Fast Fashion - The cost, the trends and the pressure

I currently work in the 'fast fashion' industry. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay in this field my whole life (I strongly suspect not) but for now, it pays the bills and... I get the clothes at wholesale!

Even at a discounted rate, I can't help but think of the cost fast fashion has on our planet. Living in Vancouver, I and my contemporaries are becoming increasingly aware of the footprint we leave on the earth. The city as a whole has implemented a fairly comprehensive organic waste program, and the goal is to be the greenest city by 2020.

There seems to be an aspect we are either completely unaware of or are blatantly ignoring. This article gets into the stats and figures in more detail than I have to right now, but it brings up an interesting experiment.

Go one calendar year without buying any new clothing.

Coming from a girl who literally buys a new shirt or shoes every single week, this seemed like a very intriguing idea. As my 29^th birthday approaches, I have decided to take on this challenge.

The rules:

1)     I'm not going to buy (or acquire) any clothing, accessories, shoes or any other kind of fashion ‘accoutrement’. This means no:

a.      Shoes (that’s going to be the hardest)

b.     Shirts, pants, jackets… anything! (I have enough!)

c.      Purses (I have a lot!)

d.     Jewellery (I have enough the last a lifetime!)

e.      Clothing swaps. They are for getting rid of clothing, not finding new clothing. Just because it doesn't cost me cold hard cash, doesn't mean it doesn't cost me.

2)     I won’t refuse gifts, I’m not a jerk!

3)     Over the course of the year, I will bring each type of article down to 10 each

a.      I’ll start with 10, and I’m still sure it won’t make a huge dent in my wardrobe

b.     If I’m not totally in love with it when I look at it, it’s goes!

c.      I’m sure the more emotional I get about it, the more garment types will get split up

                                                             i.      Leggings vs. pants vs. trousers vs . jeans…. Baby steps…

I will keep track of the how much I get rid of and report it occasionally. My biggest concern is that people will notice and comment, but I also suspect that's will be completely in my head! Let see how I do!

 designing a life, not a wardrobe

          Anna Felicity

Oil Pulling is wierd

Have you heard about it?

Oil Pulling.

It's weird.

So here's the deal:

1) Get some coconut oil (or apparently sesame oil works too)

2) Get that s*it it in your mouth

3) Swish-it, swish-it gooood... 20 minutes

4) Spit it out into the garbage (not down your drains cause it's going to solidify once its out of the warm inviting crevice of your oral cavity.

So the many sites in a quick search say, the oil 'absorbs' any 'bad' bacteria in your mouth, and traps it, them you spit it out. How the oil magically traps the bad bacteria without taking the good, I don't know? Also, the oil (thank goodness for this one) pulls toxins out of your body through you mouth.

I'm calling BULLSHIT!

The oils is about as likely to pull toxins out of my body through my mouth as at ionized water is going to pull it out of my body through my feet.

Apparent benefits

A shit load. The kind of number of benefits where someone might say, 

"Gosh, that sounds too good to be true!"

And maybe they are right! Google this b*tch, there's a lot. Here are the ones I might actually believe:

Whitens teeth

Strengthens gums, teeth and jaw

Prevents cavities and gingivitis

Prevents dry lips, mouth and throat

Here are the more dubious ones:

Hangover relief (I wish!)

Migraine relief

Corrects hormone imbalance

Reduces eczema and pain... and insomnia... and gastro-enteritis... and symptoms of bronchitis... and allergies... and sinus congestion... and, and, and....

You get the idea, it's like this thing could cure every ailment you could possibly have, and some your didn't even know you had!

Possible bad-ish things that could happen

You get oil down your sink, because you're totally out of it in the morning and forget that's a bad idea.

You waste 20 minutes of your life

You get bored in the 20 minutes and plan world domination, probably unsuccessfully

You swallow nasty, 'bacteria filled' oil

You look like an idiot with oil leaking out of your mouth

Your grocery costs go way up because you are literally spitting out a lot of coconut oil

People think you're crazy

You are committed to a mental health institution

There's not coconut oil available there

So why am I bringing this to your attention?

Well I'm going to try it. It probably won't kill me, it won't exactly ruin my life (hopefully), and we have a lot of coconut oil hanging around from out cleanse in January, and this is as good a use for it as any.

Results pending...

     designing a life more greasy?

          Anna Felicity

New Years resolutions and insincerities

**Full recipe at bottom of post, please feel free to skip my jibber-jabber**

Well with January first this came the expected resolutions (quit drinking), the obvious ones I’m not going to keep (quit drinking), and the ones I’m going to give my best efforts to keep (run a 5km race in March).

My lovely sister (in-law) suggested we do a cleansing detox the first week of January. I am VERY hesitant to even use the word detox, or cleanse, cause not only are they often dangerous, or strait up wrong, they can also be confusing to do and carry with them the stigma of “Oh, you’re on a cleanse, what do you think you’re better than me?” (or maybe that how I’ve always looked at people who do them…)

Today is the first day of week two, and oh dear GOD I want a chocolate bar so fuckin’ bad! Strangely enough though, celery is starting to taste sweet to me (WTF?).

The basic idea is:

            Sugar free (including fruits)

            Gluten-free 

(easy now, considering that particular dietary need has found its place to limelight)

            & Dairy free (I miss butter.)

The first week we graded down towards the Full Monty, so to speak, with limited dairy, natural sugars (no refined sugar, not a bad thing after the holidays) and no bread products. Not that bad… we were still allowed coffee (with unsweetened non-dairy milk, Hello Almond Milk!)

Ooooh wait though!! Hold up… this week:

            No Sugar (of any kind, no refined sugar, no fake sugar, no FRUIT?!)

No coffee (black or otherwise, FML)

No legumes (good-bye sweet, delicious beans)

That’s a lot of NO

This week will be an adventure of and in itself (note: I am writing this powered solely on omelette muffins (no cheese, it’s a crime) and green tea… pfft!)

Last week though Manfriend created a delicious granola recipe, totally gluten free and totally fucking delicious! (and not just because we were jonesing for ‘real food’)

Delicious Nut Granola

            Gluten Free

            Dairy Free

            Freaking Awesome

Time: 35 Minutes

Tools: Food Processor, rimmed baking sheet, microwaveable bowl, 

Ingredients:

o   ½ cup each of:

·         Almonds

·         Hazelnuts

·         Brazil nuts

·         Walnuts

·         Pumpkin seeds

·         Almond Meal

·         Coconut Flakes (unsweetened, if you’re cutting down on your sugar)

o   ¼ cup of honey (OR ⅛ cup of honey, ⅛ cup of Maple syrup)

o   1 Tbsp. of Vanilla extract

Directions:

1.    In a food processor, chop all the nuts and pumpkin seeds into pea-sized pieces or smaller.

2.    In a large microwavable bowl combine nuts, coconut flakes, honey and vanilla extract.

3.    Microwave about a minute, to make heat honey.

4.    Mix all ingredients until honey is evenly distributed.

5.    Spread evenly onto a rimmed baking sheet.

6.    Bake at 350ºF for 20 minutes, or until light golden brown, stirring occasionally.

Omelette Muffins and Homemade Ketchup

And that’s it! It’s awesome, unfortunately we can’t have it this week, because of the honey, but after this intense thing, I am ALL over it!!

Hope you try it out and enjoy, it’s worth the 35 minutes of your life.

Stay tuned for my post about homemade condiments. 

designing a healthy life

Anna Felicity

Conversations with his 2 year old daughter

Well, I can’t actually remember where I came across this, but it's well worth a watch.

The creator, Matthew Clarke of Warmland Films only started the Youtube channel on May 18, 2013, and already his first video (seen above) has had over 5,000,000 hits! It’s a viral hit, as well it should be!

The tag line, “Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full-grown man”, cannot prepare you for what you are about to see.

A big shout out to David Milchard, who pulls off the role of a two year girl with childish charm and just the tiniest hint of psychopath.

Let me leave you with this,

Because sometimes, don’t we all just want one more cookie.

    designing a life with cookies (I can only hope)

         Anna Felicity

Capilano Suspension Bridge adventure

Before the bridge

My birthday was on June 9th, and in celebration of turning a completely arbitrary age, ie. a none-milestone age, I decided I wanted to go the Capilano Suspension Bridge for the day.

After the bridge, and still talking to me?

Well for the day didn’t really happen, cause we were completely lazy and didn’t actually get out of the house until about 3. From our living room we can clearly see North Vancouver (Oh and Downtown AND West Vancouver, btw!), and we spent the majority of the morning eating decadent foods and watching the weather.

By 3pm we (by which I mean I) decided it didn’t matter if it was raining there, we (I) wanted to go.

The staff are very close to nature.

After 40 minutes of Downtown Traffic we were there and it was beautiful! On the way there, I seemed unable to contain my enthusiasm and appreciation for the fact that some great power (or deity or whoever you bow down to, if any) has deemed me worthy of this beautiful place I live in. I’m not sure who thought I was worthy, but no longer will I waste this amazing natural playground I live in. Enter the Capilano Valley, a haven etched out of the land, situated a stones throw from home.

On the CliffWalk

Being a BC resident, we are entitled to a year long pass to the bridge for the price of one entry (the cost of a ‘student’ entry for me!), including entry in the Canyon lights event! Despite a funky/broken parking meter, the whole day went off without a hitch, and we didn’t even get a parking ticket!

That's a far way down!

Not looking as calm as he'd like

I had a few people suggest it was foolish for us to pay to go on a bridge, when the Lynn Canyon bridge is free, but I was there for the CliffWalk! A “ cliffside journey [that] takes you through rainforest vegetation on a series of unobtrusive cantilevered and suspended walkways jutting out from the granite cliff face above Capilano River to previously unexplored areas of the park. “ (according to the Capilano Suspension Bridge website)

After the bridge we went for dinner, and while we were planning on using The Keg gift card my uncle gave us for Christmas, it was a 45 minutes wait, so (poor me) we ended up at Bridges Restaurant on Granville Island. Seeing a theme to the day?

At Bridges

trying to show how far down it is...

After dinner we caught a movie, “The Kings of Summer”. It was technically a ‘coming of age’ story, but done so that I didn’t want to claw my eyes out from teenage angst. I actually really enjoyed it, check it out! It may not be a classic in theaters movie, ie. no big fight/race/explosion scenes, but the theaters may be the only place you’ll have a chance to see it, as it’s not a blockbuster, slated for 'in-home' release as far as I know. Rotten Tomatoes top critics didn't love it, but then again, they are critics. I'm pretty sure if I listened to them I'd never go watch a movie.

We suck at couple selfies

Next weekend I plan on celebrating with friends at the Irish Heather (who were kind enough to take my reservation, as opposed to a few other places that 'don't take reservations ', What?!) and may go up to the Lynn Canyon (what's the difference between a Valley and Canyon?)uspension bridge, but I don’t know how happy the Boyfriend will be about that one. I may be out on that bridge alone, so to speak.

   designing a life closer to nature

        Anna Felicity