A Year Without "Made in China" Review

After the tea ball experience, I find it fitting to give my opinion of the book,  A Year Without "Made in China" by: Sara Bongiorni.  The author writes about her New Year's Resolution to not purchase any products made in China for an entire year.  I won't give a full review of the book, for reasons of keeping this short, but I felt the book lacked substance.  I am a cynic by nature but the book really started to piss me off!

The book went from one item to another that needed replacing, and the author's struggles with finding replacements not made in China.  The author also focuses the book a lot on gifts to her children.  What the book completely missed was the re-evaluation of how much "stuff" we really need.  Not once does the author consider purchasing a product used or even foregoing the physical gift and giving the gift of experience for someone.  For example, the author's husband wants to purchase a blow-up pool for their son's birthday.  What about using the local pool or looking for a used pool at a garage sale, second-hand store, or Craigslist?  A simple example of reuse is birthday candles. At one point in the book, the author cons her sister into bringing birthday candles to her husband's birthday party because all birthday candles are made in China. She clearly violated the boycott, but then she turns around and throws them away and later uses tea lites for her daughter's birthday because tea lites aren't made in China.  What about reusing the candles----eliminate the waste?!  I have used the same birthday candles for 5 years now and they still have plenty of use left in them.

I was flabbergasted at the sheer amount of gifts the author's children receive throughout the year.  Again, it comes down to values and giving kids toys for everything which only sets the expectation of more toy giving.  It's that word again, STUFF.  How about the author take her children to the Zoo, park, swimming pool, or treat them with ice cream?  Why must she belabor the Made in China products when she's in the store trying to find Halloween decorations, when there are probably fresh pumpkins outside of retail stores and grocery stores in her area?

What about finding alternatives for things and use your creativity?  For example, the author hims and haws over the lack of beach toys her children have at the beach and then proceeds to steal all of the "forgotten" beach toys left on the sand when families leave.  How about using other containers (e.g. yogurt tubs, ice cream pails, etc.) that produce the same or similar effect even if they aren't brightly colored with star fish imprinted on the sides?

Has our ability to be creative in gift giving completely diminished?  Giving the gift of experience has so much more meaning and memories than a plastic figurine, whether it comes from China or not.  I understand that the book was trying to make a point about China globalization, but the book could have had more substance if it evaluated Americans' attachment to stuff; and how we can get the same quality of happiness without all that stuff.   Think of how much time the author spent researching and fretting about trying to find non made in china stuff that could have been directed towards time with her children, volunteering in the community, etc.

Bee Blues

It's a depressing day for me.  I don't know where to begin?  Should I mention that I was in the ER until the wee hours of the morning with my son who has an ear infection, or the fact that Jon is in Seattle for a conference and left me in charge of holding down the fort?  I am physically and emotionally drained but decide to conduct hive checks today because the weather is warm and sunny and I haven't seen any bees out flying the past few weeks.  Even in the winter, bees must go outside the hive because they have to relieve themselves; these are called "cleansing flights."

I hefted the hives a few days ago and couldn't tell if they were light or heavy, because after all, this is my first year keeping bees.  The weight of the hives should give you some indication about how much honey is in the hives.  So, I get all suited up and collect my extra frames of honey that the bees produced in excess last summer that I stored for the coming spring.  I plan to add the extra frames to ensure they have enough food until the fruit blossoms come.  I wedge my hive tool between the cover board and the first box.  The box snaps and creaks from the hardened propolis.  I look inside and find plenty of honey stores but no bees.  I repeat this procedure with the second hive and get the same results.  My shoulders slump and I unzip the head netting from my suit.  I immediately thought about the cold snap in early January when we had temperatures below freezing with strong East winds for almost a solid week.  Towards the end of that "snap," Jon mentioned that we should have put up a wind break for the hives to protect them from the cold strong wind.  I nodded in approval.  That must have been the demise of the bees because there was plenty of food inside each hive and I couldn't find any sign of disease.  In one hive I found a closely knit cluster of dead bees with no honey stores in their vicinity.  I shook off the top bees in this cluster to find the butts of bees sticking out of the honeycomb. These poor bees were at the bottom of their barrels getting every remaining drop of honey.  I remember reading in bee books that bees will starve within inches of food if the hive gets cold enough and the bees can't move.

For several weeks I have been worried that Jon had portended correctly about the lack of a windbreak, so I would try and hear if there were bees inside by suctioning my ear to one of the boxes and listen for the faint hum coming from within the hive.  For 2 weeks I swear I have been hearing that hum and imagining a little cluster of bees keeping each other warm and gorging on the fruits of their labor!  I have been mistaking what I was hearing all along.  I felt duped like I was listening to the ocean through a conch!  It's a bit depressing to lose my beehives before I could experience the full lifecycle of a colony of bees.  I will not give up though and must forge ahead to this new season coming up!  I will continue to network with other bee folks and hopefully catch a swarm this spring!

A cup of tea anyone?

Jon and I have challenged ourselves to only purchase products made in the USA unless the product is used from a garage sale or a second-hand store.  This is quite the challenge and we've already hit a brick wall searching for our first item: a tea ball.  Such a simple item, but yet very elusive!  I have spent at least two hours calling local stores that claim to sell only local items in addition to online searches.  This is the only tea infuser I could find that is Made in the USA: http://www.plymouthtea.com/tobyteaboy.html  I am a bit disappointed because it is made of plastic, and pouring hot water over plastic just goes against my efforts to use less petroleum-based products.

Until recently, I purchased tea in the individual packets that came in a shrink-wrapped box.  Recently, while shopping in the bulk foods department, I discovered I could purchase individual packets of local tea rather than packets of tea shrink-wrapped in a box.  I made the switch to purchasing the individual packets thinking that I was making a better choice because of the reduced packaging.  While sipping my cup of chai one evening, I thought, "Duh...why not make tea directly from the herbs and avoid the packaging all together?  Better yet, why not expand my herb garden to include more of the herbs?"  I felt somewhat silly that I hadn't thought of this years ago.  Herbs I don't grow can be purchased at the grocery store in the bulk section.  So...this is where the dilemma of the tea ball came in.  A simple small strainer will do too.  Tea anyone?

Update February 2011:  A close friend and confidant, read my blog and exclaimed, "I have a tea ball for you!"  Whew!  What a relief---I was ready to throw out the towel on this one and hope to stumble across one at a garage sale.  I made my first batch of homemade chai last weekend and it turned out pretty good.  Once I have the recipe perfected though, I'll post it... 

Poly-Toxic What?!

Today I applied the second and final coat of polyurethane to Paul's first "big boy" bed.  Jon and I have made almost all of the furniture in our home so I have applied gallons of this polyurethane.  Since the urethane is oil-based, I have always used the foam brushes.  Sadly, I used these cheap throw away brushes because years ago when we first started this hobby, Jon and I had very little extra cash, and the foam brushes were cheap, convenient, and didn't require mineral spirits for clean up.  At the start of this project I decided to break that habit of using the foam brushes and purchase a durable, reusable brush.  I was a bit hesitant to spend the $10.00 on a single brush compared to the $.28 foam brush, but I bit the bullet and purchased it.  I was apprehensive because I didn't feel confident enough to clean the brush properly so it could be used again.  Thankfully we already had a can of mineral spirits at home that I could use.

So...I'm brushing the first coat feeling good about my new brush choice, until I started thinking about the polyurethane.  I stopped mid-stroke with my gloves all sticky, my breathing mask starting to loosen, as polyurethane dripped off the brush onto the sheet below..."what is this polyurethane anyway?!"  These are the thoughts that went racing through my head at that moment:
-I have to wear a breathing mask because the fumes are toxic...
-The bed will be left in the garage for at least a month so it can "cure and air out" so it's not off-gassing in my son's bedroom...
-I have to use Mineral Spirits (whatever that is) to clean the brush...
-Mineral Spirits is considered hazardous waste so I have to store it until the next hazardous waste pickup happens, whenever that is...
-I need to keep the used Mineral Spirits in a separate container so I am expanding my "shrine" of chemicals that I am storing in the garage, and who knows if those are all sealed 100%...
-What's in the polyurethane and mineral spirits; how are those chemicals extracted; what environmental impacts are there when making these products...
-I can't recycle an empty polyurethane can because of the chemical residue so it ends up in the landfill even though the can is recyclable material...
-If I'm not supposed to breathe the fumes, what about my eyes & skin---are they "taking in" these toxins...

I took a shallow breath in the mask and was relieved to find that I only have enough polyurethane for this one project which means there won't be leftovers!  I have officially decided that a more environmentally safe product will be used on the next project.  Finding out what that product is exactly will require a bit of research, but I'm up for the challenge.  And hey, who knows, maybe I can make my own product!!

Christmas Blues

Yesterday and today I cleaned up the gift opening chaos...packaging material.  Such a dreaded but necessary task in every household at this time of year.  Each year I get depressed while breaking down boxes, removing packaging tape, folding tissue paper for reuse later on, registering products for warranties, salvaging bows and ribbons, folding gift bags, and removing all of those small plastic fasteners and twisty ties.  Keep in mind that we live in Oregon and our families live in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  About 95% of our gifts are shipped here so we're certainly going to have a lot more packaging than others.  Here is a snapshot of some of the packaging, but there is a lot more!  Many of the gifts we receive are directly shipped from stores but we don't bother wrapping them in colorful paper.  While this picture may show a lot, what you don't see are all of the popped plastic pillows and the amount of wrapping paper that is crammed in that one box.  We still haven't removed all of our presents from their original packaging, and we're still waiting to receive some gifts in the mail.  If all of the holiday packaging material was in one pile, it would most likely be twice this much.  *sigh*

Years ago I would have felt okay recycling everything---even all of those tiny plastic fasteners used on almost all kids' toys.  How exciting---no waste!!!!  So I would pat myself on the back while I placed the cardboard at the curb and the plastic bits in containers to take to the recycling center.  My perceptions have changed so much since then.  Now I look at this pile and shake my head.  We are a family of 3 who take the time to sort everything and recycle it.  I can't help but wonder how many families don't recycle.  Recycling is the smallest portion of this equation too.  What about the lifecycle of this material?  And then there's the whole topic of excess packaging in general!  And what about the transportation impacts with making the products and mailing them to our home?  And do I want to even touch the topic of need vs. want?

I go in circles thinking about this system of waste that has been created.  How can I get out of it?  Well, that's quite the challenge.  Too much to reflect on for this entry.

And now it begins...

After much poking and prodding from my husband & friends, I am beginning this blog.  This blog is about living simply and using what we have efficiently.  There are no step by step instructions on how to live a simple life, it is a journey that requires a lot of observation, critical thinking, and willingness to change habits.  My aim in life is to live a happy and fulfilling life without stomping all over the natural environment.  I currently live in the city on a medium size lot of about 7,000 sq. feet with my husband, 2 year old son, a cat, and 2 beehives.  Routinely I am asking myself what I can do without and how to get the same quality of life by using less.  As disposable things run out in our household, I make a conscious decision on whether to replace the item, and if it needs replacing, the most efficient and environmentally responsible choice.  Thinking in these terms takes training.  I may be shy of 28 years old, but I have years of mindless consumerism conditioned into my brain.  I am the first to admit that I am a hypocrite and not on a straight path.  I regress into old ways at times, but find myself steering back in the right direction when I see something on a daily walk, have a thought-provoking discussion with a friend, read a pamphlet or article about an environmental topic, or by my husband nudging me with the next "project."  I hope whoever reads this, finds the posts insightful as well as entertaining.