A stumbling, bumbling 365 day experiment into living sustainably by an inner-city mum
Hello ... welcome to my blog
I’m Lisa and a complete novice at being green. I hope you enjoy reading about my trials and mishaps as I attempt to reduce my giant environmental footprint.
Thanks for visiting! XOXO
I’ve been in hibernation the last couple of months on the blog front. After a lovely time off with my darling children, reality hit and I had to return to the rat race. Life has been consumed with treading water in stormy seas, the perfect analogy for a working mum, but things are starting to settle down now. My challenge read more
Time for a “favourite things” post … Just one more – Whilst not an organic wine, Organic Planet Wine is in environmental packaging and the Sauvignon Blanc is delicious. Take me to Mexico pronto! Vintage dress from Purple Deer Vintage just dreamily divine for throwing over a bikini and heading off to the beach Love love but need a new read more
How to do festivals sustainably
It is Summer in Australia. The mercury is soaring, cicadas are singing, BBQs are cranking and icecream stands are making a brisk trade. Summer is also the season of festivals with promoters capitalising on clear skys to host large scale outdoor events. Next week, it is the massive Big Day Out touring festival’s turn as it makes a 2 day read more
Have you ever seen an obese eco-warrier? A gargantuan person living off the grid, who grows their own vegetables, rides their bike for commuting and makes decisions on food to eat based on carbon miles or organic principles? Thought not. Obesity tends to be associated with excess consumption, a sedentary lifestyle and lots of meat. Not many vegetarians I would read more
As the year staggered to an end, the media flooded their outlets with stories and advertisements regarding weight loss and quitting smoking Either weight loss or quitting smoking invariably end up on most people’s New Year’s resolution list as a new year is such a great catalyst to think about transformation. And yes I’m one of the many in hoping read more
It’s New Year’s Eve! And along with a few million or so of my fellow Sydneysiders I will be watching the Sydney Harbour fireworks spectacular from one of the many vantage points dotted along the foreshore. Currently the sky is a perfect blue, the temperature is sitting at 27degrees and the wine is chilling. Earlier, up the street for my read more
Yesterday we had a family excursion to Gould’s Book Arcade on King Street in Newtown. This book store,run by Bob Gould by 35 years, is a Sydney 2nd hand bookstore institution. It’s cavernous interior has nearly 1 million books piled precariously high seemingly defying any laws of physics. Apparently there is some structure and order with books somewhat segmented by read more
A certain sense of satisfaction
Yesterday with the help of my parents, we re-covered the dining chair cushion with some vintage (ie. been in mum’s cupboard for YEARS!) fabric. The chairs previous cream seat had accumulated permanent stains of Milo and other children associated mess and no amount of cleaning could shift the grime. Their sorry state has long bothered me and I have been read more
Tick tock tick tock … I have only 3 days remaining to procure Christmas presents. Once again I fear I’ve left it too late for stress free shopping. And of course, I’ve procrastinated on buying my 5 year old’s Santa gifts which now means, given that she’s on holidays, I’m going to have to find a time to sneak out read more
The hugely popular Twilight Saga series has sold to date over 110 million copies. Staggering. On average, over 30 million trees are cut down every year to feed our appetite for books. I’m sure the above statistic would have blown this average out of the water. Whilst the industry is forging ahead with using recycled paper to reduce some of read more
Christmas Day is hurtling like a freight train towards me and I need to start planning the menu for the day post-haste. This year I will be the hostess attempting to bring Christmas cheer to my parents-in-law, grandmother-in-law, my parents, hubby and my children. Unfortunately there is no common ground on tastes and traditions for the Christmas meal and in read more
Why can’t I look stylish on my bike?
I wrote a post a couple of days ago about my ambitious plan to cycle to & from work each day when I return to work end of January. I’m not a very confident rider so it was with trepidation but determination as well that I looked at the challenge. My earlier post solicited advice on the best way to read more
Dear Salvos … you are not an antique centre!!
I am beginning to think that my local Salvation Army store has taken leave of their senses. Gone cuckoo, gagga or just incredibly greedy. Salvo stores aim “To provide our services in harmony with Christian principles, professionally, efficiently and in an environmentally responsible manner, thereby aiming to maximize funding for Salvation Army programs.” Simply … they take your 2nd hand read more
Super excited. Literally three days ago I was commenting to my mum that perhaps at the age of 36 I should finally learn how to sew. Given my last sewing attempt was in school at 13 when I managed to sew the legs of a pair of shorts together my record is not so stellar. Then the “powers that be” read more
