Archive for December, 2005
December 29th, 2005 - The Riffle
If you love the woods, but live in the city, you may enjoy The Riffle - Our Image and Audio Publication by Linda Vining. I ran across her about a year ago, when I previewed her ebook on “Kitchen Chickens.” She does beautiful nature photography. She now has a monthly subscription website, which includes a weekly audio/image experience. I’ve had the sample email sitting around for a month or more and finally looked it today. I should have looked sooner. I’ve been debating whether $3/mo was too much for a monthly Riffle…and now I find out I’d get four of them.
I’m signing up. I NEED more touches of nature in my life. It’s my main connection to the spiritual world, and I don’t have enough of it in my life. I’m hoping it will inspire me to go out and walk and hike more, too.
December 29th, 2005 - Make Balsam Pillows and More: Recycled Christmas Tree Wisdom
I *must* remember this next year as we are likely to have a tree: Make Balsam Pillows and More: Recycled Christmas Tree Wisdom.
December 28th, 2005 - Year in Review
From FiberMom who got the idea from Freebeeglee: A year in review takes the first sentence of the first post of each month on this blog. As the first one explains why, I didn’t write in Jan or Feb, so there are only 10 sentences.
Now that my maternity leave is almost over (I’m back part time for a week or two), I’m going to try to get back to this blog.
Karen commented that when her family tried grass-fed beef they didn’t like the taste compared to grain-fed beef.
Sorry I haven’t written much lately. Been busy…..
A perennial issue with living simply is charitable contributions.
Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address is wonderful.
And I’m not the one who says so, this time.
The Apple Journal provides Apple Variety Descriptions for just about every apple you can think of and all the ones you never knew existed.
I don’t know if solar electricity will even work well for our house, but I definitely am interested for the future.
Not only does the U of Michigan in Ann Arbor now haveWorms go[ing] to college, turn[ing] dining hall scraps into fertilizer, food but they’ve been composting food waste for years!
EERE Consumer’s Guide: Thermostats and Control Systems is a good reminder of how and why to use a programmable thermostat.
I also learned that the monthly archive pages do NOT include links. I wonder why not? That is, the links indicated above do not appear if you look at the original post in a monthly archive page, only if you look at the post on its own individual page.
December 28th, 2005 - Barnes & Noble University
Barnes & Noble University offers free online courses, including “Simplify Your Life Now, which I’ve signed up for. Most (all?) require at least one book, but you do not have to buy it. I’m borrowing the one for this course from the library!
The author’s website Simple Living looks familiar. I think I considered getting her newsletter/magazine last year, but it didn’t seem worth it. I’m not sure anymore, however.
Edit: Yes, indeed, I’ve even read her book and reviewed it a year ago. I loved the book, but friends panned the newsletter.
December 23rd, 2005 - The best Christmas gift
My inlaws, the ones I was having trouble finding gifts for, came up with the BEST Christmas gift for me: They gave a donation to my favorite charity, The Elephant Sanctuary! I have forgotten the conversation, but apparently this summer I told my MIL that a donation to them would be a perfect gift for me. She remembered that 5 months later woohoo!!!
I have to admit: When their box of gifts came last week, I off-handedly said something to Eric about how they obviously loved him and Maggie more because I only had one gift that had all our names on it. He said something about how this wasn’t the only box coming. Whatever his exact words were, I took it to mean another box of gifts would come later. So I’ve faithfully checked the front porch when I come home every day (we only use the porch in the mornign to get the paper, so I check it each day in the afternoon if we’re expecting a package). A couple times, Eric has commented that their gift to me would be one I would absolutely positively adore. My MIL frequently buys me clothes with Winnie the Pooh characters on them (I adore Piglet), so I guessed it was another sweatshirt or such. To my regret, as I have too many clothes and since I prefer to wear only green, it was too much to hope they had found it in green. I did think Eric’s enthusiasm about the gift was a bit much for a Pooh item, however. But I couldn’t think of anything else they knew I’d adore (and I’d not mentioned wanting a Dyson any time recently!).
Yesterday, when I came home with the mail, he asked, “Anything special in the mail?” And I said, “No.” “Oh, my parents are getting worried because confirmation of your gift was supposed to arrive.” “Well, there’s a large envelope from The Elephant Sanctuary” a brief thought of a donation comes to mind “but I just sent a donation and it’s just a receipt for that.” His reply was something non-comittal but implied that indeed that wasn’t what he expected. But, my curiousity piqued, I opened it before going up to change my clothes. To my delight, it was indeed my Christmas gift! I was soooo surprised!!!! And utterly delighted. A perfect gift that I would adore, just as promised.
And nothing (except the thin sheet of paper acknowledging the gift) that I’ll have to store, wear, clean, dust, or do anything else with. A prefectly simple gift. I can even recycle the paper into my garden in the summer!
December 23rd, 2005 - Savings
Earlier this year, I wrote about saving half of my spending money.I’m happy to say that now that the year is over, I’ve saved $585. I saved over half my monthly spending money every month but one, but also supplemented it with gift or other money (I do some work for the testing center and sometimes spend that money and sometimes save it).
Haven’t decided what to do with it yet (the Dyson and the patio furniture are still on my mind). So I’ve opened another ING Direct savings account and put it there to earn a little interest (currently, over 3%, which is nearly 3x my local credit union).
December 23rd, 2005 - Follow up on blocks
Note: I wrote this post earlier this week and just discovered that it was saved as a draft. Not quite sure how that happened….
To my brother Michael: Oh, they are definitely yours. But Mom said she’d keep them at the house for Maggie to play with so please don’t take them! And I have TWO kinds of blocks about letters. The plastic ones are actual letters, about 2.5″ square. I also have small wooden alphabet blocks. AND, I bought all of these 2-3 years ago, when we had different plans. So please don’t be mad. I thought we’d need older toys right away. And I didn’t think until her birthday a month ago about how people would be wanting to get her gifts each winter and I probably don’t need to buy her *any* toys or clothes! LOL (I really wish she had a summer birthday. Or even a spring or early fall birthday. Makes gift giving a lot easier, I think, than having a birthday only 33 days before Christmas.)
To Meredith: Yes, I’ll definintely keep the LL and TT. I know she can’t play with them for a while, but they are great toys! I never had LL, but always thought they were cool at friends’ houses. And I found wooden versions of both of these–they went to plastic a while back. I think TT now are partially back to wood, but only the sticks. The connectors are plastic. (I’m not sure in my set if I have plastic or wooden connectors now that I think about it.)
December 23rd, 2005 - Longest commute to work
It took me an hour to get to work this morning. Given that I live only .75 miles from work…that’s a pretty long commute! I first left the house at about 6:50. Went back for my big umbrella as the rain was heavier that I thought. Walked less than one block and decided that the ice was impossible. It was *freezing* rain, you see. It was just time for the bus to arrive, so if it wasn’t early, I’d be able to catch it. I waited 10 minutes and decided I must have missed it. Went back to the house and got my YakTrax. Just as I came back around the corner of the house, the bus was pulling away from the corner–it had been 15 minutes late! Oh well, off to walk. Slllllooooowwwwwllllllyyyyy. I think it’s the slowest walk I’ve ever taken! Even with the YakTrax, I didn’t want to take chances. It was a nice, contemplative walk. But by the end, I was itching to go a normal speed!
If I hadn’t had an 8am appointment, I might have actually decided to not go in at all.
Oh, and last night Eric said I should drive it the rain came as predicted. I considered it, but realized that if there was freezing rain, I’d end up coming out to a 1/4″ sheet of ice on the car at the end of the day. Not a good prospect. Plus, driving conditions were about as good as walking conditions at 7am. Cars slip-slided their way around. It’s the one type of weather where I do not insist on pedestrian right-of-way. I’d much prefer the vehicles were long gone by the time I was through the intersection. Otherwise, they just might stop on time.
December 23rd, 2005 - My dream vacation
CNN.com - Minnesota: Mushing in the frozen wilderness - Dec 23, 2005
December 21st, 2005 - On LED holiday lights
Based on Umbra’s advice about
LED holiday lights, we hope to replace ours on Boxing Day. I have the day off work due to the legal holidays falling on the weekend, so we can hit the after Christmas sales for once! We’ve never even used the ones we bought a few years ago. So I guess we saved a lot of money ($7.20 a year is we’d had them on 8 hours a day for a month).
December 20th, 2005 - Maggie’s toys
On Sunday, we rearranged the living room. We’ve had Maggie’s toys in a little cardboard box that fit nicely between the rocker and the chair. The chair’s in another room, and Maggie likes to chew on the cardboard, so it’s time for a new box. We couldn’t think of anything we owned that would work. (Well, a yellow plastic milk crate would work just fine. Except that the dog’s toybox is one. And Emma seems to have some confusion over which toys are hers and which are the baby’s. So we’re afraid to use an identical box for both sets of toys. Maggie might not have any toys left the next morning!) Then I saw our lone laundry basket (which we don’t use for laundry, it’s just stored in Maggie’s room). Perfect!
I swapped out most of the toys that had been downstairs and gathered up ones she hasn’t seen in a while. After more than half-filling the rather large laundry basket I realized, to my dismay, that she has far too many toys! When I told Eric, he disagreed. Until he learned that the toys down in her new toybox were 25-33% of what she has! I apparently have not been good at recycling older toys when new ones arrive (like on her birthday or when she gets old enough for something else that was around). I’m itching to go through her toys NOW, but we’ve decided to wait until after Christmas. I’m certain, even though I said she didn’t need any (except books and a soft doll, and even those aren’t *needs*, that she will get toys for Christmas. It will be easier to do one large going-through that one now and one in a week.
The hardest part for me? I LOVE blocks. I’ve bought at least 7 sets for her, plus some TinkerToys and Lincoln Logs. The sets include plain wooden blocks, colored wooden blocks, plastic letter blocks (each block is a letter, about 2.5″ “square”; very cool), wooden alphabet blocks, small architectural blocks (includes painted on doors and windows, rooflines, arches, columns)…. I think it harkens back to childhood: my brother owned a set of blocks. I was always welcome to play with them, but I always knew they were HIS. And I wanted my own. I really loved playing with the blocks. So when I started collecting toys a few years ago at garage sales, I bought all the block sets I found. I didn’t realize until last summer when I was organizing things just how many I had! I filled up one paper box with the wooden blocks and gave the rest of the wooden ones away (except the architecture set). I really like the alphabet and letter blocks so didn’t pass them on. But it’s time. The letter blocks are going to go, since they are plastic.
December 20th, 2005 - I want to live in Anchorage
There are all sorts of reasons to live in Anchorage, but here’s another one: world’s tallest snowman (They don’t say it’s a record, but sounds like it is the tallest right now. At least I haven’t seen any other such stories out there. Yet.)
Okay, so the reasons to live in Anchorage aren’t all that many. Mainly just that it’s in Alaska and gets lots of snow. But that’s all I need to recommend a place to me. Could be in Canada, too. Basically, it’s the snow part that matters to me.
December 19th, 2005 - Happy dance!
On Saturday, I mailed the check that will pay off our second mortgage–a 15 year mortgage paid in 4.5 years!!! It’s in the budget to be paid off next month, but I realized that if I sent next month’s payments with this month’s principal payment, I wouldn’t have to worry about remembering for taxes the little bit of interest I’d pay. Since we always have a slush amount in our accounts, I could easily pay the amount a few weeks early.
We’ve been paying extra on this from a couple of things. One, I snowballed first my educational loans then when they were paid off (18 months ago I think), that money went to the mortgage. Our tax refund last year went to it. And the amount we didn’t have to pay anymore in taxes due to having a child also went towards it! And next, it will be snowballed into paying off the primary mortgage. Woohoo! I think we can pay it off in another 10 years (10’s a lot, but that’s 15 years early!).
We now feel like we actually have equity in our house!!! It’s not a lot of equity, but with the recent reassessment, it might actually be approaching $20,000. (if someone would actually pay what the city thinks it’s worth. If not, we might have maybe $15,000. Which is still a nice number when a year ago we had about $5000!)
(Happy dance is what we do on my Motley Fool message boards whenever someone pays off a debt, or does something else equally happy and exciting.)
December 19th, 2005 - Garden produce
Yesterday, I brought some currant juice–homegrown/homemade–to a Solstice celebration. I was a little nervous about whether anyone would try it, much less like it (I had to put a LOT of sugar in to compensate for the tartness, and it was a cold drink on a cold day! All other drinks were hot.). People raved about it!!! It was also a nice way to get rid of nearly a gallon of the stuff. I have at least another gallon in the freezer, plus a gallon of berries that I didn’t juice. Eric doesn’t like currants (they are very tart, as mentioned) so it’s all up to me to eat them. I like that they are free…but they are definitely not my favorite fruit. I have to force myself to eat or drink them.
I should make a committment to buy no more fruit for myself. We just bought 8# of navel oranges and 24 grapefuit. Plus I have strawberries, currants, applesauce, rhubarb, and peaches in the freezer. I do NOT need more fruit! (Except bananas….I eat one a day…..) It’s just hard sometimes to go to the effort of eating what’s in the freezer. I prefer fresh fruit. But I also prefer to not spend more money. I need to remind myself of the latter sometimes!
December 19th, 2005 - Managing to keep the heat down
We’ve made it over a month now of keeping the heat at or below 67 during the day. On Saturday, the thermostat dropped to 63, and I managed to let it go until the house temp dropped below 65. I tried to stick it out, but I was just too cold at that point! So I turned it back up, but it had been off most of the day.
I’ve discovered that my cats make absolutely wonderful versions of an electric blanket or hot water bottle. Most mornings, I wake up to one or two of them sleeping on or near me. It’s lovely! (I was going to write a post about this free version of hot water bottle. Until I remembered that Shmi cost of $1000 in medical expenses her first year, and ongoing costs of at least $50/mo between food, litter, and meds for the two of them!)
December 14th, 2005 - TV habits
Facts and Figures about our TV habits (PDF) is a list of, you guessed it! Some highlights
* Amount of television that the average American watches per day: over 4 hours
* Time spent daily with screen media for U.S. children age six and under: about 2 hours
* Percentage of parents who say that if they have something important to do, it is likely that they will use the TV to occupy their child: 45
* Time per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5 minutes
* Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked, would rather watch TV than spend time with their fathers: 54
I think I’ll stop. Thats 4 out of the first 10 already! Wait, one more: Average number of hours per week that American one year-old children watch television: 6.
Boy, Maggie sure is below average. Well, technically, the tv might be on about 30 minutes a day while she’s in the room, but she doesn’t actually watch it. Does that count? (Eric watches The Daily Show usually while she’s up. It’s 30 minutes but we’ve TIVOed it, so no commercials, which is only 20 mins per day.) That’s still below average. WOOHOOO!!!
One more stat: Age by which children can develop brand loyalty: 2. I’d heard this one somewhere else recently, because I commented to Eric that Maggie will be lucky to recognize two brands at age 2: Winnie the Pooh and the Eagles. We don’t have a problem with the latter one. And the former is only because she has a number of items with the characters on them and so do I (I have maybe 3 clothing items and she might have 3 such toys, not much really).
You know, she might recognize two others–the only places we eat out at are Fazoli’s and Culver’s so she might recognize those as well. I don’t know if these count, and the Eagles might not either. Anyway, since even when she does see the TV she doesn’t see ads I really hope she doesn’t recognize any brands in another year. That would be awesome! (We also tend to avoid them in her toys and clothes. We see no need for them and other stuff is usually cheaper and better made anyway.)
December 13th, 2005 - $45 can feed 4 people for a week
Hillbilly Housewife figured out a way to feed 4 people for a week on $45. Your prices, of course, will vary based on how much you can actually get the items for (I can get sugar much cheaper, but dry milk never goes under $10 a box nor eggs under 89 cents. Pretty hard to find spices that cheap as well. The cheapy ones are $1 a cannister at the craft stores. On the other hand, I’d skip the syrup and tea, a savings of $2.) Would be interesting to have folks around the country price the exact same items. She specifically includes the cost of buying everything, assuming your shelves are absolutely bare.
Now to check out the rest of her site!
December 9th, 2005 - Dec Simple Living Network newsletter
The Dec 05 Simple Living Network newsletter is out. I personally only found one article of interest. But the others may be new to you!
December 9th, 2005 - More exciting that watching grass grow
You can actually see the Greenland glacier racing to the ocean since it’s moving at 14km per year, which is over half a football field a day. That’s fast. And that’s bad news for climate change.
December 8th, 2005 - Bye bye books
I just gave away 75% of the books on my office shelves. Now, don’t get too excited–there were only 9 books! I saved one and two were put on Amazon. If they don’t sell in the next 10 days, they’ll be gone as well. I work at a university, and once again someone has put up collection boxes for textbooks that can’t be sold back. They’ll go to Africa (or sold and the profits go to the project, or at least recycled if nothing else can be done). Mine are in great shape and are classics in great shape, so I hope they’ll go all the way to Africa. A few are math books so they definitely should last! Math doesn’t change very much year to year. I’ve pared down my office collection over the years. These were the last 9 books. The other week, someone commented on my nearly-bare shelves and I started explaining why those few books were left.
I realized that the reasons for each were pretty lame: Should read this. Used this for my dissertation. Should have used this for my dissertation. Autographed by the author. My favorite math book. A gift I’ve never read. I haven’t actually read something from any of these books for at least 6 years.
So when I saw the sign about books for Africa, over to the dropbox they all went. (Except the two I’ll try to sell.) The one book I’m left with is one our chancellor loves and it may come up again if I continue working with administration. So I’ll keep it a little longer. (And, in the interests of complete disclosure, I do have 6 other books, but they are for lending to faculty and do not belong to me personally. I now have more shelves that I have books.)