We live in a temperate, sub-tropical area with relatively mild winters but that doesn’t mean that we do not need some warmer clothes for about 4 months of the year.
I try to predominately buy secondhand clothes and today was no exception. We were in our local town and I popped into the Salvos thrift shop to see what was on offer.
I found this pullover which is completely devoid of labels. I do not know the brand, size, origin or type of fabric. However, for the princely sum of $5 it came home with me as it fitted and I love the colour.
It may be too short on some people but is perfect for me. I really like the fact that it does not have bands on the sleeves or the lower edge.
I will not be pairing it with the green patterned jeans which I happened to be wearing today.
This piece will fit nicely into my smallish wardrobe. I will team it with either black or dark denim jeans and one of my collared shirts or alternatively with a patterned scarf. I will just need to find something suitable.
As Plastic-Free July looms on the horizon, perhaps it is time consider one of the little-discussed ‘victims’ of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
For well over 20 years I have worked on reducing the packaging that comes into our home. I take my own containers to buy dry goods (flour, nuts etc) from bulk bins. I have been able to take my own bottles to the local Co-op to get them refilled with apple cider vinegar, tamari and olive oil. The local IGA supermarket and butcher accepted my own containers for meat, fish and deli items including sun-dried tomatoes, olives and feta cheese.
However, everything changed as COVID-19 arrived. I can still buy dry goods in my own jars as long as they are scrupulously clean and have no remnants of previous contents. We eat very little meat so I have not been to the butcher since the pandemic began. Neither the Co-op or IGA are accepting containers to refill at the moment. Will this change back when things settle down? Will it become the new normal and the years of action on single-use packaging be unravelled by one virus? Only time will tell.
These changes have forced me to reconsider my shopping habits. The item which has been impacted most significantly is olive oil. I used to take a litre bottle to the Co-op for it to be refilled but now I am obliged to buy a new 750ml glass bottle for $2.95 each time I wish to buy the local, organic olive oil.
This bottle will simply be refilled from the drum of olive oil as required now. No more bottles.
We use a significant amount of olive oil so my interest was piqued when I saw a sponsored post on Facebook from Nuggety Creek Olives. After a bit of reading I discovered that I could buy a 20 litre drum of olive oil for $180.00 delivered to my door. The extra virgin olive oil is produced from olives grown without chemicals and I believe the farm is currently being audited for organic certification.
The Nuggety Creek olive oil arrived safely and is now stored in a cool, dry cupboard. I even made a drip catcher from an old dip container and a piece of wire salvaged from the shed.
20 litres may sound like a lot of oil but I will be sharing it with at least 3 friends. Thinking outside the box has allowed me to continue to minimise the packaging that we generate.
Bottles filled and ready for distribution to friends.
I have not bought any of the other items I mentioned as yet but my next project is to look into a bulk source of olives. While I understand that all foodstuffs must come in some sort of packaging or container, unless you produce it yourself, I am keen to buy in larger quantities, and therefore, minimise the impact.
Have you considered changing your shopping habits since the pandemic began? Would community bulk-buying be an option for at least some products?
I have seen the following text and similar being shared in various posts on Facebook over a number of weeks.
Two can play that game China
Threaten our economy
All products from China will be left on the shelf !
Who’s With Me
However, there never seems to be any commentary from the person sharing the post as to how they actually propose to achieve this goal of not buying products that are made in China.
I believe that wherever possible we should be buying food produced in Australia. Fresh and unprocessed food are generally the best nutritional option. Additionally, packaged food may be produced in Australia but presented in packaging from China or elsewhere. It is highly unlikely that you would be able identify where the packaging was sourced.
Food is not the only thing that most of us buy. There are clothes, shoes, homewares and hardware supplies. When was the last time that you checked where your purchase was manufactured? Does it matter?
In my opinion, it is more important to be a conscious consumer generally rather than targeting goods from one particular country. Buy only what you need (not want), understand what is ‘enough’, care for and repair what you have and source pre-loved items where possible as ways of stepping away from over-consumption.
Over-consumption means that we are drowning in ‘stuff’ that is cheaply mass-produced in countries such as, but not exclusively, China. Become a conscious consumer and you will immediately significantly reduce the products you are buying from China.
It is a little over 6 months since I finished work and I am now beginning to look at how I manage my time at home.
While I was working it was the time available which dictated what I achieved at home. However, now that has all changed as my time is my own.
The first 6 months were taken up with the final preparations for our overseas trip followed by 9 weeks overseas then it was less than 2 months until Christmas and a road trip and family Christmas.
My activities can be roughly divided into the following categories (in alphabetical order, not priority):
Cooking – meal preparation – sometimes in bulk
Exercise – aquarobics, gym and walking
Gardening – growing vegetables, flowers and shrubs
Household maintenance/renovations – usually in conjunction with GMan
Online/Computer – blog, Facebook, emails
Relaxing – reading, music, television
Routine housework – making bed, washing, ironing, sweeping, vacuuming
Sewing – clothes, mending, patchwork and Boomerang bags
Socialising – book club, film society, theatre, friends, family, Air BnB guests
Shopping – groceries and miscellaneous
Travel – local, interstate and overseas
By their very nature, housework and cooking tend to occur everyday. Formal exercise is twice a week but I am trying to include either some walking or gardening every other day.
I try to find time for some gardening, relaxing and computer work each day.
Sewing and socialising usually happen several days a week.
Shopping is as little as possible but groceries are mostly once a week.
Some activities cross over such as aquarobics and socialising. I also try to combine activities and errands to limit the number of trips I make into our local town (8km away).
From time to time a particular activity may demand a substantial block of time to the exclusion of almost everything else but I generally try to keep a mix of activities each day or so.
One way to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is to source pre-loved items in preference to buying new.
There are a number of ways of achieving this. Thrift stores, garage sales and online groups as well as hand-me-downs and cast-offs from friends and family.
I think it is important not to simply use this as a way of acquiring excess possessions that will not be used. However, if you are willing to watch and wait and be prepared to take advantage of what comes your way, there are plenty of bargains out there.
Here are some of my finds from the last week.
I was walking past the recycle boutique in our local town when I spied this dress hanging outside the shop. I couldn’t believe my luck when I discovered it was my size.
After a relatively minor alteration it is ready to wear to a Christmas lunch tomorrow and probably on Christmas Day as well.
On Saturday morning I ventured to a clearing sale at a property not far from where we live. I knew that there would be a wide selection and went with an open mind.
This was what I ended up with. Total cost was $50.
The 2 larger Pyrex dishes are for my daughter.
The doona set was for king-size bed but I modified it for our queen-size bed. You can see the pattern better as it is on the line after being washed.
The offcuts have not been wasted as I will be able to cut squares for the patchwork quilt which is a work in progress but will one day grace our bed.
It is just over a month since my last blog post on 19th March. The following 2 weeks were somewhat frenetic with work and also getting ready to head off on holidays to Mauritius on 1st April. If you missed that bit of detail you can catch up with the travel news and photos on my other blog, Somewhere, Anywhere.
We arrived home yesterday morning after a 36 hour stopover in Singapore. It was also my birthday. Unlike my milestone birthday last year, this year was fairly low-key. We had dinner with my sister, brother-in-law, brother and mother last night. It was lovely to catch up with them and to have someone else make dinner for me.
The weather has cooled down somewhat in the few weeks we have been away. However, heavy showers of rain are making it a challenge to do the inevitable pile of washing that we brought home.
Cooler weather also meant that I can consider meals other than the inevitable salads. Today we did some shopping to restock some necessities – fruit and vegetables as well as milk, cheese and Vegemite. I spent $30 at the greengrocer, including a cauliflower for $4. This is the upper limit of what I will pay for a cauliflower but it is still good value. With the addition of stock powder, an onion, salt, pepper and smoky paprika I made a pot of hearty cauliflower soup. That $4 cauliflower made 4 generous dinner serves plus 4 smaller serves suitable for lunches. 8 meals for about $4.50 seems like pretty good value to me!
Cauliflower Soup
1 full cauliflower (medium)
1 large onion, diced
2 teaspoons stock powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon smoky paprika
Lightly fry the onion in a large saucepan/stockpot. Remove the outside leaves and separate the florets from the stalk. Finely slice the leaves and stalk and add to the pot. Continue to fry for about 5 minutes. Add the roughly chopped cauliflower florets, seasonings and enough water to just cover the vegetables. Cover and simmer for at least an hour and add extra water if required. Blend until smooth and serve.
Tonight we had a big bowl of soup and some buckwheat pancakes on the side.
The remaining soup has been portioned up and is ready to go in the freezer.
At the beginning of January I turned all of the coathangers in my wardrobe around. The idea behind this is that once an item has been worn you replace the hanger in the correct manner. This provides an easy way to identify those items which have not been worn.
Since the past month has been recorded as the hottest ever start to the year in Australia, it is no surprise to find that jackets, cardigans, jeans and trousers were not worn in January. Of the seasonally appropriate items, there are a couple of tops and 3 skirts which have not yet been worn. I am sure their time will come.
The other thing I decided to do was not to buy any new clothes in January. This was not entirely successful depending on your definition of ‘new’. I bought 3 items that are new to me during the month. We have a local recycle boutique which I check out from time to time. I am fairly selective and only choose pieces that are absolutely perfect for me and I could not go past these.
Patterned cropped jeans
Sleeveless cowl neck top
Long sleeve white linen shirt
Although none of them had tags attached, I am pretty sure that they are all unworn.
Finally, I moved three items out of my wardrobe. The first was a pair of jeans I bought in 2012. They have had a lot of wear and are getting pretty thin as well as somewhat faded and stained. They are are now in the pile of clothes to be worn around the house and when gardening. Similarly a sleeveless tshirt top has seen better days so met the same fate. A pair of white shorts went in the bin as the elastane had all given way and they were not in a fit state to be used or donated.
All of this wardrobe activity takes place on a background of the knowledge that my clothes needs will evolve with my upcoming retirement in a few months along with plenty of travelling planned.
As always, I will only be making carefully considered purchases.
I will continue to monitor and report on my progress during the year.
At the end of my last blog post I said I would show you more of what I had been sewing the next day.
Well, that did not happen. Not only did I not write the post, I did
not do the intended sewing. There were other things that rated as more
important and demanded my attention. In fact, if I am honest, that is
why there are often significant gaps between blog posts. The blog has a
relatively low priority in my life as the full-time job and running a
household definitely come first.
Anyway, in the absence of any sewing, I want to share some of the recent additions to my wardrobe.
I am not keen on buying clothes online but towards the end of last
year I bought 3 tops from Covered Perfectly. This was on the
recommendation of Susan from Susan After 60
blog. The tops are made in the USA and with a buy 2, get the 3rd one
free deal they were very reasonably priced, even with the overseas
shipping.
Here are the three that I bought.
Since it is the middle of summer here, these will not be worn in the
near future. I am looking forward to wearing them in the cooler weather
and also including them in the packing for our Europe trip later in the
year.
Yesterday, I had some free time between appointments in Maleny so I
took the opportunity to check out the recycle boutique. I do have a
browse there from time to time and have bought a few things previously.
I was definitely in luck as I found this cute pair of cropped
Sportscraft jeans which appeared to have never been worn. They were my
size and fitted like a glove.
I also found a pretty sleeveless top with a cowl neckline.
Here are a few styling possibilities that I have identified for my new pieces.
Cropped jeans with teal 3/4 sleeve top.
Cropped jeans with navy tshirt.
Cropped jeans with white collared shirt.
The sleeveless top will be paired with white cropped pants, black trousers or even these green jeans.
A few years ago my wardrobe consisted mostly of black, white and red items.
More recently I have included a bit more navy in lieu of some black
pieces and the addition of some more blue and green is great, too. I am
still sticking to my theory that every piece in my wardrobe must be
able to be worn in at least 3 different ways or combinations.
I do not regard shopping as a pastime and generally do as little as possible. I also endeavour to combine as many tasks as possible when we go out in order to reduce time, petrol, money and energy.
Since we live in a semi-rural area, it is a bit of an expedition if I do need to go to a major shopping centre. So, when we went to stock up the pantry on Saturday, I decided to see if I could buy the Christmas gifts for our granddaughters. I often take them to a show of some sort but this year it was a practical gift as suggested by our daughter. New beach towels were on the shopping list. I decided to check out Spotlight and was in luck. I found these lovely, large towels by Canningvale.
I decided to wrap them up and then it is all done. A few years ago I made some reusable Christmas gift bags and I managed to find 2 that would fit the towels.
Adorned with some ribbon that has been reused many times and gift tags made from old Christmas cards and it was all done with next to no waste.
I have a couple more gifts to buy and some home-made goodies to make and that is my Christmas gift-giving sorted.
Yesterday we made a trek of about 80km round trip to Simply Good to stock up on dry goods for the pantry.
The use of bulk bins means that I can buy items without any packaging. I have used paper bags for a number of years that I reuse over and over again but have recently begun taking my storage jars and having the tare weight recorded before filling them directly. This makes unpacking a breeze when I get home.
I decided that is was time to tidy the pantry and wipe the shelves before replacing all of the jars. Here is the end result.
One of the things that had contributed to some of the space seeming cluttered was the abundance of varieties of loose leaf tea. I do not drink tea or coffee but GMan does, and of course we like to have it available for guests.
I have read of several people who choose to have a tea/coffee ‘station’ with all of the requirements set up together, however, I had never really considered this as a possibility until yesterday.
This open shelf and cupboard are above the oven and and immediately adjacent to the corner pantry.
I relocated my small collection of cookbooks to the top cupboard and have made the open shelf the tea/coffee ‘station’.
The bowl in front of the teapot contains the mesh balls which we use for single serves of tea as we do not buy teabags. The cork mat next to the bowl is for the other plunger which was being washed when I took this photo.
This does not include the jug which lives in the appliance cupboard or the freshly ground coffee which is refrigerated.
I am very happy with the result of this re-arranging as it frees up some space in the pantry and keeps the necessities for hot drinks together without cluttering up my bench space.
organised castle 