Everything Is Usable

I am here.

2010-01-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

After all of this thinking about word of the year, I don't exactly have the one that I want. But the lovely and talented PL gave me this idea. She highly recommends the phrases "I am here" or "This is where I am".

These phrases have the advantage of bringing in the positive aspects of the "Here. This. Now." thing I'm looking for without any of the negatives that come with several of the words that I've tried. Not quite as aspirational as I usually go for, but this year - with Dylan graduating and the expansion plans for the business - would be a good time to practice being very present and aware.

The interesting thing about "I Am Here" is that it reminds me of those mall maps. You know, the ones with the little red dots and the "You are Here" label? The whole point of knowing where you are is to get where you want to go. So, maybe - just maybe - being really well aware of where I am can help me get to where I want to be.

I am here. This is where I am. 2010 should be an interesting time.

Brainstorming - Word of the Year

2009-12-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Back again after a long hiatus. It has been a busy time, with some fruitfulness and a fair amount of fretfulness. To be honest, it feels like 2009 has spiraled far, far away from any intentions that I might have had for it. Part of the problem is that I began the year exhausted and soul weary from a number of years of ill fitting work, so I intended very little. And, of course, there were any number of events that allowed me ample excuse for sidetracking - both good and bad. I know that there will be more to come in 2010, so I'm thinking and planning and attending to my own little brain garden to prepare for the year to come.

I've never been a fan of resolutions, so I'm adopting Christine Kane's "Word of the Year" idea. The plan is to adopt a single quality as a point of focus for 2010. While there is a fair amount of the "intention" process that seems suspicious to me, I can see ways to make this idea work for me.

The problem, of course, is the word. I'm looking at 2 ideas at the moment, and will probably have a few more before I settle on anything. I'm just putting this out to all of you to see what comes to mind.

1: Sovereign, sovereignty, drive. These all started with Havi Brooks' posts on the CEO with Stripey Socks (part 1 and part 2) where she realized that (my paraphrase) she needed to stand in her own light and ask for what she needs but do it in a way that doesn't diminish others' right to do the same. There are a lot of connotations to "sovereign" that I resist. I spent some time in Merriam-Websters and found a lot that I did like, as well - especially the adjectives superlative, curative and unqualified. It may be that I just don't like the authoritative aspect of the word - but then again - I'll be 40 this year. Seriously, shouldn't I deal with that sometime? Drive is my possible modification to this idea - because my car has always represented autonomy and "me-ness" and also (I really hate to admit this) the Incubus song. What can I say, it was on the radio while I was thinking about this....

2: This one is newer, so less formed. It seems that one of the key things I've lost is what Ms. AW used to call my "childlike sense of wonder". I had an eye for beauty and loveliness that colored even the most dull days. Now, I can only sense things that way sporadically and often go for weeks without realizing that is gone. That one trait has often kept me from sliding irrevocably into the many abysses that I've explored, so I think that would be a good focus as well. The con with this idea is that I can't come up with anything that doesn't sound passive to me - which puts it in opposition to the "CEO in Rocket Dogs" (Havi has stripey socks, but I have Rocket Dogs!) idea.
Possible words for that one: wonderment, beauty, loveliness.

So, I'm open to suggestions, ideas, theories and general discussion. All of you that I speak to regularly will be roped into this on the phone as well, so be prepared! And, if you're thinking about a word for your year, what will it be? Why?

Joy!

2009-10-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

When last you heard from me, I thought that I was at a culmination point - where everything that had happened over the last few months was coming together and pouring me out into a new place. And WOW! was I right. In fact, I have so much exciting stuff to do today that I almost didn't stop to blog. But you know how I get when that lovely fall (and spring) light starts to happen, so I thought I'd at least get you a couple of pictures!
I have 4 of these on my kitchen table right now. I figured $3 for random loveliness is a pretty good deal.

And this, my happy, happy beta testers, is something that will have you thanking my herbal teacher. This is the base oil for a new series of lip treatments. Alkanet root makes it red, but the calendula makes this smell a little sweet and feel like silk. Yum!

So, now I'm off to do some work. I have to say that the other side of the seesaw is crazy busy, but I'm enjoying it so far. I've got today's second batch herbal tea brewing (this is a much more involved process with whole herbs but gives us something that is medicinally active with lots of minerals and still tastes good enough to just drink), and the farmers market vegetables washed and drying, and Oxti's critters taken care of. But I still need to sort out how to get George's CD cover art onto large envelopes (my printer is not wide enough!), and get a batch or two of lip and eye treatments done (yes, Ommi, I will be sending you a new eye glide soon) before hopefully heading out to the downtown Mesa 2nd Friday festivities. (This week is Oktoberfest - in a city that is almost half Mormon.... Methinks that the neighborhood is changing!) And lunch. Lunch would be a good plan, don't ya think?

Tippng Points

2009-10-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

Quick note: I didn't write this as a blog post. It is long, rambling, unedited and the result of insomnia in a hotel room with a sleeping husband. But it is exactly the kind of thing that I will decide not to post if I wait until tomorrow, so I'm posting it before I can change my mind. If you plan to read it, make sure you have a little bit of time! :)

Looking back, it always seems like there was some short period of time where everything changes, even when I know that it didn’t actually work that way. There is something in my brain that wants to wrap it all up in a nice package and say “This time. This is when it happened." In a month, or a year - or maybe even next week - I’ll tell you that it all happened this week – the week that Oxti got married. But tonight, before I put a frame on it and hang it on the wall, I have a chance of telling the whole story. You know that I have to give it a shot.

My 38th year played like an emotional version of the X Games – not just for me but for so many of those that I have in my life. My baby boy walked through his self created version of hell – and is only starting to come out the other side. HTH and I went with him - and not in the way that we would have hoped. We each had our own demons to fight and none of us came to terms with our own issues, or each others, quickly or easily.

Ours felt like an extreme case, of course, because it happened to me. But the emotional X Games happened all over this year for so many others – some stories that I know and some that I will never hear. One country song tells you that you’re going through a “burning ring of fire” and another one says that it’s just a “common case of everyday reality”. They are both right. My story isn’t all that special, but I can tell it because it is mine.

The fact of the matter is that I let myself get lost. The path of least resistance always had something to do with what I thought someone else wanted from me. It’s a bad habit, I know. I get better about quitting it every day, but it is my personal poppy field - a deadly comfort zone when I’m weary of working out my own direction.

I was in my own world for much of early 2009 trying to de-convolute my brain from my latest experiment in cultural assimilation. (It was a corporate culture this time and I can’t recommend it.) But while I was busy being lost in my head, a lot happened in the outside world. I won’t pretend that sorting myself out more quickly could have changed a single thing that happened for anyone else; part of me wants to believe that but there is no way that I can ever know and the ‘what ifs’ can get pretty treacherous. But my obliviousness did set me up quite nicely to be blindsided and I allowed that shock to put me into a crazy tail spin. As hard as it is to say, inevitability and powerlessness can start to look quite lovely to me in the wrong sort of light. After all, I can’t really be expected to try in the face of forces beyond my control.

The lesson I learned again this year is the difference between control and influence. I got so tired of giving corporate examples of “influencing without authority” that I decided to retire from influencing my own world. You can try to imagine what that looks and feels like if you want, but I hope that you can’t do it. Quite frankly, I hope that I won’t be able to remember what it was like in a year or two. But at the end of July – yes, just before my birthday – I recalled myself to active duty. I began to attend to the business of my life again. Today, 6 weeks later, I believe that in doing that I began to touch the worlds of my own family in a positive way again.

I am not writing this from the end of the story. Believe me when I tell you that I have not yet fully recovered my self from my dis-ease. I am still finding my own direction and trying to understand how I can weave all of my strands back into a stable, coherent pattern. And despite the fact that, someday in the future, I will probably tell you that this week was the tipping point I have no idea what the other side of the seesaw looks like yet.

But here is what I do know. This week, my son took some very adult ideas and chose to act on them - and did it with a level of personal commitment and integrity that I could never have managed at 17. This week, I taught some others what I’m learning about taking care of myself. This week, I acted as a musician’s manager. This week, my husband and I took some time off – from the business and the craziness of this last year – and just had fun. And this week, my sister officially added a brother to my family. And the really crazy thing is this – it’s only Friday. I wonder what will happen tomorrow?

And on Haven 101?

2009-09-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

New from old! Anyone sense a pattern here?

Friday check in: the what's new edition

2009-09-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Yay! It's fall! Maybe it is a desert child thing who has - once again - survived the summer. Or maybe it is just that my mid-August birthday usually results in my version of New Years resolutions that start in September. Or maybe it is left over new school year love? (OK, that one doesn't seem too terribly likely.) Regardless, it is now fall and time for new things. So, this week's check in is all about the new of the week.

New plants:

I planted some garden sage in the front yard where one of my lavender plants used to be and put a smaller one in the back bed.

I transplanted a few tiny lemon balm plants and 2 cayenne pepper plants.

And - TA-DA! - my garlic bulbs arrived! For some of you in La, that means that I will be bringing garlic cloves next weekend for you to plant as well.

New herb stuff:

I've got 3 immune system tinctures brewing away. They'll be ready in 2 weeks, which should be in plenty of time for cold and flu season. The 3 actually work for 3 different stages of colds/flus- one as an immune nourish-er for pre-sickness, one as a "stop it early in the exposure" immune stimulant and one as a "you feel it in your bones" immune rescuer - so there is a chance that I might need all 3. I may not need any this year (I hope!) but tinctures last for years, so it isn't a problem to have them ready in advance.

On the tea front I'm still drinking 3 cups of a detox blend that I keep in the fridge. I've learned that skin problems are almost always related to liver overload, so despite the advent of fall allergy season, I only have the slightest hint of my normal fall eczema.

I've switched Colin's normal green tea to a whole herb "Green Tea plus" blend. The up side is that it tastes great while having all kinds of immunity and cardiovascular system building herbs in it. The bad news is that it isn't tea bags - which he has no problem rebrewing at a moments notice for himself if he runs out. If I use the herbs to their full effect, it takes about 8 hours to make the full gallon at medicinal strength. So I brew a new gallon as soon as I see the previous one hitting the half way mark, just so he will always have the good stuff when he needs it.

I also have a St Johns Wort/dandelion blend in the fridge. St Johns is, of course, known as mood elevator, but it is also a powerful anti-viral and expectorant. And dandelion has a TON of minerals and vitamins in it. I've still got a bit of a lingering cold, so I drink a bit of that everyday. It is the worst tasting mix that I've made - ever. (Kathy says its important to taste everything yourself so you know before you tell people what to take. I can see why!) But it works really well for me.

In related "what's new" herbal news, my son D2 decided that he wants to go see the herbalist to work on his adrenaline/panic attacks. Our visit to the Dr. on the subject confirmed that the problem was not thyroid related or physically related to any heart problems. I gave him several options and he wanted to go this route. He even filled out the 6 page medical history that was the pre-requisite for making an appointment. He'll spend 2 hours with Kathy on Wednesday next week - in addition to the hour she spent talking with me about this yesterday. It feels strange to see such a clear indication of adult behavior from my kiddo - that he wants to do something about this and is taking a path that will require so much from him but has a great change of working for him. And, for me, between the progress report (3 As and 1 B) and this, I'm feeling even more hopeful about where D2 is heading.

And that is what is new for me this week. Friday, Friday, Friday!

Things I learned in my 1st herbal medicine class

2009-09-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I've been doing a fair amount of research on herbs and natural remedies over the last year or so. Several of you have perfume rollers in your purse that are full of rosemary infused oil as first aid for cuts, scrapes and scratches because - as we all now know - rosemary is a natural antimicrobial that grows well in the desert!

I knew enough to be sure that I didn't know nearly enough. But I also knew that there were a lot of people out that that claimed to be good at herbal medicine that said things that didn't make sense to me. I signed up for this herbal medicine class after attending a free seminar that Kathleen offered. I thought that she would be a good teacher for me - both in approach and communication style. But, seriously folks. I had NO IDEA how cool this would really be!

Now, I should say up front that I won't be putting any herbal recipes here. But I learned a few very practical concepts in the class that I would like to share because it is all just so fascinating.

So, first things first. If you want to use herbs for medicinal purposes, the dried ones should look very close to the way they look as plants. Calendula? Should have the color of marigold flowers. Hibiscus? It better be red! Leaves of any kind? Green, ya'll, not brown. Now that all seems logical, but I never really thought about why is was important. It matters because the plants' volatile oils provide the real medicinal punch. The closer the dried plant looks to fresh, the more of those oils are still present.

Also, as a side note - did you ever wonder why most tea bag medicinal teas don't seem to do much of what they claim? That is because the herbs are diced very finely to fit in the tea bag. That means that there is a much higher surface area to volume ratio - so the oils can evaporate more quickly. Unless the tea bags are stored inside sealed single serving pouches (like some brands do) it isn't likely that those oils hand around for long!

So, that - along with smelling and looking at a variety of herbs - was the introduction to herbalism.

The first body system that we studied was the digestive system. Wanna know why? Believe me, you really do! Anything that is ingested is designed to be absorbed in particular parts of the digestive system. This isn't news, right? I mean, we all studied the way saliva acts on carbohydrates or stomach acids on proteins. But there is another part to this. Pharmaceuticals act the same way. Capsules are designed to introduce medicines through the small intestine and pills mostly break down in the stomach ... IF and only if, your digestive system is working properly. It doesn't matter if you are trying to get nutrients from foods, vitamins and minerals from a supplement, or medicine from ANY source, you won't get the full effect unless your digestion is up to par.

Those were the two general principles that I was taught in the first class. Since I love getting the big picture first so that I can decide how to prioritize things, you know that this is a great class for me. And, just for the record, I currently have 2 different types of medicinal teas in my fridge as well as a batch that I'm sending over to Oxti's house. I can only imagine what I'll be doing after Wednesday - after we study the liver and learn how to make tinctures!

It must be fall...

2009-09-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a few busy weeks since I last posted and I can tell that it is getting to be fall - regardless of today's temperatures! Fall, for me, is a time to start new projects and explore new directions - and that is what is going on now.

First, I'm 3 days in to using my possible shampoo bar and am reserving judgment for a bit. I'll give it a week as a shampoo. If I don't like it, it is a perfectly good soap, anyway. Those of you who are beta testing - feel free to do the same!

I also made my first batch of HE laundry detergent. I used up the batch that the lovely Ms. PL gave me and then used her fabulous recipe to replenish my container. I LOVE this detergent. Everything is so clean and smells like the fabric was dried in the sun. Yum!

And, last, but not least, I start my first herbalist class on Wednesday. There is a new herb store in town that is offering an Herbal Certification Course. This course is just the foundational classroom material. The real certification would come from apprenticing under a Registered Herbalist from the American Herbalist Guild - like the one that happens to be running the new herb store. I don't know if I'll go that far, but by October 7, I will have enough working knowledge to deal with the daily medical needs of me and mine.

And, just so ya'll all know, I am tired of not having any fun money of my own, so I'm ready to find a part time money making job of some kind. I figure I can trade 20 hours a week for some dollars and be happy with that!

Did I mention that fall is the time that I make all kinds of changes? Yep. Must be that time of year!

The first step is admitting that you don't think it IS a problem

2009-09-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

People, I have a confession to make. It will come as no surprise to anyone, but I am finally admitting that I am obsessed with all kinds of herbal and natural things. I know that some of you will feel compelled to point out that this confession is much too late (don't give me that innocent look!) and perhaps a bit understated. But, I am willing to expose my insanity to the entire internet. I am so involved with this stuff that I rearranged my house!

For those of you who have been here recently, you will recognize the space below as my former "herbal stuff" storage section. You may recall it as a jumble of oil and herbs with tiny crock pots and bags of containers waiting to be filled with ointments. But, look! Only household things!

And here, in the section of the pantry right next to it, you will see the former contents of my craft closet - minus the sewing machine that will be on the table until I sew a few bolsters. Granted, the bottles and jars you see there will be used for herbal stuff, but this is mostly "non-herb crafting" materials.
Why did I do this, you may ask? What could possibly make me want to move things from one side of the house to the other?

Because I SERIOUSLY needed the space!

Oh, yes. I have TONS of stuff to mix, make, infuse, tincture, and concoct. And it will get worse before it gets better. But at least here I have some room to grow into.

And, just in case you're wondering, the answer is yes. Despite the amount of work this took - and the concurrent realization of exactly how much stuff I have - I am completely unrepentant. In fact, I'm thinking that there are a few things that I might need to find next week....

Beta testers?

2009-08-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, ya'll,

I've got a new formulation of eye glides that is very different from my old recipe. The active oil in this is grapeseed oil infused with coffee (for improved blood circulation to decrease puffiness) and licorice root (for dark circles). It also has beeswax and palm oil to get the consistency right and a little Vitamin C oil - to stimulate collagen production - as well as Vitamin E oil to act as a preservative. It smells faintly of coffee, so be prepared!

I've got 4 or 5 that I can send off. If I have your address, just let me know you want one.

Surprise!

2009-08-25T00:22:00.001-07:00

Just a few random blog modifications. Nothing to be alarmed about. Carry on.

Seed planting

2009-08-24T16:13:00.001-07:00

I know that it almost seems like I live in the Southern Hemisphere with all of my August/September planting. It just seems to work better to establish plants in the late summer/early fall and cover them if we have a freezing night or two. That gives them a fighting chance to make it through the summer. (*sigh*) Not that much does make it through, mind you, but at least they have a chance.
So, here is this seasons crop of planted seeds. The good news is that I'm starting several days earlier than last year. The bad news is that I'm starting more at this time than I started in both seed sessions from last fall. I may be going a little nuts here. But, hey, I didn't buy any seeds (so far) this year - I'm just planting left overs from last year.
I did learn a few things from last year, though. You can see here that I've labeled the containers (A:1-24 and B:1-24, along with a 1-12 container and a 1-25). That replaces the ever-so-unhelpful post-it note labeling system of last year.
And I wrote everything down as I planted. This is the master list. The next 3 pages tell me what seed is in which slot in what starter box.

The real trick, of course, will be to track how many come up and how well they survive my own particular style of gardening. Perhaps I'll do a bit better with that this year as well!

Make Your Own!

2009-08-21T12:15:00.001-07:00

Results of another round of research. Before yesterday, I had not made any kind of soap or solid shampoo bars. But, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have a batch of shampoo bars curing in my craft closet. And my house smells like rosemary olive oil and lavender. Yum!

Key change

2009-06-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

The remodel project has obviously taken up most of my time for the last few weeks. It is hard, physical work with occasional bouts of focused problem solving. We tug and move and haul things around and then spend 10 minutes discussing the problems: how DO we build solid partition walls under these conditions or secure that much plywood in this little truck so that we can get back from Home Depot or create an arch that can be plastered or...? But we are finally starting to see an actual room now - even without the new floor in yet - and probably only have 2 more weeks to a fully livable space.

Despite the fact that the remodel is so involving, there are other events and activities happening even in our little corner of the world. And last night brought me one of my favorite types of experiences - a true, head-tilting, brain modifying, big key change perspective shift.

As you can tell, I really love perspective shift moments. I suspect that is just part of my Edens heritage. Although the official motto on the Edens crest is "If there be prudence" (we don't know what that really means, either) the de facto motto, that Baba was given many years ago now, is "We see things differently". Because that has always been such a strong identity trait for me, moments or events that highlight a "different seeing" for me get stored away as small memory treats or treasures. Sometimes I just spread them out on the table to look at the twinkle. And last night will definitely be added to that hoard.

Last night, HTH and I attended the first benefit where our company was a corporate sponsor. I'm not sure if reading that makes your head tilt - like mine does when something doesn't make sense - or your nose wrinkle - like my friend CRS in the same circumstance. Most people have some physical reaction to moments when they hear something that doesn't quite fit with their world view. But, world views aside, it actually happened.

Limbs for Kids is a Phoenix based charity that started because the now-President saw a kid envy his brothers running around a mall play area while he sat in a wheel chair. Paul went home and started figuring out how to get prosthetic limbs to the kids who couldn't afford to get them otherwise. He is even currently matching all donations, dollar for dollar, from his personal funds.

The charity's VP/Treasurer is one of our regular business contacts, and the cause is clearly a good one, so when he asked us to sponsor a table for their Casino Night, we were happy to do so. We were not, I have to admit, as happy about the thought of attending Casino Night. But we did. We took the chips that our tickets provided us and walked around to find the table we sponsored and then we settled in to play. It seemed logical and I didn't think much of it until the table workers found out that we were the business owners that sponsored the table. The looks on their faces reminded me of what I used to think when I heard the words "corporate sponsor" and how HTH and I are CLEARLY NOT THAT! But, as the sign on the table reminded us, we actually are that as well.

I knew a songwriter once that built a key change into every song he wrote. It was such a strange thing that I had to ask him why he did it. He said that any emotion the song brought up would intensify when the key changed. Since he mostly wrote church music, he said it made the congregants cry.

Perspective shifts moments act like key changes for me - they compress the emotional content of several days or weeks into one moment. My words have not yet caught up to my feelings, so I'm not entirely sure what last night's cognitve dissonance means. But I can honestly say that being part owner of a business has been the source of more shifts in my thinking than anything else I've ever done. HTH says that every day is a new thing - and he is right - but the key change moments remind me that my new normal is a very, very different place than where I lived a year ago.

I'll be busy this week

2009-06-09T20:51:00.001-07:00

It isn't that I've disappeared. I'm just mid remodel. Check out haven101.blogspot.com for updates.

The Fruits of Wally's Labors

2009-05-24T17:10:00.001-07:00

We've hit blackberry season again. This is already the second batch I've picked from my vines.Yes, it is probably far earlier in my yard than around your area of the world, but it is a bit later than last year. Last year, they were ready in early May and I couldn't manage to pick a single one of them. Wally died in early April last year and the blackberry bush is one of his many gifts to my household.

For those of you who haven't already heard a dozen stories, Wally was our next door neighbor. He was a transplanted Texas boy that married into one of the founding families of Mesa, and thus the Mormon faith. His yard, as of today, still has 2 kinds of blackberries, sweet garlic, 3 kinds of aloe, a pecan tree, an orange tree, and flowers all along the front. He had a greenhouse, a hydroponic set up for his tomatoes, a bunch of funny stories and a great, big laugh. He was 88 when he died. His wife, who moved in with her kids across town after he died, survived him by a little over a year.

I've been in the house next door - that I still think of as "theirs" - a lot over the last few weeks to show it to potential renters. (Their kids are in charge of the deal, but I have a set of keys so they don't have to drive out every time.) The first time I went in, I was surprised to find how sad I still was to have them gone. But I guess I've come to terms with it a bit. At least enough to eat my blackberries,

The blackberry bushes were one of Wally's first presents to me. Before I even knew HTH, Wally would sometimes lean over the back yard wall and talk to me & my dog. In true, Texan good ole boy fashion, he had Tamar charmed immediately and me laughing at his crazy stories every time. One spring I was admiring his blackberry bushes and telling him stories of 5 gallon ice cream buckets that never got more than half full when I was picking blackberries. The next spring, I had a mysterious bush growing against my wall that had blackberries on it the year after that. It was two more years before Wally finally confessed to throwing ripe blackberries over the wall so that I could have a bramble of my own.

This weekend the new neighbors are moving in next door. Shawn is a plumber who does side work - a good kind of neighbor to have - who has plans to do some work on the place. Wally would thoroughly approve of him. But the yard will be managed by the landscaper across the street. He is a nice guy, but I don't think he is southern enough to approve of all of the blackberry bushes. I suspect this will be the last summer they survive on that side of the wall. But over here, I set up a drip system for my bramble. They should survive many a year - regardless of the crazy Phoenix sun - and give us a very concrete way every summer to enjoy the fruits of Wally's labors.

Everybody Says...

2009-05-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

There are an awful lot of Everybody voices when it comes to starting a new business. Everybody tells you to not work with your spouse, or your family. They want to talk about your business plan and see a binder full of information before you even THINK about actually DOING something. Everybody knows that you need to work out all of the background details before deciding where to settle. But this weekend, we took another step on what may be the next business not only for HTH & I but V & B. And with the way things are going so far, I can definitely say that all of those Everybodys/Theys are not us, so they can just (to quote the lovely AW) shut it!

Mr B, of V & B fame, was in town this weekend. On a whim, we took a wander down Main Street to size up the commercial real estate market for places that could be our next business: a multi-purpose space for a coffee/wine bar with stage for local bands to play, shelves for V & I to sell our stuff and an area to teach classes. We'd done some preliminary research so that we had some rough numbers in our heads for startup - licenses, equipment, etc. Today was just supposed to be another data point - namely rental rates in the area - to add to the list.

BUT - we may have found THE place. And that means that our time line and extremely tentative plans may just change. V& I are going to be very busy for the next week or two figuring out whether or not we can make this work!

If this works, believe me, THEY are going to be very unimpressed with our business process because we will have done everything in the "wrong" order. But, then again, those unimpressed Everybodys would never have been interested in building a Haven in the first place.

April Update

2009-04-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Since it has been almost 3 weeks since I last blogged, I'll just take this opportunity to catch you up on where I am. You'll probably be seeing a change in direction for this blog over the next few months, so this is your chance to see where all of these new avenues began!

To simplify the format, I'm blatantly borrowing from Havi Brooks Friday Check-In.

So, first: The Hard Stuff

D2: We've had a very difficult month with our son, D2. I'm not going into details of what happened, but it has changed the way that we are working with him. He is 17 and really believes that he should be more independent. We are encouraging this, but not in the way that he would like. I would say that the beginning of April showed both HTH and I that any days that he lives with us from here on out are bonus days that we can use to subtly direct and encourage him on the paths that we have always considered best. It is a big change, and a tough one. We are having to rethink every rule - and often every interaction - to insure that we are being consistent, so we've lost a lot of brain space to that for the last 3 weeks.

Too many projects: This is the time that I was hoping to devote to figuring out what the next big thing will be for my life. Unfortunately, I've had a lot of distractions - from house projects to keep Cody busy to finishing up work for V to move into the investment house. Sometimes keeping busy doesn't actually move me towards my goals. Most of April has been all about being busy!

The Good Stuff
V is home! Yay!

Her little house is weeks away from move in ready and it is only 8 houses away. Yay!

I finished my front yard project - with the exception of a technical drip system bit that I need HTH for - and am free to help V finish the house. Yay!

I'm getting my brain back, so I'm actually thinking about what I want to do next. V and I have an idea that - along with some help from my soon to be FBIL (Fabulous Brother In Law) and HTH - may actually be the best thing since pita and hummus! (V vetted this statement and agrees, so it isn't just me!)

Our business is doing very well! Even in these difficult times, we're expanding our scope and are still making money. HTH is now a distributor for an equipment company that we've been buying parts from sporadically for years. Now we not only have a better price on the parts that we use, but are selling them to anyone else that needs them in AZ. Cool, huh?

Family life is settling down to some form of normal. While it isn't what we would choose, we are finding ways to make it workable. And that, of course, is what allows all of this other good stuff to happen.

And, if nothing else, I learned a ton of new things in April 2009. That alone will make it a memorable month!

Psychosomatic

2009-04-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

When I worked at my last corporate gig, I regularly had problems with my lower back. One day, while I was trying to stretch the tension out, I realized that the pain was worst when I rolled backwards over an exercise ball. And, because metaphor is so often reality for me, I realized that I felt like I was spending all my working hours "bending over backwards" to get things done in ridiculous situations. Apparently, back bends are not my forte - thus the sore back!

The last 10 days, I have been very hoarse. I still have a voice, but often have stuff in my throat that keeps me from speaking with any power. My voice is so quiet, that I can often barely be heard. This is also literally true in the current situation with our son, D2. So, please bear with me. It will be some time yet before I can speak clearly again. But don't worry. I am well on my way to being heard again!

Because That's Just What Havens Do

2009-03-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

I honestly didn't think that I would blog this week because I am, as you can see from this picture, mid project. But after a few days of keeping pace with our young helper, I need to sit still for a bit. Also, there is a story to this project that I think I can tell you - though I'll not be able to do it justice - that is all about why I'm working so hard on this haven idea.

Way back in the fall, when I planted these bushes, I had the idea of creating a space under our big front yard tree. This space would be somewhat separate from the street and draw on the way this tree works - leafy and shady in the summer but bare to allow sun through in the winter. In my mind, I could see a little path way or two that ran through the space with possibly a bench or something to encourage lingering. It was a physical images of an outdoor haven that I found really appealing.

The fact that I could use the word "little" when thinking about a path that follows the edge of a tree canopy that is 20 feet in diameter shows that I was clearly delusional. I figured that out quite quickly (for me) and had just about decided to shelf this project for another year. I was going to do a limited version of the spring planting and let it go.

But that is where Cody comes in to the story. Cody, our young helper, who works for us 20-25 hours a week. I can't tell you his story, in part because I don't think I know it all, but also because it is a hard story to hear in person and impossible for me to even consider writing. To help you understand, I'll give you a few things that I think of as the bare bones of his tale - with no real depth or c0lor.

Cody was D2's first friend in the neighborhood. He moved to live with his biological mother 3 or 4 years ago. He was lucky to get out of that situation alive. He, with a little butt kicking from his impressive girlfriend, changed his whole life a little over a year ago. He and his girlfriend, along with her mother and his aunt, are now raising their 2 month old daughter. He goes to high school at night and works for us 4 or 5 hours a day. If you would like to meet an impressive, but far from perfect, human example of what today's teenagers can do, come to my house any week day morning. I'll let you talk to him.

The tricky part about Cody working for us is that there is only so much he can do. He is too young to take onto job sites - both in maturity but also for potential liability issues - so we need to have work for him to do here. He is a serious worker - fast and efficient - so even finding 20 hours for him to do can be tough, but, HTH and I are starting projects - like this pathway - that we would gladly have put off just to make sure that we do. Because the haven requires it of us.

Let me explain. Cody is 15 months out from having made a tough but very positive decision in his life. The old way was definitely the path of least resistance. This new way - while much better and more suited to his style - is tougher. T0 stay the course on this path, he needs some help and encouragement but he also needs to feel like he is a useful contributor to something good.

Interestingly enough, HTH and I are still building on the physical aspects of this haven/business/house as well as the investment house. We could use a serious worker to do some of the heavy lifting - or digging or demolishing or painting or.... And, despite the fact that this house normally resists most of the changes that we propose, the space seems to be ready for us to get it done.

So, if you're working on building a haven, and you have a young one who needs some encouragement in the form of part time work, and you've carefully marshaled your resources over the years so that you can afford to pay him, it all falls into place quite nicely. At this point in the haven process, it doesn't feel like it is because of anything that Cody, HTH or I have done or decided. It happened because that's just what havens do.

Yes, thinking about and working on this whole haven thing is - well - work. And, yes, there are other things that I need to do as well. But it is starting to look like the work thus far has just been to overcome the initial inertia. After that, who knows? Maybe havens become self sustaining creatures that encourage haven-osity all on their own! And, at some point while I was wheel barrowing dirt from the front yard to the back today, I couldn't help but think, "Wow! How cool is that?" Because causing random amazement is just another part of what havens do!

Handle With Care - Part II

2009-03-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in Part I, I enjoy the ambiguity of the word "care". We use it in some cases to imply caution and in some cases to imply emotional attachment. Relationships were my obvious first example of how both senses of that word apply. But my next favorite application is finances.

Now, I should be very clear about one thing: I'm not a financial adviser. There are folks that LOVE talking about that stuff and are quite good at it. Depending on personal style and situation, you can get books by anyone from Dave Ramsey to Suze Orman to Guy Kiwasaki. Although they each have unique approaches, perspectives, and advice, they all come from a very similar foundation. It goes something like this: Don't let your carelessness with money run your life. Or, be smarter with your money. Or, change your thinking and figure out how to deal with your money triggers. Oh, and by the way, since you've put yourself in a bad position by your previous carelessness, here are some things you can do to fix that now.

Being cautious with money is being talked about and blogged about and published about everywhere. In these trying times, it is something on an "it" thing - but I'm well past the point of discussing it here. If you want my perspective, you'd have to go back to my "Lighten Up" posts on money - which are over a year old now!

The care that I would like to talk about here is the kind that comes from concern for others - from the heart. HTH always likes to say that he votes with his money. If an establishment provides better service or a better product or he just plain likes the guys better, they get his money. As a small business owner, that just makes good sense. But we all have the ability to provide some positive reinforcement along those lines.

As the chief household provisioner, I've translated that to our everyday shopping as well. I go the the local farmer's markets because I like the fact that people around here grow food. I also have a long standing preference for the strains of produce that have actual flavor - and those strains are notoriously difficult to ship. So I get what I like for less money than the grocery store AND I support local farms in the process. That is what we call, in this house, a hat trick.

The principle works in other ways, too. I buy everything that I can from my locally owned "health" store. There are a few things that I pay incrementally more for there, but they also have things there that I would only be able to get online otherwise. I like them. I want them to stay in business. I vote with my money.

I buy more from the natural chain store as well. Depending on where you are, that may be a Spouts or Sunflower or Whole Foods or some crazy East Coast store that we don't have out here. I like their selection. I like that they make an effort. They get my money.

I don't even know that I could give you a list of businesses that we've chosen this way, but, just off the top of my head: The shop that works on our cars, the printer that does our invoices, the coffee places that I frequent, Bookman's (oh, the delirious joy of that place!), our local Chinese restaurant, Harper's Nursery ....

The point is this: the people the run these places are folks that I rely on, so I'm more than happy to support them. And in times like these, my money can actually make a difference. So while I am still cautious with my money, I mean so much more than that when I say that, around here, we think its important to handle our finances with care.

Handle With Care - Part 1

2009-03-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that I've been busy and on the road, I've still been thinking about the principles of Havenology. An underlying premise of haven building is care - both in terms of concern for someone and also caution. Since care is the ultimate foundation of havens, it springs up everywhere. But, interestingly enough, caring is one of those things that works well whether you want to build a haven or just get through the week.

So, for the first "Handle With Care" item, let's talk about something that is currently near and dear to my heart. Relationships. Not new relationships or superficial relationships or casual relationships. I'm talking about serious, long term relationships. Family, spouses, long term friends. The people who can be depended upon to love you regardless of how badly you behave... right?

And I guess that is my point. We often save our worst behavior for those closest to us. I had a meltdown this morning because I couldn't get my priorities straight and was feeling tugged in eleventeen directions. Who got the brunt of that hissy fit? My poor HTH. Why? Seriously - I'm asking. Is that loving? Is that expressing my concern for his well being or appreciation of his fabulous qualities? Nope. Is that inherently stupid and mildly damaging to my relationship and - consequently - t0 my own happiness? You betcha. Bad news all around.

The good news is that I've gotten much better about the stupid hissies. Because I've come to understand that just because someone WILL put up with my bad behavior doesn't mean that they should have to do it! Remembering that has helped me to learn to control the flashes of irritation that occur at any little thing when I'm tired or sick or jut overwhelmed. I've even managed to figure out that I can usually wait until that burst of irritation has passed before deciding if something needs to be said.

This is, I should point out for those who don't know, not at all natural for me, but I'm learning. Why? Because it is important to me that the people I love are handled with care. Because a haven is only a haven if the people I love are safe from the unwarranted hissy fits.

Havens aren't just for humans

2009-02-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

I had a very sick dog for the last 10 days. Very sick for only 24 hours, actually, but requiring much attention for the rest of it. As a husky mix, she doesn't get sick often, but is prone to skin infections. And now that she is almost 13, she isn't handling them as well. This one, well, it was pretty horrific. So I spent most of the last 10 days with her - in the back yard since she refused to come in the house. This is her haven, too, so it seemed to be a small price to pay.

However, it was a good haven time for me, too. I know the rhythms of the back yard in a way that I never did before. I know when the birds are loudest, how the sun moves throughout the day, when and where the flies are likely to be around (I was protecting a dog with skin infection so that mattered), and how to manage a stubborn dog who is used to running her own show. I read a fair number of good books. My face got quite tan. And I found some good husky skin management stuff at my favorite locally owned pet store.

Although it has been a somewhat exhausting time - requiring far more attentiveness for a much longer period of time than I am used to - it was also a period of enforced vacation from most of my other responsibilities. And, in her typical fashion, my crazy dog will be 100% healthy before I get on the road later this week. It was not at all the way I planned to spend the last 10 days. But if you think I might be singing an extremely over used Rolling Stones song, you would be right.

Havenology: Keep the end game in mind

2009-02-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

In my mind, the principles of havenology have been developed over many years. One of the trickiest things about setting up a haven is deciding where you want it to go. That principle is one I learned from HTH. The key is to always keep the end game in mind. This applies in a wide range of situations – from relationships and career choices to making dinner – but it seems well suited to Havenology.

For the purposes of Havenology, keeping the end game in minds means that you need to know what your haven will be: what purposes will it serve, who will want to spend time there and why, what needs will it supply and how. Answering these questsions can create a framework for defining your haven.

For example, do you want to be able to gather a fair amount of your food from your haven? Then you'll need some space to farm and possibly raise chickens.

Do you want your haven to cover the basic medicinal requirements of your family? Then start growing plants that match your family's medical conditions.

Do you want to be independent of municipal power? Research wind and solar options for your neighborhood.

Do you just want a place that is warm, inviting and friendly? Implement interior design and “homemaking” principles that work for you.

Someone, somewhere wants each of these things in their havens (though I'm glad I don't live next to the chickens anymore!) and they can pursue them. The trick is to know what you want your haven to be in the end. Once you've established that, getting from here to there is usually not that difficult.

A Havenology Premise

2009-02-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong - havens are not a new thing for me. I've always been interested in the kind of space that is both safe and open - the kind of place that is less like a fortress and more like a traditional trading bazaar. The original trade route bazaars - like the Khan al Khalili pictured in the link - pr0vided protection from the elements for camel caravans. They also provided a place to trade goods, services, and ideas - some of which came in with the caravans and some of which grew in the community surrounding the bazaar. In other words, by providing a safe place for trade, the community around the bazaar effectively spread not only their products but also their ideas to a world that they would never physically see.

This model, of course, works more effectively today in the form of the internet. The goods and service providers have all translated their roles quite literally from the caravan world to the computer. The idea folks are - just like in the caravan days - having a harder time figuring out how to get paid for their information. There are people making a fair amount of money by helping sift and sort content, by setting up merchandise trading or by providing tech support. But the havens themselves are quite small on the internet - a pocket here and a forum there - with vast stretches of "do not want" in between.

In other words, the internet bazaar requires that I know what I want in my haven so that I can gather the far flung resources into one place. The blogs I follow, the news sites I read, the tabs on my iGoogle and the online shops that I frequent create boundaries for the world in which I want to trade. The good news is that each of us have personalized, customized self selected bazaars at our finger tips. The bad news is that these solitary computer havens lose something very important in the translation.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen a working bazaar or seaport that didn't have some fairly serious security protocols of one kind another. The thing about opening a space to trade is that there will inevitably be some conflict of - shall we say - interests. To effectively do business in that environment, I have to be able to deal with others that are "not my people" - by philosophy, zip code, hair color or whatever else I may use to label my fellow man - in a way that is profitable for both of us. In self selecting worlds, I can choose to deal only with those that do meet my "us" criteria. This will reduce conflict immeasurably, but may also limit the flow of new ideas.

So, for my part, I'll be on a mission to modify my Ang haven access guidelines. I'm going to add some new news sites to my feeds. And find some blogs that annoy but intrigue me. And possibly even listen to some talk radio. After all, havens are places where all honest traders are welcome - not just traders that I like.

Havens are where you find them

2009-01-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have been on the road this week - off in Louisiana for a short stay with the W's where AW and I converted her office to a nursery for the impending arrival. I have to admit that I was a bit concerned about traveling. Airports and airplanes remind me of all the time that I spent on the road for business over the last few years. And that, more than anything, had me itchy for haveniciousness.

It turns out that havens are available just by thinking a bit off the beaten path. In DFW, that is literally true - just hit the moving sidewalks instead of taking that cute little train and you'll get a quiet stroll with almost no company. Or you can hit the lounges behind the Starbucks that everyone seems to think belong to someone else so they're usually empty.

But the specifics aren't really the point of my post today. My point really is this: despite the fact that I have spent many a weary and wary time in airports, I was able to find a space in the middle of that disturbingly familiar chaos that was just mine. Considering how much of my recent airport time was spent trying to return my brain from negative to a simply neutral state, I figure that was a pretty remarkable trick. Or, to put it succinctly, if I can find a haven in an airport, it really is possible to find a haven anywhere.

The Haven Paradox

2009-01-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

I imagine that it would be simpler to build the kind of haven that ships come to for trade. For that, you just need to find a natural harbor and build a town around it. Yes, you may have to build barrier walls to keep the waves out or occasionally dredge the straits into the harbor. But a seaport style haven creates itself around the function it serves. Services and supplies for ships and crew and methods for trading goods and information spring up in direct relationship to the kind of ships that typically show up.

The kind of haven that I'm thinking about is a bit trickier to build. There are some things that can be done to the physical spaces to encourage both the movement of people (and therefore ideas) in and out of a space while still providing retreats for the family. But, for the most part, when I think about how to start building a haven, I am struck by the central haven paradox.

To build a haven, you must first be havened within yourself. To put it another way, I needed to do a certain amount of mental spring cleaning before I could even think about this idea. And I'm not just talking regular spring cleaning, either. I mean, I had to dig the dirt out of corners that had been varnished over and discover what I put in those boxes that had been in the attic for years. But that, in and of itself, is the kind of thing that I could only do because I was already havened. In other words, without some mental equivalent of a natural harbor, I am not sure how anyone else could start this process.

So, all of this means that the first question of Havenology is really this: how do I find a natural harbor and what does that harbor allow me to do? Or maybe it is: what does a natural harbor really look like? Or perhaps some people really do manage to "grow where they're planted" and create havens everywhere they go? Hmmm... ponderables....

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-01-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

It seems that I've settled into blogging once a week whether you need it or not! My hands have been much occupied elsewhere - what with the investment house and the business hitting an unexpectedly busy patch. With so many people struggling with money issues here, we do not complain about being busy, but is was QUITE a surprise for this time of year.

But some things are always the same - as you can see. The blood oranges and grapefruit are almost ready.

And everything seems to be surviving the winter in my nursery bed. Although you're mostly seeing the yarrow, italian parsley, cilantro and lemon balm, there is also some marjoram, zaatar oregano, echinacea and sage in there!

The zaatar are still pretty small, but seem to be planning to take over the world.

The cold turned the catnip leaves purple - and did the same on the blackberry bush. The chocolate mint has some brand new leaves that are eggplant colored! They all continue to add leaves and roll along with the new strange color scheme.

The good news is that we still have the Yellow Potato Onion with us - despite the demise of the cayenne in the same bed. I can't wait to see what these things look and taste like!

I've made a few additions to the front beds since I last posted as well. You can see the ivy geranium here. In the space before that, I have some calendula started that will hopefully end up in the yard this spring!

Both the rue and thyme - below - are also recent additions. It turned out to be a good thing that I added the thyme in late November/early December. We definitely harvested the recommended 1/3 of this plant for various Christmas dishes!

And, of course, the front yard "ornamentals". The rosemary all have a few flowers on them. The lavender is looking quite lovely. None of them are anywhere NEAR as big as they will be, but they have managed to grow some even this winter. Stubborn things, they are. Almost as stubborn as the dandelion that has decided to surround them!

So, that is the state of my yards. Anyone got anything growing?

Havens don't build themselves

2009-01-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

This week, V and I have begun the work of creating Haven 101 - the name that we've given our new-to-us little house around the corner. The bones of the house were built for havenage, but there are some changes that need to be made to get it there. I'm sore and tired from 3 days of demolition. But I'm very pleased.

Take a look at our progress at http://haven101.blogspot.com/

Havens have good bread

2008-12-27T06:10:00.000-08:00

I'm still stumbling to a good definition of "haven" for 2009. As most of you know by now, once I work my way through it, the definition will be irrelevant. But working definitions are a good place to start. This last week has defined a few parameters that are clearly pieces of the haven puzzle - but I doubt that any off them are edge pieces. But, here is the current state of the havenosophy.

Havens have good bread. Don't ask me why. I don't know. But the association between havenage and good bread cannot be ignored. In the last two weeks, I made cinnamon/ginger bears, apple spice bread and dill bread. And I modified all of the recipes this time because "good" bread is a matter of personal preference.

Havens can pull off Christmas Eve dinner for 14 - no 18 - no 13 - OK 16 (final answer!) at 4 p.m. even though the main breaker for the house broke at 10:45 the night before. Did I mention that a community of skilled and knowledgeable members is essential to havens?

Havens are made to engage and entertain guests while still maintaining private spaces. Yes, B is the house whisperer and, based on his advice, we'll be rearranging the house over the next several months. It should be interesting.

So it was probably a good thing that I started thinking about my 2009 word of the year last week. Because I would've missed a lot of good haven points this week if I hadn't. I hope that your holidays were as good for you as mine were for me!

The word of the year is Haven

2008-12-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

The official dictionary definition:
Haven \Ha"ven\, n.
1. A bay, recess, or inlet of the sea, or the mouth of a
river, which affords anchorage and shelter for shipping; a
harbor; a port.
2. A place of safety; a shelter; an asylum.

The thing about a haven is that is both a place of safety and a place where travelers come to trade their goods and information.
I had to do Lighten Up first, of course, to make space in my brain - and my house! - for me to be able to think about/see/feel what should be next. But this is something that I've been leaning towards for years. It seems like the right time to focus on havening or havenage or haveniciousness or havenosity or something like that!

Although it may change throughout the year, I have already set up a working personal definition of haven as well.

Haven (n)
Homebase for me and mine

It is a nice thought for 2009....

I know it is early, but...

2008-12-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of things happening in the next few weeks, so I've started working on the preliminary "idea of the year" for 2009. To that end, I updated my picture board.

The picture of AW, at the bottom center does not actually go with the theme - I just found it when cleaning out my office and really like the picture. But, other than that, all of the pictures are part of what I'm thinking about this year. It is all perfectly clear to me, but when I put it up just now, I realized that I may be the only one!

Anyone want to hazard a guess what I'm thinking about? No guesses from HTH and V - since you saw me working through this!

Culmination Day

2008-12-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a strange one. It was - quite literally - a day that marked the culmination of efforts to both end my old life and begin the next thing. How - and why - that all happened in one day, is beyond me. But, hey, you know by now that my life operates on some unusual principles. Things like this just happen

So, I taught my last day of the corporate training that I've been working on. That meant is was my last day at the office. I packed up my desk. I said goodbye to people that I won't be seeing again. I set up plans to see other people regularly. But it was all definitely an ending.

At the same time, I spent an hour or two yesterday finishing up the details on the new little house that we're buying. This house is our first "widget". It will be the first thing that will provide some cash flow that is not directly linked to the hours that we work on it.

So, today I feel a bit odd. I still have one day of work - Tuesday - to finalize a few details with the bosses. And I still have to meet with the house inspector on Monday and sign the paperwork (and give them a big check) later next week. But everything that I've done lately has finally all added up to somethings. That is, for the time being, enough for me to be happy about!

What Kind of Whisperer Are You?

2008-12-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

In another random conversation from our series of "who are you and what do you want to be" discussions, V started identifying all of us as whisperers. We've always known that fabric speaks to V, but she also talks back to it. So she is the fabric whisperer. HTH is the machine whisperer - as I've discussed here before. Buck talks to houses to make them happy. I'm a harmony whisperer - both in the musical sense and the fix the discord of a problem sense.

Being able to "hear" things that don't actually speak may seem a bit strange. But learning to listen to them, and realizing that we do that, seems to have a ripple effect in each of our lives. I read - in my North Star book - that each of us has a mission that marries our deep joys with the deepest hungers of the world around us. While this may sound like we should be listening to address some grandiose pressing need, it isn't always that way. Sometimes, the need is small. But our ability to hear and uniquely address that need is a huge thing.

So, I'm curious. Anybody know what kind of whisperer they are? What talks to you? And what does it say?

Buy Nothing Day

2008-11-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I didn't really plan to participate in Buy Nothing Day this year. And I did buy some groceries and get a hair cut, so technically I DID buy some things. But I did decide, after seeing the news of people camping out to get the "good deals", to not do any present shopping today.

I would've only done a few little things online - since most of my local people are getting non-commercial presents - anyway. But it really did make me question the sanity of our society to hear that someone has been camping outside of Circuit City since TUESDAY just to get a good deal. SERIOUSLY?

Clearly I'm operating under a seriously outdated set of principles, but, FWIW, here is what I think: If you can't afford it, don't buy it. If you have to have it, save your money and get it when you can afford it. I don't want to rely on the whims of big box stores to tell me when I am allowed to buy what I want. If they can do this sale now, they could do it anytime. That means that they are just managing me. And that just irritates me to no end!

Now, I don't have young ones who need the hot new toys that are - oh, so shockingly - never manufactured in enough volume, so I can afford to be a bit contrary on this point. But, in my opinion, this whole Black Friday thing has gotten ridiculously out of hand....

I'm grateful for...

2008-11-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

I have spent some time today being grateful for family - blood relatives, family-in-law, and family by choice - and good food. But when I got home from the T-day extravaganza, I spent some time recreating some of my current shower supplies and I realized that I am extremely grateful this year for things that REALLY work for me.

Like sugar scrub made with Blood Orange and Vanilla Olive Oils from Queen Creek Olive mill. The essence of quiet, simple decadence.

Like my fabulous face wash oil that leaves my skin happy even in the desert.

Like the rosemary plants in my front yard that I'm using to infuse Dina's massage oil.

Like this lovely little netbook that I'm using to type this blog.

Like my coffee table covered with books about herbs.

Like iGoogle.

All of these are new things to me this year - but they have added quite a bit to my already amazing life. Most of all, it is good to be in a place where I can just spend a few moments being thankful. I hope the day has give you some of this time as well.

Transition approaching in T-11

2008-11-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, I'm a bit distracted at the moment. 11 working days until I'm done with my corporate job. With the vacation time that I have remaining, my last day is December 26. So, if I'm not posting regularly, please don't mind me. I'm just thinking feverishly about what I will be doing next....

Bronchitis Tea

2008-11-18T12:33:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since my last post, but I do have a reason for at least a few of those days. Saturday, as most of you know, was the local home auction extravaganza where we did not actually get the house we bid on. It was a fascinating process, though, and an introduction to the whole world of auctions as a way of life, livelihood and live entertainment. But I digress.

For whatever reason, I got sick on Sunday and it was pretty scarily bad on Monday. As in "I felt like this when I got pneumonia 4 years ago" bad. Mucinex wasn't touching it. And with no fever (yet!) there wasn't much a Dr. could do. I needed some serious get-this-crap-out-of-my-head-and-chest kind of stuff.

Fortunately, I had some. I had about 8 coffee cups of "tea" yesterday made from marshmallow root, hyssop, licorice root and hibiscus flowers. The marshmallow and hyssop are good expectorants. The licorice root is good for my allergic/histamine reactions. The hibiscus has tons of Vitamin C and ｔａｓｔｅｓ　ｌｉｋｅ tangy goodness.

And I feel pretty good today. Not ready to run a marathon - or even hit the elliptical at the gym. But I didn't need a nap after every thing I do now. So, just in case you're wondering, yes there is something you can do between the OTC stuff not working and the Dr. having to give you antibiotics. Bronchitis tea. Who knew?

What is Starbucks REALLY good for?

2008-11-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

Coffee grounds! Sean, roommate to JM, works are Starbucks part time. And he brought me coffee grounds. Why do I care? Coffee grounds are great fertilizer for grass and shrubs. They are now all over my front yard prior to the rain that is about to start at any moment.

Free fertilizer. Whoo-hoo! Free water. Whoo-hoo! And my yard smells like rosemary, lavender AND coffee! Whoo-hoo!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2008-11-07T07:37:00.000-08:00

Pictures from the grand experiment as of 8 am local time today.

My South African succulent. I don't know what it is called,but it has survived 2 months!

Tiny flowers on the crazy rosemary.

Blood orange tree.

Baby bell pepper plants.

New leaves on the catnip!

Zaatar oregano

Cilantro!

These Are Days...

2008-11-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

To quote 10,000 Maniacs, that you'll remember. Regardless of who you voted for, you have to feel good about one thing: record turnouts. I haven't seen numbers yet, but I can almost guarantee that they are better than election turnouts for many a long year.

I am not willing to say that we are seeing the end of the political apathy that has plagued us for a long time. Even with all of the excitement that surrounds this "historic" election, I still count myself as belonging mostly to the party of the perpetually cynical. I am, after all, the person who is leaving corporate America because I can see the solutions to the problems of a 156-year-old-70,000-member company and I KNOW that I won't be allowed to fix them because of the way things work there. The thought of trying to do something similar to our 232-year-old-300-million-member country WHILE working within our federal bureaucracy is enough to make me want to go to bed for a week.

But there is one difference between my job and our newly elected president's . People voted in record numbers. And that will make his job both easier and harder. I will be quite interested to see how this new job works out for him.

A Made Thing Yesterday

2008-10-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm blatantly ripping off the title of my sister's blog, but I made a new front yard yesterday. Technically, I guess I made 3/4 of our front yard new, but the other 1/4 will be EASY compared to yesterday!

Just a few notes and then I'll post the pics. Bermuda grass is evil for water usage in the desert. And it grows very poorly under the tree in our front yard. It is nearly impossible to kill, but it can be convinced that it should go somewhere else. I'm hoping to do that under our tree by planting dichondra - which will help nitridize the soil and grow well in the shade - for the winter. I'll think about real ground cover next spring.

I also have always wanted a little courtyard area out front. I was thinking about walls with pavers and everything. But I decided to go for a slightly more open plan using rosemary and lavendar to create a low hedgerow. Once the 6 that I planted yesterday have grown a bit, I'll also add an inner "wall" of other plants. I'm still thinking about what those will be.

The view from the street. This is about 9:00 am local. The ground needs to stay pretty wet for the next 10 days or so. I am going to HATE my water bill this month!

View from the sidewalk. This kind of explains why I thought there should be some kind of courtyard here. See how shady and cool it is? How pretty the dappled sun is? How seriously this tree needed more plants for company?

The vertical rosemary. These will be the guardians for a path that will wend from the sidewalk to the front door. I'm debating about trellising it, even. Cool, huh? The little guy in the foreground is lavender.

V calls this the "crazy rosemary". I think the official name is trailing rosemary. It grows so well here that you often see it as a landscape plant on the side of the road. As long as I didn't kill it in the transplant process, it should be fine.

It doesn't look like much yet. But the plants should all grow to be about 4 feet high and almost that wide - with the exception of the vertical rosemary which should be narrower. This spacing will allow them each some room to do that. It is, as always, a big experiment!

Really?

2008-10-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, V & I went to Flagstaff to attend a lecture offered by the NAU Applied Indigenous Studies Mayan Elder, Marina Xoc Castillo de Vasquez (as I said we would in the middle of this post). After the class, she invited us to dinner at her home where we helped make frijoles topped with a chili-garlic yogurt sauce, beef with nopalotios (good for diabetes! who knew?) and tortillas. We drank karkade (though she had another name for it). We chatted with her husband. She would love to have some of my chili when they start to grow. She wants me to take home some rue plants because they're taking over her garden. V taught her to belly dance in her kitchen.

When I write it down like this, I can see that belly dancing in the kitchen of a Mayan elder that I randomly met a bus stop 6 weeks ago in a town 3 hours away from my house - all of which felt entirely normal at the time - could be seen as a bit unusual. It makes me appreciate the "magical realism" literary tradition in an entirely new way. But it is pretty exciting that this is the way life works here these days!

Playing in the Dirt

2008-10-19T09:30:00.001-07:00

As you can see, I spent some time with my hands in the dirt this weekend! And, believe it or not, this is AFTER I washed my hands a few times. I suspect this says more than I'd like to discuss about my personal planting style...

But this was a good weekend for getting the seedlings into the ground. Some of them - especially the bell peppers - were starting to work their way out of their starter pots. And the weather is lovely - a bit unseasonably warm, but not too hot. Lots of sun. Cool nights. And the Mediterranean bed was almost ready - with the bottom layer of "urbanite" (check the alternate definition in this answer) already in place for drainage, I just needed some good dirt.

I was waiting patiently for the dirt that will be dug up when we build a small concrete pad behind the shop, but I made one tactical error. I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens Fall Plant Sale. I got Lemon Balm, and Yellow Potato Onion, and Catnip (in the pot) and peppermint and chocolate mint and yarrow. Yeah, I spent about $30 - which is more than I spent for my entire current seed stock of 30 plants! AND I had to fill the bed mostly with garden soil due to the impatience that this plethora of plants brought on!

But it was SO worth the money! I now have a full Med bed and two earth boxes (for the bell pepper, cayenne pepper and onion) that are planted with 3 kinds of oregano, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, sage and everything that I already mentioned. My hands LOOK dirty, but they smell so good.We'll see how everyone does with the move. I'll take more pics in a couple of weeks!

Everything Changes

2008-10-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

There is so much going on right now - and none of it is settled yet. There is a possibility that we are buying a second house - for about 8 different reasons. V & I are looking into starting our own little side business to sell some of the things that we are both making. I'm working on changing the parameters of my corporate job. AND HTH has not actually slowed down much from his summer pace. That means that I should be a) doing ServeOne accounting b) incorporating and getting TPT codes for the A & V business c) figuring out a few remaining details on the house deal and d) working through the next chapter of the book for my class.

So I'm stopping by just to say this. I'll be back in a day or two. Really! Until then, I'm not slacking or ignoring you. I'm just crazy busy. Or possibly just crazy. I'll let you be the judge!

Listening to My Body

2008-10-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

I should say that I'm pretty bad at paying attention to me. This is, from what I understand, pretty normal. Most people have some disconnect between their body and brain, but I seem to have some special issues. And the last few days have been a reminder of that. On top of the brooding sinus infection, I have added in whatever the low thyroid or other weird chemical imbalance thing that stops my brain from being attached to the world.

I am much better today, but I still feel like I was run over by a truck about 2 days ago. A little sore, a little achy, and needing much nappage. But the interesting thing is this - I knew I was sick and I took a day off from work to recover. I slept 3 hours past the time that my work day would actually start. My big accomplishments of the day have been a shower and these few paragraphs.

This is a new response for me so I'm still not sure how I feel about this emotionally. But I can tell that my body is very grateful. It is a new concept for me - and I don't expect to have actually defeated the "work through the pain" response forever. But the North Star book - and the class with Pam Slim - is really making me reassess.

Welcome to my crazy brain. Obviously, I didn't have enough change going on in my life so I added thinking about this, too! But I suspect that, once that I'm done with this work, it will help me get where I want to be - and that is Lighten Up embodied.

Lighten Up - from the inside out

2008-09-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Even before HTH gave me the words for it, Lighten Up was always a "sum of all my actions" activity. It was about doing things to be consistent with my ideas and philosophies. Call it the outside in or behavioral psychology approach to life - change the behavior to make your life better.

But I am at the point - on many fronts - that I really need to spend some time thinking about what I want to do next. And that means spending some time thinking about what I actually think. And, yes, that can be recursive and strange. To keep from getting lost in it, I needed some structure for this part of the process.

So, I'm taking a class led by Pam Slim. She is a local (yes, she lives here in Mesa) consultant who works with people transitioning out of corporate life. I've lurked on her blog for years, but had never commented or participated. But I signed up for her "What Should I Do With My Life" class. The class is based on Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant To Live. I have resisted this book for many years. As most of you know, I'm a bit of a contrary. And anyone that thinks that they can tell ME how to claim the life I was MEANT TO LIVE? Well, clearly they don't know me very well! But I singed up for the class, so I'm reading the book. And it turns out that I could've saved myself a lot of work if I had read this sooner. Go ahead - click on the Amazon link and page through the first few pages. Martha's conversation with Melvin the middle manager made me laugh so hard that I knew that I could read the rest of the book.

We had our first class last week, so I'm not entirely sure that this will be true, but I think this might naturally lead to the next stage of Lighten Up. Stay tuned - I think it's going to be interesting!

A Lighten Up side note

2008-09-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

One of the side effects of making the herb bed was working with cement. All concretes have cement in them, so we went through 300+ pounds of various mixes containing it. And that stuff will suck the moisture right out of your skin. Even with gloves, masks and some amount of carefulness, V and I were pretty dry by the end of the project. But I remembered the wise words of the lovely PL.

She is using an olive oil/sugar scrub these days. As you all know from my adventures in face wash, I have learned that oil does work to remove oil from the skin. Adding sugar to exfoliate just makes it that much cooler. AND the oil locks moisture in even after the shower. Bonus!

I mixed up a batch for yesterday's post-herb-bed showers. And, you know me - I had to fiddle with it a bit. I had some leftover macadamia nut oil that is infused with vanilla. So I made a little test size batch. I filled the jar to the top with the sugar/oil mix, so I was planning to put some vitamin E oil in after V and I both used some of it for our showers. But I've decided not to bother. Because OH.MY.WORD! This stuff won't last the week. It is decadence in a little glass jar! I may never go back to soap again.

My point here is this. I often hear the message that "going green" or "lightening up" or simply boycotting some of the commercial folderol that gets thrown at us every day means leading a lesser life somehow - restricted, deprived, or just generally yucky. I understand that there are a lot of other issues behind these ideas - and no small amount of cultural and social cues involved. I really do. And I'm generally less blunt in my response to those concerns, but seriously? The only way that lightening up can "lessen" your life is if you're doing it wrong!

Done!

2008-09-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

Today, V & I finished the Mediterranean bed today! We still have to let it cure up and fill it with rock and dirt still, but it is MADE!

We laid the first course yesterday evening - which involved concrete and levels and fidgeting the blocks around quite a bit. Then we let that dry overnight.

Then came this morning. It took us about 4 hours to get the next two courses up and secured. I should say that is due entirely to the invention of Surface Bonding concrete. It is applies like stucco, and mixes like cement, but has fiberglass in it to make it structurally sound. In other words, no mortar, no lines. Just dry fit it and coat it up.

As hard as it may be to believe with the temps what the were today, we had a blast doing it. Now we're very tired, but satisfied. Looking forward to putting it to use soon!

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-09-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am fully aware that my birthday was in August. But yesterday, V and I started on a project that uses my birthday gift card.

As you all know, I have been starting some plants from seed. They are currently living in window sill green houses, but they are growing very quickly! I've got 2 kinds of plants started, though. So my plan was to make 2 separate beds for them to move to next. These will be mostly nursery beds - places where the plants can go from seedlings to full grown.

On the west wall of our back yard, between the blackberry bushes and the gate to the front yard, there is a spot that gets sun for most of the day. I had decided that was the spot for my Mediterranean plants. The only problem is that the bed space already had a raised border - and I wanted a slightly raised bed. (HTH pointed out that raised beds are SO much easier to work in - and he always knows the good tricks for working efficiently!)

So, here is what we did. And when I say "we", I mean me and V. We measured and planned and went to Lowes. We ended up with 18 full blocks, 18 half blocks, 180 lbs of concrete, rebar, mortar, gloves, line for levels, and a wheelbarrow. (The whellbarrow is now ServeOne property, but everything else was on my birthday card.) And, yes, we loaded that onto the carts and into the car ourselves. We then waited for the bed area to get into the shade.

For those of you who have never poured a concrete footer for a 2 foot high flower bed(and very few people do, btw) this is something that takes a lot of prep, planning and time. The footer will be the support for the blocks that form the sides. It is mostly just there to bring the first row of blocks up to level, but we did put some rebar in to tie it to the front concrete base as well. Mixing and pouring concrete is hard work. We would never have finished before dark without the technical advice and tall person assistance of HTH. But finish it we did!

We were a little sore this morning - not as bad as you would expect because HTH told us to take ibuprofen BEFORE starting. But, as you can see, it is curing up nicely! I'll post pics again when we have more.

This project is cool for V and I on so many levels. The excitement alone will probably get us through the block work. Then we'll just let that cure up a bit before filling it with dirt. We kept saying we wanted an upper body workout - one more example of being careful what you wish for!

The joys of small business ownership

2008-09-17T14:14:00.000-07:00

The "transcript" below is exactly how my phone call with HTH started this morning.

(Phone rings)
Me: Hey, Baby.
HTH: Hey, Babe. How's it going?
Me: I've 3 minutes til my next conference call, but everything is looking pretty good. How about you?
HTH: I just called to tell you that I dropped {new employee}E off at Grace's to do the work there and I'm heading off to McDonald's to do that compressor change out. At this moment, we are making money in 2 places at one time!
Me: Whoo-hoo!
...conversation continues....

We are SO excited about this, but I can't imagine ANYONE else caring nearly as much. I guess that is one of the joys of owning a small business - it really is OUR business and nobody else's....
And, yes, we're kinda demented, but at least we have a good time with it! ;)

Things I learned from The Green Summit

2008-09-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

I have to say that last weekend's Green Summit left me with a lot to think about. I have been doing some research and running some new ideas around in my head, so I think it is time to write a bit.

First, the Green Summit this year was at least twice as large as the one that I attended 2 years ago - and I can't even compare it to the first one I attended 5 years ago. There were an unbelievable number of exhibitors there as well as a dozen sessions each on Friday and Saturday. V and I attended Saturday only. My objective was to be there for several edible landscape and Arizona plant seminars, but the exhibition hall turned out to be almost as informative as the sessions.

So, just for the curious, here are a few cool ideas.

You can convert your car to ethanol and manufacture your own for 50 cents a gallon (plus the cost of a still).
You can build your own mobile waste vegetable oil filtration system, just like the guys from Cave Creek.
You can actually make drinking water out of the air by using what is basically just an AC unit.
The key to good gardens is knowing what the plants will do and planting them in places where they can do that. If you're smart, you don't have to prune them.
When the plant people walk through the halls, you can tell that they have basil in their bags just by the smell!
There is a solar panel sales guy that thinks that V is really cute.

During the course of the conference, V and I also came up with something that may be a good, green product. Depending on the prices of supplies, we may actually try to build and sell this one. For purposes of this blog, we will only refer to it as the Super Secret Potato - with a minor nod to Terry Pratchett's concept of "having your potato" - and let you know if we do decide to go ahead with it. No details, of course, since we might be able to sell it for actual money. Shocking, yes?

So, that was the Green Summit. After I get my plants into the ground - or the appropriate beds - I will be going back to some of these ideas. Consider yourself warned!

And now for something completely different....

2008-09-11T18:27:00.001-07:00

The Green Summit has, as I said earlier, started me on to a number of new research ideas. But I did have a few projects and plans already in the works that are bearing fruit of one kind another. So, here are a few stories from various fronts.

V & I bought tickets for the Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker show in Flagstaff. This was, for those of you who have not heard, our birthday present to each other. Our birthdays are 4 days apart and - we're fairly certain - this is the first birthday we've spent together since 1987. So we figured some moderate extravaganza was in order. Turns out that this was the best plan we may have had in many, many moons.

Flagstaff this time of year feels SO NICE. We still see temperatures over 100 every day and while the lows are finally dropping off a bit at night, it is still typically 75 for the low. By now, the whole summer thing is just done. PLEASE, LET IT BE DONE! But Flagstaff is almost 7000 feet up, so 75 is the HIGH for this time of year. (*sigh*) It was lovely!

But this trip also clearly 24 hours of randomness that I apparently was needing. Just one quick story to illustrate. While we were waiting for the doors to open (sound check ran VERY late) we met the "Resident Elder and Mayan Traditional Knowledge Scholar at NAU" (see her pic here) who was waiting for her bus - which also was running very late. We talked for almost 15 minutes and, when I mentioned that I've just started growing some herbs and traditionally medicinal plants, she invited me to come back up to attend her Mayan Herbology class in October. She said that, if I e-mail her before I come, she will bring me cuttings from her garden! Flagstaff is, of course, a small town and things work a bit differently there. But, still. How random!

Of course, mentioning growing things, the basil, dill and chamomile are all still growing away. I'm finally seeing a parsley sprout. The 4 types of new oregano (that I ordered with the Lifeline seeds) are all sprouting after only 3 days in the window sill boxes! And I have some Stinging Nettle, Marshmallow, and Evening Primrose already making appearances there as well. They are growing so much faster than I was expecting. I hope I get the beds ready on time!

Of course - and this is the big news I guess - I may have some help with that. Based on a meeting today, HTH may have found his very first, full time employee. If all goes according to plan, he will start on Monday. He wants 40 hours of work a week, but HTH may not have that in technical field work, so he will also work on house projects. Maybe I should go sketch out my plans for herb beds...

Moodling time

2008-09-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

I attended the Phoenix GreenSummit on Saturday. I've attended the only green conference in the Phoenix metro area for 4 years in a row now. This year was exponentially larger than one last year - last years' website was not nearly that pretty and the convention DEFINITELY did not require pre-registration!

I attended 3 sessions and spent about 3 other hours talking to exhibitors. I left the conference with so many ideas that it will be several days before I'm ready to really post about all of it! But the really exciting thing for me is that I did get some new ideas - and you all know how I feel about new ideas and learning things. Towards the end of the week, I'll be doing some more research on my new topics of interest and -depending what I find - you may be hearing more about all of this soon.

Today's CSA bounty

2008-09-05T18:11:00.001-07:00

Onion, Anaheim chile, okra, basil, eggplant and spaghetti squash! Since the only new thing was the spaghetti squash, no pics of the veggies this week. (Just for the record, the onion is almost the twin of last week's onion. What do they do to make them that big?!?)

But here are pictures of the margarita pizza that we made to use that incredibly fragrant basil. When my baby basil grows up, I hope it is this good! And, no, I didn't make my guys each vegetarian tonight. The other half of the pizza dough went to a lovely ham and pineapple pizza....

By the way, last week's CSA bounty made me look up some butternut squash recipes. We ended up having a Butternut Squash Sundried Tomato Dip. It was so good that there are probably religions being started as we speak just to make eating it - or possibly even thinking about it - a sin. Dang that was some tasty stuff!

Since I'm not doing what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing anyway...

2008-09-01T15:00:00.001-07:00

I keep finding myself sucked back in to the TV coverage of the hurricane currently in Louisiana - and predictions about the next 2. Several things that I was planning to do today are just not happening. So, while I'm not doing anything on my list, here are pictures from my window ledge greenhouses. I bring you extremely small basil and chamomile!

Fall Preparations

2008-08-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

Those of you that know me are aware that my personal new year starts about this time of year. Other people make resolutions in January and use the spring for cleaning and household projects. Me? It all happens in the fall. As always, that means that there is a lot going on in my house and head. But there are a few things that I'm really excited to be posting about, so I'm taking a few minutes to blog today.

Today was the first arrival of our CSA share - or, to be more precise - 1/2 share. CSA, in this case, stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, I pay them a seasonal fee and they deliver produce to my door at prices that roughly mirror the local farmer's market rates.

There are pros and cons to this approach: For the farm, this ensures some income while the crops are actually growing. For the supporter, locally grown produce - which means picked ripe and bred for flavor instead of shipping - delivered to your door! On the con side, the farm never knows how many shares they'll be selling when they actually plant the crop (you only have to register 2 weeks before) and I never know what I'll get every week!

So, this is week one from my local CSA. Based on the link, I expected most of this. But WOW! it looks good!

Potatoes, jalapenos, basil, butternut squash, onion, Anaheim chiles, okra and eggplant. DANG!

And look at the SIZE of that THING!

This one is for you, Ommi. See? They really do have okra everywhere. And they obviously grow well here. These guys are huge!

The other exciting thing that I'm doing is starting some new herbs from seed for herb garden planting in a few weeks. I know that some of you will find this a bit backwards, but you have to remember that life in the desert is strange. The summer is our harsh season. Fall and winter are good growing times here! The spring bed all started as plants, so these are a first for me.

They don't look like anything right now....

but some day soon they will be good stuff!

...and just in case you were wondering about Christmas....

2008-08-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ms. ADAW asked about birthday presents recently. It turns out that moving into a slightly anti-consumer lifestyle makes birthday shopping very difficult.

So, in an effort to be VERY proactive, I'm offering a Christmas possibility - Christmas 2010, that is.

Here is my next car. Isn't it pretty? Chevy calls it an "electrically driven car" but it is technically a PHEV - it just works a little differently. But the Plug-in aspect means that a solar panel on the garage roof means that you can charge this thing without using any commercial power.

Yes, of course, I'm joking. But you have to admit, this looks pretty cool - if it goes faster than this video shows, anyway.

The week in pictures

2008-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

It has been another busy week. I'm just basically posting pictures with a few comments cuz I am TIRED!
This has been one of my thrift store (that's charity shop to you, Eva) searches for the last month or so. As you can see here, my pastas and cereals are all in sealed glass containers now. Functional and lovely.

Here is the van that I mentioned in the last post. I would show you the inside, but I'm not sure how HTH feels about having the chaos of his work week shown on the blog...

This closet used to be full. Nuff said.

This one, too. Of course, this is mostly empty due to the fact that our new bed is bigger than our old one. Note to self: must buy sheets to fit new bed.

And this is a bit of randomness. We had a sweet potato and turnip that both started growing on the counter. So we planted them. Sweet potato on the left and turnip on the right. Fall salad, anyone?

And, last but not least, my sister is "Not Listening". But she did make a very cute skirt today.

Something old, something new

2008-08-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the end of birthday season here. For the first time since 1987, my sister and I were together for our birthdays - which are 4 days apart. So, in keeping with an old family tradition, Ommi arranged with HTH for this to be delivered on the 18th. Also in keeping with tradition, that purple should be a kind of lavender/grey. Turns out that they actually HAVE purple icing stuff here in America, so they don't have to try and create their own. How boring is that?

The new thing is the latest addition to our little business. Turns out that HTH has outgrown working out of The Box. Although it is an exciting that he needed one of these - in the "work van" model of course - it is a bit strange still. He is hauling around some empty space for the first time - which feels wrong somehow - and getting far worse gas mileage. But the alternative - taking multiple trips for the same job with any of those trips ranging from 5 to 75 miles round trip - was worse. So, we traded in the rattly old van and got one of these. I'll post pics if it is ever actually home in the daylight!

Other than that, the new things include - a door knob for the kitchen door, a shower head, and a bed! Although these are all to replace things that were broken or completely worn out, it feels funny to buy so many new things in one week. Apparently, I've developed a habit over the last few months of NOT buying new if I can help it. Hmmmm.... strange how these things creep up on you. Have you ever developed an accidental habit?

Pennywhistle bounty

2008-08-13T15:34:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted about this stuff in a while, so I thought I'd let you see my new whistles.

One of the real advantages of playing a simple instrument is that you can get high quality, hand crafted instruments for relatively cheap.

The copper ones are from Nick Metcalf at Ethnic Wind. The 3 large ones are a set with one mouthpiece in F, G and A. (Low G sound clip here.) Although they share the same mouthpiece, each one has slightly different tonal qualities. I think they'll be a lot of fun! The tiny one is a Micro G - an octive higher than the G body next to it! (Soundclip)

The aluminum ones up top are Syn Whistles by Erle Bartlett. That is a C (clip), D (clip) and E flat set. They also sound amazing. He's from Australia, so that is where these guys came from. Not terribly green of me, but really, folks, this is the musician in me talking. No way you can argue with that kind of effortless quality sound and playability!

So, here are the new additions to my collection. Lovely, huh? Obviously, much whistling has been going on around here lately!

Doing - not talking about it

2008-08-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, this is a very busy time for me. Just learning the details of all of the business and family finances would keep me fairly busy since that adds up to 2 credit card accounts for expenses, and a total of 5 different bank accounts, not to mention invoices, bills and receipts! But I am also continuing to adhere to my Lighten Up principals - which are not quite yet automatic - and keep my old job 20 hours a week. And it really didn't help that I spent almost a full week trying to figure out which post-stress mineral/hormone depletion was making me crazy.

So, today, just a random list of things that I have learned.

150 micrograms can make a WORLD of difference.
Statement to account to current balance reconciliation is really a difficult and nasty thing.
All of the pictures that I want to keep (from the days before digital cameras) fit in a shoe box.
Spraying peroxide followed by vinegar really does kill anything. You should see my shower grout!
Microfiber cloths are the wave of the cleaning future.
Don't even try to do anything involving retail, groceries, movies or hair cuts the weekend before school starts.You will have no luck.

On change

2008-08-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

They say it takes 21 days to change a habit. But - at the beginning of week 3 - I'm thinking that I'm already pretty comfortable with working part time.

This week, as I suspected, several project issues bubbled up with my replacements - but nothing earth shattering. I've yet to make it through the full monthly cycle of running the business and family finances, but I'm not seeing any surprises there either.

The biggest surprise is what a difference it makes to have some time. I've been sorting and cleaning - both in the house and in my head - and am starting to feel...well... it is hard to describe. I suspect that I will be a little nutty around the edges for a few more weeks until I get this all sorted out again. But that won't stop me from doing the projects on my list and going to the farmer's market every week and working - both for the company and our own business - and STILL getting more sleep every night than I have in literally 2 years.

So, yes, transitions are stressful. And, yes, change is tough. And I may only blog 2x a week for the next few weeks. But, all in all, I think this is going to be quite nice....

Farmer's Markety Goodness

2008-08-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Why I Love Summer, By Angela

Rosemary Potatoes - Potatoes from last weeks' Friday Mesa market and rosemary from my herb garden
Steamed Green Beans also from last Friday's market. These both went nicely with the steak that HTH grilled last night! (YUM!)
Huge eggplant bought at the market today for Moussaka tonight.
These beautiful heirloom tomatoes that will be added to the spinach/feta/sweet pea salad tonight.

Farmery goodness without the farming! Yippee!

What Lightenening Up Does

2008-07-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

So, with my 4 days off, I managed to do a few things that made me happy:

I went to the Farmer's Market on Friday. Local veggies! Whoo-hoo!
I reconciled 2 credit cards, a bank statement, and did processed 15 invoices.
I did all of the grocery shopping - including Costco - on NOT THE WEEKEND.
I drove HTH to Tucson on Saturday so he didn't have to drive while he had an ear infection.
I went thrifting for more glass containers for my pantry.

Normally, I would just manage the grocery shopping bit and possibly one of those other things. There is NO WAY that I would manage all of this on a normal weekend. It is lovely to let some things just go!

I really am part-time!

2008-07-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

Despite the recent focus on actions, one of the biggest LUREs (that is Lighten Up Ripple Effect for those of you who didn't catch my neato acronym) has actually been in my head. I guess you could say that I'm redefining the word "need" again. That process, along with our financial habits, the needs of our baby business, and just a general antipathy to big corporations, has led me to my current 3 day corporate workweek. Since today is the first day that I'm really feeling that (I drove from Fort Stockton on Monday, my first real day off), I thought I'd talk about what I'm planning to do with all of this time!

I'll be picking up the "back office" work for our business, of course. Invoicing and inventory, banking and bills - you know the drill. This will free up HTH to do the work that actually earns money. I, as always, will be the business' overhead!

For the next several weeks, I'll also be NOT thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. I should say that this will have to be done sometime in the near future, because I do expect this part time corporate role to end as early as September or as late as February of 2009. In this transition time, I'll finish do a couple of Lighten Up things.

Sorting: I have a 2300 square foot house with lots of storage areas. Over the years, some of the areas have become a touch cluttered. So, I've been working my way through them. After yesterday's monumental pantry sort, I now have only 2 random closets and the bathroom storage areas to do.
Big Projects That I Have Been Avoiding:

Put all music onto the computer and sell off CDs. Most of our music is on the computer - but not all - and we have yet to get rid of CDs despite the fact that we rarely use them. This will be a rather large task.
Scan all of the pictures into the computer and put on redundant online storage. This too, is a big one.
Master bathroom construction. I've outsourced the bathroom design and project management to my sister V. I'm hoping that means that I don't have to think about this much, but I know that construction will mean all kinds of household management changes!

Although I don't think any of this could be actually called house cleaning, that is what it feels like. Cleaning my house to stave off too much chaos is a true indication that I come from a long line of Southern women!

I'm using this housecleaning time to moodle a bit on a very important question. What would I like to be doing with my time? Our current business only needs a few hours a day from me and I have no intention of becoming a full time house manager since I manage the house better when I don't have all day to do it! There are several different options that I'm considering, but I don't expect to really know which way to go at the moment. I'll probably try a few things before I settle down. But I do know this - if it weren't for the LURE that had me redefine "need" in my own head, I would not have the luxury of this time to choose. Being able to take that time is - by my definition - Teir One of being independently wealthy!

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig

2008-07-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

As you all know by now, I spent the last 8 days in the Ommi 60th birthday block party zone. It was quite an event with good food, good music (if I do say so myself), and lots of good folks. 3000 miles (round trip), one CAVU show, and one very surprised Ommi later, I'm back home with a few updates.

Although I've said this before, I really believe that this is the end of my "one week a month away from home" stage. For the last 13 months, I've averaged a week a month on the road somewhere. It doesn't even sound like much to me when I write it, but WOW! it was much harder than I expected.

Next time I have to do much traveling, I will require 2 assistants - one to book my trips, arrange for hotels, meals and transportation, and let me generally avoid all of the details of life on the road while trying to work; and the other to deal with the piles of mail, errands and laundry at home that generally result from me bring gone for a week. HTH had the house cleaned, the mail sorted, and some food in the house when I got back this time, but, as the small business boss, it really isn't the best use of his time. [Not that I'm not grateful, you understand! ;)] Two assistants, I tell you!

I really did start part time work this week. I didn't work yesterday and I won't work Friday. I do have a few early meetings this week - earlier than my calendar will allow in the future - but I'll just compensate by taking off early on those days. Current plan is Tuesday through Thursday, 7 am - 2 pm for a total of 20 hours (assuming some lunch time there). I'm hoping that schedule will stick - since it is my favorite - but understand that it might become a Monday through Wednesday thing instead.

I do have a series of tasks that are currently assigned to me in this job. I'm not sure if that will be the actual job I'll be doing or if that will change in the next few weeks. I'm not thinking about it much at the moment - just gogging along.

I do have a bit of a travel cold, so I probably won't get back to posting for a day or two. But we'll return to your regularly scheduled programming then...

Shopping LUREs

2008-07-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

So, all of the previous changes had a very big ripple effect on one particular area of my life. When it comes to the normal weekly grocery shopping trips, it is really hard to compare my current state to the previous. There are a couple of big differences, though, that I'll talk about here.

Because I, as the Mom, am buying less personal care products for me, the amount of time spent in the H&BA section has dropped significantly. My shampoo needs were - of course - about 5 times that of HTH and D2 so the baking soda/ACV thing makes a HUGE difference. And I'm not buying face wash and moisturizers. And I'm not buying body wash. You can see where this is going. There is really no need for me to go into that section for months at a time. A couple of tubes of toothpaste, some deodorant , and shampoo for my guys about once a quarter and I'm out of there! It isn't quite that streamlined yet, but I'm pretty close. I've found that not spending time in this section of the store means that I'm not exposed to all of those needs that I never knew I had - like 8000 kinds of hair product and specialized flossing tools and age defying lipstick and.... NOT having "information" on all of these products makes me feel a touch less crazy, so I'm good with this change!

I'm also working on feeding us with more fresh stuff. This change means less bulky boxes and packages in my cart. It means more foods bought from our local natural food store or any of our farmer's markets. Again, a change that is good for us!

But the thing that possibly changed my shopping the most was using my own bags. I've been taking my own bags and using the self check out line - I'm just not willing to deal with the cashiers on this in most of the big stores yet - for a while now. When I use my own bags, I buy less and I'm more thoughtful about my purchases. I'm not sure that this is a strict cause and effect relationship or if I just switched to taking my own bags because I was already in that thoughtful place. Either way, this has been the biggest change so far.

I don't have enough data to say this will be true over time, but right now I'm looking at a 20%-25% reduction in our grocery shopping bill when shopping with my own bags. So it really does all add up, you see. And the ripples go everywhere. And sometimes the most obvious Lighten Up impact comes from the bounce in my step when I see that receipt!

If you need to find me tonight...

2008-07-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'll be here. CAVU is opening for Annie Quick's World Premiere! How glamorous! Now I'm off to load sound gear into the car - the not so glamorous pre-work to the show!

What Lighten Up Is All About and One Reason Why I Married HTH in One Quick Tale

2008-07-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, my sister, V - and her kittling Bear - joined our little desert household. She and I were having a big philosophical discussion about self discovery and understanding "WHO AM I" and all of those things the other day.

We were about 25 minutes into the discussion when HTH walked into the kitchen. I turned to him and asked if he had time for a quick question. I then asked if he had some thoughts on how most people deal with self discovery and understanding who they are. As he was gathering a few things to head out the door, he said something along these lines.

Most people don't really want to spend time thinking about who they are, but it isn't actually that hard to figure out. A person is really the sum of all of their actions. Talk and theory are not enough to understand who someone really is. Also, any isolated action is not enough. A person could be fully understood only if it were possible to see all of the things that they do. And with that 2 minute comment, he was out the door.

Needless to say, this hit our discussion like a very small atom bomb. V and I had been discussing the equivalent to the Freudian talk therapy method of self definition. HTH pointed out that the same effect was possible with behavioral modification.

And, in the end, that is what Lighten Up is. I spent many hours in previous years researching, considering, discussing and theorizing about all of the potential changes that would help me feel more aligned with my own life. But, in the end, thinking and discussing is only so useful. I had to just do some things - just like HTH said about the self definition - and that is why I started the Lighten Up year.

What this story also shows is one of the reasons that I married HTH. It would've taken many more hours of discussion before I actually got to the point of realizing that self definition - like Lighten Up - is all about what I do. But, despite the fact that the answer was obvious from the HTH perspective, he understood the question and knew how to answer in such a way that he met me in the middle. Cool, huh?

Personal Care Product LUREs

2008-07-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I got hit by a fast moving sinus infection. No worries, though - I have saline!

Before we were so rudely interrupted, I was planning to talk about personal care products. Let me start with the obvious disclaimer. We are all impacted, in one way or another, by the cult of youth and beauty that is supported in the Western world by "marketing" or "advertising".

(And before you argue with my use of the word cult here, you should check this Merriam Webster definition for cult:

1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator cults>
5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
If I define religion carefully, you know I could make a case....)

How we each deal with that is an indication of various factors in our lives - what we're willing to make a fuss over, what we want others to believe about us, where we want to fit in, etc. There are some things about the consumer cosmetics cult that I used to hold in high disregard but spent the last several years exploring - along with, not too surprisingly, the components of "appropriate business behavior". So, a lot of these changes merely represent a return to and then a natural progression from my previous views. YMMV, as they say. And I did this all in baby steps, which I HIGHLY recommend.

So, the quick rundown of personal care changes are really based on just a few ideas.
1. Petroleum products - that stuff is EVERYWHERE. And if I say I have a problem with our oil policies but then do nothing about my personal consumption, then I'm really not helping.
2. Garbage in = garbage out - the stupid packaging decisions. GAH!
3. I bet I can do things better for myself then those silly corporations can....

So, with that in mind, here are a few of the changes:

1. Hair - I wash with baking soda every other day and rinse with a dilute ACV rinse. According to my blog, I started this before January 24th! I had no idea! This works very well with one exception. When I traveled to foreign countries for business, I took a shampoo bar. This is primarily due to the suspicion that customs agents might feel when inspecting my bag and finding a container of white powder.

2. Face - I've been using a mixture of essential oils as face wash since before February 18. My skin is actually clearer and happier. In fact, using hotel face wash in Singapore (no luggage meant no face wash) and then transitioning back made it even more obvious that the crap in most face wash products does not do well with my skin. Blick. I am still using a moisturizer, but that is mostly for the sun protection. If I'm not planning to be out in the middle of the day (a common survival technique for desert dwellers), then I don't even use that.

3. Eyes - I still am exclusively using my own concoctions for this. I can report significant reduction in darkness around my eyes for the first time in my life. Yeah, it was that easy for me to come up with, and yet it was impossible for me to find in commercial stuff. Weird, huh?

3. Body - I've been trying various soaps. There are a few out there that will let me get away with no lotion - even in this desert city. I'm particularly fond of some of the olive oil based stuff from these folks for that purpose. Of course, I still have lotion - and some of the soaps that I bought still require lotion, so that is all working out nicely.

Just as an overall side note: It is all an experiment, you know, so I have actually bought things that really don't work the way I planned. I have one more bar of the "wow, this is gonna be great" soap to get through before I can get back to the lovely olive oil stuff that actually IS great. C'est la vie....

4. Deodorant - one of my last resistance points fell by the way side on the Singapore trip. I had refused to use the rock thing for deodorant. But that is what was in my emergency "you lost your luggage" kit, so I tried it. And it actually worked! So, once again, I am trying to convince myself to use up my remaining supply of the other yucky chemically stuff before moving on to just crystal stuff. This may or may not happen.

5. One pre-lighten up change that I should note here. But first, this warning: ALL MEN SHOULD SKIP THIS SECTION SINCE THIS TOPIC WILL MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. There is a supply of tampons under my side of the sink that I will never use up. That is because I switched to the Diva Cup for a business trip last year. I don't ever intend to go back to any other style of period management. Ever. My personal experience of those few days a month has so vastly improved that I will go to extraordinary measures to make that the case. Plus - no packaging to speak of, and wow! talk about garbage in=garb ae out!

6. Mineral makeup - this is a fairly straight forward one. I use powdered forms of everything now. Less petroleum products and the added bonus of not having to check my luggage just for the makeup that won't fit in the dang ziploc.

So, that is the personal care recap. Again, just a few simple ideas that, bit by bit, have changed my life!

Consumerism LUREs

2008-07-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

If you had asked me, I would've said that I was not a typical American consumer. Because I grew up overseas in a very different culture, I did have a few residual habits that were non-standard. But, for the most part, I had definitely moved well into the normal range on this one. And the LUREs have definitely modified that. This will be my attempt to sort out the cause/effect situation for my new shopping habits.

Garbage In
Paying attention to the household garbage was one of the early recommendations from the green blogs out there. I've seen a bit of how it is to live - quite literally - with garbage (part of the "different culture" thing that I mentioned), so this seemed like a sensible idea. Just by keeping a rough gauge on our garbage, I came to a few quick conclusions as to the sources.

We ate a lot of convenience foods - and they all have a lot of packaging.
Packaging! Good GRIEF! Do we really need plastic wrap around a cardboard holder around a sealed plastic package around what I actually want to buy?!?!

The traditional way to track garbage production is to weigh it. But that is WAY too much work for a Lighten Up mindset. Instead, I just set out to do a few things differently. And here is where the Ripples start.

Fewer convenience foods means more "home made" food. That means I need decent starting materials - like the kind of produce that hasn't been bred to withstand industrial harvesting machines and days on the road. That meant learning about local produce options - like farmer's markets!

I confess to having sporadic success on this front. While I have gotten better at this, there are weeks that it just doesn't happen. On the good weeks, I make it to at least 1 of the actual Farmer's Markets in town. On a bad week, I buy all of my produce at "natural foods" store that buys more locally - but still not from the local farmers that I see at the markets. I suspect that PL has the best approach on this. She has joined a CSA so she gets local veggies delivered to her door every week. I admit to being a wimp about this - not wanting to deal with learning to cook seasonally during all of this chaos - but I think that will be the best route now that I have a bit more time.

To address the convenience issue, I also do a bit of proactive cooking. I try to have something that even teenage boys would consider yummy in the fridge. My current favorite plan is throw some chicken into the crock pot with BBQ or teriyaki sauce on the weekend. (Which, by the way, is my next trick this morning!) I then shred it and put it in a glass container on the top shelf of the fridge. Sandwiches always ensue.

Of course, as with any double income family with kids, convenience foods will happen. I've begun using packaging as a convenience food decision factor. If my guys are equally likely to eat either thing, the one with less trash for me to deal with is the one that I buy!

Which leads me to the packaging discussion. Here is the thing. We were already pretty good about actual trash production. That is, in large part, because we have municipally supported recycling here - they pick up the recycling bin and send it off for us. (Probably to a place like this, just for the record, which is pretty cool.) But, longterm, improved recycling habits is not where I want to go. The key, in my opinion, to fixing the Garbage In, Garbage Out equation is to actually reduce Garbage In - even if that "garbage" mostly ends up in the recycling bin.

So, I had to make some decisions about what I consider to be useful packaging. This is, like almost everything else I've discussed here, based on personal values and beliefs. (I'll tell you a funny story about that when talking about "Personal Care" items tomorrow!) What I do, in other words, will probably NOT make sense for you! But here are a few things from my list.

Buy items from the "bulk bins" at the local natural food store. Take ziplocs for items that must have a bag. For me, these include

Honey Mustard Pretzels
Rice
Beans
Spinach
Mushrooms
Granola
For the first several weeks, be prepared to explain to every cashier that the store doesn't sell spinach/granola/rice pre-packaged in ziplocs - you just brought those in yourself. Repeat with staff turnover.

Don't put your produce in those conveniently provided little plastic bags. Bring your own little bags if you like, or just let them run around loose.

This one took some doing for me! But I'm going to wash it all when I get home anyway, and the checkout conveyor belt is probably no dirtier than the display. So why am I grabbing garbage that I will only use for 30 minutes? Talk about short life cycle items!

Change a few habits to make a big difference. Again, these were personal choices for me - in some cases not even choices that I enforce with my own guys!

Personal care items are notorious for packaging. We'll talk about most of this tomorrow, but just one quick one. Take a look at bar soap instead of those lovely body washes. Unless you can refill that body wash bottle, it is trash every few months.
If you have the storage space, larger sized items usually improve the stuff - to - packaging ratio.
For me, just looking at this packaging craziness was more useful than any suggestion that I read. Shopping is family specific. As they say, YMMV.

So, our family garbage production actually made me think about CSAs and have a few interesting conversations at the grocery store check out line. Do you see what I mean? The ripples are everywhere. Tomorrow, I'll try to trace how I got into personal care items research.

Lighten Up: Oil research leads to new ideas

2008-07-04T09:22:00.001-07:00

The funny thing is that my personal/political minor league obsession with petroleum has probably been the source of the most Lighten Up changes. OK, actually the internet probably counts as the highest source for chnages - but oil is at the root of those changes.

If I chose to frame it that way, I think I could make a case for everything that I've done being about oil. The current situation that we have gotten ourselves into with oil in this country, for me, represents a serious lack of - well, a lot of things: planning and foresight, thoughtfulness, sustainability. It speaks to me of where the trouble - in my own life - actually resides.

The kind of lifestyle that we are leading here in "my country tis of thee" is literally fueled by petroleum - and not just because we have sprawling cities that don't lend themselves to public transportation.

Our basic foods log many miles to get to us - and even more if they come from a fast food chain that ships everything to some home base and then distributes from there.
Our obsession with disposability has created a huge plastics industry which relies - as you know - on petroleum as raw material. Plastics also add a lovely range of new and exciting chemicals to our lives which allow us the pleasure of wondering about the long term effects of phthalates. ( It also makes me wonder why I know how to spell a word that looks unpronounceable....)
Many health and beauty products use petroleum (and phthalates) as stable (and relatively inexpensive) bases for their specialized formulas.
And, of course, oil is an input for creating electricity.

But all of my changes didn't start with my oil obsession, though. That is just one way that I can tell the story. It can be told from a number of other directions, too, so I'll start with those and try to track them through for you in the next few days.

Lighten Up: The basics

2008-07-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

So far this year, I've focused on a few basic ideas of sustainable living. I've taken very small steps along the paths that those ideas indicate. And I've been paying attention to what happens as a result.

So, just as a reminder, here are the ideas that started the whole Lighten Up thing:

I want to be less involved with the oil/petroleum producing industries.
I want to be a wiser consumer.
I want life to be less expensive, not more.

Overall and long term. It may not be true item by item or day by day.

Although it is hard to remember with any certainty, I think that this is where I started! Just a few ideas that - 6 months later - have already changed my life!

Of course, from these 3 ideas to the current state of affairs is really all about the Ripples. I'm still trying to figure out how to break this story down for you, but should have something by tomorrow!

BTW, you'll see that the countdown is gone. I do have official word that I'll be transitioning between now and July 18 and then part time after that. There is still a possibility that it won't work - considering the factors involved - but I think I'll be keeping my job for a bit at least!

The Ripple Effect

2008-06-29T21:41:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I updated on the Lighten Up initiatives. The last few days have me thinking more and more about the unexpected side effects of some of my Lighten Up baby steps. This pile of suitcases (yes, they're full of stuff) and bags that are heading out to Goodwill is an example of that. I've always been aware that "stuff" has a kind of attractive energy - almost like a subtle form of gravity. As stuff accumulates, though, it seems to have more energy to pull more stuff into my life. I'm not even always aware that I'm adding to the pile until, one day, I look around and find myself surrounded! I realize that the corners of my bedroom are scattered with the detritus of consumerism and somewhat sheepishly realize that I've gone a little crazy again.

But there is something about the whole Lighten Up initiative that is helping me to reverse that. Do you SEE the number of hangers here? Granted, some of that is from long sleeved shirts that will get filled with short sleeved shirts this week. But some of that is just from STUFF that I thought I needed to get - or that I wore to work but didn't really like - or that looks FAR WORSE on me than I ever realized - or that.... You get the picture.

Although I can't necessarily explain it, I know that my record setting number of trips to Goodwill this year are an example of the Lighten Up Ripple Effect. So, over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be trying to track a few of the LUREs (I made my own acronym! What is WRONG with me?!?) that I've been seeing in my life. That will give me a good way to do a mid year update on what I have done and what that doing has done to my life!

Eye glides

2008-06-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

More R&D! So, when I got back from my last business trip, I had a dilemma. My skin was very dry (19 hours of airplane will do that) but I wanted to put on makeup to go see one of my friend's bands. Eye shadow is BAD in those conditions because my dry eyes look REALLY OLD with eyeshadow on. So, I actually grabbed a tube of chapstick (that was slightly purple) from the back of my makeup drawer and used that for eyeshadow.

Of course, per Lighten Up 2008 initiatives, I now felt compelled to try to make something like this myself without all of the chemical crap in it. And here are some pics from the first effort. Actually, technically the 2 tubes on the far left below are from the 1st effort. The jar (above), and the green here, are phase 2. The brown is phase 3. BTW, note the fabulous BLOCK of beeswax in the back? Lovely, local honey suppliers sell that about 5 miles from my house.

Just for the record, the grey is a failed attempt at color. But it represents 2 important lessons. 1) Make sure that whatever you're using for color actually dissolves in oil - not just suspends. 2) Don't try to color the oil/wax mixture. It is ridiculously difficult!

And for those of you who question my sanity with the green, remember that green counters the red in the darkness around my eyes! And it really doesn't show up much anyway, as you can see here. That is grey, green, and brown on my hand. Yeah, you really can't tell.

So the next batch will use a different base oil, since I would like Ms. PL to beta test for me and she can't use coconut oil based stuff. Then I have to figure out other colors - brown was EASY but I doubt they'll all be that way - and send you all some samples. Edible eyeshadow! Who knew?

Subterranean Homesick Blues

2008-06-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Every time I start formulating a new concoction of any kind, HTH starts singing a modified version of the Subterranean Homesick Blues. "Ang is in the basement, Mixing up the medicine."

I've heard that several times over the last few days, so you know I'm up to something. That's right - a brand new product Ang product is in the works!

I'll be posting some pics soon, but they will be nowhere near the normal quality. My luggage still hasn't shown up, and my fabulous camera was in the bag. Yuck!

It is official!

2008-06-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

Or at least a little closer to official. My boss has committed to the following:

On July 1, he will either have defined my part time role or he will accept my resignation letter.
The week of July 7 will be spent transitioning all of my knowledge to the new MBB for one of my roles- regardless of their actual start date.
The week of July 14 will be spent transitioning a project to one of my BBs and transitioning my staff to my boss.
I will be paid as a Full Time employee during the transition time, even though I will only be doing only as much as I have to do.
July 18 will either be my last day or the start of my part time role.

I was very blunt. And I sent him an e-mail last night so that he could be prepared enough to cover all of the transition plans in 30 minutes. I'm still disappointed that he had 4 months to deal with this and still didn't take care of his side of the deal until I forced the issue. One more confirmation of my opinion of corporate life.... But he knows that I won't stay on full time. We'll see what happens next!

Impacts of Business Travel on Lighten Up

2008-06-19T14:13:00.001-07:00

OK, so this will probably be a pretty obvious post, but it struck me - as I started to recover from the recent Singapore trip - how much the trip really impacted my Lighten Up initiatives.

From an environmental/carbon footprint perspective, jet travel is a bad thing. Lots of petroleum, lots of energy, not great for the environment. But there were a number of more subtle impacts of my trip that I have just been realizing.

Let's just take a look where that happened:

Lost luggage

Had to use hotel shampoo and conditioner instead of my baking soda and ACV (waste AND chemicals)
Had to buy hair product that I already owned and had plenty of at home (just waste, since I will consume these chemicals until I quit my office)
Unnecessary new shoes, clothes and luggage (Extra, extra, extra is not light, light, light!)

Trip prep and Jet Lag

Bought convenience foods (both for while I was gone and for my return) so I wouldn't have to cook. (Extra packaging, extra chemicals, extra calories. Not at all en-Light-ened.)
Didn't take my bags to do the grocery shopping on my return. (PLASTIC BAGS GALORE! How do they teach these cashiers to pack groceries anyway?)
Haven't shopped at the local farmer's markets 3 weekends in a row now! (Non-local produce means more petroleum per pound!)

It's weird how all of the little things add up. And I'm sure that there are more impacts that I just haven't realized yet. So, just one more reason why that green count down box up there is so important to me. Part time or quit should mean no more business travel! Whoo-hoo!

I don't know what it means, but...

2008-06-16T17:57:00.001-07:00

I'm sure that some of my search for significance in random events has been heightened by the fact that I am in transition. Not just me, either. There is transition all around me. (Of course, I'm more sensitive to it these days, so I'm seeing it EVERYWHERE!) But, as AD pointed out today, sometimes a story is just a story. I don't need to know the moral(s) or what this all means. I just have to tell it.

So, here is how it began. This Singapore trip appeared in my work life a few weeks after I had taken my "very last corporate business trip" to the UK. To be honest, Singapore has never been on my must see list. And the work needed during this time was - even for me - a little too much to consider. Quite frankly, the two weeks leading up to the trip left me literally twisted into physical knots. The chiropractor - two days before I left - couldn't even get me straightened out because the muscles in my back were so tight that the bones couldn't be realigned. It was bad.

But I boarded the plane in Phoenix with agendas, attendees, travel team, and proposed outputs all in place. I won't say that I was thrilled with the prep work, but we had made the best of a bad job. The travel team was prepared for possible long days. The attendees knew what we needed from them. It would still be tough, but manageable.

But then my first flight arrived at the gate 10 minutes late. And, after the airplane doors closed and the jet way pulled away, we were grounded by San Francisco traffic control - for 45 minutes. My layover was 95 minutes, so it was still possible at this point that I would make it. But then we circled San Francisco for 15 minutes. And then the airline that I needed to get my new boarding pass from had no one at the counter. And it was really only 5 minutes before the doors closed by the time I got there, so I probably wouldn't have made it anyway.

I remember sitting there at the counter trying to not cry from frustration. The extra 12 hours that I had built in to acclimate to the 15 hour time difference before my travel team arrived was spent in San Francisco instead. And, although I didn't know it at the time, this was when my luggage disappeared. But none of this was the fault of the counter agents. So they rebooked me for the next flight out - 2 pm the next day - and got me in touch with the airline who helped me miss my flight in the first place. Of course, they had no counter agents on duty at 1:30 am, so they could not issue me a voucher for a hotel. But I was very motivated to find one!

So I called my travel office. The nice guy on the phone spent 55 minutes calling around to hotels - because it was already tomorrow, he couldn't tell who had availability AND there were some conventions in town so it took a while - and I got the only cab out to the hotel. Of course, the guy had no idea where the hotel was and no GPS, but we got directions and made it OK.

And somewhere between the ticket counter and my hotel something happened. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but I just quit trying to make things go the way I had planned. Looking back at it now, it may be that I missed my flight so that I could go into the meetings with just that attitude (or possibly so I could handle the slightly panicky phone call from one of my employees the next morning). Maybe the best way to describe it is to tell you what I did.

I got onto the lovely plane the next day and I watched comedy movies the whole 10 hours to Incheon. And I slept all the way from Incheon to Singapore. I did not do the data sets and curriculum edits I had planned. I did not tweak the meeting materials. I did not even think about work. I giggled a lot - though I tried to be quiet about it since some people don't use the airplane time to start acclimating to the new time zone like I do.

When I got to Singapore, I waited for my luggage. Then I filed my paperwork for them to find it. I didn't even feel surprised - though I REALLY regretted packing my camera. The airline gave me money for essentials and a toiletry kit (that included the 1 of the things I was missing from my carryon) and a white t-shirt. When I checked in at the hotel, and told them about the luggage thing, they gave me another missing luggage kit that included a wrap skirt and a comb - the other thing I was missing. The clothes were critical, of course, because I had already changed into my spare outfit in San Fran....

So, I slept and showered and took my money to the mall. And I went to work the next day and realized that all of this "rolling with it" stuff had just been prep - because WOW did that meeting need to get away from my agenda and on the the real problem!

It was a complicated work week with much to do. And my work day started at the equivalent of midnight for my body clock and finished around 9:30 am. I went shopping for clothes after work on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday ( I gave up then and bought enough for the rest of the week). And different members of my team needed different encouragement and attention, so I had to be available for group meals 3x a day. There was one time during the whole week when I knew that I could've gone over the edge - but I somehow managed to ask the working team to do something without me while I took a walk to figure out our next steps.

Yes, I was tired (OK, still am, really) and yes, it was tricky. But it really didn't feel bad. I guess the part of me that knew this would make a funny "why I REALLY left corporate America" story or "why I NEVER check my luggage" story was much more present than the "this is NOT how I planned to spend my time" voice. And I suspect that, oddly enough, the trip would've been more difficult if I had had even one fewer problem to deal with. So, that is my story. I don't know what it means, but it really did happen this way!

Knowing that you're in a story

2008-06-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

The strangest thing about this past week has been this: I KNOW that I, and possibly others, will be telling the convoluted stories of this week at some time in the future. Usually when I'm in the middle of something that will become a story, I don't realize it. But this time - well, there are just too many things happening for there not to be at least a few stories from this one!

On the road again - recap

2008-06-13T02:01:00.000-07:00

The week was productive but also very interesting. I realized a few things about myself this week - though I'm too tired to post about that now. And being here with no luggage made me spend more time in the middle of the daily life of Singapore than I usually do on a business trip. But, most of all, I realized that I've been traveling too much again. Time to, as PB says, "keep my feet in my house" for a bit. I'm looking forward to being home for a while!

The Good News!

2008-06-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

The good news is that we will finish our work 4 hours early. That means that there will be time for sight seeing and fun! Chinatown! Singapore History Museum! Arab Street Bazaar!

The bad news is that they still have not uncovered my luggage. (*sigh*) Never checking luggage again!

Me minus luggage

2008-06-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is what I get for checking my bag.... I'm in Singapore, but my luggage is not. Hmmm..... There is a flight arriving about now that may have my bag on it. If not, then I'm heading to the mall next door to try and find some work clothes for the week. It is, of course, perfectly managabele, just not the way I was planning to spend this day....

In other news, my room is gorgeous and I think I'll be OK for jet lag. I slept approrpiately on the plane, and slept OK last night. With any luck, I'll get a call soon that says I'm free to spend the afternoon sight seeing! That would be nice...

On The Road Again

2008-06-05T16:51:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm packed and ready to go, I must admit that part of me is looking forward to this trip to Singapore. But I would like to say, just for the record, that even that part of me thinks that Willie Nelson had issues. "Just can't wait to get on the road again" cannot represent a particularly healthy way to approach life, IMHO.

I've got the camera packed, so you'll see some pics in the next few days!

Three Things

2008-06-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

A meme! From Evova!

Three names I respond to: Angela, Ang, Lina

Three things that frighten me: losing the illusion of control, losing myself, dependency

Three things I am wearing: Black t-shirt (obligatory), standard jewelry, green shorts

Three truths: Everything Changes; Life's A Little Conversation; Rhyme nor reason can describe what has been done, spinning circles round the sun. (And all CAVU lyrics. I REALLY need to play some music!)

Three things I really want: Some space to breathe in this hectic schedule, a full night's sleep, an evening playing music with my friends.

Respond with your 3 things in comments or on your own blog! Love to hear from AD and Ommi.

Should Be/Actual/Want To Be

2008-06-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

What I Should Be Doing:
Laundry
Sorting out a wardrobe for Singapore
Replacing misplaced/broken travel size bottles
Deciding if I need anything else for the trip
Grocery shopping - supersized to cover my absence
Picking up the things that I have decided that I need (have to make the decisions first!)

What I Am Doing:
Laundry
Trying to contain my unreasonable sense of panic
Intermittently making a grocery shopping list
Writing about it here

What I Want To Be Doing:
Having coffee and going to the Farmer's Market with PL!

It is all easier to deal with once I make the list. I am going to check my travel size bottles and go do the grocery shopping after I finish the laundry. I was hoping to pick up any and all of the little missing travel items today - using the errand loop method to save gas! - but the thought of figuring out everything that I need today has me on the edge of completely FREAKING OUT! Lovely, huh?

Just remember this post if you ever start to wonder how I manage the crazy days between needing to leave my job and actually feeling free to do so. I use selective denial as a panic management technique. This is NOT what I would recommend as a best practice...

Just another little customer

2008-05-28T22:02:00.001-07:00

In all my Lighten Up frenzy (which includes, of course, the COUNTDOWN TO PART TIME OR QUITTING!), I've not posted much about the business that is allowing (or possibly "needing" is the right word) me to quit my current day job. But I have one little quick story (as I vainly try to wind down from this very long day) that will give some small insight into that side of things.

HTH, as you all know, is quite the business man. He is technically proficient, a good communicator, and the kind of guy who sees possibilities every time someone else says that it can't be done. These are all extremely good traits in a technical service business. So, he picked up a new customer this week. They have 3 locations in the valley, but the one right by our house had been having a beer problem for 3 years. HTH fixed it in about 4 hours. (Yeah, he is just like that.) The regional manager was so pleased that he was bragging about the work to his local Hensley tech. Now Hensley wants contact information to recommend HTH to their customers.

So, that sounds all well and good, right? One good customer leads to another and all of that. Just normal business operations, you know.... Until you realize exactly who Hensley represents here in the Valley of the Sun. Yep. This Hensley's for you! DANG! Did I marry well or what?!?

Lighten up on the plastic bags

2008-05-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my new flip & tumble bag - that now lives in my purse - I achieved a new personal record on bringing plastic bags into the house. I did the weekly family grocery shopping, specialty party shopping, and even a trip to Home Depot this weekend. And I ended up with 3 plastic bags. Just 3! And we use 2 a week! Whoo-hoo! Next week, I'm going to see if I can get away with none.

Singapore travel tips anyone?

2008-05-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

While I'm thinking about it.... It looks more and more likely that I will be in Singapore the week of June 9. I've checked a few travel sites, so I know a bit about the laws, the climate (in business attire, that should be interesting!) and some of the sites. Any tips or comments out there?

Lighten Up = Not Being Complicit

2008-05-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I finally found a good way to describe the weight that I am trying to rid myself of with this Lighten Up initiative. And I found it in the work of the famous sci fi author William Gibson. I was re-reading Pattern Recognition. The main character uses her pattern recognition skills to hunt "cool" and recognize whether or not proposed corporate logos "work" for the marketplace. But, in the beginning of Chapter 23, she finds herself in a bit of a funk (for all kinds of reasons that I won't go into here) and it all crystallizes into a revelation.

"...Cayce know that she is, and has long been, complicit. Though in what, exactly, is harder to say." (p194 of the Berkley Trade Paperback edition) The next paragraph goes on to say that she knows too much about the processes that surround her role and it sometimes seems that there is nothing else going on in the entire world but product positioning to influence consumers.

Her complicity is different than mine. I'm complicit in the way Corporate America encourages a world view in its employees that is based on financial dependence and school yard political behavior. I'm complicit in the rampant disposable consumerism, in which I still occasionally participate. I'm complicit in all aspects of our oil based culture - from government policies towards oil producing companies to the environmental after effects. I'm complicit in the fascination with the youth = beauty culture, with which I have several vigorous disagreements. I'm complicit in the silly water use that my desert home encourages with green lawns. And all of this complicity tugs at me - sometimes gently, sometimes violently - and tries to pull me in different directions.

I do understand the draw of all of these things. I see the advantages to following the paths they create. But, for whatever reason, I can't accept that these paths lead me to where I want to go.

So, in essence, Lighten Up is about reducing not just the weight of my complicity but the internal conflict that I feel in response to it . And that covers a lot of territory - as we've seen in this years' posts so far. The interesting thing about thinking about it this way is that I'm not sure when or where it will stop. But at least that will ensure, as the ever wise PL pointed out to me today, that I have plenty of projects to tackle at any given time. And you know me... I have to be bored.

(sigh) 40 days

2008-05-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

Based on Ommi's wise suggestion, I added a countdown clock on my blog. It counts down to the end of my last full time day in the timezone upon which I base my work day. It did not escape me that the clock, today, shows the total time at 40 days.

Of course, I'm sure that it is pure coincidence that I happened to post a countdown clock on the only day that it would give me such a weighted number. But it is interesting to know that today is the beginning of a time period that has shown up as significant everywhere from Ancient Egyptian burial rituals and the story of Buddha to the myriad mentions in the Bible. All of that background resonates in me with the sense of this time as a test/trial/"hang on through this and you will get somewhere" period.

And it isn't like this will even be all that difficult. I just have to juggle 3 major projects (one for each of the jobs I'm currently covering), 4 BBs, and any of the issues with their 12-15 projects. If isn't like I have to fast in the desert or be stuffed with natron this whole time! Viewed logically, and despite my overactive sense of impending drama, I could probably do this 40 days standing on my head!

28 days

2008-05-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm counting, but there are only 28 working days until June 30 - which is when I'll be moving to part time. Events of the last week make it look like this is a real possibility. And the events of the last 4 weeks mean SOME kind of change is absolutely imperative by that time. So I'm making a little calendar that counts down the days for me. That way I don't have to keep track anymore - I can just look at the calendar!

Lighten Up - The BIG Dilemma

2008-05-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

As you all know, books have a huge impact on my life in the form of new ideas, expenditures, and time spent doing something with the ones that I don't want to keep. There are a fair amount of books that have gone from Amazon to my house to the local second hand bookstore for credit to buy more books. It is a vicious cycle, but one that I have had a very hard time considering breaking.

But, as of today, the cycle is no more! I have joined BookSwim. It is the NetFlix of books. It lets me read what I like (I can even request that they buy books that they don't have), ship it back to them and get something else. I am on the 5 books at any time plan that lets me ship back any 3 and keep 2 at any time. Free shipping, of course. And at $23.99 a month it is FAR cheaper than my current book buying habit - but I also found a "5 for $5 for the first month coupon" to try it out.

I should say that this is not an entirely 'green' change in some ways. The shipping bit is not environmentally friendly. Of course, buying ANYTHING around here suffers from that problem. But it does address the largest component of clutter in my house (I currently have 1 or more books in every room of the house that I use) and solve a time issue (gathering books and getting them back to Bookmans) while still feeding my voracious reading habit.

All in all, I think it is going to be a beeYOUUUUtiful thing! But if it isn't, I'll let you know....

Moodling

2008-05-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that HTH caught a cold on the plane, he still managed to get my computer back together today. Have I mentioned that I am a very spoiled woman?

But, though many things have happened in the last several weeks, I find myself in the position of having them all still running around in the back of my head. I have had zero moodling time to sort them out, much less to turn them into coherent posts for you! So, instead, here are two completely random pictures from the Louisiana part of my trip.

No computer

2008-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Just letting you all know that, though I am alive and well, my computer is not. Nothing major - just time consuming to fix. And neither HTH nor I have had the time to address it. But I will get to it by the end of the week. Really! I promise!

In the meantime, here is what I cam home to on Sunday (along with DS, CS and RS who had all been gathered up by D2 and brought to visit AND a spotlessly clean house. It was a very good day!

Notes from the road

2008-04-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

It is a great time of year for a Phoenician to be in UK. The weather is cold, damp, and rainy - nothing like the 90+ degrees at home. It is lovely! The only downside is that I've needed to take taxis into the office in the morning to arrive looking presentable. But that is company money, so all is well.

I've said "au revior" to a few people already - folks that I may or may not see again depending on the vagaries of their business travel. But I have been able to see everyone that I wanted to - for the most part - and avoid the ones that I wanted to avoid. Whoo-hoo!

Despite the fact that I have a number of stateside projects in critical phases, I have escaped with only 1 meeting scheduled during my teaching time. However, I have had 7 meetings scheduled after hours. Of course, that is an impressively low meeting total for the week for me - especially considering that I had 6 hours of meetings in ONE DAY last week!

I enjoy my job, and I enjoy my various teams. I like all of the problem solving and I even like the fact that I can travel some. But I will be more than happy to go part time and then leave. I am tired, and ready to be done for a while.

And that is my story....

Yesterday was a Very Good Day

2008-04-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was good for two reasons. D2 turned 16 and HTH finally got a contact lens that works. And I say those together to point out that sometimes the little things make a BIG difference.

We went out to dinner last night to celebrate D2's birthday. (He also celebrated at school during lunch because I brought him 10 In & Out Double Cheeseburgers to hand out!) At the end of the meal, HTH pulled out his credit card and handed it to the waitress. When she came back with the bill, I held out my hand and said "Do you want me to do that?" (i.e. figure tip, do the math) just like I have been doing since January 2, 2007. HTH just looked at me, laughed, and said "No! I can see it now!" WOW!

Granted, the contact lens is hard, so it will take some time before he is able to wear it all day. And, if he tilts his head completely back and tries to look forward, he can see around the lens to the section of his eye that has the astigmatism. But, WOW! He can see out of BOTH EYES! One little bitty lens, representing the efforts of an eye doctor and technician, and the whole world has changed. Sometimes the little things really do make all of the difference!

Apropos of Nothing: It must be Sunday

2008-04-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

We do laundry on Sunday - and, since we don't have a designated laundry room, we fold clothes in the living room. Everyone picks up their stuff and takes it off to their own storage places. I should mention that our living room has, between chairs, couches (seats and back) and benches, no fewer than 14 different spaces (not even including the carpet!) for our cat to settle. Most often, you will find him on the back of the 3 cushion couch leaning over HTH's shoulder or sitting on the stack of floor pillow so that he can see out of the window.

But every Sunday, without fail, he moves his napping to the back of the love seat. Why? So he can sleep on Dylan's clean (and predominantly dark colored) clothes.

Stubbornness, thy name is Gus!

Things That I Made Up

2008-04-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

To quote a very clever song writer that I happen to know....

"I've been talking in my sleep
Saying things that I made up
Mostly things that I can't repeat
Mostly cause I have forgotten what they were"

(The mix is not what we'll end up with, but you can hear it here if you have IE and the Quicktime plug in.)

Yep. It's been a bit crazy. And it will be a bit crazy. I would quote my e-mail exchange with AD today - if you require proof - where I adamantly refused to sell my own brand of crazy in pink. Lavender, maybe, but NOT PINK!

I have been doing some thinking and experimenting lately that should contribute to a nice Lighten Up post. And that will happen any day now - as soon as I figure out how to Lighten Up enough to have some blogging time.

But today is really HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HTH day! So I won't waste any more time on this now. I'm off to hang with the hubby!