Weekly diary #110: Repairing the light and bicycle chain on my bike

Hi there, welcome into my personal weekly diary! Great that you’re here, I really appreciate it. In this weekly diary I try to show you what my eco-positive lifestyle looks like on a daily basis. The past week I made low waste make-up remover, attended a Halloween party and my bike was repaired! Want to read along? Here’s weekly diary #110.

Thursday

When I got home in Enschede again today, first thing I made was a vegan grilled ‘cheese’ sandwich with ketchup. I love that and I shared the recipe of it too. Then, I went off to salad bar ETN, to fill up my stock. The owner offered me a little place in her shop a long time ago and there I sell some non-food items from my webshop Loose. So sweet! I sell reusable straws, reusable bags and bamboo toothbrushes. It’s a good thing that the stock is empty, zero waste is getting more sales! At night I also made some vegan sushi for myself. I really craved it. I feel like it really worked out well, I am getting better at this. My tip ingredients for vegan sushi for now would be: avocado, cucumber, carrot, seaweed salad and tempeh. In the future I want to try on using more local ingredients as well, since for example avocados are not that sustainable. While making the sushi I also made some make-up remover for myself. It’s extremely low waste and the recipe can be found here.

Friday

I went off to Nijmegen to go see a friend in an entirely thrifted outfit. A sweater bought in Amsterdam, a pants bought in Berlin and the shoes bought online. All secondhand! We ended up doing some groceries for dinner. I wasn’t prepared and so I ended up with Brussels sprouts, vegan ‘fish’ sticks and a sandwich in plastic. Whenever I shop with someone else at a regular supermarket I realize again how much plastic there is. I wanted to go for a vegan and seasonal meal (the sprouts are seasonal and regional), but then I did up with plastic. But as I explained in this blogpost, choosing plant-based and seasonal food is more important than package free. I would love to see both but in conventional supermarkets you sometimes have to make choices. My friend and I attended a Halloween party at a friends house. He didn’t tell me it was a Halloween party and so we had to improvise at the last minute. A roommate of his had some fake scary lenses, red paint and a poncho. Great! A borrowed outfit and so no new things had to be bought. I brought my own cup to the party and so there I prevented some waste from disposable cups. I did also bring my own drink (Amaretto) since they only had beer and wine and wine is not vegan (nor do I really like it).

Saturday

I went back home to Enschede by train, the most sustainable way. I went to the hairdresser to cut off a little part of my hair, about 3 cm I guess. Just to make it look healthy again. I don’t dye my hair, so aside from the hair there is no waste in the process. I am thinking about growing my hair very long this time, since I want to donate it next time. Right now, every time I cut a little bit and so all that hair is wasted. But, it can have positive impact. I can donate it! People who are diagnosed with cancer usually lose their hair. I have looked up some charities and there are organizations who make wigs for those people who lose their hair. Helping someone else by giving them my hair, that sounds good! When you donate, you have to give at least 30 cm and so I have to grow my hair very long. I will measure it each time and when I have the 30 cm I will go to the hairdresser again. Also, I got a delivery for some stock for Loose (my package free webshop). I received an order but ran out of some items which I then ordered to refill the stock. Once the stock came in I wanted to sent out the delivery as quick as possible because I don’t want to keep clients waiting. I knew that if you deliver a package before 17:00 at the post office it will be picked up that same day. I rushed a lot, but it turned out this rule does not apply in the weekend. That was a bummer, the package would be picked up on Monday.

Sunday

Today my boyfriend and I went out for lunch in Enschede at Twentsche Foodhal. This is a place where they have one big dining area but different stands where you can order foods. So, it’s basically a restaurants with 9 different kitchens. One of the stands, called Rauw, is a 100% plant-based stand. The first vegan restaurant (if I can call it that since it is combined with the other stands) in Enschede! Ah! This makes me so exited and so we went out to try some food. The place is lovely and very cosy. And honestly, the food was amazing! Especially the ‘Rauw’ Burger I had was amazing. I was always bummed we don’t have a Vegan Junk Food Bar in Enschede but this place is perfect as well. And the fact that it is combined with 8 other stands is perfect too, now I can eat here with my non-vegan friends as well so everyone can choose whatever they like (and they can see that vegan food is amazing). I’ll be here more often. Once back home I had another delivery scheduled for my package free webshop Loose.

Monday

A while ago my bike fell. The front lamp was broken and I found out that the bicycle chain was very loose because it fell off. So today I went to my grandpa to ask him for help. He fixed my bike last time and so I hoped he could fix it again. He is very handy with these things. I have a dynamo on my bike (which he placed) so I generate my own energy for the lights, this makes fixing the bike a little more complicated. He fixed all of it! So great that I have family members who are willing to help me at any time. We did end up buying a new lamp because the other one was broken. Normally I don’t buy new things but I didn’t really have time to get a secondhand one because my grandpa would fix my bike today. At night I made some lovely vegan Indian Dahl with Raita for myself, which was amazing!

Tuesday

Today I took the leftover Dahl with me to school, so I had enough food for the full day at school in Amsterdam and no food waste. Afterwards I went home to Haarlem again and there I had some really good vegan chili. A day full of good vegan food! After three weeks of not going, I had handball training again today. A few weeks ago I realized that my shorts were really worn out, they were too big by now and would fall down a little bit. I had found another shorts on a secondhand Dutch platform (Marktplaats) a while ago and today was the first time I wore it. It feels so good to buy something secondhand, no new resources are used.

Wednesday

I found out that that Ed Winters (also known as Earthling Ed, a vegan activist) was at my school yesterday. I was so bummed since I didn’t know. He really is a hero. Today he was at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam with a stand and I missed it. He advocates veganism whereby he mainly focuses on the ethics of veganism. He is doing an Europe tour but he hasn’t released a schedule or anything so that’s why I didn’t know. I think he wants things to be as a surprise or something, since vegans like me are not the audience he wants to reach (since I am already vegan and I follow him already as well). I don’t know but I was kind of bummed.