Mooncup

Last month when I blogged about our decision to give up international air travel, I asked if there is anything that you have given up in order to live a more sustainable life.

One reader emailed to say that she had bought herself a menstrual cup because she wanted to stop using disposable sanitary products. This is something I have also been wanting to do.

I hate that the Australian Government has placed the GST on sanitary items because they are considered non-essential, and even though I compost my tampons I still hate the waste of having to buy new ones every single month.

I have a friend who uses a Mooncup, so I bought myself one too. I have used it for one period now. It's recommended you empty it every four hours or so, but I found myself emptying it more often because I couldn't wait to see how full it was. The cup has measurements on the side so you can see how much you're harvesting. I was actually surprised how little blood there was as my tampons are usually soaked through, especially on the second day, my heaviest. I was also surprised by the colour of the blood - a rich, dark colour that tampons usually make look paler.

Each time I emptied the Mooncup I tipped the blood into a jar of water in the bathroom cupboard, then at the end of the five days I poured the bloody mix onto the soil around our budding fruit trees.

Why should I wait till I'm dead so my innards can be of use to the Earth?

Having Less

Since I made the decision to try to be more and do less, I have been thinking about other ways I might be able to uncomplicate my life. I have never been a hoarder and I live in a house with an uncompromising lack of storage, but over the years I have managed to hold onto many an item that I figured I might need again one of these days.

On Saturday, Z's school had a garage sale and auction to raise money for furniture to fit out their recently renovated art room. It was the perfect excuse for me to go through my history of accumulations so as to pass onto new owners, that which I no longer need to possess.

How about you? Do you have any de-cluttering tips for me?

Bike Like

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

Thank you so much for joining me for Bike Week. I hope you ride safely, wherever you are.

Pushing Forward

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

Guest Blogger: ETG 3

Image from here.

I am an enormous fan of opportunity shops (thrift stores). I love them. If I am on foot when I pass one, I can’t go past it. You just never know what might be in there. And that’s the beauty of them: you just never know. You may find a treasure, you may find nothing. There’s no certainty. Shopping elsewhere, you can be fairly assured of what you’ll find, and security is certainly an important and necessary thing. But an opportunity shop…well, it provides you with opportunities. Can I use that? Can I wear that? Would that go with those red shoes of mine? What would I do with that?

And today was no exception. In amongst the faded Mills-and-Boons and the old Womens Weeklys, I spied Present Moment Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh. For $2! He is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and he is a great advocate of the principle of Mindfulness. For some time, I have been aware that there are some thought patterns and behaviours of mine which could do with, shall we say, a re-adjustment. As a result, I have been thinking a lot about different ways of seeing the world. The notion of Mindfulness has much that’s appealing to say on this topic but I have found it to be a difficult notion to define for myself, to understand in a way which provides me with a personal meaning for it and ways in which I can make it a part of my life. Even my GP said to me, “Mindfulness…yes. Very interesting. But I’ve often wondered—(his voice dropping to a bewildered whisper)—just what is it?”

Well, Thich Nhat Hanh sums it up beautifully. Certainly he talks about such important and complex topics as meditation practice, but he also brings Mindfulness to bear on washing the dishes, brushing your teeth, cleaning the bathroom, eating, throwing out the garbage and answering the phone. Be aware of each dish and the sensation of the warm water on your hands. Don’t make time spent doing housework unpleasant, being in a hurry to move on from it. Brush your teeth in preparation for a day of compassionate speech. Answer the phone with a smile and so sending that positivity to whoever is on the other end.

The profane is the sacred, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us. There is beauty and meaning in everything, not just in the extraordinary or the expensive. Treasure is everywhere, you just need to stop and look and take your opportunities as they present themselves.

Previously in the Land of Meg:

ETG guest blog 1

ETG guest blog 2

The Turtle

I was flicking through the photos on my phone this afternoon and found this. It was on the wall opposite the nurse's station in our local hospital. I snapped it during one of my visits to see PJ when he was in hospital with his chainsawed knee.

When I was growing up, my sisters and I called this pose The Turtle. One of us would get down on hands and knees while the other would jump up to reach a high place such as the cupboard where our parents hid the cooking chocolate.

PJ finished making this step yesterday morning. He made it out of the rocks I dug up from the garden two weeks ago.

When I first became comfortable with the prefix step in stepmother, I visualised myself as The Turtle. I spent the day today writing up my most recent stepmother interviews and every time I typed the word step, an image of this one came to mind.

Garden Bed

PJ's parents are staying with us this weekend, so we used their visit and the onset of sunny weather to have a pre-spring spring clean. We had three mattresses that were rather old and smelly so we cut them up. We used the wool from the futons as mulch along our east boundary

and when we've decided where to put this bed skeleton, we'll grow some kind of vine or cane up through it. Mmmm raspberries, maybe. Breakfast in bed??

What's Old is New Again

1 rainy day + some old toys + glue =

Another Woman's Treasure

Z is only allowed to watch movies on Sundays, so yesterday he and I sat on the couch and watched the 1957 classic Old Yeller. This is a screen-grab from the scene when the dad returns home after being away for weeks. After embracing and kissing his wife, he gives her a new pair of shoes and a dress he has bought her as a gift. She was almost as happy with her new outfit as she was to see her man. I felt a little giddy in the same way today.

This is my friend Elle's deck at 1pm, where she had invited a dozen women for a clothing swap meet. I took two bags of tops and shoes and pants and dresses I have been meaning to get rid of for ages.

Clothes! Women! I called out in excitement to PJ after kissing him goodbye. If the afternoon had been bastardised by Hollywood, we would have been portrayed as bitchy, greedy and shallow. But the real version of the day was simply beautiful.

There was much laughter at the garments some of us had brought and much amazement that some of us had held onto old fashions for so long. There were clothes whose histories could be traced from one of us to another, via everyone in between; handed down and garage saled and donated. There was much encouraging to try things on – this is your colour, this would suit your boobs, this would look great with that skirt. And there was much feeling pretty darn lucky that we live in such a community of women.

Rednesday: Truck

Rednesday: Earrings

These red can pull tabs have been a-hangin' from my ears since 2003. 

Kids I meet usually scream at me that I am wearing a can on the side of my face, while grown-ups ask me if I made them. I am never sure what this question means and usually answer: "If by 'make' you mean, was I drunk at a BBQ and did I pull them off some cans and stick them on my earrings, then yes, I did make them."

I like them because they are red, because I would much rather recycle up than recycle down, and because of the tinkly sound they make when I'm on my bike and coasting down a hill into the wind.

The Half-Parent

Firstly, a big thank you to the lovely Julia for seeing this book in an op-shop and buying it for me. The fact that Julia is a close friend of Z's mum makes the gesture feel particularly thoughtful.

In my quest to read as much as I can about stepparenting I thought I would give this book a go, though my hopes were not too high. This book was first published in 1975, when I was just a year old. I thought it would be dated and boring and have cobwebs between the paragraphs.

Boy oh boy was I mistaken! Maddox was a journalist before she became a stepmother, so her research is empirical and her writing style is a perfect balance of objective editorial and engaged parental enquiry.

One of the many interesting things I learned (from page 35):

In English and American usage for about four hundred years, from 1440 until at least mid-nineteenth century, the term "mother-in-law" was often used to refer to a stepmother. Although such a meaning is now regarded as incorrect, it made literal sense. A stepmother was a mother "in law", that is, in canon law, by the fact of her marriage to a child's father.

Do I feel like I am half a parent to Z? No. Even though he lives with us for half the week, I still feel like his parent for all seven days, just as I'm sure his mum does.

Recently while we were in an op-shop, PJ found another copy of Maddox's book. I bought it to lend out to people, which I have already started doing, and so I could take this photo.

A half + a half = a whole, right?

Tins of Teas

These are the tins I have collected over the years to undertake the important job of safekeeping my tea. They are in order, from left to right, of the frequency I open them.

My daily tea is Pu-erh. When I first blogged about it eight months ago I was still a coffee drinker who occasionally flirted with loose leaves. Now I am a monogamous tea drinker who consumes between one and three cups a day made according to a loose version of George Orwell's tea manifesto.

Concealed within the Uncle Toby's oats tin is coincidentally Toby's Estate's Organic Refresh: peppermint, lemongrass and green tea. Because of the caffeine in the green tea I can't drink this too late in the afternoon so rather than risk a poor night's sleep I will steep a handful of peppermint from the garden.

The little Chinese tin is home to a black tea given to me by PJ's parents. In my haste to try the tea I ripped open the packet then threw it away. (The packet was orange as I recall.)

And finally on the right is a jasmine tea whose tin never ceases to make the corners of my eyes crinkle up with a smile because of the brand name: Phúc Long.

Self-Contained

One of the things I like about not having a TV is that we can self-program what we watch. We download and borrow films and are regularly given discs by friends (thanks Jiga!) full of random goodies we watch on one of our laptops.

I like buying second-hand things for the same reason. Op shops, markets and garage sales – I love them all. I love browsing through people's discarded things because you never know what you're going to find, or what's going to find you.

I found these coffee and sugar containers at two different op shops, several years apart. Although my style is by no means neat and tidy with everything catalogued and in its correct place, I just couldn't resist buying these oil and vinegar bottles at a trash and treasure market recently, because they match the jars exactly.

Sweet Smell of Success

My mum's friend Andrew, who has a book coming out this year called The Greatest Blogger in the World, has just launched his blog.

After a recent trip to the perfume counter of a department store to buy a gift, Andrew returned home with an abundance of fragrant sample cards that "smelt like girls". Perfect for DIY business cards and plant labels.

The Give and the Take

On the way to the train station in Melbourne last night, we passed by some people rummaging through a skip piled high with goods from a nearby church-run op shop. They found some old suitcases they were filling with their loot. The wastefulness was mind blowing; clothes, toys, books, office supplies, food, games – it was all thrown in.

What do charities do with their donations they no longer want? Donate them to landfill? Give them to another charity? Last night that was us. We found a laundry basket to fill and joined the others in their merriment and scavenging and disbelief that such goodies were freely available for the taking, to the takers.

Today we took part in another activity of abundance. For the second month in a row, a local winebar has provided the space for a harvest swap meet where gardeners are encouraged to bring their excess produce to swap. We took parsley and carrots and took home lettuce, chocolate mint and peaches, which we shared just now with friends on the deck in the gloaming.

Environmental Parties

Today marks the end of National Recycling Week. 

From Farmdoc:

Thomas L Friedman, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, labels events such as National Recycling Week, Walk Against Warming, and Earth Hour, as environmental parties – whereas what is really needed, what is essential and critical and vital, he says, is an environmental revolution.

In our household we are big recyclers, though it's not something we are huge advocates for. We believe more so in reducing our waste output. Living in the country our options are limited for things such as bulk buying and public transport, but we do our best.

Our best is not the best, but we are on our way. As is energy economist Joan Pick who has been on her way – only on foot – since 1973.

Since then she has run or walked approximately 217,929 kilometers - the equivalent of nearly five and a half times round the world.

She said: "Some people criticise me by saying I ought to get out more but that's one thing you can't say about me - I'm out all the time!"

Neck Laced

Three days ago I wrote about the found necklace I was wearing. That same day, the plumbers who came to hook up our water tank left behind some clear plastic tubing that I cut up and threaded with some red string.

Redar

I rode my bike past this red grid the other day that I had to dismount to pick up. It's usually to fill my basket with gleaned fruit that I stop, not discarded bits of plastic.

I like red things. I like red things for lots and lots of reasons. And have done so for almost a decade. One of these reasons is as a means to filter because the world is just so big. Someone once called it a redar, like a radar, but only for red things.

My mum has come to stay for a couple of days. We walked through the bush first thing then read and wrote for the majority of the day. The plumbers came to hook up our water tank and we walked to a nearby trash, treasure and collectibles market, where I once again noticed how I notice.

I notice red. It doesn't matter what: sparkly shoes, capsicum, olive oil tins, tattoos and forsaken bits of rubbish I can wear around my neck.

Let Me Count the Ways

When new emissions regulations forced the village of Kamikatsu, in south-west Japan, to shut down its two incinerators, it had to change the way it managed its waste.

"We were no longer able to burn our rubbish, so we thought the best policy was not to produce any in the first place," said Sonoe Fujii of the village's Zero Waste Academy.

In 2003, the villagers made a declaration that their town would be Japan's first zero waste community.

In Kamikatsu, household waste must be separated into no fewer than 34 categories before being taken to a recycling centre where volunteers administer firm, but polite, reprimands to anyone who forgets to remove the lid from a plastic bottle or rinse out an empty beer can.

"We're still some way from reaching our zero waste goal, but the difference is amazing compared with a few years ago," said Yasuo Goto, a 75-year-old retired farmer who works part-time as a caretaker at the centre.

You can read more here, if you like. (Thanks for the link, Ian!)