Hello, I'm Hester
Between the Dots is a journal dedicated to the quiet beauty found in ordinary moments.
A space where I share sparkles of joy, my adventures far away and nearby, and my answers to tough questions. Welcome. I hope you’ll find yourself at home between these stories of things we tend to overlook.
table of contents
- ......................................... quiet beauty
- ...................................... simple recipes
- ............................................ slow travel
- ....................................... sustainability
- ................................................... health
- ............................................... Theology
- ......................................... womanhood
- ............................................... marriage
- .............................................. thoughts
When you first decide to make your life more sustainable, the amount of information you’ll find can be quite overwhelming – which is much different from when I first started and had to figure most things out by myself. And then there’s a difference between the enthusiastic blog posts and articles written by those just starting, and the more nuanced experience of those living this lifestyle for a little while now. There’s a space for both, but when I look back on my first posts on making my life more sustainable, they were a bit all over the place. So, in an attempt to show you that making your life more sustainable doesn’t have to be complicated, here’s what I would tell you now that I have ten years of experience:
use what you have
This one is a bit boring. You want to make a change. Swap your unsustainable items for sustainable ones. Have a fresh start. But first of all: buying sustainable products gets expensive real quick. And second of all: it creates a lot of waste. Sure, you can bring your items to the charity shop, but there’s no guarantee someone else wants them, and it might end up in landfill anyway. So, using what you have until it breaks or is no longer safe to use before you exchange it is the more sustainable option.
only buy things you love
This might sound a bit excessive, but if you have to buy something new, take a little bit of effort to find a version you actually love. Chances are you will use the item for its full life cycle, rather than start looking for a replacement long before you need it. And as a bonus – in my experience – your everyday life becomes a little more enjoyable, because you get to use beautiful items on a daily basis.
quality over quantity
This is not always an easy option, because better quality is often a bit more expensive. But if you have to buy something over and over again because it keeps breaking, you’ll be spending the money anyway. So why not buy the version that will last? Even if that means you might need some time to save up before you can buy it. There are very few things in life you need right away. For some items – like cast iron pans or wooden furniture – it might be worth taking some time to find a secondhand item. But also decide for yourself if you’re comfortable with that. And if you’re not, that’s also ok.
borrow if you can
When you need something just the one time, or only every so often, you don’t necessarily have to own it yourself. Perhaps you can borrow it from a neighbour, and if that’s not possible, you might be able to rent it somewhere. It might surprise you how much people love borrowing you their stuff – as long as you return it undamaged, of course.
clean up your digital footprint
This one might be a bit less obvious, but your digital footprint has a massive impact as well. While online storage is poetically called “the cloud”, your data is not stored in thin air. It sits in a data centre that uses up resources we need for human survival. It might be worth spending some time cleaning up those emails from fifteen years ago, moving your photos and videos to a hard disk, and finding a cloud service (and web hosting if you use it) that cares about sustainability.
I hope these simple tips help you make your life a little bit more sustainable. And if you have any tips for me, I’d love to hear them.
