Old style things that 'only you' do...

Caterina

Lola Lemon, I am so impressed! Well done on your amazing OS lifestyle!

LolaLemon

LolaLemon wrote: »

I dont use deoderant/antiperperant, use a crystal stick instead, had the trial one from holland and barrett for 3 years now! and WORKS BETTER than branded sprays,sticks and rollons, and no possible lung damage exposure!

i make my own cleaners using bicard, borax, soda crystals, vinegar, and loads of essential oils


hot chocolate - we have an allergy to cows products, so i make my own hot chocolate buy heating up milk in a pan, and adding some real chocolate (bounty, mars, galaxy, freddo bars, lindt, toblerone, roses etc) whisk while still on the heat, bring to the boil and serve. dont burn!
I dont buy buscuits, i make some shortbread type ones,

dont do crisps either, just slice root veg, sweet potato and parsnips my fav for this, slice to any thickness, i do £1 coin roughly, put in sandwich bag, add flavour, salt n peper, paprika, rosemary, chilli flakes, shake, add 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of oil and give a good shake, then cook for 10-15 mins at 180degrees.

-remember and take them out of the bag before you put them in the oven!! hehehe

My aim at the beginning wasnt really to be 'old school' or even to save money, it was to reduce our usage of chemicals. not loing after my son was born i watched a sarah beenie program (her that does house rebuild/repair type programs on channel 4, it was called something like 'what are you made of' or something and one of the episodes consentrated on the amount of chemicals we consume. according to the prog, back in the 70's their was less than 100 chemicals approved for human consumption (via food and products for the body, i.e. soap, toothpaste, etc) but since then the legal amount has grown sooo much that this program estimated that the average person consumed over 250 before they left the house in the morning!!! and that night i stopped 'cold turkey'. i checked everything i purchased, cut out sls' paraben and loads of others, the things i did get cost more, but generally lasted longer (the deoderant is now nearly 4 years old and cost under £5).
Also, bringing in the 'gay' debate, this program advised that explorers/scientists out in the north pole/antartic noticed for the first time since they had been seen that polar bears where 'turning' gay, scientists reason? the amount of chemicals that the world is dumping in the water for years and the bears eating/drinking/living in that water that has been getting diluted with these chemicals.... so going back to the 'born gay/turn gay/aginst nature/religion' thing.... if we as humans consume over 250 chemicals in a morning, some of these chemicals have been proven to alter DNA, is it not possible that these same chemicals can alter our sexual preferances and/or our sexual beings i.e masculinity/femininity, since the 80's/90's their has been a noticable increase in males who look and/or act and/or sound feminin and vice versa (I have nothing against anyone who has sexual preferences different/same as me, i just felt it was better for me to let my son be who he is ment to be, rather than the food/body care stuff we use dictate his path for him, plus my sons father has 2 relatives who are gay, so u know, fighting chance an all that hehehe)
With food the less ingredients on the packet the better. (tescos chopped tomato's are best and cheapest, has only 3 ingrediants and 60 or 65% of that is toms, then water and i think the last ingrediant is sugar, branded ones have less % of tom's and something extra i dont understand what it is so i avoid it as their is an alternative.
I have ponly recently began buying proper shampoo and conditioner, was using Halo's and horns as they dont contain any nasties
Toothpaste was a range in holland and barrat, but when i was pregnant my son 'stole' my calcium and floride (cracked a tooth on a banana!) and i now get prescription toothpaste that has 2500floride.

I dont buy the biscuits cause i cant stop at one hahaha
and did u know? if u eat 1 packet of crisps a day, you eat something like 3 bottles of fat! eough! (plus ive never really been a big fan of crisps, give me cakes and buns any day hehehe)

so my quest for as chemically free a life has made me go back to old style, but it is now also a budgeting neccesity. (single parent student with a mortgage and £165 travel everymonth, not good!)

Primrose wrote: »

Lola Lemon - You should be teaching Home Economics in a school. The kids would learn so much from you!

Thank you, I am doing a degree in social sciences with the plan being to then do a post grad into teaching, Home Ec has always been on my mind, BUT im learning Gaelic too, so i actually have an advantage to get a job as their is a severe lack of Scots Gaelic teachers in the Gaelic schools, wheras their are hundreds of qualified teachers applying for every job available in english medium schools (ordinary schools for u and me lol)

Caterina wrote: »

Lola Lemon, I am so impressed! Well done on your amazing OS lifestyle!

Thank you



p.s. sorry for my spelling, dyslexia is a bummer

smokeystarling

Am absolutely loving this thread and am so pleased it was ressurected! Have spent the last day reading through it and have learnt so much.
I have to admit to being wasteful and throwing money away with some of my bad habits, but this year I am determined to change, I can't afford to be so wasteful and unorganised!
Does anyone have tips for what to do with plastic bottles? We go through tons in this house as me and the bf are big cordial fans... any suggestions welcome!

seasalt_2

Are you gardeners? Use them as mini cloches in the garden. Cut them in half, remove lid and make a few holes in other half before using. Or cut into cylinders. use the bases as plant saucers.

Sink them in the ground, lid off - or make a few needle size holes in the lid instead - depends on what kind of soil you have - and use them to get water directly to the plant's roots. Great for toms, beans and courgettes.

Our local school has made a shelter wall out of them - for people rather than for plants - it has a wooden framework but not sure exactly how the bottles were put into it - and presumably they will eventually degrade with UV light but can probably be replaced easily enough.

OH cuts the bases off and uses them as fillers/funnels.

You can make non-spill paint pots for kids by cutting off top about 2" down and inverting it into a cut down section of the base - we used to do this at playgroup with the old kind of washing up liquid bottles (squeezy) - before they changed to a "flatter" shape.

As I now have more than enough for the garden, I mostly just recycle them!

LolaLemon

i buy biiiig bottles and decant into my old bottles, i also make some ready in the old bottles and leave in the fridge, then i can grab one when leaving for the day.

eco

I've finally finished reading, and thought I'd add a few, I'm on a water meter and use water from the water butt to wash my car, I have an old kettle for boiling the water, I also use the water in the butt for my water bottle, the used water can go down the toilet or be reused in the water bottle.

Eenymeeny

Thanks for this wonderful thread everyone. I'm still working through it and have found a lot of new tips and a couple that I'd forgotten about! One I haven't seen mentioned is to dilute vinegar with cooled boiled water. You can add about a quarter to a large bottle without noticing a difference in taste if you leave it for as long as possible without using it. I keep two bottles on the go:)
I can't remember where I heard about it. It's just one of those things that I've done for years....:o
Has anyone any uses for left over pickled onion vinegar? Apart from putting it on your chips I mean? It just seems a shame to pour it down the drain... Dad used to put it on the grass verge outside his house to stop dogs using it as a toilet! Seems that they moved on pretty sharpish once they smelt it!

curlytop12

bumped because its a great read!

Primrose

Eenymeeny wrote: »

Has anyone any uses for left over pickled onion vinegar? Apart from putting it on your chips I mean? It just seems a shame to pour it down the drain... Dad used to put it on the grass verge outside his house to stop dogs using it as a toilet! Seems that they moved on pretty sharpish once they smelt it!

I re-use mine for making pickled red cabbage as we often have surplus after making our favourite recipe of fried red cabbage with onions, sliced apples and smoked pork sausage chunks.
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Just shred the cabbage finely, sprinkle with salt for a couple of hours to remove surplus moisture. Rinse off the salt, dry with a clean cloth and put into the pickled onion vinegar. It will be ready to eat in a few weeks. You can also use the vinegar, of course, to pickle any spare shalots or pickling onions you may still have around at this time of year.

GreyQueen

I alternate the two back burners on my gas hob (the two front ones are different from each other, one simmer, one fast boil so it doesn't work on the front).

Checklist in the affirmative; washing poly bags, getting a rellie to cut my hair, using packaging materials on the lottie to shelter plants, rinsing my hair with vinegar leftover from h.m. pickled onions, cannaibalising anything from garments to small appliances for spares, soap sherds into my scratchy bath gloves so every bit is used, slitting open tubes of stuff open to use every last bit, mending my own shoes, swilling bottles and cans with a bit of water to get the last drop for the recipe, turning stuff upside down to draqin the last dregs, picking up stray screws from the city pavements.....

More the case of what I don't do, I think. It's just normal life chez moi.