How is the New Year been so far for you? As crazy as here? My daughter lost my wallet yesterday, just to name one issue.
We had the Law Enforcement Agent from the city of Kitchener in yesterday to look at our windows. We heat very little (20 C is all we need) and the winter has been mild so far but with these windows we'd be heating the outdoors too. And they are wet and we get mould that I am sure was here before they painted the walls before our move in. The management sees nothing wrong in the windows because they are cheap and don't care but hopefully the agent can help us sort the issue.
Today we finally got our organic box back. I'm so glad because our fridge and obviously we have been starved of organic produce during most of the holidays. Eating has just gotten better again. For Christmas I got a small food processor and now we even make our own sugar and salt-free organic peanut butter. Yum!
My most recent project was to sand off and paint the sturdiest chair in out apartment. It's a zebra now! Beautiful!! It's a unique chair now more than ever, we never had a match to it any way since it was given to us by family together with a dinner table and three chairs (they had broken one). But we don't need four ordinary chairs at the table because we have a high chair too so this fourth one adorns our living room. And it goes well with the rest of our black, white and dark green furniture. I also repainted the top of our coffee table that my husband redid over a year ago. He never sealed the top though so the paint kept chipping off. I put glaze on top, all good. I am still working on our former TV stand that has been turned into a play counter for our daughter. It's got a white base so far and large farm animal stickers around the side but I want to paint geometrical shapes still on top. Why buy new furniture if redecorating is so much more fun.
Makes me think about a change in career considering the slow job market for office admin/ tourism jobs here in KW. I have also taken up tutoring German and showing Cutco knives to whoever is interested. If you have read the article of David Suzuki that probably appeared in almost every paper in Canada on Christmas you know that these aren't the worst jobs and products. Services, contrary to manufacturing and mining, often do not harm the environment. Services generally do not produce (as much) carbon emissions, destroy landscapes and forests, pollute air & water. The article was great and I am sure I read something similar from him the year before - it needs constant reminders that we should not be so materialistic and wasteful. Did I mention that Cutco has a forever guanrantee? Cutco knives need very little resharpening (every 10 years or so) and the company does this for free for you forever. Cutco also takes back and recycles your old knives and therefore reduces a lot of waste. I could not sell anything I don't personally like but Cutco I do like not only from the environmental perspective.
Did you read the article of the UN advising people all over the world to stop consuming so many dairy and meat products in order to stop climate change? Super interesting too. Producing food for cows and Co. produces as much carbon emissions as burning fossil fuels for cars, industry and households. And it takes good food, grains etc. away from our tables. You know we already don't each much meat but still have quite a number of dairy products in our household such as milk for the child, yoghurt for mum & daughter, cheese for all. Not sure if our dairy consumption is below, above or at average with the rest of the population in Canada, Germany and elsewhere. Something would be missing without these dairy products in our household. Especially since we can't grow tropical fruits here which would be a nice replacement but other than that I can't even think of one. Maybe that's how lots of people think about replacing meat. Although I find lentils, grains, greens, vegetables, beans are around in such a variety that I have certainly as many options there as there is different cuts of meat.
Does any of your new year's resolutions help the environment?
Our daughter now uses the potty at home when she is wearing panties. I am so glad she got the hang of it now even though she has not learned yet how to pull her panties down but we'll get there. At least she fights having diapers put on which is understandable now that she is all proud to use that thing that her parents kept pushing under her bottom for quite a while. When we go out she is in cloth diapers and at night we have to use disposable. I can't squeeze enough layers around her and into her diaper cover to prevent her from soaking through. Only disposable will keep her dry.
We ate organic meat that we had actually purchased for the first time tonight. I can order from the same store that delivers the organic box and is does not even cost more than the supermarket stuff. Surely, it is the only organic meat we can afford right now. A roast of beef (around 1.5kg) costs $74. Organic ground beef is it for the next while or else we eat vegetarian and fish and thinking about it, salami and wieners from the European Import Store. Luckily I don't get there too often.
I love our balcony. It stores our bikes, I dry the laundry there and it's a great playground and place to catch a fresh breath of air when need be during any nerve-straining home activities. Looking out on the buildings car park, a line of tall trees and dead-end neighbourhood street and in the distance the city centre light pollution is so little that we can see the stars, when they happen to be around. I noticed neighbours drying their clothes on their balcony as well.
The car park with 70 spots is always half empty which we take as a good sign. There are about 46 units in the building. That means that not every unit has a car and most units defnitely do not own two cars.Talking about parking, the newly opened Waterloo Regional Museum has only built the minimum number of car parking spots required by law. Great, but they should have advertised this more before the Grand Opening today. Once the car park filled up drivers just put left their cars along both sides of the road despite the no-parking signs. The option to take a shuttle bus from the nearest mall was not well advertised either. We took a bus from home and then walked 2 km through a park to get there. Alternatively we could have taken two other buses and would have been gotten off 900 m from the museum. But the connection was so time-consuming it would have taken longer than the walk-option. If that's the nearest bus stop to the museum though arriving without a car will not appeal to many visitors.
The Organic Box sells organic milk from Saxby Foods, an Edmonton business. In its latest newsletter they list all the organic dairies the milk comes from as well as some of the standards of how the cows are fed. The Edmonton Journal recently had an article on Saxby Foods too which is quite interesting. For example, does Saxby Foods not only sell their organic milk (and soon other dairy products) via independent retailers such as the General Earth's Store they also sells through the Safeway brand O Organics. As much as I dislike Safeway for being just another huge chainstore, it is the closest supermarket we live to and knowing that this milk is from local farms and processed by a local creamery makes me somewhat more inclined to buy it. Being a wholesaler the milk is also less expensive compared to other stores, unfortunately.
In the newsletter I also hear from the infamous genetically modified crops again. Since most pasture crops are already contaminated with GMO farmers are currently fighting to keep GM alfalfa out of the country. Alfalfa is at the moment still a very important food for organic cattle. If it becomes GMO contaminated organic farmers might be forced into what they usually try to avoid: feed grain. Looking at the link to the Organic Alberta Association an article catches my eye immediately: Conservatives continue to block vote on moratorium on GM Alfalfa Of course it's the effing Conservatives who spoil it, quote: “Conservatives are trying to play both sides of this issue because they know farmers want GM alfalfa stopped, but Conservatives don’t want to cross Monsanto. Presumably, Conservatives delayed the vote so that an election could save them from having to take immediate action to stop GM alfalfa.”
Too bad I can't vote and I am not convinced yet that there's enough smart Canadians to not tick the C box but this is just unbelievable. How can they even think about pleasing Monsanto, at the same time putting a large part of the organic food industry at risk of survival. Eating anything non-organic seems already almost suicidal to me and with a growing demand for organic food one really hopes the turn will come and people stop buying crap food so farmers stop growing crap food, I mean food stuffed with toxins. This would also stop the contamination of our soil, water and air with all those toxic chemicals.
My most recent project was to sand off and paint the sturdiest chair in out apartment. It's a zebra now! Beautiful!! It's a unique chair now more than ever, we never had a match to it any way since it was given to us by family together with a dinner table and three chairs (they had broken one). But we don't need four ordinary chairs at the table because we have a high chair too so this fourth one adorns our living room. And it goes well with the rest of our black, white and dark green furniture. I also repainted the top of our coffee table that my husband redid over a year ago. He never sealed the top though so the paint kept chipping off. I put glaze on top, all good. I am still working on our former TV stand that has been turned into a play counter for our daughter. It's got a white base so far and large farm animal stickers around the side but I want to paint geometrical shapes still on top. Why buy new furniture if redecorating is so much more fun. 