As many of my closest family and friends know, Topaz Salt has been a passion project of mine for several years. It has taken on many forms, and the idea has grown and evolved as I have. As you follow along, growth and positive evolution will be a common theme.
With our daughter at 9 weeks old. Cody, WY
Ever since my husband and I met, something deep within me (and him) changed. We challenged each other, we “didn’t work” … twice, we made it work the third time. We CHOSE each other, we questioned each other, we always came back to each other. Over the years, we have constantly encouraged each other to be good, to be better, to be more compassionate, to show love, to BE love.
We strive to be our best selves for OUR SELF, for our small family, for our large family, for our friends, and for the world.
We are striving to do our part to preserve our sacred planet for our daughter, her generation, and generations to come, so that they may be able to see the world as we do today, or perhaps even better than it is today. Even though we work on this one day at a time, we are far from perfect.
There are so many components to contributing positively to our world, whether globally or locally (which, “Think globally, act locally” is a term that merits its own blog post in and of itself): Environmental, consumption, humanitarian, philanthropy, charity, etc. For the sake of this post, I will touch on what we do in our home, within our unit, to be better humans.
We use as little energy as possible. At this time, we are reliant on natural gas to heat and cool our home, however, we recently installed solar panels when our electric bill only ran us, on average, ~$40/month (for perspective, we live in a single family home, about 1600 sq. ft.). Since we do not have battery storage for our panels, we charge up solar lamps during the day and use them at night around the house. We purchased a used electric vehicle in 2019 that we charge during the day when the sun is shining brightly on the panels*. Another major way we save on natural gas is by hang drying 95% of our laundry.
In the almost four years that we have lived in this home, we have never filled up our WM garbage can, and some weeks we don’t even put it out on the street for pick-up. We compost. We recycle (we may unknowingly “wishcycle” from time-to-time … stay-tuned for a future post about wishcycling). We reuse what we can. We shop second-hand most of the time. We bring reusable shopping bags with us to the grocery store, and when we forget them, we put our goods directly in our trunk … we just look at it as extra exercise when unloading the car … crazy concept, right? We also shop a local business that strives to produce as little waste as possible as well as encourages a “no waste” lifestyle, The Zero Market.
We have a Berkey water filter (which I freaking love, by the way) for our drinking water and we fill up many reusable water bottles for road-trips. We hardly ever use single-use plastic (we have never gone through ONE Ziploc bag box and I purchased them in 2015 BEFORE we moved in together). We collect plastic packaging (bags that oatmeal and cereals are stored in, bags that dried fruits and nuts come in, shrink wrap that cheeses are packaged in, etc.), and then take them back to our grocery store that has a recycling program specifically for these types of plastics since our WM service does not take them. We don’t keep paper towels on the counter … out of sight, out of mind. And when we do use them, we compost. Shout out to our local commercial composting cooperative, Wompost. We have our own, small composting system at home, but there are some items that we cannot process here, so we schedule pick-ups with Wompost as they have the ability to break down items that we cannot (cardboard, tea bags, tissue paper, pine needles, straw from our chicken coop, etc.).
When we first started living more sustainably and consciously, I was hesitant, I would get irritated (and sometimes still do), because it is DIFFERENT. It is harder, it takes effort, it takes time, and thought, and energy, AND … other ways of living (how we were used to living), are just easier. However, when it comes to attempting something new, the learning curve and feelings of discomfort only last for a brief period of time before it becomes habitual and normal. Now we don’t even think twice about line-drying our clothes, or using cloth diapers for our daughter. These acts are simply part of our daily life.
There are more areas that we want to delve into, such as supporting more “slow fashion” brands, mending clothes vs. buying new ones, contributing and being more involved in our local community, living in a place that allows us to shop local farmer’s markets year-round (MY DREAM) … the list goes on.
I am very excited you’re here, and to continue this conversation with you. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to read a little bit about our family and how we operate. I would love for this place, Topaz Salt, to be one where we can have open conversation, a place for offering suggestions, for lending a hand and word, a place for communing, as well as a place to learn from one another other … so go ahead, teach me.
xo, Jamie
Berkey Water Filtration Systems - www.berkeyfilters.com
Wompost - www.wompost.com
The Zero Market - www.thezeromarket.com
*We still own a combustion vehicle for long drives as our electric car only has a range of 80 miles. It is perfect for getting around town. We plan on purchasing a second electric vehicle to replace our combustion car once there are more pre-owned, long-range options out there.