If you look at the weather map from the National Weather Service for today, it shows typical winter time temperatures for the various regions and locales of the USA. Nothing sub-zero, just from temperate to cold: 66 in South Florida and 1 degree above zero in someplace in Oklahoma. IT"S FEBRUARY! It's expected. Yes it's cold, it's survivable and with some use of good judgement, you can stay safe and warm.
Donate some canned goods to a shelter, take in a stray dog or cat or make a little shelter for them outside, providing food and water. Be kind.
It's just another winter. It is not disproof of global warming. It is not proof of global warming.
The only (to us) odd thing about this winter's weather is the patterns of snow and cold. The reason these things seem odd to us is that our planet has a long life and we generally live less than a hundred years, so we cannot readily see the natural cycles beyond what happens on a yearly basis.
BIG HEADLINES on AOL today announce: NOW COMES THE DEEP FREEZE!
Too much hyperbole in the media. Everyone is looking for extremes and wants to be the first to announce them in big bold type with catchy phrases that are often tempting, tantalizing, suggestive, or simply misleading. Seldom are they profound.
Our culture has sunk into a miasma of individual and societal turbulence in part because of some twisted desire to always stand out and get that twenty seconds of fame.
Sadly, this is because most people have lost a secure sense of their own identity. tattoos, weird clothes, horrid behaviour, intentional disfigurement and wanton sexual proclivities are all screamiong the need for finding a personal identity different from everyone else, and in that, everyone is the same.
The Cairo riots, regardless of whether or not they are a staged astroturfing endeavor to garner support for some radical islamic takeover, show just how much in a group of people everyone can be the same without individuation. This is tribal identity run amok. This is swarm behaviour. This is humans sinking into a sub-human pit of iniquity. Mob rule is not the democracy they so inappropriately speak of. Their stated purpose is not the underlyiong factor. The factions operating in that part of the world are disturbingly radical and based on nothing more than fanatacism, fear and lack of personal identity. to identify only with a group, to lose oneself in a group is a thoroughly wasted life, and a waste of oxygen.
Moderation can be fun. I know that's not quite what the song says, and yet both are significant and appropiate modes of behaviour.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
TOO MUCH DEBT, TOO MANY LIES AND TOO MANY PEOPLE IN DENIAL
The lies have come from banks, from real estate developers, from realtors, from the government, from lobbyists, from government backed lenders, from the media and from each other.
We listened to too many lies and we bought the ones that sounded the most delightful, and paid for them with credit.
We: we as individuals, we as voters, we as ‘we the people,’ and we as one country amongst a world of countries many of whom have participated in this same contagion of greed, entitlement, credit and debt.
I am no political or financial authority, but having received nothing but lies and mistakes from those who are political and financial authorities, I must don my own hat of responsibility and decide what is real and what is not.
These are my views.
The stage was set by a strengthening of federalism. People being what they are, we seemed to have needed federalism to protect against feudalism. Our sovereign States have, bit by bit, given up pieces of their sovereignty over the years and ‘States Rights’ is a term no longer heard.
Instead of localized feudal states, what we have become is a generalized federal feudalism that has set our Constitution on the shelf as a mere artifact and has taken the three sanctioned branches of government and subversively created three additional branches, constructed of greed, by greed, and for greed: of the few, by the few, and for the few. Branch number four is the Media, number five, Big Business Corporations.
In collusion with Big Business, is number six: the Central Bank, ie: The Federal Reserve Bank which has the ultimate power to ring the life blood from your working day, your inheritance, even your sanity, if you let it.
The true role of the United States Government is simple: To provide for the common defense, to construct and maintain ports of entry while securing our borders, to provide for essential services such as roads, bridges, schools (and other elements of our infrastructure), maintain our standing armed forces, conduct beneficent diplomatic relations with other nations of the world in a fiduciary manner for the benefit of our citizenry and the moral obligations of brotherhood, and to ensure domestic tranquility.
It was not designed to become a regulatory body, nor a self-serving entitlement program for elected elitists.
That we were founded as ‘One Nation Under God, With Liberty and Justice For All’, includes in it the given obligation to provide for these services with the guidance of the Ten Commandments, The Golden Rule, and The Beatitudes as the over riding inspiration: the heartbeat.
It may be in our best interest for the government to provide oversight for other essential services such as water quality and safe delivery of fuel and electricity, but it is counterproductive to prohibit safe development of alternative sources for any of the above.
Due to the greed of the giant corporations, a beneficent government would prohibit out-sourcing of American jobs, but were it not for the desire to avoid fees, constrictions of bureaucratic expense for employers and other disincentives, employers would not wish to incur the expense of outsourcing.
Giving corporations the status of a citizen entity with the rights of protection from the results of misconduct, not to mention tax breaks, has been contributory to our economic downfall in a very large measure, both for the country as a whole and to the financial woes of Us, the People.
I’m not clear on the historical names and dates, on who did what and which conspiracy theory is the real one, however, it is apparent to me that it is simply another phase of a very long-going condition begun with the rise of royalty and feudalism in the very earliest phases of human civilization.
Okay, now you think I’m sounding like a real wack job, if you didn’t think so before. In the words of what’s his name in a movie from the 90’s, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
I invite you to give this some serious thought. If you do much reading, if you took some history courses that were more than ‘Columbus in 1492’ then I double-dog-dare you to truly think about how things have changed and how in very real and fundamental ways they have remained the same.
At this point I have written 725 words on this topic. I have more to say. I am told I should always write blog posts of less than 500 words.
I would hope that my readers have the mental capacity and attention span to read more than 500 words. I often read as many as five books a week.
The sister blogs: Just Enough, and 100 Things We Can Do to Fix Our Mess are being updated as we speak with related information.
I have invited you to think. Now I will challenge you to participate by commenting and engaging in discourse on this as well as my other blog sites.
Blessed Be and Be Well
Love, Victoria
We listened to too many lies and we bought the ones that sounded the most delightful, and paid for them with credit.
We: we as individuals, we as voters, we as ‘we the people,’ and we as one country amongst a world of countries many of whom have participated in this same contagion of greed, entitlement, credit and debt.
I am no political or financial authority, but having received nothing but lies and mistakes from those who are political and financial authorities, I must don my own hat of responsibility and decide what is real and what is not.
These are my views.
The stage was set by a strengthening of federalism. People being what they are, we seemed to have needed federalism to protect against feudalism. Our sovereign States have, bit by bit, given up pieces of their sovereignty over the years and ‘States Rights’ is a term no longer heard.
Instead of localized feudal states, what we have become is a generalized federal feudalism that has set our Constitution on the shelf as a mere artifact and has taken the three sanctioned branches of government and subversively created three additional branches, constructed of greed, by greed, and for greed: of the few, by the few, and for the few. Branch number four is the Media, number five, Big Business Corporations.
In collusion with Big Business, is number six: the Central Bank, ie: The Federal Reserve Bank which has the ultimate power to ring the life blood from your working day, your inheritance, even your sanity, if you let it.
The true role of the United States Government is simple: To provide for the common defense, to construct and maintain ports of entry while securing our borders, to provide for essential services such as roads, bridges, schools (and other elements of our infrastructure), maintain our standing armed forces, conduct beneficent diplomatic relations with other nations of the world in a fiduciary manner for the benefit of our citizenry and the moral obligations of brotherhood, and to ensure domestic tranquility.
It was not designed to become a regulatory body, nor a self-serving entitlement program for elected elitists.
That we were founded as ‘One Nation Under God, With Liberty and Justice For All’, includes in it the given obligation to provide for these services with the guidance of the Ten Commandments, The Golden Rule, and The Beatitudes as the over riding inspiration: the heartbeat.
It may be in our best interest for the government to provide oversight for other essential services such as water quality and safe delivery of fuel and electricity, but it is counterproductive to prohibit safe development of alternative sources for any of the above.
Due to the greed of the giant corporations, a beneficent government would prohibit out-sourcing of American jobs, but were it not for the desire to avoid fees, constrictions of bureaucratic expense for employers and other disincentives, employers would not wish to incur the expense of outsourcing.
Giving corporations the status of a citizen entity with the rights of protection from the results of misconduct, not to mention tax breaks, has been contributory to our economic downfall in a very large measure, both for the country as a whole and to the financial woes of Us, the People.
I’m not clear on the historical names and dates, on who did what and which conspiracy theory is the real one, however, it is apparent to me that it is simply another phase of a very long-going condition begun with the rise of royalty and feudalism in the very earliest phases of human civilization.
Okay, now you think I’m sounding like a real wack job, if you didn’t think so before. In the words of what’s his name in a movie from the 90’s, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
I invite you to give this some serious thought. If you do much reading, if you took some history courses that were more than ‘Columbus in 1492’ then I double-dog-dare you to truly think about how things have changed and how in very real and fundamental ways they have remained the same.
At this point I have written 725 words on this topic. I have more to say. I am told I should always write blog posts of less than 500 words.
I would hope that my readers have the mental capacity and attention span to read more than 500 words. I often read as many as five books a week.
The sister blogs: Just Enough, and 100 Things We Can Do to Fix Our Mess are being updated as we speak with related information.
I have invited you to think. Now I will challenge you to participate by commenting and engaging in discourse on this as well as my other blog sites.
Blessed Be and Be Well
Love, Victoria
Friday, November 26, 2010
Some Thoughts on Black Friday (It's All Too Much # 9)
Well, here it is again: another ‘Black Friday.’ It was only a couple of years ago that I learned the meaning of the term. Nothing particularly dire about it. Nothing dark and ominous. It is simply the one day of the year when retailers hope to be operating in the black, or to finally achieve some profit for the year.
That is a sad commentary on our economy.
It indicates to me that even though employees are paid pitiful wages in the retail business, the companies are not operating in a manner conducive to profit-making. Their overheads are too high, Their stock is misjudged, their inventory is too deep or too broad. Their advertising is too expensive and too ineffective. And they have completely misunderstood their demographic and not made proper decisions based on economic variables. They struggle through greed, trying to get ahead of everyone else: competing with other stores that may have a better edge due to capitalization, smaller debt, wiser choices, happier staff or even just a frugal business plan.
Too much. Too much. Too much.
Packing hundreds of miles of shelves with merchandise that is unnecessary and poorly made, not to mention technologically obsolete even before it is displayed is a very good way to fail in business.
Waste Waste Waste.
Excessive packaging: Hard to open plastic is sometimes even dangerous to open. Several times I have cut myself, not on knife or scissor trying to force my way into a purchase, but on the plastic packaging itself. Why is it like that? Who thought it would be a good idea to package products that way?
The inventory in many stores reminds me of the adage about if you throw enough s--t at the wall, some of it is sure to stick. Waste is built in to the system of our economy. Where I work, we receive hundreds more newspapers and magazines than we could ever hope to sell in the allotted time. They are discarded. In most bookstores, paperback books that do not sell after a time are stripped of their covers and put in the trash, same as the unpurchased magazines. Nothing is donated to schools, prisons, libraries, retirement homes or homeless shelters. Why not? Greed. If it isn’t purchased, then they do not want anyone to have it.
Grocery stores throw away tons of food, including meat, on a daily and weekly basis. Do they offer it to those who know what to do with something that may be past its prime? No. Do they donate wilted produce to bunny rescue organizations? No. Do they buy too much product with expiration dates that could never be sold before the dreaded date comes around? Does anyone realize that expired cold medicine and aspirin are not harmful? It is only marginally less effective (maybe.) There are times when expiration dates are helpful. On other items, the dates are simply designed to get you to throw out the product and run out and buy more.
The economic system we have is failing us from the top down and from the bottom up. Buy or save? Spend or invest? Tithe? Or bury it in the backyard? Time to re-think what we, as individuals, are doing and what we can do to change this damaged system. It may be time to stop patching it and re-inflating the bald tires. It may be time to work together to develop a new economy. I think it would look different than any we may have seen on Earth in thousands of years. I think it might be one based in the heart and then the mind instead of the other way around.
Economy is made up of four factors that I know of: time; a medium of exchange; product; and a need for a product. Beyond that, what humanity does to make exchanges of goods and services is the variable factor in designing an economic system.
I would like for my readers to enter into a discourse on this topic and kick around some ideas on what might work, how something fresh could look and how it might be put into place. Any takers?
That is a sad commentary on our economy.
It indicates to me that even though employees are paid pitiful wages in the retail business, the companies are not operating in a manner conducive to profit-making. Their overheads are too high, Their stock is misjudged, their inventory is too deep or too broad. Their advertising is too expensive and too ineffective. And they have completely misunderstood their demographic and not made proper decisions based on economic variables. They struggle through greed, trying to get ahead of everyone else: competing with other stores that may have a better edge due to capitalization, smaller debt, wiser choices, happier staff or even just a frugal business plan.
Too much. Too much. Too much.
Packing hundreds of miles of shelves with merchandise that is unnecessary and poorly made, not to mention technologically obsolete even before it is displayed is a very good way to fail in business.
Waste Waste Waste.
Excessive packaging: Hard to open plastic is sometimes even dangerous to open. Several times I have cut myself, not on knife or scissor trying to force my way into a purchase, but on the plastic packaging itself. Why is it like that? Who thought it would be a good idea to package products that way?
The inventory in many stores reminds me of the adage about if you throw enough s--t at the wall, some of it is sure to stick. Waste is built in to the system of our economy. Where I work, we receive hundreds more newspapers and magazines than we could ever hope to sell in the allotted time. They are discarded. In most bookstores, paperback books that do not sell after a time are stripped of their covers and put in the trash, same as the unpurchased magazines. Nothing is donated to schools, prisons, libraries, retirement homes or homeless shelters. Why not? Greed. If it isn’t purchased, then they do not want anyone to have it.
Grocery stores throw away tons of food, including meat, on a daily and weekly basis. Do they offer it to those who know what to do with something that may be past its prime? No. Do they donate wilted produce to bunny rescue organizations? No. Do they buy too much product with expiration dates that could never be sold before the dreaded date comes around? Does anyone realize that expired cold medicine and aspirin are not harmful? It is only marginally less effective (maybe.) There are times when expiration dates are helpful. On other items, the dates are simply designed to get you to throw out the product and run out and buy more.
The economic system we have is failing us from the top down and from the bottom up. Buy or save? Spend or invest? Tithe? Or bury it in the backyard? Time to re-think what we, as individuals, are doing and what we can do to change this damaged system. It may be time to stop patching it and re-inflating the bald tires. It may be time to work together to develop a new economy. I think it would look different than any we may have seen on Earth in thousands of years. I think it might be one based in the heart and then the mind instead of the other way around.
Economy is made up of four factors that I know of: time; a medium of exchange; product; and a need for a product. Beyond that, what humanity does to make exchanges of goods and services is the variable factor in designing an economic system.
I would like for my readers to enter into a discourse on this topic and kick around some ideas on what might work, how something fresh could look and how it might be put into place. Any takers?
Saturday, October 23, 2010
DESPOILING THE SACRED (It's All Too Much # 8)
DESPOILING THE SACRED:
How Much Paper? A Bit Too Much Perhaps?
As I drive around or look out my front windows and view the lovely array of trees growing here in central Tennessee, I try to imagine the vastness of leaves in the world. How many leaves on that tree? Or this one? How many leaves are there on the average tree, if there is such a thing? For statistical purposes, I suppose an arborist or botanist could come up with a figure. Then there would be a separate figure for the number of needles on a pine… I boggle my mind with these thoughts… How many leaves are there in the world?
And yet, with the rain forests and other woodlands disappearing to the blades of the timber industry and the bulldozers of developers, how many have been lost? How many trees, how many leaves, how much potential for oxygen production and CO2 absorption?
Breathe deeply. It is necessary to breathe more deeply to accommodate the thinner mix we are left with. The same could be said for the kelp beds which in some areas of the seas have become sadly endangered.
How many pieces of paper are there in the world? Perhaps as many as the current leaf population. Such conjecture is unfounded and unprovable, yet it is food for thought.
If every American must deal with the same amount of paper in their lives as that which pours into my life from assorted sources, then the number would be incomprehensible to me. My unfounded guess is that not very many other countries would use the same per capita volume of paper each day, week, month or year as here in America.
“Oops! That’s a bad copy. Let me make another.” “Oh goody! Another envelope from Publisher’s Clearing House.” Every single EOB form from my insurance company sends with it a sheet of paper telling how to file a disagreement. It is the same thing each time, and also, if three EOBs come in the same envelope(good they are saving envelops and postage) they still send three of those crazy repetitive complaint forms with it.
Sell a house. Buy a house. The stacks of papers to sign is nearly six inches thick. How thick is the Obama Health Care Plan and how many copies have been printed?
Where I work we sell newspapers, among other things. On average, we sell about thirty copies of a given newspaper per day. They bring us ninety. Why? Then they pick up the leftovers. Someone said they recycle them into cellulose insulation or something. Why print all those extras in the first place?
Paperback books. Same story.
We despoil the sacred trees in an arboristic form of mass genocide, then we make paper, which we despoil with inanities and annoyances. When the used paper is not recycled, then even more trees are cut to grind into pulp for the creation of yet more paper products which will largely go unused, wasted or soiled and spoiled.
Do we not know that paper, because of its sources and the Source of its sources, is a sacred thing?
Worthy endeavors are worth the use of paper. Art, literature, currency*, first editions of new books and reprints of old classics, library books, reference, research and text books, wallpaper, stationary, greeting cards, and personal notes can all be deemed worthy uses of paper. I’m sure there are others.
But, overruns of mass market paperbacks, overruns of newspapers and magazines, excessive and unnecessary packaging materials** advertising junk mail and duplicates of duplicates in corporate cube farms are a sad, sad waste of paper… of trees.
The First Amendment to our Constitution of the United States declares most rightly, that we all have the right of free speech. That does not guarantee us the right to be wasteful. Some discretion must be used in publishing, advertising, the business world and government.
The written word is powerful and wonderful, and as a writer, I am fully supportive of writing in all avenues of endeavor. I do believe, however, that all industries from advertising to publishing to law and government, should take it upon themselves to plant a tree or donate to the Arbor Day Foundation for every ream of paper they consume. And I support the immediate cessation of any and all cutting of old-growth forests.
The planting needs to happen where things have already been cut, and not used to justify fresh cutting. Tree farms will be sufficient for the building and papermill industries. If that makes prices of paper and wood go up a little bit, then so be it. The price of a magazine will increase, but it will not matter because those who want to read it will do so anyway.
*I am surprised by how many people disrespect even the money they carry with them. So many times the money I take at the cash register at work is not only filthy, but is handed to me wadded up and crumpled like so much used toilet paper, or folded and refolded and drawn and written on. If we can respect the money that represents our abundance and livelihood, then what do we respect?
**Paper packaging is wasteful, but plastic packaging is another whole subject for another day!
How Much Paper? A Bit Too Much Perhaps?
As I drive around or look out my front windows and view the lovely array of trees growing here in central Tennessee, I try to imagine the vastness of leaves in the world. How many leaves on that tree? Or this one? How many leaves are there on the average tree, if there is such a thing? For statistical purposes, I suppose an arborist or botanist could come up with a figure. Then there would be a separate figure for the number of needles on a pine… I boggle my mind with these thoughts… How many leaves are there in the world?
And yet, with the rain forests and other woodlands disappearing to the blades of the timber industry and the bulldozers of developers, how many have been lost? How many trees, how many leaves, how much potential for oxygen production and CO2 absorption?
Breathe deeply. It is necessary to breathe more deeply to accommodate the thinner mix we are left with. The same could be said for the kelp beds which in some areas of the seas have become sadly endangered.
How many pieces of paper are there in the world? Perhaps as many as the current leaf population. Such conjecture is unfounded and unprovable, yet it is food for thought.
If every American must deal with the same amount of paper in their lives as that which pours into my life from assorted sources, then the number would be incomprehensible to me. My unfounded guess is that not very many other countries would use the same per capita volume of paper each day, week, month or year as here in America.
“Oops! That’s a bad copy. Let me make another.” “Oh goody! Another envelope from Publisher’s Clearing House.” Every single EOB form from my insurance company sends with it a sheet of paper telling how to file a disagreement. It is the same thing each time, and also, if three EOBs come in the same envelope(good they are saving envelops and postage) they still send three of those crazy repetitive complaint forms with it.
Sell a house. Buy a house. The stacks of papers to sign is nearly six inches thick. How thick is the Obama Health Care Plan and how many copies have been printed?
Where I work we sell newspapers, among other things. On average, we sell about thirty copies of a given newspaper per day. They bring us ninety. Why? Then they pick up the leftovers. Someone said they recycle them into cellulose insulation or something. Why print all those extras in the first place?
Paperback books. Same story.
We despoil the sacred trees in an arboristic form of mass genocide, then we make paper, which we despoil with inanities and annoyances. When the used paper is not recycled, then even more trees are cut to grind into pulp for the creation of yet more paper products which will largely go unused, wasted or soiled and spoiled.
Do we not know that paper, because of its sources and the Source of its sources, is a sacred thing?
Worthy endeavors are worth the use of paper. Art, literature, currency*, first editions of new books and reprints of old classics, library books, reference, research and text books, wallpaper, stationary, greeting cards, and personal notes can all be deemed worthy uses of paper. I’m sure there are others.
But, overruns of mass market paperbacks, overruns of newspapers and magazines, excessive and unnecessary packaging materials** advertising junk mail and duplicates of duplicates in corporate cube farms are a sad, sad waste of paper… of trees.
The First Amendment to our Constitution of the United States declares most rightly, that we all have the right of free speech. That does not guarantee us the right to be wasteful. Some discretion must be used in publishing, advertising, the business world and government.
The written word is powerful and wonderful, and as a writer, I am fully supportive of writing in all avenues of endeavor. I do believe, however, that all industries from advertising to publishing to law and government, should take it upon themselves to plant a tree or donate to the Arbor Day Foundation for every ream of paper they consume. And I support the immediate cessation of any and all cutting of old-growth forests.
The planting needs to happen where things have already been cut, and not used to justify fresh cutting. Tree farms will be sufficient for the building and papermill industries. If that makes prices of paper and wood go up a little bit, then so be it. The price of a magazine will increase, but it will not matter because those who want to read it will do so anyway.
*I am surprised by how many people disrespect even the money they carry with them. So many times the money I take at the cash register at work is not only filthy, but is handed to me wadded up and crumpled like so much used toilet paper, or folded and refolded and drawn and written on. If we can respect the money that represents our abundance and livelihood, then what do we respect?
**Paper packaging is wasteful, but plastic packaging is another whole subject for another day!
Monday, October 11, 2010
# 7: STUFF, STUFFING, AND DESTUFFING OUR LIVES
Issue #7 A Harsh Look at Stuff
It’s All Too Much, Isn’t It?
Nearly everyone I know has or has had too much stuff in their lives. We accumulate stuff for various reasons, such as fear and insecurity, loneliness, guilt, or boredom. I’ll bet you can think of a few other reasons. Sometimes it seems there was no reason at all. The stuff just slowly appeared.
I got out of college and I had some clothes, a foot locker, a few dishes, a hot plate and a couple of pans. I had some stuffed animals, a couple decks of cards, a dice game, and some books, some toiletries and sheets, towels and a couple of blankets. It all fit nicely into my ’68 Chevy BelAire.
The guy I had met in college had a kitchen in his Des Moines apartment that was set up by his mother, a real Joy of Cooking aficionado… her, not her son. So most cooking we did was at his place.
I moved to Boone and took a job as a news journalist, weekend editor, feature writer, etc. In taking the job, I also took the apartment of the fellow whose job I wound up with. With the apartment, came a coffee table and a wire cage containing two gerbils.
My guy followed me to Boone and got a place across town and a couple of jobs.
I got a ring.
We got a place together. And a tank of fish. And some furniture.
We got married and received tons of stuff, including an antique cherry drop leaf table.
There were souvenirs of the wedding and souvenirs of the honeymoon. The stuff accumulated.
We moved when he became a cop. More stuff appeared: guns, targets, more clothes, a constant influx of books. And a dog, my dog: Fluffy was pregnant, so we took her from my parents to make a good home for her.
We got kicked out for smuggling a dog in and out of the window of the apartment, so we rented a house: three bedrooms, 928 square feet. Soon, it was all full. Of course the puppies had arrived and accoutrements began to collect. Bowls, toys, beds, blankies, and oh yes, somewhere along the way a second pair of gerbils had joined our household.
So fish, a wayward snail named Speedy, four gerbils, three dogs and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, not actually, but there was a parakeet for a short time. He was a real screamer. The bird soon went to live with another policeman who raised parakeets. Owlie turned out to be quite a little egg layer, and was soon a mother. I guess he was a she. A brief experience with a kitten shocked us into realizing that vertical surfaces were fair game and the kitten went to live with a cat lady.
Stuff. We sold a lot of stuff before moving to Florida. A small rental house awaited us. Then a move to a bigger rental we shared with a friend. Then she bought a duplex. We rented half. We got a windfall and were informed we had to spend it on a house of our own. (bad advice from an accountant) 900 square feet or so had always seemed about right, even though it may have grown a bit cramped with stuff.
So we built a new house. 3,660 square feet is just about four times larger than what we were accustomed to. So what did we do? We promptly began to fill it with stuff. The stuff we had did not begin to fill it up. We had to get more stuff. And so we did.
Too much stuff. And now, post-divorce, and no longer in Florida, I find myself with enough stuff to supply maybe 3 large families with adequate stuff. Garage sale-ing has been a slow way to divest myself of stuff. Many more weekends shall be taken up by baring my retail soul to the passing public. I’m Craigslisting also, and thinking of giving Half.com a try.
The goal: Freedom through simplicity. Eventually I will spend much less time and money maintaining and warehousing stuff. This house, which is on the market, is about 2800 square feet. It’s full, but the dogs and I only live in three rooms of it: kitchen, bedroom, and ‘dog den,’ plus the bathrooms. Oh yeah, Munchie eats in a wee corner of the dining room to keep him from fighting with the others. Mealtime crating could also solve that issue. The rest of it is storage for furniture, books and miscellanea.
Having lost three of my six dogs this past year or so, I see clearly how having TOO MUCH in the way of pets can really complicate your life. I miss Tucker, Bob and Sierra fiercely, but know now that three is my absolute limit for sane living. Eventually it will be two and I do not intend to go beyond that.
In my garage sale, I have a number of purses for sale. Almost new, they are the result of choices based on color more than anything else. Are they cute? Damn straight they’re cute. Useful? Not so much. To me, a soft-sided purse is a collapsing star. You put something in it and the black hole enfolds itself over the item and you may never see it again, unless it is ejected by some cosmic mishap, like a spillage. It makes a nice show but you wouldn’t want to live there.
I stumbled across a web site earlier today that promised the ultimate in bags. Every single bag I looked at had some issue taking it out of the running for me. (except one, but I won’t get it due to the aforementioned financial difficulties). Anyhow, there were thousands. I do not know how many thousands, but certainly the styles and designers outnumber the population of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
Point? Too many choices. In many cases the distinguishing characteristics amounted to nothing but variations in the shape and amount of bling. Why are so many resources used to make so many worthless purses? It is a competition based fundamentally on greed, I think. The creativity that has been spent on the various designs only makes them different enough to not be copies of basic patterns. It’s All Too Much!
Point? I think perhaps I will decorate an empty paint bucket and carry my stuff in that. It’s the right size. It’s got a sturdy handle, and hard sides to keep it from collapsing. I’d rather it were rectangular instead of round, but hey, sometimes our choices are not perfect even when they are the best at the time.
So, here’s the deal.
I am in this uncomfortable financial, emotional and physical situation because of the choices I have made. I have chosen to seek security in the accumulation of stuff. What I have found instead of security, is enslavement.
As goes the individual, so goes the nation. Who said that? Not sure, but it is demonstrated to be true over and over again. We as individuals have overspent ourselves into various levels of personal financial crisis. America has overspent itself into a state of unprecedented and perilous financial crisis.
As I work to excavate myself from this dark pit of debt, I pray that America will begin to follow suit.
Let’s save America one individual at a time. Join me in my quest for debt free, low impact living.
My first step has been to stop all spending. Now I only buy gasoline, food, and replacement clothing for work. Okay, confession time, the hardest thing to give up has been buying books and, I’m tapering off rapidly. The only books I’ve purchased recently were used books, for mere pennies. But I’ve taken a lesson from several of my bookstore browsers (cannot call them customers since they do not buy, only browse). I use my cell phone to take shots of books that I want. It’s like a cooling off period. If I’m still really interested in the book, I can borrow it at a library or get it used for pennies. Meanwhile, I no longer whip out the credit card, and I also leave the debit card tucked away safely.
Converting to a cash-only basis is a challenging adjustment, but I was surprised to find that it actually feels good.
Some contend that ceasing spending will further ruin the economy. I agree it will have impact, but I think it should be looked at as a transformation rather than a ruination. The future will be different than the present. We know that. It’s a given. And that is a topic for another issue.
Be Well
Victoria
It’s All Too Much, Isn’t It?
Nearly everyone I know has or has had too much stuff in their lives. We accumulate stuff for various reasons, such as fear and insecurity, loneliness, guilt, or boredom. I’ll bet you can think of a few other reasons. Sometimes it seems there was no reason at all. The stuff just slowly appeared.
I got out of college and I had some clothes, a foot locker, a few dishes, a hot plate and a couple of pans. I had some stuffed animals, a couple decks of cards, a dice game, and some books, some toiletries and sheets, towels and a couple of blankets. It all fit nicely into my ’68 Chevy BelAire.
The guy I had met in college had a kitchen in his Des Moines apartment that was set up by his mother, a real Joy of Cooking aficionado… her, not her son. So most cooking we did was at his place.
I moved to Boone and took a job as a news journalist, weekend editor, feature writer, etc. In taking the job, I also took the apartment of the fellow whose job I wound up with. With the apartment, came a coffee table and a wire cage containing two gerbils.
My guy followed me to Boone and got a place across town and a couple of jobs.
I got a ring.
We got a place together. And a tank of fish. And some furniture.
We got married and received tons of stuff, including an antique cherry drop leaf table.
There were souvenirs of the wedding and souvenirs of the honeymoon. The stuff accumulated.
We moved when he became a cop. More stuff appeared: guns, targets, more clothes, a constant influx of books. And a dog, my dog: Fluffy was pregnant, so we took her from my parents to make a good home for her.
We got kicked out for smuggling a dog in and out of the window of the apartment, so we rented a house: three bedrooms, 928 square feet. Soon, it was all full. Of course the puppies had arrived and accoutrements began to collect. Bowls, toys, beds, blankies, and oh yes, somewhere along the way a second pair of gerbils had joined our household.
So fish, a wayward snail named Speedy, four gerbils, three dogs and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, not actually, but there was a parakeet for a short time. He was a real screamer. The bird soon went to live with another policeman who raised parakeets. Owlie turned out to be quite a little egg layer, and was soon a mother. I guess he was a she. A brief experience with a kitten shocked us into realizing that vertical surfaces were fair game and the kitten went to live with a cat lady.
Stuff. We sold a lot of stuff before moving to Florida. A small rental house awaited us. Then a move to a bigger rental we shared with a friend. Then she bought a duplex. We rented half. We got a windfall and were informed we had to spend it on a house of our own. (bad advice from an accountant) 900 square feet or so had always seemed about right, even though it may have grown a bit cramped with stuff.
So we built a new house. 3,660 square feet is just about four times larger than what we were accustomed to. So what did we do? We promptly began to fill it with stuff. The stuff we had did not begin to fill it up. We had to get more stuff. And so we did.
Too much stuff. And now, post-divorce, and no longer in Florida, I find myself with enough stuff to supply maybe 3 large families with adequate stuff. Garage sale-ing has been a slow way to divest myself of stuff. Many more weekends shall be taken up by baring my retail soul to the passing public. I’m Craigslisting also, and thinking of giving Half.com a try.
The goal: Freedom through simplicity. Eventually I will spend much less time and money maintaining and warehousing stuff. This house, which is on the market, is about 2800 square feet. It’s full, but the dogs and I only live in three rooms of it: kitchen, bedroom, and ‘dog den,’ plus the bathrooms. Oh yeah, Munchie eats in a wee corner of the dining room to keep him from fighting with the others. Mealtime crating could also solve that issue. The rest of it is storage for furniture, books and miscellanea.
Having lost three of my six dogs this past year or so, I see clearly how having TOO MUCH in the way of pets can really complicate your life. I miss Tucker, Bob and Sierra fiercely, but know now that three is my absolute limit for sane living. Eventually it will be two and I do not intend to go beyond that.
In my garage sale, I have a number of purses for sale. Almost new, they are the result of choices based on color more than anything else. Are they cute? Damn straight they’re cute. Useful? Not so much. To me, a soft-sided purse is a collapsing star. You put something in it and the black hole enfolds itself over the item and you may never see it again, unless it is ejected by some cosmic mishap, like a spillage. It makes a nice show but you wouldn’t want to live there.
I stumbled across a web site earlier today that promised the ultimate in bags. Every single bag I looked at had some issue taking it out of the running for me. (except one, but I won’t get it due to the aforementioned financial difficulties). Anyhow, there were thousands. I do not know how many thousands, but certainly the styles and designers outnumber the population of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
Point? Too many choices. In many cases the distinguishing characteristics amounted to nothing but variations in the shape and amount of bling. Why are so many resources used to make so many worthless purses? It is a competition based fundamentally on greed, I think. The creativity that has been spent on the various designs only makes them different enough to not be copies of basic patterns. It’s All Too Much!
Point? I think perhaps I will decorate an empty paint bucket and carry my stuff in that. It’s the right size. It’s got a sturdy handle, and hard sides to keep it from collapsing. I’d rather it were rectangular instead of round, but hey, sometimes our choices are not perfect even when they are the best at the time.
So, here’s the deal.
I am in this uncomfortable financial, emotional and physical situation because of the choices I have made. I have chosen to seek security in the accumulation of stuff. What I have found instead of security, is enslavement.
As goes the individual, so goes the nation. Who said that? Not sure, but it is demonstrated to be true over and over again. We as individuals have overspent ourselves into various levels of personal financial crisis. America has overspent itself into a state of unprecedented and perilous financial crisis.
As I work to excavate myself from this dark pit of debt, I pray that America will begin to follow suit.
Let’s save America one individual at a time. Join me in my quest for debt free, low impact living.
My first step has been to stop all spending. Now I only buy gasoline, food, and replacement clothing for work. Okay, confession time, the hardest thing to give up has been buying books and, I’m tapering off rapidly. The only books I’ve purchased recently were used books, for mere pennies. But I’ve taken a lesson from several of my bookstore browsers (cannot call them customers since they do not buy, only browse). I use my cell phone to take shots of books that I want. It’s like a cooling off period. If I’m still really interested in the book, I can borrow it at a library or get it used for pennies. Meanwhile, I no longer whip out the credit card, and I also leave the debit card tucked away safely.
Converting to a cash-only basis is a challenging adjustment, but I was surprised to find that it actually feels good.
Some contend that ceasing spending will further ruin the economy. I agree it will have impact, but I think it should be looked at as a transformation rather than a ruination. The future will be different than the present. We know that. It’s a given. And that is a topic for another issue.
Be Well
Victoria
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