The Home Front

I have a sneaking suspicion that this year I will eat my words. It's going to hurt when this happens, like dipping those words in tabasco sauce and rolling them in a marinade of glass shards. I will wince and crunch them down and confess to you: "We're thinking of buying a house". And just when you recover from the shock in time to deliver a mocking--well, it's about time or you gotta grow up sometime--I'll take another swig of that broken glass like a Hells Angels biker and finish my sentence. Wait for it--

IN GUELPH.

I never thought I'd be ready to leave my beloved city and indeed, I am not. But this apartment is getting cramped and wouldn't it be nice to have a burrow of our own. I know, I know. I've always sworn this way and that that I am a free spirit unencumbered by such mundane responsibilities as paying a mortgage or mowing the lawn. Hell, you still won't get me to mow the lawn. I'll pluck my own dandelion greens to make a salad before you get me to run a mower but you get the point. It's time to turn a new leaf.

The whole process has been kind of weird. We take Ezra to look at houses and people nod appreciatively and spout nonsense like, good choice, RIGHT choice, you can't raise a child in the city. And C braces himself as my colour rises and I say YES, you ABSOLUTELY CAN raise kids in the city and have access to AGO day camps and Night At the Museum at the ROM and author series and Nuit Blanche for kids and way better schools where all the kids aren't just white but that renting sucks and if we had half a million dollars laying around we wouldn't be there having a surreal conversation about high efficiency furnaces and the likelihood of vermiculite in the walls.

I love Toronto and I've lived here for a long time. This city is a true love of mine so don't ever ever rag on her. I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard to leave it behind. It is. But the time has come to court a new suitor, and Guelph has caught my eye. I don't think I'm settling. I like Guelph and am hoping that like will soon grow into love. Comes a time when you settle down.

Ezra's Room

The time has come for my little man to move to a big boy bed. And since I never got the chance to do up a baby's room, I'm getting pretty darned excited about choosing bedding, and decorating his new digs. The theme I'm going with is Canadiana-nature-camping-hunting lodge. Here is some of my inspiration. I figure I can source a vintage log cabin quilt, or at the very least, a quilt top which I can finish. I'm eyeing C's old plaid shirts too for throw pillows and appliques. Time to put on my thinking cap and figure out how to do this within the framework of the project! Keep you posted. Here was some of my inspiration...








Of course, I'm trying to source everything vintage. I also can't wait to try my hand at those log pillows. Anyone want to show me the fine art of quilting?

Quickie

Gah! It's been ages and I owe you a post. It's getting hard now. For one, I'm THIS CLOSE to buying some hair conditioner. Ezra won't let me near him with a brush and he has three tiny dreadlocks that may need to be cut out. And I'm starting to have the same problem.

There's also the mattress situation. I forgot that this year we would have to transition Ezra to a bed. The frame part was easy but there's something kind of yucky about buying a used mattress for him. We may just have to give in on that one.

The sewing is going very well but not quite fast enough. As Christmas looms on the horizon, I'm breaking out into a cold sweat. I plan to make sock monkeys and bean bag chairs and kids pjs and all kinds of fun stuff. We'll see how far I get. The kids may get passes to the zoo instead. As long as we don't buy "stuff", I guess it's OK.

Take a look at the dress I made for myself. Without the belt, it's kind of a sack but hey, it's my first garment!

Fruits of our labour

I have all but abandoned this blog but fortunately not the project. Summer is a time for doing, not for writing. Right now I'm up to my ears in Italian plums from the tree in the backyard, not to mention Tom's enormous zucchini (sounds dirrrty). Today I baked up a fruit crumble, adding wild blueberries, and peaches from Frank's tree two doors down. I plan to take it out back with some forks and see who emerges. If all goes according to plan, it'll be plum tart tomorrow!




Update! The crumble was a success. So much so that Tom and Frank got out the ladders, and Ezra went a pickin' again. Who likes pie? Check out what a trip to Frank's garden can yield!




In other news, Ezra is obsessed with guitars and watching old reels of Bob Dylan on You Tube. How in the world did that happen? PS: That's a library copy of Rolling Stone--I didn't break the rules!

In Honour of Hillside

I’ve decided to take this occasion to finally introduce myself on this blog. Indeed, this buy-nothing project is a family affair. There is more than one of us contributing to this endeavour, although my better half has very much taken the initiative and lead to make sure this thing sticks. She is the environmental engine with endless enthusiasm that keeps us ticking along. I’ve tried my hand at making toothpaste, but my bicycle maintenance skills have certainly fallen well behind her sewing productivity.

So what of the occasion that finally solicits my first contribution? It seems fitting that following our fourth visit to this fantastic festival, I should file a post. The Hillside Festival is a three-day music festival that takes place annually in July at Guelph Lake Conservation Area in Southwestern Ontario. The diverse, top-notch music presented at this unique festival should in no way be downplayed; however, Hillside goes beyond the music to encompass a sense community and consciousness that serves as a noteworthy model for what is possible. The Hillside community has grown up from its early days at an area park in Guelph more than 25 years ago to a full-blown music extravaganza that is run by an army of more than a thousand volunteers. You won’t find any corporate concessions or ads at Hillside. Aside from the logos of some local brews and the purveyors of very tasty food served up on site, you’d be hard pressed to find much in the way of a profit motive save the eclectic artisans offering their wares and the guys running the honey wagons, keeping the port-a-potties clean. Hillside takes its environmental impact very seriously and has undertaken extensive initiatives to lessen it. From reusable dishes washed by those ubiquitous volunteers, to the plentiful refreshing water dispensed free of charge from a large tanker, this festival proves what is possible.


And possibility is the point of this project. It is not about perfection. It is about embracing the possibility of living more in tune with our natural world. Our challenge is finding alternate ways of doing things to lessen our impact. Hillside encourages us by demonstrating solutions to this challenge. The Festival is not about denying oneself in the name of eco-consciousness, but rather living it up responsibly. Hillside’s solutions serve as a refreshing and courageous counterpoint to most other large-scale events where tap water is bottled in indestructible plastic for your convenience and beer cups overflow from garbage bins. The wasteful alternative was highlighted for me during a recent visit to check out the Jays at the Rogers Centre, where sometimes living it up includes a few beers. Not surprisingly, this posed a challenge to the project. I was left to scavenge a used cup from my friend with the hope that he didn’t have a cold and that this would qualify as less impactful. The problem was that the bartender refused to refill a used cup, despite the fact that the keg was tapped and she was pouring from cans! Yes, we reached a fine level of absurdity as we were not only wasting energy to recycle a can, but now we must pour it into a brand new cup too. Now to some this may seem a small detail hardly worth the trouble. To me, who has a serious eco-anxiety surrounding waste, particularly of the spatial kind, this small detail needs to be multiplied by all the beer patrons that night, this year, and at all the other sporting events around North America. This ridiculous waste doesn’t have to be. Hillside is an example of what’s possible.


Hillside is a shining light for what is means to care about the planet. It was great to spend a weekend at a place where you were encouraged to bring your own dishes, rather than scoffed at. You were required to reuse your beer cup (had to be purchased for $2), rather than feeling slight embarrassment for trying. And that is a key message for me from Hillside: we’re not the only ones. It’s okay to take these things seriously. In fact, I suspect future generations will appreciate it. So it’s time for me to hold my head a little higher when I take my reuseable container to pick up pizza slices; being the change is good. Thanks for making it fun, Hillside! See you next year.

Dropping Acid

A trip to Value Village proves how limited the thrift option can be. Check out the sweet jeans C had to choose from. I had to BEG him to try on this pair of acid washed AWESOMENESS. All it needs is a fanny pack and the look is complete.

I'm Sew Excited

And I Just Can't Hide It.

Carine and I hired a sewing tutor. Every Monday we turn the apartment into a sweat shop and sew our little asses off. Last week we sewed an apron. Next week we tackle a pattern.

Trudy has come through in a BIG way here and has supplied the sewing machine, tools, and other goodies, as pictured below. Yes, that is a pattern for underwear. Granny panties no less. It's what all you bitches are getting for Christmas. In red velvet. Mwahahahah.

Lost Art of Canning and Preserving

I'm going to sign up for this workshop in August. Let me know if you want to join me!

A Musical Quandary

I can't stop listening to this Angela Desveaux song. I keep thinking it's Martha Wainwright though. Can you hear it too?

Music poses a bit of a quandary for the project, does it not? Music, as it's played live is not a tangible or physical object but when it comes to reproducing its sound, it's inextricably connected to raw materials such as vinyl, polycarbonate, and other plastics. And in this sense it is a "thing"--a record in a jacket, a cassette or a CD in a jewel case.

The recent emergence of the mp3 format has changed things entirely. An mp3 file is not nothing, but it's no longer something that requires manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and eventual disposal. It's a sound byte, a lossy algorithm, compressed digital data stored in a virtual universe. Yeah, trippy. So what does this mean for the project? Is music stuff, or isn't it?

Vote and discuss.

poll by twiigs.com

Bad Hair Day

Life is pretty bad without conditioner. In fact, without conditioner this girl's a ratty, tangled, and static mess who's just emerged from a wind tunnel. And as if the hair gods weren't having enough of a laugh already, my hair blower died today. I even went so far as to scout out a viable replacement at Value Village but all I saw was a tangled mess of cords and dead hair in appliances resembling this one:



And to add insult to injury, it appears as if C now has the best hair of his life. We're talking epic hair. Amazing hair. R-Patz hair. It's wavy and tousled and HOT. I'm trying very hard to be happy for him.