What I'm Grateful For

(Feeling grateful even for small harvests)

This month my Facebook newsfeed has been full of people posting their 30 Days of Gratitude.  I blogged my 30 Days of Gratitude last year.  But this year, I decided not to participate.

It's not that I'm against feeling grateful.  I'm not ... we should reflect on what we are grateful for and as a mindfulness practice I find it very helpful.  I think we should pause to note the abundance that we already have, especially in the season of harvest and before we hit Consumer-Christmas.

But, at the same time, the public naming of gratitude has a bit of the image-crafting problems that Facebook has brought into our online culture.  Although I'm sure folks are usually just being genuine with their gratitude, the over-all effect of everyone listing all the things they are grateful for is ... a bit braggy.  A bit off-putting.

Maybe it's just that, as Americans, we can turn even the 30 Days of Gratitude into a competition.

I found this quote in a book I'm reading right now:

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy: but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

--Charles de Montesquieu

When we edit our lives to highlight the best parts, we are projecting a fake life for all to see and admire.  It's something most people do all the time, and I do not believe it to be malicious.  It may even be appropriate to a large extent - airing our dirty laundry or complaining on the internet all the time would be a bit of a drag and show inappropriate boundaries.  But still .... cumulatively we are all guilty of raising the bar of expectations so high that now we can all feel like failures.  Cumulatively, mind, so please don't feel bad individually.

So, I'd like to say this about my own gratitude:

• I am so grateful for the blessings I have received, which are many.
• I love my family very much.
• I can lose sight of my blessings when I think of all I want or all I should do.
• It really is true, that it's not having what you want, but wanting what you have. 

I wish all a joyous and gratitude-filled Thanksgiving.  

Patching Things Up

Stuff is breaking here at home: the dishwasher has been past using for 3 months now, our desktop computer broke this month, the dryer broke, and the well house sprung a leak and needed a new bump tank and all new piping.  Our major maintenance reserve fund wasn't large enough to deal with all of that at once, so I'm living without a dryer or a dishwasher.  That makes daily laundry and dishes a much larger chore than they were before.  But my priority is to rebuild that major maintenance reserve, so no big purchases for me for the foreseeable future.  Sigh.

It's also the time of year when the focus shifts from the outside to the indoors, and we spend these cold wet months on chores and mending that were neglected while the sun did shine.  My task for the last two weeks has been mending quilts.  Patching them, to be precise, as the holes had become so bad my fingers were punching through the quilts when I tried to fold them.

The quilt pictured above was sewn by hand by my great grandmother, and came down to me when my great uncle's home was being cleared out as he moved to a retirement community.  It's not a lovely quilt, but just a practical 9-patch made out of old clothes and backed with a weird green color.  My mom tells me that great-grandma worked as a seamstress at a department store, long before most women worked, and would sometimes get to bring home unwanted "throw away" fabric.  That green fabric might have been unwanted (the color points that way).

I've had the quilt for a few years now, and we use it.  We don't store it away, or display it: it's a practical quilt so we use it.  And now that it's wearing out, I'm sewing patches on it. Not fancy patches - just the bits of our worn out clothing and the scraps that I have in my "re-use/upcycle" basket.  I hope my great-grandmother would approve.

She was a practical woman who raised 11 younger siblings and lived through the Great Depression, after-all - a pretty awesome role-model for trying to live a practical and thrifty life.

Weekly Book Post (Zero Waste Home and Blessing of a Skinned Knee)

This week I've read Zero Waste Home and The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.  (Also Models of Teaching but I won't bother to review that).

Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste by Bea Johnson tells the personal story of how Johnson's family went from the typical American Dream lifestyle to a massive downsizing and as close to Zero Waste (and they get pretty close!) as they can get.  Johnson then goes through area by area of your life and gives practical tips on how to bring that area down to Zero Waste.  This begins with her general Five Steps: Refuse (what you do not need or want), Reduce (what you do need), Reuse (everything you can), Recycle (what you just couldn't reduce or reuse), and Rot (everything else).  It's a good book, and a compelling challenge.  I'll be posting more about my efforts to reduce my waste soon!

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. is a breath of fresh air for me in the pile of parenting books out there.  Mogel is a clinical psychologist and teaches parenting classes, rooting her philosophy in Jewish Teachings.  This isn't a How-To for getting your kids to sleep through the night, or research on how to increase test scores.  Rather, Mogel focuses on reframing our view of the world, our lives, and our families.

A quote from the book:

"Unsure how to find grace and security in the complex world we've inherited, we try to fill up the spaces in our children's lives with stuff: birthday entertainments, lessons, rooms full of toys and equipment, tutors and therapists.  But material pleasures can't buy peace of mind, and all the excess leads to more anxiety - parents fear that their children will not be able to sustain this rarefied lifestyle and will fall off the mountain parents have built for them."

Mogel lays out "Blessings" that can counter this problem:

The Blessing of Acceptance

The Blessing of Having Someone to Look Up To

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

The Blessing of Longing

The Blessing of Work

The Blessing of Food

The Blessing of Self-Control

The Blessing of Time

The Blessing of Faith and Tradition

I like the book very much, and am adding it to my "Must Have Parenting Books" shelf!

The Consumption Cycle

I decided to do a "Buy Nothing New" year (just personally; my husband and kids didn't want to join me) in 2013 (confession time: I have "cheated" and bought a new pair of shorts and a new sundress for my vacation, and half-cheated by giving my husband such strong hints about my desire for new slippers that he bought me a pair), and I've also been very moved by the Bangladeshi factory collapse to look more closely at where our stuff comes from.  Consumption and "stuff" just seems to happen in our culture, far too easily.

But what to do when your daughter's favorite pair of shoes looks like this?  I really wanted to throw these out and get her some new shoes (that she would actually wear).  Finding fair trade or Made in the USA shoes for kids (that she would like and wear) turned out to be very difficult.



Trips to the local thrift shops turned up nothing.  Research into shoe companies that at least tried to be ethical in some way led me to lean toward Keens or Toms as being slightly better options (although not perfect).  I finally ended up getting her a pair of used Toms on ebay, and then she was willing to throw away these old purple shoes.  Although I hate to add things to the land fill, these were beyond repair or repurposing that I could think of.

We also sorted through her clothing, and filled two large bags for donation with stuff she has outgrown.  Some of that was replaced when I went to the 50% off sale at the Value Village, and came home with three bags of clothing for the four of us.  I feel pretty good about the thrift store cycling of clothing.

But sometimes things can't just keep going around and around forever.  I had a sweater that I bought from the thrift store for myself two or three years ago, and it has seen pretty heavy wear in the last few years because I liked it a lot.  Now it is just worn out, too misshapen and thread bare in places to go back to the thrift store for another go-around.




But before I threw it away I snipped off the buttons and added them to my button box, and I salvaged two hats out of it.

I used another hat as a pattern (another hat I made a few years ago also from an old sweater).



And just cut around it, then stitch right-sides together.  Easy as can be.




"Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without".  I'm trying.

Simplifying a bit

Partly because of a need to make budget adjustments (classes and camps and all that can get expensive) we are simplifying our plans.  We're quitting the Homeschool PE class we've done for almost two years now, which is four hours a week.  The Homeschool Art and Science workshops at the local Children's Museum that we thought we would take have been canceled due to low enrollment, so that made the choice easier for us.  And we're drawing the line at the summer camps I've already sent deposits in for, and we will not sign up for the Puppetry and Animators camps the kids had wanted to do.

On the one hand, the kids were a bit disappointed to not do some of these things.  On the other hand they took it well and were very mature about the fact that we just have to make some choices and stick within our budget and time constraints.

And it occurs to me that this opens up more time to just be at home.  Or to go off and have adventures on our own without rushing and scheduling.  Four hours a week indoors in a gym and pool or four hours to go on nature hikes or to museums?  Of course, it is easier to make this choice in the summer months when the weather is nice. :)

Still, I think this is going to be good for us.  A bit more breathing space in our lives.  Simple is so often the way to go.



(Pictures: the kind of fun we can have in our own backyard without going anywhere or spending any money.)

Does this Outfit Make Me Look Heartless?

Like many others, I have been horrified by the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh last week - with a death toll now over 300 people.  I saw a political cartoon this week, which I now cannot find again, that showed a woman holding up a garment to herself in a department store and saying "does this make me look like I'm oblivious to global working conditions?"  I'm just horrified that the real price for our cheap and semi-disposable clothing is being paid by low-wage and high-risk workers in poor nations.

I decided to do a little look through our clothing to try and figure out where most of it was made.  These two piles of my children's clothing are pretty typical: a mix of one homemade item, a few gifts, a few hand-me-downs, lots of stuff bought in thrift shops or on ebay, and a few things bought new from Lands End or Costco.  They were made in:

The Philippines
Sri Lanka
Bangladesh
Korea
India
Honduras
China
Vietnam
Cambodia
My homemade item that was made right here
and one item said "Made in the USA"

I can't personally travel to all these places to see how workers are treated in each country, but I tried googling it to get an idea.  It was actually very difficult to get any sort of information, other than a disquieting sense that, no, it's not good in any poor nation with minimal government regulations.

So what to do?  I'll keep doing some of what I have been doing anyway (for other reasons).

1.  Reduce.  There's a reason it comes first in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra.  Just reducing the amount of clothing that my family purchases and owns is the best step to take for the environment, my wallet, and my laundry load.  It also would mean less contribution to the exploitation of workers.  My grandma used to say "buy quality, not quantity", and she was right.  I'm thinking about the notion of the Minimalist Wardrobe, as well.

2.  Reuse.  A lot of that clothing shown above was purchased used.  (In fact, in those laundry piles only the socks, underwear, two pairs of pants, and one pair of pajamas were purchased new.)  Yes, it was originally made cheaply, but reusing it still is better for the environment, my wallet, and my contribution to worker-exploitation.

3.  Mend what you have, or upcycle it (or when that fails use it as a cloth rag).  When clothing gets worn out around here, I fix it, or it gets upcycled into hats, rugs, quilts, etc.  When all else has been tried, it gets used as a cloth rag.  We don't use any disposable paper products here except toilet paper. However, this post isn't about disposable paper.  But mending and upcycling can extend the lifespan of an article of clothing, thereby reducing the impact to environment, wallet, and worker-exploitation.

4.  Buy Fair Trade.  This would be ideal.  But I've done a bit of internet searching about fair trade options this week and I find them slim for men and almost non-existent for kids.  I can probably dress myself Fairly, but that's partly because in my work setting and living in the Pacific Northwest I can get away with a certain "hippy" look to my fashion.  My favorite Fair Trade sources:

• Maggie's Organics is my usual source for women's socks, tights, and leggings.  My local food co-op carries them, as well as the Fair Trade store in town.
• Mata Traders is a Fair Trade line that is carried in the store in town, and I've purchased two sundresses from them that I'm very happy with.
• Fair Indigo carries a good selection (for women), and I always check them out, although I have yet to purchase anything.
• We're really lucky to have a Fair Trade store in town, that sources from all around the world but can tell you the "story" of every item in the store.  I've bought many things there and will continue to do so (such as Ethletic shoes).

Fair trade is usually better for the environment (most is organic as well as fair trade) and it's definitely better for the workers.  It is NOT better for my wallet.

5.  Buy Made in the USA.  It's really hard to find anything Made in the USA in the box stores.  But there are some websites that specialize, so that is helpful.  A cursory search, however, leaves me with the impression that I'll only be able to buy really basic clothing and stuff more suited to outdoor work or camping.  Which is fine - we need that stuff too - but it won't be a complete source.  Buying USA made is probably not really better for the environment (maybe less factory pollution because of regulations, maybe less energy used to transport it here to me?), but it is better for worker conditions and for our own economy.  Not better on my wallet.

6.  Make it myself.  I enjoy sewing, but this isn't going to become the main source of our wardrobes.  For one thing, I just don't have time.  For another, I can't make some of the stuff we need: socks, underwear, my husband's button-up shirts for work (he's particular), or jeans. And where does the fabric come from?  I like to order from Near Sea Naturals,  but if I only get my fabric there this is once gain Good for the Environment, Good for Workers (well, it's more work for me, but ) But NOT good for my wallet, or my time.

So that is my Six-Point Plan: Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Fair Trade, Buy USA, Make it Myself.  I'm really going to miss my Lands End core wardrobe staples, though.

Earth Day and Every Day

What do we do every day to give back to the Earth?

1.  The Outdoor Hour - something relatively new (and weather dependent) is that I'm requiring my kids to go play outside for one hour a day.  They spend the time doing a variety of things, but mostly they are connecting with our back yard and (I hope) nature.

2.  Green power.  I pay slightly more for our electricity to know that we are getting it from all "green" sources.  It's not perfect - hydro is a big part of our "green power" and dams still effect rivers - but it's a lot better than coal.

3.  Conserve power.  Turn the heat down, only run full loads in cleaning appliances, line dry clothing, turn off stuff you're not using, drive less, consume less stuff (because it used power to make it).

4.  Be careful with the chemicals.  We don't use herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers, and we use simple and safe home cleaning recipes.  I also properly dispose of light bulbs, and we use only rechargeable batteries.

5.  Reduce waste.  When I'm shopping, I try to avoid packaging and trash. I carry my re-usable shopping bags and re-use tubs and bags for produce and bulk bin foods.  I wash out and re-use sandwich bags, bread bags, etc when I do end up with packaging.  I keep a bag of plastic tubs in my car so that when I need a carry-out container from a restaurant I use one of my re-usable ones and not styrofoam.

6.  Buy used.  Buying used books, clothing, and anything else you can saves waste and all the energy that would be used to make something new.

7.  Eat local, organic, and as sustainably as we can.  We're not vegetarians, but we try to eat less meat and to mostly just eat what we raise ourselves.

8.  Support conservation organizations and laws.

9.  Convey an appreciation of nature and ecology to others.

10.  Consider the impact of each action.

It's not perfect, and I still want to improve our impact, but for today this is my love letter to our Mother Earth.

The Buy Nothing New Pledge

I decided to personally (as opposed to talking my whole family into joining me) take the Buy Nothing New pledge for 2013.  My primary motivation is that I think our culture is all about making us consumers, and that there is just too much stuff being produced in an unsustainable and exploitative way.  And yet, we are well-conditioned to keep consuming and I think I need a break to be able to really examine my relationship to consumerism.

So far, it's been a bit harder than I expected.  I actually dream about shopping, about new dresses, new shoes, new purses.  My slippers are wearing out.  I really want a new purse.  And I'm discovering just how much shopping is related to envy, low-self-esteem, and boredom.

These are all good reasons for why I need to stick this out.

But I need to find some time go thrifting soon!

Warning: plenty of explicit language

A New Year

A New Year dawns.  (Actually, this picture is of the sunrise on Monday from my back yard, but today's wasn't nearly as pretty.)

I've been thinking of goals and resolutions for 2013, and I haven't come up with anything too exciting.

• Fiscal Responsibility.  We want to be all out of debt by 2015
• Social and Environmental Care.  I want to be making choices and taking actions that always keep my values in the forefront, rather than reflexively trying to "keep up the with Joneses" or fill time with more distractions.
• Finish my Credentialing Portfolio.  It's due in November for review, so that's a big one for me this year.
• Enjoy my strengths.  I realized recently that I spend a lot of energy shoring up my weaknesses, and trying to be a different person than I naturally am.  Instead, I'd like to enjoy my natural strengths and just be myself.
• A modified version of The Compact (the pledge to buy nothing new for a year).  I personally aim to buy nothing new this year.  But my family isn't joining me in this, and there are loads of exceptions I can already think of, so it's a pretty lax version of the Compact for me. 

We went out to the cabin today and the boys took a quick dip in the chilly Sound.  Diving into the new year!

Post Christmas

In past years, I've felt a big sense of let-down after Christmas.  Once the present-making and giving is done, and the fun of Christmas day is reduced to just one big mess of paper and more "stuff" that I have to find a home for in my home ... I've felt sad and depressed each time.

This year felt a bit different.  There was less frenzy leading up to the big day.  We didn't do everything on my list - we didn't even put out all our decorations.  In some ways I was sad to never get around to having the kids make wreaths - but in other ways it was a relief to just do what we had time for and not to whip myself along at a frenzied pace.

And our Christmas day wasn't perfect either.  I got a terrible sore throat and had to send my husband out for zinc throat lozenges.  Carbon didn't get a single toy - just clothes and practical-type stuff - and he got cranky and was rude when he opened a hoodie sweatshirt from his grandma.  I had to pause gift-opening and take him to the side and give him a talking to, and lecturing your child about gratitude in the hallway while he cries about not getting what he really wanted puts a downer on Christmas.

But, strangely, I'm not feeling a let-down after the fact. Things weren't perfect.  I didn't create a "magical" holiday for my family and kids.  There were disappointments, even tears, about how the holiday worked out.  And yet I'm OK.  I did the best I could, and we're just moving on from here.

This week post-Christmas has been lovely.  We've just been hanging out, resting, taking it easy.  Carbon and I had a good talk and I promised to buy him a toy if he ended up not getting one at all (we still have one more gift exchange at my dad's house left to go).  His grandma took him to return the hoodie and bought him a toy robot instead.  My sore-throat turned into a head cold, and I spent nights sleeping in a chair with a humidifier while my husband brought home spicy carry-out food for me.  We didn't really get anything major done at all.

And the seed catalogs have started to arrive.  And there are plans to be made for 2013.  And it's all going to be OK - maybe not perfect, but OK.

Sparking creative play

I pulled off a great parenting feat today: my kids voluntarily played happily together "unplugged" from their electronic devices for over an hour without any fighting.  It was creative, original, messy play.

How did I do it?  I gave them a box of trash to play with.

In fact, I keep a largish stash of bits that could have gone into the recycling but that seemed to have potential for creative constructive play, and these items can get pulled out when the kids want to make stuff.  Today I added a box of newly cut scraps of foam board ... and Voila!

I love how the box can be more fun that what came in it, and this is the same idea. :)

Scenes from Home

The coming food shortage

The record high temperatures and the drought in the US this year will be affecting food prices for some time to come.  I'm worried about this, not so much for myself (I have the margin in my life to cope with rising food prices, although it will still hurt), but for all the many many people out there that will be severely effected.

In the meanwhile, I bought a box of organic apricots at the Farmer's Market last week and put them up for the winter.

Summer Preserves

I've made my first preserves of the year.  Normally, we get strawberries and rhubarb coming into the local farmer's market at the same time, and so I have made many batches of strawberry rhubarb jam and/or syrup in the past few years.  This year has been different, with weird weather, and the rhubarb came out much earlier than the strawberries, but instead the apriums were available with the berries.

And what a great combination they are!  I am in love with this flavor combo.  I used the recipe found here, but had to add pectin to make it set up to jam.

I tasked Carbon with cutting the garlic scapes from the garden, and he wanted to cook them - so I let him sautee them in olive oil and a bit of soy sauce.  Everyone liked how they turned out and we had a nice little morning snack from them.

Other summer kitchen adventures have included the inspiration of this recipe for yogurt popsicles.  I haven't tried that recipe yet, but instead tried the experiment of just freezing some blueberry kefir in our molds.  That turned out a bit too intense for my kids to enjoy (they don't like kefir, so it's not a big surprise).  I want to try the yogurt kind next.

Next up: I need to pick the pie cherries that are ripe on my cherry tree.

Not throwing it out

There is a joke about an old woman, of a thrifty disposition, whose children find an envelope after her death that is labeled "bits of thread, too small to use".

I think about that when I am debating whether to keep something or to throw it out.  Yes, perhaps I can find a use for twist ties, bread clips, plastic bags, toilet paper tubes, and tiny scraps of fabric.  But I could also end up buried in piles of crap I'm saving in an effort to not waste.

In my living room there is an old dresser (very old - and very broken - but it's been in the family forever) in the corner that I use to store my fabric stash.  I tell myself, at the point I can't fit anything else in there, that's when I need to make some tough choices.  And when it got to that point again last month, I found a pile of old Tshirt strips.  I had taken these old stained, ripped, unusable shirts and cut them into strips, and then stored them.

Could I be that old lady someday, and when they are cleaning out my stuff they say "why did she keep these rags all these years?"

With the specter of Hoarders hanging over my head I have been busy actually using those scraps - sew them together into long rolls, then braid them together.  It will be a rag rug.

What do you keep, and hope to actually use some day?  Bottle caps?  The fortune strips out of fortune cookies?  Aluminum foil?

Frugal or foolish?

Grooming for my little dog usually runs me around $50.  So, I thought, what would happen if I just tried to cut it myself?  With hair scissors?  Result = he's cooler in the hotter weather and not getting all the grass and burrs stuck in his long hair, and he looks like he got caught in a chicken plucker.

It's not pretty, but is it functional?

Where is the line between frugal and foolish?  What makes sense to pay other people to do?

How an overnight at the beach is actually school ....

Nature Study




Physical Education (rolling down sand dunes)



Art and Writing (in the sand)

Soul Fever

I just read this article in the Huffington Post, and I love the idea that we as parents know how to treat bodily fevers, but somehow forget that wisdom when it comes to what the author calls "soul or emotional fever".

If a child is ill, we simplify. We keep them cozy, we stay home, we limit their exposure to more stress or chills. And we take time to just be there close and available to them.

If a child is emotionally distressed, we don't know what to do. We seek to medicate, or take them to a therapist, but what if we just tucked them in some blankets, made them soup, and sat with them?

My daughter is challenging. No labels, because we won't be seeking any, but she wears me out. When we do classes, I get her back at the end of them and see that look in the teacher's eyes - the "I'm so glad that is over" look that says they were exhausted by dealing with her.

She's sweet, and bright, and funny, and loving. But she won't do what she's asked to do, and if she does do it, she does it in her own time, and she doesn't really care what others want or think. She also has a very short attention span right now. So it can be a challenge, and it stresses us all out.

I've just decided to not enroll her in any more extra-curriculars. When the current classes run their course, she's done for a long while. In fact, for some of the classes (chess club), she's just done now. What she seems to really need more than any external stimulus and enrichment is simplicity. She needs me to play card games with her, read her picture books, and cuddle. And she needs to have plenty of time to play with her tiny dolls and elaborate worlds that she creates. She needs me to sing songs with her, and maybe take the time to teach her piano or recorder playing. She needs to listen to music, color, and have tea parties. She needs to go outside, ride her bike, plant flowers in the garden, and watch for birds and butterflies.

She does not need to do structured academic work right now. She does not need to attend science workshops or chess club or scouting or anything particularly structured. The only structured things I will insist she finishes are theater class and swimming lessons.

We have an emotional fever here. It's time for some chicken soup (or tea) for the soul.

I want to put the "home" back in homeschool

I'm feeling pulled in too many directions, to go to too many events, too many groups, too many classes. Really - the world is this amazing buffet of fabulous opportunities to do tons of awesome stuff. How lucky are we, to live in a community with so much going on. And this is a problem of the privileged, I know. I can sign my kids up for anything they want to do, and I can drive them long distances to do it.

But when are we ever home? When is it just time to Be, instead of Do? How much do we really need to socialize and be with others, and how much time do we need to be ourselves? I'm currently juggling (not counting work and church):

Homeschool PE at the YMCA twice a week

Martial Arts twice a week

Chess Club

Science Class

4H

Play Group

Theater Class

I had been thinking about adding in Spanish class and Children's Choir.

And then there are all the one-time events, workshops, parties, play dates, field trips, etc.

Sure, it's cool to go do this:

But I think we also need plenty of time to do this:

We need to simplify. I really want to have more Home time, for them, and for me.

Feeling drawn to Lent

This year I'm feeling powerfully drawn to some sort of Lenten practice. I have no Catholic background, and I've never had a Lenten practice before, but this year it just feels right to do something.

I don't want to misappropriate the traditions of another faith - and because I don't believe in the literal resurrection of Christ or in the doctrine of atonement, Lent has to mean something else to me. With all respect to Catholics, I am not "doing Lent" in the sense they would understand. When I read about Lenten practices, however, what I get is that it is about self-reflection, self-preparation, and embracing that which is most life-affirming and essentially true.

So, my Lenten practice is about pulling into myself a bit, finding what is essential, true, and life-affirming, and living with more intention and attention to that truth. It is spiritual spring cleaning.

It is not a self-improvement regimen, or a 40 day diet. I am planning on giving up sugar and meat for the 40 days, but not to lose weight or anything. I am giving them up because it is a sacrifice (the sugar) but mostly because it will turn my diet in a direction that feels more life-affirming and treads lighter on the planet.

Besides giving up those food items, I plan to spend time daily reflecting on intentional living, voluntary simplicity, and sustainable lifestyles. If I can also get my daily meditation/yoga practice going again, that would be a bonus. But primarily, I see myself wanting to strip away some of the distractions and materialisms of life, and find something more essential and more true.

I'm sure I'll be blogging as I go. :)