Cinnamondee

letter to the editor

I got my rant published :)

Farmers Plastic

I went to the farmers market this past weekend. It has become even worse with the sea of plastic produce bags that they use to prebag the fruits and veggies.

Most of what I wanted came prebagged, no loose red peppers, limes or Ewa sweet onions available at any of the stalls unbagged.   The last time I went, onions at least came unbagged.  When I asked if they had any loose ones to purchase, the vendors seemed quite proud of themselves that it was already all bagged!!  So I explained that I will buy unbagged produce but not the plastic bagged ones.  And explained why. 

I know that they bag them so that customers are forced to not just buy one or two items but the 5 or 6 that are grouped.  This means more money for them.  BUT, I can't believe HOW many vendors did this now!  I guess slowly by slowly they all ended up going with this ridiculous market strategy.  And apparently it works for them.  Which makes me more disgusted.  So I let them know how I felt(in a nice way).  Hopefully, more people feel like this and will say something.  Until then I just have buy the unbagged stuff, even if that means not getting all the produce I need.

There was one vendor, WOW foods, an organic tomato vendor from the Big Island, that offered to unbag the tomatoes and reuse the bag that I didnt want.  I did appreciate that. 

Another vendor in a different stall said she would unbag it.  Um.  And apparently throw it away for me.  Huh??

 

 

Happy Happy Earth Day

Hope everyone had an excellent Earth Day. We did the usual, school, soccer, dinner...

But you should see my trash for the past week!  Or lack thereof.  Sweeet.

We're going to shoot for 4 weeks and one trash bag, but who knows?  Might be five.  Yes, I hate to have people get all jealous of my exciting life. 

Happy Happy:)

Memories of it still, keep calling

Going through my kids backpacks, I found their Japanese eraser collections.  These totally reminded me of the ceramic and metal pin craze circa 1980-ish.  So a shout out to that and to Nonnahs who totally remembers. I can never get myself to purge this crap, goodness the memories they bring back of fun times!  I can't believe what ridiculous stuff I still have-

If you grew up on Oahu, anywhere near Pearl City, there was 'Summers' Place' where we would spend hours looking at the pins. 

 

Good grief, I don't get it now but it was fun back in the day.

Ollie's got a new pad courtesy of Costco extra boxes.  This is the second one C-girl has made.  The first got partially ingested.  Cute dog, just not the brightest bulb.

 

In other recycling around the house - we try to do as much of not throwing away as possible since our pledge to go 5 weeks with one kitchen bag this time around -

 

C-boy has taken the empty cartons I was saving for who knows what (we don't have tetrapak recycling here but the kind lady at our State Recycling has informed me instead that ALL of our household trash like tetrapaks are sent to Hpower for incineration for energy- I am sincerely doubting it ALL goes there but it seems like a nice fantasy nevertheless. She either doesn't read the news or thinks I don't) So anywho,the cartons are now in his room and a great addition to Buzz Lightyears' space program. 

And the 5 weeks of one kitchen bag goes on, we're on week 3 and lots of room left.  Yes, even after W bought a Vietnamese takeout in a moment of weakness on Sunday night when he was left by himself.  Sabotager.

Better Greener Stronger No Matter How You Look at it

I know of people who still don’t believe that Global Warming is important, or that it isn’t human caused.  But even if you don’t believe it, doesn’t it make sense to change the way we’ve been living for a better, greener planet? 

Even if it isn’t true (I believe it is, but that’s beside my point)  - here are some easy choices to live a richer, simpler life:

 

-Buy less, consume less, ---- less for our landfills, lighter on our wallets, show our kids that more money, longer working hours and material goods does not equal happiness.

-Buy local --- less dependence on outside sources and greater support for our farmers and local artisans

-Plant your own garden --- good for the soil, good for your health, less dependence on outside sources, while teaching your kids about nature and where their food comes from (while having fun too!)

-Walk or bike to your destination --- good for your body and mind, no dependence on oil

-Cut your electricity use, turn off the t.v. and go to the park --- again less dependence on petroleum, more fresh air and exercise for you

 

- Compost your kitchen scraps --- less in the landfill, great for your soil, and free too

- Recycle – Less for the landfill again, teach your children responsibility for their trash, and when possible complete the cycle and buy recycled products

 

I see so many editorials saying how the “liberals” are trying to brainwash us and lead us to buy into the idea that Global Warming is real. I can't see what the big deal is, its not like there would be a benefit to buying big cars and shopping unnecessarily.  The above tips don’t cost anymore than what you spend now, they even might save you some cash.  It doesn’t benefit anyone but yourself and your family, its not some sort of conspiracy to get you to buy anything(although if you want to buy eco-freindly products that is up to you). Although it might take a little more time and/or energy all the things you can do is worth the trouble no matter what the situation.

 

So whatever your stance on the issue, it makes sense just to be conscious of consumption.  We don’t need to live lavish lives of heavy air conditioning, monstrous gas hungry Hummers, the latest fashions every season, while consuming exotic food imported from across thousands of miles to be happy.  

Live simply and consciously – its far more satisfying. 

A life without love is like a year without summer.

 

With summer finally coming to an end, some fun times -

Well loved, rotated toys (so they dont get tired of them easily)

 

Daddy & kid boxcar racing (no gas required -yay!) 

Still keeping with the mostly 'no shopping' pledge' except for a couple of returns for gifts from others for my kids, and school supply (ugh, that i could so do without).  It makes life so simple not to have to think about buying "things' all the time.  What did i really need anyway?

We've had such a great easygoing summer...be back soon!

"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want."

                            -Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes

Happy Earth Day!!

I was going to post ON Earth Day (which would be the logical thing to do) but who is logical the day after eating rancid organic peanut butter and then not sleeping the entire night because of the most upset stomach in her thirty-something years of life?  Then having to drag herself to work, with said stomach, and face customers cheerily for eight hours.  So I took some Po Chai(whoa, that stuff is wee nasty smelly), bucked up and got on with the day for goodness sake.  I will celebrate Earth Day on the 23rd, thank you.

As Nonnahs mentioned, our new thing now is 'no plastics' so everything we purchase is with a conscious eye towards banning the evil petroleum by product.  So, many a cloth produce bag comes with me to the health food store for everything from rice, coffee, produce, grains and granola.  I had no idea that our health food store had big containers so you can fill up your own container, shampoo, soap, conditioner, olive oil and honey, as well as all the bulk spices.  That totally rocks.  The only thing we have yet to find a replacement for is soy milk and potato chips, there are those paper bags for chips but i think it has a plastic lining in it.  I can do without chips but if you've ever had a sandwich with W, you'd know that chips are an essential to that boy.   

By doing this, we have dramatically cut our trash down, we still have lots of packages from the past (its only been a month) but with this and our no-buying-new (non consumable stuff) for the past 2 years, composting and recycling, our trash bin has never looked so empty. 

We kicked off Earth week with the awesomest Kokua Festival.   Not only a great cause but the vendors they had were actually eco-conscious and most of the food was natural and/or organic.  The cups were compostable (the only gripe was that you needed to get a new one every time you purchased - apparently for inventory reasons, whatever).  Really laid back fun night, and even made friends with some people from Tahoe.

Sunday we went to the park all day with the kiddos - fun, family, sun, food(with no plastic)- no complaining from me!

Happy Earth Day!

Letter to the Editor

I did a letter to the editor, it was a response to this guy:

PROPOSED BAN

STYROFOAM BILL WILL JUST RAISE COST OF LIVING

With all the problems our society is faced with, you'd think our state senators would be able to find something more important to debate than whether or not to ban Styrofoam food containers!

The only thing a law like this will accomplish is to raise the cost of living yet again.

We need our government to work on easing the financial burden of our residents, not find ways to increase the expense of living in Hawai'i.

This is another example of a knee-jerk reaction to some special interest group's pet project.

We'd be better off enforcing our existing laws against littering and holding our trash disposal companies accountable for spillage.

Huh.
I don't get that he thinks its all about littering. Puzzling, that people are so out of the loop.  I don't even really get what he's trying to say.  The fact that styrofoam lasts like a thousand years in our landfills, I would think, should be the actual point, but to each his own.

Perhaps he's on drugs.  He shouldn't do that, then he'd have more money to spend on styrofoam.  Okay, that was mean, I meant to think that, not really write that (ahem).

Anyway, I just got called by our paper and they said they are considering my letter. In it, I tried to convey my confusion with this guy.  I'll post it if it gets published.

Trashy Talk

Some people might find this totally disgusting but you know we all have one in the kitchen.

The reason I took a picture is that I am oddly proud of myself and my clan as we have made this much in a week and a half!  Okay, don't all jump up and clap at once.  But coming from a 4 person and one dog family that used to make this much in a couple days I am very happy with it, so I will jump up and down by myself.  Anyway, in case anyone cares we did this by -

a) taking us off this list

b) subscribing to Greendimes

c) calling off all the catalogs using the 800 number given on the back

d) buying much more veggies (reusing over and over the produce bags), and making most of our snacks than processed packaged foods

e) composting - we always did that but I made sure ALL of our veggie scraps went into the bin

f) taking our own plastic tupperware when we eat out, avoiding those styrofoam containers

In addition to recycling the rest, this has made a huge and obvious reduction in the amount of trash we create.  Who'd have thunk?

Well, in things of less trashy nature, theres some spring happening in the yard.   

I posted a while back in my old blog about how pathetic our yard was...yuck Now its finally coming together, but we're not really there yet, so I'll only give some glimpses until its really done.

Hooray!  We are no longer the sore thumb yard in the neighborhood.  We are, however, the weirdos that take pictures of their trash in the garage.