Although I am only 14, I have already compiled a mental list of things I will do to save money and our earth and minimize the amount of toxins I am exposed to when I move out. Hopefully I will be able to gradually introduce these into our family lifestyle when we move (in about a month!) with minimal protest. These include home-made toothpaste and vinegar and baking-soda instead of shampoo and conditioner.
I tried this for a week, and as the author of the article mentioned my hair did get oilier, but I am sure if I would have continued it would have gradually subsided by the second week. To be completely honest my hair did not look all that bad, and it became noticeably easier to brush. But then I was banned from using baking soda and vinegar to wash my hair until school ends. Why? This time last year I went into the bathroom and cut my hair to my ears. I am to be prevented from doing anything radical to my hair this year, according to my mother.
Also, since reading this article about sun-exposure and, frankly, because chemical sunscreens irritate my skin, I've decided to try my hand at home-made sunscreen. Sadly, I will have to leave the convenient spray-on sunscreen in the dust...farewell old friend and nemesis.
Here is a link to the Dirty Dozen, the 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides.
Our collection of salsa, pasta sauce, pickle and ect. jars has been steadily growing. In fact, it now takes up 3 cupboards and half a dining table in the garage. But because our house is ginormous compared to the small amount of space we take up, the collection has been tolerated. Not for long! It seems a bit...odd...to be packing boxes of glass jars to be shipped to the US with us when we can just begin accumulating them once we arrive. I am loath to waste them, though, and have to keep telling myself that there is no way we could use them all, anyway. This morning I did some research on ways to repurpose all those jars, this is the best article I came up with.
And now, after paragraphs of references to other blogs and meandering tips and suggestions, we get to the first part of the title of this article: Ikea. Throughout the years and every move our family has made, one store has always been there to provide the useless crap families think they need when they move: Ikea. Shh...I din't say that...you didn't hear anything. Being Swedish, its a bit sacrilegious to insult Ikea. I appreciate the ease with which it has allowed my parents (or rather my mom) to more us from country to country, but man, we have a lot of crap from Ikea. And I hate crap, especially a lot of it.
I write this sitting in my Ikea rocking chair (which we have three of, in storage) glaring angrily at my tolerably tacky, but very practical, Ikea desk out of the corner of my eye. The Ikea desk-chair eyes me mutinously from across the room.
In the midst of packing our little-used and little-loved possessions into cardboard boxes and endless discussions with my mom about frugality and living with less, my brother buys me some sticks, painted white, from Ikea. Ah!
Now they sit in the foyer, tormenting me for several reasons. #1 I feel guilty about being ungrateful for something my brother bought me (because, he said, he knows I like sticks). #2 I have to get the receipt and return them, throw them away, or take it with me when I move. #3 I haven't done either of those things yet and I hate not getting things done
Tomorrow morning I will do it.
I did not do it this morning.
Sometimes the circumstances convene and I get things done that I have been meaning to. Other times they don't, I shrug my shoulders and focus on finish other things. Rather than stressing about what I haven't done, I ask what needs to be done and congratulate myself on what I have done.
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