Zero Waste Fun in the Sun

Last Saturday when we were gardening, I had my annual spring “I haven’t dug out my sunscreen yet and got burned from being in the sun too long”, moment.

Technically I had already had this moment in April at the Indians’ home opener, but Ohio weather has been crazy and cold so I forgot about it.

Sort of.

Truth is when I really evaluate my emotions on the subject…. I’m really nervous about zero waste sunscreen, so I’ve been putting it off.

Not so much for me, but testing out a potentially bad sunscreen on my kids makes my mommy panic soar.

Especially since we’re at a point where my “almost” two year old lovingly flicked a spoonful of instant pot yogurt at his big brother last night at dinner and it was as if the little guy had used the spoon to slowly saw his brother’s arm off.

If that was the reaction to a a streak of nice cool yogurt splattered on his face, I can only imagine how miserable a sunburn would be for them and for anyone in a tri-state vicinity of them.

All jokes aside, the thought of either of my children having a painful, blistering sunburn does not bode well with me. I will use sunscreen in plastic before I allow that to happen.

I think most moms would agree. I think most people would agree, no kids.

I’ve determined that my priorities in order include 1) quality sun protection 2) reef safe sunscreen and then 3) plastic free packaging.

I can’t do justice to the reef safe sunscreen dilemma because I am by no means an expert on it. All I can really do is to beg my 4 readers to google search reef safe sunscreens and educate themselves on the issue. I personally liked this article because I had heard one of the experts on the radio speak about the harm of sunscreen on our coral reefs.

The part that had stuck with me from the interview is how they were having dinner at a restaurant one night and one of the guys ordered fish. It had a coconut flavoring to it and he asked the chef, “How did you season the fish – it was delicious?” The chef said, “Just salt,” because it turns out the coconut flavoring is actually a remnant of all the coconut smells added to sunscreens that overtime, are just a part of marine life now. (It’s called bioaccumulation if you’re wondering – I used to teach that in outdoor education.)

Moral of the story – sunscreen, while important to the skin health of humans, is polluting our oceans.

There are harmful chemicals in conventional sunscreens that bleach the coral reefs and do other bad things, that once again I can’t give the proper do justice. Education yourself.

So in approaching zero waste sun care, I need to go back a year.

Last summer was our first beach vacation (or any vacation for that matter) in a LONG time. It was a family vacation to the Outer Banks and my sister and I did a lot of research into reef safe sunscreens before we went. She went with Badger brand, I went with Thinksport and of course, we shared and essentially used any of those sunscreens to quickly rub onto any little kid that that happened to wander too close to us while we were getting ready to go to the beach.

Both brands are deemed reef safe and I think we were happy with both.

On vacation, I had a moment where I was looking at my (then) 3 year old in his swim shoes, his long swim trunks, his long sleeve swim shirt, a wide-brimmed sun hat, and sunglasses and had an epiphany.

On this, our first vacation in many years, I felt like I was baking on the beach. Baking in a bad way. Like just hyper aware of the sun beating down on my rapidly aging skin. I mean, I don’t hide from the sun or anything, but it had been soooo long since I was just out, exposed, on a beach, for hours and I was constantly aware of it.

I had to ask myself, “Why was I not protecting myself from the sun the same way I was so anally protecting my children?“

I’ve had so many sunburns over the years and I swear my teenage years were just spent out in the sun with no sunscreen on – usually laying on the pole vault or high jump mats at the high school track. I just think I didn’t really care about my own skin and prefer being tan.

By the end of the week, I was a little red and my sister lent me a short-sleeved sun shirt and I felt much better wearing it.

So this year, I’m making some changes to my sun care.

I find it ironic, because I am simultaneously at the point where I would like to bare my wrinkly mom-pooch belly with pride in a bikini this summer, but I want to protect myself from the sun by covering up more of my body than I ever have.

I’m not saying my mom-pooch won’t make an appearance in a bikini at the beach this summer, but I’ve already ordered one long sleeve sun shirt (from Amazon) that I liked and I’m keeping:

The sun shirt will provide protection from the sun while also decreasing the amount of sunscreen I’ll need to apply. I feel that’s a win-win. I’ve ordered a second sun jacket (also from Amazon) that should be arriving tomorrow and we’ll see how that fits:

I haven’t yet pulled the trigger on ordering zero waste sunscreen. And I think I’ll probably still order a tube of Thinksport for our beach vacation this year. BUT I have every intention of ordering zero waste sunscreen. I had my eye on BALM! Baby Sunscreen, but I still have a tube of Babyganics Sunscreen that the internet has seemed to deem reef safe so I’m holding off on that purchase.

The two zero waste sunscreens that I have my eye on and have been in my Amazon cart for a few good months include Raw Elements:

And Surf Durt:

There are MANY blog posts out there that identify different zero waste, reef safe sunscreens and review them -I just went with ones I could get on Amazon because I don’t think I can ever break up with Prime service.

Like anything though, I think sunscreen comes down to personal preference. And I won’t know my personal preference til I try something.

So, I’m going to finish typing this, head over to Amazon and order my zero waste sunscreens because I have to start somewhere.

As someone who is not only trying to phase out as many plastics in my own life, but also trying to cultivate as much awareness as I can about phasing out single use plastics, I’m begging my 4 readers to support reef safe sunscreen over plastic-free sunscreen. (Of course, most plastic free sunscreens are of course, reef safe – but if it comes to cost or amount, choose reef safe.)

*Fun fact though, I’ve so ingrained my 4 year old with proper sun attire that when he goes to swim lessons inside a YMCA, we’ve had to talk him out of wearing his sun hat. We couldn’t talk him out of a swim shirt though – he wears one every week… #proudmama #bereefsafe

Another Step in the Compost Journey

This past weekend, we took advantage of the surprise beautiful weather on Saturday to start work on our garden. It needed it….

I’m really good at growing weeds. I wish more credit was given for this kind of talent. Oh – we used to have mulch in between all those beds. You can’t tell anymore.

Behind this garden is a giant field – also full of weeds – and we just continually have weed seeds blowing into our garden. And as you would expect, I don’t put any weed killers or anything like that on my yard, which means we’re constantly pulling weeds.

Or at least should be constantly pulling weeds, but we don’t always.

Our trellises got knocked over in some high winds this winter and need re-building. At least we got a nice start on getting some of those weeds out of the beds so we should at least be able to plant in the next few weekends.

With the empty garden beds, we decided to empty out our compost tumbler and get started on a new batch of compost.

I had really high hopes for our compost since it was already somewhat decomposed before we added it to the barrel. And at first glance, it seemed to be really composted and had reduced a lot in the barrel.

I was super proud of us. 🙂

Upon further inspection, and as we started to spread it in the now cleared out garden beds, there was still quite a lot of produce that was not broken down. As in, we could find a giant chunk of something and when we’d dig a shovel in, we could tell what it was.

The more memorable items were our pumpkins from October and an orange. Also, there wasn’t an overwhelming smell of rot, but there was a potent malodor.

Which means it’s not cooking properly. Which means something’s off in our quantities. Hmmm….

I’m still confused as to how exactly work this compost tumbler thing. Can I keep adding to it? Do you slowly fill it (and not turn it) until it’s full and then you turn it? Do you tumble it while adding to it?

I have no idea!!!

We did come to a couple conclusions. First of all, I think we’re going to get a compost thermometer to be more aware of whether or not we’re actually composting. I believe I read somewhere that if bugs are in your compost, it’s not hot enough and we definitely had some bugs in our tumbler (which I was a little impressed by those suckers to climb up there and ride the tumbler like a carnival ride – I feel they’ve earned the right to be there at that point).

Secondly, we talked about how our balance of carbons to nitrogens is probably off. And then I tried to read up on that more. Nitrogens are the wet food byproducts which is what I personally want my compost to be mostly made of. But it shouldn’t be. Too many nitrogens can make your compost too wet and not allow it to get hot enough. The carbons should be the majority of the compost pile and that’s comprised of grass, leaves (although not really oak leaves which we have a TON of…), and things like wood shavings/sawdust.

Also, compost should feel like a damp sponge. You shouldn’t be able to wring it out and it shouldn’t be too dry. More importantly, you shouldn’t fear putting your hands in it to attempt to wring it out to try this!

With our “compost”, I didn’t even really want to put my gloved hands in it….not a good sign….

Round 2 in the Tumbler!

With a now almost empty compost tumbler, we filled it up with some leaves (yes – we still have them laying around our yard…) and grass clippings since our yard was just mowed.

We added our kitchen scraps and I think this time, we’ll keep trying to layer it with more carbons and start tumbling it once we fill it. Thankfully, my husband has access to a lot of sawdust which we can use as a carbon. Huzzah!

Another step in the compost journey is that a guy I had contacted on Craigslist about barrels with removable lids texted me and said he got two more in and they’re mine. Today, after work, my husband went to get them and at least one is going to be my belated mother’s day gift. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

I’ve had to get the idea of having all matching compost tumblers out of my mind.

Upping the composting game has definitely been a journey that is not complete yet. I’m wondering how long it will take to hit the “sweet spot” of composting. We’re definitely not there yet.

In other exciting news….…..well….I’m excited about it….

My mother-in-law had told me that my husband can get financing for a service/educational project through his financial adviser. The back story isn’t too important.

What IS important is I (“he”) submitted a proposal about an environmental service project to increase awareness of reducing single use plastics – specifically by handing out reusable produce bags and creating a flier – and it was approved!

So I (“he”) should be getting money to purchase lots of reusable produce bags with a flier to create awareness about reducing plastic and I’ll be handing them out with the help of my children (and anyone else I can sucker into it) at a grocery store this summer.

I’m oddly excited about getting out there and having funding to increase awareness about this issue. And “he” can apply for 2 service projects a year, so there’s room to grow.

Now I just have to get to creating a flier because I have so much I want to say, but I can’t say it all.

Until next time….

Cloth Diapers – Which Ones?

I understand that this is a total niche post as some of my readers don’t have kids or have kids who are completely out of diapers or don’t have the option to use cloth diapers.

I get it.

So let me start this post off with a small step. You can buy reusable swim diapers. Even if you can’t use cloth diapers and/or have no interest in cloth diapers (I get it), having 2 reusable swim diapers as we head into summer time can make a big impact of not using disposable swim diapers. I’ve bought some at both Target and Amazon and they’ve been great for us. I don’t have any pictures of them currently because I just passed along my small infant ones to my newest nephew and the baby is asleep in the nursery with the others I still have.

But on to my personal experiences with cloth diapers. ….Well, not wearing them….you know what I mean….

I’ve been very fortunate that I was able to cloth diaper both of my kids without being a stay-at-home mom. I am amazingly blessed in my situation that my parents watch my children and since they cloth-diapered me and my siblings, they didn’t see an issue with it.

I know my sister had an interest in cloth diapering, but her daycare wouldn’t do it. Although I think now, 8 years after her first child, her daycare has now said that they would maybe be OK with it. So I think the tides are starting to turn. But it’s definitely not for everyone – definitely not possible for everyone.

I get it.

My husband and I decided to cloth diaper (and cloth wipe!) when I was pregnant with my first. Actually the conversation I believe went more like me: “Hey, I want to cloth diaper to save money and save trash.” Husband: “Ok” Me: “So you’d be Ok with washing out poopy diapers and doing more laundry and stuff?” Husband: “.….Sure.”

We have really meaningful and in-depth conversations together. 🙂

Ok, that’s probably a real over-simplification of our decision, but that was kind of the gist of it. And like many women who are expecting their first child, I researched the crap out cloth diapers.

We’ve always been eco-friendly but the real kicker for me was the cost savings. “Experts” estimate that with one kid, you can spend anywhere from $2,000 – $4,000 just on disposable diapers alone. So saving diapers from a landfill plus saving money….that’s a win-win in Julie World.

I feel I was the somewhat typical new mom who (generally) wanted the newest and best stuff – despite all the wonderful hand me downs from my sister’s kids. After all my research, I decided that I wanted the BumGenius all-in-one diapers.

In my mind, BumGenius was kind of top of the line and since I planned to cloth diaper multiple children, I figured why not splurge for the best?

BumGenius diapers run about $20 – $25 a diaper. Thankfully, we had baby showers and registries and I was gifted the majority of my expensive BumGenius All In One diapers.

All in ones have the absorbent padding attached to the outer waterproof lining, so there are no stuffing of inserts or any other weirdness. Just wash ’em and put ’em on the baby.

Seems easy, right?

I also talked to every single person I knew about cloth diapering to find out their experiences….did they like it? ….what diapers did they use? ….any recommendations? I had one cousin who used FuzziBunz seconds, which were their “imperfect” diapers that they would sell at a discount.

She notified me of their sale and I bought FuzziBunz “seconds” diapers that required stuffing an insert inside of them for $8 a diaper. I think I bought 8 of those, which I thought was a pretty good deal at the time. I think in total for Kid #1, I had around 22-24 diapers.

If I could time travel, I would go back and tell past, pregnant, fat Julie to register for BumGenius pocket diapers. The task of stuffing and unstuffing pocket diapers sounded so cumbersome to me that I avoided them, except for the FuzziBunz diapers.

But the All in One Bumgenius diapers wouldn’t dry completely. They dried beautifully if they were outside on a sunny day, but I live in Northeast Ohio. In the winter, we were hanging the diapers on the clotheslines in our basement and they wouldn’t dry. Which meant we were putting them in the dryer on low for long periods of time because….well, you’re trying to dry something on low heat without ruining the PUL waterproofing.

Also, I had bought the nice organic detergents to use with my nice organic cloth diapers because I was the best new mom out there. Buuuuut…..we have extremely hard well water at my house. And it wasn’t long after starting cloth diapers that I realized my adorable baby had ammonia burns on his bum.

It broke my heart.

Turns out, the detergent wasn’t cleaning the diapers thoroughly with our hard water. It was challenging to find any information about this on the internet but I did find a few moms who were daring enough to post about this happening to them online and they ALL switched to washing their diapers in Tide Original powder.

While I had issues with using Tide….I was still driven by the cost-benefit and in reducing landfill waste so I switched to Tide and the ammonia burns went away immediately.

But between the Tide and having to use the dryer all the time, all the warranties were void and within 2 years, the PUL waterproofing was peeling.

I tried waterproofing them again before Baby #2, but I didn’t try very hard and it didn’t work. I went on a search for more cloth diapers, but this time cheaper and I found the Alva Pocket Diapers on Amazon. 6 diapers for around $30. I bought 3 different sets for about $90 which gave me 18 diapers for Baby #2. I have found 18 diapers to be just about perfect for us.

Alva Baby cloth diapers

They’re seriously so wonderful and the best buy in cloth diapers in my opinion.

We wash the shells (still in Tide) in the evening, hang them up to dry in my dark underground basement, wash the inserts in HOT water – they typically sit in the washer overnight, and then they get thrown in the dryer first thing in the morning. The shells are dry by morning which is such a welcome change. They haven’t been in the dryer at all and 2 years in, they’re in much better shape than the BumGenius diapers ever were.

If I were doing it again, I said I would have gotten the BumGenius pocket diapers because I think they would have been able to dry overnight with the added perk of the folded over PUL into the inside of the diaper. Here’s a picture for comparison:

The inner border on the BumGenius diapers really helps for leak protection in my opinion. When Baby is smaller and the diaper is all scrunched up, any place where the liner would poke out of the diaper was a potential, eventual wet spot.

We did not buy any newborn size cloth diapers and waited to start cloth diapers until our kids were at least 6 weeks or so old. My babies were giant so it didn’t take too long for them to get big enough to fit into the diapers. Plus, in the early days when you’re tracking how many times Baby pees a day, the disposable diapers with the blue lines are really helpful to track exactly how many pees they have.

I feel each cloth diapering experience is different and finding what’s right for you and your family is important. I based my decision on getting BumGenius All in Ones from a blog that raved about how easy they were, but it turns out they weren’t right for me and my work schedule. So, please, read all my information with a critical mindset because even though it works for me, it may not work for you.

I plan on posting more information about our experiences cloth diapering in the next week, but if you’re considering cloth diapers, here’s the link to the Alva Baby diapers on Amazon, which in my opinion are terrific if you’re not wanting to spend a lot on cloth diapers.

Zero Waste PB

On Tuesday, my school was closed since our high school is an election polling place. “She Who Must Not Be Named” had told me it was going to be cloudy and rainy all day, (which turned out to be a lie – Thanks, Alexa) so instead of a fun zoo outing, I planned a bunch of errands – including a stop to Fresh Thyme.

After my post whining about how I can’t find “naked” soap at a good price, I was surprised by Fresh Thyme’s organic soap collection. Let me tell you, I just adore a good soap display….I will stop every time.

These guys were $2.99 a bar, which I felt wasn’t too bad….even if I still wish they were cheaper (let’s be honest though….I wish everything were cheaper….).

I was so ready to get either the Lavender Harvest or the Charcoal Lemongrass when I remembered just how many bars of soap I still have at home and put them down. Then I had to pry other bars of soap out of my 4 year old’s hands because while I was having a divine moment of peace sniffing soap, he decided he wanted to see what all the fuss was about and had a bar in each hand.

One of the main reasons for going to Fresh Thyme is that we had run out of “commercial” peanut butter in my house and peanut butter & jelly has become the sandwich of choice for my preschooler on his school days. We needed a refill and I was refusing to buy more in a plastic jar.

I brought my own glass jar and stopped by the register first thing to get the tare weight (no problems there – I could tell it had become routine for them) and headed over to the nut butter counter.

I had my jar under the fresh ground peanut butter when I saw that the honey roasted peanut butter was on sale for the same price. And the more I thought about it….I realized that the honey roasted would probably provide the sugar that I personally feel peanut butter needs (based on past experiences buying natural peanut butter that I then regretted).

Plus the dudes in my house really like sugar. So honey roasted it was.

I was a little worried about this whole venture because I would ABSOLUTELY be the person who presses a button incorrectly and it gets jammed and then there is a surplus of peanut butter just flowing like a river over the counter and on to the floor and then my children would slip and fall in it and start eating it off the ground…..

I set my jar down….read the directions TWICE….and said a little prayer….

It was perfection! The machine was easy to use and there was no need for the klutz in me to be so worried. It turned off once on its own and my jar wasn’t full, so I pressed it again and was able to stop it at the precise moment I wanted it to stop.

I, of course, tried a little in the store and I personally think it is some SERIOUSLY good peanut butter!!! Perhaps that’s just because I was viewing it through my zero waste rose-colored glasses…I’ll report back if my opinion changes.

I prefer crunchy peanut butter while the others I live with prefer creamy and this is definitely in the middle. I would define it as “gritty”. I think the honey roasted was overall the best choice for my household.

The mason jar I brought holds 16 ounces and it cost me $3. A jar of JIF on Target.com costs roughly $2.29. And so far, this hasn’t had that weird oil separation that other jars of natural peanut butter typically has.

I’m a little weary of shelf life – I’m assuming it may not last as long as the JIF variety, but I’ll report back if that happens.

It was exciting and a fun/easy swap to be rid of a plastic peanut butter jar. I’m saving the last of the plastic peanut butter jars for other unforeseen storage containers instead of recycling them right away.

Food is definitely the biggest area of struggle in cutting out plastic and packaging, so finding small solutions like this tend to make me excited. It’s the little things that make the biggest impact.

Insta-Yogurt

One of the draws in purchasing an Instant Pot a few years back was all of the amazing functions it confessed to do. Pressure cooker to cut cooking times in half? AWESOME! Rice cooker? Sweet! Yogurt maker? Score! Slow Cooker? You had me at Hello….

Yeah….I’m just like the rest of America and I barely use any of those functions.

However in the name of Science and zero waste, I decided that it was time to try the yogurt function.

My boys happen to LOVE Dannon Vanilla yogurt.

Like if we have yogurt in our refrigerator and they know it’s in there, they will steal it from the refrigerator and just eat it whenever they like. It’s not uncommon to find them hiding out in a corner surrounded by empty yogurt cups and smothered in sticky vanilla yogurt.

I happen to hate the little plastic cups it comes in. Even the bigger containers are still plastic.

So I decided to try to make some in my Instant Pot. And I was a little nervous because my Instant Pot still has the smell of my failed applesauce attempt in it. Cinnamon and some funk. Perhaps that’ll be the new fall Yankee Candle scent.

The recipe is “simple” enough because it’s just milk and a yogurt starter (in this case, other yogurt) and then vanilla flavoring if you like. I followed this recipe from Stephanie Lee Nutrition.

I cheated on zero waste and I bought a gallon of milk in a plastic jug because I had no idea if it was going to work and I didn’t want to waste good Hartzler milk. In retrospect, I’m glad I did because my first batch did not turn out despite following the directions. Well, what I thought were the directions.

Yeah….my yogurt that’s not yogurt….

I figured out that my mistake was that in the initial boil, I don’t think my milk got heated above 180 degrees Fahrenheit. I had put in my thermometer and it was around 173 degrees which I thought was close enough.

WRONG!

Milk has to be heated above 180 degrees Fahrenheit to activate the proteins in it to get it to turn into yogurt. So for round 2, I followed some different instructions I found online and instead of boiling it using the yogurt function on my Instant Pot, I used the saute function and made sure it got above 180 degrees.

The sad thing was I used all my vanilla extract on my first failed batch. And what I thought was another bottle of vanilla extract, was actually peppermint. So in went the ingredients for plain yogurt, I set it to the yogurt setting for an overnight yogurt making extravaganza (while I finished Game of Thrones and slept…) and hoped for the best.

And in the morning….SUCCESS!!!! I think it was definitely the temperature thing.

And now I had a pot of plain homemade yogurt. Which stinks because I live in a house of people with sweet teeth and nobody was going to eat this plain yogurt.

What’s a girl to do? That’s right – stop at the store for some vanilla extract.

I pitched the idea of perfecting this yogurt to my 4 year old like it was some super exciting science experiment that I NEEDED his help with (it wasn’t). But he bought it hook, line, and sinker (sucka!).

The majority of it went into a large glasslock bowl, but it wouldn’t all fit so we “experimented” with the small bowl of excess. First we tried the plain yogurt and he looked at me like he could not believe I would ever feed him anything so terrible. Then we added vanilla and stirred like crazy. Still no good.

It needed sugar. So we added honey. And more vanilla. And stirred like crazy.

With the honey, it finally got the kid stamp of approval. Which right now, in my life, is basically the highest honor I could ever achieve.

Of course the little guy got in on it too and pretty soon the entire small bowl of excess yogurt was completely gone. Yes, it was licked out of bowls.

This yogurt experiment actually set me onto several other possible zero waste paths. First of all, I gave in today and had to buy vanilla extract in a plastic bottle. I had thought about making my own extracts in due time, but I thought I had more extract in my spice cupboard and that I didn’t have to worry about this yet. That was a lie. So I’m going to be looking into making my own vanilla extract if I can find vanilla beans at a good price (preliminary searches show those puppies are expensive).

This was SUCH a big thought for me tonight….I can’t even begin to express how I could literally feel my mind expand when I thought this….could I make my own sour cream and cottage cheese in my Instant Pot???

I never thought I’d be able to find those products in any packaging other than plastic! And there are recipes out there for them!!!

And even now…the plain yogurt got me thinking about sour cream in general.

We buy it for many recipes, but we could be substituting it with plain yogurt and it’d probably be healthier for us. So tonight we had the plain yogurt on our tacos and while it was a little different of a taste, it was pretty good.

AND THEN, it made me wonder about flavoring plain yogurt for savory foods. Like maybe mixing it with taco seasoning for tacos and chives for baked potatoes.

I THINK I’M THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO GETS EXCITED BY THOUGHTS LIKE THESE!!!

Summer will be the perfect time to experiment a little with all of this, but reasonable Julie does have some doubts about all of this from the back corner of my brain where she has been sent. We’ll see if this gets maintained long term because I don’t want to add too much DIY food stuff since I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up with it all.

BUT…I have to remember that ANY TIME I’m doing something to refuse or decrease plastic in my life, that’s a win. Even if it’s not an all the time thing.

Popcorn

Last night, my parents kept our kids overnight (Thanks, Mom!) and my husband and I went to go see Avengers Endgame (no spoilers, don’t worry!). We went to an 11:00 PM showing….like we’re not in our mid-30’s and exhausted all the time .(I had to take a nap after work to make sure I could stay up for the whole thing)!

Getting old is just the pits some times.

Another affect of being old is that knowing that it was a 3 hour movie was really worrisome for me. More specifically my bladder. Despite having the amazing bladder prowess of a teacher (because I am one…), the mental aspect of being worried about having to pee, worried me.

Therefore….we did not have popcorn during the movie.

Because popcorn requires drinks. I didn’t want to risk missing any part of the movie by having a mental “I have to pee moment” and then get to the bathroom and only a few drops come out. I mean I was so hardcore I didn’t drink anything in the few hours leading up to the movie. I was totally fine after the movie and wondered if I had unnecessarily deprived myself.

But I happen to love movie theater popcorn. Not the price, but definitely the savory treat.

I don’t eat popcorn as often as I used to because once again, I’m getting old and it can upset my stomach sometimes.

I just still really like it, so I eat it anyways.

I grew up on an air popper and then microwave popcorn when it came out in the 80’s, but my husband and I kind of phased out microwave popcorn when we got married because we registered for a Whirley Pop popcorn popper which we happen to love.

More on that later – first, let’s talk about microwave popcorn.

Microwave popcorn not only is wasteful with the plastic wrapper and the throw away bag, it is also has chemicals in it that are known to be cancerous. So even if you don’t care about trash or plastic, it’d be nice to care about your health and phase out those bad chemicals.

And popcorn on the stove can be a really great zero waste snack.

A Whirley Pop is certainly not a necessity to make popcorn on the stove – all you need is a pot, some oil, and some popcorn. Just make sure you keep shaking the pot so the popcorn doesn’t burn. What’s nice about the Whirley Pop is it has a little metal bar that you crank around to keep everything moving around inside and it tends to cook evenly.

The entire reason we registered for a Whirley Pop for our wedding was because one time, my husband was on a research project in California with someone who had a Whirley Pop and they frequently made the BEST kettle corn popcorn in it. They also used food coloring to make it super fun colors.

I went down to visit him one Halloween and got to share in the magic of orange and purple Whirley Pop kettle corn. I think I sat by the bowl the giant bowl of Halloween popcorn the entire night, glaring at other people who dared to try to eat the tasty treat that had clearly been made for me.

I was hooked.

It was the perfect mix of savory and sweet without being too far to either end of that spectrum and hello – I could make it any color I wanted! The only thing that would make it better is if there were a glitter food coloring!

So now, WE make fun kettle corn popcorn in fun colors based on the closest holiday or whatever color our toddler wants to pick. We store it in a large Tupperware bowl and it’ll keep for several days. I’ve taken it on camping trips, to family functions, and even to school because it’s so easy and fast to make and it makes A LOT.

It’s a nice snack in place of chips (if it doesn’t hurt your stomach, and you know, if you’re into popcorn).

There are loads of fun recipes and seasonings out there to make your own fun popcorn flavors. We tend to stick to the kettle corn, occasionally just some melted butter and salt.

This past fall, I had found sewing instructions online to make my own reusable microwave popcorn bag. I had every intention of making one despite owning the magical Whirley Pop because I really like to sew. My main issue is I have absolutely no time to sit down and sew it.

But I thought they would make really cute gifts for people who like microwave popcorn or just want an easier, healthier option than making popcorn on the stove. I’m still hoping to make some this year. In 2019. That’s a goal.

The nice thing is that Mr. Bulky’s has popcorn available in bulk too so I don’t even have to go buy the kernels in a plastic bag.

Here’s the kettle corn recipe we use if anyone is interested:

  • 1/4 cup oil (we use coconut oil)
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup popcorn
  • Food Coloring (optional)
  • Put it all in the Whirley Pop and keep it moving until it’s all popped. Dump into a bowl. Salt it. Eat.

I’d like to branch out a little more and try some other fun flavors and seasonings so maybe I’ll add that to my goals for 2019 – to branch out a little more on the popcorn flavors.

And maybe find some glitter food coloring. 🙂

Little things

Just some small things for today…

I plogged on my run today. Or rather I went plogging… I’m not sure way to use that term. But plogging really isn’t uncommon for me, especially at this stage of my lack of in-shapedness where I am doing a combination of running and walking.

What is uncommon for me is taking a picture of my roadside “treasures” and posting them on the internet:

But what do we say when confronted by trash on the side of the road that is threatening to be blown into our waterways and kill a sea turtle?

“Not Today” (as she picks it up and runs away with a re-established purpose in life).

My 4 year old is picking up trash so frequently that I’ve realized it’s become more of a focus for him. Which I both like and dislike because while he has the awareness to notice the trash and pick it up, he doesn’t have the same awareness to go clean his hands afterwards. So that is something to work on.

There are two new things in the works around my house.

The first is, we just spent a week without hot water since our old hot water tank from 1991 called it quits last week and was only giving us lukewarm water. Today, we had a tankless water heater installed in our house.

I had heard about tankless water heaters about 9 years ago and always kind of wanted one, since they are supposed to be more efficient and whatnot, but I knew they are way more expensive than a traditional tank.

Our house was built in 1976 (or is ’72? doesn’t matter…) and there hasn’t seemed to be much updating since (we moved in about 5 years ago). It was going to cost us quite a bit to even install a new tank in order to bring things up to code and to switch it from electric to gas, that it wasn’t so outrageous to just go for the tankless heater.

We’ve had it approximately 5 hours now, so I have nothing to report about it, but I’m excited to try and experiment with it and see how well it does. And I’m hoping that it makes quite a dent in our electric bill since Justin the Plumber said that there was no way our old beast was running efficiently.

And secondly, my boys are a bit obsessed with yogurt – specifically vanilla yogurt. I personally don’t like all the tiny little plastic cups, even if I do recycle them.

So, I am making good use of my Instant Pot and attempting to make my own yogurt. Tonight. Overnight. Because it takes 8-10 hours to make.

Did I mention that my Instant Pot still smells of cinnamon and a weird funk from my failed applesauce? It’ll be interesting to see if that has an affect on the yogurt.

I’ll report back later 😉

So I would like to comment on this because I sat down last night to write a blog post and decided to put something on the TV while I wrote. We currently have our HBO subscription for Game of Thrones Season 8, and I decided to put on ‘Leaving Neverland’ because I had heard a lot of talk about it and decided to see what the hype was about.

Yeah….that’s why a blog post didn’t get written yesterday.

Wow, that is some heavy stuff…

Today was full of too long and too tight hugs with my boys and lots of mom worries.

So for my 4 readers, if you’re a parent or work with children, I just want to put this website out there called Safely After Ever. It discusses how to talk to your kids about abuse by describing “tricky people” instead of “strangers”. Because too often, abuse is from someone the kids know – not a “stranger”. But they’re really important conversations to engage your kids in.

I’ve only had a few conversations about this with my eldest son, but it’s time to initiate it again. Perhaps over some yogurt.

A Soapbox to Stand On

I’ve actually always preferred using a bar of soap over a shower gel type product. I actually remember being worried before I went to college because I felt I had to switch to a shower gel for my dorm shower caddy and in many ways, to seem more “feminine”. Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to realize I could just get a travel soap box and I could still use my bar soap.

Once again, weird internal anxious Julie thoughts that I probably shouldn’t put out on the internet. 🙂

Still, I’ve always preferred using bar soap and I typically buy Dial brand. For no other reason than it’s just what I grew up using (Hi, Mom!). And it’s such a great price….I mean 12 bars for $5? Huzzah!

Can you see my dilemma in the above picture?

Each individual Dial soap bar is wrapped in a waxy paper type wrapper AND the bars are then wrapped together in an outer plastic wrap that I’m pretty sure is not recyclable.

In fact, when you step back and look at all the soap selections, the majority do have an outer plastic wrap around them, no matter if they house their soap in a cardboard box or in a waxed paper wrap.

I was harboring the hope of switching to Irish Spring since I was pretty sure the soaps come in a cardboard box that I could recycle, but it’s that outer plastic wrap that is acting like a red-hot poker that is preventing me from picking up a package of soap and put it in my cart (thankfully, I still have some in my stockpiles).

Frustrating.

My quest for plastic free soap at Target led me to obsessively snapping pictures of bars of soap as if they were my children flashing brilliant smiles while cute little woodland gathered around them to be petted in a field of wildflowers with perfect lighting.

After noticing the glint of light reflecting off ALL the cheap commercial brands of soap, I had to turn to some of the more “natural” brands to see how they package their products.

The “Yes to” Brand was wrapped in plastic:

Dr. Bronner’s bar soap is wrapped in recyclable paper:

As well as this Method Deep Detox by Target:

These Schmidt’s brand soaps come in a box which I didn’t inspect closely but imagine they’d be recyclable:

Now, I would have no problem with trying and using any of these soaps, BUT the price tag of $4-5 for one bar of soap when I used to get 12 for $5 really bothers me. It’s the equivalent of spending $60 on something that I could get for $5 (with minimal plastic packaging).

The bar soaps at Lush are even more expensive – like $10.95 for 3.5 oz of soap!

Sigh. Trying to be zero waste is really tough sometimes.

So the moral of the story is….I don’t feel like my soap quest is complete.

I haven’t found a solution I fully approve of – both in reducing plastic and price.

I still prefer bar soap and I think I would still use my cheap Dial brand over paying $5 for a single bar of soap. Unless it’s October and that bar of soap is pumpkin spice.

(And yes…that is a true reference because I HAVE pumpkin spice bar soap for the fall and peppermint bar soap for Christmas. And I think they were more than $5 a bar. I’m not ashamed to admit it and I’d do it again.)

I plan to do some more research on the more “commercial” bar soap brands and the chemicals they use in their soaps, contact them to “motivate them” to decrease their plastic packaging, and do some more research on what soap brands the hardcore zero wasters use. All my preliminary searches in that area seemed to involve buying goat’s milk soap with exfoliating lavender and bits of wildflower made by local nuns and purchased at the farmer’s market in the England countryside.

So I may not make a big swap in the soap arena for me and my family. And that’s OK.

I have some other DIY things in the works and yesterday morning, realized I’m at the end of my eyeliner that comes in a plastic tube. So I need to start looking for a replacement there.

Until the next time…

Packing a Pick-a-nick

I had really wanted to be a diligent blogger and post yesterday…but yeah, it was my mom’s birthday (Hi, Mom!) and also a major Game of Thrones day.

With the only slightly warmer and better weather, I have been trying to get my boys out more which has now meant about four zoo outings on our new family zoo pass.

When we head to the zoo, we don’t stay for very long due to the little guy’s afternoon nap (we don’t mess with naps around here….), but each zoo visit has led to packing a picnic lunch and eating it (still indoors) at the zoo.

Which has given us 4 opportunities to try out the zero plastic, zero waste snack bags and wraps that I have acquired recently.

And first of all, I kinda enjoy this pictures because it makes us look like WAY healthier eaters than we actually are. So don’t go thinking this is real life – this is definitely one of those filtered “you get to see what I want you to see” social media moments.

So in the past few months, I’ve acquired the Keep Leaf velcro baggie and sandwich wrap (with the little hearts and the sandwich wrap is shown in the picture above), I shared about my “failed” attempt to make my own beeswax wraps, beeswax zippered bags on Etsy, Bumkins brand snack bags, and I bought one stainless steel bento-style lunch tin with a small snack container.

And so far, I’ve been liking the beeswax wraps that I made myself (I know – I’m shocked too) to wrap sandwiches in and to serve as a place mat slash food tray. I truly felt like the quality of my beeswax wraps were lacking, but I decided to give them a go and I’ve really liked them! I had been all set to ask for the Etee wraps for my birthday and now I think I’m going to ask for some different things instead.

I like the beeswax wraps better than the professionally made Keep Leaf, velcro wrap. I Keep using that one and I feel like it just doesn’t protect my sandwich as well.

I wrap the sandwiches up in the beeswax wraps and tuck them into the bento box so they don’t get squished. I used to always take a plastic tupperware for this same purpose, but the bento box is much more compact and fits more easily into my backpack. While I have a little fear of it being dented, I hope it’s not as likely to happen as my plastic containers getting crushed and broken.

When it comes to snack baggies and comparing the Keep Leaf bag (not bad), the Etsy beeswax bag (I’ve barely used due to the beeswax smell), and the Bumkins bags – there’s no contest. The Bumkins snack baggies are amazing! They’re my absolute favorite and I’ve been wanting to buy more (just not allowing myself due to recent, expensive home improvements).

Actually, in writing this post, I realized that my one year old took that turquoise bag from me yesterday when it was full of cashews and it hasn’t been seen since. So we’re on 24 hours of it not being seen which means it has probably gone to live in that secret place where my mini Tupperware containers and sippy seal lids have gone to live too.

Mental note: Must hold secret mission tomorrow to find missing snack containers for children and lost by children. Must not let children know about secret mission. Must be prepared to encounter dust bunnies, unknown entities, and possible spoiled food remnants. Be strong.

Right now, looking in the future, if I need to replace items, I’d like to purchase more of the metal containers – particularly little stainless steel snack cups – and more Bumkins bags. And if I find the time, I may attempt to make a few more beeswax wraps since I still have all the materials for them.

For drinks, we’ve been carrying water bottles which is great and works perfectly. You may recall previously that I have lamented over purchasing reusable plastic juice boxes and then my then three year old, throwing one on the ground and breaking the lid. I keep thinking I should just donate the parts I still have and buy something different, but I haven’t been able to do it yet. I also can’t bring myself to buy the replacement lid.

But I think I want to…..

And the only reason for it is because I have one functioning blue reusable juice box and I would like to have a second functioning green reusable juice box so each kid has one. I can’t pull the trigger either way, so for now it’s sitting non-functioning and taking up valuable space in the kid section of my kitchen cupboard.

I struggle with buying a plastic replacement instead of putting that money towards something non-plastic.

Am I the only one who has mom dilemmas like this? Ha ha – I can fret over decisions like this for a loooooong time. I’m not quite certain which way I want to go though, so I’m ok with it.

Oh, and I still have these cheap, flimsy reusable bags that are basically only used in preschool lunches because I don’t care if they come home or not. Still, they’ve served their purpose and saved many a ziploc bag from being used.

Until the next time….

Catching Up

I haven’t written in so long that WordPress made changes to their site and I had no idea how to navigate the changes when I logged in to write this.

Phew…life has been busy.

With the busy-ness that life has brought recently, it brought some bad habits to help us survive, namely eating a lot of fast food because we have not been on our cooking game at all. And I really dislike fast food due to all the garbage it generates (and the calories, stomach ache, and cost of it), but what can ya do?

It was our first year dyeing Easter Eggs at my house. We’ve never done it before because we don’t really like hard-boiled eggs and the kids were so young. I looked into dyeing the eggs with natural dyes but it seemed like a long, complicated process so we went with the traditional PAAS.

A bit boring when it comes to being more eco-friendly and less wasteful, but any time I wonder if I should do something or not and I think about my kids, I don’t want to deprive them of childhood experiences. And give them sub-conscious rage and resentment. I have so many other plans to build up those kinds of emotions in my children that I’m not going to let refusing to dye Easter eggs take the helm there.

The Easter baskets were a hit, but I think it’d be hard for any Easter basket to not be exciting to little kids. When I asked my 4 year old what his favorite thing in his basket was, he paused and said, “Uh….the cup.” To which I BEAMED with happy, psychotic, zero-waste mom pride. WAHOO! My kid LOVES zero-waste things! It was MY Favorite thing too! Self High-Five!!!!

And then he added, “With the Skittles.“

Of course….it’s the candy.

I sent my husband to Mr. Bulky’s the week before Easter and he got bulk candy for the Easter baskets. I think I’m safe in saying that my husband was excited to go to a bulk candy store, because I literally gave him approval to go buy candy. Which is rare. I usually give him the wife-look when he comes home from the grocery store and shows me all the sugar stuff he bought.

I think the only regret was that he was limited to 6 reusable mesh bags because that’s all he took. I feel like I remember him saying it was hard trying to decide exactly what to get because he was limited (and of course, I told him he better not come home with any plastic bulk bags – what a great wife I am).

We got skittles and jelly beans for the older child, some gummy bunnies for the little guy, and then some sour patch kids that we munched on until we brought them to a family gathering on Easter. The one year old was a huge fan of his cup with gummy bunnies also – even if he doesn’t quite have the words to express that yet.

Words don’t matter – I could read his appreciation of the zero waste cup in his eyes. As he stuffed his mouth full of gummy bunnies and drooled out each corner of his mouth.

As previously mentioned, the cups were my favorite part of Easter. For Christmas, I specifically asked for more plastic cups with lids and/or straws for my boys because for some reason at my house, milk gets drunk and then the cup gets thrown across the room like we’re at some sort of Viking or Medieval feast. They may as well be yelling, “” as they do it. Anyways, it means we have lots of broken plastic cups – including the ones I specifically asked for for Christmas.

So I used the opportunity of buying presents for Easter to purchase 5 stainless steel kid cups with silicone lids and stainless steel straws from Amazon. It’s only been a week, but they’re working out well. And gee golly, I sure think they look purdy with all the bright colors!

Putting on a silicone lid has proved to be a different experience – I struggle with how wobbly they are, but I imagine I’ll get used to them with time.

I was disappointed that the cups came individually wrapped in plastic….but at least I could throw that in with my flimsy plastic recycling. Other than the individual bags for the cups, there was no other excess plastic packaging.

Oh – a few weeks back, I bought more reusable mesh produce bags during a Lightning Deal on Amazon and they came completely plastic free in their packaging:

I wish more things came like them in plastic free packaging.

One thing that I almost, somewhat regret not getting for the Easter baskets was compostable band-aids from Patch Bandages. My 4 year old figured out where the band-aids are kept, and the fact that he could reach them easily, and I kept coming across little piles of band-aids and wrappers for about 24 hours before I got wise and moved them.

It was so wasteful for him to be putting band-aids on no injury, but I can’t say it’s uncommon for a toddler. Or that I blame him. Plus there’s a part of me that wants to be selfish and get the Patch band-aids just to see how easily they compost. 🙂 And I wanted to use Easter as an excuse to buy them.

Still, Easter was a hit and my kids seemed to enjoy their goodies. Even if the majority came from Goodwill and bulk stores.

It feels good to get a post written again and I’m hoping to force myself to take the time to write again, no matter how tired I am.

Especially since I still have more things to discuss. And try out. Unfortunately, in the past week our water heater has officially called it quits. Yep, my house only has lukewarm water right now – until Thursday as a matter of fact. That should be fun….

However, we did decide to go for a tankless water heater and I’m excited to do a little more research into them and see if it really does save us on our electric bill. But more on that later.

Until next time…which better be tomorrow…it’s time to stop slacking…