zero waste living :: grocery shopping

One of my resolutions for the new year is to reduce waste in our home.  I've been on this journey for the past few years, but this year I have decided to really make an effort to become as "zero waste" as possible.  If you are not familiar with the term "zero waste," I encourage you to read Bea Johnson's book Zero Waste Home.  In the book, Johnson lists 5 steps to zero waste living: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.  The order of these steps is very important, as the key to zero waste living is reducing the amount of waste you generate by getting to the source of the waste.  Zero waste living starts by examining everything that comes into your home through the lens of what happens to it once it leaves your home.  

So, I'd thought I'd bring you along on our journey to zero waste through a series of blog posts over the next few months.  We are far from living a completely zero waste lifestyle, but we have definitely reduced our waste over the past few years and I'm hoping to reduce it even more throughout this year.  The main way I'm tackling that right now is through grocery shopping.  I've found that so much of what we as a society throw away comes from the kitchen, whether it be from food packaging or food waste.  We compost most of our food waste or give it to our chickens, so the packaging is the main source of waste in our home.  To reduce this, I need to reduce how much of that packing comes into our home.  Here are a few of the ways I'm working to do that. 

  • Reusable Shopping Bags:  We all have piles of reusable bags floating around our homes that we've received for free at stores, fairs, events, etc, but I've found that for me I prefer to have just two sturdy canvas bags and a woven shopping basket.  The canvas bags hold more than the freebie bags and I value them more because they aren't freebies, which helps me to be more intentional about using them.  The basket keeps my jars and eggs from rolling around and it's so sturdy.  (The basket I have is a handmade basket made in Ghana.  It also works really well for bringing food to gatherings and on the road.)  I've started bringing my own bags not only to the grocery store, but to other stores as well.  Anytime I leave the house with a plan to shop, I grab a bag on my way out!
  • Shopping in bulk:  This is the main way that I reduce kitchen waste in our home.  By bulk, I don't mean shopping at Costco or Sam's Club, I mean shopping in the bulk isle at your local grocery store.  Buying in bulk reduces waste, especially if you are able to use your own containers, which can completely eliminate the need for waste to come into your home for those food items.  Our food co-op has a very large selection of bulk items including wet and dry items.  I realize that many do not have access to this large of a selection, but demand can drive supply!  I currently buy the following things in bulk: produce, eggs, flour, sugar, oats, barley, quinoa, rice, beans, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, pasta, peanut butter, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, molasses, honey, herbs, spices, loose-leaf tea, baking soda, baking powder, salt, crackers, hummus (dried and fresh), coffee, and some candy. 
  • Bulk bags/containers:  Bringing my own containers has become one of my favorite parts of my weekly grocery shopping trip.  (I'm weird like that...)  It takes a few extra minutes to pull together my bags/containers before I leave the house, but it saves me time when I get back home and am able to just put them all back onto their shelves and don't have to worry about transferring things from packages into my storage containers.  I use a few different bags/containers for different types of bulk items.
    • mesh produce bags:  I bought a few of these a few weeks ago and love them!  Our co-op sells spinach and mixed greens in bulk and they work great for that! They also work great for things like mushrooms, green beans, snap peas, and even bigger produce items like apples, oranges, carrots, broccoli.
    • hemp/cotton bulk bags:  I made a few of these out of an old vintage sheet a few months back and then Dan bought me a few more for Christmas.  I love them!  I use them for produce like apples, oranges, onions, potatoes, and also for dried bulk items like flour, oats, beans, nuts, etc.  They work especially well when I have a lot of things to get and don't want to bring a bunch of glass jars/canisters with me.
    • jars/canisters:  I store almost all of our pantry items in glass jars or canisters, and so when their contents get low, I bring them to the co-op and fill them up!  As I said above, some things I bring my jars for and others I use my bags for.  It usually depends on how much I need and how messy the item is.  I've found that for flour, it's nice to just fill up my canister.  However, my canister is really big and it's a pain to lug around, so I usually use a bag for flour and deal with the mess. 
    • egg cartons:  Our co-op sells bulk eggs and since our chickens are free-loaders right now, I've been buying a lot of eggs!  It's great to just keep using the same egg cartons week after week!
    • glass container for meat:  This past week I brought in a container to use at the meat counter for the first time!  Meat packaging is often what makes us take the trash out, as our trash usually gets smelly before it gets full, so using a glass container made me so happy to know that at least for one meal there would be no smelly packaging to throw away!
  • Label/weigh your bags/containers before you shop:  Using your own containers can take longer if you don't have a good system in place.  First, when you use your own container, you have to weigh it before filling it up.  This is called the "tare" weight.  For my bags, I have the tare weight written on all of them in permanent ink so that I can just fill them up when I get to the store.  For my jars, I like to put a piece of masking tape on each of the lids before I leave home.  I then weigh them quickly at the store before filling them up.  I could weigh them at home too, but I like the scale at our co-op better, so I just use that. I then write the tare weight and item number on the masking tape.  For my bags, I use one of the stickers at our co-op to write the item number on my bags.  Some people use crayons to label their bulk containers, which is truly zero waste.  I've thought about trying that, but for now, my system is working well and efficiently.  One thing to note: not all stores may let you or encourage you to use your own containers.  I recognize that I shop at a grocery store that values zero waste and that is not the case at many grocery stores.  However, that doesn't mean that it's not possible to use your own containers.  You just have to ask!  Ask at the customer service desk and if they say no, dig deeper!  Talk to a manager and politely explain that you're trying to reduce the waste in your home and you'd like to be able to use your own container.  It's worth a shot! 
  • Stay organized:  I've found that keeping my shopping basket in an easy to reach place in the kitchen makes staying organized and efficient a lot easier.  After I shop, I empty my bulk bags, throw them into the laundry if needed, then store them in my shopping basket in the kitchen.  As we empty an egg carton, it goes into the basket as well.  Then on shopping day, I make a quick loop around the kitchen and pull out the jars/canisters that need filling and decide whether to just fill the container or use a bag.  Keeping it all in one designated spot helps me to prep and get out the door a lot faster, which is vitally important when shopping with an 11-month old! 

How about you?  Are you able to shop with your own reusable containers?  Do you?  In what ways are you reducing waste in your kitchen??  I'd love to know. 

simple, intentional giving

Christmas.  It's over and January is in full swing.  It feels great, doesn't it?!?  I love Christmas; it's one of my favorite times of the year, but when January arrives, I'm always so very ready.  I love the quiet, calm of January.  It's a great time to organize, purge, rest, and recoup.  It's a lovely month of solitude and reset, and a fabulous way to start the new year, if you ask me.  

And while January is here and we're actually nearing the end, I wanted to take a moment to share with you a few of my favorite giving moments of the holiday season.  The holidays can be so full of family and generosity, but they can also so easily be consumed by commercialism, consumption, and leave us with a feeling of needing to buy and spend more, more, and more.  As you can probably guess, if you've read even a little of my writing, that side of Christmas is not my cup of tea.  I love giving gifts, but I hate so much of what goes along with that.  Setting foot in a mall with a list in hand is nauseating to me.  I think malls should be reserved for leisurely window shopping with a best friend, coffee in hand, and babies in strollers...not for frantic Christmas shopping and navigating crowds of other desperate and rushed shoppers.  Gross.  

In the past, I've combatted these feelings by shopping online for as many things as I can, which is a great strategy for avoiding malls, but not a great one if you're looking to support your local economy.  So, this year, I tried a few other strategies (some I've done before, and some new to me as well) and I thought I'd share those with you today.  

  1. Shopping locally.  This was a new-to-me strategy.  I often shop at a few of our favorite small, local, independently-owned stores for gifts, but this year I made it my mission to buy as many gifts locally as I could, even if it meant spending a few extra dollars on them.  My reason for this was that if I truly believe that shopping locally can help our local economy and I truly value that (which I do), then buying a book for $21.95 at my local book store, rather than $16.99 on Amazon, should not be an issue.  If I'm looking at the value of my actions in the long run, then shopping locally better aligns with those values, even if it means spending a few more dollars now.  I'll share more on how I balanced that expense below.  However, buying locally also had it's challenges.  I ran into issues with things being out of stock, which meant I ended up buying a few last minute items on Amazon.  I also found that shopping at different stores in different parts of Minneapolis in December with a 10-month old is a pain in the butt.  Keeping winter hats and mittens on a baby, getting in and out of the car seat, pushing a stroller over unshoveled sidewalks, wishing I'd brought the carrier instead of the stroller, squeezing in trips to several stores between nap times and on my days off...it was not easy, but I'm still glad I did it.  Next year, I'll start earlier and plan my errand routes and baby needs to better to improve efficiency.  
  2. Want. Need. Wear. Read. This was by far my favorite new strategy and I will keep using it for years to come!  Upon recommendation from a friend (thanks, Tina!!), we gave Oak four presents this year for Christmas, along with a few small stocking stuffers.  For the four presents, we bought something he wanted (well, what we thought he'd want), something he needed, something he'd wear, and something he'd read.  I loved this idea for a couple of reasons.  One, it made our gift-giving very intentional.  I love intentional giving, but sometimes I lack direction for that intentionality.  This solved that.  Second, it limited what I bought for him.  We buy very little for Oak on a regular basis, but I felt the urge to want to shower him with gifts at Christmas!  I saw so many things that were cute, fun, educational, but this model kept me focused and restrained, which helped me to stay on track with our desire for a simple Christmas and a simple house not full of unnecessary objects.  For his "want" we bought him a wooden pull-behind truck with wooden blocks on it, which we bought from a vender at the MN State Fair.  For his "need" we bought him a ThinkBaby stainless steel sippy cup, which I bought at our food co-op.  We are super happy with it and it was probably his favorite thing he opened, ha.  For his "wear" I knit him a new winter hat, with Malabrigo yarn from our local yarn shop.  And for his "read" we bought him the book Besos, for Baby, which he helped Daddy pick out at the local bookstore.  Four presents was plenty for him and I love the way this model gives us room to grow as he grows.  Bigger ticket items can easily be given for the want, wear, and need, and once he's older he will know what to expect with the number of presents, which will hopefully help guide and limit his Christmas wants...I know, idealistic, but it just may work. ;)
  1. Simplicity.  Buying locally did have some added expense, as I mentioned above, so to combat that, I just bought fewer things! For our sibling gift exchanges, we have spending limits and so instead of buying my brother a card game on Amazon for $14.99 and finding some other little gift for $5.00 to add on, I bought his game at a local game store (Games by James) for $19.99 and just left it at that.  Yes, in the spirit of giving, I could have given him more, but I also know that he values small, local businesses too, and so I trusted that if he knew my reasoning, he'd be completely onboard.  I did the same with our nephews.  I often feel like a good gift needs to include several things.  I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but it's a strong urge I have every time I wrap a gift.  However, for our nephews this year, I bought them each just one book.  The books ranged in price a bit, but I didn't worry about that.  I just carefully selected a book for each of them that I thought they'd like and I left it at that.  Both of these strategies helped to simplify my gift giving, in turn making shopping locally a bit more affordable.  
  2. Handmade.  I always give some handmade gifts at Christmas, and this year was no different.  This year's handmades included a hat for Oak, mittens for Dan, a cowl for my mom, felted wool balls and a felt chicken for Oak's stocking and my best friend's baby boy, and baby doll quilts and pillows for our nieces.  I love the simplicity and intentionality that go along with a handmade gift.  I'm not sure that the recipients always feel these things (especially when they are kids), but I love the love that I feel towards the recipients as I spend my evenings crafting away for them.  It makes giving so much fun.

How about you? Did you find any new ways for making your giving simpler and more intentional this year?

an anniversary, a wedding, and a 7-month old

Life has been steadily moving.  Not too fast where I feel it whizzing by, but definitely not at a leisurely pace either.  It's been moving at the sort of pace where you think you're generally keeping up with everything and finding time to relax a bit and socialize a bit...but at the same time there are still quite a few things that you just never get to day after day.  This blog, my friends, has been one of those things.  So, here's a little update of what's been happening in our world.  

Two weeks ago, Dan and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary at a little cabin out in the woods of Wisconsin.  It was a lovely time--while not quite as romantic and relaxing as in years past due to the baby we brought along, it was still a wonderful time to disconnect with the world and reconnect with one another.  

Then this past weekend, my brother Jake got married up at my dad and stepmom's home (my childhood home).  It was a beautiful wedding--the weather was gorgeous and the meadow and people all cleaned up really nicely.  It was amazing to see the meadow turn into a wedding venue after years of just being a place to store stuff, shoot guns, hunt, and camp!  They did a fantastic job transforming it.  Oakee also got to dress up for the event as one of the ring bearers.  He got quite a few laughs as he laid in wagon, baby Jesus style, and was pulled down the isle by the two other ring bearers.  Overall, it was a wonderful wedding and we are excited to welcome a new Gilbertson into the clan---a new Megan Gilbertson, that is!  (For those who don't know, Megan Gilbertson is my maiden name and it's taken a bit to warm up to the idea of passing the baton on that one!) ;)  I realized that when you, your husband, and baby are all in a wedding, very few pictures get taken! Ha!  So, below are a few shots from the day before the wedding, one of me and two of my aunts, and one of two bridesmaid bouquets that are currently gracing our table at home. 

And then there's this 7-month old baby of ours!  7 months??? Where has the time gone!?!?!  Okay...maybe it is whizzing by and I'm not even realizing it.  This little boy of ours is army crawling all around the house (which is making my lack of clean floors rather evident), he's sitting up all on his own, he thinks the cat and the chickens are the best things ever, and he's starting to do funny things like laugh at funny faces and be silly.  We are rather smitten with him.  

to market, to market

Wow!  Please forgive my silence in this space!  It has been a busy several weeks wrapping up summer and starting back to work part time.  My hope is to write much more regularly again once I fall into a new rhythm this fall.  So, please stay tuned! :)

For now, though, I wanted to share a bit about what I've been creating.  Because while I've been busy and not writing here, I have still be creating quite a few things!  Some of the things that I'm most excited about are these Drop Stitch Cowls (design by spiderwomanknits)!  I knit up a handful of them to sell at the Mama's Happy Artisan Market this coming weekend in Independence, MN.  Dan and I will be there Saturday morning.  He'll be playing some tunes and our little Oak tree and I will be selling his CDs and my cowls.  If you're local, come on out!  It's going to be a great day for an outdoor market!

eleven days of summerfest...with a 4-month old

Wow!  I can't believe we've been home from Summerfest in Milwaukee for two weeks already!  It's been a full two weeks, but our two weeks in Milwaukee were definitely worth writing about!  I mean, it's not every day that you hear about a 4-month old spending 11 days at a music festival!  

With our two travel days and a day off in the middle of the festival, we ended up being away from home for two full weeks.  It was a long two weeks, but overall it went very, very well!  I was amazed at how well Oak rolled with the craziness of the festival and the new surroundings.  Dan played two shows each day of the festival (22 shows in all!) and we were there for each one of them.  The way the festival is set up, we didn't have the opportunity to come and go as we pleased, so we all went in to the festival together and most days we all left together.  One thing that made the trip very manageable was that we stayed in a studio hotel room less than a mile from the festival grounds.  This made for a very easy commute in and out of the festival each day and provided us with a lot of quiet downtime each morning.  Here's what a typical day looked like while we were there:

  • Early morning:  Oak woke us up pretty early most mornings, which made us rather exhausted throughout the trip.
  • Mid-morning:  Dan and I would make breakfast in the kitchen of our little studio hotel room.  With a Whole Foods just a few minutes away, we were able to eat good food like we do at home.  Our breakfasts included eggs, sausage, and homemade scones that I mixed up and baked at the hotel.  Oak would take a early nap during this time as well. 
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  • Late-morning/early afternoon:  We would take care of music related business, run errands, make food to bring into the festival, eat a light lunch, and clean up.  Oak was able to get another nap in at this point. 
  • Mid-afternoon to early evening:  Each day we'd leave for the festival around 2:30.  Once we parked, we'd get a ride into the festival on a shuttle and we'd get set up for the shows.  I would generally feed Oak right before we left the hotel and he'd be ready for a nap right around 4:00 when Dan's first show would start.  I'd then plop him into my Boba wrap, where he'd fuss and protest for a few minutes and then he'd fall asleep.  Since he usually got two really good naps back at the hotel each day, I didn't worry too much about how much sleep he got while we were at the festival.  My goal was at least two 45-minute naps.  This happened most days, but sometimes they were only 30 minutes and other times they were over an hour.  Dan would play for about 45 minutes and then we'd spend 15-30 minutes selling CDs and connecting with the audience.  When Oak was awake during this time, he was mostly very content to watch the people.  A few times he got pretty fussy, which was challenging with how busy I was, but we were able to manage.  After Dan's set, I'd feed Oak backstage, we'd either eat food that we brought into the park or find something somewhat substantial among the fair foods, and we'd relax a bit.  It was pretty warm most days that we were there, so a bit of relaxing in the shade was much needed!  Then around 6:30 we'd start the whole routine again.  I'd get Oak to sleep and we'd start another set.  After that set ended, we'd pack up and head out of the park together and back to the hotel.  A few of the nights Dan stayed at the park to listen to other bands or connect with other musician friends while I went back to the hotel with Oak.  This was super easy to do since our hotel was so close to the festival and Dan was able to walk back at the end of the night. 
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  • Mid-evening/Late-evening: Once back at the hotel, I'd feed Oak and put him down for the night. Then Dan and I would stay up for awhile longer in order to relax and settle down from the busyness of the day.  It was hard for us to get to sleep before 11:00 or 12:00, which made the early wake up cries of our baby a bit hard to handle for two weeks straight.  I must say, that by the time we got home, I was VERY ready to get back to our regular routine!!

A couple things that made this whole trip workable:

  • We kept our mornings super low key and made sure Oak got good naps.
  • I worked pretty hard to keep Oak's normal Eat-Play-Sleep routine in place each day even while we were at the festival.  This helped me to be able to generally know what he would need while we were at Summerfest and helped me to be able to plan our time around him and his needs around the set schedule.  
  • We cooked quite a bit of food at the hotel, which kept us feeling pretty good while we were there, even though we weren't getting good sleep.
  • We had family and friends help us during a few of the days and we appreciated them so much!
  • We stayed in a hotel close by the festival, which minimized the commuting time and optimized our time in the hotel. 
  • We brought a few things from home to make our hotel feel more homelike for all of us (ie. Oak's quilt, lounger, basket of toys, pantry items, a delicious bar of handmade body soap, etc.) 
  • Babywearing!  I'm a big fan of babywearing for convenience!  While we brought a stroller with us on the trip, we only brought it into the festival grounds on one of the days (when my dad and stepmom were there and they were in charge of Oak).  On all of the other days, I wore Oak in a wrap during the sets and then Dan would carry him around in our Baby Bjoern between sets.  This kept Oak much happier than the stroller would have, made for better nap times while at the festival, and limited the amount of strangers who wanted to touch our baby. ;) 
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For those who are wondering, Oak's earmuffs are called Baby Banz.  So many people commented at the festival on how cute they are, which, don't get me wrong, I do think they are adorable.  However, Oak did not wear them to make a fashion statement, he wore them every time he was close to loud music at the festival (which was pretty much the whole time).  Hearing damage can be permanent, especially at such a young age.  I saw so many babies and kids at the festival without ear protection and it made me sad for them.  Parents, if you bring your kids to places with loud noises, protect their ears!!! 

In the end, the festival was a great success for us and we are so glad that we chose to go as a family.  It was hard work, a lot of hard work, but it was fun too.  Cheers to another year of Summerfest under our belts!

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