Exfoliation 3 - the shoe rack

In my ongoing battle against the accumulation of stuff, these shoes left the house recently.

The three in the middle went to charity shops, whilst sadly the battered old boots with holes and no heels went to landfill. (the flip flops I've ended up keeping as I realised I have nothing else summery to wear, although they are pretty battered).

As with all things I'm getting rid off, throwing things away is making me think about getting them in the first place, and shoes is a particularly bad area for me. I'm awful for buying shoes that don't fit, cheap shoes that fall apart almost immediately, shoes that are impossible to walk in, shoes I don't really like but feel like I 'need'.

I should be buying shoes that are a) comfortable b) durable and c) likeable. I really need to find some shoes that will last for years instead of months, shoes that won't give me corns or bruises or bend my feet out of shape. For some reason I don't think I have ever managed to do this.

Part of my excuse is that I have size 8 feet (41 european, I think a US 10), which are wide, with long toes, and one hammer toe. It is very difficult to find anything which is remotely nice-looking that fits, so if I find something 'almost there' I tend to buy it.

And I also have a fair amount of vanity about my shoes and clothes, so although there may be some tough, comfortable shoes out there, I'm still going to be pretty reluctant if they make me miserable with their ugliness. I have a semi-legitimate reason for some of this vanity, as I work in an environment where I am often meeting clients and am required to look reasonably smart.

Aside from the freakish feet and the vanity however, there's another reason why my holy grail of shoes has not yet been uncovered - which is that there just don't seem to be shoes out there (where I'm looking at least) that fit my criteria above. So many are made cheaply, which not only leads to them quickly wearing out, but also often means they are not designed for feet, but for fickle fashion followers, and are mightily uncomfortable.

So, at the moment I have one good pair of work shoes, I have my scrappy flip flops I got free off a magazine (I've accumulated so much awful tat through it being 'free' - another bad habit I'm trying to break!), I have various trainers, some falling apart flats I wear day in day out, and a few smart shoes which kill my feet but that I can wear for a couple of hours if really required to dress up. For the time being, this will do me. But as I come to replace these ones that will rapidly expire, I really need to find some shoes that will fit my brief. The search is on - I'll update when I find some goodies. In the mean time, all suggestions gratefully received!!!

The waste challenge - an update

Inspired by others' examples, I rather rashly decided a couple of months ago to set myself a challenge. The idea was to carry all the waste I produced around with me for a month, rather than throwing it away. At the end of the month, I thought I would be able to draw meaningful conclusions about where the waste I produce comes from, and how I could best reduce it...
I'm sorry to say it didn't quite go to plan. I kept getting confused about the rules (and having no better authority to consult than myself, never really resolved this). I got really busy at work, so much so that cooking and exercising and doing anything in the evening aside from slumping on the sofa got abandoned. I got to that state where anything that seemed 'difficult' was jettisoned, including the challenge...

Still, it did give me food for thought, about 'challenges' as well as about waste, so I thought I'd gather my thoughts and consider what next here.

Is it possible?
There were two things I kept thinking as I went on - firstly, it seemed increasingly that it must be possible to get to a nil, or nearly nil, waste output. I didn't think it all through in complete detail but the more I thought about each piece of waste the more it seemed entirely possible to live a life where no waste was produceed, and even in a world where waste wasn't seen as something completely unavoidable. The second thought was how hard it would be getting there. The culture of getting rid of, of disposability, of throwing away, of ignoring the fact that throwing 'away' means throwing 'somewhere else' is completely prevalent and pervasive in the world I live in.

Think about it
The challenge, failed or not, forced me to think about this business of just 'throwing away'. Close your eyes and try and picture it - the whole situation - imagine your country in your mind's eye, and see the millions of people and households and businesses churning out waste here there and everywhere. And then look at the people and trucks and ships taking it away, burying it, burning it, throwing it in the sea... Picture that and tell me it's not crazy. There is not infinite room. Not to mention contamination and pollution. (Did anyone see that film Gomorrah? Possibly one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, it shows a really really ugly side to waste disposal (see exploitation, government corruption, mafia terror, illness, deaths and injury, illegal and dangerous working practices...)). This gave me a real motivation to continue with this.

The nitty gritty
From the grand scale to the minute... I started to see each little bit that contributed to the stuff I throw out. There was waste at every point of the day, decisions I had to make in all situations. I used hand dryers instead of paper towels, I tried using fresh tomatoes instead of canned, I had to make an effort to get to my local organic shop on time so I didn't end up in the palace of packaging - Tesco Metro. I chose loose cabbage over bagged up spinach, but then went to the farmer's market and bought lovely local organic strawberries in plastic containers, felt overwhelmed by the difficulty in getting everything right. I succumbed to buying weekend papers, and lamented the amount of stuff that came through my letterbox only to go straight in the recycling bin, unopened. I realised how often I threw stuff away without even being aware of it.

The plan
I realised that the way I tackle things best is bit by little bit, and that an all-out waste starvation diet was not going to help me change my behaviour in the long term. I read somewhere that if you do something for 30 days a habit will be formed. And once something is habitual you don't have to think about it anymore. I need to create waste-light habits, and one by one so I don't feel over-loaded and defeated.

So, the plan is this. Each month going forward I will tackle a different area of waste. My long-term aim will be to get to a place where I have a very very small amount of waste each month, all of which is recyclable - nothing to landfill. As I tackle each area one by one, hopefully my binbag will shrink and I'll move through the obvious stuff to the less obvious stuff, eliminating waste slowly but surely. And I want to invite you to join me in this challenge - either taking the same subjects as I do, or creating your own.

Join the challenge!
I just ate a little pot of fruit for lunch which came in a plastic pot with a plastic fork. I could easily have just bought a banana. And I ate a chocolate mousse, also in a plastic pot with a plastic lid. I could have bought instead a pudding from the canteen that comes in a china bowl. One thing I did do whilst doing the June challenge, was to eat lunch every day on a plate with proper cutlery - either from canteens or brought from home. It was so much nicer than eating with plastic forks from plastic containers, and I'm sure sitting down properly for lunch made me much more productive in the afternoon.

So for August I'll tackle food-on-the-go (as opposed to food shopping bought for home use, which is a big area I'll try and break down into smaller bits!), and hope you might decide to do so to! It would be great to share lunchbox recipes, tips for carrying coffee mugs and cutlery, or other ways to avoid accidentally picking up plastic/paper accompaniments to takeaway food. I'll post about how I'm doing and would be great to hear from others doing it too. Comment if you're up for it!

Exfoliation 2 - The Bookshelf

A little while ago I told you about my first 'exfoliation' - that is, shedding unused clutter in order to leave just the good, the useful, the beautiful and/or to put that clutter back into the world and see it used better. (see makeundermylife for the original and best explanation).

Since then, I've been getting quite into this whole exfoliating/making under business. I've been picking away at my wardrobe, building up a big pile of clothes I don't wear or can't wear or know don't suit me. Every time I take something out my wardrobe looks richer, not smaller. The colours are nicer, I see more stuff I like. That taking stuff away, not putting it in, is what enhances it is so counterintuitive it feels like magic! And yet when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Anyhow, more on the clothes and what to do with them later...

For now, this was my second exfoliation - I went through the bookcase taking out all those books I didn't want anymore. Not a huge pile (there were a few more than this in the end), but it made space in the bookcase for a few more books that had been hanging round in piles elsewhere, helping tidy up our messy little shoebox of a flat.

I was quite excited to try out a couple of good internet book swapping initiatives I'd heard of. Bookmooch and Read it Swap it both allow you to upload books you don't want anymore then start swapping with others. On Bookmooch you collect points, on Read it Swap it it's a straightforward swapping system . Both great ways to give old books a new lease of life with someone else, and to refresh your library for minimal cost (and without any new materials being used).


However, I started thinking about how rubbish I am posting letters (and hence posting out the books), and how much I like the library and spending time in second hand book shops, and how I didn't really want to add to my permanent book stash... So I decided in the end that I was much better off just feeding my books back into the second hand system, and I dropped them off at my nearest second hand charity bookshop.

So, I'm interested in knowing what's your preferred way of reading. Are you a library addict, like me? (With my ginormous fines to show for forgetfulness!) Do you like to buy shiny and new or prefer careworn and tattered? Have you used any swap sites or other ways to circulate and re-use books, and how have you found them if so? Do tell...

The Waste Challenge - update 1

A little while ago I rather rashly made a commitment to myself, here on this site, to spend a whole month collecting my rubbish rather than throwing it away.

And now the month is upon me, so I have had to honour my word and start really thinking about waste. This is how things are going so far:

Day 1
- I realise it's the 1st June and hence the first day of the challenge as I am eating my lunch - with a disposable fork - it's made of wood and has got a bit soggy and broken so I can't put it in the cutlery drawer to take to work as I do with the few plastic spoons I pick up. I put it in my bag.

Later I'm working through my receipts (I record all my expenditure - slightly obsessive but there we go) and realise I have unthinkingly tossed them in the bin. I realise why I am doing this challenge - because it is that unthinkingness that I - and most others - have become accustomed to. But once out of my hand this stuff doesn't disappear into thin air, so I really should be thinking about just what I am throwing out.

By evening I'm quite impressed at my small haul for the day, until I realise I'm too late to go to my usual shop and have to buy dinner at Tesco Metro. EVERYTHING is in packaging. There is literally nothing I can buy loose apart from an unripe avocado. Some plastic and netting gets added to my stash.

Day 2.

This regime is pretty good if you're on a diet because if you're looking at food in terms of waste, there is not much there you can go for apart from fruit (this is at least the case in our canteen). I go out for lunch with a colleague though and get a sandwich wrapped in paper and then put in a paper bag stuffed with paper napkins. The bag and napkin I can save and re-use, but the paper is all oily so it has to be chucked (things with food on that might go mouldy over the course of a month are not coming in the bag). So I kind of cheated today, but still pretty good going with nothing so far. However, I am pretty thirsty because my only options for water here are plastic cups or buying a plastic bottle, as I forgot to bring my normal tea mug. Damn! And another dinner needs to be bought and I'm not sure I'll make my shop opening hours. I had better go and try do that!!!

Exfoliation Part 1 - The Bathroom

I must admit to being a bit of a hoarder... I like to think I have got better over time (I no longer have keep all my cinema tickets and the collection of 'nice' plastic bags has been seriously slimmed...) but there's no denying the ridiculous amount of stuff I call my own.

So, when I came across Jess' exfoliation concept on makeundermylife it was just the motivation I'd been looking for to start getting more serious about The Constantly and Sneakily Accummulating Stuff. From time to time I enter a phase of nest-tidying urges and attempt to purge from this area or that, but it's never been that consistent. So, from this week onwards I'm going to try and find something (or things) to get rid of every week.


The really nice thing about this is that as well as de-cluttering, it really makes me think about how I will buy in the future and what alternatives there might be to the stuff I have.

There's also the potential to put redundant and idle objects to a better use or to discover exciting new ways to repurpose/upcycle things.

So, I started in the bathroom. (I've tried to give a feel for our bathroom in the little montage above). It's kind of plain, and the shelf is normally strewn with all kinds of bits and pieces.

For the first time in the 14 months since we moved in I took everything out of my side of the cupboard and off the shelf and off the side of the bath and considered whether I wanted to keep it. I think of myself as pretty low-maintenance so I was surprised at the amount of serums and lotions and creams and colours I had collected.

When I thought about it I realised there were two weaknesses - buying 'pretty' things as a comfort when feeling stressed or ugly or bored of myself, to which there could be much better responses; and 'free' things on magazines. I'm such a sucker for 'free' - nowadays I try and see it as them foisting something I don't need on me, rather than an exciting 'gift'. It's not really free after all!

Anyway, the results of my pruning were a tidier shelf (above!) and this little collection of stuff (below)... In the top right we have a Body Spray I never used and have no idea why I bought. It smells gross. I chucked the lot down the sink, rinsed the bottle and have put it to use as a mister for my palm tree (apparently this will stop it getting brown ends on its leaves!)

Next to that is some eye make-up remover. I've cut down a lot on eye make-up and use oil if I need to remove it so I just don't use this anymore.

Then there's some shimmery moisturiser which was just an awful idea.

And the foot scrub was ineffective and just made the bath messy.

Cheap hair colour made absolutely zero difference, and now I am henna-ing I really have no use for it.

In the bottom row we have: Hair serum - not really appropriate for fine flat hair like mine and felt like glue!; eye cream - I think I was feeling old and vain; earrings which I loved but have gone all manky with the cover peeling off; two really bad nail varnishes; and one of the 6 wash bags I've accummulated (FREE stuff again!!!!).

At the moment, most of this is still sitting in a kind of 'out-box' whilst I work out what to do with it as I'm loathe to just chuck it in the bin. In searching for alternate uses, I came across this brilliant site - http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/ - which discusses all kinds of ways to reuse or recycle all sorts of things - although sadly not sparkly moisturiser or eye cream. Would it be good for shining shoes I wonder? Would eye make-up remover clean dirt off kitchen cupboards? What could do with being painted horrible nail varnish pink? Should I rinse the moisturiser bottle and fill with raspberry coulis to create 90s' style desserts?

I'm not yet sure. One thing I do know is that I will NOT be buying any replacements. I feel quite bad that all these unused chemicals and plastic are going to probably end up in landfill. And after reading Pat Thomas' Skin Deep I feel thoroughly convinced that none of this stuff is worth buying. I hadn't really thought before about all the ingredients and what they were there for, apart from feeling a little uncomfortable at 'all the chemicals', and I certainly hadn't realised how many ingredients were based on petrochemicals, let alone thought about all the energy going into producing and transporting this shit.

I'm going to post separately about this book I think because there's lots of really interesting things to pick out of it and I've been rambling on long enough now.

I'll just leave you with a before and after shot of the cupboard. I'm kind of proud of my effort, although it is admittedly hard to tell at first which side is which! I think there is a lot more exfoliating still to do!!!

If you have any ingenious ideas for putting my cosmetic rejects to good use please do let me know!

Dirty u-bends and therapeutic flying

photo from www.acroyoga.org

An interesting weekend just gone... The most part of my Saturday was spent balancing on strangers' feet, as per the colourful picture above, practicing 'elephant walking' my hands, stacking my bones and getting to grips with 'therapeutic flying'.

It was all part of a one-day workshop hosted by the co-founders of acroyoga Jason Nemer and Jenny Sauer-Klein. They basically play with yoga poses, bodywork techniques (especially thai yoga massage) and acrobatics to come up with a whole host of flying poses and moves which can be invigorating and spectacular or relaxing and therapeutic. Eventually practitioners can move together in a kind of vinyasa practice transitioning smoothly from pose to pose.

Whilst it took me a little time to get used to letting my upside down head rest on a stranger's belly, I really liked the playfulness and weirdness of it. Try doing the 'walnut' pose, where you're folded up over your partner's up-stretched legs, with your head tucked through and your hands gripping your touching feet - it just feels freaky, in a kind of wonderful way. It made me feel like I was a little lemur or something hanging out in the forest...

We were also introduced to thai massage, which I haven't experienced before. I really like the precept that it's all about allowing the body to work in the most effortless and efficient way - stacking the bones and using their weight rather than using muscle exertion and effort. In this way it serves both giver and receiver through being a gentle but firm touch for the receiver, and an interesting yoga work-out for the giver. Something I would definitely like to look into further

We finished the day with great big back bends giving a real sense of expansiveness and openness, and then an exercise called the 'water bed', which involved a lot of shaking, giggling and energy - the room must have looked quite crazy but I think everyone finished on a high...

Apart from the balancing and bodywork, I've also been inspired by this blog on the acroyoga site, which recounts a challenge by one of the acroyogis to keep every piece of rubbish (trash) for the duration of a three-month tour. Adi carried a bag around with her with every piece of (non-food) trash she produced. Surely this is the ideal way to really get in touch with what we are throwing away so flippantly all the time. Waste disposal has been so easy for so long that I guess most of us take it all for granted, with just a vague idea perhaps of the fact that it all has to end up Somewhere.

***

I had a particularly unpleasant illustration of some of what I throw out on Sunday, when the water refused to go down the kitchen sink plughole. After a lot of poking around we decided to get under the sink and unscrew all the plastic piping. And wow, what an ungodly stinking mess we uncovered. Thick brown sludge that has accummulated there over time. It really made me think about how unthinkingly we flush away and pour away and disappear what mess we produce.

(We were quite proud of our plumbing efforts though, neither of us having ventured into such territories before!)

So, I think I'm going to challenge myself to take up my own rubbish-carrying experiment to see how much I really produce, and what else I can cut out. I'm pretty good at buying unpackaged veg now, but there are so many other areas I need to think about. Over the next month or so I'll think about ways I can reduce what I am throwing out even more, and then - let's set a date - go for a month of waste collecting in June! There, I'm committed to it now. Slightly terrified by the vision of trying to cart around a suitcase full of junk, so I'm really going to have to concentrate on cutting it down! Any good waste-reducing tips willingly received!