Plastic Free July is a great time to start making sustainable swaps. Find a grocer near you that lets you bring your own jars to refill pantry staples like rice, beans, flours and sugars. Replace your ziplock bags with reusable silicone. Bring your own shopping bags to the store. Try out soap and shampoo bars instead of using plastic bottles of personal care products. 

We are going to be adding lots of new products and working with local businesses to do regular refill bar pop ups around Elk Grove. We are working toward some very exciting developments, including permanent refilling locations. 

Unofficially, we are trying to sell 5,000 gallons of refillable liquid products between now and the end of July. Meeting this goal will allow us to begin the process of opening Elk Grove's first Refillery and Zero Waste Shop by this Fall. Check back here and on our social media pages for more updates. 

​-Stephanie

Summer Break

Exciting Possibilities

The Future of Retail

So, here's where I'm at: I've owned Green Gifts for about 18 months, running it mostly as a local delivery service with the occasional community market. During the fall last year, the NeighborGood Market started just a couple miles from me. It's a Farmers Market on Thursday nights. After the December holiday markets, they decided to bump it down to just once a month. 

Orders have been very inconsistent. I will have a really good week with 5-8 orders followed by weeks of nothing. I will openly admit that I am also not consistent in advertising or putting out other content or promotions. I get wrapped up in life (making adjustments for covid life took me a long time). I have also been pulled by a calling to connect all the different zero waste/refill shops across the country(and world) and all the different manufacturers. They are all fascinating, with their own stories and unique presences. And more shops pop up (or pop up on my radar) every week, the community is growing SO fast. I have dabbled in wholesale and distribution. Which brings me to one of the other highlights of my journey so far: the purchase of my Model X. 

I have a lot of ties to electric vehicles, including working in the EV charging industry for 4 years. We bought our first in 2015, a tiny, purple, glorified-golf-cart called a Mitsubishi iMiEV. It has a range of up to 60 miles and will be our daughter's car someday. Our second EV is a Chevolet Bolt. We got on the waiting list before it was even available and received it early 2017. It's much more like your typical family compact car and has a 240 mile range. We've taken it on many a road trip. 

I prided myself on traveling to my vendors to pick up my orders. I liked to meet these small business owners and innovators in person and see their operations. I also like how by driving my electric car that is at least partially powered by my home's solar, I am helping to avoid some of the emissions associated with shipping. Shortly after I started picking up my own orders and meeting other shop owners, I decided to ask shops near me if they needed orders picked up from the same vendor that I could bring them and help them avoid the shipping cost. I also started to work with other shops to split orders when the vendor has a high minimum order amount requirement that would make it impossible for either of us to afford to order on our own. As the orders got bigger, it became more obvious I would need a bigger vehicle. 

​In August, I bought the Model X sight-unseen from a used car dealer in Utah. They shipped it over. Turns out it had some cosmetic issues and did not have free supercharging like they though it would *sad trombone*. But I still LOVE it! It fits everything I need for my markets, fits lots of inventory and has the ability to tow a small trailer. My first exercise of the towing capability was in October I rescued a retired hot air balloon from a former employer of mine in Phoenix AZ. We rented an open utility trailer and rolled it on from the facility and brought it over to a storage unit I have nearby. I chopped off a few dozen panels and brought them home to clean and start experimenting with constructing some consumer products like tote bags. I hope to rescue at least a dozen more balloons this year. 

So, that leads us to today. Currently I am still operating my business as a delivery service, and holding a booth at the now monthly local Farmers Market (there is one today! YAY!). I still reach out and connect with new vendors and shops, but don't travel to meet them in person. I am debating a big trip at the end of the month to the SoCal, Las Vegas and Phoenix areas and hopefully can do another big Pacific NW trip in March. 

What does the future hold? You'll need to read the next blog post to find out. 

I'm writing this while sitting beside my 7 year old daughter. She is home doing distance learning. She has barely seen her friends in the last year, besides our next-door and across the street neighbors, with boys her same age. She is in second grade and she has ADHD. I have to work beside her instead of in my office because every 30 seconds or so I need to remind her she needs to be doing her school work instead of singing and carving designs into my dinning table. 

Through researching her diagnosis, I have discovered that ADHD is something that I have struggled with my whole life as well. I'm not formally diagnosed, partially because our mental healthcare system is awful, partially because a pandemic has made it worse (or at least more overworked) and partially because one of the really "fun" things about ADHD is that it makes it difficult for a person to prioritize and that includes prioritizing their own care. 

I tell you all of this to share something about me. I am a really passionate, forward-thinking, creative, warm and generous person. I am also disorganized, have a memory that can remember a route I drove once six years ago, but not the fact that I have a meeting this afternoon and I have a horrible time prioritizing or completing important tasks. 

I have a lot of ambition, I am good at seeing things from a high level and seeing things logistically. I planned a five-part trip for my husband and I to go visit all of the Major League Baseball Parks in one summer. It took many hours of looking at schedules, planning routes, deciding on stops and other planning. It was intense and I am still so proud of myself for accomplishing it, even 9 years later. We plan to do it again with our children, this time in a fully electric car. 

My life goals also include creating a network of Zero Waste/Refill shops and other sustainability focused companies that work together to bring as many people as possible, low waste, natural and locally made products. I absolutely love the community of shop owners, manufacturers and other parties that I have gotten to know over the last two years. 

I also run a Facebook group: Zero Waste, Zero Judgement. We hit 20,000 members about a month ago. It is a terrific group, always eager to help those with questions and share interesting and inspiring ideas. I really want to construct some resources that I think will help all the group members immensely, but you can just add it to the pile of overly ambitious and altruistic projects that I just love to cook up. 

I have a lot of trouble with consistency. I can have an ultra productive day, followed by a day that I can barely get through just feeding myself and my kids. Some days feel like they go really painfully slow and I'm just waiting for bedtime so I can sit with my latest crochet project and a show. And other days are gone in a blink and I only got to half of my 18 item to do list.

All of this to be honest, transparent, and real. I have a lot of things I want to create, accomplish and share. I have been doing the research to get treatment for my ADHD so I can hopefully deal with my hurdles, but it's not going to be resolved in a matter of days, weeks or months. It will keep me from growing at the pace I want. It's extremely frustrating to me. I feel like I'm making excuses, and I know that's how it looks to some neuro-normative people. That's how I felt about it for a long time, the guilt and beating myself up over everything was constant. Through the power of knowledge, I am learning more about ADHD and to cut myself some slack, tackle each thing one at a time and to appreciate the positive side. People with ADHD tend to be creative, good problem solvers, generous and compassionate. I am all that and more. 

** Sorry, this post was supposed to be about my future plans, but I felt more like writing about the thing that has been occupying my mind the most this week. I will write about those plans in another post tonight.