Baby Steps

The other day I picked up a spray bottle from the Dollar Store, mixed together 1 cup water and 1 cup vinegar, and cleaned my bathroom.

It's not much, but it's a start. When I was done, I was able to go pick up my son without worrying about my hands being covered in chemicals. The house didn't smell like harsh cleaners. I wasn't worried about what my family was inhaling.

Baby steps.

I've also been faithfully going to the organic farmers market every Saturday to pick up meat and produce for the week.

This week marked a milestone - it was the first week that I didn't need to make a second trip to the grocery store to pick up additional groceries that I couldn't get at the farmers market.

When I first started buying more organic and less processed foods, it seemed horribly expensive at first. But now that we've been doing it for about a month, I find that I'm actually spending less on groceries. I think mainly this is due to less trips to the grocery store, where all sorts of extra foods always mysteriously make their way into the shopping cart. Now, if I have to go, I go only to pick up a few very specific things. Our meals seem more well-rounded and definitely healthier now.

My fridge and freezer are satisfyingly full. We have fish, chicken, and beef. We have potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers. We have strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. We have eggs, cheese, and orange juice. (We also have milk, but it is admittingly not organic. I just can't bring myself to pay the same amount for 1L of organic milk as I would normally pay for 4L or non-organic milk. I just can't.)

What more could we need?

Tonight I'm making a salmon and fruit salad. Grilled salmon served on top of lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries, mandarine orange slices and a sprinkle of blueberries. Perfect for a gloriously warm Labour Day weekend.

Last night I made banana bread. Yum.

The night before, we had soft tacos for dinner. We made our own soft taco shells. They tasted so good, much better than store bought ones.

So that's our progress so far. They may just be baby steps, but they're still steps forward.