Category: life

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WNC Repair Cafe

We drove to the other side of Asheville to attend a BBQ at our friends place who we lived with at Earthaven a few years back – and as people joined the party, we kept hearing about this family who would be there soon who also lived in a small town Northwest of Asheville. I was excited to meet them. Then, down to the lake walks Dan Hettinger, who I filmed an interview with a few months earlier about the Repair Cafe he launched in Asheville.

We got to meet his partner and two kids and bonded over our interest in of ecovillages and repair culture. Eventually, after our move to Michigan and resettling, I was able to finish putting what I learned about the repair cafe movement together into a little feature.

The Life-Changing Magic of Soap Nuts

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When I was pregnant I got a few gems of advice from my friends who had already had kids. This is how I found out about the life-changing magic of soap nuts.

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How had I never heard of this amazing nut that is essential tide pods that grow on trees? While Anna has imparted much wisdom to me over the years – this one is the most tangible. We were already trying to find ways to make the switch to natural cleaning but were intimidated by making our own soaps and jaded by the clever world of “natural” cleaning product marketing.

Soap nuts (also known as soap berries) are native to India so being on this side of the world didn’t make it harder to source them, in fact it probably make it easier – and definitely cheaper! For $9 US, I bought a bag of soap nuts that lasted us from the week before she was born to 9 months old – that’s a ton of laundry, since we used them for our typical washing needs but also a constant flow of dirty diapers. Continue reading “The Life-Changing Magic of Soap Nuts” →

Building a Village

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Bunmi Laditan’s article, “I miss the village” came out before we had a baby, but it recently resurfaced and no doubt struck a chord with a new generation of parents – or at least with me. When we lived in the US, we didn’t have kids but most of our friends did. We were part of a circle of people that were trying to live in a modern version of community – spread out in typical urban fashion, but interconnected and supportive. To myself as a childless person who felt like my life had no margin and kids would never fit, these friends made having kids look kind of possible. Continue reading “Building a Village” →

Attack of the Aphids

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A lot of our garden experiments are in a waiting phase right now. The moringa is almost ready to start clipping from, which will be a great reintroduction to our lives since at our old house we had four huge plants in our tiny 20sq’ yard that we could eat off of daily. Most mornings we had fried eggs and moringa – fresh from the backyard. Right now we have a few herbs like mint, thai and sweet basil, and fennel that are going strong and we need to get in a better habit of using. But the pumpkin and cucumber are still slowly sprawling out, the cherry tomatoes aren’t quite blooming yet, and the leafy greens have gone to seed. A lot of these things we planted early just to see what would take during the monsoon and I think their progress is slow and steady because they rarely have a chance to dry out and breathe a little. But even in the past two nights, we’ve noticed a temperature drop in anticipation of cool season – a great growing time in Thailand.

But the yard long beans have been abundant for the last month. Non-stop green beans. Yesterday morning I went out to pick more and noticed a strange clumpy dirt gathered on a lot of them. Continue reading “Attack of the Aphids” →

Observable Benefits of Plastic-Free July

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We are on the tail end of Plastic-Free July. Tory was reflecting on how he was initially cynical about the experiment and worried it would turn me off to environmentally beneficial endeavours in the long term. As we’ve mentioned before, there are many ways to work around plastic free July without truly removing plastic. We were nervous about the scarcity would give us a bad taste towards environmentalism but we’re within a week of the end and it hasn’t really felt that way. We’re missing the quick-meal convenience of prepackaged pasta and bread and we both felt pretty passionate about the paper-wrapped chocolate bar we got at the grocery store the other day, but overall, we’ve brought our own bags and cups, found alternatives, DIY-ed new things, and started making local veggie markets and nearby farms our go-to grocery shopping stops.

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Continue reading “Observable Benefits of Plastic-Free July” →

Plastic Free July: Week 1

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One week has passed since we decided to get on board with Plastic Free July. So far, adhering to the rules of no plastic has been relatively easy. We have both had a few slip-ups and oversights. Mainly straws. We really like going out for drinks, but straws have so subtly worked their way into our unconscious brain that I just reached for my straw that was kindly omitted from my drink and had a mental glitch when there was nothing there. It is estimated that Americans consume 500,000 straws  every day that is more than one per person in the US every single day. I do not mean to rant about straws, just illustrate my first point: just how subtly plastic has made its way into every part of our life. Continue reading “Plastic Free July: Week 1” →

Gearing up for Plastic-Free July in Chiang Mai

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How do we end up finding ourselves surrounded by so much disposable plastic?
…plastic grocery bags because we made an unplanned trip to the store, plastic packaging for the imported food we love, plastic cups and straws because even though we order drinks “for here” it sometimes still comes in a to-go cup, little plastic bags because some food at the market is pre-bagged, another landfill offender- styrofoam – because we wanted take out, an iced tea made in a plastic bag, inside a paper bag, and then put into another plastic bag with handles for carrying… it goes on.

Thailand has become entrenched in plastic and so have our lives. Our family has made small changes over the few years and yet it still seeps in constantly. So when we heard about Plastic-Free July, we were impressed and a little uncomfortable – we wanted to do it but we were (and are) worried about the things we’ll have to give up. Continue reading “Gearing up for Plastic-Free July in Chiang Mai” →

MIP of our Road Trip: My Social Skills

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Before we left for our Canadian road trip, I was curious what kind of growth would emerge. We definitely expected to have some clarity on whether we might want to live there in the future and I think there’s potential for sure, though we’re still getting our feet back under us here in Thailand where we’ll be for the next 10 months. We also had an idea of how much Cam would change between 9 months old when we left and almost a year old when we got back. And I suspect I am more connected to the earth now since we spent a lot of time in nature. But the Most Improved Player on this trip is my social skills. As an Enneagram 4, Continue reading “MIP of our Road Trip: My Social Skills” →

Back Home.

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I’ve sweat more in the last two hours than the last two months combined. But I’m home. I got the scooter tuned up, topped up my Thai cell phone, got an hour of back massage and bought all the fruit I could carry. Cam is reunited with the neighbor’s dog so she is happy as can be. Tory is extending the travel with a work trip he left on immediately after our arrival so we are looking forward to settling in all together later this week.
Continue reading “Back Home.” →

A Little Sunshine Goes a Long Way

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We finally broke through the persistent clouds and rain and had a bright sunny day on our Vancouver Island adventure. It was a transition day, which seems appropriate, but we weren’t moving far, so we slowly packed up in the morning and said goodbye to family who had joined us for the week. Then we had lunch at a farm-to-table restaurant (or table-on-farm because it was all right there) and hung out on their property for a little while, chatting with the farmers and locals and playing with Cam. The food was amazing and so fresh and the people were so passionate and friendly. Continue reading “A Little Sunshine Goes a Long Way” →