Simples: a simple living challenge

Since I started this blog, I've been on a journey. The focus has shifted slightly but significantly.

When I started writing, I wanted to live an eco-friendly lifestyle. But I quickly found that as soon as any conflict arose, I abandoned by alleged green principles. Green is awesome, but I wasn't about to turn down an invitation to spend a month in Argentina with my boyfriend to meet his parents and his friends. Plus I love hot baths too much.

Making me smile today

::Chamomile tea with meringue and raisin biscuit::

::The Good Life Christmas Special::

::Watching Christmas stockings come alive::

::Warm, fluffy socks::

And to whoever was playing the bagpigpes in Place Luxembourg this morning, thank you! You made my day.

No-poo update: Month Two

I'm now just coming up to the end of the second month and the beginning of the third month of no-poo - of this attempt at it, anyway!

After washing hair but before brushing

Car-free Sunday

This morning, I woke up, and it felt different. Odd. Weird.

Quiet.

Then my boyfriend commented that today is an auto-free day. Ahah!

As a city dweller who grew up in a more suburban, almost rural environment, I miss quiet, reflective days. I miss sitting on a fence listening to the wind in the trees. But today, I don't miss the countryside as much as I normally do. Brussels is a very green city, with plenty of parks and trees and people-spaces, but today without the cars, it's blissful. It feels quiet and calm and restful, tranquil and pensive. And there are so many people. People on rented bicycles, walking, playing with their children in the streets.

Start as you mean to go on

Best way to start the weekend, methinks? Meringues that have been in the oven overnight, and a pot of fresh coffee. I feel so decadent! Let's hope this continues.

I have been mulling recently about building routines that work for me.

I have observed a pattern in my behaviour, when it comes to keeping my space (both home and work) tidy, organised and clean. I have a period of enthusiasm lasting maybe 2 weeks to one month, in which I keep everything immaculate and find endless energy for sorting old piles and tackling odd jobs that build up.

This is followed by a period of one to two months of sloth and lethargy, when I can see that the floor needs to be hoovered and my intray at work piles higher and higher, but for some reason I let it get on top of me.

Bitten by the baking bug

So what is it about Great British Bake Off that has me dusting off my apron and tutting at the poor array of baking equipment in my cupboard? (Seriously. Can't even do a Victoria sponge.) 

I seem to have been bitten by the baking bug. In the last week, I have made: one loaf of white bread with linseeds (and who'd have thought that the humble linseed could so totally transform bread?); one batch of rotis, ginger and oat cookies, chocolate chip and walnut biscuits, and now I have a teeny tiny batch of meringues in the oven. I've never made meringues before, but I've been meaning to try for a while, and with an egg white left over from the biscuits, I thought - why not? The world's smallest batch of meringue ever made. Fingers crossed they come out well.

It's working!

I have been experimenting with no-poo methods again. The summer is a good time to do this - with fewer conferences and everyone on holidays, I can go to work with greasy hair and not worry. And I have finally, FINALLY reached a stable, clean-looking no poo solution.

Water.