Five Months to a New Normal

This week as we sat down to dinner; me comfortably snug in my Value Village Shoes and sweaty from the bike ride home from work, Nancy fashionably dressed in her second hand dress, the girls fresh from a joyful jaunt in the garden maze, all of us eager to dig into some local asparagus, field greens, homemade bread, home churned butter, and meatloaf made from deer meat provided by a hunting friend. About half way through the meal, it dawned on me that I hadn't given any of these things a second thought. All of these practices were normal. We've gone from wondering if it was even possible to follow these rules, to having them be a new, no big deal, normal (at least for one night).

I've read different things about how long it takes to change habits. Anywhere from 21 days to three months. Our experience around consumption is that it takes one day to change habits but it takes almost five months for these new patterns to feel somewhat normal. I guess it also depends on the nature of the changes we seek and how ingrained they are.

We've also learned that it doesn't take a long time of preparation to make the changes. We formulated our rules for consumption on December 27, implemented them on January 1, and have been on a steep but fun learning curve ever since. We allowed ourselves a lot of freedom to fail, and were very open to the possibility that we wouldn't make it. I guess we're still open to that possibility, but with the summer veggies on the way, it feels like we've got some good wind in our sails at this point.

One lesson we're learning is that our previous patterns of consumption seemed so unchangeable. It was just the way the world was. Everybody did it that way. It was hard to imagine that there were other ways of doing things. We're learning as a family that all habits, patterns, and practices of consumption are changeable. It might take 5 months to feel comfortable with them, but nothing need be inevitable or set in stone.

Comments

[nancy goodwin]

Yes, that was a wonderful epiphany when we sat down to dinner that night. I think we've realized that eating and food prep has been the easiest part, even though it's difficult at times. Wild how the girls didn't flinch when we said we were eating deer meat. Did they just not think about it long enough? Or was it because we were doing so many unusual things that it didn't faze them?

I just want to say one comment to Craig's post. Whereas we're getting used to a lot of things, I'm still not used to the labyrinth in place of the lawn! Granted, there are some things I like about it. Of course Craig loves it and the girls love taking their friends through the "maze". It's also a reminder of our slow life. The other day I jumped across to different parts of the path in order to get to the greenhouse quicker, and Craig goes, "Cheater!" It's just not right to short circuit the whole idea. So it's kind of this symbol of our life right now.

But the hard part is that I'm the weeder and the harvester and I just can't imagine how we're going to do it! Craig says that's why he's in the WSU Master Preserver class. But right now the whole thing's a big mystery- is it going to take over our life? I'll let you know in August!

[Karen]

I'm sympathetic to both your comments today --Craig, yours about habits, and Nancy, yours about time.
Re: Habits. What's amazing to me is how you were able to change so many at once. Maybe it's because you had the whole family participating, or maybe because there is an audience out here in cyberspace that makes failing more public, but changing habits of what you eat, how you shop, all of that at once is fairly amazing. At my house, though, putting in a front-lawn veggie garden and trying to be more thoughtful, intentional, and local about where we buy stuff -- i.e., not at the mall but at a variety of smaller shops or farmers' markets, etc. -- has meant we can't change the habit of driving so much. And there's nothing like a yard full of mud, a house full of kids and a very shaggy dog to make it just plain impossible to reach another current goal: keeping the house clean. What's cool about your project is its focus. What makes it challenging to emulate is, well, its focus.
Nancy, I share with you a concern about having time to get everything done. I ruined several pairs of slippers last summer because I would head out through the garden -- mostly dressed but still in slippers -- to get the newspaper in the morning and find myself still weeding, watering, transplanting, harvesting, etc., well past lunch. How can I spend any more time than that? And we're not nearly as committed to this as you are, though we're enjoying giving it a try.
One thing to keep in mind -- Craig says he'll be handling the preserving, but in my experience (and I've canned and made jams with my mom and aunts since I was a little girl), there is virtually no such thing as a one-person canning day, at least not if you're "putting up" in quantity. We used to sit my dad and husband on the porch with a couple of bushels of apples and paring knives for 2 or 3 days while we made applesauce. (Since then my aunt has sent me an amazing 1920s sauce-making contraption that eliminates the need to peel or core. I'll see if I can find one on the internet and send you a link, or loan it to you come tomato or plum or apple sauce season). Even with dishwashers that have a great "hot dry" cycle, which means you can keep jars on the racks, hot and sanitized, while waiting for that darn jam to finally come to a boil, it takes incredible washing, chopping, and stirring for the fruit and an entire person's day committed to keeping the pots and utensils clean and sanitized and not so much sugar, etc., spilled on the floor that it's a hazard.

So I guess I don't have much in the way of suggestions (aside from that cool sauce maker), but some sympathy for the struggles and congratulations on the habit changing!
Karen

[Hillary]

We're joining you in spirit today(if even just a little bit). We picked up our first box from our local CSA. You can find their fancy info at www.naturaltradingco.com. It was nice to see the farm they are located at is more what you would expect a working farm to be and not so sanitized and picture-perfect as the flyer. We brought our big box home(ordered big Fruit box, regular veggies and tomatoe share) and it was like opening a present. I think the kids were surprised to see lettuce that didn't come in a plastic bag and I was surprised to cut up garlic that was moist and fresh. (You mean you don't have to peel off the hard, stale part before you chop it up?) In our box we got a few varieties of garlic and onions, small yellow tomatoes, basil, spinach, kale, pea shoots(the farm likes pea shoots so will see alot of these-they taste kind of like peas), bib lettuce, red lady apples, oranges, satsumas and the tastiest little honeydew melons. Made a salad and pasta with lots of veggies and honeydew. All very, very tasty!! It's fun to have to find recipes to use the veggies in. Does anyone have a good Kale recipe? The farm is two miles from our house. Thank you for inspiring us. I can't wait to see what we get next week.

Hillary