Latest Reading List

Harry Potter (finished)
Maxed Out (not started yet)
Four-Season Harvest (in the middle)
Barbara Kingsolver's new book about local eating(I'm on the list at the library.)
Food Not Lawns (Again, waiting to hear from the library.)

Why we do this

I want my son to grow up appreciating hard work and even enjoying it.

It's been too long

I finally have pictures of the garden to post. They are at least a month old now. The peas have all been sheared off and died, the beans (once I got the bean poles to stay up) have just fizzled, the corn looks a little bit suspect, I have Japanese Beetles in the raspberries and voles keep eating my tiny cucumbers. I do have summer squash and beets (they taste like corn). The tomatoes look good but only the cherry tomatoes are ripening so far.

I'm doing well with flowers. Japanese Beetles like zinnias.

Finally some progress

I finally got the peas planted. Also lettuce, spinach, radishes and tatsoi. I weeded the worst out of the still vacant beds and put together the flower beds. In the flower beds we have Sunflowers(Lemon Queen), Cosmos (Sensation Mix) and Zinnias (California Giant). I have Snapdragons to put in that I started in the house. Pictures to come soon.

Stress of working outside the home

Some days it just doesn't pay to go to work.

It's been an awful Winter for illnesses. No one seems to be exempt. My child is sick again. He's been sick every other week since December. I have burned through all my sick and personal time and I'm using vacation time now. After the cost of daycare I am still making money. We need the money to pay bills. I'm constantly trying to figure out a way to make it cost effective to stay home. The numbers don't add up.

I know that it is most important to take care of my child, but I feel guilt for missing work.

What we really need

So, I've been thinking about what we really need. For survival we need food, clothing and shelter. I'm guessing that all the other stuff we aquire is supposed to help us get and keep these things.

I've been decluttering. It's a mission to get rid of the things that I don't need. When possible I try to pass on stuff to people who can use it. In the end I just don't want to accumulate more stuff to reclutter my home. That's when it becomes frugal. I always wonder about being a poseur when it come to frugality. I don't buy lots of stuff, at least I don't think I do. I stay out of stores all the time. I look at catalogs and recycle them the same day. I have been known to make silly purchases though. I buy new shoes for my son. I have friends who probably think I am cheap. I'd like to think that is not the case. I don't go out to dinner very often, I can make most stuff at home just as well. Good food is important to me. We don't eat organic, but we eat mostly whole foods. I buy good clothes, but not many of them.

Just so it's clear, my frugality/decluttering kick is pretty recent. There is nothing like bringing a child into the world to change your perceptions about "stuff".

Global climate change

So, on my friend Sharon's blog (see my links) someone suggested a Peak Oil party. It's like this, instead of having a party to buy stuff (Pampered Chef, Tupperware, etc.) have a party, with wine, where you can trade seeds or clothes or household items that you don't need and drink and eat yummy food. I love this idea.

Peak oil and global climate change are linked and I tend to think of them as one and the same issue. Now if I could just scrape up a few friends to do this with. I've got seeds and probably some household stuff to start.