One Step

Just a random thought we had today. Part of our ever advancing plan is to become more minimalist. But what is that? It seems some believe that means you live in a 1 room apartment where your bed doubles as your couch and your dining room table, and you wear 5 shirts on a rotation. To others not so much...

So as we were cleaning out what seems like years worth of stuff to sale, or toss, or donate, we started thinking. Is this “minimalism” or is it just spring cleaning (it’s really winter, there is actually snow in GA, again)? And once you get rid of all of your crap, isn’t the idea of being a minimalist to just buy less... well, crap?

Why does it have to be called “minimalism”? Why isn’t it just referred to as throw away all of your useless crap and stop buying new useless crap? Is the title of going “minimalistic” scaring away people who want to attempt it? Are they watching the Youtube videos of the extreme cases, relating it to the name and then thinking, “Yep no way I can live that life, minimalism isn’t for me...” 

Look folks, you don’t need to get rid of everything. You don’t need to live on 5 outfits or 2 pairs of shoes, or sell your car and ride a bicycle that you ride share on a snazzy new app. You just need to live simpler. You don’t need 15 pairs of shoes, you don’t need 8 phone cases, 6 watches, and an attic full of “memories” you have NEVER looked at since you put those oh so important items up there. Just look at what you use and keep it. Not sure if you can get rid of it? Tape a piece of paper to it, put it back up, and then next time you use it, make a mark on that paper. See how many marks you have on things in 6 months.

SO along the journey of this personal blog, we thought it would be great to take a minute and talk about us. We are married, living in Georgia, in our 30′s with 3 dogs and 2 careers. We both lived what most would consider the healthy lifestyle already, but we wanted more.

My wife and I worked out regularly, ate pretty healthy (aka very little junk food), and consumed things like alcohol and coffee in moderation, but we wanted more. I’ll dive into each of these in separate post but we started learning about eating plant based (notice I didn’t say vegetarian or vegan but to each his own!), we started researching benefits of natural things like coconut oil and turmeric, and we explored yoga and mediation deeper than we had previously. We have been actively practicing all of those together for over a year now! 

Now we wish to step into living with less chemicals, or less things (minimalism) for this year as we continue to expand on what we have already learned and done. And that’s the point of this blog, to continue to document our growth for others. I hear it all the time at work that someone wants to do X like my wife and I but they don’t know where to start. I describe to them our process of going plant based. We researched, saved recipes, and vowed to eat meatless one day a week. Soon, it became we only ate meat at dinner, and not long after that, meat became the rare treat that we have it as today. But it all started with consuming 3 meals, 1 day a week without meat. Heck you probably don’t even realize how close you are to eating with less meat. What do you eat for breakfast most mornings? Cereal, oatmeal, or the popular skip-its + coffee? No meat there. For lunch have a salad or PB+J sandwich with chips or fruit and you are 2 out of 3 meals meatless just like that. 

That’s just one example of how easy things really are. Want to live with less chemicals, swap out your plastic Tupperware for glass, plastic water bottle for a metal or glass one, and your plastic lined travel coffee mug for a popular stainless steel tumbler you probably already have and you have decreased the leaching chemicals already. Want an even cheaper solution, go buy Dr. Bronners liquid castile soap and put 2 tablespoons in your hand soap dispenser with water and some essential oil drops and now when you wash your hands you are not getting all of the chemicals from conventional soap all over the hands that touch your food and your face.

So if you are like me, you enjoy walking in the woods and just sitting and listening to the world around you. Sometimes I like to bring a hammock, but most times I like to be on the ground. It makes me feel closer to earth and the things around me. I use to bring a tarp, or sit on my jacket, or bring a yoga mat, but recently I have seen this handy little seat featured in several Youtube videos.  

This is the Thermarest Z-Seat. It’s is a tiny little foam pad that packs up small enough to fit in a water bottle pocket, or half way folded it will fit in the laptop sleeve of your backpack.Unfolded it measures 16 inches x 13 inches making it the perfect size for a butt pad. Weighing in at 2oz, it’s a convenient alternative to the yoga mat and more comfortable than a tarp on the ground! And the best part is it’s under $15!

By now you have heard some of the many health benefits coconut oil can add to your life such as lowering the bad cholesterol, raising the good ones, digestive health and even brain health. But coconut oil is really the multi-tool of the better life movement. Here is just some of the many uses for coconut oil:

- Replacement for butter

- Cooking oil

- Coffee additive

- Skin moisturizer

- Lip balm

- Used is several diy chemical free beauty products

- Used in several diy chemical free cleaning products

- Natural make up remover

Another easy chemical free soap recipe to get your chemical free life started. Quick note before you get started, the more washing soda you use, the thicker it will be. I would suggest slightly less than the recipe calls for. Again I doubled the recipe when I made it to get more.

1 1/4 cups boiling water

1/4 cup tightly packed grated castile bar soap

1 tablespoon washing soda

1/4 cup liquid castile soap

10 +/- drops of your favorite essential oils for smell

Directions: Add grated soap to boiling water and stir until it dissolves. Add in the washing soda and stir. Add in the liquid castile soap and stir. Let it cool down and add your essential oils before transferring to a container.

Let’s make powdered dishwasher soap using way less chemicals! I was concerned it would not clean my dishes, but they come out sparkling every time! And you only need to use a tablespoon per load so it goes further. Here is an easy recipe. I doubled mine. Side note, you can find citric acid in your canning isle at the local grocery store but it isn’t cheap. It’s much cheaper to buy in bulk HERE on Amazon.

1 1/2 cups citric acid

1 1/2 cups washing soda

1/2 cup baking soda

1/2 sea salt

Combined it all, shake well, and use! That’s it, that simple. Get started today living with less chemicals.

So we decided a few weeks ago we wanted to start living with less chemicals in our life. While the idea seems great, the reality can be daunting. I mean everything in our lives has potentially harmful chemicals in it. Once we realized we couldn’t change our world overnight, we decided to focus on few easy changes.

First, plastic. While plastic is considered “food safe”, it really isn’t good to heat your food up in plastic. So we ditched most of our plastic storage containers for glass alternatives. We are currently using the Anchor Hocking set and it has plenty of sizes, and tight sealing lids, to meet our needs. Also included in plastics is our travel coffee mugs. Most travel mugs have a plastic lined interior. We simply started carrying coffee in our Ozark Trail Tumblers that are made out of stainless steel. The tumbler is cheap and our coffee stays hotter much longer without being in contact with plastic.

Second, soap. We looked up a few recipes and started making our own hand soap, liquid dish soap, and powdered dishwasher soap. I’ll post the recipes in a separate post, but i’ll tell you it was incredibly easy and the recipes share most of the same ingredients making shopping easy.