Category — Gratitude

I am sitting at my dining table in the kitchen where it is warm; the oven holds baked oatmeal and peaches for tonight’s low-maintenance dinner and does a great secondary job of heating up this small home.

I am knitting again, in between writing and peaking on the oatmeal. On the needles is a gift for a dear friend who was one of the first to “order” something when I put out my request for help so I could pay for my course and trip to Milwaukee last weekend. The yarn in my hands is forest heather, a golden flecked emerald DK weight wool, and I’m crafting a handkerchief headband whose pattern title harkens on the forest theme: Lichen.

The special, community supported way in which beginning my teacher training was made possible fills me with gratitude, and as I work to complete each order I am trying to be mindful of the donor the item is going to, filling myself with love and appreciation for their support. It is especially useful that this course is about meditation, as knitting itself can become quite a contemplative exercise. As I work with my hands, in my mind’s eye I am surrounded by large fir trees and a moss covered forest floor like the moist soils of Oregon. The deep green yarn tells of ancient mysteries that lurk behind the trees.

The truth is, my heart is heavy and my mind is unsettled lately, but when I dig deep I find that weightless joy abounds even in the midst of difficult times and decisions. I am delighted and surprised by this; that peace can transcend circumstances and fruitful hope can arise from the decays of failure is a calming anecdote in a world that is sometimes so damn confusing.

The inviting aroma of maple and cinnamon tells me dinner is ready…

In just over 24 hours, the year 2011 will be behind us. All of the events, thoughts, choices, growth, moves, meetings, struggles and successes will be closed up in a place reserved for “that year when…”

2011 was, for me, completely packed with changes. New: state, job, house, plot of soil, goals, community, school, and the minute details that are involved in each. It was very ebb and flow; for example, a long and lazy Summer, deeply experienced and meditatively approached, was followed up quickly by a fast-paced Fall with a vigorous work schedule and the re-awakening of driven choices.

One major choice was that of returning to further my education. As I wrote about recently, my first choice was giving me pause and I stopped to listen to that pause. I listened long enough to hear a gentle nudge in another direction, and discovered a Waldorf Teacher Training program in Wisconsin that partners with a local accredited college to allow students to also receive federal funding for most of the courses as well as eligibility towards a Masters in Education with Waldorf Emphasis. Being “only” 8 hours away, this solution was gloriously ideal.

I applied to the schools (the training institute and the college) and found out that Foundation Studies begin in 3 weeks! My head was spinning a bit, trying to merge all the logistical details into one semi-organized spot in my brain before brainstorming ways in which it could work for me to start on such short notice. Armed with the strength of hope, I got passed my fears and uncertainty about asking for help and sent out a “campaign” of sorts to raise the funds by taking pre-orders on my handmade goods through the Fall. Within 2 days I had enough orders to pay the registration fee, and within a week a few other generous donations towards other logistical costs (car rental, gas, food, babysitter, books). I was at once humbled and enthralled! The support of my community, both financial as well as emotional/spiritual, was opening a door for me that seems improbable if not impossible a year ago.

Next Friday night I will be sleeping (hopefully!) in a dorm in Milwaukee, having begun the first course that evening in my Waldorf teacher training. To say that I am overwhelmed would end 2011 with the understatement of the year!

The course itself, guided by the texts How to Know Higher Worlds (Steiner) and Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry (Zajonc), is definitely right up my alley and a part of my life that greatly needs more focus to bring my whole self into balance. To slow down and live consciously and mindfully has rarely been my strong point. My will and ambition often bites off a bit more than I can chew, and my fear of failing other people too often drives me to complete whatever I’ve set out to do — even when my health, home, and family are the sacrifice. If I am to become a teacher within a Waldorf model, then this is a wonderful place for me to begin — at perhaps my greatest personal struggle.

I have been repeating a Steiner verse to myself and to the kids often these last few weeks. I gravitate to the very thing I find so hard to do at times: find my Inner Quiet, my Silent Self… Christ in me.

Quiet I bear within me,
I bear within myself,
forces to make me strong.
Now will I be imbued with
their glowing warmth,
Now will I fill myself with
my own will’s resolve.
And I will feel the quiet
pouring through my being,
When by my steadfast striving
I become strong,
To find within myself
the source of strength,
The strength of Inner Quiet.
–Rudolf Steiner

2012 will quickly find me GOING – off to start this next adventure, trying not to be insanely worried about my kids back home! (aahhhhhh!) But my intention for the next year is not to be GOING so much. I want to become more of a human being, and less of a human doing. I want to have more time to notice what is right in front of me: when my garden needs water, or my kids’ need some cuddling, or my kombucha needs to be fed, or my sister needs a phone call, … or my body needs to rest.

Simply put, my sole New Year’s resolve is to better live in the present.

Happy New Year, friends.

We have had our first snow already, though within a day or two our winter wonderland has melted away. I’m looking out at the street lights glinting off the last of the crunchy ice on the ground. Taking a moment to pause and return here.

I’ve been a stranger to this space and coming back always feels a bit like trying on my skinny jeans when they are starchy and cold from the closet. Will I still fit?

{update}

We have crowded around the table in our little kitchen and shared a grateful meal; grain-free (on GAPS diet currently) and full of love.

Our advent tree has been selected, sawed down by the family who will adorn it with handmade items. Our resident 2.5 year old likes to stand by it and sing, “O tithmas teeee, O tithmas teee!”

Holiday craft/bake sale school fundraiser has been miraculously pulled off without a hitch.


(I made the Indian girl in the foreground, as well as the wool felted red-head in the pink dress holding flowers, and a few scattered items; Jack Frost and Father Christmas dolls, felted wool and knitted ornaments, etc. The handwork group/crafting time this season has been incredibly sweet to my soul. The sale for the school went really well – a major blessing.)

We’ve done our first of the annual “Living Windows” holiday event downtown. Here’s the Robot Family Christmas scene in the window of Poppies:

Lanterns have been walked. Martinmas and St. Nicholas Day has been celebrated.

Chris has a new job! He is enjoying his new gig as grocery manager at Natural Grocers very much, though the bakery crew and customers still hold a special place in his heart.

Ethan is missing a front tooth.

Mr. Merton Pfeffernusse has gotten a haircut.

Christmas carols are being sung; Favorite, curl-up-under-the-blanket holiday tales are being told; festive teas and lots of homemade raw eggnog are being consumed. Indoor games of mancala, go fish, tic-tac-toe, hide-n-seek, explore-with-flashlights, and tent building are happening, with a hearty dose of outdoor play mixed in — until Jack Frost frightens them back inside.

And I, dear friends, am very busy at present with all this and so much more. So this space of words and thoughts and images — it feels too crowded to me at times. My gut tells me to stay away for awhile, to let the moments when I might otherwise come to this blog pass over me in quiet rest – in the sacred doing of nothing.

Warmest blessings to you this advent season… may you find moments where you have nothing to do but be.

mama.

Stopping in to this space to say “hullo!”

Has been a busy Summer in ways, not really so much with a packed schedule but in terms of keeping up with everyday life. My garden turned in for the season after battling draught and heat waves and chicken nibblings, so there’s been little to no harvesting this year save 6 small jars of blueberry plum jam. Ah well, that’s okay.

The highlights of the last few weeks have mainly centered around the ending of Summer and beginning of Ethan being enrolled in the 3-morning/week Waldorf kindergarten here. Lots to do before school starts, and when they say it will require community involvement they mean it! From parent work days (painting, polishing, scrubbing, you name it) of the school house and gardens, to home visits (yep – the teachers care enough to visit the children’s homes before the school year starts), as well as a (voluntary, of course) parent/teacher workshop this past weekend. Up this week is a “kindergarten evening” and a “family potluck” School for him begins next Wednesday. Agh!

Suffice it to say, I’m a bit immersed in this world right now. It is difficult for me to articulate just how much inner transformation has happened for me since I moved here, and especially this Summer. Having the TV/movies off the majority of the Summer has been incredible, and has created so much more time for meaningful books and yoga and a prayer life and time outdoors. I have really strengthened my will, my resolve, to tackle things in my lifestyle to reflect a more mindful and conscious approach to every day life. Rather than lofty goals and dreams for each day, I may simply get my bed made, make meals for the kids and I, read a book, knit for ten minutes, keep up the dishes, etc. These tasks in discipline are often more than enough to keep me busy as well as balanced, and leave me more open to observation of the kids and the needs of the family around me. I think the task of a homemaker really is one of balance and harmony, which is so hard when in my selfishness I would rather spend the day doing things I enjoy as an individual and just sort of treat myself to whatever I fancy doing. The kids bring me back to reality: boy, I really want to sit down and paint for an hour — oh, yeah, I need to wipe Verity’s butt. I’m learning, (really, I am!), to accept this and appreciate it for all of the wonderful lessons such a life brings me. I know the mothering of little ones is not forever, and at this time my highest calling is to be present to this home – most importantly its inhabitants- by creating a soulful, flexible, unhurried, creative, nurturing space for us to flourish. Not easy, but so worth the effort. And so much comes not in technique or knowledge or talents, but in simply doing the “inner work”; growing into the person whose light and love permeates whatever is around them. A lifetime’s journey!

The weather here in Columbia has improved quite a bit, with a few days of sweet reprieve here and there where highs are in the 70’s and 80’s (instead of 100’s). I have enjoyed the transitional phase into Autumn and look forward to Fall — HOWEVER, I feel this year that I have no sense of restless anticipation coupled with discontent and fatigue over the previous season. Rather, I feel I lived deeply into this Summer. I did a lot of hiking and lazy days at the park in the creek and ponds; I caught a lot of bugs (vicariously through Ethan!), ate a lot of Summer fruit, really let it all sink in and be experienced with gratitude. I felt myself submerged in water, felt hot sand and rocks on my feet, got a great tan on my shoulders, and wore out my flipflops. After the Sensory Delight of Summer I feel satisfied and calmly ready for the seasons change around the corner.

We head to Fayetteville for Labor Day weekend – we can’t wait to drive up that long gravel driveway to my aunts house and sleep in the dark, absolute quiet of her country house (so opposite our inner city house, with the constant cars, fire engines, and dogs barking, lol). Will be so good to visit with sweet friends and family before returning home to officially begin the school year.

Sorry no pictures in a while – it is so easy to leave the camera behind when trying to conscientiously live in the moment with two young children. I’m sure I’ll find a muse someday soon and pick up the ol’ Nikon again

I plan to be back this week with some insights from the parent/teacher conference last weekend – if I can even mentally and emotionally unpack it enough to share here. We’ll see…

Until next time, enjoy your Summer ending- live it to the fullest!

Herein chronicles some rather unorganized, but no less sincere, and hopefully at least readable, thoughts I have about home schooling… at the moment.

As many of you know, my kids have never been to a day of “school”, and only just now, as Ethan has turned 6 last week, are we getting the question of “Oh what GRADE is he in?” or “What school are you going to in the Fall?”. I find myself having to begin knowing the most gracious and concise way to answer the questions, particularly an answer that satisfies and reflects who Ethan is, an answer he feels proud to use when questioned himself, so I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this lately (as if I don’t give it a lot of thought already, I know, I know).

(Our answer to “what grade are you in?” is made perhaps even more unconventional because in the Waldorf pedagogy, children at the age of 6 are in the crucial “Seven Year Change” and need to stay in Kindergarten through this year. Signs of readiness have begun, and will continue over the course of the year, but adequate time is to be given to the 6 year old to build up their “forces” so they are truly hungry and ready for the types of “main lessons” that will be introduced in the Waldorf First Grade year, after they have turned 7, rather than the mainstream age of 6 being that of the First Year grade).

In order to give myself less pressure this year, I am enlisting the support of the local waldorf-inspired kindergarten coop 3 mornings a week for Ethan. My goal is that I can focus on my own inner work, reflect on the direction I want to take in the coming year, and also strengthen my primary role as mama; getting more established in our family’s daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms and connecting with the community and it’s resources so I am not “going it alone”, so to speak.

I hope I am not being overly optimistic here, but I have a sincere “gut” feeling that this year will prove to be a very successful one overall. I sense that I am where I am supposed to be, and that come what may, my experience here will produce tremendous opportunities, especially with regards to my direction with the children.

Contrastingly, I have had one really rough year prior; I have had tremendous doubts and confusion, about parenting issues and about educational options, and never quite felt like I found the answers I was looking for. I did feel alone in my pursuits while in Fayetteville, and exhausted by the feeling of going constantly upstream, against the current of mainstream educational philosophy. I also lacked the resources, like a car during the day, to connect regularly with some of the other parents in the community who might have had really like-minded beliefs and provided more support to me during that time. I had times of utter despair, even in the early phase of our landing here in Columbia, where I felt no other option was available to me but to put Ethan in public school as soon as possible, which was definitely for me a “last resort”. It was about that very time, when I felt I was at my wit’s end, that I finally got my “break” and met the local Waldorf-ish reading group, and from there things have taken such a different turn in so many ways I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but I think I’ve conveyed many of them here in other recent posts.

This has played a huge role in my determination to persevere with home schooling, and I suspect that without some sort of community-based support group, the experience of having a healthy, functioning home school (or unschool!) family would be incredibly taxing – if not impossible—and with ultimate burn-out. If I have any wisdom thus far in my very early journey, it is that finding a few strong fellow travelers who have been down the road further than you is absolutely crucial.

In any case, alternative education is rarely NOT on my mind, not only as a mother determined to provide my children with an experience outside of what the State is designed to provide, but also as a person who has always been interested in being an educator of some sort, but through beginning that collegiate training could not stomach the status quo and current state of the educational offerings available to the most of the public (government institutions, public schools namely).

I want to stress something here. It is not that I am anti-school, or anti-public school. In fact I would call myself a supporter of public school children/parents and any educator within the system that is dedicated to their classroom of children (God bless ‘em – I couldn’t do it!!!). I once read a remark in “And the Skylark Sings with Me” that resonated with some reasons I had personally considered for opting out of public education for my kids:

“In challenging public education’s mission, at least for our children, we implicitly call into question the entire administrative structure of school buildings, scheduled school days and hours and vacation, age-bound grade bands, classrooms with a prescribed number of children assigned, predetermined curricula, and arbitrary though strictly defined schedules for testing and evaluation. Taken together, these serve as the bureaucratic engine by which “adequate” educations are more or less produced; our experience indicates they have next to nothing to do with how children, how humans, optimally learn.” (italics mine)

For me, it was precisely the administrative “system” into which I would have to succumb to be a public school teacher that made me change my major. Regardless of how vastly different schools are from district to district and state to state, and how many amazing initiatives are happening in some public schools, for me the idea that my children would spend the majority of their time each day in that type of classroom environment, flooded with fake lighting and most always learning via bland, regurgitated, censored information in the form of textbooks was major turn-off. It was pretty much a non-negotiable for me that they need a much more invigorating, yet gentle and natural environment than that, and much more time spent at home, with family, and in their own pursuits.

When I thought about how I learn, and how I think all human beings optimally learn (and by learn I mean grasping ideas and concepts deeply into ones consciousness, not just rote memory), I came to the conclusions that: I learn at my own pace, in my own way, and perhaps most importantly – prompted by intrinsic motivation. Indeed, the fact that motivation is provided to public school students (and many other types of students, I might add, including the “school at home” brand of homeschooling) via grades assessments and rewards is a large pill to swallow for me; I believe it fundamentally alters the natural curiosity and desire to learn new things that children are born with, in a sense dumbing them down and utilizing behavioral motivation techniques useful for dogs and rats, but when it comes to the whole child well-being is simply NOT the best answer to the developing mind/body/soul.

(Yes, if you know me at all, you know that I do believe a child needs their “will” pushed along at times… I see a tremendous need for that in our current child-centered culture in fact. I admit I don’t exclusively trust in “intrinsic motivation” in each and every circumstance – which is where I differ from die-hard unschoolers, and where I find some aspects of Waldorf education a satisfying companion to my homeschooling ideals.)

My general thoughts about why I am opting out of public education is that I believe we can do better, and as parents/educators, we should feel called to do better (wherever we are placed, and especially those placed in the current educational system). Whatever schooling chosen for our varied reasons we weigh, not in the least of which comes down at times to simple economics at times – believe me, I know!, we simply must strive to give our children the types of learning experiences that enrich them to their core, at whatever opportunities we can find to do so, (and I have known some extremely awesome public schooled folks whose parents took this to heart and did a stand-up job supplementing them with deeper learning experiences in their hours at home, by the way!)

As for me, I recall too many days sitting in a classroom, listening to a lecture that was flat out uninspired and often not even all that educated, either reading my own material under the desk or writing poems or looking out the window at a lake nearby and wishing I could be out in the sun, feeling the wind on my face. Any real “learning” I have so far achieved, (and this sentiment seems to be shared by many parents who have decided to homeschool) has taken place outside a classroom setting.

I also began to realize these last few years that few (but important!) things are needed for the attainment of knowledge, and I don’t mean just book smarts but overall mind and life “learning” and preparation. Practical things, really. In no particular order, they would be: 1.) a community (this would include folks to live and learn alongside you, as well as cultural resources and mentor/teacher relationships, and finally service opportunities — and optimally community worship opportunities that provide the family with spiritual nourishment); 2.) a library/ or similar large catalog of resources; plenty of time outdoors in natural environments, having sensory experiences with things being studied; and perhaps idealistically I add, 3.) a rhythmic, nurturing home life (it doesn’t have to be perfect… but striving towards good rhythms, boundaries, and nurturing is definitely important!) I really believe these few things provide all one needs to obtain whatever level of knowledge they desire, and if given these, an unencumbered human will learn, all the time, for a lifetime.

Notice what is not on my list. Not special toys, educational or otherwise. Not expensive text books and curriculum. Not high tech gadgets, (I recently saw an ad for a school in which the students were all supplied with iPADS, which would be the learning tool they would utilize to the exclusion of all else — even proudly marketing that the students dissect a “digital” frog in biology! This is the exact route I am … pretty much vehemently against. I am not against technology by any means, but this is unnatural! How can one truly interact on a deeper level with the experience of viewing the inner physiology of a frog if they can’t access the specimen with any senses but their eyes?! I would argue that a good space to interact with wildlife –a state park creek is a fine example — is infinitely more valuable than a digital frog to dissect and label the parts! But I digress… few things annoy me more than expensive electronics labeled “educational”…)

Furthermore, history, if nothing else, has already done a great job in proving that brilliant thinkers, prodigies, and folks of various genius, (some in fields of science, politics, arts and humanities, and many just as adept at lesser-recognized but no less noble “fields” of child-rearing, homemaking, and community activism!) have not attained their means of knowledge via the government run educational system. There really isn’t, as far as I am concerned, any reason to speculate that it is the ultimate and optimal form of education – in fact I would say its not only unnecessary for the attainment of knowledge, but often the very system that hinders would-be brilliant thinkers. With this reason alone in mind, (though there are more), I never really see the point in the many questions that one inevitably gets once their decision to opt out of state run schooling is made known, questions such as “what if they don’t get properly socialized” or “are you really qualified to educate your children?” or, my favorite, “how will you ensure they are learning?” (as if they are EVER not learning, for one thing, and for another, I have many more doubts about their ability to learn in the public school environment than in their ability to learn outside of it!)

Rudolf Steiner, who began the first Waldorf School and which its subsequent pedagogy is aimed at mimicking, presented one alternative approach to the schooling of children:

“Steiner believed that conventional education stifled spiritual growth and led to dead, abstract thinking and stunted lives that characterize a society based on materialism.” – Rudolf Steiner, by Gary Lachmann

Waldorf education is built on a different assumption than that of Materialism (the philosophy that all of reality can be deduced to physical matter) – the main one being that a child IS a spiritual being, and thus the approach to the child’s learning is to nourish the “whole” child (as most would understand it, mind/body/soul — though some of you may realize that to Steiner there were more aspects to a person than just these three, lol. I won’t “go there” today).

Because of this view of child development on this multi-faceted level, the curriculum, if you could call it that, is structured very differently than that of state-run programs:

“Seven-to-fourteen year olds… are taught in a way that will nurture their imaginations, through pictures, stories, and other imaginative experiences. With puberty, the shift is to inspiration… when the ideas which were at first introduced in images can now be grasped directly. Then, with the age of twenty-one – recognized by many as the point of maturity, although, to be sure, maturation can and should continue throughout life – … the possibility of self-education arrives, which is the work of intuition.” – above biography

Now, this may sound a bit too much like the “age based” tenet of public school that I said is one of the problems I have with it, in an earlier quote (the previous quote was from an “unschooling” or “life learning” father, so that may help explain his emphasis). But what I wanted to get across in provided the insights of Waldorf education is that there is a intense aim at recognizing and nourishing the whole child, as they mature through each stage of development, and a keen observation of that child’s needs.

It is from this view of the child that I come to another of my main reasons to opt out of the public educational setting, or any that mimic it, because such whole-child needs can hardly be provided for in a large classroom setting, where an exhaustive amount of restrictions abound about what materials must be used, how they will get, if any, hands-on experiences to engage their studies with all of their senses, the types of meals provided for by the state, the types of dull, sub-alive elements (plastic, fake lighting, fake wood, etc) that surround them for hours and hours each day, — my list could go on.

The Steiner biography’s author sums up the point of Waldorf education nicely, I think:

“The central idea is to create a learning environment which can motivate live thinking and active imagination, and not the mere mechanical parroting of the lesson at hand…”

Many alternative forms of education has the above central idea, including many charter schools and private schools based on other pedagogies. I think that’s, well, that’s quite a start! If we could truly grasp this goal in our approach to education, I think the details would be less and less important ,and the overall values between alternative educational pedagogies would find a common chord. (And would that even public education be completely rebuilt and renewed with the aim of motivating live thinking and active imagination! Think of that!)

“A learning environment which can motivate live thinking and active imagination” is precisely what I want for my children, who, let’s face it, already have a Creator-given propensity towards “live thinking” as well as an “active imagination” – so my job is to ultimately nourish these current capacities!

And one last thought I feel necessary to add, is that of “end result” thinking when it comes to the decisions we make about schooling, particularly about preparation for adult life, future careers, or what college they will get into. I caution myself, and others in this journey, to not focus too much on this aspect of it, even if doing so is a bit against the grain. John Holt’s books talk about this a lot and I’ve gained valuable insight from them, freeing myself from the need to “showcase” my child’s achievements as proof that something I am doing with them is “working” (what does that even mean, anyway?!). Here I leave you with another quote from, “And the Skylark Sings with Me” that articulated this caution well, and culminates some of the thoughts I have shared today:

“I find there is something disempowering in the formulaic, “My Homeschooled Kid Got into Yale… and Yours Can Too!” genre, as it suggests that the learning experiences our children acquire today are intrinsically less valuable than those they might receive in the future at an institution more venerable than our backyard. We consider it important to resist the temptation to narrowly conceive of education as “preparation for life.” Children are living, breathing, learning beings in the present moment, and satisfying their need to learn is critical to their current quality of life, which has its own inherent value, whatever tomorrow may bring. If there is anything typical of my kids, it is, as of all children – unless or until it is ground out of them – their delight in discovery.”

The word discipline has been on my mind lately.

Since moving to Columbia and starting up discussions with the local waldorf book group each week, I have come around to my own spirituality and beliefs in a way I haven’t in a long time – or maybe ever. It is as though parenting, storytelling, Steiner, etc has opened up a back window to my house of faith, and this new entry carries with it many familiar sights and smells, but I am caught by the fact that there seems to be way less personal baggage from this route — the new angle has allowed to me the view from a different side, and I am grappling with tenets of life and faith in a way that is removed from some of the intention, suspicion, and experience of my past. Coming at it from this direction has way less cobwebs. It is a refreshing experience.

When I began to understand the power of story, particularly stories told aloud to children, in the book group and through what we are reading and doing, I was lead, (and I do mean “lead”, as I felt this unmitigated pull from one book/resource to the next, having the subject opened to me layer by layer without at first even realizing the correlations between each, ) to a short personal study on myths (i.e. Joseph Campbell) and then began to look at religious myths and the role these play in integrating mankind to their Creator, throughout history, throughout cultures.

What I once saw as fake, legalistic, empty, ritualistic, etc, I began to get from a standpoint of human development and consciousness, (and by no means do I mean that I now understand it is I am getting at here – I have only tapped the surface of this subject).

I felt myself drawn to the mystery of my own religious heritage, the history of my church, the stories of battles and adventure and reformations… and even towards its sacred text (the Bible), in much the way Brian McLaren urges people to read it, not as a “rule book” but as a “narrative”. I wondered why, if I celebrate and honor the sacred stories for other people groups as important, crucial, real, and magical for that culture – why do I not see my own beliefs in this way?

In other words, perhaps there is a different way to approach my faith beyond that of a passive submission, unquestioning and often too full of pride, folly, ignorance, and judgement, OR the other extreme; a dogmatic, theological discourse on every verse in the canonized bible taken literally (and an inevitable exasperation with that discourse that leads to living a life of fairly inactive personal faith, because I can’t help but feel like it is missing the whole point!). And that different way would look something more like the ancient stories of my faith, as archetypes, and that in embracing this story in such a way, I could experience the true elements of the story (of any story) in a deeper way (much the way I am learning to craft stories for the kids, and let them sit with a story, and let it resonate deep within their being in the way that Waldorf education promotes).

I have immersed myself this Summer with some of my old favorites, like Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris. I have been reading about storytelling for children while understanding its importance for adults as well, through authors such as Joseph Campbell and Thomas Moore. I have been setting my listening preferences to things I would have never expected – Gregorian chants and chanticleer! I am craving something sacred and I am finding it, and it is lighting up something within me that has felt displaced and wandering for some time now. For crying out loud, I am even falling in love with liturgy! I have been going through the Morning, Mid-Day, and Evening prayers in Shane Claiborne’s “Common Prayer; a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals” each day and finding them tremendously meaningful and beautiful. I have been attracted to monasticism, reading several books on monk habits, including the Rule of St. Benedict, and looking up local monasteries where I might go stay for a retreat and understand more about this way of life. In my desperation for liturgy, I attended Vespers at a Greek Orthodox church here in town. This week I rented “Of Gods and Men” and just balled – I felt such a kinship to the French monks and let the movie really move me in a deep way — (they really did a great job with this movie – you must watch it!).

It is pretty bizarre to me, this refreshed thirst. I have very little experience in a liturgical setting and most of it wasn’t pleasant. But now I can’t get enough. Where for many years I cringed at the word “discipline” or “ritual”, I now feel like it has been a crucial missing ingredient in my life. As I am beginning to see how a child needs his parents leadership to push and stretch his will, so do I need my own (strong, ahem) will stretched and pulled. I need to make my bed each morning. I need to do the dishes as soon as I dirty them. I need to embrace the mundane, tedious, sacrificial daily work of being a homemaker in much the same way that monks embrace God’s call to a life in constant communion with Him through the mundane and unglamorous tasks at hand. Each scrub of the bathtub, cleaning up of my child’s vomit, chopping vegetables for dinner, or the discipline of keeping my checkbook balanced and home uncluttered can be a prayer; can be a meditation on being in the moment, of sobriety and depth, of thanking God in silence and solitude or chaos and confusion; of the losing of my life in order to truly gain it. Imagine that.

It’s also been really neat to watch Ethan this month, and my own mothering, as a result of some of this searching… We have made certain times of day even more sacred, particularly bedtime. I began collecting poems, verses, hymns, etc awhile back which correlate for different times of the day, and different seasons of the year. It’s a daily journal, in a way a daily office, but for our particular family. Ethan seems to really relish the spiritual songs. After our nighttime reading (we have finished the first four books of the Chronicles of Narnia since moving to Columbia, and he just eats them up. He is loving Prince Caspian right now and asks so much questions about Aslan in relationship to Jesus… its very dear), we light a beeswax candle and I read a verse about the flame being our reminder that God hearing our prayers and lights up the darkness, etc, then together he and Ver blow it out and in the immediate darkness that surrounds us, we begin to sing the Our Father. From there we may sing other songs, like Take My Life, Doxology, Be Thou my Vision, and Let Their be Peace on Earth, his favorites. It requires me to set aside my impatience and any feelings of bitterness or exhaustion; I am extending my evening but I am gaining so much by laying in the darkness with my children and having a time of family worship before bed. I have often been shy and unsure about bringing my faith into my children’s lives, but lately I have felt compelled to infuse their childhood with this mystical and beautiful story, and to enrich the growth of their souls with the words of these powerful spiritual songs.

And tying in with this topic of personal ah-ha’s and such, I’ve been coming back around to the topic of community, and going through some hardships here in Columbia at what community shouldn’t be, how much I miss my communities in other states, and how easy it is to give up and move on when things don’t go as we would like. By no coincidence I am sure, I had read Life Together (Bonhoeffer) earlier this year, and just last night before bed read a quote from that book in another I am reading, “Monk Habits for Everyday People” by Dennis Okholm. It was left with me shortly before bed. When I woke up, ate some pancakes, and we all ventured out to try a new church this morning, what do ya know it, they shared the exact same Bonhoeffer quote in the sermon (and the experience of the new church was very encouraging and sweet — we have settled on calling this one our local church “home” and look forward to getting more involved, yay!).

Things like that have been happening all over the place for me. One little trail leads to the next and I see this little glimpse of the corner of the tapestry my Father is weaving for me, for all of us. It is a nice confirmation internally, to feel like you are where you should be, that you are experiencing (whether pleasurable or painful) the very thing you are meant to experience at this time. It is a comforting thought, and one that sustains me today, through unknowns and disappointments, and amidst exciting possibilities and beautiful new connections.

My car troubles have been mentioned in almost every post for some time now, which is slightly redundant and ridiculous. But allow me to do it again…

After the flat and all that earlier this week, we got “new” used tires on Friday and then on Saturday the same one was flat again. Me thinks the rim is bent. Ouch.

And of course, like the wonderfully zen mama that I am, I got all bent out of shape about my second flat tire for the week and through a nice little inner fit. My mind went everywhere – including the ever present question, “should we just sell the car and go back to Portland?!”

I came home, still having an internal fit, which of course is all too apparent to the kids, and in a huff sat down on the couch and opened “The Imitation of Christ” (Thomas a Kempis) which I picked up for a whopping .25 cents at the Salvation Army a few days ago.

Curiously, there was a bookmark already in it, so I flipped to that page. The chapter it opened to was called, “Of the Consideration of Human Misery”. Awesome, I thought in my self-induced pity party. How apropos.

And then I got a nice kick in the pants from Mr. a Kempis. Here’s what I wrote down in my journal, as I laughed at myself for the incredible immaturity I had been displaying over a flippin’ automobile (and bank account balance):

“Why are you so troubled when things do not go as you wish or desire? Who is there that has all things according to his will? Neither I, nor you, nor any man upon the earth.

There is no man in the world without some trouble or affliction, be he King or Pope.

… you see that all these temporary things are nothing; in fact they are most uncertain, and rather a heavy burden…

Man’s happiness is not the having of temporal goods in abundance; but a moderate portion is sufficient for him.

… for there are some who cling [to this perishable life] so closely (though even by laboring or by begging they hardly have bare necessities)… oh senseless people! and unbelieving heart, to lie buried so deep in earthly things…

Oh how great is human frailty, which is ever prone to vice!

… now you purpose to be on your gaurd, and an hour after you are acting as if you had made no resolution.

Justly then may we humble ourselves, and never think anything great of ourselves, since we are so unstable.

And even what we have at last just acquired through grace and with great labour, may soon be lost through negligence.” [um, like a new tire gone flat again... doh!]

Anyway, this is my great insight for the day… nothing new, I know, but a good reminder. This world and its things are uncertain, and a heavy burden — would that I could do without them completely! — but even when what I have and/or think I need faulters, the reality is that my hope should be fixed on something far bigger, more eternal, more stable, with no burden but an easy and light yoke.

Practically speaking, I don’t know what we’ll do about this car. It’s far more money to fix a rim than a tire, so we’ll have to see how it goes. I’m going to look into the bus system here better and see if we might be able to do without a car, but I worry about cold winter months spent at the bus stop in the morning to get Ethan to kindergarten…

Two things I know – far worse things could happen (and are happening in the lives of people I love every day). AND… God is still good.

I think I sweat more in the last 2 days than I have in my whole life. Fortunately, we found some solace from King Sun in the cool creek water at Rock Bridge and the shady canopy of blueberry bushes at Missouri Highland Blueberry Farm.

And rather than go into the details of:

A. what it was like to run out of gas at the farm, completely alone (even the farm purchases are run on the honor system – there was seriously not another person there but us!), with the nearest gas station 10 miles away, or how miraculously the car started again once we got on level ground and actually made it to the gas station! or

B. what it was like to get a flat tire on the highway not 5 minutes after getting gas, and then not being able to get the tire changed because the wrench/bolt remover thing was stripped, and then miraculously a home-based auto repair shop was the first stop on the next exit, who of course had all the necessary tools and got us back on the road to home,

which is why

C. we were concerned about going on the float trip (2.5 hours away) in the first place! (providence!)

I’ll just leave you with a few pictures I snapped from our adventures

So this weekend I got seriously fortunate from a somewhat chance encounter with some one who works with a local organization that seeks out families who meet certain criteria who would benefit from having their food stamps extended when making edible purchases at the local farmer’s market. I had heard of this local program before but hadn’t figured out if I was eligible (the program is new this year), but thanks to a friend of a friend who got me connected, my family got signed up. Let me tell you- this was exciting!

(quick aside- I have mixed feelings about being on food stamps, and there’s something even more off-putting about sharing this info about us via the WWW, but for now my family needs it and we are doing what we can to be self-sufficient without government aid. But I do believe there is value in sharing our journey with others, so that the barriers of shame will not limit folks who are desiring a more integrated, ethical, “simple living” lifestyle. So – let’s just put a pin in that for a moment and let me get back to my joy about this program’s benefits!)

Okay, so basically I go purchase “tokens” with my EBT card (like a debit card for food stamps (technically now called SNAPS benefits), if you’re not familiar) at the market booth on Saturday morning, and whatever I use ($20 bucks, let’s say) is DOUBLED in value (I am given $40 in tokens, only using up the $20 of my allotted food stamps). This is already quite a Wow, awesome! But it wasn’t until I actually went grocery shopping Saturday that it hit me just how phenomenal this is. Another way to think about it is everything I get there is now 50% less!

A quick back-story of sorts: Most of you know that our family strives to eat nourishing, local, organic foods (weston price/ traditional foods – based). We try to eat mainly local, pastured meats and dairy products, and local, no-spray produce. (If we do eat grains and legumes, they tend to be used in moderation and purchased as dry bulk goods, then properly soaked and prepared to make them more of a usable food by the human body. If you’re lost by now, don’t worry – I’ll try to circle back around to that topic some other time, or you can read a bit about it yourself — try here or here…)

At first glance, this may seem like quite a luxury for folks on food stamps, right? Well, we don’t do this by going to a store like Whole Foods and leaving with bags and bags of expensive prepared and imported foods (though, in the interest of full disclosure — been there, done that. We all start somewhere!). Instead, I get most of the above items from the farmer’s market, a bulk food order we place each month from Azure Standard for things like peanut butter, etc, our backyard laying hens, and a local dairy farm delivery. (Aside – I do garden at home but at this point raising/growing our own food hasn’t been as much of an option as we hope it will one day be, since we have been renting inside city limits and moving often through all our homesteading adventures).

We do limit prepared foods, canned or boxed items are only utilized in a real “pinch”, so it goes without saying that I cook most everything from scratch, at home. If you aren’t in this habit and think that is impossible, this gets more effortless over time, with practice, I promise. Perhaps start with one meal per week, gradually getting more comfortable and organized. Even now, a few years into it, I manage only about 3 main-course-type dinners this way each week, the other days it’s quick veggie roasts or leftovers or (fill in the blank/ free-for-all). I think as the kids get older and require slightly less attention (this DOES happen, right?! and without utilizing any media or a babysitter?!), I will be able to work more on having a home cooked meal every day, 3 times a day. *crosses fingers* (one can have goals…leave me to my delusions, will ya?)

Eggs: Our backyard chickens give us 2 free-range eggs each day but it isn’t enough (we currently have 2 laying hens and 4 hens that should start giving another egg per day in a couple of months – at that point the half-dozen a day will be closer to our actual needs!). We supplement right now with 18 additional eggs for $3.75 each week from a local farm run by 2 boys who began their business as a 4-H project. We support them, bring them back their egg crates, and get lots of affordable “perfect food” protein, which we use in many ways (traditional breakfast dishes, hard-boiled eggs for snacks, baking, homemade custards, egg yolk in smoothies, etc — you name it, we probably throw an egg in it!). This allows us to get the essential fats and cholesterol we need without having prime meat cuttings at every meal.

Milk: (This isn’t part of the program I’ve mentioned, but it falls into this category of how we eat farm-fresh foods so I’ll tell you a bit about our milk too). Our milk man literally leaves farm fresh raw milk on our porch every Monday, in beautiful glowing glass jars (okay, maybe I took some liberties with the beautiful, glowing bit!) But seriously, it’s awesome. His cows are raised on pasture (meaning they roam fresh soil and grass/weeds/meadow, raise their calves, etc), never given meds or hormones, and visits to his farm are welcome. His price is awesome too – $3.80 per gallon. We are currently doing 2 gallons a week of whole, raw milk, straight from the teet . Since we literally feel ill if we drink pasteurized dairy (organic or not – it is heat processed and void of the essential enzymes and bacteria needed to digest it properly) and we avoid highly-processed “fake” dairy (rice, soy, etc), this is a real huge part of our sustenance. (Raw milk is perfect and delicious, but don’t let me stay on my soap box for too long!) In our state, raw milk is legal so long as it is purchased directly from the farm. We turn this milk into kefir regularly for smoothies, and sometimes make cheeses, custards, etc, depending on what kind of free time I can find in my week!

Chicken Meat and Broth: The farmer’s market here is really great for local pastured meats. There is a booth that sells fryer chickens (I buy the whole chicken, organs and all – which have a lot of additional nutrients, and cook slow over low temps to render lots of nourishing meat and bone broth which typically extends for 3 separate dinners). The whole frozen chicken is $10 bucks, for about a 4 lb bird that is, again, raised on pasture (not simply “cage free” – the birds literally have the life and diet of a farm chicken, which makes for healthy, tasty, nutritional meat). We typically try to do a chicken (remember, 3 “meals” come out of one purchase) every other week (2 per month), to keep our food bill low.

Fish Meat and Broth: the market also has a booth that sells fresh caught wild trout, which I bake in tinfoil with celtic sea salt and DEVOUR (this coastal girl really craves fresh seafood living here in the Midwest!). I believe the price was about $6 a fish, some where about that. 2 fish is divided up between our family of 4 and then I use the bones, heads, tails, etc to make broth for another meal. Being on a budget, we aim to get this once a month as it is not the cheapest meat option for us.

Beef Meat and Broth: I found a great way to get pastured beef in our diet on a dime, by getting “stew bones” from the local pastured meat stand. These bones have meat around them still and sell for $2.00 a pound. About 4 bones makes for a delicious stew and then I can cut the meat off and add it back for stew meat.

Other meats: For ground meats, the cheapest I have found is a local goat farm, which sells ground goat meat for about $3.75. Sometimes beef is cheaper, but I like to have some variety and goat meat makes really great meatballs for gyros, etc. Sometimes I get local pastured ground turkey or pork as well, as it makes good sausage (and is cheaper than buying sausage already seasoned and linked).

Of course, there are times funds are slightly higher and we splurge on bacon or something, but this is a list of our basic meat and dairy “staples”. I find that most people assume eating this way MUST cost us an arm and a leg; that abiding by our local/pasture-raised ethical and nutritional choice is an oxymoron for low-income families. This simply isn’t the case, and people on a budget do not have to eat fast food and cheap corn-syrup and processed soy-laden grocery store products and factory-farmed meat products. But it does take forethought, and commitment, and an attempt to look beyond the total “price” at the end of the bill, into food politics and all the various sectors (and living creatures, people groups included) that are hurting in our nation and in our world because of the way we eat (malnourishment, diseases, exploitation of workers, widespread loss of fertile farm lands, etc etc). This isn’t just about being posh, green, or any other catchy buzz word – it’s about caring about our health and the health of our planet in real, actionable ways.

Though we are new to this area, the basic methods and means of getting these staples into our diet have been the same where ever we’ve been, minus the learning curve required to find local sources (esp if the farmer’s market was mainly crocheted hats and cut flowers – hey, it happens!) and meal planning and preparation with these methods. We’re getting there… those things take time.

So let me go back now to the start of this post: all the meats I have listed above I, for now, can get 50% cheaper! A whole, pastured fryer chicken – FIVE DOLLARS. Stew bones with meat – ONE DOLLAR per pound. Freshly caught trout: $3 dollars. You get the idea. And this isn’t even factoring in produce at the moment, which is often (local, no-spray) somewhere about an average of #2-3 dollars per pound, so it’s now half that price.

So you’ll forgive me if I just can’t contain my enthusiasm about this blessing! This means a lot to our family and our health right now, and I applaud organizations like this who are seeking to help those who need food assistance to make healthier choices (and not just cramming USDA propaganda down their throats at sign up time and turning them away to go buy gum/chips/breakfast-cereal/cookies/soda with their food stamps! But I digress – that’s another post for another day…).

I won’t always need the help, but I am darn grateful at the moment that I can extend our food budget via this aid, towards hard-working, ethical, quality local farms and in turn our family can eat more abundantly of the nourishing foods they have to offer! Just makes me wanna jump up and do a little jig… oh wait, I’ll have the move the laptop off my lap…

There has been some tough financial struggles lately (not uncommon for us, I know) but it has more than any other time in our lives enabled me to dig in deep with the feeling of discontent, impatience, inconvenience, and so on that arise when funds allow only for the most basic of household needs.

{{Before I go on, let me take a moment to apologize for the wordy length of this post. Sorry. Also, you will be rewarded with pictures at the end. But don’t skip ahead just because I told you that, because the content explains the pictures. (gotcha!) }}

I began reading some really excellent financial books that have given me some valuable ideas and resources, but most importantly the validation that living a life of frugality is indeed a freeing and valid choice (however un-American it feels at first!). The topic is exhaustive so I won’t go into all the details, but some resources for me have been primarily Radical Homemakers (my go-to!), Your Money or Your Life, and recently The Scavenger’s Manifesto, Made from Scratch and the Tightwad Gazette (check these out at your library!). There is so much about it that fascinates me as a subject matter and lifestyle choice, as it takes a certain amount of confidence to transcend the idea that voluntary simplicity (and foraging/scavenging/bartering/waiting/and often going without) is a deprived, resource-less, bohemian (though this word might actually be appropriate) life of poverty (or worse – laziness).

I can acutely feel the pressure, on many fronts, to just forget this whole business of living simply and just get a job job, put Ethan in public school, and force myself onto that hamster wheel because what I’m faced with if I do not do so seems too exhausting, lonely, challenging, and doomed-from-the-start. But I have never been one to unquestionably accept the status quot solution without at least researching and utilizing some alternatives that don’t compromise my heart’s values and desires.

To view the lifestyle instead as a challenge in resourcefulness and ingenuity and invention (the daughter of necessity?), a call to radically reject the consumer cycle (as the Scavenger Manifesto calls it, the “Want-Get” mentality) of materialism and waste and the myth of “choices”, and to capitalize on the lack of excess as a catalyst for gaining increased self-sufficiency and experience.

It’s been heavy at times, as I sit with the reality of compulsive choices I have made, the “treats” I wanted to “deserve” over the years and the financial pressures we have incurred both from our own choices or those of the “down economy”. While I have never had what I would have called affluence, often forgoing large things like extra vehicles or a house with more space than I need or vacations or store-bought clothes, I had to recognize that we had made choices with where what little money we had fell between the cracks (where did it go?!) on silly things like convenience food (i.e. “oh, we are going to the library, we’ll stop and grab bagels first”), expensive cheeses (next I need to learn how to be a foodie on a budget!), library fines, shipping fees, so on.

Our plan to move to Columbia and for Chris to take this flexible, enjoyable, sustainably-minded, locally-owned job was a calculated risk and I am in no way making it work without flaws just 4 weeks into this venture… *yet*. For our entire marriage I have worked (I’ve held a job since I was 14, for that matter), I financed over 90% of my private-education undergrad degree with grants/scholarships and work credits, and since having children I have been the main earner generating income from my own at-home business. Yet, for a variety of reasons I have shared in the past on this blog, we have been taking steps to switch these roles for sometime now, as continuing down that path left me stressed, strapped, unorganized, unhappy, and unable to homeschool. So I knew there would be sacrifices, but the idea that I could creatively figure this out was incredibly motivating for me and continues to be as I think of new ways to live and think about the choices we can make to realize this “dream” of living simply, learning more, feeling more enriched and fulfilled by a life of time and resources to live generously — while making as a household income less than we have EVER earned before, even while in college.

So rather than recount the unexpected bills and financial upsets to our last 4 weeks (though there have indeed been those too!), I want to move on to the fun stuff, the things that I am finding just slap-knee exciting about learning to be a tight-wad!

First of all, I think being frugal is a lot easier if you live amongst other frugals; in community with swappers, food growers, barterers, pickers, foragers, forgoers, and coupon-clippers. It kinda validates the lifestyle, which is definitely counter-cultural otherwise. I think these folks exist just about everywhere, you just gotta find them — and be willing to be their equal.

Secondly, there are a lot of hidden perks to being frugal that, if you can let go of the concept of “Want-Get” mentality, are pretty rad. Clothing swaps with stylishly-dressed donators are fun and easy. Garage sales and “free bins” amaze me. Bartering goods and services is highly effective. Learning a new skill so you don’t have to pay some one to do it for you is way more satisfying. Paying only a quarter of your previous monthly vehicle gasoline budget when every one on the news is lamenting the climbing gas prices is reassuring. Having even just a few bucks left over at the end of the week, rather than going into more debt, is rewarding. Learning to wait for something you would have just ran out to get as soon as you “needed” it, like a washer/bike/freezer/radio/whatever until you have saved for it and found the right deal (hopefully free!) fosters a feeling of contentment and relaxation, a mindfulness about accumulating goods. Keeping track of receipts, organizing bills, and forgoing “treats” is, well, it’s growing up, (and it also reducing a BUTTLOAD of anxiety at the end of a pay cycle! who knew? )

I will be posting again a weekly series I call Simple Pleasures – a record of things that were bartered, gifted, thrifted, made, grown, saved for, or given away that brought pleasure to my life each week:

Things like…

A family walk to the public library (which boasts NO limits and NO late fees!), where we forage for edible dandelions and violets, sight a groundhog, and work off belly fat – who needs a gym membership when you have legs?!). Our ten dollar weekly budget that gets us 2 gallons of raw milk and 2 pints of raw cream (homemade cream cheese!) every Monday on our neighbor’s doorstep. The bags FULL of amazing books, music and documentaries we bring back from the library. The free use of internet around town. The free movies we rent for family movie night at 9th Street Video because Chris works at Uprise. The free (local) coffee both Chris and I get from Uprise while renting the free movies at 9th street, on our way to getting the free books from the library. The knitted gifts to trade for babysitting. The free movie tickets on our date night and the $5 (total) we spent for the organic wine and beer we enjoyed while watching the movie. The outings of packed lunches at the park and nature trails just outside the city. The Easter baskets filled with sprouted wheat grass (seeds a gift from a friend) and sales on the organic bulk bin candy which filled saved egg shells from breakfast. The downright gourmet meals that can be made with a friends’ surplus garden grub and bulk natural foods from Azure Standard. The upcoming “Columbia’s Really Really Free Market” and the free backyard chicken processing workshop I will attend in the coming weeks (bringing home the bird for dinner!). The fishing I will take up this summer to catch a good supply of trout and the harvest I will reap and keep from my garden beds, whose compost was generously gifted to us in exchange for a half dozen of our chicken eggs and the tomato and pepper starts donated to us from the local urban farms surplus, (thank you Luke!)

… you get the idea. SIMPLE pleasures that offset some of the difficulties we have faced, and brought meaning and blessing to my life in often surprising ways.

It’s really quite fun to get even crazier!

This little home economics notebook from 1917 that I found at a thrift store was really inspiring. I’m fascinated with homemakers of the bygone era, who made due with as little as 1,200 yearly salary. Had to take a picture (but not buy! lol)

A virtually free (did have to spend a little money on the sweets), hand-made Easter tradition…

Easter brunch of whatever is on hand – quail eggs (a gift from sweet friend Natalie), fruit, plain yogurt with raw honey…

A simple park outing can be entertaining, fun, and even a bit of a break… at no cost at all!

Who needs a mall playground (without actually intending it, we haven’t stepped foot in a shopping mall in over 2 years and counting!) when you have nature trails, dandelions to blow, rocks to throw in a creek, and bridges to run across?!

I typically walk out of the library with armloads of books, as there are no limits, no late fees, and a great selection. This week’s focus was homeschooling resources…

Free meals during his shift, Chris enjoys free freshly made artisan sandwiches with locally raised meat sources, along with a glass of organic beer, 5-6 times per week. I have been impressed with how this has reduced the amount of groceries we go through each week! (gosh, his job sure sounds terrible, doesn’t it? )

Family dance jams are a nice way to pass the time…

Foraged edibles from the front yard – violets, dandelion flowers and leaves – beautiful, free nourishment

Diggin in dirt rarely gets old… finding worms, black beetles, grubs and cicada’s is just too fun!

“new” used books from the library used book sale

Tire swings from the tires just replaced on the car – endless hours of entertainment (I’ve lovingly nicknamed this swing Jenna the Babysitter)

This old suitcase ($1) and milk glass saucer (.25) from the end of a garage sale now serves as my undergarment storage and homemade salad dressing dispenser (respectively)

Big pile of great Spring sweaters (free from a clothing swap)

$1 garage sale vintage lamp base that just whispers my name…

Doll clothes found in a “free” basket!

A frugal “pantry” of bulk foods, collected eggs, and home brews…

A vintage typewriter for my prose (free in exchange for me learning to tinker with it and get a new ribbon)