our minimalist life - chemicals: the health factor

Sorry this is going to be a long one.

Two years ago I had a wake up call.

They say things happen for a reason and looking back now it seems that there was always a plan. For some reason on our first family trip to Tanzania I happened to find Jessica Alba's book the Honest Life. I was not looking for anything in the category, I don't even remember how I found it on Amazon. Now the fact that it was written by Jessica Alba was crucial. I don't know if I would've noticed it otherwise, and beyond that the message in that book was simple enough for me to understand and to start applying to my life. She wrote about all the aspects of honest life, living in sustainable way, as chemically free as possible. And she did it nicely, no guilt, no pressure, no "throwoutallyouhaveandbuyallnewstuff".

So when little J over night woke up with a HORRIBLE rash all over his body I already had some data to help me through that chaos. I believe that had I not read that book, I would've just rushed him to the hospital, gotten a load of meds, cortisone, antibiotics etc that might have fixed that situation but I would've still been treating the effect, not the cause. I spent one night with google. I figured out that we had been in Tanzania for about a week and that means our clothes had been washed. With OMO. Now I have nothing against it, except that it makes us all sick, but with J it became pretty much life threatening. You can imagine that in the morning when I announced that ALL of our clothes and sheets and towel have to be washed at least 5 times with REAL soap and vinegar. There is no washing machine at my in-laws. They had to do it by hand. Pole sana. But within two days J was doing ok. He is massively allergic to detergents.

I still struggled with this in Finland, because by the way detergents are everywhere. Our own soaps and bed sheets and towels to day care. Cleaning the house, with soap, but hey you can't use soap for laminate floors, or that there is no detergent free dish soap available in Finland... Trying to visit the best allergy doctors I could get my hands on, only to discover that most lotions have a from of detergent in them. I hate chemistry, and I guess I should've paid attention at school, but all those words in the INCI lists just make my head hurt. He was not feeling better and we tried everything. By the way, after re-introducing the foods, he is not allergic to them at all.

Fast forward we move to Tanzania and lo and behold: he is healthy here. And my hair is curly and my skin (that I have struggle my whole life with) is clearing up. I actually started to wonder that maybe he just grew out of it until my mom came to visit and we took a trip to Zanzibar. I didn't even think to bring our own bedding or towels, that is how healthy he has been. But after a couple of days, his face started to swell, and skin got itchy and then the coughing started again. I am glad that we have been able to reduce the chemicals from his life so well here that he can be healthy, and none of us is exposed to those nasty chemicals.

This has made our life very simple too:
We have laundry soap: a very basic olive oil based soap that we use for laundry, cleaning, dishes etc. I costs about 10 cents a bar. Then we have some beautiful handmade soaps (mainly clove, but some variations) that we use in the shower and I clean my face with. They cost about 30 cents/bar. Then we have vinegar and baking soda, to be used as hair conditioner, or to disinfect or to clean or to shine or to scrub. And then we have coconut oil to moisturize, shave, treat hair, cook etc with. And that's it. All of these can be eaten so what is safer than that.

At the same time we have been slowly turning our closets into more sustainable ones, which is not always easy, living here. My next step is my make up. This is something I can't do here. Organic cosmetics just don't exist here yet, but I am anxiously waiting to our Christmas trip to Finland to replace my make up with non-toxic versions. While at the same time I am terrified to see how J will manage in the land of chemicals :(

I would recommend anyone with constant runny noses, rashes or itchiness or even asthma to take a look and see if it could be caused by detergents. By the way neither T or I can even walk into the detergent section in the shop without sneezing or getting an itchy nose.

It is a headache in the beginning but hey, what wouldn't you do for your child???

from sick, always in pain with the torment of itchiness he turned into a happy healthy kiddo!!!

Inspiration board

I've stumbled (in my endless blog reading) several times on the internet into Inspiration boards. These are not new years resolutions, but thought to inspire you and keep you on track, as well as give the room for your mind to travel to new extremes instead of going the adult route of why CAN'T this idea or a goal work.

I loved how Christy (as if I know her :P) wrote on the meaningfulmeandering.com about inspiration boards:

First of all, if you are rolling your eyes and thinking this is just another “time-wasting touchy-feely hippy-dippy” exercise, I challenge you to hang in there with me and read on. This is not about giving self-hugs and visualizing a trust fall with yourself. This is a truly effective way to unstick your overly programmed thoughts and perceptions and discover or rediscover pieces to a larger picture that realistically illustrate your true nature, desires, creativity, and even fears.

I'm going to have a very heavy couple of months of work up until our holiday trip to Finland. I can't wait, and I want to keep my eyes on the price but also enjoy the ride. So I wanted to try to make one. Instead of printing one out and figuring a place for it, I've put it as my desktop background, something that I am bound to look at several times per day. I did it over the weekend, and every time I close my browser and see a glimpse my spirits are uplifted. It contains motivation to work out, quotes to work hard and believe in myself. Something that provides focus on my work in the world of social media and my gymnastics business. But it also contains picture of winter, to uplift me when I'm tired and need a reason to work hard (Christmas in Finland) but there is also a silly one of perfect nude manicured nails to remind me not to stress out and bite my nails :). It is not the end of the world, but it's a piece of my world.

Try to sit down and think - what would keep you inspired and motivated without rules and boundaries that limit us in life. What would you put on your inspiration board?

In the market of something to read

Ha, ha. That's me laughing. Rejoicing even. I have time on my hands. And I would love to get some suggestions. On a side note I'd like to point out that this is exactly what I am trying to accomplish with my more minimal life style - time to do the things I love. And reading has always been something that I love to do. I love the feel and smell of a book, when it takes me to new places and I also love the ease and convenience of kindle books and online blogs. I can find a book and with a click I can get started. Variety (and prices) are not great here in Tanzania, so Kindle is perfect in that case. Anything I want to read I can get it. I also love the clutter free version of Kindle. I just keep the ongoing book on device, rest are in the cloud if I want to re-read some of them. No crazy big book cases in my house (again a time saver). And the prices are far lower in digital books.

Books to read?

This year I've followed up with my new years goals of reading more books. I lost count around 45, but definitely my reading has been upped to a new level. I devoured our Finnish book library criminal stories, loved to read about Komisario Koskinen (Seppo Jokinen) and his adventures in Tampere. For some reason I loved the personality of the character. It felt like I knew him.

At the same time I've used Kindle books to my guilty pleasures. Luckily they also have some free books there so my budget can stay on track. I'm running out of things to read though - so comment please if you've come across a nice book to read.

Blogs to keep updated with?

I also love a good blog. I've just updated my blog list with minimalist/light living related blogs: one more serious The Minimalists - who turned their journey into a true lifestyle, and probably became millionaires on the waya. And Light by Coco. I've actually watched her videos on Youtube and if you can ignore the echo in many videos, she actually simplifies things quite nicely. These blogs keep me on track.

I'm in the market for more to read, so please link anything interesting that you've come across. I'd much rather spend my time reading the blogs than searching for them.

I'm stealing back my time

 

Do you feel like you time is never enough? As a mother of two, with a full time job, and a growing gymnastics business that is more like a status quo here. Or at least it has been. Our normal day used to start from around 6:30 in the morning and would end around 8 pm when the kids went to bed. After 8 pm even though I could have "free time" I can't function. I'm just to tired to do anything that requires a brain. In my quest of finding a solution, I did what any modern woman would do - I turned to my beloved Pinterest. If you are not yet familiar with this social media tool - head on over. For a visual person it has been a life saver.

Back to the story. Time management. I posted about it here asking for comments and solutions from other time jugglers, complaining about not having everything together. It seems I'm not alone in this.

My search has now moved to the "testing" the new way stage. I have changed three things: 1) week planner and  2) early mornings 3) financial management.

I figured out that my stress and chaos can be controlled. I am not saying my life will now be a perfect little doll house, but I am hoping there will be less late mornings, less forgotten responsibilities, and less emergencies. This goes very well together with my minimalist life approach. Less of distractions, so I can focus on the things that I love.

Step 1) A week planner:

I have been an avid digital calendar user for years. And I love it. My choice is google calendar, because I can share it with my family, friends and business partners. I can also synchronize it with my phone so I will never forget that dentist appointment again. But online calendar doesn't give room for visualizing the week as a whole. I felt like I needed something that I can lay out all of my weekly responsibilities into it. Have my to do list constantly there and with a quick glance I know if and when I have space in my schedule. Enter my very own week planner: now I can plan easily the days I can work from home, or when I definitely need to go to the office. This should also help if and when the little guys get a flu or something (the basic way of falling into chaos when you are a mother). With one look I will know what I need to move around so I can stay home with them. I'm on my second week testing this method. So far so  good. These two weeks are feeling much more held together. 

2) Early mornings

Second thing I figured out that was creating the sense of chaos was mornings. I was always looking for the charger, while rushing the kids out of the door, checking my hair and probably forgetting something important that I would have to come back for that would make me even more late. And let me tell you, being late is like the end of the world for me. I get physically sick to my stomach immediately when I realize I will be a minute or two late. Can't even imagine what it is doing to my heart.

So I implemented early morning strategy. And I am saying EARLY. 5 am early. Like I said I never got anything done in the evenings anyways after the kids are asleep - I am just too exhausted. So I've decided to implement a sleeping strategy by Steve Pavlina. He has combined two most popular sleeping methods. Only going to bed when tired and always waking up at the same time. Two mornings now I have woken up at 5 am. The first seconds I feel like dying. But boy do I feel like I'm in control. By the time kids wake up at seven I have showered, had breakfast, read, relaxed, had a nice hot shower, listened to Radio Aalto and worked on some items from my to do list. I am dressed, my bags are ready and I can truly focus on the kids. Yesterday was the first morning to implement this and we were ready 15 minutes early. Can you say wow. The peaceful morning was worth the 5 am wake up. And I wasn't much more tired, actually my sleep was better and deeper this second night. 

3) Financial control

The third thing that we have done to curb chaos in our lives is budgeting. This menial task is almost as hated as going to the dentist, but money seemed to be coming and going out without any control. It doesn't help that we have both country's finances to keep track of with lots of mail lost on the way, and some banks refusing to update our address. But last Saturday we sweated through the session of figuring out our budget for Tanzania and Finland. That day food shopping (which by the way covers the whole week excluding fruits that we buy daily) felt fun and it felt like we are making the most of our money. This again has reduced the daily quests for food, and dropped the expenses because we can shop at the wholesale shop to get the best possible quality and price, and won't be enticed by the sale of the day items at the supermarket. We are long way from financial freedom, but control feels good. And frees up a lot of my time worrying and remembering the bills that needed to be paid, but never made it to tz.

Have a nice day! I hope my quest can inspire you to find your balance. I will keep you posted. They say that to learn a habit it has to be maintained for 30 days solid. Let's see if I can make it to the end of August. :)