So who are we, the ladies that run the Green Living store and do all the crazy things?
Whoo boy, you don't ask hard questions, do ya?
OK,
My name is R... Morana Revel as I am known online. I am a 45 year old
widow with medical issues. Having ADHD as a child, my mom got me into
crafting to save her sanity. So now I am a compulsive crafter, who
spends as much on crafts a year as some winos do on wine.
Part
of my medical issues is allergies. A LOT OF THEM. I am allergic to all
sort of artificial colorings, artificial scents and food additives.
Funny thing? I have never found myself allergic to an actual natural,
unadulterated food. So while some cannot eat peanuts or strawberries, I
cannot get into elevators with women wearing perfume, wash my clothes at
a laundromat or eat brightly colored Halloween or Christmas candy.
The
laundromat issue showed up as a very young child. Luckily, my elderly
babysitter taught my mother to make lye soap one hog killing season and
the rest is history. I grew up on natural lye soap, whole foods and
only had issues away from the farm.
I started out in
nursing school and studied herbalism on the side. When I changed majors
away from nursing, I kept up the herbalism studies.
Later
in life, I bought a bookstore, which I loved. I started a small yarn
store inside the bookstore soon after. However, my husbands declining
health and my medical issues forced me to place the bookstore for sale
and shut it down. I moved my yarn store and started posting more stuff
online.
So, the Green Living aspect? For me, much of
that has been lifelong. Mom made cloth napkins when I was a child as
well as lye soap, cloth paper towels and handkerchiefs. The cloth pads
came later...much later. I was on a survival type post on Facebook
reading about a large movement to move to line drying clothing. As in,
start now because you will have to if the SHTF. I have never been a fan
of that type of posting, the over-the-top THE END IS NEAR threat type. I
was having a fun time laughing at all the ridiculous postings. Having
grown up with line drying and quite a lot of hand washing, much of what
they were saying was rudimentary skills I learned as a very young
child. The discussion moved to *GASP* toilet paper alternatives. My
family being farmers, hunters and campers, this discussion was also very
funny.
It was when the discussion moved to alternative
menstrual products that the discussion wasn't so funny to me anymore.
While it is true that there are very few leaves in KY that haven't
touched my nether regions, I didn't see anything I would feel
comfortable long term with my allergies.
That was the
first I had heard of cloth pads. I searched around, found Mimi's Dreams
had a few Seconds for sale and I tried those. All of a sudden my
allergies started getting better and my constant kidney infections
stopped.
Of course, after a year of testing and
experimenting on myself, I set out to convert several friends. I started
Jennifer, who had already started learning soapmaking. She had many of
the same allergies as I and really enjoyed the DIY aspects of some of my
ideas.
We started learning, experimenting and
following bloggers on Facebook to learn more. It has been a time of
great discovery for both of us. While I am the more experienced
seamstress, most of my experience if from sewing garments. We make what
we like. So while Jennifer likes a wider, straighter pattern, I make
curvy styles. We are in a small town, with a small local fabric store
and limited selection. We have issues getting a steady supply of fabric
we like. We order in a lot of fabric from WAHMs. We love being able to
support the creativity of other women. And this is where the fantastic
hand dyed come from. While we would love to take credit for the lush
hand dyed velours and the fun and funky knits, alas, we can not. While
we have dabbled in the dye pot for yarn and fiber, we prefer to support
others. At least for now.
We are still learning.
We are not experts by no means. We are constantly trying to learn new
things: canning, weaving, bath salts, cough gummy drops...LOL, we are
open to trying just about anything. So cloth pads are not the strangest thing we have done.
