My bar soap is getting messy but not in the way I expected.  I need your help on behalf of the wonderful soap makers I recently met thanks to my bar soap challenge.

Soap makers, Joy at Kinderhaven Farms and Heidi at Vintage Fresh Soaps and Sundries, both mentioned an act that is going before Congress called the Globalization Act of 2008.  It would impose disabling fees and paperwork on the owners of small soap and cosmetics companies to the point that most of them will be put out of business.

If you want to learn more, visit the Indie Business blog started by Donna Maria Coles Johnson.  She is truly inspiring.

Take a moment to watch her video.  But most importantly, sign her petition against the Globalization Act by scrolling to the bottom of the comments section and writing a simple sentence such as, “I do not support the Globalization Act of 2008!”  Leave your name with your comment as your signature to the petition.

I can’t ignore the fact that my new soap friends may be put out of business.  I want to do all I can to support them.  Their mess is now my mess. 

Speaking of soap.

Thank you to everyone who took time to write comments to my first Grandma Challenge called Give Up Your Soap.  Your tips will be very helpful. 

I felt so proud of myself as I replaced my liquid soap pumps with beautiful smelling bars of locally made soap only to be humbled by how difficult a seemingly simple challenge can be.

As soon as I posted my soap challenge, I got off my computer and excitedly instructed my three kiddos on how to wash their hands with bar soap.  My 4-year old son, Jude, quickly discovered the easiest way to hold a slippery bar of soap was to cram it against his shirt as he attempted to twirl it around in his hands.  His shirt was a soapy mess but he didn’t care.  I had to laugh, shrug my shoulders, and be glad that he smelled good which is not always the case.

All that to say, when I post a Grandma Challenge, I want to hear your tips, stories, thoughts and anything in between.  I especially want to know if you think a particular challenge sounds too difficult or just plain ole crazy.  Tell me what you agree with as well as what you disagree with.  It will help me think about each topic from every possible angle.  I am only one person and so I can’t do that on my own.  Your comments really help and keep me going!

“Since the soap bars would get too little to use, like they do now, mother did not discard them, but melted them all together and ended up with the ugliest, misshapen “bar” of soap anyone ever saw.”  A comment from Barbara to How Would Grandma Bathe.

It looks like I am going to give up soap - liquid hand soap from a pump that is.  I have used liquid soap for years.  I try to reuse my disposable plastic pumps as long as they will last as well as refill my glass pumps.  However, they all stop working eventually.  I have a glass pump sitting by my kitchen sink right now that I am sure I spent at least $10.00 on.  The pump part of it is plastic and cracked on the inside.  I can still get soap out of it but it is a leaky mess.  When I have to toss out a pump, I recycle as much of it as I can but the rest goes into the trash.  I am pretty sure the pump part of most dispensers cannot be recycled.

I looked at the ingredients listed on my liquid hand soap refill container and most of them are unrecognizable. Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate, Lauramide DEA, Glycol Stearate, Sodium Chloride, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Fragrance, DMDM Hydartoin, Polyquaternium-7, Citric Acid, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Tetrasodium EDTA, Mel (Honey), Lactose, Milk Protein, Glycerin, Hydrolized Silk, D&C Yellow No. 10, and FD&C Red No. 40.

Although it is not in my soap ingredients listed above, there is a growing controversy over antibacterial chemicals such as Triclosan that have been showing up in all things soap related in recent years.  If you are interested in learning more, the website Food and Water Watch has an informative article called What’s Lurking in Your Soap? 

Most homemade or all natural bar soap have a minimal number of ingredients.  I have a bar of hand soap made by a local company and it contains palm oil, water, goat milk, flax seed, coconut, rice bran, sunflower and olive oils, lye, shea butter, palm kernel and essential oils, silk fibre.  I recognize each of those ingredients.

Bar soap usually has little to no packaging.  When I have purchased it from a local source there is often only a little piece of wax paper, a small piece of cardboard or nothing at all used for packaging.  Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  I have been recycling for awhile but I want to work on the other R’s - especially reducing the amount of items I throw away or recycle.  If I follow my grandparents’ lead, bar soap is one area where I can reduce my use of packaging.     

I am a little nervous about the “yuck” factor with bar soap.  I am sure it is going to leave my sinks a little more messy.  I will probably find blobs of soap on the floor from those times when one of my kids is washing their hands only to lose control of the bar and send it shooting to the floor.  I suppose it is a good excuse to give my much neglected bathroom floors some spot cleaning.

I have been using a locally made bar soap from Kinderhaven Farms (contact Joy at kinderhavensoap@voyager.net) which is available at Harvest Health.  I also recently bought some soap from Brickyard Farms (contact Cate at laneburke@aol.com) at my local Farmer’s Market.  I am going to pick up some soap this week from a local online retailer called Vintage Fresh Soap and Sundries (order from Heidi at Vintage Fresh Soap and Sundries).

Homemade or all natural soap costs approximately $4.00 per bar which may seem more expensive than liquid soap at first glance.  However, according to Heidi at Vintage Fresh Soaps, homemade soaps have more natural oils so people find they do not need to use as much hand or body moisturizers as a result.  I use my bar soap to shave and no longer need to buy shaving cream.  I am going to ask my husband to give it a try this week when he shaves his face.

I like the fact that I can use bar soap for more than one purpose.  I have also really enjoyed talking to the makers of each of the soaps I mentioned above.  I feel good knowing I am supporting a living, breathing person with my purchase.  It feels so basic and human and real. 

So starting today I am going to put all of my liquid soap dispensers into a box a box and find some little dishes laying around I can use to hold a bar of soap at each sink.  Soap is the perfect place to start my Grandma Challenges.  I use it multiple times throughout the day.  It will remind me to keep asking What Would Grandma Do?

Please send me a comment if you are going to try to switch to bar soap.  Let me know if you find a bar soap you like and send in your stories - your own or your grandparents!  I will let you know how I am doing with the bar soap switch over the coming weeks.

As part of my two week break from blogging, I spent three days at a monastery called, St. Gregory’s Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan.  There is almost no quieter place on earth than spending time in the company of monks.

It was just what I needed.

From the moment I arrived until the minute I left, I found myself pondering one thing - the fact that my life has grown too noisy (again).  I knew very little about the blogging world prior to starting my own and while this has been a deeply satisfying journey, it does not fit well into the other parts of my life.

And so it is with a true sense of sadness that I have decided to close down My Grandma Was Green. 

I have struggled with this decision because on the surface it seems my reason is as simple as my life has grown too busy and full.  And in the American culture where a full schedule is praised, personal busyness hardly seems a reason to step away from something.  However, I have discovered that busyness can be and often has been a source of disconnectedness and pain in my life.  Consequently, busyness hardly lends itself to creating a more sustainable and simple lifestyle.

I never took time to define the word sustainability while writing my blog but I think I have started to form a working definition for my own life.  I believe living sustainably means taking only that which I need to live a meaningful, generous and connected life. 

In order to do this I need to be diligent in learning how to distinguish between wants and needs - no small feat in a culture that is saturated with advertising aimed at turning every single thing into a need!  I realize my definition is somewhat ambiguous because the words meaningful, generous and connected can be defined in a variety of ways.  However, when I view sustainability in this context, it puts me on a path of wanting to take less and give more.  It breaks down the walls of my everyday, ordinary life and forces me to consider the well-being of others in each decision I make.

I seem to have a passion for “s” words such as simplicity and slowness.  I am now committed to moving forward in my journey with another “s” word to pursue - sustainability.  Each of these words is connected in so many ways but the tie that binds them together for me is relationships.  I believe I can pursue deeper and more meaningful relationships with self, God, my family, friends, neighbors, community and the world if I commit myself to simplicity, slowness and also sustainability. 

Therefore, I am going to persist with the changes I have made and I will continue to make more changes in the future.  Only now I will have to record my journey in the old-fashioned way - in the pages of my journal, through conversations with friends and family and in the quiet moments of my days.

I am not sure which part of this short journey has been the most important - recommitting myself to a slower pace, my growing awareness of important changes I need to make toward a more sustainable lifestyle, or reconnecting with my grandparents and my own history.  I guess each one is important in its own way.

If you are interested in learning from and connecting to your grandparents or any older person who is significant to you and/or learning about sustainability by looking to the past, I would encourage you to make use of the extensive questionnaire developed by Virginia Allee called, A Family History Questionnaire.  It proved to be an invaluable resource in asking my grandparents to share their story.  I trust you will find the same.

Thank you for all of your support in this endeavor.  I have learned a lot and will continue to be inspired by the stories I have read and by those individuals who are making great changes through the blogging world.

Goodbye for now,
April