Winter in the PNW

Holidays!

 

It has been a wonderful fall at SilverMoon and we are now starting to get excited about the winter and winter holidays. Winter in the Pacific NorthWest generally means rain, long dark nights, short grey days, continual scarf-wearing, and galoshes. Unfortunately, for a lot of folks this is also the start of SAD season, it is a horrible season to be homeless in (if ever there is a "good" season), and it is a time of great consumerism. Perhaps it is related to folks choosing indoor spaces like the mall to walk around in because it is warmer than the park, but people will often spend more money in winter than in summer seasons. Some folks even get into debt over the holidays with the intention of paying it off after the New Year. Talk about New Year's Resolution! :-(

So, in thinking about this winter season, my first winter in my very own home, I wanted to set some ground rules to establish our very own set of traditions and celebrations that felt true to us.

_______ ... _______ 

Rule 1. Go Outside.
Yes, it is grey and chilly and wet for most of the winter in the Pacific Northwest. No, that doesn't give you an excuse to hibernate inside all season.
Get outdoors, work up a sweat, take in the view from the top of a mountain. Get some sunshine even if it is only brief.

Thankfully, folks in the Pacific Northwest are great outdoors enthusiasts. There's plenty of camping, hiking, kayaking, and neighborhood events to go to even in the winter.

"There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." - Sir Rannulph Fiennes

Rule 2. Plan for Spring.
What's worse than day after day of grey skies? Thinking it will never end.

Instead of being sad that there is no garden at the moment, I'm actively using this time to plan out the garden in spring. Thinking about those clear blue skies and looking online at all the flowers and veggies we could set out in the yard really makes me smile. If you have a garden, then right now is the time to think about what plants have worked well for you in the past, what seeds you have stored, what plants you'd like to grow in the spring and set your schedule so you know when to start sprouting those tiny green wonders!

Another great aspect of this climate is that it actually allows for winter gardening if you are so inclined. Winter pansies, primrose, hellebore, and camellias are great flowers to keep the winter blues at bay. I even brought an amaryllis and primrose indoors to brighten up my other indoor plants that are currently wintering-over.

If you don't have a garden, think about what events or things you can look forward to in the spring. Is there a place you'd like to visit? Someone you are hoping to see? Make those plans over the winter to pull yourself out of the grey winter mindset.

Rule 3. Eat well.
Winter is the season of Yum! Mashed potatoes, collard greens, beans, fresh baked breads and other goodies - the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, all that baking, butter, and  curling up with good books can attribute to the New Year's Resolution Syndrome of body shaming and sadness.

But eating well doesn't mean eating just whatever, it means eating what's good for you - both for your body and your mind.

I could write a whole post on great winter meals and ingredients, and maybe I will, but for now here's a list of some of my favorite winter-friendly veggies and fruits that keep the blues (an the pounds) at bay.

• Pomegranates
• Oranges, lemons, tangelos, and other citrus
• Winter Squash - acorn and butternut are my favorites
• Dark Greens like kale, collards, and mustard greens
• Beans and lentils
• The three C's - cabbage, cauliflower, and carrots
• Oatmeal
• Sunflower seeds
• Nuts - macadamia, walnut, pecan, and hazel roasted over a campfire (YUM!)
• Mushrooms
• Persimmons - check your ethnic grocery store
• Edamame - steamed with a little bit of salt this is a great movie-at-home snack

Rule 4. Do good.

Choose something that's important to you and work on it. Doing good is about engaging those things that feed your soul or sense of self and feeding the spirit of others as well

For me, its homelessness. America and Seattle in particular have a huge homelessness problem. Seattle ranks 4th in the nation for homeless population.* There are lots of reasons for it, and each person (yes, these are people not just statistics and that's an important thing to remember) has a story of how they ended up on the streets. The city has lots of reasons for why their 10-years to 0-homeless plan fell through, but the fact remains that there are so many homeless people in Seattle that the city just announced a state of emergency. You can't walk two blocks in this city without coming across a homeless person, a tent, a tarp, a cardboard box that someone has been using to try and get shelter in.

Suggestions:
Go through your closet - as you get ready to store those summer tanks, take a look at your sock drawer as well. Homeless people spend a lot of time on their feet and a pair of clean socks in good condition is one of the easiest and greatest gifts you can give.

Say Hi. Acknowledge that they exist just as you would anyone else on the street. Pretending you don't see them doesn't make them go away. If you can't or don't feel comfortable talking to strangers - a smile would be nice. :-)

Your time - volunteer if you can, donate to an organization you believe in if you can't. If you can't volunteer know, no worries, lots of people try to volunteer in the winter months and some organizations have a hard time managing all of the well-meaning volunteers, consider signing up to volunteer in the summer months when it is often harder for those organizations to find the volunteers they need.

* Study by US Department of Housing and Urban Development

 

Rule 5. Celebrate.

Fight off those long dark nights with merriment and reflection. If you are religious, then celebrate your gods and traditions. If you aren't religious or don't have traditions - find what calls to you and make your own path.

 

I fall into the 'make your own path' category and making these 5 rules for winter is part of forging my own way through the season. There are some upcoming things I'm looking forward to -

 

November 11th - Veterans Day is also Free State and National Park Day (see Rule #1)

November 11th - 15th - HUMP!

November 26th - Thanksgiving - Seattle Turkey Trot

November 27th - Parade and Star Lighting

November 27th - Jan 3rd - Wildlights at the Woodland Park Zoo
November 27th - Dec 28th - The Nutcracker at McCaw Hall
November 28th - Magic in the Market at Pike Place
November 28th - Jan 2nd - Garden d'Lights in Bellevue

Want to go for a walk but it's rainy and cold outside? Not interested in fighting holiday crowds and consumerism at the mall? Check out the museums! Many even offer free-visit days so you can just go and enjoy yourself without the signs, hawkers, and crazy crowds. Check out freemuseumday.org for your local listing.

_______ ... _______

These are the rules that work for me in making the winter a holiday rather than a horror. What works for you? What are some things you look forward to as the temperature drops? 

Easy-Peasy Meal Planning

Does this ever happen to you?
You go to the grocery store, walk around for way too long, find a bunch of deals and things that look yummy, pile everything into your cart, pay way too much money, then get home to unpack everything only to discover that you have no idea what you are going to make for dinner. To top it off, you've spent so much time in the shopping center that you feel rushed to try to make anything moderately edible!

...this has happened to me more than once...

So - to change things up, I made a grocery list, started planning meals, and it has been wonderful!

When you go to the store knowing what you are planning to eat for the week and knowing what items you need to buy - you get into the store, shop, and leave. It saves time by letting you skip unneeded browsing, and it saves money but making sure that the food you are buying wont be wasted.

In a tiny house with a small fridge - everything needs a place. I don't have acreage of refrigerator shelves for left overs or random groceries. I don't have extra money for bread to go moldy or veggies to go limp from want of eating. I don't have extra time to stroll casually from aisle to aisle browsing cereals and pondering what to make for the evening.

If you have and excess of these three things, well, enjoy (or come over to my house and I'll put you to work) but if you don't have an abundance of space/money/time, you may find this helpful:

(Click Here) Free Shopping List

You'll notice that my list is vegetarian but you can edit it for your own use. If you absolutely never eat peas, then having peas on your grocery list is just a waste of ink. Remove it and add parsnips or something else you love.

How I use it -

1.) Make a meal plan.
I give myself 10-15 minutes to think of or find recipes for meals for the week ahead.
I'm a big fan of: Post Punk Kitchen, The First Mess, and The Food Network for ideas and resources.

Things I look for in a recipe - one pan / one pot recipes, crock pot options, and things I can grill.
They also need to have easy to understand directions, simple lists of ingredients, and bonus points for nutritional breakdowns.

Of course, I love trying new cakes and fancy stews with 25+ ingredients, but I save those for the weekend and focus instead on healthy, simple, and fast meals for the week.

Print or write these out and attach them to the list so that everything stays together.

2.) Analyze the meal plan for ingredients.
Have two recipes that call for half an onion each? Great! Chop up the whole onion and save yourself having to chop again the next day.
Mark down the ingredients you need and take stock of what things you already have in your cupboard.

3.) Take the thing to the store with you! Remember the reusable bags! :-)
Of course while you are at the store you can keep an eye out for discounts and those fancy special ingredients, but try to limit the cursory shopping to a minute or two and no more than two items. Even if there is a great sale on frozen sliced carrots - do you really have room to store all ten boxes? Instead grab one or two and start your meal planning for next week by looking up a carrot soup, carrot cake, and carrot and lemongrass curry.

4.) Save your work!
All that planning and shopping won't do you any good if you look in the fridge on Wednesday and can't remember what you were going to make. So, save yourself the stress and smack the list and recipes to your fridge with a magnet. That will keep it handy and visible for the Wednesday you had to work late and can't even remember your own name by the time you got home.

So - good luck darlings and happy cooking!
 

Tiny House Update - First Fall At SilverMoon House

Welcome to Fall at SilverMoon House!

We've been comfy cozy in our 296 square foot abode and learning with our house all it's little quirks and personality. We love the way the doors creak like the Addams family on the storage cabinet, and the way it feels light and happy even on the darkest rainy grey days.

There have been some minor changes to the layout - moving the bed and the bookshelf around to provide more privacy and separation of the spaces and caulking the tub (who knew you had to caulk around the tub?) and sealing some gaps in the floorboards. The repairs and improvements have all been pretty minor though and easily done.

Remember the before?

Check out the now!

Hanging Pots and Pans

This is one of the little projects in the house. I wanted a place to put pots and pans but there was no available storage in the drawers and so...we looked up. There are holes in all the beams from old electrical wires and old plumbing that was removed during the construction. The majority of the new wiring is aligned in straight lines along the ceiling and bundled cables. We used the existing holes  used 3/4" PVC pipe (it's flexible!) through three of the beams. Once through the beams the PVC pipe held firm and straight even with my steel and cast iron!

The hooks came from Ikea and we just bent them 45 degrees so that the items hung would be in profile.

Yay storage!


Where are your clothes?

Part of living in a tiny house is realizing you might not have as much clothes storage as you had before. There are no closets in our space. Instead, we bought a set of cabinets from the Ikea kitchen in the shallow European depth but with the same drawer fronts and we use that as our clothes storage.

Having the cabinet fronts the same in the kitchen as in the bedroom area keeps the flow of the space and makes the whole area seem larger.

T gets the drawers in the middle and I get the wire baskets on both sides.

I know it doesn't seem like much, but proper folding and capsule wardrobe theory really help. I have a drawer for each category - dresses, pants, skirts, shirts, fancy / special occasion, and gym / construction clothes. It is actually more than I need - but to conserve space I always try to think before I buy. It is important both to your budget and to your space to consider why you are buying new clothes. Is it replacing something your already have? How long do you expect it to last? How often do you plan to wear it?

Once you have those questions answered you can really see if you need that new top or those new slacks. Also, because I take out the whole basket to fold and put away the clean clothes, I can rotate and "shop" through the clothes I already own.

Where do you sleep?

In a bed, silly!

We moved things around a bit to provide more privacy and separation between the living room and the sleeping area. Now the rolling bookshelf hides the bed from plain sight during the day and at night it still opens up providing plenty of room.

There are little cubbies and drawers for socks and sundries on the "sleeping" side and those translate to flat surfaces for hanging art on the "living" side. We even put in some wire shelves so I can pick out my outfits for the week and not have to search for things at 6am. Yay! Snooze button!

Because the bedroom is cordoned off from the rest of the space, I use the walls there to hang a bunch of the art T and I have collected and made through the years. i love waking up in the morning to the bright and shiny image by Mikeatron of Deadpool killing rainbow-blooded unicorns with sparkle-glitter automatic weapons and a sword. Makes me laugh every day! We also have a print of Judith and Holofernes by Klimt, a Mastodon misprint, some wedding pictures, and some paintings made by yours truly. 

Is that a new couch?

Why yes, yes it is. Bonus, it's a HUGE sleeper-sofa, so come stay over! :-)


It is another Ikea find...can't fight the modular, but it really works in the space and when it is all made up it makes a queen size bed and is wonderfully comfy. We've had a few guests stay with us overnight and they really enjoyed having so much room.

The part that sticks out into the room is also a large storage drawer perfect for stashing our motorcycle jackets and guest supplies like extra blankets and pillows.

The last item I'd like to find would be a movable ottoman with storage that also has locking wheels so I can actually rest my feet on it. The requirements are pretty exact - no higher that 18", firm yet comfy top, soft rounded rectangle, storage and locking wheels - so we may have to build it over the winter.

I'm kind of looking forward to it though. It gives us reason to focus on the next project - the shared work space over in the garage.

So, I hope you have enjoyed this Fall tiny-house tour! We feel pretty good about the work done so far getting it livable and welcoming. Of course there's more to do, curtains, upgrading the dog bed, utilizing every inch of space under the kitchen cabinets, but we really like hoe far we've come from bare walls and ratty (literally) wiring.

Have a great fall everyone and 

Happy Halloween from ghost-Fams!

I Don't Wash My Hair - And It's Great

If you don't wash your hair, do you:

• have gross hair?
• get lice or bugs?
• smell?
• have tons of knots?

Well, it's been 3 months and I can happily say that no, none of those things are true! :-)

Forever my hair has been a bit hard to manage - it always had a strong wave to medium curl depending on the cut, weather, and products I used on it. Often I'd just get tired of it and wear it up in a bun/braid, or cut it short, or straighten it within an inch of its life. I could have fun with my hair, but it cost me in product, time, and frustration.

So, one day while Youtubing hair tutorials, I came across a video about water-only washing and, while I initially put it off as another "crunchy" scheme, it stuck in the back of my brain and I kept thinking about the idea of water-only hair. I was already cutting down on the number of times per week that I shampooed and considering doing no'poo, but, sparked by a pending bike trip, I just quit cleansing cold-turkey.

Greasy hair on a road trip with bandannas and helmets may be tolerable, but at the office...not so much. So, with my hair up in a pony tail, I went back to Youtube and the grand ol' intranet to see what I could do about it. Turns out, there's lots! :-)

Here are the key things to know:

• Scritch, massage, rinse, repeat 
• Preening is not just for birds
• Boar bristle brushes and wooden combs are miracle workers
• Essential oils are, well, essential

Scritching and Massage - Scritching and massaging are very important techniques when it comes to water-only hair. For massaging, all you need do is release your hair if it is up or tightly wound and gently rub your scalp with your fingertips. You don't need to push down - this isn't Swedish massage, just a gentle (and relaxing) way to increase circulation, improve sebum production, and it just feels really good.

Separate your hair into sections if you need to. If not, just start at one side of your scalp and move slowly to the other side rubbing gently with your fingertips. I usually spend a few minutes giving myself a head massage while waiting in the ever present Seattle traffic. Not only does it feel good, but it also helps reduce stress from all the traffic congestion!

Massage is followed up with scritching which is done by lightly and quickly running across the scalp with the fingernails. Clean fingernails please. Scritching is still gentle, don't scratch yourself and damage your scalp, and don't overdo it - listen to your head.

Preening - After separating your hair into sections, you gently pull the oil from your scalp to the ends of your hair. This physically moves your natural oil from your scalp down to the tips of your hair. This part really helps you get to total coverage (the end goal) faster.

Wooden Comb - These combs help your hair by evenly distributing oil from your scalp to along the length of your hair. Unlike plastic combs, wooden combs don't create static or have seams to snap your hair.

Keep it clean (with jojoba, coconut oil, or olive oil) and enjoy it as a thing of beauty.

Boar Bristle Brush - I cannot begin to say how much I appreciate my boar bristle brush! Like finger-preening, it moves the oils from your scalp down along the shaft of your hair to the tips. Just make sure you get a 100% boar bristle brush and not one with polyester filler fibers in it - they can cause static.

If you are vegan, or otherwise not comfortable using a boar bristle brush - just skip it. Include more time for finger preening and using a wooden comb.

Important notes:
- the boar bristle brush is NOT for detangling. Use your fingers and a comb!
- Keep your brush clean. After using it run a comb through it a few times to get out the loose hairs and then run it under the faucet in warm water and gentle soap. Allow to dry bristle-side down.

Essential Oils - Lavendar, cedarwood, grapefruit, rose - there is no reason to leave behind your favorite shampoo scents when you leave behind the sulfates, isopropyl alcohol, and parabens. After stepping out from the shower and T-shirting (not toweling) your hair, add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to a tiny bit of coconut oil and distribute evenly to the ends of your hair.

Some of my favorites -

• Peppermint
• Sandalwood
• Grapefruit
• Clove
• Frankincense
• Lemon

Important notes:

 - Get your oils from a reputable dealer and check your brands and pricing.

 - You only need a drop or two...really, just a drop at a time!

Final Thoughts

 

Prepare for your hair to be weird for a few weeks. That doesn't mean it has to look weird - wear it up, scritch and preen, clarify (check out the interwebs for recipes) and relax...it's just hair.

Have the right tools for the job. A wooden comb, a boar bristle brush, and essential oils take up way less space in your bathroom than shampoo and conditioner bottles, serums, and a billion styling gadgets.

Be Brave. If going head-first into water-only rinsing isn't for you, check out no-poo methods.
Go through your bathroom and pick out a few of your favorite items. Look them up on ewg.org to see how they compare with other products in terms of toxicity. Find out what all those really long words on the back of the label mean.