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Simple Living News
Issue #76 — May 2010
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Copyright © 2010
Greetings, happy spring, and welcome to the 76th edition of our user-supported Newsletter!
I love this time of year. Even though we had some light snow flurries yesterday afternoon here in beautiful Trout Lake, the daffodils are up, the rhubarb is going crazy, the birds have returned and it is occasionally warm enough to putter around in the garden wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Lettuce, peas and kale have been planted. Garden starts — from heirloom peppers and tomatoes to broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, summer squash and more — take up a significant corner of the living room.
A friend of mine runs an organic herb farm and I've been helping him out for the past few months. Most of our work has been indoor rainy day planning, bookkeeping and equipment cleaning. However, last week it was finally nice enough that I was able to fulfill a life-long dream: I spent an afternoon learning how to drive a tractor in a field of organic oregano. Not the computer! Not the computer! Not the computer!
Speaking of computers.... I've been sitting here for the better part of 15 years now keeping the wheels of The Simple Living Network turning. What a ride and, my oh my, how things have changed in the past 12 months.
Gone are the days of simple, do-it-yourself websites. Now it is all high-tech, security laden, and driven by expensive design programs. And to have any presence at all you have to be on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube while simultaneously blogging, mobile texting and creating an app for this and an app for that. There is a part of me that thinks it is all becoming too much CyberWaste.
It could be the ongoing economic downturn or the recent explosion and evolution of the Internet, or a combination of both... there is a curious phenomenon I've noticed lately. Fewer and fewer people appear to be purchasing and reading books. The corner book seller has all but disappeared thanks to the corporate giants who have priced them out of business. Heck, here at The Simple Living Network we can hardly purchase books at wholesale for the same price the "big boys" sell them for. Nor can we compete with the new e-book phenomenon of Kindle, iPad, Zune and the like.
I am perplexed and not sure where this is all going and what it bodes for the financial survival of this website. As they say, "nothing is constant but change." As such, I am torn between two worlds; attempting to embrace both. We will continue to bring you the best new "simple living" literature. Check out the great new resources in the right column of this page. Wanda Urbanska has done it again with The Heart Of Simple Living: 7 Paths To A Better Life. The Story Of Stuff and Radical Homemakers are destined to become classics. And, after several years out of print, The Encyclopedia Of Country Living has returned in an updated 35th anniversary, 10th edition.
In an effort to straddle the fence, (I never thought I would be saying this), The Simple Living Network can now be followed on Facebook and Twitter. Please join us there and share our presence with your friends and family. In these difficult economic times we truly appreciate your assistance in helping us to spread the word.
In January, long-time supporter Jonathan Allan issued an all important challenge and helped us raise over $2000 in gift contributions. It requires repeating... without such volunteer financial support from readers and participants like you, we would not be here at all. That $2000 has been our lifeline for the past few months. Thank you to all past, present and future CyberAngels. Keep it up and help us keep the wheels of The Simple Living Network turning.
This is a small home-based operation. We do not charge membership or subscription fees. We do not accept advertising. This Newsletter is generously edited by volunteers Fred Ecks and Ann Haebig. We are eternally thankful to the many authors who continue to contribute articles. Our Discussion Forums are moderated by numerous, dedicated volunteers. We are supported solely by very modest Bookstore sales, the dedication of volunteers and CyberAngel contributions. Please consider becoming a CyberAngel today.
Thank you and warm wishes for springtime,
Dave Wampler
Founder
The Simple Living Network
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Simple Living News
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Luckless Tantalus was the mortal buddy of the mighty twelve Olympian gods, allowed to sit at their table and share the ambrosia and nectar of their feasts. Hosting a dinner party of his own to repay them, he had an attack of culinary insecurity so great it compelled him to choose his own son as the main course. He boiled poor Pelops into a stew and served him to the immortals.
Tantalus, it seems, was really only trying to be a good host. Unlike Abraham, the gods had not been testing or taunting him, asking him for the ultimate sacrifice. In fact they rejected the offering, and the whole meal. Only Demeter, insatiable goddess of grain and harvest, sampled the boy's flesh. Thanks to her, the resurrected Pelops (boiled back to life in the very same cauldron!) was missing a shoulder blade. He was given a new one made of ivory.
The reborn boy glowed in the way that only those initiated by suffering can. His ivory shoulder shone above all, and the god Poseidon was captivated, and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
And so we again learn an important lesson from the Greeks: Don't take the gods' stuff. Don't eat their food, don't drink their wine, don't take their fire, don't ask to borrow their chariots or use their horses. It can be hard to know the rules with such capricious gods, but this seems a pretty basic one: Hands off! The Greek gods are like your mean and random big brother.
Lights and sirens went off in my brain as I read this myth in a strangely illustrated 80-year-old book unearthed by my 8-year-old son, whose 2nd grade class is all agog with anything Greek. "What can this mad myth signify?" I mumbled (then recalling that the phrase came from Milan Kundera after he related Nietzsche's theory of Eternal Return.) My children, accepting of the gods, and impatient, were not content to linger with Tantalus and Pelops, and we moved on to Hercules, the macho hero. I read on but my mind stayed behind.
The Reverend Jim Antal, fellow climate activist, preaches at a different Massachusetts United Church of Christ every Sunday, and ninety percent of his sermons address climate change. (Please note that the name Antal is embedded in the name Tantalus: That is why their stories must be shared here.) Jim's message interprets Christ's mandate, that we love our neighbor as ourself, very broadly: "The circumstances of the planet require that churches embrace a new vocation, for all faiths. The question they must address is 'who is my neighbor?' Our neighbors are not just human beings, but now all of creation. They're the unborn generations. That idea has theological purchase to it; it grabs people. They begin to change their lives, to do the things we all can and should do for the Earth as spiritual practices." No more can we sacrifice our children, our children's children, in order to share the gods' power-drink. The gods do not require this or wish it.
Tantalus may have had some reservations about his choice of cuisine for the gods, but he knew enough not to tell his wife. Poor Dione, frantic after searching for her son all night, was informed of his cruel end by a spiteful neighbor. (I think I know that neighbor.) It wasn't a mistake Dione could have made, as a mother. She perhaps knew the gods' tastes better than her social-climbing husband. She went mad, of course — who could live with such a man? And here the family disintegrates, and the story diverges as these mad myths tend to.
Pelops seems to have fared best, riding the wild seas with his lover Poseidon, and forever young. Tantalus, with his taste for godly foodstuffs, was doomed to one of the exquisite dungeons of the underworld: Fruit trees just out of reach dangled ripe and beautiful fruit before his face, and he was up to his waist in clear water that receded every time he tried to drink. Tortured by desire; tantalized for eternity.
In a rather brilliant TED talk about the Transition movement and life after oil, Rob Hopkins holds up a liter of oil. It's a radiant dark amber liquid containing the distilled labor potential of 35 human beings, a magical elixir the Greeks could have only dreamed of. Imbibing it in great draughts, we power giant steel machines, we create light in darkness, we fly, we talk to those who are not in our presence. We are godlike, for a moment, a short historical moment.
Then it ends, and we are left in a swamp of want, tantalized for eternity by what we once had, what is just out of reach. No more will we drink the nectar of the gods. If we are lucky, our children will be reborn from the cauldron of destruction and will shine forward, surfers on the wild waves over Gaia.
About The Authors
The JP Green House is a zero carbon demonstration project, sustainable urban model and hub for 350.org climate action founded by Andrée Zaleska and Ken Ward. They are rehabbing an abandoned, 100 year old, former neighborhood store located on the line between Jamaica Plain and Roslindale in Boston, Massachusetts. The aim is to achieve passivhaus standards, win substantial independence from grid supplies of water and electricity, and supply a large portion of their food on a modest income. They are retrofitting the former "Jack's store" as space for workshops and trainings, neighborhood events and gatherings like the JP Family SongFest.
The JP Green House is located at 133 Bourne Street, Jamaica Plain. They welcome visitors & volunteers and have activities and events. You can contact them at: greenhousejp@gmail.com. More information about the project can be found at http://jpgreenhouse.yolasite.com/.
Related Resources
- Be The Change You Want To See In The World
- Our Choice (Book)
- Our Choice (Audio CDs)
- No Impact Man
- Deep Economy
- How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
- The Not So Big Life
- Little House On A Small Planet
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Simple Living News
Issue #76 — May 2010
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Copyright © 2010
Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Tom Trimbath's "Dream. Invest. Live." weblog at http://www.trimbathcreative.com/dreaminvestlive/Blog/Blog.html, reprinted with permission.
How many do you need? How many do you want? Simple enough questions, and they can be the key to many aspects of personal finance: housing, investments, cars, coffee mugs.
How many stocks do I have? Currently the list is AMSC, DNDN, GAIA, GERN, GGOX, MVIS, and RSOL. That's too few for me, but real life happens and my portfolio is temporarily unbalanced. (I've been selling some positions to give DNDN and others time to get to their first products. Alas, FFIV, I knew you well.) I liked it when I had about a dozen stocks, half in stable, growing companies, and half in more speculative positions. I'll get there again. That mix works for me. Some like more diversification. Others like shorter lists because it is easier to track fewer companies. We all get to make our choices.
One tricky part about personal finance is understanding what is enough. When are there enough assets to assure that all the bills will be paid for surviving and living for a long time. The mathematically correct answer is there is never enough. That is not because the world is expensive. It is because the world is unpredictable. You may already have more than enough and not know it. Forgotten assets, substantial inheritances, unclaimed lottery tickets, exist for someone. Considering the last census, many people have a lot more work to do to get their finances in order.
Realistically, getting to enough usually means being reasonable about what a life's needs and desires will be. It is fun to dream about being a billionaire, but for most people, it is more reasonable to accept lower targets.
What do you expect to want? What do you expect to need? We can't predict the future, but we can make good guesses based on family and societal histories. Every person gets a different answer. And that answer changes every day, usually subtly, but over time the changes can be obvious. Healthy living or an accident can radically change life costs. Falling in love and living together may halve housing costs, or can increase the food bill if a ready-made family is included.
I can't answer these questions for any except myself, and considering how much thought I've given the issue, I can tell you confidently that there is no one answer that lasts a lifetime, unless it is a very short life. (In which case there are more important issues.)
Calculating enough is more than I want to describe in this article. For such an exercise, I still consider Your Money Or Your Life, FinancialIntegrity.org, and the Motley Fool to be the best resources.
A simple exercise, though, is to look at spending habits and ask how many do you need and how many do you want. I don't tell people what to do. Too many people tell me how to run my life; I don't want to return the favor. But I do ask questions and let them listen to their own answers. A warning sign though is when the answer to how many is always "More." If nothing else, the planet would probably prefer an answer that didn't require infinite resources.
The cost and consequence of more than enough baseball hats is the need for a hat rack or a box to hold them. That cost is acceptable, but imagine the cost of owning more clothes and shoes. How much did it cost to build that extra walk-in closet? At $100 per square foot, walk-in closets quickly cost thousands of dollars — just to store clothes.
The doubled trap happens when the extra whatever is bought on debt. A common extreme is houses. How many houses do you need? How many houses do you want? At any one time I need and want one. I can imagine a rural/urban life benefiting from two. But what about three or four, each with its own mortgage? That is an illusion of wealth masking debt and its obligations.
Most of us don't have to worry about such a scenario. We are glad for a place to live and doing well to be able to manage its mortgage. But before we make fun of the people with multiple mortgages for more houses than they can use, we should look at ourselves. I look at my credit card bill and see how many things continue to accrue there, bought with debt. Then I ask myself, how many do I need? How many do I want? Is it really worth the cost?
About The Author
Tom Trimbath is the author of "Dream. Invest. Live.", and maintains a website at www.TrimbathCreative.com. Tom can be reached by email at tetrimbath@whidbey.com.
Related Resources
- Dream. Invest. Live.
- Your Money Or Your Life
- In Cheap We Trust
- Work Less, Live More
- Get Satisfied!
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches
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Are Toyota Camrys good cars?
- Yes.
Would you pay $60,000 for one?
- No.
Why not?
- They're not worth that much.
- Spending that much would be wasteful.
Well, I had a Camry career but was paying BMW prices for it.
- I was being wasteful.
But, what if you paid BMW prices and got a BMW career for it?
- Well, what do you get in a BMW that you don't get in a Camry?
Air conditioning (both have it), heater (both), cruise control (both), anti-lock brakes (both), air bags (both), fancy sound system (both — if you want it).
Surely there is something you get with a BMW that you don't get with a Camry?
- In career terms you get something that makes you go faster and impresses people.
OK, what if you really spent a lot ("worked really hard") and got a Maserati?
- You would get something that makes you go really fast and would really impress people.
Would your family fit in it?
- Likely no.
Just what is a car(eer) worth?
About The Author
After 10 years of college mixed into over 20 years working in high-tech entrepreneurism, Brig Broadbent decided to make a change to a simpler way of living. In addition to improved health, he is finding greater satisfaction in practicing the simple art of living. Brig can be reached at brigbroadbent@gmail.com.
Related Resources
- My Job Sucks & I Can't Take It Anymore! Help!
- Making A Living While Making A Difference
- Siesta Lane
- The Happy Minimalist (PDF)
- The Power Of Purpose
- Money & Faith
- Work Less, Live More
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Issue #76 — May 2010
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Classic issues of decluttering and simplifying one's life are looming large this spring in the Discussion Forums. For starters, members of the sandwich generation, who are taking care of their children and their elderly parents simultaneously, discuss their desire for simpler lives. Others unintentionally go overboard and bring the overscheduled life upon themselves. A few people have managed to cut back on commitments a bit for the moment, although they are watchful to avoid a swing in the activity pendulum. There's also an interesting discussion on technology and its effect on our lives. Does it speed us up? Does it free up time? Participants in the Consumerism & The Media Forum compare notes.
Those who aren't overwhelmed at the moment are discussing spring reading and garden tasks. Some are even idly considering how much work would be involved in a completely self-sufficient life.
Some folks are using the spring to declutter and are contemplating how to let go of things they like. A few participants who've successfully decluttered are discussing criteria for allowing new things into the home. Some forum participants are supporting each other through a common occurrence, relapsing into buying too many things after cutting back a little too far. On a related topic, these people are relating their frustration with feeling there's always something they need to buy, whether they want to or not. Some lucky folks are sharing their experiences with losing the desire to buy stuff. One person tells her tale of volunteering at a thrift store and starting to patronize these establishments after years of being a "thrift store snob".
Finally, though you'll be reading this column well after Earth Day, I have to note that many in our community marked the day and told us about it. We planted a tree at our house. Tell us what you're up to!
CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE INTRODUCTION
to our on-line community. Then join the fun!
About The Author
Ann Haebig is a part-time geek, part-time bicycle advocate, and dedicated follower and promoter of the Financial Integrity program. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her partner, cat and guitar. Ann can be reached at ahaebig@pobox.com.
Related Resources
- The Story Of Stuff
- Clutter Control
- Making Peace With The Things In Your Life
- Unclutter Your Life
- Green Living Handbook
- The New Seed-Starters Handbook
- Greenhouse Gardener's Companion
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Simple Living News
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The New Road Map Foundation would like to thank all those who contributed their own stories of Financial Integrity as entries in the 2010 Writing Competition. Every story was fascinating, informative, and engaging! We have included all entries in the STORIES section of the FinancialIntegrity.org website. Take a look!
It was tough choosing the winners from all the excellent contributions. After much discussion, here are the final winners:
- Most useful: Teach Your Children, by Colleen Pang
- Most engaging: Am I Already At The Peak? by Candice Laidlaw
- Best Poem: New Day, by Jeff Jackson
The winning entries are included below.
Stories abound these days of people who are drowning in credit card debt and who are now paying the price for living beyond their means. When I read these stories, I feel grateful for my dad. Had these unfortunate people been raised by my dad, they would probably not be in such a predicament.
My dad taught me and my sisters from an early age what money is, its value, and how to manage it. Here are some of his main lessons:
Money is for many things, not just for spending
When I first received an allowance at about the age of seven, my dad gave me three empty jars, each with a label on it. One jar was labeled "spending," another "savings," and the third "church." We were to allocate our allowance among these three jars in any way we wished. With these three jars at hand, it never occurred to me to put all of my allowance in the "spending" jar. Instead, I put a dime of my 25-cent allowance into the "spending" jar, another dime in the "savings" jar, and a nickel in the "church" jar for my offering the following Sunday. My dad taught us that money is not just for spending; it is for saving and sharing as well.
Keep track of your cash flow
A few years later, my dad came home with gifts for me and my sister. We each received a book, bound in faux-leather, with the word "cash" embossed in gold on the cover. The pages were filled with columns. My dad showed us how to record our "income" in one column and our "expenses" in another. He told us "income" is the money we receive, like our allowance or gifts from Popo and Gung Gung (my grandmother and grandfather) or money we earn from doing extra chores. "Expenses" are when we spend our money, and it is important to keep track of how much is spent and what it is spent on. He taught us to subtract the "expense" column from the "income" column so we would always know how much money we had. From my first entry in that cash book of 10 cents for a bag of chips to my current use of the slightly more sophisticated Quicken software, I have kept a watchful eye on my cash flow.
You can't have everything you want, so make wise choices.
In high school, my sisters and I were given a budget at the beginning of each year for our school clothes. We had $300 to spend in any way we wanted. But my dad warned, once the money was gone, that was it. We were not to come crying to him for more money. I didn't dare test this boundary. I was convinced that if I had blown that $300 on a few pairs of shoes and a handbag, there was no telling what humiliation I would have had to face — indignities such as having to squeeze into last year's clothes, or to wear my older sister's hand-me-downs, or even to be seen in public only half dressed! Both of my sisters and I learned to sew because it was much cheaper to make clothes rather than to buy them in those days. I scored a small victory when one of the cool girls at school complimented me on the dress I was wearing and asked me where I had gotten it. I nearly burst that dress with pride when I told her that I had made it myself! My dad taught us that you can't have everything you want. You have to make choices, and you had better choose wisely because once the money is gone, it's gone.
These lessons were not easy for me to learn as a kid. I may have resented the restrictions and the discipline at the time. I would have liked to have had more stuff, the latest stuff, the best stuff. But any "pain" I felt back then would have been eclipsed by the pain of learning these lessons the hard way, and as an adult. Just recently, I told my dad how much I appreciated what he had taught me.
I urge you parents to teach your kids how to value and manage their money. They may not like it now, but you will be giving them a gift far more valuable than the latest videogame or designer clothes. You will be giving them the tools to lead a life of Financial Integrity.
My fiancé has a pet bird. This was almost a deal breaker on our second date because I thought keeping a bird locked in a cage was the height of animal cruelty. But I quickly learnt that Gabe sees his cage as his home. We always leave the door open, but he prefers to 'stay in' and play with his most beloved toy: a bell.
Knowing his love for bells, one weekend as I was preparing to leave (birds are great pets because they're pretty self sufficient) I had the brilliant idea of putting both of his beloved bells in his cage at the same time. The idea being: twice the things, twice the fun. But quickly I realised this wouldn't be the case. This is because Gabe can only play with one bell at a time and so the second bell would not bring him any greater happiness. Actually, the second bell, while perhaps a diversion from the first, would most likely just be in his way, taking up precious space in his cage. It was a revelation: twice the things not necessarily meaning twice the fun.
The reason it felt like an epiphany was because I've been reading about this concept in the finance book Your Money Or Your Life where they called it the 'fulfillment curve'. They demonstrate this theory with a simple graph; an upside down U showing pleasure increasing with the attainment of goods and services (at a cost) and then the curve petering out after more and more money is spent on said goods and services. I had understood the concept, but I guess I wasn't a believer. I couldn't help thinking that another thing or experience would be great; an overseas trip, a new trinket for my house, another pair of shoes. I felt my fulfillment curve would be a never ending arrow to the sky if I could spend, spend, spend.
So seeing that Gabe had reached that elusive point of maximum fulfillment, the coveted 'enough point' in his life, I had to wonder why? How? And I found that the answer was to do with his lifestyle — ie. he lives in a cage. In his cage, no bell is boring, one bell is fun and two bells doesn't leave much space to live. Could the same simple formula apply to my lifestyle? Doing the 100 Thing Challenge, where I reduced my clutter by limiting myself to 100 personal possessions, I discovered a small taste of what 'enough fulfillment' means. I discovered I had all these great hobbies collected over decades: painting, dancing, swimming, traveling, gardening, to name a few. But one of my lifestyle constraints, time, limited my enjoyment of all of these. Looking at my level of fulfillment I realised it was better to put my resources into pursuing only one or two.
So while I originally thought that I'd never be the kind of person to find the peak of my fulfillment curve, my Budgie showed me that all I need to do is look at fulfillment in context with my life. For me there is no point dreaming about traveling for a year as I continue to build my house 'to settle down'. No point continuing my painting when I don't really enjoy it. I think there is huge benefit to be gained from understanding and accepting the limitations in our lives, seeing the cage that we have and then making the most out of it. So while there is a big wide world out there with lots to buy and do, in my everyday lifestyle I'm really very happy with what I have. Perhaps I had reached my point of 'enough', of ultimate fulfillment, without noticing. Perhaps I have my bell, and now I also don't need two.
A new day is upon us
full of new hopes and
possibilities
Will we continue to live the
status quo or will we let
it go?
Can we find a new path?
A new way to live that is
less harm to all of creation?
Will we truly follow the path
less traveled or continue
the path that leads to our
destruction?
Simplify!
- Jeff Jackson
Related Resources
- Your Money Or Your Life
- Transforming Your Relationship With Money
- The Heart Of Simple Living
- Secrets Of Simplicity
- The Happy Minimalist (PDF)
- Journeys Of Simplicity
- Treehouse Perspectives
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Simple Living News
Issue #76 — May 2010
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Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Angela Barton's "My Year Without Spending" weblog at myyearwithoutspending.blogspot.com, reprinted with permission.
I've been thinking a lot lately about this concept of what I'll call "The 90% Rule," by which I mean that a lot of people doing things at a 90% level makes a much bigger difference than a few people operating at 100%. By "things" I mean recycling, living sustainably, buying secondhand, eating organic, line-drying your laundry, cooking from scratch, even doing The Compact.
One of the best discoveries I've made about my experiment with Buying Nothing New is that it's so doable, something most "regular" people can do without a lot of sacrifice. I'm not extraordinary, and so if I can do it, so can you. To me, that's great news, because I believe that all of these things need to become second nature, part of the general culture, something that's as much a habit as brushing our teeth.
I'm not about to start living off the grid, I'm too attached to people and culture and a lot of the perks of modern life for that, not to mention a paycheck. And let's face it, that's not a realistic option for most of us. What I'm interested in is showing people that we don't need to be mindless consumers, and that we can all do as much as we can to recycle, live sustainably, and all that other good stuff — bit by bit.
People are busy. Things like recycling have to be made easy and convenient for them. That doesn't mean they're lazy; it means they have families and jobs and a whole lot of other priorities, and not a lot of time. Joining an effort toward recycling in your workplace or your community makes more of a difference than hauling your stuff to a recycling center across town if you're the only one doing it. A whole lot of us doing our best means a lot more than a few of us becoming Ed Begley, Jr. Not that I have anything against Ed Begley, Jr. I must have written that before, because I remember that line. Uh-oh, I'm starting to repeat myself.
So that's my message for today. Do the best you can. Try for 90%. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to say that. It's almost cringe-inducing. I'm a perfectionist, and over the years I've come to realize how paralyzing that trait can be. I was raised by a father whose motto is, "If you can't do something right, don't do it at all." And believe me, only 100% was good enough.
But now I think he was wrong. If you're trying to eat local, but your husband begs you to buy some blueberries a week before March, are you going to refuse him? (A hypothetical example, of course). If it's been pouring rain for ten days in a row, and you break down and throw the sheets in the dryer, does that mean you should give up on air-drying your laundry forever? If you can't afford to replace all your cosmetics with organic brands, isn't it better to replace them over time or replace as many as you can afford than to give up on the entire enterprise?
So I encourage you to grow your own food, air-dry your laundry, give up meat one day a week, start a compost pile, cook from scratch, buy your clothes used, shop at a Farmer's Market or join a CSA, give up paper towels, join The Compact, or any or all of the above. Or none. Maybe you're getting up your nerve, getting ready to make a change, or just like to read about it. Maybe you just come by to get a few recipes or a few savings tips. That's cool. We all started somewhere, and it's a process. This community is a place of encouragement and inspiration, not of judgment.
We all do what we can. And together we can make a difference. No one needs to do it alone.
About The Author
Angela Barton writes a weblog about living a non-consumer lifestyle without giving up fun or style, or otherwise feeling deprived, at myyearwithoutspending.blogspot.com. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles, CA. She loves to receive email at ABarton62@yahoo.com.
Related Resources
- The Heart Of Simple Living
- The Story Of Stuff
- Nothing's Too Small To Make A Difference
- The Sharing Solution
- Green Living Handbook
- To Buy Or Not To Buy
- 10,001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget
- Recycle!
- Low Carbon Diet
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