Wrapped up

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Our household tries to be mindful about single use packaging and to reuse and recycle wherever possible. In the run up to Christmas festivities, however, this gets to be increasingly difficult. The sheer volume of packaging on gifts and food items undermines the best of intentions. And then there’s the gift wrap…

I recently discovered that in Australia alone, more than 150,000km of gift wrap is used over the festive season. Yup, 150,000 kilometres. I found that to be a mind boggling stat – and one that’s impossible to unknow now that it’s hit my radar… as is the info on just how much of that wrapping is not recyclable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnopz9wprnc

This includes: foil, embossed, glittery, laminated or plastic wrappings, tinsel, tissue paper, cellophane, ribbons and bows. Then there’s very thin wrapping paper, smaller pieces of regular, recyclable paper and shredded paper; these are also off the list as their fibres are generally too short to be made into recycled products. Yikes.

With all this in mind, Daughter Dearest and I embarked on a mission to discover ways to eliminate those wrappings that can’t be recycled. We’ve made our own wrapping papers before, using butcher’s paper or brown paper and decorating it in various ways, but this year we’re on a mission to test out other options.

Phase one was to attend a session on sustainable gift wrappings. There we learned how to make gifts bags out of newspaper or other repurposed paper, with the help of just a little glue. The bags can be pretty much any size out of whatever paper you have to hand. I had fun putting some out of date maps to good use, making surprisingly sturdy (and attractive) bags. There are heaps of online resources for this, so track them down if you’re interested 🙂

We were also were introduced to the basics of the not-too-mysterious art of Furoshiki (Japanese fabric wrapping). This is a brilliant way to wrap gifts sustainably, using fabric (recycled, repurposed or new) instead of paper.

So phase two of operation alternative-wrappings was to hunt through my fabric stash, brave a Spotlight sale and visit a couple of Opshops. I now have a box full of pretties and plan to add a wrapping instructions with each furoshiki-wrapped gift so that my people can re-use the wraps that way if they’d like to. I’ll also include a note suggesting that, if the wrapping isn’t wanted, it can simply be ‘recycled’ back to me to me 🙂

I can’t wait to get started on the wrapping! Here’s a how-to in case you’d like to try it too.

Rainy day dog things

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We’re once again in the throes of a re-training regime for both our dogs. This is mostly because one of them recently developed a liking for adventuring when off lead at the park. No biggie in and of itself, except that she sometimes chooses not to come back. Apparently it’s much more fun to turn the whole exercise into a game. Much sigh.

Fortunately we know some great people at the local Dobermann Club. They all know MissMolly (she has something of a reputation as a super bouncy Dobe) and one of them kindly agreed to help out with some one-on-one. This new training regime started a few weeks ago and we’ve had some great results with MissM (aka the runawaydog) so far. It’s involved going back to basics with recalls, impulse inhibition and so forth.

Cassie’s been having some fun with training as well. But since most of it’s really aimed at the runawaydog, she needs to be kept occupied whilst the high intensity focused training sessions take place.

Enter the snuffle mat. This is essentially a rubber door mat that has had a whole lot of fleece fabric strips tied to it to create a densely packed, soft and fluffy adventure mat. The idea is that it acts like a puzzle for the dog, allowing it to sniff out and hunt around for little treats in a fun way. This provides mental stimulation, slows down their eating, encourages natural foraging instincts and works to decrease their stress levels.

It was a really simple rainy day craft project to undertake and very rewarding, although it used a good deal more fabric than I expected. It also involved a lot of knot tying! My reward was to see Cassie take to it with great gusto during training time this week. She hunted and foraged, snuffled and searched for her morning kibble in amongst the fleece-forrest, tail going like crazy. Very cute. And afterwards? A delightfully calm pup – which was a real bonus as she’s usually hyper if separated from her buddy for any reason.

Snuffle mat - Cassie

If you think you’d like to make one yourself, the instructions are on my craft page. Enjoy!

ps. For heaps of other good ideas to keep your dogs occupied, you might like to have a look at this canine enrichment site.

Flipsides

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Just recently I received a fan email about Girdle of Bones. Yes, I know! Me – fan mail!? Wowser! It was a delightful surprise, particularly since it’s over two years since I (self)published the epic tome. But reading the email reminded me of just why I wrote the book in the first place.

Hey Nicky, I hadn’t realised you wrote a book. I think that would be my opening line when introducing myself to all people, in all settings, at all times.

What a journey! I won’t fanboy too much, but I really did enjoy it. Your resilience is, of course, the highlight of Girdle of Bones, and as I read I could feel it providing some much-needed perspective for myself… Medically, your advice about autologous blood deposits is such an important piece of knowledge I will take with me going forward. Questioning your doctors/performing your own research, something I am guilty of not doing, is something that will now remain front of mind when I have extended dealings with them. … I’ve already recommended your book to an aunt of my wife’s as she is possibly going down the path of a hip replacement. I know it will be of great use if she takes up the offer.

Anywayyss.. I did just wanted to pop in to say I really enjoyed it and hope you are spending your increased spare time working on more pieces so I can read on in the future. T.C.

Rather lovely, really. Thank you, TC. You made my day 🙂

So there I was, later the same day, feeling all shiny and pleased, when I bumped into someone from the local writing group. Much like most acquaintances when they bump into each other unexpectedly, we did the usual slightly awkward hello-how-are-you things for a couple of moments. Then, just as I was turning away, feeling reprieved, she popped in ‘‘So… you’re not writing anymore, are you?’

Ouch. Not an unreasonable comment, I guess, considering I have been AWOL from writing group for quite a while, but still… It felt like I’d been slapped by a wet fish… and my shiny writerly bubble was thoroughly burst.

All it took was seven words, delivered in a perfectly pleasant tone of voice, to supply a surprisingly effective dose of negative mental realignment. Perhaps I was feeling a little defensive about being absent from the group and not making contact with them?

No matter. Taking a deep breath, I let one of my mantras play inside my head – the equivalent of counting to 10: You’ve donned your big girl panties perfectly well when faced with far more confronting situations than this one, girl…

That allowed me to step back from what was, no doubt, just a passing comment. Then I just smiled. I smiled and told Patsy that I write when I can. She smiled too, said she hoped to see me back at the group sometime soon, and we parted ways.

But it made me think. In fact I thought about Patsy’s question far more than it actually warranted before eventually realising that it was irrelevant. I do write – I write when, where and what I feel in the mood for. Sometimes it’s just a brief note about something that catches my attention; at other times it’s as though my pencil is an extension of my hand.

But no matter which end of that writing scale I’m on at any given time, writing is part of who I am – whether others see me do it or not. (If I was five years old, I’d add: so there!) 🙂

It’s not what (or when or why) you do it, it’s whether you have fun on the journey.
Thanks for the reminder, TC.

The Eye of the Beholder

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Over the weekend I was having a chat with someone who’s been having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with some changes in their life. She spent a fair while telling me in some detail about the negatives, the unhappy-making things, and the things that cause her dissatisfaction. The list was long, with most of the issues carried forward over many years and none of them seeming to have any clear pathway to resolution.

It took me back to my mental first aid training last year. At the time the instructor stressed that, as often as not, people just need someone to hear them. That talking through an issue can make a huge difference in terms of coping and moving forward. So I listened.

When the conversation moved on, I found myself asking what sorts of things make her happy. Just simple, everyday things. Her response was, ‘I’ve never really thought about life that way.’ That made me sad.

But here’s the thing: life’s full of potentially unhappy-making events and experiences. They’re there, right in front of us or lying in wait around unexpected corners or concealed in the strangest of places. Every day. But so are happy-making things.

Happy-things don’t have to be epic happies, like successfully completing a project, or finding a solution to global warming, or resolving a relationship issue. They can be things as seemingly-trivial as taking a moment’s pleasure in sunshine on your shoulders, or someone smiling at you on the train, or seeing a dog chasing a ball in the park. It can be anything that, in that moment, makes you smile. That smile – that moment when your face softens and your eyes sparkle – that can be your positive for the day. If you let it.

It may sound a bit self-help and twee, but I’ve found that outlook makes an enormous difference to coping with all the weird stuff that life throws my way. Actively choosing to be receptive to the joy in the small stuff, making a conscious decision to look for happy things, changed how I looked at the bigger issues as well.

So, perhaps, dear friend, since the big issues are so very big and have no endgame in sight, perhaps try changing how you think about life. See if it helps to make a conscious decision to try to take pleasure each day in the small things, in the everyday things – and let’s catch up again next week and see how you’re travelling.

Autumn roses: my smile for today.

Creative recycling

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As part of my on-going commitment to not sending ‘stuff’ to landfill unless absolutely necessary, I recently got moderately creative. This was largely inspired by the over abundance (!) of decidedly past their best t-shirts lurking about in the back of my wardrobe.  To be honest, I’m really not at all sure how some of them got there. I suspect that there may have been a bit of a t-shirt breeding program going on in the dark recesses of wardrobe-land…

Anyhow, sorting through the epic pile of accumulated shirts, I ended up with four piles:

  1. Well-loved and even more well-worn shirts that I hadn’t been able to part with, a prime example being my first year uni t-shirt from 1979 – paint stains and all
  2. Those that seemed to have been kept ‘just in case’ – after all, you never know when you might need a less-than-perfect shirt for grubby projects such as painting, grouting mosaics, gardening, etc.
  3. The mystery shirts from a parallel universe (or other unknown source/s)
  4. and – the smallest pile by far – the ones I still want to wear.

A quick re-sort of piles one, two and three created a fifth pile: those suitable to donate to a goodwill/thrift shop.

Once pile number five was disposed of, and I’d combined what remained of pile one (can’t bear to part with them) with pile four (will actually wear them), I was still left with a very large pile of shirts to recycle or repurpose in some way.

Hunting around on the magical internets-of-ideas (aka Pinterest) I discovered instructions to turn unwanted t-shirts into t-shirt yarn. This could then be knitted or crocheted into useful and/or decorative household items, such as bathmats or baskets. A most cunning plan!

So I embarked on phase one: create the yarn. A fair bit of trial and error ensued, until I came across set of simple  instructions that I could work from, even though most of my shirts had side seams and not all of them were 100% cotton (which does work best).

By this stage I’d promised to run a series of community workshops on how create very cute t-shirt yarn baskets. This meant that my learning curve suddenly had to take a speedy uphill climb so that I could stay a step or two ahead of the game!

More trial and error ensued, with me using the biggest crochet hook I’d ever seen to create baskets of various shapes and sizes. In the process I learned that:

  • the softer the t-shirt fabric, the kinder it is to your hands
  • a slightly looser tension is required when using a big hook and fabric yarn
  • one t-shirt provides not quite enough yarn to make a small basket.

By the end of the workshops, everyone had conquered the process and completed at least one basket. As to what they’ll be used for… suggestions ranged from storing toys, bathroom essentials or other household items, through to planters (around houseplants) or turning them into Easter baskets full of chocolate eggs.

At the end of the day, whatever the baskets are used for, they’re definitely more useful than a pile of daggy old t-shirts going to landfill.