Change Is Hard

But I'm Trying

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

I was baking bread for burger buns. My husband went out to get pizza at dominoes and instead came back with a bag full of shopping (a fucking NEW bag) and said 'you said you were baking bread, so I thought, why not make our own pizza?!' and proceeded to give me cheese wrapped in plastic (we already had cheese), olives wrapped in plastic (instead of from a glass jar) and a ready-made pizza (wtf?!). I took a minute so I didn't yell at him, and then said that I was not buying cheese in plastic anymore so why did he get cheese, and he says 'oh, I didn't realise you were doing that.' What the fucking FUCK are you TALKING about?! First of all, you KNOW that we are doing this no packaging thing, second, why do you think we always have cheese in beeswax wraps which I have fucking plan going to the market for, and third, why are you eating a readymade pizza when apparently YOU WANT ME TO MAKE YOU A PIZZA.

There may have been some words said, and now I'm sitting in my wardrobe, angry, and my house smells like barbecue chicken because he decided to make the pizza. I fucking hate barbecue, and I fucking hate chicken.

I just feel really stupid. I feel like people are just constantly laughing at me, and I just feel like there's no point in trying because the one person that I actually need to not laugh at me about this is constantly putting me down about it.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

We had this big argument. Basically we were having people over for dinner, and we couldn't decide what to make, and then we left it too late to go to the grocers because we were watching the walking dead, etc ETC. So I got mad that we couldn't go to the grocers, and then he got mad, and we both said some things. You know.

So anyway, we ended up buying everything way too late in Sainsbury's and once again my bin is full of plastic.

One thing that I did learn was that if I had had some forward thinking on this, I could have avoided it so easily. It would have been so simple to get everything from the grocers after work the day before. I could have so quickly made my own lasange sheets instead of buying fresh (which not only come in plastic but also with plastic between the layers btw) which I would normally do anyway. It literally takes 10 minutes and they're so tasty!

I think it's just getting into the habit of not being lazy. In some ways, this is really simple, and in others it's not because I'm trying to change almost 30 years of one lifestyle into another. The important thing for me I think is to not get bogged down in the failures, and focus on the successes.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Continuing my quest to use up what we have and then replace with a zero-waste alternative, I've turned my attention once again to the bathroom.

I was slightly horrified to learn that there are currently 6 different bottles each of shampoo and body wash cluttering up the bathroom! Both my husband and I are very simple when it comes to bathroom habits, we don't use conditioner, scrubs or anything like that, so I suspect a few of them are from people who have left them when they've stayed over.

My husband has agreed to use them up with me and then we'll move on to bar soap. I do get bar soap from lush but we don't use it for anything other than hands, and while I have tried one of their shampoo bars, I prefer their 'Big' shampoo. I discovered when I went in this week though that they now have a 'Big' shampoo bar, so that solves that! I also got a few other shampoo bars and some soap we'll use instead of body wash and other products that I think my husband will like.

I spent a LOT of money but it will be worth it if we find something that is zero-waste that we both love.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

I got served by someone different at my local grocers. Usually I get served by a nice young man who is pretty used to me telling him to just chuck everything in the one bag I provide-I legit don't care cause I'm home in twenty minutes, it's not gonna get all destroyed by the time I get home and it's not like vegetables will contaminate each other if they're not separated.

This time, it was a lady. She looked like she wasn't gonna take any nonsense, and she way she said 'what, in THERE?!' when I asked her to put my potatoes straight in my bag without a plastic bag first was pretty scary and honestly made me feel about six years old again. Then she made a comment about the berries I was buying, and long story short, I lost my nerve and ended up taking some plastic cartons home with me that I obviously hadn't intended.

The whole interaction made me feel like I was stupid for even trying. There was a queue behind me, all looking at what was going on, which made it worse. The berries were on sale in an open plastic carton that I was going to take them out of at the checkout and I thought they'd make a nice dessert with a little balsamic vinegar drizzled over, but now I just feel silly for thinking I can have nice things.

Why is this so hard?! I literally cannot get away from having to buy plastic, whether it's from losing my nerve from an interaction like that, or from a plastic film on something thats supposed to be recyclable, or things like peas, which I literally cannot get in anything other than a plastic bag, frozen. Don't TALK to me about canned peas, I lived off them in uni when we were really poor and now I can't look at them without gagging.

I know how to fix the pea thing. What I need is a calendar to tell me when to buy in-season veg, and how to preserve it once I have it.

That doesn't stop me from being upset about it! Why don't frozen peas come in a cardboard box, with just a written word on the front saying 'PEAS'. Why do you need all the nutritional info on there, or pictures that have to be printed on plastic, it's all so bloody unnecessary! It's peas.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Once I stopped buying vegetables in plastic, I realised that a lot of what was still going in the bin was from snack foods. Mainly crisps and chocolate bars. My husband is bad for chocolate bars, I'm bad for crisps. I can legit eat 6 packs in one sitting. It's kinda terrible.

So, of course, I'm thinking about alternatives. I don't want to not have crisps and chocolate, for one reason. You need your vices! Anyone who has been on a diet knows that if you cut out all the stuff you love completely you give up easier.

So, I'm looking at recipes for homemade crisps. It looks like a LOT of work but the upside is it should be waste free since potatoes obviously don't come in plastic anymore. Jury's out on this one until I actually do it.

Chocolate is trickier. It will always either come in plastic, or in recyclable packaging. So, I thought, why not buy a big pack of chocolate and make smaller chocolates? That would get rid of the individual wrappers, right?

It could have been so good. Unfortunately, I bought the big pack of chocolate, and because I didn't have time to make it immediately it was gone within two days. The inevitability of it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. On to round two I guess.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

My husband tried the charcoal toothpaste and to my complete surprise, is actually kinda into it?! Very unexpected, and I'm quite proud. His only concession was because it's quite messy, he's going to stick with regular toothpaste for the mornings cause he has to wear a shirt to work, which is still a win in my book.

Other things we've done this week include:

-going through our cleaning products to find ones we can use instead of buying new, and of course once theyre used up we'll find a more eco friendly option

-finding a cache of sun cream which I'll use up instead of buying more moisturiser

-buying a massive (MASSIVE) bag of rice so I don't have to buy little ones all the time (we don't have one of those loose grain store thingys near us so this is our compromise)

-sterilising my mooncup in an eco friendly way instead of my norm. I've had my mooncup for about 12 years now, and I've always used baby bottle sterilising tablets, but I ran out so instead I bought a small secondhand saucepan for like a quid in a charity shop and I'll boil it from now on. (The pan lives on a shelf in the bathroom so it doesn't get used for food, and when my husband asked what it was for and I tried to explain he said 'just say it's for girly stuff and I'll leave you alone' it was HILARIOUS)

And that's been our week. We've also managed not to buy nearly all our vegetables in plastic which is great, with the exception of lettuce, but it's still good going.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Feeling a little better today when I saw that we are almost out of laundry detergent and can finally use the soapnuts I bought.

I've been wanting to try them for a while, but my husband is sensitive to anything other than fairy. He was willing to try a non-bio alternative when we watched a documentary on families hat try low cost alternative products for a week and discover how much it saves them, so we switched to that. Then of course David Attenborough happened, so he's willing to give it a go.

They smell a lot like vinegar, but it's not unpleasant. I'll also be continuing to use our water softening tablets (it's like a 6-month supply) cause we have hard water, and then when they get used up I'll be looking for a zero waste alternative for that too.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

It does feel like not a lot is happening. It feels like my bin is full of plastic. I have to keep reminding myself that it's literally like the first month of us doing this, and we're still using up stuff in our house that we had before we started. Just at the moment we're trying to only buy recyclable things to replace what we use up but that of course doesn't mean that all the non recyclable plastic just disappeared from our house. If that makes sense.

It's also a bit hard because it's just really my husband and I that are motivating us to do this. I've been reluctant to tell people, firstly because I'm not sure how well I'm gonna do and secondly because if ever I've tried to do something like this in the past I've gotten straight up derision.

A few years ago I went vegan. Honestly at first it was gonna be like what I'm doing now, small changes to get used to it. Only, stupidly I told my husband who was all 'you'll never do it hahahah!!!' And typical us, the conversation devolved into a bet on how long the other could go vegan for. 🙄

He lasted like three weeks and cheated the ENTIRE time. I lasted a year and did slip up a lot, but stuck to it.

Everyone laughed at me and told me I was stupid and I'd get ill, what was I doing it for, all that. And you know what, they were right about me being ill. I'd gone cold turkey instead of small changes and I didn't really know how to do it right. I'd get cravings so badly, and everything made me sick, but I was too stubborn to give in.

But the comments did not help. No one was motivating me to even try and I felt really lonely and stupid about the whole thing. Only some of my family tried to accommodate me if I went to their houses and I felt super weird talking about it. It was also really hard living with my omnivore husband, KNOWING that there was cheese in the house for him but I wasn't allowed to eat it.

Eventually I guess I just gave up. A year had passed and I figured it would be enough to say, 'hey family look I did the whole year!' And instead I got derision AGAIN, this time that I hadn't stuck it out! I couldn't fucking win.

Now I just make about 80% of our food vegan and just don't tell anyone. I know a lot more on how to do it right so I don't get ill and my husband has ended up liking a lot of the food I make so it's made it worth it. The main non vegan things we eat now are cheese and quorn products, but I'm slowly phasing those out too cause they contain milk.

Anyway, this is why I'm reluctant to tell. It's not really that I think I'll give it all up but having to defend myself on WHY I'm doing it or why I'm not doing it some areas of my life (see the cat medicine post) sounds exhausting when I think of what I went through before.

I don't know. Just feeling a bit down I guess.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

I'm discovering just how much crap I have in my house that I use on a regular basis is non-recyclable plastic and tbh it's getting me down a little.

Even things you wouldn't think of like cat medicine. I have a deal with my vet where I pay every month and they give him shots, flea treatments, worming tablets, all that without paying extra. And the flea treatments and worming tablets come with so much packaging its crazy! Do I stop his treatments though in the interest of saving some plastic? He got fleas once and it was the worst. He was so unhappy. He hates getting the treatment but he hates getting fleas WAY more. I'm worried that if I were to stop the treatments and try to find natural ones he'll end up getting them anyway and I'd feel cruel if that happened cause I'd done it to save a tiny bit of plastic from going in the bin.

Is the answer there is that his happiness out weighs the cost of the plastic? As his mummy I definately say yes, but I feel weird about it.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

My place of work has a bakery that (obviously) sells loaves, wrapped in bags that are half paper, half plastic.

Now, I used to work in this bakery, but in a different store. We were not allowed to give customers items that weren't in our own bags. Some health and safety excuse that I never understood. Anyway, the company recently changed some of the bags to not have plastic in, and I thought, why not try myself?

I didn't even have to convince the baker. They were so up for it! Of course I do work there, so maybe they're more inclined to trust me but I don't think any of us quite understand why we're not supposed to do this for customers.

Anyway, I found some good cotton fabric in the back of my fabric stash, and made a drawstring bag. Gave it to her at the start of my shift, got the bread at the end of my shift, BOOM.

Now, my husband is super snobby about bread. We use Tesco and Sainsbury's for food the most, Tesco cause it's closer but he thinks the bread there tastes like chalk so we usually end up making a special trip to Sainsbury's just for the bread.

Now that he's tried it, he straight up LOVES the bread from my work. It's not even any more expensive and another easy af win for us.

A little bit of work to make the bag but hardly any effort at all overall, to make a big difference in the amount of plastic we throw away. I'm seriously loving this.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Ya'll, my georganics parcel came! Want a review?

*ahem.

The bamboo toothbrush is sleek and smooth, the head is smaller than I expected but the bristles are perfect (I got the medium...uh...strength? Not the right word but it'll come to me).

The toothpaste I got was the charcoal peppermint. I got the big tub cause I'm all about value since my student days and honestly I'm not sure how long this will last me but I kind of want to mark it on my calendar so I can find out cause it is HUGE. This thing is gonna LAST. Like I'm pretty sure that this will end up saving me money when you think about how regular toothpaste costs. The toothbrushes cost the same as a good plastic toothbrush too btw. I mean good as in, not own-brand value range there, not GOOD good.

Anyway, back to the toothpaste. Ill be honest, it smells really good but it does NOT taste good to start with. The peppermint smell disappears quickly which I don't mind cause I'm not the biggest fan of mint anyway, but the overwhelming sensation of *dry* (it's charcoal and bamboo, what did you expect?) is a little hard to get used to on the first go after some 30-old years of regular toothpaste.

I can 100% get used to it though. The taste really didn't bother me once I added more water on my brush, but the best part is how CLEAN my mouth feels! I genuinely can't stop running my tongue over my teeth they are so smooth and honestly it grosses me out a little to think of how *not* clean my mouth must have been for me to be so obsessed with this.

LOVE this. Seriously. I know I've complained a little here but I'm so happy with this!

However, my one try was enough to know that my husband will hate it. I don't even care, more for me! You can't win everything and I'll keep looking for something else for him.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

We ran out of washing up liquid, so we decided to buy some from the refillable Ecover brand. We tried this a few years ago, but my husband complained that it didn't lather as well as he wanted, so it didn't look like it was doing anything. He's either forgotten this or he doesn't mind anymore, because I wash up a lot more now anyway so he doesn't have to worry about it.

The only problem is, I got it home and went to google how to refill it, and there's nowhere I can find close by that refills them! Apart from a store that I can't find (it's on the Ecover website but I can't find a listing for it ANYWHERE) the closest place is over 10 miles away!!

I'm either going to have to walk around and find this mystery store or figure something else out.

At least the bottle is recyclable once I've finished with it.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

THE BIN SITUATION IS WORKING

Love this thing of small changes add up to big ones, LOVE IT.

In other news, today we have decided to do probably the easiest win ever: change our toothbrushes to bamboo ones. It's time to change them anyway, and if they're the option we have to use then of course we're gonna use them!

In doing some research on the interweb, I've discovered that the bristles on bamboo toothbrushes are not ENTIRELY biodegradeable, or the nylon makes a difference in HOW biodegradeable it is, or something, and there were a couple of posts that were like 'why even bother?'

Well we figure a bamboo toothbrush with maybe plastic bristles is better than a completely plastic toothbrush, right?!

There are options with bristles made from boar hair, but we're vegetarian, so no thank you.

Anyway, I've gone with georganics, as they do a natural toothpaste too. My husband is not quite sold on the idea of natural toothpaste, but he was up for the toothbrush, so it's still a win in my book! Can't wait for it to arrive.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Today we are focusing on bins. Specifically, the bathroom bin. There's not really room in our bathroom for both a recycling and a waste bin, so (I know okay I KNOW) we've always just put everything in one.

There's not usually loads, so it tends to get emptied like once a month cause it's a tall bin but still.

So instead, I've left the big bin as a waste bin, and put a wicker basket I found in the garage on one of the shelves to put the recycling into, which we'll empty when it gets full.

I think we thought it would be unsightly which may be one reason we didn't bother before (and also because we were lazy) but I actually don't even notice it.

Small wins woop.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

Success!

Our first win of the week: my husband went shopping and TOOK BAGS.

Yes, people, I'm so proud of my man, considering that even when we had to start paying for bags in this country he didn't make a concerted effort to take bags to the shops.

WE HAVE SO MANY. Entire drawers full of the bloody things.

It's a new age.

[imtryingmybesthereokay]

My husband watched Blue Planet

And because Sir David Attenborough has told us we should worry about the state of the oceans, my husband is now worried about the state of the oceans.

Never mind the fact that I've been trying for years to get our lifestyle to be more eco-friendly! But NO, Sir David says it, so we should do it.

Don't get me wrong, my husband is a lovely, caring man, but sometimes he needs a push with this kind of thing, you know? Seriously though, thank you to Sir David for getting my husband to be excited about this!

Anyway, we now have the motivation to change (Sir David's dulcet tones encouraging us to be better people) and we are going to give it or best!

We need to start small, though. Changing lots of things overnight is tough, and I've learned from past mistakes. Not only that, but if I go too big too soon I fear one of us will chicken out.

So, we are starting with not using plastic disposable cutlery at our respective workplaces. Big things have small beginnings, after all. I've made sure to put cutlery in my bag, and whenever he has a lunch that needs it, I'll put cutlery in his lunchbox.

Easy win. Now to start something bigger!