Finally: Book 2

I finally finished reading the first book of my read-a-thon on Christmas day. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it has certainly piqued my interest in philosophy.

My second book is:
"Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction."
Edward Craig

(Thanks for pointing me in the direction of this series Mel and Brett.)

Actually I started this book a while ago. I have a habit (I won't call it a bad one) of starting a new book before finishing the first. Unfortunately it often results in me not finishing the first book - but not this time!!

It is in a very different style and it is much easier to just sit, read and absorb. I don't feel the need to reach for my notepad and pen with this one. I highly recommend it as great place to start reading about this subject.

Christmas Baking

I just love Christmas. I get all carried away with the little details like hanging Christmas lights and wrapping presents. And I love the anticipation that builds up to the special day.

I especially enjoy preparing Christmas food. I guess that could partly just be because I love food in general! Here are a few pictures of my Christmas baking this year. I got the recipe for the luscious cake from a friend. She got it from a fundraising cookbook. It is called "Princess Marina's Wedding Cake in Miniature". How quaint! (Of course I googled Princess Marina.)

Supermarket Splurge.

I went to the supermarket yesterday for the first time for over 7 weeks.

I had already been all over Rangiora (the town where we live) yesterday sourcing all the bits and pieces required for the special Christmas meals I have planned and stocking up on a few other things.

I went to:
* The local fruit and veggie shop. I just love the luscious stone fruit at this time of year.
* Bin Inn, of course toting my own containers to fill
* The pet shop
* The Gingerbread House: a delightfully quaint lolly shop just off the main street
* The local bakery. Award winning bakery I might add.
* The local nursery who happened to have plants all on sale at 50% off due to a long closure for the holiday season. I picked up a few lovely bargains!
* And even The Warehouse: yes I know it is a big chain store but at least it is NZ owned and they sell the best cat litter.

I walked the length of both sides of High Street but still couldn't find the one particular thing that I really wanted to have on hand for the holidays: Ice cream!! Of course there were a few places selling by the scoop but no local businesses selling by the tub.

So I relented and went to the supermarket. I felt a little conflicted and was quite aware of the fact that no-one actually needs ice cream. But I went anyway. And unfortunately I got a little carried and bought 3 liters! Kilkenny's Maple Syrup and Walnut - unbelievably good. Cookie dough, and good old fashioned vanilla.

3 litres, 3 flavours, and only 3 people to consume them.

O the indulgences permitted in the name of Christmas!

A long way off target.

Well here we are in the middle of December already.

And I have read half way through the first book of my December non-fiction read-a-thon. Seems David's suggestion of aiming for one book was right on target!

In my defense, the time I have spent "in" my first book so far I could have finished it by now. But halfway through it I found that my head was already swimming with information and that it was subtlety leaking out. So I went back to the beginning with notebook and pen in hand and started making notes. Apparently I am still not one of those people who can learn just by reading. It certainly slows me up, but hey, at least I am learning.
:)

So far I am finding it really interesting and enjoyable. When I get the time I will post a few of the "take home messages" in a blog. Hopefully that will help to catalog the information in my brain and improve my chances of retaining it.

Fortunately I do have quite a bit of time off over Christmas so there is still a chance (slim though it may seem) that I will successfully complete this challenge.

Now, first things first, it is time to watch a Survivor season finale! Love that show. But that is a whole separate blog in itself.

The History of Philosophy

After a trip to the local library on Tuesday I came home armed with a few introductory philosophy books. I have decided to start with this one:

"History of Philosophy" by Martyn Oliver. Informative yet relatively simple, very easy to read, generally chronological and lots of beautiful illustrations.

It has been a bit of a busy week so I have not read much yet. But the plan is to sit down with a cup of tea this afternoon and absorb some information!

That is, after I have finished making Christmas presents, wrapped them, written cards and visited the post office to send off the fun little packages to family in Perth.

The worst part of my job

Giving bad news.

:(

December: Non Fiction Read-a-thon

I have toyed with a few ideas for my December challenge to myself. I finally decided a few days ago that I was going to set myself a goal of reading 4 non-fiction books. When I mentioned this to my husband he suggested that perhaps a more realistic goal would be 1 non-fiction book. I am sure he meant it as a helpful suggestion. Hmm, he knows me to well!

I have a bad habit of intending to read non-fiction, and sometimes starting to read non-fiction, but rarely actually completing a book of non-fiction. So much easier to curl up with an engrossing novel after work than to apply my mind to concepts, arguments and critical thinking. Blatant mental laziness!

So here goes. I am aiming to read 4 books, even if just to try and prove my husband wrong in his estimation of my reading stick-ability (yes I am a bit stubborn and competitive). I have a bunch of writers and subjects in mind so the first step in the challenge will be choosing what to read first.

Now that's a real challenge!

There is only 5 days left until our November "Supermarket free" challenge is over. Am I going to go back to mindlessly shopping at the supermarket once it is over? Certainly not! Now that I have seen how easy it is to avoid the hectic, spend-more, consume-more, waste-more, want-more supermarket I am going to keep on keeping away from it.

I have found it so helpful to have this challenge that I have decided to set myself another one for December. I have a few ideas in mind but I can say pretty certainly that I am not ready to take on the challenge that Matthew and Waveney of Christchurch NZ set for themselves:

"The challenge is for our household to create no rubbish for the landfill from 1st February 2008 to 1st February 2009. However it is very likely that, despite our best efforts, some rubbish will be unavoidable. We challenge ourselves to keep this in no more than one official council rubbish bag."

Wow, now that is a MUCH bigger challenge! You can check it out including Waveney's blog at
http://www.rubbishfreeyear.co.nz/index.php

On the home page Waveney writes:
"The thing that I find fascinating is how people like Matthew and myself could be both informed and concerned yet do relatively little. Why did we prefer guilt to radical behaviour changes?"

I can identify with her question and know that David and I have in too many ways accustomed ourselves to the guilt rather than making the radical behaviour changes that we know are needed to live ethically and sustainably.

Although I don't feel ready to set a similar challenge for myself I have been making a big effort to reduce our landfill rubbish this month with some success. Shopping at Bin Inn has made it pretty simple (although just a little more time consuming) because taking in my own containers to fill means no packaging. But there is much more that I could be doing/changing. So why don't I?

November Challenge Update

I have had a few people ask how the Supermarket Free Challenge is going. So here is an update.

Well, not going to the supermarket at all in the last 16 days has been really nice. No queues at the checkout, no "This weeks specials" to con me into buying stuff I don't need, no nasty trolleys that don't go were I want to go, less impulse buying (how did that packet of Tim Tam's get into my trolley?), and no near misses in the car park.


The vendors I have been visiting instead:
* Bin Inn - how fabulous! This week I got more organised and went in with two shopping bags (reusable of course) full of my empty containers, including 2 empty cleaning product containers. The lovely lady at the checkout cheerfully weighed and marked all my empty containers for me before I filled them. And the friendly, hard-working owner of the store paused in his sweeping to stop and chat while I filled my olive oil bottle.
* Organic Fruit and Veg - Yum, we had the most delicious pumpkin ever - no exaggeration. But certainly $$ and is perhaps out of reach of the average household budget.
* Local (non-organic) fruit and veg shop - excellent. They also stock milk, butter, and yogurt from a local dairy. The butter is the most novel. It comes as a blob wrapped in a bit of gladwrap and it is so creamy and delicious that I am nervous about our cholesterol!

So overall it is going really well and has not taken much effort at all. The only downside is that we have had to be more organised. No more saying at around 7pm, "what shall we have for dinner?", then popping down to the local supermarket (open 8am-10m 363 days per year). Instead we have to plan ahead, or just make-do with what is in the cupboard.

Also, the challenge was the final impetus I needed to start blogging, as it gave me something to write about for my first post. So that's kinda a good thing to. :)

It Started with Tulips

The first time I really got excited about gardening was in September this year. I had planted some tulip bulbs in August - that's 2 months later than recommended. And yet just one month later the little darlings started poking their pointy heads through the earth. My facebook status on 6th September read: " Mandy has 15 tulips (and counting) poking their little heads up in her garden." I was completely enraptured and for weeks the first thing I did every morning was visit my tulips. By mid October we had a wonderful bed of 39 beautiful blooming tulips.

Watching the progression from planting, breaking through the soil to full bloom was really fun and has fueled my gardening passion. Now my gardening interests have moved to something a little more useful i.e. food production. Outside we tomatoes, beans, capsicum, chillies, carrots, broccoli, snow peas and spring onions on the go. We are still prepping the areas to plant corn, potatoes, lettuce and who knows what else.

But the thing that has me really excited today is my kitchen windowsill herbs. The photo you see is the basil energetically appearing through the (bit-too-lumpy) potting mix yesterday. An overnight transformation! And each time I checked on them through the day yesterday I
could see new little fellows emerging. This morning the new development is a hint of a greet shoot in the coriander pot. So exciting!

Inspired by an article in a Burke's Backyard mag that I borrowed from the local library, the plan is to have a constant supply of fresh baby herbs ready for use. The article described the use of fresh baby herbs, rather than waiting for the plant to grow to maturity. This way it is only 2-3 weeks (depending on the plant) from sowing to reaping. Tasty, fun and does not require much patience at all :)

NZ Election Synopsis (Ranting from someone who knows very little about Politics.)

A friend (a kiwi living in Aus - like so many other kiwis) asked me on Saturday:

"How's the election going - the kiwi one I mean."

As I have a bit of a lazy streak, here is the answer I wrote on Sunday, cut and pasted (saves me writing it again)

"Sorry didn't see your question till just now. Guess you've heard the outcome, but here is my synopsis anyway: NZ has voted for "change" so we now have a National gov. They didn't get my vote, a little right for my liking, but Key seems like a fairly earnest, reasonable and intelligent guy so hopefully he will prove himself to be a worthy leader and not take us too far to the right. What has ticked me off is that they have formed government with the ACT party - a rather right, red necked, narrow-minded, thoroughly stupid party whose main platform was "Zero-tolerance for crime". Also they don't seem to believe in global warming. Their other main election platform was "our country can't afford to support Kyoto*". Gave me a sense of foreboding when I heard that Key was forming his gov with them, esp as the Greens had indicated they would aim to work with whoever formed gov. One good thing - Winston Peters is out!! He lost his seat and his party NZ First did not reach the 5% threshold."

"PS - MMP is an interesting system. Does it adequately balance out the other kiwi political quirk of only having one house? Maybe. Also, apparently Key is "willing to talk" to the Maori party too, so maybe the ACT party will get shafted - that would certainly elevate Key and his party in my opinion."

So how has John Key taken to his new position since then? I have been proven naive (again) by daring to hope that he might draw in the Maori party and leave ACT with their ridiculous policies high and dry (hmmm, which is quite opposite to what many of our descendants will be if all world leaders take ACT's approach to global warming).

So now we will wait and see just how centre John Key's "centre right" government is going to be. Not very centre if ACT gets there way and unfortunately I don't think that the emmisions trading scheme is going to be a deal breaker between ACT and national. Interesting that a party that shouts long and hard for reduced government spending wants to spend million more dollars incarcerating people and keeping them there for life.

I received an email from a friend yesterday (different friend, proving I have more than one) who asked me, undoubtedly with tongue in cheek:

"Well, now that NZ has moved to the right, and Australia has got rid of the Liberal Party, is it time to move back home?"

Hmm.


* That should have read "emissions trading scheme" but you get the picture)

30kg less waste per year!

The "No Junk Mail" sticker is working out really well.

It is so refreshing to be able to go to the letter box and come back without a pile of advertising. And, if stats from the North Shore City Council can be extrapolated to my region, it seems our home will save more than 30kg waste per year. Check out the link below if you are interested.
www.northshorecity.govt.nz/PDFs/WasteMinimisationPDF/Reducing-Junk-Mail-in-North-Shore.pdf

In the study the households received on average 3.65kg of junk mail per month! The trial was done in 2005 and my guess would be that junk mail has increased since then. The main offenders were real estate agents, The Warehouse and supermarkets - no surprises there!

Aren't we already bombarded with enough advertising everyday without willingly bringing more into our homes?

I guess I already knew that junk mail was a waste but I had not really thought about the global implications. For example, every year 100 million trees are cut down to produce junk mail. And of course the transport, paper production process, printing, distribution, recycling and landfill all contribute to the carbon footprint. Check out the links below for some frightening stats.

http://donotmail.org/article.php?list=type&type=3

This week we have still be receiving the local papers. Some sneaky advertisers have cottoned-on are still burdening me with their rubbish by getting it slipped into the local papers. I do think that the community paper serves a purpose. However, I hardly ever read it (gasp). So my next very simple project to help save the planet is to put a "No circulars" sign on our letter box also.

Wow, I feel like a save-the-earth superhero.

No Junk Mail Please

Today I put a "No Junk Mail" sign on our letter box.

Hooray - no more junk mail!

What a waste all these glossy, colour, advertising leaflets are. Trying to sell us food we don't eat and stuff we don't need. So many things that we can't afford - financially or ethically.

I wonder how many households in my area would need to go junk-mail-free before the the companies responsible would stop delivering this junk? And how many households nation-wide and world-wide would need to take this stand before junk mail disappeared altogether?

November: Supermarket Free Zone

My husband David had an idea yesterday that went something like this: "Lets not go to the supermarket anymore".

The idea seemed a bit extreme at first and I immediately started thinking about all the reasons why I NEED to go to the supermarket. But actually, I don't need to. So I agreed and we made a pact. Our challenge to ourselves:

* No shopping in supermarkets at all for the month of November *

Why? Well it should help to move us towards a few goals that we have talked about for years but for some reason we have avoided doing much about. Apparently our good intentions have done very little so we are going to try shocking ourselves into action instead.

Staying out of the supermarkets should help us to:
- Stay motivated with growing our own fruit and veggies
- Eat more organic food
- Eat more "whole foods"
- Eat less prepackaged convenience foods with their high fat/sugar/salt content, low nutrition and mysterious additives
- Generate less waste
- Support local small business
- Avoid contributing to our consumerist culture and giving money to greedy, unethical businesses

I am sure we can do this, and I don't think it is going to be hard at all.

So now I am off to the organic fruit and veg shop down the road, then to Bin-Inn to buy some lentils, nuts etc. Then its home to don my trusty gardening gloves and dig in some more compost. Sounds like a wonderful adventure! Why didn't we commit to doing this before?