finding my inner zero waste guru

we've all heard the stories of depression era families who lived on variations of eggs, bread, and milk for a year or made watery stews from the less desirable and far cheaper "parts" of animals. times were hard and the way people ate and lived reflected this. the thought of chucking the half eaten chicken breast left on your plate or throwing away a perfectly good piece of fruit simply because it fell on the floor was unthinkable. the 3 second rule definitely did not apply! i think back then people were in touch with scarcity and the actual fear of going hungry. this forced a mentality of making use of every little scrap in front of you, whether it was food, tinfoil, or a car wheel. gradually as times improved and standards of living in this country rose, i think this mode of zero waste thinking was shoved aside in favor of our current view of unlimited plenty at our disposal 24/7.

reminding myself to "waste not, want not" is probably one of the most basic admonishments i tell myself. not only do i consider it ground zero for frugality, but it is also a good thesis for how to better appreciate the things you already have and have worked hard to attain. if you feel you can waste something, chances are you probably don't value it much. there is very little in my life i want to feel this disposability towards! i'm amazed at how much i have to retrain my brain to think this way though. just this week i noticed that one of my kids wooden blocks had fallen off our deck and was sitting dirty in the garden bed below. my first response was honestly to go and throw it away. i think my reaction was probably a combination of laziness and knowing that my kids have a bin full of 50 other blocks inside, but still, i literally had to catch myself and remember that this little piece of wood could just as easily be washed off and put to use all over again. i find myself doing the same thing for extra food on my kids plates or milk left undrunk. i have to consciously remember that there is nothing wrong with this perfectly edible food simply because it has previously touched a plate! i get a huge sense of satisfaction when i have my macgyver moments in the kitchen and find ways to use those bread heels or speckled bananas, or dice up last night's chicken into a pleasing chef salad. it feels good to make use of something instead of throwing it away.

i try not to be a maniac and ultra annoying, but now that i'm more conscious of wanting to appreciate more and waste less, i have a zillion little moments just like this each day. do i really need to give my child yet another ziploc bag for that snack? wouldn't a washable bowl work just as well? why throw my food scraps in the garbage when they beautify my garden via my compost pile? i firmly believe the logic of making ultra use of what we have is under all our skins and hard wired in our brains...somewhere. i mean those eons of struggling to survive as hunter gatherers can't just have disappeared right? we just have to find those wires again and reconnect them. definitely my self imposed "scarcity" of last winter is what helped reconnect mine...and i feel a bit like this current economic climate is helping reconnect a lot more wires out there.

looking around in my yard i've found another small area to make use of. for years i've grown lavender because i love the smell of it. it is one of those godly smells that i just cannot imagine living without. i smell it and i literally feel better. and yet in all the years i've had lavender bloom, i've never done more than snip the spent blossoms and throw them away. i wanted to share the above photos because this year i decided to chalk one up for zero waste, and along with my lovely nieces who are in town, i'm working on harvesting all that spent lavender this year. i plan to make some lovely suitcase and linen closet sachets with the dried blooms. final result photos soon to follow....

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