Since becoming vegan...

Since becoming vegan, a lot of changes have happened over here! Mostly, we're getting weirder.

Yep, I've officially decided that becoming vegan makes you more than a bit...different. Joe and I are living life pretty far from the norm these days. Most people think we're a bit nutty (or a lot nutty, depending on who you talk to!) But it seems that once you start thinking with your health/the environment/ethics in mind, you can't stop! The more you learn, the more you research, the more you feel compelled to change. Is this a good thing? Well, we think so!

For example, Joe and I have reduced the amount of oil we consume. Drastically. Rather than vegan, Joe prefers the term "Whole Food Plant-Based diet". It is much more specific. We are drinking green, kale smoothies for breakfast every day. We even feed that stuff to Henry! We try to incorporate green, orange and raw veggies every day. In an average week we eat about $80-100 worth of fresh fruit and veggies, plus a bunch of beans and nuts and seeds and grains. We are trying to avoid refined flours, oil and sugar. We have reduced our salt use. We use a pressure cooker. We have even been moving more and more towards eating organic, especially the dirty dozen. We make almost every.single.thing from scratch. It goes on and on. Needless to say, eating this way makes you skinnier, and full of energy! But it keeps you busy, too.

Some home-made vegan yummy food!

And the changes I'm talking about go beyond diet, too.
Learning about veganism makes you begin to question the rest of your life. Your leather shoes...do you continue wearing them? (We do, since we have already purchased them, but it is something we will consider next time we need new hikers or dress-shoes!) Your CAR! (You all know we're car-free, so I won't go on that rant again). Our clothes... I don't know the last time I bought something that wasn't previously owned. Our toiletries and soaps/detergents... we have been slowly switching over to all-natural products - Lavender is my new thing. We buy local and support local whenever possible.

And let me talk to you about plastic: While this is something we've been doing for a long time, Joe and I are trying even harder to reduce our plastic/garbage:
- We choose our grocery store based on the one that lets you bring your own jars in for their bulk section. And we use glass jars over plastic where possible. Yep, we carry (yes, carry, since we walk!) glass jars to the store.
- We use care-bags for fruits/veggies/nuts/seeds/anything we can
- We use cloth bags when we shop/buy food, but I know most of you do, too!
- We stopped lining our garbage bins with plastic bags. We put our garbage loose in the garbage can. It works!
- We buy things used. It helps to avoid new plastic packaging.
- We use cloth diapers for Henry

And house stuff.... now all of our changes to our house have an environmental factor. For example, we got a REEP evaluation done this past summer (which gave us an idea of the energy efficiency of our home). That inspired us to spend a lot more money on a furnace when ours decided to give up, so that we had the most energy-efficient one. Sigh. 

All of these changes definitely keep things interesting. It kind of makes your head spin! But it does make you feel good inside.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

This is my first earth day as a parent, and has me thinking about some of the ways to raise kids with the environment in mind. I know, that is a bit of an oxymoron. Even having kids might be one of the worst things you can do for the environment, since overpopulation is becoming a problem for our poor, overburdened earth. However, I don't think people are going to stop having children anytime soon (aka, ever!), and Joe and I certainly plan on having more than one. So, what can we, as parents, do to lessen our negative environmental impact?

Joe and I try to be environmentally responsible as much as possible. Henry is still new, so he doesn't need much yet. They say all they do at this age is EAT, SLEEP and POOP. Add in a mixture of happy times, playing and a bit of fussiness and it is pretty accurate. With that in mind, here are some of the ways we have been trying to lessen Henry's environmental impact at this stage.

1. EATing: Well, we breast feed Henry. Not only is it natural and his perfect food, but there is no waste or plastic or packaging involved. That being said, I fully understand and respect that some mom's can't make this happen. I came very close to switching to formula in the first weeks... It is not easy! But it was worth it!

2. SLEEPing: When we first brought Henry home, we had the thermostat set down to 16 degrees at night. Our midwife told us it was too cold, so we turned it up. After a few weeks, I realized that Henry was a little furnace and would sweat through his clothes at night. So, now we have the thermostat set down at night again (although now it isn't quite SO low!) I'm not sure what else could make sleeping more environmentally friendly (?)

3. POOPing: For the first 2 weeks or so of Henrys life, we used disposible diapers*. As diapers contain plastic, they don't exactly biodegrade very easily. I always felt guilty throwing out yet another diaper. Then, we made the switch to cloth and haven't turned back! I know that cloth diapers aren't perfect (they still require a LOT of electricity and water use), but they do seem to be the better choice. An even better choice would be the elimination communication technique that I talked about here. I haven't been doing it as much as I'd like. Maybe I'll put in more effort again, now that it's on my mind!

*Next time, we might look into a newborn cloth diaper service for those first few weeks. No washing means less work for new and tired mom and dad!

4. Clothing: I am very fortunate to have a (very generous) sister with two boys. She has been giving us all of her hand-me-downs. That, mixed with generous gifts from family and friends, has made it so that Joe and I have not had to buy ANY clothing for Henry! We plan on continuing dressing Henry is used, hand-me-downs and thrifted clothing as much as possible. 

5. Toys: Most of Henry's toys right now are either cotton or wood. We hope to keep it that way! I say that now, but we will see what time brings :) I've been learning to keep my opinions to myself, since I have learned and changed so much since becoming a Mum. It is very humbling. 

As for the future, we hope to continue raising our family in a more environmentally positive way. Some of the things we will continue to do or hope to do:

- Eat vegan and raise our family vegan. This is by far the best thing you can do if you want to lessen your families' environmental impact. Too much? Eat vegetarian, or simply cut back on your animal product consumption. Every little bit helps!

- Walk/Bike/Stroller/Run/Skip/Scoot... you get the idea. We hope to use our car as little as possible. We have even talked about becoming members of Community CarShare  and ditching the car altogether!

- Plan trips in nature: Joe and I love camping/hiking/canoeing/biking/swimming/cottaging and enjoying nature in general. It is something I hope to pass onto my children. To me, it is important to know what you're trying to preserve!

- Choose your home wisely! This means a few different things to me. 1: Live where the action is. Somewhere that helps you to avoid car use by having things nearby. For us, this means living downtown. Right now, we don't. That means we will probably need to move. More on that in the future. And 2: Live in a perfectly-sized house. We won't mind if our next home is a bit of a downsize.  To me, it is important that all of the space in our next house is usable space. A smaller house also means less space to heat in the winter. 3: Make your house as efficient as possible; whether this means reinsulating, replacing windows, upgrading appliances etc... there are many small changes that can make a big difference when it comes to your home. We recently went on a tour of the REEP house to get some ideas. If you live in or near KW, you should check it out!

- Go to the local market: It is easier to know where your food is coming from when you can buy it straight from the farmer! We love our local farmers' market and go every week. This is where we buy most of our food. It also helps us to prevent using packaging. We buy the rest of our food at a local health food store, where they even let us use our own jars in the bulk section! This prevents a lot of packaging, which we love.

- And more!

I'm not going to pretend we are the most environmental people in the world. However, we do try our best to live lightly and make changes towards sustaining our environment. What do you do to reduce your negative environmental impact? I would love to know!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone!

Henry is enjoying his Irish heritage today and even dressed for the occasion!

Our little guy is 6 weeks old! It is hard to believe. Although it feels like he has always been a part of our family!

On an unrelated note... This article came up today on my Facebook page from the David Suzuki Foundation, about Green parenting. It mentioned the idea of diaper-free toileting, also know as "Elimination Communication". I had heard about it before but brushed it off as cray-cray! 

However, today I thought I would read a little further and was linked to this article, written by a mom following this practice. The idea sounded rather simple in some way... and I realized I already knew many of Henry's "gotta-go!" cues and timings. Of course, if you know me, you'd know that I am willing to try almost anything that helps me to reduce my environmental footprint. So... 

*Did I just publish a picture of my newborn babies' poop? Yep, I did!

Wouldn't you know it... it WORKS! Let me tell you... I was SO excited when he not only peed, but pooped too! My excitement was almost embarrassing... and the cutest part was, he was looking up at me smiling and cooeing while this all happened, as if it was the greatest thing he'd ever done. Oh the bonding.

I was so gung-ho that I kept it going... and so far today he has gone in the toilet 5 times (He is still wearing his cloth diapers, but I am just taking them off when I think he has to go. And I have changed 3 wet diapers, so it hasn't been perfect.) I calculated that if I saved 5 diapers a day, I would save about 75 loads of laundry a year. Isn't that amazing? 

The downfall so far? We don't have a main floor bathroom, so I have been sprinting up the stairs every time I think he has to go. Very tiring, especially when you also have to hold a semi-squat positions while making a "pssss" noise until he pees, which can take some time. After the fifth time, I had physically reached my max! But I can also see this as an upside... bring on the baby weight loss!

I never imagined this would be the highlight of my day...ever. 

The verdict: I love the idea of this, but we will have to see how it goes. I can see it becoming more of a hassle than it's worth. But, I'd ideally like to use it as much as possible. It doesn't hurt!

Pinterest Project #1

I've already been trying a few ideas I found on Pinterest at home, and decided it makes sense to document how things actually work.

There are so many great recipes and tips that I've been pinning lately. One was about uses for vinegar. Don't get me wrong...using vinegar around the home is something I've been doing for a long time. But a couple that I hadn't thought of were using vinegar as 1. a rinse aid for your dishwasher; and 2. A natural fabric softener. (If you click on the picture it should bring you to the blog post which gave these ideas).

I decided to put this to the test.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we bought new cutlery this past month. It is great...but when I put it through the dishwasher, it came out covered in water-spots. So, I took the aforementioned advice and put some vinegar in the rinse-aid dispenser.

And...it worked like a charm! Here is a photo showing a spoon from before I put the vinegar in, and one from the vinegar wash. Pretty cool! I give this Pinterest tip a 10/10.

I am considering trying out the vinegar as a fabric softener...although right now we don't use anything so I don't know if it's even worth it. Although sometimes I wish our towels were a little softer :) So we'll see.

Cleaning Stainless Steel

One of the things I loved about our home when I moved in was the stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. However, fairly quickly I became frustrated with them. Why? Because of their unmatchable ability to attract grease, water marks, fingerprints and any type of mess.

I tried various types of cleaners on them to try and get them shiny and streak-free. I even bought a specific stainless steel cleaner. Nothing seemed to work, and it was always a huge job to scrub them to have them be mostly streak free.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a co-worker who said she uses Norwex cloths and water to clean hers and it works really well. As I didn't have any Norwex cloths, I thought I would try it my own way.

First, let me show you what my oven looks like at the end of any given week (hence my frustration!)

Here is what you need: 

2 clean micro-fibre cloths; 1 damp with water, one dry. Yep, that's it.

All you do is wipe down the surface with the wet cloth in small sections. Then, immediately follow with the dry cloth and wipe the surface dry. Repeat until you've done the whole appliance. Et voilà! A clean and shiny stove, once again!

The greatest part about this is that it takes about half as much work as I was doing with the cleaners, and looks better! Yes, it is things like this that make me happy. Is that sad? And again, the before and after for your viewing pleasure :)