Archive for December, 2004
December 26th, 2004 - How To Live Green, Cheap, and Happy
Managed to finish a book in the last two weeks! Woohoo! It was a pretty easy read, however. A nice little book. Not much new info for me, but some nice personal stories.
December 21st, 2004 - Better Basics for the Home
Checked this out bvia ILL but didn’t have time to read much of it. by Annie Berthold-Bond.
December 11th, 2004 - Life just got simpler…or more complex?
My life either just got a lot simpler or a lot more complex. I don’t know yet.
Simpler: I have a leave of absence from work for the next 3-4 months. I don’t have to spend 40 minutes a day walking to/from work. I don’t have wear my dress clothes 5 days of the week. I can run errands whenever I want to. Etc.
More complex: “Whenever I want to” isn’t quite true. We just brought home our daughter yesterday!!!! We’re parents!!!!! So my life isn’t really my own anymore.
December 10th, 2004 - A Place Called Simplicity by Claire Cloninger
Here’s one of the few books I didn’t finish. It started pretty good–another autobiography, my favorites! But then it turned into a religious tract. I am religious, but I prefer to not read religiously oriented books. I don’t live my life on Biblical quotes or for Biblical reasons. I thumbed through it seeking stories without the quotes and references, but didn’t find any on a quick perusal.
If, however, you are interested in a Biblical argument for simplicity, find out more about A Place Called Simplicity at Amazon.
December 10th, 2004 - Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everday Things by John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning
A tour through the production life of a car, bike, coffee, cola, burger, computer, and more. Covers each item from natural resource to getting it to you. You find out just how much waste material, natural materials, chemicals, pollutants, etc., are used to supply Americans with the stuff we “need.” A fascinating book; a very easy read in a slim volume. I was disappointed at it’s slimness–I’d hoped for more!
I also have in my stacks another book that takes a hard look at the effects of American consumerism. I can barely stand to read it, it’s so depressing. I didn’t feel that way with this book, although it paints a pretty bleak picture. I think it might be that Stuff also presents things that aren’t as bad. For instance, it notes that laptop computers use a lot less in their production and usage than desktops. (Which I learned just after deciding to get a laptop as my next computer at work. whew!) It also seems more factual than preachy. (The other book seems preachy to me.) I think the other book is going to say “Stop being a consumer.” This book recognizes that few people are going to go that route, so it suggests buying local products, reducing the amount of things you buy, paying attention to organic products, and so on. Things I can actually do!
Find out more about Stuff at Amazon.
Ryan also has another book that looks like a good read: Seven Wonders: Everyday Things for a Healthier Planet (at Amazon).
And if you live in the Pacific Northwest, as Ryan does, you may be interested in his State of the Northwest (at Amazon).
December 8th, 2004 - Cloth diapers
Last week, my husband finally agreed to try cloth diapers. I hope he likes them!!! We found a home based business, Green Mountain Diapers, that sells them that was great at answering my questions. They have lots of info online, and I basically went with her recommendations. They should arrive today. I’m nervous that Eric won’t like the snaps, that I should have gotten the ones with hook and look (aka Velcro, but that’s a trademark name. At the Velcro factory, they are prohibited from calling it Velcro even.). We’ll see. They have a great return policy if he takes one look and says no. And Green Mountain offers free shipping to families that adopt.
When I’m at the other computer, I’ll include the document where I wrote out the pros and cons of cloth and disposable diapers. Didn’t end up using it in our discussion, but definitely the research helped me out. (Now I have to figure out how to include files and images in this blog….)
December 8th, 2004 - It isn’t all book reviews
I was doing a lot of reading over the last month. I really do plan to talk about other things. But I got backed up on the books and need to return them, that that’s about all I’ve written. I’m sorry!
December 8th, 2004 - Amazon
I’ve signed up with Amazon as an associate. That means that if any of you like what I have to say enough to go to Amazon and buy one of these books, I’d make a few cents. I encourage you to use your library, then interlibrary loan, then used books at a local store, then on Amazon’s used books, before buying a brand new book. But it’s your call. I was going to make links to Amazon anyway, because I often look there to see other people’s reviews. So I figured I may as well try the Associates program if I was linking anyway! By the way, if you follow the link, then wait a day or more before actually purchasing, it doesn’t count. I almost always wait a while before buying something. Now I’ll have to remember to go back to whoever referred me!
December 8th, 2004 - More Urbanska/Levering books to read
Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference and Moving To A Small Town : A Guidebook To Moving From Urban To Rural America by Urbanska and Levering (links are to Amazon).
December 8th, 2004 - passage about dying from Loving and Leaving
Helen Nearing, page 175, one of Scott’s favorite fables:
I am standing on the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beaty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. There! She’s gone! But someone at my side says, “Gone where?’ From our sight, that’s all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left our side; and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminshed size is in us, not in her. Just at the moment when you say, ‘There! She’s gone!’ other voices are ready to take up the glad shout, ‘There she comes!’ And that is what we call dying.
December 8th, 2004 - The Good Life books by Helen and Scott Nearing
I read most of the Good Life books by Helen and Scott Nearing including:
- The Good Life (including Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life)
- Loving and Leaving the Good Life This was a great read after all of the others. Helen looks back on their entire life, including childhood and young adulthood. It made things from the other books make more sense, such as hearing about Scott’s radical life before he met Helen (and afterwards, too). They had really made an effort for the other books to be more instructional than biographies. This is the bio.
- The Maple Sugar Book (briefly; didn’t have time with all the other books!)
- The Good Life Album read after all the others; would have been nice while reading the other books as it all photos of their life!
- Simple Food for the Good Life (Don’t pay attention to her canning notes! They are very strongly disrecommended in this day and age. You really do need to use heat!)
- Building and Using Our Sun-Heating Greenhouse Only looked at the pictures as I wasn’t really interested in the greenhouse very much. And I was getting burnt out on the good life by now….
A wonderful set of books, although I recommend spacing them out a bit. Tons of ideas on homesteading, at least how to do it in the 30s-70s. I like personal stories the best, and The Good Life is the classic tome.
Find our more about Helen Nearing’s books or about Scott Nearing’s books at Amazon.
December 8th, 2004 - Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
Good book about how to grow veggies year-round. A little too much for my level of having had a garden for just one year! Coleman details how to build all sorts of greenhouses, tunnels, cold frames, and root cellers. I need to stick with just getting a summer crop going! There’s an extensive listing of veggies with planting, rotation, growing, storage, and variety tips.
Some ideas I got:
- undersowing: plant green manure (compost) crops after others are established. For instance, there’s plenty of space underneath corn! Just wait a month or so.
- red cabbage is excellent for sauerkraut (who would have known?)
- garlic: don’t plant where cabbage was the prior year. Try different varieties till you find one that works in your garden. Plant in fall for a better harvest. Book: Growing Great Garlic by Ron Engeland, Filaree Productions 1991.
- spinach is a wonderful last August planting. Spinach is lousy in hot days.
Find our more about Four Season Harvest at Amazon.
December 8th, 2004 - Getting a Life by Jacqueline Blix and David Heitmiller
Getting a Life is a companion to Your Money or Your Life, a book about how to gain financial independence (having enough income from your investments to cover your living expenses). I read the latter book a few years ago, as it’s popular with Motley Foolers. I didn’t follow the steps in the book, nor do I intend to now. But I do pick up some good tips for it–most recently, on the advice of this newer book, I started charting our income versus expenses. It was a nice surprise to notice just how much we are saving! Unfortunately, in this second month of doing so, our expenses were 3 times our income–but it was for a planned expense that we had savings for! (Also, I had the data for the entire year–however the first two months included great expenses for our trip to Russia, so the whole year is pretty out-of-whack. I’m considering not plotting the adoption-related expenses so that it looks more normal, but that might be considered cheating.) [I definitely want to go read YM/YL again!]
Anyway–about the book. I really enjoyed this book! Jacque and David interviewed a number of folks who are following the YM/YL steps and are gaining or have gained financial independence. The books walks through the 9 steps, and shares how these different folks followed them. The people are all ages and walks of life, so it’s a nicely diverse set of stories. Lots of ideas, and ways to see how “people like you” managed to do this.
Jacque and David also have a website, where you can get more updates on their life!
Find out more about Getting a Life and Amazon.
December 7th, 2004 - Book to read
The Shelter of Each Other by Mary Pipher