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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.
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/
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
I’ll start with the good news. Apart from one empty packet of sample sized conditioner given to me by my hairdresser, I threw nothing in the garbage yesterday. The packet – although paper – was foil backed, so couldn’t be composted. We have a very good waste diversion program at work, so all the paper I used either went back into my ‘re-use’ box or in the bins that, when full, are picked up by Raven Recycling. My lunch I brought from home in re-usable containers. I used my metal thermos for water, and I even brought some of my grammie’s hankies to work with me to use in place of Kleenex.
Now to the bad news. I needed groceries, so after work I headed in to one of the big box grocery stores we have in town. It started off OK: I found Yukon-grown potatoes, beets, yams, brussel sprouts and celery sticks, all in bulk. All of these I put in bags brought from home.
The pasta sauce was in glass bottles, which can be re-used and then re-cycled. But then it went downhill pretty fast.
The pasta was in plastic. The cheddar cheese was wrapped in plastic. The feta cheese was in a flimsy plastic container that won’t stand up to many re-uses. The mustard? In plastic. The European weiners? In plastic. The brown sugar was also in plastic, as was the bread and the tortillas. All this will soon, if not right away, end up in our landfill. I was so depressed I didn’t even finish buying everything I needed, and will have to go back today.
Some time ago I read about one woman who, as a show of protest, took everything she was purchasing out of the plastic bags in her local grocery store, put it instead into her own cloth bags, and left the pastic waste for the store to deal with. I’m not that person, but I may let the local grocers know how I feel.
Today’s task focusses around transportation. Stay tuned!
It was a pretty good start to my No Impact Week.
In terms of garbage created, here’s my pile:
Ziplock bag that held a 'science experiment' that used to be grapes, an empty brown sugar bag, and a bit of broken chain found in a box I was cleaning out from Iris' room.
As for buying things, I did OK. I toyed very briefly with the idea of checking out a new restaurant in town that people have been raving about, but instead made ‘clean out the fridge’ meals: a black bean and squash soup and apple crisp using some of the apples I brought back from my recent trip to B.C., plus a kale stir fry which supplemented the Asian-style caribou brisket dish that Joe made.
I did, however, take Joe out for tea. We used ceramic mugs but I guess the two tea bags we used should be added to my garbage count since I’m betting Tim Horton’s doesn’t compost.
Today’s task: eliminate all garbage, both at home and at work. Since I have to do a grocery shop, this could be challenging.
I have been following No Impact Man’s blog for quite some time now. I’m sure by now you will have heard about him, what with both a book and a movie having just been released. Colin Beavan is the New Yorker who spent a year making changes in his behaviour so that he would reduce his ecological footprint to almost zero. It meant no cars, busses, airplanes, taxis, elevators, tv, refrigerators, washers or dryers, no food in disposable containers, no disposable anything…the list was a long one and he did things that I have no interest in trying (like giving up toilet paper).
Now he and the Huffington Post are inviting people to try a No Impact Week, which starts today. A year was too overwhelming for me, but a week – that I think I can handle. And while I generally shy away from these kind of group ‘events’, I’ve decided to give this one a whirl.
Today’s task: curb my spending, and collect all the garbage I create in one place so that I can see exactly what kind of volume I am producing.
I will blog about my successes and failures each day, and by the end of the week I hope to have a better idea of exactly what kind of impact I’m having on the earth, and what I’m prepared to do about it over the longer term. Wish me luck.
By the way, if you have any interest in joining me, you can sign up here.
