Hippie Recipes

I love eco-friendly living - it is better for our planet, better for the creatures we share the earth with, better for our health & longevity and better for my budget! I'm sure we've all heard similar things in the past few years as green living has created a nook for itself in mainstream media and culture, so I won't lecture. But I thought it might be interesting to share the team smelkins attempts at a more DIY, earth-friendly kind of life.

The areas in our home where we have made the biggest changes (aside from the fact that we have barely enough belongings to fill a 700 sq. ft. apartment) is in our bathroom and kitchen. We're pretty simple folk in the respect that if it's not easy or decidedly worthwhile, we just won't do it. In light of this fact, most of the recipes and ideas listed below are pretty basic. 

Bathroom:

Shampoo
I've been without shampoo since November 2010. To wash my hair, I use about 1 tbsp of baking soda diluted in ~1/2 cup of water. I usually only wash my hair every 2 or 3 days. I love getting to spend money that was previously allocated for shampoo on adventurous food products such as raw cacao nibs and chia seeds. More info on being shampoo free here at Babs LJ.

Conditioner
Using baking soda as a shampoo can be rough on your hair, especially if you are using too much or washing too often (mistakes I've made in my no 'poo venture). To keep my hair soft and dandruff free, I rinse my hair with a mixture of ~1 tbsp of vinegar in ~3/4 cup of water every time I shampoo my hair, making sure I give my scalp a really invigorating scrub when I do so. When I first started, I used apple cider vinegar but now I usually use white vinegar (for no reason other than it's what I have on hand).
FYI, Matt uses a 3-in-1 body wash/shampoo/conditioner. The smell of vinegar weirds him out.

Dry Shampoo
In between washing days, my fine textured hair can start to look a little oily so I brush it out with a bit of cornstarch (~1/4 tsp?) mixed with a few drops of essential oils. Too much cornstarch can make my hair look dull, so I am careful to use as little as I need to de-grease my locks.

Lotion
I started making my own oil based lotion so that I can keep the chemicals I put onto my skin and into my body at a minimum. The recipe I use can be found here at Sonoma Garden. I really like a scent mix of lavender, rosemary and mint but you can scent with anything you like.
I've also made a salve using a similar recipe with smaller portions and cocoa butter instead of beeswax that is really moisturizing and good for cracked/dry hands. The cold weather and frequent hand washing at my job make this a twice daily beautifying step for me.

Deodorant
I don't deal with sweat all that often, especially since we live in such a cold climate now, but I am still in the habit of daily deodorant. In the past I have used a homemade deodorant recipe (which you can also find at Sonoma Garden) that I really liked. Now, I just rub on a little bit of my homemade lotion with a thin layer of my dry shampoo on top and that gets me through the day.
I still have a store bought anti-perspirant in my cupboard for those days when I need a little extra help like when I go to interviews or am in stressful social situations, but that's not what I use everyday.

Make-up Remover
I don't often wear heavy makeup (watching the Story of Cosmetics was a major deterrent), so water or a little olive oil usually does the trick. I keep a travel size squeeze bottle of olive oil in my bathroom just for this.

Mouthwash
There are a bunch of homemade mouthwash recipes out there. I stuck with a super simple recipe because I had everything on hand. In a jar, I put two cups of water and added 9 drops of both tea tree oil (for it's antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiseptic qualities) and peppermint (for it's minty flavor). Just be sure not to swallow it, similar to as if it were a commercial mouthwash.


Kitchen:

All purpose cleaners
Water, baking soda, and vinegar clean just about everything in our home during day to day life. Water for cleansing, baking soda for scrubbing power, and vinegar for disinfecting & de-stick-ify-ing.
I don't want to waste time re-writing what someone else has written better so let me link you to the internet for more info: Gorgeously Green - Natural Cleaners and Earth Easy Non-Toxic Cleaning.

"Tough on Grime" scrub
This scrub has saved my life more times than I can remember! I use it in the kitchen and the bathroom to scrub anything that is too hard to get off with plain baking soda. It's not too complicated - all I do is mix in a jar ~1/2 cup of baking soda with ~1 tbsp of dishwashing soap, add a few drops of essential oil for good smelling-ness and shake! I use this mixture to scrub away anything from tub grime to food burnt onto the bottom of my pans.

Okay, so now that you know what a hippie I am, I hope we can still be friends. Being unconventional can be hard, often inconvenient, occasionally time consuming and regularly requires lengthy explanations to those around me, but I like a challenge. As many changes as I've made and as much research as we've done, I'm not perfect. My net impact on the environment isn't zero (like No Impact Man) or even close to it, yet every day (or as often as I remember) I recommit myself to doing my best for our world. 

If you have any questions or concerns, you know where to find me!

Gardening Update

Last time I posted, I was writing about local food and gardening and it's about time I updated you on the latter of those topics. We've had quite a bit of sunshine lately in the PNW and the weather is starting to warm up (highs of 60 degrees and lows of 40 degrees)! The advent of spring has slowly started to change the landscape and it's starting to look like the place Matt and I fell in love with when we visited on our honeymoon.

The local flora are taking advantage of the warming weather by putting out buds and flowers by the ton. One of the pacific rhododendrons living in our apartment complex is heavy with beautiful blossoms. Did you know that the pacific rhododendron is the state flower of Washington?

Anyway, about a month ago I planted the potatoes (organic red potatoes that I accidentally let sprout on my counter) and snap pea seedlings (from Lowe's - nothing fancy there). They're both growing great thus far. I even put in some stakes for the snap pea plants to grow on because their little grabby vines were grow all over the place (they're a bush variety so I wasn't supposed to have to stake them but this may be for the best).

Sprouted potatoes just before I covered them with 1" dirt.

Tiny potato plant breaking the soil! (~ 1 month later)

Snap Pea plants just after planting.

Snap Pea plants growing big! (~1 month later)

I won't be doing another round of planting for another month or so but I am really excited about what we already having growing. By my porch I also planted a little patch of echinacea seeds and another patch with a daisy wild flower seed mix. The daisy seedlings are just now poking their little leaves above the surface.

Matt laughs at me every time I drag him outside to show him another seedling but I am so terribly proud of all my little plantlings! I can't help it. I don't think I have a particularly green thumb but I am determined to be a backyard gardener even if we live in a landscaped apartment complex. 

First Day of Spring

How can such a cloudy, drizzley day be the first day of spring? There are no butterflies or bees hanging around our back patio and it's only 44 degrees outside. From what I understand, we won't even get spring time weather for another month here in Seattle. That is a total bummer. 

On the other hand, that fact does give me a bit more time to plan the container garden I am going to start. Since this will be my first time growing plants to eat, I am going to start with easy crops like potatoes, zucchini, baby lettuce, peas, tomatoes and strawberries. I might throw a few herb plants out there too - like mint and lemon balm. I really need to get my on potato and pea planting. Their planting time is now! I'll keep you updated on how things go with the gardening. 

Until then, we will keep enjoying our produce from the Full Circle Farms delivery box we have signed up for. We get fresh, local, organic produce every other week delivered to our doorstep!

Above is a picture of one of our first boxes! We've been getting them since December and it is still amazingly exciting every time. It is always a lovely surprise what produce we get in our box (though you can pick & choose if you want to so it doesn't have to be a surprise). 

I love our produce box because one of my goals in life is to eat locally and this delivery allows me to do so without breaking the bank! Matt and I still run supplemental trips to the grocery store for specific produce and other grocery items but I love the seasonal produce and I keep trying new recipes because of it!

Anyway, I gotta run. More updates later.

Divorcing Car #1

As of five days ago, Matt and I can officially call ourselves a one-car family. After a good cleaning, we handed off the car (and the monthly payments) to Matt’s parents who were looking to get another vehicle. These past few days with only one car have been easy-peasy, principally because only one of us is working.

Matt and I have been considering going down to one car for several months now, particularly as I delved more deeply into the eco-friendly, minimalist lifestyle. These were our main considerations in why we decided to slim down to one car – feel free to chime in with a comment below.

1. Saving money. Giving up one car means saving money on car payments, insurance and gas. The cost of gasoline is going to continue to rise and I want to get out of the habit of paying exorbitant prices as soon as possible. Not to mention the effort and time required for the maintenance on a car – oil changes, flat tires, windshield wipers and other painfully expensive repairs.
   
   
2. Living green. In an effort to reduce our impact on the environment, we want to stop polluting the air we breathe as much as possible. Our daily action to do this is to limit the amount we drive our car and to lessen our dependence on this mode of transportation.
   
   
3. Sticking it to the man. Our culture is obsessed with commercialism and consumption. I want to reduce this tendency by consuming less and exhibiting better habits with the things I do choose to own.

Sharing a car requires planning and patience. Matt and I have accepted the challenge to live in suburban America with only one car. In many ways, not owning my own vehicle feels like I am sacrificing some of my freedom. (But has that feeling only been planted by car companies? Screw you advertising.)

I cannot just run off for a weekend getaway with the girls without considering how that would leave Matt stranded. And Matt cannot drive off for a snow cone when I have to attend meetings. Instances like this might be a nuisance, but the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages for us.

I expect that once we move to Seattle, we will undergo sticky situations with our car-lite life; however, I anticipate Seattle will have better and more accessible public transportation than what we have access to here in Texas. I hope to find that living in a smaller state will enable us to get around more readily with even less reliance on our car than what we currently foresee. Utilizing multiple modes of transportation will be a great solution and save us a lot of strife.

There are a myriad of difficult situations that we may chance upon. For instance, what if our work schedules clash? What if we both need to commute a significant distance to work in opposite directions? What if one person desperately needs the car and the other person has it? What if the car ends up in the shop and we have no back up transportation? What if the bus makes us late to work? What if it rains or the roads are icy when we are supposed to be riding our bike? Etc.

These are very real questions that I am sure we can problem solve if/when they occur. My hope is that because we are going to Seattle with only one car, we will learn to utilize alternative transportation more readily because we will not have a vehicle to act as a crutch. The limits of owning one car will encourage us to search for jobs within shorter commute times and schedules that we can coordinate. How these tentative hopes play out will have to be another update. Until then, wish us luck!

Car-lite definition: Either a person or place that is not completely car-free, but uses or allows for a variety of alternative transport modes in addition to the car. 

World Car-Free Network - A informational website about going Car-Free for any questions I can't answer

How to Live Well Without Owning a Car - An E-Book with tips on how to live without a car - most of it is available without having to pay for the book