You know it makes sense

When I was growing up, I used to dimiss a lot of what my dad said because he was old; and because he didn't wear high-waisted flared trousers and wedge shoes. The people who knew stuff were the ones who looked like I wanted to look. Now that I'm middle-aged, I've come to realise that my dad did actually talk a lot of sense. One of the things he used to tell me was that it was important to eat breakfast, which is something I do every day now - and have done for quite a number of years. I don't understand people who don't wake up hungry. One of the best things about getting out of bed (or should that be the only best thing about getting out of bed?!) is breakfast.

My breakfast is home-made muesli. It's a fairly basic concoction comprising oats, nuts, seeds, and raisins. I usually throw on top some fresh berries (blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries), and then pour cold semi-skimmed milk (or 1 percent milk which is the closest equivalent here in Canada) over. It's absolutely delicious. It's the best thing I eat all day, any day. It's easy to prepare (I pre-mix all the ingredients - first chopping up the nuts, which are usually almonds - and then just spoon this from the storage container into my breakfast bowl), easy to eat, and you can just rinse the spoon and bowl out with water afterwards. Simple.

The reason breakfast is so important is that it provides the body with fuel to start the day and keep it going until lunchtime. People who don't eat breakfast usually find themselves hungry around mid-morning and then have to eat whatever they can get their hands on, which usually isn't breakfast cereal, but calorie-dense foods such as pastries or potato chips or chocolate bars. And it's this practice that usually mystifies some people as to why they're not losing weight - or gaining it. While it's true that they're just substituting a mid-morning snack for breakfast, it's what that substitution is that usually causes the problems.

Although when it comes to what to eat for breakfast, perhaps those breakfast-skippers are better off with a bag of chips than they are with most commerically produced cereals. Because unless you're eating a cereal that's a simple wholegrain, e.g. puffed wheat (not Sugar Puffs!), chances are you're not eating a particularly healthy breakfast. Look at the ingredients listed on most boxes of cereal and you'll see added sugar and salt. Most people may think they've grown out of having two tablespoons of sugar sprinkled on their Weetabix but they could very well still be eating the same in the guise of something else!

The good thing about oats is that they fill you up and release energy slowly into the body so they keep you going for longer. They can also help with your mood as it's claimed that alkaloid gramine, one of the components of oats, has mild sedative properties. You can eat them with cold milk, or make porridge with warm milk (or water). Oats also contain fibre which helps to keep bad cholesterol levels low; fibre also helps to keep you regular so another good reason to include them in your diet.

Now why didn't any of those cool looking people I wanted to be when I was growing up tell me this...?

Soap story

The reason I got into soap-making has nothing to do with thriftyness, or green or DIY living. It’s because I’m a sucker for a pretty package. In fact it doesn’t even have to be pretty. Some products are packaged in such a “natural” way that there’s little room for prettiness – and still these pull me in. The products I get a particular thrill out of seeing cleverly packaged are those that fall into the “lotions and potions” category – shower gel, hand lotion, and especially soap. Soap is such a useful product, too; shower gel and hand lotion I can live without (almost), but soap certainly has its uses. That’s why I bought a book from Amazon and set about making my own. As you can see, I’m still working on the packaging…

Making soap's just like cooking really. You take quantities of basic ingredients, mix them together, and then enjoy the results. You have to wait a little longer when making soap than you do, say, a cheese pie, to sample your endeavours however. But when you see your first bar of soap foaming up as you turn it over and over in your wet hands, it’s well worth it. And making your own soap does of course incorporate thrifty, green, and DIY living. It’s cheap to produce your own bars, no unnecessary chemicals or materials need be used, and you make it completely from scratch.

A very basic recipe for making soap involves just three ingredients: lye, fats, and water. There are lots of other ingredients you can add if you want your soap a little less basic, such as essential oils, bees wax, colorings, but these three ingredients are all that you need to make soap. If you've never used sodium hydroxide (lye) before then you need to know that it should always be handled with care. Wear rubber gloves and protective eye-wear when dealing with lye, and keep it stored away from children and animals - and anyone else who might be curious enough to know what it is! And before you ask, no, it's not possible to make soap without lye; there's no "safer" alternative.

Basic Soap Recipe (suitable for vegetarians)

Ingredients:

2oz (57g) lye

5oz (142g) distilled water or spring water

16oz (454g) vegetable fat (for the last soap I made, I used a 50/50 mix of olive oil and corn oil)

Equipment:

2 enamel or stainless steel pots

2 glass candy thermometers

Weighing scales (kitchen scales are fine)

Eye protection (DIY glasses or similar)

2 plastic spatulas for stirring

Old towel or blanket (to wrap soap once in mould)

Plastic mould (use what you can find!)

Knife for cutting the soap once it's hardened

Melt the fat in a pot. Use a stainless steel or enamel pot; don't use aluminum or iron as these will react with the lye, which you will add later. Once the fat has melted, turn off the heat and leave until the temperature settles at about 130 degrees F (54C).

In another stainless steel or enamel pot, place your water and then carefully pour the lye into the water. Put on your protective eye-gear and rubber gloves for this (and never pour water into lye or you’ll have an explosion on your hands!). Stir until the lye is dissolved. The mixture will give off a small amount of fumes, so be careful not to have your face too near and breathe in; it's best to do this in a well ventilated part of the house. Leave the solution until the temperature settles at about 130 degrees F (54C).

Then add the lye solution to the fats and carefully stir intermittently. After a while the mixture will start to thicken and then "trace" (leave a trace when it falls from the stirrer back onto the mixture in the pot). Once this stage has been reached, pour it into your mould. Don't worry if it takes ages for your soap to trace, sometimes when working with vegetable oils it can. If you've spent the best part of two or three hours stirring your soap every so often and it's thickening but not actually tracing, just pour it into the mould and it'll be OK. Wrap your mould in a towel or blanket for 24 hours, after which time the soap should be hard enough to cut (if your soap took a long time to trace it may not be hard until two or three days after having poured it into your mould). Whenever it is hard enough to cut, take your soap out of the mould and, wearing the rubber gloves (the soap will still be caustic at this stage so may irritate your skin), cut it into bars. Cover the bars and place them somewhere to "cure" (complete the saponification process) for six weeks before use.

Saponification occurs when an acid (fats or oils) is mixed with a caustic alkali (sodium hydroxide in the case of hard soap, also referred to as lye or caustic soda). When these two are mixed at a certain temperature, a process called saponification is triggered, the result of which is soap.

Once you've mastered this basic recipe you can experiment using different fats and oils, and then start incorporating other ingredients into your soap, such as fragrances, colors, and even fruit and vegetables.

Source: Melinda Coss: The Handmade Soap Book

Hung out to dry

The winters here in Alberta can be brutal. The average temperature is around -20 degrees Celsius and there's snow on the ground for about six months. Everyone finds it hard going. A guy I was working with a year or so ago, during the winter time, started talking about taking a vacation to the UK to escape not only the cold and snow, but the monotony that can accompany the winter weather: Every day you wake up and look out of your window and everything looks exactly the same as it did the day before, and the day before that. One question he wanted answered was: how do the English do their laundry? I imagine that he had been carrying out a bit of research on properties in the UK and not many mentioned "utility room." I told him that while most homes would have a washing machine, not everyone used a tumble dryer (or indeed had one) to dry their clothes. It's not necessary when living in the UK. Although I had a tumble dryer when I lived in England, I very rarely used it. I, like most other people, dried my clothes outdoors.

I still do dry my clothes outdoors when I can. Obviously it's not possible during the winter, but once the temperature warms up, I place my clothes airer outside. While I can't say that there are no downsides to line drying, it's still the best way to dry clothes, not only from an environmental perspective, but from a clothes perspective too. Line drying is kinder to your clothes as well as to the environment.

For instance, the average tumble dryer gets pretty hot. Hot temperatures aren't kind to clothes and can damage the fibers in some items such as panties and bras, causing them to lose their shape quicker than they would if they were dried naturally.

Not only is the sun kinder to clothes, but it also comes complete with a few add-ons: It's a natural bleaching agent helping light colored items to stay that way. The sun can also help to remove stains in clothes: Place a few drops of lemon juice on a stain you want to shift and then place the item outdoors in the sun to dry. Another good thing about the sun where laundry's concerned is that it's also a natural deodorizer, so if you've got some clothes that don't smell too good, drying them in the sun should help to get rid of their odor.

Even though it's referred to as line drying, you don't really need a line to do it. Go to Ikea and pick up one of their clothes airers (or two depending on how much laundry you need to do at one time). Actually, you don't even need good weather to dry clothes naturally: Fix up a clothes airer somewhere in your house and leave the clothes to dry there - no worry about having to rush out and bring your clothes indoors when it starts to rain then.

The one drawback to line drying, for me anyway, is that I sometimes find I need to iron clothes, whereas if I've tumble dried them, having given them enough space to move freely in the dryer, I usually don't need to. But then a lot of this is personal. One man's creased shirt is another man's shirt that "looks fine to me."

Lastly, yes, a little more effort is involved in line drying (you've got to transport your clothes from machine to line and back indoors again - and have to rush to do so if it starts to rain), but we're not talking triathlon training here. And what are we using our bodies for nowadays anyway...?

Baking soda plus elbow grease = clean dishes

Sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda as it's more commonly known, is a pretty versatile item. Not only it is useful in baking, but it can be used in so many places around the home. It’s inexpensive and non-toxic – it doesn’t contain any nasty, harsh chemicals, and won’t leave you gagging for air when you use it unlike many other commercially produced cleaning products. You do need to employ a little elbow grease when using baking soda to clean, though. But with an abrasive cloth, a bit of effort, and a little time, you can clean off baked-on food from cooking pots and pans without too much fuss.

When using baking soda to get rid of stubborn stains, sprinkle it on and then dampen it with a little water and just leave it for a few hours. You may need to repeat the process, but eventually you’ll get your pot or casserole dish clean.

The photos show the stages of cleaning a glass dish with baking soda. The top photo shows the original application of baking soda; the middle photo shows how the dish looked after the baking soda was rinsed off the first time; and the bottom photo shows how the dish looked after the second application of baking soda was washed off. Admittedly, the cleaning process may not have removed every single last stain, but you can look on those as reminders of great meals gone by!

Cans, buttons, and bottle tops

Going green is a little like dieting; in order for it to be effective, it has to be a lifestyle change rather than just a quick-fix action. And anyone who wants to fully embrace the concept of "living green" has to develop their imagination and start looking at everyday household objects from a slightly different perspective. It's an approach that can reap dividends though, and you can save money on your weekly spending as well as reduce the amount of space you would otherwise be taking up at your local landfill site.

Before you place any household item in the garbage or recycling bin, consider its potential uses. Below are a few examples of how you can turn ordinary household items into useful objects that come with absolutely no price tag.

Cans: Repurpose cans and tins as individual plant pots. Pierce the bottom of the can to allow water to drain and then fill with soil and seeds. The plants can be transplanted into bigger containers or directly into the soil in your back yard at the appropriate time. Similarly, plastic fruit containers (punnets) can be used as plant pots.

Cans can also be used as storage pots for pens and pencils.

Bottles: Attractive bottles can be repurposed as vases for flowers. These can look great when filled with one or two striking looking flowers. Dot these around your home when you're having friends to dinner and you're guaranteed a topic of conversation at the dinner table!

Newspaper: Keep pages from newspapers to clean windows and glass. Wipe the surface with a mixture of water, liquid soap or detergent, and a little vinegar and then dry with scrunched-up newspaper.

Buttons: Before throwing away an item of clothing, remove any attractive embellishments such as pretty buttons. Re-use them to add a unique and interesting look to an otherwise drab looking bag or jacket. Store your buttons in large plastic can lids.

CDs: Hang your old CDs over the areas in your garden that you want to protect from birds. Or use your old CDs as coasters.

Bottle Tops: Recycle colored bottle tops into an attractive "bead" curtain. Thread the bottle tops onto pieces of string and then hang these pieces of string across a cane: attach the cane to the horizontal top section of a door frame.

Shower Curtain: Clean an old shower curtain by leaving it to soak in water and vinegar for a couple of hours, and then re-use as a table cloth when having a picnic. You can also use it as a ground sheet under sleeping bags when camping, or to protect surfaces around the home when painting.

Magazines: Cut out colorful and attractive pictures from magazines and use them to decoupage an old table or piece of furniture. Or decoupage a wall of a room with photos cut from magazines.

The possibilities are endless! All it takes is a little imagination and then you'll be hooked on finding uses for your everyday household items.

You say beet, I say beetroot

When I told people that I was relocating to Canada, most, at some stage, commented, "At least you won't have to learn a new language." In most respects they were right; but not all.

Beetroot is called plain beet over here. Rutabaga is a turnip; mangetout is called snow peas. My neighbour asked me the other day why I don't call a carrot a carrotroot, if I call a beet a beetroot. There is no answer to that. Or not one that I could give if I still want to be on the receiving end of the tomato plants he so generously donates to me every summer.

Having taken a leaf out of my neighbor's book, I attempted to grow my own veg this year. The growing season is relatively short here in Western Canada. Unfortunately, I couldn't start sowing indoors this spring as I was away for the month of April, so I had to sow straight into the ground - once I could see it that was (for six months of the year, it's mostly covered in snow).

Growing your own vegetables is a pretty satisfying process. Pulling the first beets up out of the ground, or gently picking off the first tomatoes from your plant, can induce a feeling of real self-sufficiency and capability. However, my vegetable patch isn't particularly big, and, as my neighbor had earlier pointed out, I only have enough veg for one or two meals. Which means that not only will I be eating the beets, but I'll need to find out what I can do with the leaves so I don't go hungry...