquoise Fluevog boots? They’re winging their way to my house right now. I’ll post photos when they arrive. I also bought a black lace Betsey Johnson  (video takes a while to load…can you believe this woman is 65??) party dress for dirt cheap, so now I’m all set for the Christmas season.

I’m in Love

I love shoes. Beautifully made, colourful, soft leather shoes. Trouble is, shoes like that are not cheap, so I usually limit myself to one new pair every 12 to 18 months. This past trip to Vancouver I got lucky; I found a pair of Stephane de Raucourt boots at Value Village for all of $20 (his boots typically sell for $300 or more). Here’s a shot of them: a cross between a bowling shoe and a vintage ski boot…funky and fun, with lovely leather inside and out.

But then today, I stumbled on something that really made my heart go pitter-patter. Take a look at these and these! And here’s some more…I love the Executor Luciano men’s shoe that comes in electric blue patent leather!

These are a bit out of my price range. However it just so happens that there’s a pair of turquoise Fluevog boots that have been listed on ebay, and they’re batting their eyelashes at me. Be still my beating heart!

I will tell you in a few days how this love story ends.

Educating Alice

I’ve spent part of the morning curled up in bed with a book called “Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman”. It was written by Alice Steinbach, who’s a former journalist with the Baltimore Sun and it recounts a series of ‘learning holidays’ she took. Acting on the advice of the Japanese poet Basho, who wrote “To learn of the pine, go to the pine”, she heads off to try out French cooking in Paris, study traditional arts in Kyoto, take a writing course in Praque, learn more about Cuban music and art in Havana, and partake in several other adventures in various countries. Along the way she meets some pretty interesting folks and gains some perspectives that she just wouldn’t have gotten from reading a book (or a whole library of books).

She is definitely a woman after my own heart. Long on my ‘bucket list’ has been a desire to spend time in a number of different countries taking classes in traditional dance. The differences and similaries in varous dance forms fascinate me, as does putting together the puzzle about how dance in one part of the world has influenced and connects with dance in a completely different part of this planet.

I’ve had a chance to dabble a very tiny bit in this: a flamenco dance class in Seville,  a couple of tango classes in Buenos Aires, and a bit of salsa in Cuba (I’ve been introduced to several other dance forms, but not in their country of origin). But it’s a big world out there. Before my bones get too brittle and my joints too creaky, I hope to experience first hand Baroque and Renaissance dancing in France, step dancing in Ireland and folk dancing in Turkey and Greece. And those are just the first few on my list!

Courtesy of www.greekdancemonterey.org/

Day Six Re-cap: Shower With a Friend

The goal: to reduce water consumption. The result: nothing to write home about. Yes, I did forego a morning shower, opting instead for a sponge bath and washing my hair in the sink. And no, I didn’t run the washing machine or the dish washer. But really all I did was delay the inevitable…I will have to wash both dishes and clothes today and I am only prepared to go so long without a shower. I am lucky in that my appliances are EnergyStar rated, plus I will wash the clothes in cold water and hang them on my clothes rack to dry instead using the dryer. But unlike No Impact Man, I am not prepared to give up my washer in exchange for throwing clothes in my bath tub and then stomping on them with my feet as if they were a vat of grapes.

For me, I think the real accomplishments this week have not been so much that I’ve drastically decreased my footprint (although I have made small gains in some areas), but that I’ve become more aware of the ecological consequences of my everyday actions.

After this week will I change my habits going foreward? In some cases yes. I’ll probably continue to try to keep my garbage producion to a minimum (I did get a bit of a thrill the day that I produced no garbage at all), and whenever possible I will either carpool or take the bus. I’ll try to eat locally too (I’ve been trying to do that for quite some time) but I’m also not going to get myself bent out of shape if I eat a banana once in a while.

Thoughts? Do you think this was a worthwhile experiment or just some kind of group publicity stunt? Did this week change anything for you?

Day Five Re-Cap: Planned Power Outage

Today was all about reducing my electrical consumption. To be honest, this was one of the easiest of my challenges. Here are some of the things I did:

-showered in the dark
-kept the lights off at work all day. I work for a hydro company and one employee came in and jokingly said to me, “What are you trying to do – put me out of a job? Turn your lights on!” I didn’t though.
-didn’t turn on the space heater in my office, which is a normal practice for me since my workspace is pretty cold. Instead I wore a warm sweater and when I got too cold I threw my down coat over my shoulders.
-At a no-cook meal for dinner
-didn’t turn the TV on
-only had the home computer on to post yesterday’s recap
-read by candlelight and flashlight
-took a bath by candlelight last night

The things I am not willing to give up: my two freezers, which contain a large portion of our food for the year; my oven and cooktop, my refrigerator, my hot water heater and my washing machine. I could happily do without lights, the TV (but only after I’ve finished watching all five seasons of the HBO series Six Feet Under, which I recently discovered and have become addicted to), and some of the other electrical gadgets around the house. I would miss my computer and dryer but could get by without them. 

In other areas:
Garbage: no garbage yesterday!
Shopping: bought hair conditioner and skin cream, and bread from the local bakery
Local eating: breakfast was vegetable cutlets using veggies from my local dinner the night before, lunch was more leftovers (again all local except for the green beans) and dinner was just bread from the bakery and home made tzatziki (I was just too tired to cook anything and I really wasn’t hungry).
Transportation: carpooled to and from work, walked to dance, and caught a ride home with Joe who said he had to ‘run out to get some milk’. Really I think he just felt sorry for me. Transportation continues to be one of the biggest challenges for me. That and local eating.

Today it’s reducing my water consumption. I do love my long showers and baths, so we’ll see what happens.

Day Four Recap: I Don’t Think Seaweed Salad is Local!

I knew today wasn’t going to be my best effort. It was supposed to be all about eating locally. The problem was that well before I decided to do this challenge I agreed to attend a lunch hour business meeting in a downtown sushi restaurant. When my food arrived, I couldn’t see one thing that might have been produced in the Yukon. And along with that, the restaurant provided disposable napkins and ‘throw-away’ chopsticks, so even my garbage count was up yesterday as a result of that one meeting.

The day did get better though. Dinner, though rather unimaginative, was largely local: moose steaks, Yukon-grown potatoes, carrots from my garden, and green beans. The beans weren’t local but needed to be eaten up, and I wasn’t going to let them spoil just so I could boast that I’d eaten an all-Yukon meal. Truth be told, the butter and spices weren’t from the Yukon either, so even without the beans the meal wouldn’t have gotten a perfect score.

Other areas:

Garbage: apart from the paper napkin and disposable chopsticks, I threw away a plastic bag that held the moose meat.

Shopping: none

Transportation: carpooling to and from work, but I did drive to dance last night. I was really tired and just wasn’t up to a 50 minute walk each way on top of the 1.5 hour flamenco class.

Today it’s all about saving electricity. I’ll try to do better than yesterday!

Day Three Re-Cap

The goal: in addition to keeping up with the no shopping except for food/no garbage challenge, clean transportation was added to Day 3. The idea was to find alternate ways of getting around, whether that be walking, biking, taking the bus, carpooling, etc.

For me this was a bit of a challenge. Walking to and from work wasn’t an option – it probably would have taken me three hours each way. And the household bikes don’t have headlamps, so can’t be used in the dark (which it is these mornings). Bussing it was possible – I often take the bus anyway. But because Alan needed to get to work at around the same time I did, I opted for carpooling both to and from the office.

I had a late morning meeting downtown and used the most fuel efficient pool car from work to attend. I also took the opportunity to run all other errands at the same time, including my lunchtime grocery shop.

Last night was harder. I had a dance class at 6. Luckily Joe made dinner, so I could leave the house early and walk to class. This took about 50 minutes of brisk walking with occasional running thrown in for good measure. Certainly by the time I got to class I was warmed up and ready to rumble! Coming home I joined a carpool situation so I didn’t have to walk back in the dark.

So not ideal, but not terrible either.

In the garbage department, you can see from the photo what I threw away: one used up SOS pad and a tiny piece of plastic from the cheddar cheese I purchased the other day. And shopping? I only bought groceries.

Today it’s Food Day…a time to attempt eating only local foods. I already know this is not going to be pretty. I’ll tell you why in my next post.

Part 2 of the Dreaded Grocery Shop

Photo credit: www.ehow.com

 Well, I have to give credit to the Great Canadian Superstore. I just went there to pick up some groceries that I neglected to purchase yesterday (see my last post to find out why) and I see that they have added a whole new bulk food section to the store. To my surprize, I was able to get just about everything I needed without the added packaging: sunflower seeds, almonds, peanuts, baking soda, baking powder, and even some dark chocolate almond bark (I’ve been craving chocolate for three days but didn’t buy any because of the packaging). The bulk section also has things like white and brown sugar, flour, and all the items it had before like beans, soup mixes, candy, etc. There’s a lot more I’d like to see there, but still…it’s a pretty good start.

Along with some bulk garlic and some bananas, the only things I bought that had packaging were some toilet paper and taquitos. Yes I know: the taquitos, from one of the inner convenience isles, are not a good choice. My youngest has been nagging me for ‘junk food’ and I justified the purchase by telling myself that the cardboard box they are in can be composted and they at least aren’t wrapped in plastic.