It's been a while since I can consume as much books as I can. Audio books is becoming my almost-daily habit this year. Most of the books that I'm listening to are non-fiction : biographies, memoirs, self-help, and anything knowledge-based. I found it easier than listening to fiction.
From the reading, I get few new insights about our current state of living among other things. Especially after reading Jane Goodall's Harvest For Hope - she mentioned about how we are destroying the future by being ignorant because we consume too much foods and buy too many things. We need to educate ourselves more and share about this among people around us if we care enough. That's why I'm writing this. I also read a lot of books on minimalism and having less, as a reminder to myself.
The Joy of Less, a Minimalist Living Guide by Francine Jay
Simply Clean by Becky Rapinchuk
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Side notes :
1) I'm urging my fellow Malaysians to read more books this year.
I know books are quite expensive, so what I'm doing is using Scribd because I only need to pay $8.99 (RM 36) for unlimited amount of digital and audio books every month. That way, I can still consume as many books as I possibly can and also not buy physical books to reduce the paper waste. You can try this too.
I donated and sold a lot of my unread books and only leave books that I want to reread on my book shelves - so people can still read these books. I have too much books before this (around 2 huge bookshelves) and I thought I should be proud with keeping a lot of unread books :F Shame on me.
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2) I'm also trying to minimize the quantity of stuffs I buy.
On clothes - I'm actively donating unused clothes. The clothes I'm wearing are mostly the same clothes all over again. I stopped buying clothes several years back, I'm never fashionable and a bit boyish in that sense pun. So repeating dark shirts and jeans all over again has never been an issue :F I geli melawa2 pakai make-up, and be all-womanly :F I guess I don't have it in me, even though I'm already 31. I'm that comfortable with those pimples, pure oiled face and huge pores on my skin. I was born to be as natural as I can get.
On recycle - we always collect all the bottles, tins and glasses. We give them to uncles and aunties that collect those items in our neighbourhood every week so they can sell it and make some money.
On buying things - Mmmm.. I guess it is safe to say that we are still living as frugal as we are. We don't buy things that we don't really need. Maybe because we are still living together without any children, or I'm just a frugal person at heart. I care for the environment and I want to make a change, even a small one.
Let's try to buy less, recycle and reuse more !
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3) Cook home-made foods.
I cook foods for my husband almost every day - he does eat his 'bekal' during lunch time at his office. I've been bringing foods for several years so eating my healthy lunch box isn't something new for me. I hardly eat out because I hate to mingle around during lunch hour - hah hah.
Well, this year, let's try to bring home-made foods every day for lunches at work, guys ! :D
In the past 2 months, I got sick twice : viral cough and allergic cough.
The viral cough took 10 days to recover. It infected my throat (so I was having a really bad and painful sore throat), my nose (I can't breathe through my nose at all), my eyes (there was a LOT of discharges and my eyes were blurry most of the time) and phlegm (infected ones). I went to the doctor and he said that I had to wait for it to recover from the inside and it might took awhile because of the viruses : 10 days. Note : My sister passed it to me and I passed it to Af.
Another one is allergic cough. This one had me so sudden because of some herbs that I tried (and maybe isn't suitable for me - I stopped eating it right-away, it was the black seed or habbastus-sauda). It was more like a wheezing non-stop cough and phlegm. Plus, it was also pretty bad, the sound of it terrifies people around me. I had this for 7 days.
Twice, I had to conduct my workshops at Stickerrific while wearing face mask and they even prepared hot green tea specially for me because they were so thoughtful and probably because it was 'that' uncomfortable to watch me cough like I was fighting a demon inside me (and I love Stickerrific ♥️- please go there and buy a lot of stuffs to support our local business guys).
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I rarely get sick - except for my migraine, so when I do get sick, it is often a surprise for me. I also hardly eat medicine because I hate to imagine having these unknown chemical drugs in my body, so I usually go for alternative natural ways to help me get better.
How I helped to soothe my cough :
drink hot Camomile Tea (in the morning / at night) - it's caffeine free, so it won't disturb night sleep.
a spoon of honey twice (in the morning and at night).
drink hot Green Tea (while working) - it works like magic.
also tried a spoon of apple cider vinegar in the morning (and it was super awful) :F
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Extra note :
If you are still new in the habit of drinking herbal tea, I should remind you that the usage of sugar is unnecessary. You don't have to add sugar. Just add in the tea bag and hot water, that's it.
Don't drink too much - enough with maximum of 2 bags of tea per day. Nothing in this world is good when consumed too much.
Some teas got caffeine - some teas don't. Do your research if you are trying to avoid caffeine, especially when fasting season is coming soon and you know you need to detox to avoid extra cravings.
Some teas are mild, some teas are strong - please try different brands to find something that matches your taste.
Jane Goodall reminds me to go for "natural, local and organic" foods and drinks in buying things from the mall. So if you can, go search for it ♥️
Last month I participated in a "Grow Your Own Mini Herbs" workshop by Eats, Shoots and Roots at Riuh in the City, Bangsar - it was my first visit to the beautiful event.
If you are new to this blog - big note : I love plants and animals. That explains my Plant Projects throughout my adult life. When we were small, gardening was a weekly chore with my dad - and plus, he opened a nursery in MAEPS called The Plots after he retired. So.. yeah. Among us siblings, I am the only one that still uses all the knowledge that my dad taught us about plants.
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Grow Your Own Mini Herbs :
For RM 70, we had a quick 1.5 hour class about plants (herbs), soils, fertilizers, compost and basic 101 in caring for our own herb garden. Fair enough - I really want to know the basic stuffs anyway. It was a quick and fun class, because I truly wanted to know. I wish I was eager to learn all these stuffs when I was in school.
We each received a metal container, soils (3 compost + 1 cocopeat + 1 sand) and herbs of our choice. From the class, I chose : Ulam Raja (seeds), Thai Basil (seeds), Mint (cutting) and Dill (cutting).
Basic on planting herbs using seeds and cuttings (need to choose sturdier ones and give it a clean cut)
Choosing edible plants (they advised us to try planting local herbs first because plants like rosemary, thyme, etc are a bit challenging for beginners - those herbs are not used to our climate)
