After what has felt like a very long and very cold winter, have you noticed the sun starting to shine a bit more lately? Doesn’t it just make you feel uplifted? Hopeful of the warmer weather to come? Spring is on its way!
Spring Equinox
Next weekend is the Spring equinox, so the mornings will be getting lighter and the evenings will be getting longer. Like the animals that are beginning to creep out of hibernation, I feel like we have started creeping out of hibernation from inside the house. Although it has still been cold, I’ve started to feel more warmth in the sunshine. It has been lovely to start opening up the windows wide to let in some of the fresh cool air, to get some washing out on the washing line and to start getting out in the garden. While out on a little walk the other day, I saw that colour is starting to appear as new leaves are growing on the trees and daffodils and other flowers have begun to pop up. It was wonderful to hear the birds chirping and to be hit by the smell freshly cut grass!
Leaves are starting to appear on trees.
Daffodils are brightening up gardens.
Planting Seeds
I am excited for this coming spring as I am going to try and grow some fruits and vegetables. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time but I don’t have the greenest of fingers! Last weekend we planted some carrots, peppers, strawberries and snap dragons. It was a lovely thing to get the kids involved in. They loved getting all muddy (of course!) and helping with planting the seeds. I’m sure they are going to love watching them grow and eventually help harvest what we have grown. I am looking forward to planting more vegetables over the next few weeks.
Planting carrot seeds.
Giving the seeds a good water. Maybe a little too much!
I will keep you posted over on Life’s Little Things Facebook and Instagram pages about how well our seeds grow. Hope you all enjoy the start of spring and that it brings you some happiness and hope of better things to come as it has for me. If you need a little ‘pick me up’, check out my last blog post 9 little quotes to live by – Part 1. It is made up of some brilliantly motivational and inspiring quotes.
Every Monday, over on Life’s Little Things Facebook and Instagram accounts I post motivational and inspiring quotes. Here is a collection of the latest 9 little quotes to live by, that I have posted. If at anytime you are feeling low and need a little pick me up. Maybe you need some courage or just want something to make you smile, check out these fantastic quotes.
Stay positive, stay strong, stay focused on Life’s Little Things.
Don’t count the days, make the days count. Muhammed Ali.
All our dreams can come true if we have courage to pursue them. Walt Disney.
‘Tis just a pimple on the butt of life. My Dad.
Just keep swimming. Dory, Finding Nemo.
The sun will shine on you again and the clouds will go away. Sir Captain Tom Moore.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. Oscar Wilde.
It is during out darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. Aristotle Onassis.
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. Dalai Lama.
For more weekly little quotes to live by, follow Life’s Little Things on Facebook and Instagram. Or check out other blog posts on my blog page.
The state of the environment and our planet is something I have become very concerned about since becoming a Mum. This is something I want to try and do something about through Life’s Little Things. (See my previous post, A little bit about Me, to find out why.) I have always tried to recycle and never litter, but I want to do much more to help.
Over the past few years I have seen documentaries on the state of our planet and sometimes am left feeling like it is an impossible task to try and fix. So I did my usual trick when things feel to big for me to handle, I took a step back and broke it down into more manageable tasks. So…. here is my list of 5 little things we can all do to help the environment. By choosing 5 little things to do to help the environment, I’m hoping they’ll integrate into our everyday lives easily. Then when they become natural to us, we can choose some more changes to make.
5 little things we can all do to help the environment. Read on to find out more.
Carbon Footprint?
In this post I am going to be mentioning the words ‘carbon footprint’ a lot. So I just wanted to give a little more information about what your carbon footprint is. A persons carbon footprint is based upon the amount of greenhouse gases that are created depending on their actions and their lifestyle. Green house gases damage the environment and are a contributing factor to climate change. So the lower your carbon footprint, the better it is for the environment. Many of my points below help to reduce your carbon footprint. Woohoo!
1. Choose glass jars rather than plastic bottles
In Supermarkets, when you buys things like mayonnaise and ketchup, you can either buy them in glass jars or plastic squeeze bottles. Straight away I thought plastic was the worst of the 2 options. However, after doing some research into this, I found that there are actually pros and cons for both with regards to the environment when considering which to buy.
In many ways plastic is the worst of the 2 options. It becomes a huge problem when it ends up in landfill sites as it takes so long to breakdown. Or if it ends up in our Oceans and biodegrades, it breaks down into micro plastics that fish eat and plastic ends up in the food chain. However, I found that if plastic is recycled properly it does have a much much lower impact on the environment.
Glass initially seemed an obvious better option. It can be very easily recycled or cleaned up and reused for many purposes at home. Another bonus is that it doesn’t contain the same chemicals that plastics do. However, the production of glass carries a higher carbon footprint than plastic due to the processes used to create it. This in turn creates more greenhouse gasses that causes more damage to the environment.
So it turned out that it wasn’t a totally simple answer to just choose between the 2! For me, even though it has a higher carbon footprint, I think that glass is the better option when considering how harmful plastic is to the environment. I’m going to do other things to help reduce my carbon footprint instead to help offset the amount used to create glass. Something else I found out when comparing glass bottles to their same brand plastic squeeze bottle equivalents, the glass jars more often than not are cheaper and you get more content for your money! Bonus!
2. Take shorter showers
I am guilty of taking a longer shower than I should every day. Long showers do not only use up a lot of water, the energy used to heat the water creates higher Co2 emissions which increases your carbon footprint. The recommended time to spend in the shower is 5 minutes. Another recommendation is to turn the water temperature down. Not only will these 2 things save water and energy, it will also save you money! Win win! Maybe you could set a timer, like an egg timer, to help you stick to a 5 minute shower.
3. Have a meat free day
I’ve heard we should reduce our meat intake to help the environment but I didn’t know why that would help. So I did some research to find out more. A lot of land, water and energy resources all go into the production of livestock for the consumption of meat. All these things have an impact on the planet. The amount of animals needed to meet consumer demands also creates a lot greenhouse gasses. The more greenhouse gases that are created, the more damage is done to the environment.
An article I found on the internet about reducing our meat intake had a line that really put it into perspective for me, ‘the emissions associated with producing one quarter pound of beef is about the equivalent of driving a car for 7 miles!’* I found that shocking! I’m not saying we all have to turn vegetarian or vegan! But by reducing our meat intake by maybe having a meat free Monday or replacing some of our meat with plant based options, we will reduce the demand for so much harmful meat production and will reduce our carbon footprint at the same time. We’re going to start doing a meat free day once a week to start with and see how we get on!
4. Don’t buy products with palm oil
This is something that I want to write a longer blog post about in the future. It is quite a big subject, but here is a little bit about it. After watching the David Attenborough documentary ‘Extinction: The Facts’ (still available on BBC iPlayer if you want to check it out!) I was shocked to find how damaging the production of palm oil is to rainforests, animals homes and it is endangering species. Every hour, the size of 300 football fields of rainforests are being destroyed due to the demand for palm oil. That is insane! As soon as I heard this I decided that I wanted to stop buying products that contain palm oil.
I had heard that peanut butter was a product that contains palm oil and was really pleased when I found a substitute for it. But I was so disheartened while unpacking the rest of my shopping to see how many other products I had bought contain palm oil! A lot of big brands use it. A lot! Finding replacements for every product that uses it in my house in one go would be a huge task. So, I am going to focus on finding replacements one at a time. When looking at the products packaging, palm oil can be listed under several different names, so you need to keep an eye out. (View the Ingredients list in this article on WWF to see what other names Palm oil may be listed as.)
Some companies say that they use organic palm oil or sustainable palm oil within their products. These are better options, but to really reduce the demand for it, it is best to try and find a replacement with no palm oil in at all. By doing this you might have to spend a bit more money on products but you will be really helping the environment!!!
5. Don’t leave appliances on standby
A really easy thing that we all can do to help the environment and will help us all save some money too is to switch things off of standby. This increases your carbon footprint without you even knowing it. Although most appliances sold now have standby modes that use very small amounts of energy, the absolute best thing to do to make sure no energy is being wasted at all is to switch things off at the wall plug when they are not in use. I am going to start doing this more at home by making sure things like the tv and the baby monitors are all switched off at the wall when they are not in use.
So that’s it, 5 little things we can all do to help the environment!
Hopefully the tips have been helpful. They are only little things to do to help the environment, but if everyone did them they could make a big difference. My family and I will be doing all of them. I will do some more posts over the coming months on how we can all help out our planet more. After all, it’s the only one we have got! See you in 2 weeks, but check out my Facebook and Instagram accounts for more regular posts!
Take care,
Jem X
*statistic from mondaycampaigns.org which originally came from Pelletier, N., Pirog, R., Rasmussen, R. (2010) Comparative life cycle environmental impacts of three beef production strategies in the Upper Midwestern United States. Energy Use Agricultural Systems; Volume 103, Issue 6, July 2010, Pages 380-389.
I do love Valentine’s day! While people say we should appreciate the ones we love all year round (which I totally agree with), the truth is that life is just so hectic that we don’t always appreciate them as much as we should. So I think that it is nice to have a date in the diary for us all to make an extra special effort to show we care. And nothing shows you care more than a handmade Valentine’s gift in my opinion. I wanted to share with you a gift that is not only simple for you to make yourself but you can adapt it and customise it depending on who you are giving it to and what you like. It is also an environmentally friendly gift!
What you will need to make your handmade Valentine’s gift:
1/2 cup of cornflour 1 cup bicarbonate of soda 3/4 cup of water
Equipment:
A saucepan Bowl Spoon Kitchen roll Cookie cutters Lined baking tray Rolling pin Reusable straw Wire rack Decorating materials of your choice
Step-by-Step:
Step 1:
Pop your ingredients into a saucepan and give them a good mix. Continuously stir the mixture over a medium heat until it thickens and combines together to form a slightly sticky dough, which can take about 15-20 minutes to happen.
Mix the ingredients
Heat until it thickens
Eventually it will form a dough
Step 2:
Put the dough into a bowl with a damp cloth or damp piece of kitchen roll over the top and leave to completely cool. Once cooled, knead it until it forms a smooth dough which should only take a couple of minutes. If the dough is a little sticky then use cornflour to dust the surface you are working on.
Leave to cool
Knead for a couple of minutes
The dough will turn smooth
Step 3:
Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees. Roll the dough out to roughly 5mm thick and use cookie cutters to make whatever shapes you want. If you want to hang your decorations then use a straw (preferable a reusable straw) to create a hole in the dough. Place your shapes on a baking tray lined with tinfoil or grease proof paper.
Roll out
Add a hole if needed
Put them on a baking tray
Step 4:
Bake for 20-30 minutes, but keep a close eye on them around the 20 minute mark so that they don’t turn brown on the top! I took mine out after 25 minutes but I think they could have come out a couple of minutes earlier. Once out of the oven, leave them to cool on a wire rack.
Leave them to cool on a wire rack
Step 5:
Now it’s time for the fun bit! You can decorate them in lots of different ways, but to keep mine environmentally friendly I have chosen to decorate mine with permanent marker pens. Then I added a loop to hang the decorations with garden twine.
Bee mine design
You could just leave them plain
Or add decoration
Happy Valentine’s!
I hope your special someone enjoys their handmade Valentine’s gift and I wish you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow! For more inspiration for cosying up this Valentine’s Day, check out my last blog post all about Hygge. See you in 2 weeks for my next post, but don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages for more posts during the week.
Hygge? What on earth is hygge I hear you ask? Well let Life’s Little Things paint you a little picture…
I love winter. Wrapping up in jumpers, scarfs, hats, and gloves. Going for a lovely walk in the winter sun. Blowing the cobwebs away in the cold, crisp, cleansing air. I like staying out just long enough for the tips of my fingers and toes to go cold. Then the best bit, walking through the front door of my home. The warmth of the heating washes over me like a warm bath. The smell of something delicious in the slow cooker hits me and I warm up on the inside at just the thought of eating it! There are also those wet and windy winter days where I snuggle up on the sofa with my loved ones. Dressed in my comfy clothes and fluffy socks, watching the rain on the windows. A hot chocolate in hand and the living room bathed in the warm glow of lamps and candles.
Candles, blankets, hot chocolate and popcorn. Very hygge!
So what is hygge?!
A warm and cosy space, comforting food, good company, hot drinks. All these things generate a warm glow right in my core. They make me feel happy, cosy and contented. Did you know that there is a word for that feeling? It’s Hygge! (Pronounced hoo-ga.) It comes from the Danish way of life, where people surround themselves with simple things that brings them the most comfort and contentment. Denmark has very cold and very dark winters, yet is ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world! They must know what they are doing!
Hygge is not about material items bringing us happiness, it is about creating happiness from the most simple things like the food we eat, the company we keep and a cosy setting. It is about turning off your phones and tablets and being present in the moment to see, smell and really feel what is all around you. In a time when we can’t hug our loved ones and friends, I think we all need a little hygge. Hygge can be slightly different for everyone and interpreted in your own way. Everyone has different things that makes them feel happy after all.
To me, Hygge is about home
It is about what is within my 4 walls, the comforts as well as the people. We have very busy lives and barely stop during the week. With homeschooling, looking after a toddler, working, chores, home improvements etc. So I do try my best to make Sundays, our most peaceful day of the week, as hygge as I can. Last Sunday was no exception. A very delicious lamb stew bubbled away in the slow cooker all day. Unlike most of the country, we unfortunately didn’t get any snow (snow would have been sooooooo hygge!!) but we still played in the garden and got all chilly. After a lovely warm bath for the kids, we tucked into the stew, which certainly warmed us up. I love belly warmer dinners, the ones that you can still feel all warm inside your tummy for ages after. After tea, we shut the curtains, turned on the lamps, fairylights and lit some candles. A wax melt filled the room with the scent of Main Street Bakery in Walt Disney World (warm cookies!!!). Then all 4 of us snuggled up on the sofa under a blanket and watched ‘The Snail and The Whale’ together before it was time for the kids to go to bed. This is always my very favourite part of the week, when we just all stop and are present and have time to appreciate what we have.
Choose Hygge
The outside world feels like the complete opposite of hygge at the moment. It is all about staying away from people. It is sterile and cold with rubber gloves and masks and news reports glowing white with hospital lights. All these things need to be happening in the world right now to help keep us all as safe as possible and to help stop the spread of the virus. We don’t have any choice in that. Where we do have a choice though is within our own home.
Treat yourself to some hygge time this week. It doesn’t have to be big, after all, here at Life’s Little Things it’s all about the little things in life. Treat yourself to your favourite comforting meal when you next go shopping, your favourite sweet treat or get some of your favourite hot drink. Snuggle up on the sofa and watch your favourite tv programme, a film, read a book. Take a deep breath, smile and forget all about the world outside.
At the end of the film Trainspotting there is the famous ‘Choose Life’ monologue. Well, I have come up with one of my own. Choose good food, choose good company (socially distanced where necessary until allowed otherwise!), choose blankets, choose cushions, choose candles, choose cosy, choose comfy, choose hygge!
The most hygge time of year is Christmas, so I will definitely be bringing you a little more hygge later on in the year. Until next time, you can check out my previous blog posts (Welcome to Life’s Little Things and A little bit about me) or check out our Facebook and Instagram pages for posts during the week.
Well what a first 2 weeks to the year that has been!! I hope everyone is doing ok in this tough time. Sending you all virtual hugs! So welcome back to Life’s Little Things, or if this is the first time you are reading my blog, hello!! For my first blog post a few weeks ago I told you what Life’s Little Things is all about. (Read it here if you missed it!) This time I want to tell you about me to help explain why I am creating Life’s Little Things.
Born and raised in beautiful Cornwall, I am a proud Cornish girl, a wife to an amazingly talented electric guitarist and a Mummy to 2 little beauties who keep me VERY busy! As a generally happy and smiley person in life, I always tend to graduate towards looking on the bright side of things and try to find silver linings to situations. Don’t get me wrong, I have down days like everyone and there are times when I struggle, but I have learnt it’s ok to not be ok and I just need to give myself time to get back to feeling like me again.
Me enjoying the winter sun at one of my favourite places, the beach.
Why a happiness blog?
Ever since attending a lecture on blogging in Uni I have wanted to start a blog, but I could never decide on what to write about! What I did know is that I wanted to try and make a difference in the world with my posts. Even if it was only a tiny difference. After the year that was 2020 (it was a tough one) I finally connected the dots. I realised a blog would be the perfect way to try and share some happiness and positivity into the world.
Why a craft business?
As I explained in my first post, later in the year I want to launch a range of environmentally friendly gifts and crafts. I have been a creative person as long as I can remember, always making gifts, cards and artwork for people. For a long time I have wanted to make and sell crafts for a living but never took those steps to actually make it happen. I was busy with a career and after becoming a Mum there was no time to pursue anything else. Then lockdown 2020 hit and I was furloughed for a little while. Suddenly I had some time to work on my creative ideas and I made a big decision. It was time to get my butt in gear and make my dream of creating a craft business happen.
On a soppier note, I am also doing this for my children. I want to show them that with hard work and perseverance, you can (hopefully!!!) achieve anything you want to!
Why environmentally friendly?
Becoming a Mum changed my world overnight in so many ways. Apart from the obvious, it also changed the way I viewed the world and things that I didn’t really think too much about before, like world issues and the environment, suddenly became very very important to me. I can’t change everything that’s wrong in the world, but I realised that I could do small things to help. In pursuing my dream of having a craft business, I didn’t want to be a contributor to cluttering up the planet with more things that would eventually sit in a landfill site and damage the environment. So I made the decision that every product that I will make will either be made from environmentally friendly materials, can be recycled, are biodegradable, are made from sustainable resources or have been made from recycled materials.
So, now you know a little bit about me and all about Life’s Little Things! See you in 2 weeks for my next post that I’m hoping will bring a little happiness to your day. Don’t forget to keep an eye on Facebook and Instagram for more motivational and inspiring posts during the week! I will also be sharing helpful tips on little things we can all do to help our planet!
First let me wish you a Happy New Year! I hope you are having a wonderful and safe time. Secondly let me wish you the warmest of welcomes to Life’s Little Things!
January 1st is a strange sort of day. It’s a day where we make resolutions, where we feel we can do anything and make what we thought was impossible… possible. So I thought what better time to launch my new blog than today! This is something I have been slowly working on over the last 6 months, well in truth this idea started about 15 years ago, so I am very excited (and nervous!) to finally get to launch it. Let me tell you a bit more about what it’s all about…..
What is Life’s Little Things? – Part 1
We all know that 2020 was a tough year for everyone. I don’t know about you, but on many days I felt completely overwhelmed by the stories and articles on the news and on social media. My head would spin as I constantly read and read and felt more and more like the world and it’s problems were just too big for me and there was nothing I could do to fix them. When I reached that point, when everything felt too big, I made a decision to bring my world down to a manageable size. I put my phone away, turned off the news and focused on the little things in life, or life’s little things! I found that by just focusing on the little things around me, like sitting on the grass in the sunshine or taking a walk on the beach, I found happiness and positivity and this is what Part 1 of Life’s Little Things is all about. I want to spread the happiness and positivity that I found in the little things out into the world through my blog posts and be like a little ray of sunshine in your day, because I think the world needs it after the year we have all had! The plan is to release a new blog post every 2 weeks, but keep an eye out on Life’s Little Things social media accounts for more regular posts! (Links are at the bottom of the Site).
What is Life’s Little Things? – Part 2
I have bigger dreams for Life’s Little Things beyond being a blog. I am hoping in the next few months to launch a small range of environmentally conscious and friendly gifts and crafts with the aim of helping our poor planet. The items will be made from recycled materials, biodegradable materials or materials that can later be recycled. I want to make it easy for people to be able to brighten someone’s day with a gift but also make it easy for them to help our planet at the same time.
I would love for you to join me on this journey so keep an eye on the Site for future posts, or follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more from Life’s Little Things!
