Kirstie's Handmade Home

I love all things Britian including the laid back yet professional approach they take to television shows. Kirstie Allsop is one of my favourite hosts and I enjoy her and Phil's funny banter on Location, Location, Location. It's a property hunter show which airs here in Canada and I often watch at HGTV.ca. I have also recently discovered another show featuring Kirstie, called Kirstie's Homemade Home.

In it she travels from Antique shop to artisan studio to road side dump looking for things she can create or reclaim. She is trying to restore an old cottage that hasn't been lived in for 40 years. I must say, her vision astounds me. She is not one of those classic, chic designers who goes ga-ga for everything new and coordinated. She truly is unique in her approach to home decor, at least to me here in Canada. Her sense of eclectic style and home grown design is a complete departure from the very rigid and formal expectations that are rampant here. I like her style and I really like this program.

Now that I am getting ready for my first 'real' home I find myself drawn to different decorating shows and this one has simply stolen my heart. Kirstie makes the task of decorating and making a house into a home so much easier than I anticipated. She really does preach that if you like it, it works. And decorating shouldn't be much more than that. It's the personal stamp on a house that makes it a home.

Plastic and Oil

The David Suzuki Foundation is promoting this interesting personal saga of one woman who had sworn off acquiring new plastic for one year.




You can also check out her blog at Plastic Manners


Plastic is derived from fossil fuels. A few years ago, when I discovered this I was enraged with myself for not being better informed. I had been striving to lessen my dependency on oil by focusing on fuel use and the distance my food traveled. The depletion of fossil fuels is more systemic than what's on the surface. It's not just what we drive and how far we travel. It's also about how warm we keep our thermostats, what we feed our children and what we choose to purchase at the store.

I recently read the book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin. It's an excellent read, one that highlights our dependency on oil and gives solid evidence to the future COMPLETE depletion of all oil on the planet, a natural resource that takes a million years to generate. We will run out eventually, that's a no-brainer.



So why are we using this precious commodity to wrap out kids' school lunches in, or to make toys with or to package water? We should be rationing this stuff for really important things like medical supplies and anything that can not be made with alternative sources (wood, metal).

Many people have debated the validity of this claim, stating that Peak Oil was a concept brought forth in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the scientists back then offered a much more generous time line. The rate of depletion has since doubled with international travel on the rise, more cars on the road and more consumption of meaningless and down right silly products. Our houses are bigger, which need more fuel to heat. Our commutes are longer. Our consumption keeps rising and yet not many stop to think where all this is coming from...or what will happen when it runs out.