Be More Conscientious When Buying Stuff

Completing: 15. Be More Conscientious When Buying Stuff

I would like to take this moment to provide an update on the progress of goal #15, “Be more conscientious when buying stuff.”

I added this goal to push me even further to think about what I’m buying, where it’s coming from, how it’s made, and what it’s made from.

So far this year:

• I joined a CSA and I will begin receiving produce and eggs from an all-organic farm 20 minutes from my house.
• We now make our own peanut butter. Three ingredients: peanuts, peanut oil, and salt.
• I have tossed most of the chemical-filled products I used to use and now use coconut oil for everything: body moisturizer, eye makeup remover, and shaving cream. My skin has never been better, plus, I smell like a pina colada.

And then I took my desire to not put chemicals on my body and love for coconut oil one step further…

I made soap! As a matter of fact, I made pure coconut oil body soap following these Mommypotamus instructions. Not only do I have a simple soap using fewer than three ingredients, I finally got a taste of what it’d be like to be a meth cook.

Me mixing a hazardous cocktail of lye and water on my deck with a gravy boat. Nothing to see here, neighbors…

I never quite envisioned I’d be making my own hygienic products and peanut spreads and walking around a farm collecting dirty eggs out of a chicken coop, but here I am, a conscientious consumer who is one step away from walking around bare foot, having an open marriage, and sporting dreads.

Also, I have so many bars of soap, I have to give some of them away. Friends and family: your parts will thank me later.

I didn’t choose the hippie thug life. It chose me.

– Lyssa