I cannot find the charger for my camera, so I have some felt projects waiting to be posted... Before I go and begin my search for it (...) i just have to write a few words about a book I'm reading. The book is in Swedish by a Swedish author and is called "Don't by this book!" (
"Köp inte den här boken!"). Guess I had to buy it bc of reveresed psychology? The book is a print of a blog written by a woman who decides to have a shopping free year. It is a very interesting book, not bc it is going to win the Nobel Prize, but bc it is personal reflections about consumption. There are many aspects of her project that would be great to build a qualitative study around. I can identify a few: housholding with the natures resources, our own money and our own time. Most of the time, they go hand in hand. Less consumption means less energy consumption for growing, making and transporting stuff, less money spent for buying the stuff and less time spent for making money, finding the stuff and eventually get rid of it.
I had to do some thinking about what a shopping free year would mean to me. I have identified some of my weaknesses:
- Fabric and yarn and other stuff for crafting. Crafting magazines.
- Books, mostly about crafting but also criminal books and psychology and cooking.
- Bargains. Concerning craftig and clothes mainly.
- Eating out. I love Indian and Libyan food, when other people make it. :)
I could probably skip to buy stuff for crafting for a whole year and still have things to do. I actually try to do that every now and then, but maybe not for a whole year, and check what I have and what I can do with it. It is good for creativity. I have two subscriptions of magazines "interweave knitting" and "kreativa kvinnor" but still buy magazines now and then when there is something special. Whatever that can be. The nice thing about crafting magazines is that you get pleanty for the money most of the time. I believe my old (and new) magazines is a great resource of inspiration for me. One thing that I could do is to try harder to find ecological fabric and yarn.
At my work a friend came up with the excellent idea with a bookshelf where everybody at work can leave "books that I liked but that I won't read again" and pick up another one. I have left two books there already. Not a place for my crafting books of course (I'm going to keep them!!) but criminal stories are often not as exciting when they are read once... A thing that I'm quite bad at is using the library for the books that I would like to read but probably not keep. I will work on that.
My waredrobe consists of clothes that I've made myself, that I have inhereted, and bargains. Sometimes I think that I would try to make all my clothes myself except underwear. On the other hand, I could definitely go a year without getting enything else than socks and maybe shoes. A much loved one would not agree that I would need more shoes, but I think I need a pair of boots that can do with this rainy fall.
Eating dinner out can't really be bad for the environment, even though it may be bad for my wallet. I had my favorite dish "palak panir" yesterday and I couldn't eat it all. I realized that i should have asked to bring the rest with me and put it in the freezer as lucnh the week to come. Bad for the wallet and bad for the environment is to throw away food! When I was younger my mom had hens as a hobby. It was great with homemade eggs from happy hens (or at least as happy as they can be :) and I simply can't buy anothing else than ecological eggs. We almost always buy ecological milk and I try to get hold of ecological potatoes. My idea is that an ecological animal product needs an animal that has been fed ecological food so that focusing on them being ecological is an easy first step to make as much impact on food production as possible with the easiest means.
A lot of thoughts even though I just read the first 6 months of the book! :) Time to go and find the camera charger!
