Author: jennynazak

A recent post on Upworthy highlighted an incident at Trader Joe’s that apparently sparked quite a debate! A customer didn’t know that washing reusable bags was a thing, and when the cashier complimented her on her reusable bags, saying she likes this type of bag and it washes so well too, the customer got confused.

Myself, for sure I wash my reusable bags. I am really not a neat freak at all, but when shopping for produce and so on, especially since I try never to accept any produce that’s packaged in plastic bags, inevitably at least some food residue might get on the inside of a bag. So yes I wash them periodically. Just a quick swish, maybe a smidge of dish liquid or baking soda, rinse and turn inside-out and dry on the line.

Even if I don’t think they need washing, I turn them inside-out regularly and air them in the sun.

But also, come to think of it reading this post, I never expect or never actually even WANT the cashier to have to touch my reusable bag either. It just seems like common sense that I would bag my own groceries. Especially in today’s germ-conscious world, where people don’t really want to touch other people’s personal items unless absolutely necessary.

Still, even though I actually prefer for the cashier not to touch my bags (and also am frankly very fussy about how I bag my groceries so prefer to do it myself), I don’t want the bag to be dirty and then set it down on a shop counter or something. Leaving dirty residue on the counter.

Consideration for others generally seems to encourage smart practices of various kinds.

Sidenote: Those of us who are into all things eco, reuse, and so on, we get a bad rap from mainstream society for being grungy and dirty. And to some extent we probably may never live that down. But we can do our best to maintain considerate hygiene.

Also another thought regarding the fact that we get a bad rap: I think the society that believes in constant throwaway everything in the name of “cleanliness” and “neatness” should be getting the bad rap. Because look what that apparent “cleanliness” and “neatness” costs on the back end. Pacific trash gyre; villages on the other side of the world drowning in our global north debris (and choking on the fumes from burning it down to recover some scrap and eke a livelihood), etc.

So yeah if it were up to me, our fussbudget obsessive hyper-packaged society would be the one getting the bad rap. Alas, I’m not the queen of raps. (Last time I checked, anyway … )

Still, each of us can help shape the public consciousness. Whenever you see something with layers and layers of packaging and assorted fussbudget gobbledegook, make a skeptical face and ask aloud, “I wonder what the BACK end of this looks like?” Or some version of this question that suits your communication style. Even if it seems like you’re alone with no people standing around you, you never know who might be listening.

Here’s the Upworthy thread, shared on my DEEP GREEN page. (Visit the OP to read the full comment section.)

TRIGGER WARNING: Female body stuff! Old people stuff! Medical stuff! — In case the title didn’t give it away lol.

A friend, community superstar, and fellow activist posted on her page asking for advice from women over 50. Regarding symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

A lot of people on the thread mentioned hormone replacement therapy.

What I’ll share here about my approach is heavily influenced by the fact that I tend to avoid conventional medical approaches and “regular” Western medicine doctors except in cases of acute emergency. (Other than going to the dentist for routine teeth cleanings, and the optometrist for routine eye exams — those things I am very steady about, and have doctors I trust and am willing to pay out of pocket.)

My list (I may think of more):

prayer; ritual; mindfulness; acceptance; forgiveness (self & others); core strengthening/balancing exercises; simplify life, prioritize; step back from relationships/ppl that are draining; accepting significantly heavier body weight and learning to work with it; just paying more attention to my body in general, listening to body; putting more effort into making sure i get plenty of fresh local vegetables & fruit (not always easy or convenient but worth prioritizing)

AND, in a Permaculture Design spirit, seeing beyond the problem and noticing assets:

Also appreciating the benefits that come with the natural midlife hormonal drop. The physical symptoms are not fun but I seem to notice many emotional & spiritual benefits. A sadly huge part of my life used to be given over to man drama and the beauty treadmill. Now I have reclaimed that space & energy for creative pursuits; community service; and just enjoying BEING.

Also there could be a wisdom component w midlife change; I was attributing it entirely to downloads from ancestors & recently departed loved ones, but also, it occurs to me that the natural midlife female hormonal drop could be providing some of the heightened clarity, discernment, boost in BS-detection powers (I’ve always had a good BS radar but it has gotten a quantum boost).

One of the hidden benefits of midlife change is suddenly understanding certain great mysteries of life that used to be so perplexing to me, such as why old people always seem so obsessed with digestion. ROTFL!!! in my 60s i have become a zealous convert to Team Digestion!! i am VERRRRY keenly tuned into the foods & drinks that mess with any point of my digestive tract, and I happily avoid them! Or just enjoy them as very occasional treats, which doesn’t seem to trigger problems.

More info about me: I went through full menopause at age 43, after experiencing mild perimenopausal symptoms for a few years (an irregular period here and there, mood swings etc. — though not sure if the mood swings were perimenopause or just part of the lifelong anxiety & depression for which i had not yet found all the resources i needed). When my period stopped, I started waiting for the other shoe to drop, symptom-wise, but it never really seemed to happen. I got warm flashes as opposed to hot flashes. But I didn’t get skin changes, deepening voice, loss of physical strength, or other symptoms I had been taught were coming with menopause.

I did gain a chunk of weight starting in my mid 50s. For pretty much my entire life I had been a string bean. Somehow almost 40 pounds snuck up on me! So, from like 127 to like 167! I still do consider myself a healthy weight (I was seriously skinny at 127, though I always have been a hearty eater), but the extra weight is something for my joints and muscles to contend with, and I have to take a bit of extra caution. I don’t do impact exercise such as long-distance running anymore. Walking and cycling for transportation, and working in the yard, provide low-impact exercise plus vitamin D etc. Hauling water is great exercise!

I am now 63. It was only around age 61 that I started to experience things like joint stiffness, knees & shoulders & back suddenly taking turns getting injured and me having to rehab (fortunately I found an excellent core exercise class online, and it has been literally a core mainstay over the years), skin rashes / heat rashes from the weight gain (for my whole prior life when i was skinnymini, I mostly didn’t ever experience skin rubbing against other skin – wow what a revelation), more pronounced heat sensitivity, some loss of physical strength, etc.

My sleeping hours seem to have been reduced as well, although I was never a big “sleep through the night” person anyway.

The shoulder injury was the worst. Especially since it was my right shoulder, the dominant arm. I was incapacitated to a degree, and had to find alternative ways to put a shirt on etc. It was seriously to the point where if it continued, I was starting to wonder if I could live independently — which was a crazy feeling. (I share my home with other people, but they are not my family members or intimate partners, and it’s not part of my plan that my housemates would assist me with certain sensitive everyday tasks.)

It’s possible that if I had steady access to the conventional healthcare system, doctors would’ve recommended medication or even surgery. Fortunately, in my particular case (I don’t recommend this to everyone, and your situation may vary), various exercises I found online worked excellently, as long as I did them steadily. And I needed to be very slow and patient with the progress.

Given my occupation as a sustainability educator/community educator, I took my injuries as research experience that can be used to help others.

The other injuries too, I brought into my transportation activism. Transportation infrastructure needs to be accessible to the most vulnerable of us: people in wheelchairs, blind people, deaf people, elderly people, and so on. I now speak up in local government meetings regarding the importance of accessibility. Sometimes it takes personal experience to realize that a place can easily become unlivable to the elderly. And that if we address the needs of the most vulnerable, the place will become a truly enjoyable and livable place for all.

Regarding menopause symptoms, I am also in the past year or so noticing a change in my voice, which I consider a genuinely charming aspect of becoming an elder woman. Also I am getting more white hair, which I think is pretty cool also. My neck started getting wrinkly a couple years ago and at first I was a little bit weirded out, but I figure it’s just part of life and I’m good with it. It doesn’t mean I love to be on video, but then again I never have loved to be on video. But it’s still part of my work sometimes, so when I have to be on video I just go with it.

Skin care note: For what it’s worth, I haven’t worn any makeup for some years now. And I keep a simple routine. I use an oil-based moisturizer (made locally, from natural ingredients, by a local Black woman-owned business — see product info at end of post).

And I am a lifelong advocate of drinking lots of water, have always done that.

I enjoy a wide variety of foods, and don’t try to force myself to abstain from so-called unhealthy foods. Rather than the “antibiotic approach” of trying to eliminate all the “bad stuff,” I go for a “probiotic approach” of simply adding in more fresh fruits and vegetables, and the rest gets sorted out. Food, including high-calorie treats, is one of my great enjoyments in life.

I also enjoy beer, wine, and cocktails, although I seem to have naturally reduced my volume & frequency of alcoholic beverages. A little goes a long way!

And I enjoy coffee. Generally just have it in the morning.

But wait, there’s more!

As often happens with a blog post, things percolate on a deeper level, more layers come.

It occurs to me to wonder if there are things I have done throughout my life, as life habits, that have just happened to also be of help in alleviating/heading off the more severe symptoms of menopause.

For example, I’ve been working from home for decades. This has allowed me to minimize my exposure to artificial lighting. It is also allowed me to spend plenty of time outdoors. Artificial lighting does affect the hormones, sleep patterns, and so on.

Also, for the past 25 years, I have lived within walking or cycling distance of a swimmable natural body of water. In Austin it was Barton Springs; here in Daytona Beach it’s the ocean. That has always felt very nurturing and healthy to me. And may have an effect on hormones.

Speaking of hormones, the “female” hormones aren’t the whole story. There’s also cortisol and adrenaline and neurotransmitters and a bunch of other components of our biochemistry, which when out of balance can plague us at any stage of life but might bother a menopausal woman even more, kicking symptoms up a notch. Accordingly, anything we can do to address stress will surely help alleviate the female symptom stuff.

Some of the best methods I know to alleviate stress (and sometimes even avoid it entirely) are getting out in nature (even in your own neighborhood, even in the heart of the city), doing some kind of mindfulness practice, having a spiritual/religious faith, getting physical exercise, having friends and other community close by, exploring our creative side, and feeling like part of something bigger than ourselves. I’ve always been fortunate to be able to have or arrange those things. And I want everyone to have those things, and the other things that make life meaningful and nourishing for them.

As seems to happen with so many of my other posts, I come around to one core idea: Oftentimes it seems the things that truly benefit our bodies and minds are also beneficial to the whole rest of the planet, including the people around us.

That’s all for now. But probably more things will pop into my mind — because that’s how it usually goes — and when they do I will come back and write them here for you. Peace and love to you all!

PS. Some more thoughts … Our grandmothers managed. How did they?

Is it because the food system and water was cleaner, less poisoned?

Is it because life was a bit more open-air, less sealed indoors?

Is it because they lived in more close and secure and nurturing community? Including, probably, longtime membership in churches, women’s mutual-aid societies, sewing and quilting clubs, and what have you.

Or were they really having super horrific symptoms but just being stoic?

Or, were they having the basic grumble-inducing symptoms (achy joints etc.) but nothing too horrible, and also they were allowed to slow down and sit on the porch talking, and just be old people as opposed to being expected to run around doing marathons and being the pickleball champion of their HOA, and constantly hopping on planes and stuff. (Of course some of the incessant plane-hopping is probably because the grandkids are so far away nowadays. We are a very scattered society. I think it has affected our health as a whole.)

*Moisturizer details: My Organic Secret Body Oil Mist. Her 4-oz size lasts me a year if i use just on my face, neck, collarbone area. I first found this lovely product being sold by its maker at Juneteenth Festival 2024. And I carefully made the beautiful little brown glass spray-bottle of skin-pampering elixir last until Juneteenth 2025. I didn’t see my instant-favorite local moisturizer artisan at the Juneteenth Festival this year, but thankfully was able to look up her website (YAY!) and order by mail.

And that website is: https://myorganicsecretskin.com

She makes other products as well, such as body butter.

(For my arms, legs, etc. I tend to just moisturize with a plain food-grade oil such as olive or coconut. Same as face oil, I apply immediately after shower/bath while skin is in a super hydrated state.)

SHOE GOO to the rescue, times two!
Shoe goo is an adhesive product in a tube, as the name suggests it was originally designed for repairs to shoes.

Never thought of trying it for anything else, until the other day suddenly my cute little inflatable solar-charged lantern was looking deflated. Sure enough I saw it had a little split at one of the seams.

Since I already had some shoe goo from that I bought to save my favorite maryjane flats, I thought why not try it on the lantern. Works like a charm!

BTW the lantern was purchased from a sporting goods and marine supply store. It seems to charge up pretty easily and hold a charge for a long time. (I don’t use it for hours and hours on end, it’s just when I need a bit of light when I walk into a room.)

Bottles in the background are one of my favorite forms of room decor. Bit of an oceanic/nautical theme.

Side note about the shoes: A few days after using SHOE GOO to reattach the front part of the sole that had become detached from the upper, I wore these shoes to a memorial service. About 15 minutes by bicycle from my house. As we were leaving the funeral parlor, it suddenly started raining sheets and buckets.

The bicycle ride home was rainy but pleasant, till I reached a low-lying intersection where there was high water in the street. It was just a short segment, and i could see into the water, so I peddled through it, but was copiously apologizing to my shoes for the drenching.

Once I got home, I stuffed pieces of fabric into the toes of the shoes to help preserve the shape while the shoes dried.

Forgot about them till today, a couple weeks later when I was preparing this post about fixing the lantern. The shoe repair remains intact!

See pics here on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.

PS. I have often found that tubes of various adhesive/sealant products (caulk, bathtub sealant etc) don’t get used up, and they harden or decay before getting used. By finding multiple uses for things, we may be able to reduce the amount of such products that end up in landfill. Another thing i try to do is to share partially used tubes of useful stuff with neighbors if I see them starting a project, commenting that some daily item of theirs has split/broken etc. I might save them a bit of money and a trip to the store.

For us as RIOTers, the success of the recent boycott of certain ntertainment channels might have had a special significance: a live demo reminder of the power of our wallets.

Some people were skeptical or even derisive about the boycott. But it worked! Rather quickly.

*The RIOTers I refer to in this post are fellow members of a group and movement called the Riot for Austerity. Also known as the 90 Percent Reduction Challenge.

We are a grassroots movement of people who are voluntarily setting out to reduce our ecological footprint to a tiny fraction of the average USA resident’s. While doing this, we are getting all of our needs met and living happy and abundant lives.

We seek to encourage other people who want to simplify their lives, and lower their stress and cost of living, while also helping people and the planet.

There is a Facebook group for this movement. It’s called @riot for austerity. (I can’t seem to tag it but if you type it in your search field that should bring it up.) Some of you who follow this page have already joined the group and it’s great to see you in there!

We help each other out with practical tips and emotional support. (Honestly if there is a hard part of this lifestyle, it’s probably mainly the aspect of bucking the consumerist social norms and dealing with the various fallout from that. We help each other navigate those challenges.)

Sidenote: I got a message in my email inbox from one of the big “blue activist” orgs, pearl-clutching the fact that the boycott had been “organic” as opposed to being organized by the “big blue organizing machines.” Hello? First of all, it was successful, what do they care where it came from. (Well, they may feel like it fit into their credibility. But that reaction is very telling, feels like they’re more concerned with their own image than with actual societal transformation.) Second of all, the grassroots IS where the real power is. Also, what does it mean for something to be organic versus organized? I saw and heard lots of posts and comments calling for the boycott.

(These are outline notes I wrote up for a permaculture group tour a few weeks ago. Probably won’t make much sense, mainly just for my own reference but some of you might find it useful especially if you’ve been following my content for a while.)

Starshine House / Trailhead 501 tour

This house is the 3-d embodiment of a manifesto I’ve developed over the years regarding money, occupational freedom, community, and life.

A physical hub for Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild

Permaculture design principles: Mollison book, Holmgren book

A bit about me, my background. How I came to study Permaculture.

Categories of basic human needs: food; water; shelter; transportation; energy; community. A lot of people focus on food because of course it’s important. I mean, we all have to eat. But by focusing on food and the nuclear household, at the expense of all else, we create massive energy drains and also cognitive drains.

Also: A pattern language, Last child in the woods, TEK indigenous wisdom, Vanilla Beans, Iban of Sarawak etc. Sharon Astyk, Riot for Austerity. Homegrown national park. The Non-Consumer Advocate group 152.8k members!

House has 2 missions/purposes: 1) experimental lab for low-footprint living; 2) support people in disengaging from conventional economy, dependence on “a job.”

Ecological urgency; economic hardships; outages from increasingly severe weather + disasters

Living/visiting here

Creative and occupational freedom. Right livelihood; “reduce your need to earn”. Creating a tiny wedge to spring ourselves.

Importance of joy & creativity

Examples of potential livelihoods/income streams from this one tiny 1/10 acre

Hurricane evac of 2017. I had presold enough copies of my book to make the rent, so I used my phone to send the PDF to the people who had ordered the book. This was in a room where I was staying at a friend’s house for hurricane evac.

Eric Brown author, crush one of the categories. Transportation, housing, food, health costs, debt.

Porous property: Little Free Library, benches etc

Mini reading room

Passive cooling & heating. Trade-offs between shade, airflow, privacy. Noise buffer and light buffer etc.

Offering a counter alternative to violent and intrusive landscaping. “Neatness disease.” GROW FOOD. Also learn what grows wild locally. Free food and medicine. Try to get people to see the value in growing and foraging food. Local passionfruit vine, loquat trees etc. Beachside ecosystem. Oaks, saw palmetto, etc. We build the store and buffer. Promote the beauty of traditional saw palmetto yard along the beach where you can barely see the house.

Also: food desert cuisine. Learn to make something with what’s available in walking distance.

Solar cooking, retained-heat cooking (haybox), twig-fired stove etc.

Preparing a basic hurricane toilet kit.

Rainwater harvesting. Brad Lancaster etc. “Minimum Viable Product” concept from entrepreneur/startup community. Every single place I’ve lived from desert to semi tropics has the same issues, flooding plus drought.

Work (manual tasks such as scooping water out of barrels etc.) “Obtain a yield.”

Laundry – a whole subject right there. And dishes and other traditional conventional housework tasks that can take over a person’s life and suck resources.

Move many tasks outdoors. Laundry, dishes, etc. Hand-wash stations also can be used for rinsing toothbrush after brushing teeth.

Reducing/eliminating: corporate detergents, purpose-specific household cleaning products, shampoos. Use homemade or local.

Occupations that wouldn’t be a full job in the conventional economy but support a household. And potentially enable home-based livelihoods. Clothespins & corks; keeping machines in repair.

Exploring patterns for house-sharing. Flexible stay, visitors, longterm residents. Some useful simple protocols for sharing space. Small areas for private space; most areas are common-use.

Collapse, doomerism — Parallels with end-of-life; hospice

Collapse is now. When does it become not a dress rehearsal anymore. When we make it now.

Practicing doing without things. Making it real.

Being local, neighborhood-based

Permaculture as a decolonization movement

Centralized top-down systems are not easing up. If anything many are doubling down. An adaptive response is to keep building our own parallel systems that reduce our dependence on the main systems and minimize feeding them. And we need to do this in a community way, not just as individuals or households.

Reducing dependence on electricity & personal automobile is huge.

Withhold our labor and purchasing power from corrupt, unhealthy, harmful systems. This is a group task and one that we must help everybody navigate. No person left behind. What we do with our wealth and our labor is of paramount importance.

Special manifesto for fellow white Boomers & older.

Definition of a civilized society. Superior culture. I would say a superior culture is one that loves and values and takes care of all of its members.

Use your talents, humor, creativity. So many things you know and are good at — all needed front and center.

Community resilience.

When we really simplify, we can end up having what seems like a lot of time. Like maybe even an abnormal unhealthy amount of time on one’s hands. But I think this reaction is an artifact of our hyper-busy culture. There is value in sitting with the stillness and seeing what emerges. Or even just noticing that you can’t deal with stillness. If that happens, notice what your impulse is. What do you try to replace that stillness with.

Reinforcing the sense of abnormality is that the world around us is still going on about its fast-paced frantic motions. This is another reason why it’s important to find likeminded people, even if it’s only online at first. Don’t worry, you’ll start finding them in real life too if you haven’t already. By showing up and stepping into an alternative way of being, we set an example and create space for others.

While learning to slow down and live quieter, we can also at the same time be using our freed up time and energy as a surplus to benefit our communities. “Share surplus.”

Action steps/movements. Riot for Austerity. Homegrown national park. The Non-Consumer Advocate group 152.8k members! Bryan Hummel – beaver biomimicry, sponge-building. Chris Searles trickle-watering experiments. Aprovecho Technology center; Kerr-Cole sustainability center.

Fiz Harwood – Solomon Islanders. Amazon tribesman “I store meat in the belly of my brother.” Flows vs stocks. Everything is perishable — even money, that thing we invented to surmount perishability. There’s more resilience in building flows.

Being community guardians/nurturers and agents of change, while at the same time relinquishing and letting go of control in more & more ways.

I know I’ve said this before – and it’s the whole message of my book and many of my talks – but it bears repeating:

Consumer spending is the backbone of the economy. In the USA it’s something like 70%.

We the everyday people can either choose to exercise the power of our wallets, or we can continue to be dependent on mountains of “stuff” from large distant corporations that don’t care about us or the planet.

It’s a lot of fun to get creative about reuse and upcycling. It’s also really fun to support our neighbors and local businesses.

Non-consumerism also helps undermine the war machine.

Photos of our little porch, and part of our rainwater harvesting setup, for the i’ll geaux rhythm!!

Our rainwater collection system just got augmented with the addition of a barrel. Perfect since we have been having such extra juicy weather lately! (A couple days in a row I woke up to find 3 inches of rain in the rain gauge. One or 2 inches on multiple other days recently.)

I also moved a couple of the mini tubs from up front to stack them here in back as supplemental catchment. The front side of the house, water runs downhill (away from the house, and into the poofy voluminous sponge of native plants & trees), whereas the backside is the place where water needs to be caught and managed. Mini tubs in front are not strictly needed.

This is the first year I had thought of doing this. Noticing that the rainfall oscillations seem to be getting more extreme, and that therefore additional capacity is needed in the rainy season on the “rain side” of the house.

When dry season comes, I’ll put those couple of mini tubs back in the front where they come in handy for collecting water in case it gets super dry and even the native plants could use a refresher.

#Rainwater #heatmitigation #floodcontrol #Skyjuice — And our skin loves rainwater!

See pix here. BTW I will be covering the barrel with the same black mesh that covers the others that aren’t already black. For both aesthetic reasons and also to cut down on algae.