I am very thankful for having encountered some very informative blogs; such as Hickery Holler, Down to Earth, Frugally Sustainable, Mennonite Girls Can Cook, and many others, that voluntarily and deliberately sharing very helpful information and knowledge with others. I am very enlightened with the overwhelming knowledge I gained through their blogs. It's challenging me so much; especially in the area of organic, modesty and sustainable living.
I agree that in modern industrial era (or even free-market era) we have been very very dependant on factory processed foods and goods. It's mostly for its convenience and efficiency. Many times I challenge myself;does efficiency still count, given the long-time process and all chemical ingredients involved in the making? Yet, I realize that with all the limitation I have, I can't do all things myself in order to living sustainably. I even may not be able to do half of them. But,... there's a but,... but maybe.. I can do something about it.... maybe, I can do some things... maybe I can do some small things. And YES, I definitely want to start doing something, no matter how trivial it could be!
I don't know whether this would be a long term lifestyle.... but I definitely want this be a long-term paradigm changing! I believe that a great change is always started with the change in our way of thinking, because it's the center of decision making. When our worldview is changed, it influences the way we do or conduct things. It influences our decision and our lifestyle. And yes, I know it's not easy! And it takes time! But, if we never decide and never start.... we will never arrive at our destination, will we?
So, here are some of the steps I have made so far! :-)
First, I decided to live frugally/modestly! If you want to learn more of the term frugal you can visit this site http://theprudenthomemaker.com/index.php/frugal-living.
I thought all this time I have been living modestly, but I admit that I am not always careful when shopping. Many a time I went home with stuff I don't really need but thought that I could just buy and save it for next time use. It's proven that it is sometimes useful in the future but not all the time. So, the first thing I should pay attention to is my self-control when shopping. In the past, I made shopping list before going but I easily got distracted when doing window-shopping or just wandering around, and usually I would end up going home with more stuff than I have listed on my shopping list. Many times I would instead buy stuff I don't plan to and cancel the stuff on my list! I guess, some of you may identify with it. :-) Thus, I decided to be more prepared before going shopping! I may need to set some boundaries as a reminder. :-)
Secondly, I decided to start organic gardening! Yippee!! I don't know why I am suddenly so fallen in love with gardening! Maybe it runs through my blood since my grandparents used to have a rice field and vegetables garden, though they were not farming for their entire lives and my uncle still has some piece of land, where he plant cassava, bananas, and sweet potato. Now that he's retiring, he employs some people to work on it. As for me, I don't have a piece of land that I can plant on but we do have an open space at the rooftop of our 2-storey house that can be utilized. Well, I haven't conjured up an organic garden right on our rooftop! I'm going to just let everything flows by itself... I want to first start with a change in my way of thinking.... so that it would be a solid shift of lifestyle and not something that comes and goes away as swiftly as the wind. Start with a small thing but be consistent!
So, I decided to start planting.... and my #1 project is planting TOMATOES! :-) Look at my babies! I'm looking forward to move them to bigger pots when they reached about 10 cm. It's rainy season here where I live and I have plenty of rain water to water the seedling. I even started to make some organic fertilizer from orange rinds and I learn this from some gardening blogs I am following. I am solar-drying them up. My next project would be planting herbs... I've been wanting to plant basils!
And thirdly, I am learning to make stuff from scratch, organically. I like to cook and bake from scratch. I don't like cake or cookie mixes out of boxes. But my challenge now, I want to learn to make my own soaps and cleaners so I can control what contained in it. Well, I start with making multi-purpose cleaner using vinnegar and orange rinds, slowly but sure I'd like to grow in my experiment. It's thrilling! :-) For more details on how to make your own organic cleaners check this site:
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