wyhr.orgWendy’s World

Today I woke up and began to make a list of all the plastic things I touched while being on this non-plastic journey. Why am I using plastic? Well, oftentimes I use the item and then realize it’s plastic. Hindsight is 20-20.

• Alarm clock
• Hand soap – After realizing I was using this plastic item, I’ve switched to bar soap.
• Pen – I have an all metal pen. I’ll make the switch.
• Laptop
• Retainer & case – The case is definitely a form of plastic but is the retainer?
• Toothbrush – I could use my finger.
• Toothpaste
• Eye gel
• Medicine bottle – Sorry folks. I need to take my meds.
• Cap on aluminum water bottle – Even non-plastic items have plastic?! My glass Tupperware-esque dishes have plastic lids?! My metal water bottle has a plastic lid?! I can’t win!
• Vitamin bottle – Does it count if I take the vitamins from the plastic bottle and put them in a paper bag? No? I didn’t think so.
• Deodorant – I have an aluminum can but it has a plastic lid. Once again a non-plastic object with a plastic accessory!
• Eyeliner lid – Wood pencil with plastic cap.  See Deodorant.
• Palm Pre
• Pizza tray – In NJ you usually get yelled at when your pizza is ready. When you hear “slice!” you go back to the counter and retrieve your pizza on a paper plate. Yesterday the pizza guy brought our slices to us…on a plastic tray.
• Straw – I caved and sipped Dave’s soda. I could have taken the lid and straw off but was too lazy.
• Ziploc bags – Contained current food.
• Cutting board – Sorry peeps. I could have went out and purchased another cutting board (which I plan to do in the near future) but for now it’s what I have.
• Knife & pot handles – See cutting board.
• Scrubby brush to do dishes – I could have used a dish rag but sorta zoned out at the sink.
• Salt shaker top – Again with the plastic accessory.
• Bags – At the farmer’s market I picked out some fruit in nice carboard-y containers…which the farmer promptly poured in to a plastic bag. I didn’t have paper bag alternatives with me so I didn’t say anything.

This list made me realize a few things: (1) It’s hard to find a completely non-plastic item. (2) Living a non-plastic life is a matter of preparation. All of the items on the list above could be substituted with non-plastic devices after a bit of investigation on the Internet. (3) If I want to make non-plastic a reality, I need to make an investment to substitute my current items. (4) This is turning out to be harder than I thought.

On Day 3 I found myself sleeping at a friend’s house, hitting the beach and then going to a BBQ before heading home.

Pitfalls
- Ice in the cooler. I offered to put the ice directly in the cooler. Dave & the friend said to use a Ziploc bag. Dave wound up loading the Ziploc full of ice. It felt like cheating but I rationalized it to myself: I did offer to put the ice directly in the cooler and that was totally a viable option.
- I drank from a Dave’s plastic Gatorade bottle when I was thirsty on the beach.
- When buying our sandwiches and goodies for the beach, Dave requested the plastic bag. I sat by and watched (I still had the no-lidded coffee cup in my hands).

Triumphs
- Coffee without lid – cool. Coffee without stirrer – not so cool. The end of the cup tasted like creamer. It was promptly ditched.
- Sandwiches in wax paper, score!
- Snack for the beach – Goldfish, paper bag with aluminum insert, woohoo!
- Paper plates at the BBQ! And who needed utensils for guacamole & chips?
- Beer in a glass bottle, score!

So there are my pitfalls and triumphs.

As a result of this impulsive journey, I’m asking myself (& Dave) a lot of questions. Is Styrofoam a type of plastic? How is a composite different than a polymer? I hope to answer a few of these questions in the days ahead. For now, I’m off to figure out how to make hair shampoo from household ingredients.

On Day 2 I found myself thinking I might need some rules for this thing. I mean, is it OK for me to drink coffee made with a plastic coffeemaker? What about the groceries I already have that are lovingly wrapped with plastic?

With those questions fluttering through my head, I decided to make some rules. Here’s what I got. Feel free to give your opinion on the rules:

• Do not purchase any additional items containing plastic.
• Current food items are grandfathered in to the system. I’m sorry I just can’t let good food go to waste.
• Try to avoid all semi-permanent devices made of plastic. By semi-permanent device I’m thinking of a coffeemaker, hair dryer, Tupperware, etc. I say try because I do plan to be a good employee and go to work which means I need to use my plastic computer.

As for Day 2, I was at a fancy wedding so plastic wasn’t that difficult to avoid. The two times where I chose not to use plastic were:
(1) At McDonald’s between the wedding and the reception when I chose a vanilla cone to eat instead of a plastic-wrapped goodie and
(2) During desert when I had to manhandle the strawberries instead of using the plastic toothpicks. Don’t worry. I went for easy targets and didn’t touch any other strawberries that I wasn’t eating

Yesterday I posted about an excellent idea I found on another blog site – to go one week without plastic and to document the ups and downs associated with such a journey. As I approach the end of Day 1, I’m still excited to try and be plastic-less, but hesitant about what difficulty I will find as I attend a wedding this afternoon. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. Here’s my record of Day 1’s triumphs and failures:

I work in the Research & Development (R&D) department of a food company. My company is super safety-minded and so I’m not allowed to have or use any sort of glass objects near the food we make for you. Why? Because we can’t detect glass in food. So if, by chance, a glass container breaks near the food I’m making for you and a piece happens to get in there, there’s no way for us to know. You’ll eat it and then scratch your throat up . We care about you and so I cannot have glass lunch containers. That’s right, lunch containers. Do I eat lunch near the food I’m making for you? Nope. This way I don’t spit on your food or, more importantly, contaminate the candy I’m making with fish, peanuts, etc. (lumped in to a group we dub allergens). I’m all about keeping you guys safe from my germs or allergens but even if I eat at my desk, it’s in a completely separate area from the food I’m making for you.

Not the point.

Basically, prior to committing to a plastic-less week, I brought in all plastic as a result of me wanting my lunch bag (aka feed bag) at my desk. So let’s just say lunch was a BIG failure in terms of plastic-free. The good news – I can change the situation and store my feed bag in the designated refrigerators in the cafeteria (about 90 miles* away from the food we make for you). Or I can make an investment in a stainless steel lunch container (yup, they exist). I’ll let you know how that works out.

Another result of me not being allowed to have glass in R&D is I didn’t bring in my dressing from home. Since we have a full-service lunch in our cafeteria I had planned on using the cafeteria’s dressing. So I was forced, or at least saw it as the only option at the time, to portion out the dressing I wanted in to a small #1 plastic tub. I thought I could re-use the tub several times thus nullifying the “badness” of it being plastic. Thought being the key word. At the end of the work day, as I walked the 90 miles* to the exit, I had a sneaking suspicion all was not well in my lunch bag. I was right. I looked down and the tub’s plastic lid had come off and dressing was all over my lunch bag. Terrific.I suppose the lid was getting back at me for even thinking I could go a day without plastic. Well plastic lid you just confirmed why I shouldn’t use you – so there!

The triumphs of Day 1? Well I wouldn’t call it a triumph but I would say that the impulsive decision to go without plastic mid-day made me realize how much I have to cut out. I don’t think this will be a convenient journey but it’s certainly do-able. With that, I’ll end this post. Stay tuned for Day 2.

* I hope everyone realizes this is an exaggeration.

I just read this article and decided to give it a go myself – a week without ANY plastic. The blogger over at Ready Made is going to chronicle her efforts – progress and “slip-ups” – to go without plastic for one week. I’m totally with her. Stay tuned for my chronicle of Wendy’s Week Without Plastic!

My former boss was Scottish. I introduced him to the movie So I Married an Axe Murderer. In this flick, Mike Myers plays the Scottish father and really lays on the Scottish accent. There was one scene where Mike Myers is at a wedding singing the song “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” to bagpipes. Quite a funny scene especially when the piper collapses and Mike Myers screams “Piper Down!” My boss and I played it on Youtube several times over the years and had quite a few laughs. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he began to sing it at our karaoke farewell dinner.

The thing is – he declared a dedication prior to singing the song…to me. Remember the song title? It was Do Ya Think I’m Sexy. Oh and people, not everyone has seen this movie nor did we pass the Youtube video around the office (because we were supposed to be working). Like 3 people knew it was from that movie and got the reference of the dedication. The rest of the group probably thinks we had an affair. Geesh, talk about making a farewell memory!

Did you ever hear a sermon or read a passage of the Bible and then look over your shoulder because it was totally what you were going through?

That happened to me on the last day before my division closed (July 31). That morning I read this entry in the Streams in the Desert devotional.

As moves my fragile boat across the storm-swept sea,
Great waves beat o’er her side, as north wind blows;
Deep in the darkness hid lie threat’ning rocks and reefs;
But all of those, and more, my Pilot knows.

Sometimes when darkness falls, and every light’s gone out,
I wonder to what port my frail ship goes;
Although the night be long, and restless all my hours,
My distant goal, I’m sure, my Pilot knows.
~Thomas Curtis Clark

Last night in my Life Group, we were discussing Habakkuk 1. The first question in the study asked about Habakkuk’s attitude in verses 2-4. As the group discussed his attitude, I used my recent job situation as an example. Here God had provided me with a job, at my current company NOT in process engineering and I was unhappy. Why?

Because I didn’t get exactly what I wanted. Because it didn’t work out the way I would have planned it.

Right, I was definitely acting like a 2-year old throwing a temper tantrum.

The funny thing is that yesterday as I sat down to write my objectives, I was kind of excited. It’s sorta what I wanted to do and since it’s never been done before I have a lot of freedom to make it what I want.

*sigh* I guess God was right after all.

God knew better than I did. He still does. He has a plan for me and although it doesn’t go exactly how I want or plan it, I should trust Him to take care of me.

It’s just all too easy for me to forget…and think I have to do it all on my own.

Last Monday I had one of the worst stomachaches of all time. I’m not exaggerating. It equalled a gallbladder attack*.

Some people are scared to puke, the flu isn’t a picnic and who isn’t embarassed to admit they have diarrhea. But since I wasn’t purging anything from my body, I just sat there and got worse. Two hours later, I crawled upstairs to the bedroom and started to cry. I cried and, as a last resort, asked God to take it away.

And then it was gone.

No lie, the pain was gone in minutes. I still felt a bit achy, but the pain I was crying over stopped. Could it really be that easy? Could God just take it away? The answer to both questions is yes.

So why did I wait so long to ask God?

* And, yes, I know what that’s like seeing as I had my gallbladder removed in February 2007.

As a young, married female I get asked this question a lot (for those of you reading this, feel free to stop asking). But I wanted to share with you THE most absurd moment when I was asked this question.

Background:
It’s taken a few doctors to figure out that my gallbladder needs to be removed. It’s February 2007. Since November-December, I haven’t been able to eat much food and have been surviving on bread. Since it’s the morning of my operation, I haven’t even been allowed to eat bread or drink water for the past 8-12 hours. So there I sit in the pre-op room getting hooked up to IVs and waiting to get operated on, in walks a nurse. This nurse is holding a urine collection container and then explains she needs to do a pregnancy test.

Really?
Lady, I haven’t eaten for 8-12 hours. I gave blood a week ago – shouldn’t we have confirmed that I was/wasn’t pregnant then?

Really?
Pee in this cup after no food or water for 8-12 hours.

Really?
Your going to wait until the morning of of the operation to determine if my urine, slightly less accurate than the blood test done a week earlier, will show that I’m pregnant so that I can’t have my gallbladder removed. Did I mention I that I haven’t been eating and am in extreme pain, hence the operation?

Really?
Thanks but no thanks. Someone pass me the yellow food coloring and some water.