“Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health,
so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that
it takes in.”
-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
‘Nuff said!
-Mish
Leonardo DaVinci – thoughts on studying
Diagnosing Diabetes – Alex’s Story…
I recently noticed several changes in my son, Alex’s physical appearance and behavior. Alex is 12 and recently grew about six inches in as many months, so I was not at first shocked by his tendency to eat everything in sight. I have an older son who went through a similar growth spurt, so I just let him eat and said little.
However, in the last four weeks or so, Alex was drinking everything he could get his hands on. He drained the gallon of milk in the fridge. He drank five pints of water while standing at the sink once or twice (he told me this later). He brought a gallon jug of water to soccer practice – and finished it. Apparently, he was getting up three or four times every night to go to the bathroom.
Stocking Up – How to Keep Your Pantry
I get a lot of questions about how to keep a pantry stocked – whether for emergencies, winter or in preparation for bad times.
Stocking a pantry can be simple, but before you decide to do it, you should commit to preparing food from scratch as much as possible. Filling your pantry with “Easy Mac” isn’t really going to save you a lot of money!
What do you eat? Before stocking our pantry and I made a list of the meals we eat. I wish we were a little more adventurous than we are in our dinner selections, but we do seem to eat the same meals all of the time, especially if I’m cooking in the crockpot for after a game. Of course, I try to mix it up if I see the fish guy has come to town or I find a recipe I’d love to try, but other than that, we probably eat the same 20ish items for dinner.
Don’t Go Into Debt This Christmas – Part 1
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It is. I love Christmas. I love the lights and the snow and the excitement and anticipation. 
I don’t mind shopping…at least a little of it. This year, with the economy in the state it’s in, apparently the retailers are already grumbling about their low expectations for the “shopping” season. Well, let me give you a little advice – don’t feel bad for the retailers. And don’t feel bad for yourself either. Whether you only have $10 to your name or $10,000, Christmas can still be a time of wonder – expecially if you have children.
The first thing you have to do to prepare yourself for a debt-free, frugal – yet fun Christmas – is sit down and get the notion out of your head that you have to spend a lot of money at Christmas. You have to get the image of the tree with TONS of presents under it out of your head. You also have to get it out of your head that you are going to need a credit card to get through Christmas. You don’t. Snip it up now. There is no reason that you need to pay interest on stuff for Christmas. Please, I’m begging you, don’t do it.
Visualize your Christmas without huge amounts of debt. Visualize having cash in hand at Christmas.
Frugality Lessons Learned from Living in the Car
With gas prices rising, food prices rising…OK – the price of everything rising…I am often asked about how to get by on very little.
As you may already know, I spent the bulk of the summer of 1997 living in my car with my three small children. Before that, I lived in the cabin from hell (a tar-paper shack in Northern Maine with no running water). Before that, I was your basic middle-class young mom. To read how all that happened, buy this book.
Needless to say, I’ve learned a bit about living on very little in the last 10 years. Because I am deathly afraid of it ever happening again, I’ve struggled to maintain my simple standards – even when times are good! I am so tired of watching people on TV morning shows tell me that the best way to get through a tough time is to save money. Well, if you are anything like me – you don’t make $100,000 or more a year as a television talk show host – so you probably don’t have a lot to save.
Instead, you need ways to save money – or make money – right now, so that you can put food on your table, gas in your car and pay the electric bill.
Lance Mackey on Conan O’Brien
As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of dogsled racing and hope one day to race a team of my own. For now, though, I am happy to follow some of my favorite racers. Here is a great clip of Lance Mackey - who won the Yukon Quest and Iditarod back to back two years in a row. He is also a cancer survivor and just an all around fun to watch guy.
I knew I liked Lance Mackey when I read a news story about him before the 2007 Iditarod. He had just won the Quest for the first time and hadn’t yet received his winnings. His truck broke down on the way to Iditarod (The quest ends in Fairbanks and then the Iditarod starts two-ish weeks later in Anchorage) and he and his dogs had to hitch a ride to Anchorage to start the race. It not only sounded just like something that would happen to me, but as an avid fan, I grew a little weary of seeing “big” name mushers with “big” money always winning. It was nice to just see a guy with a dream (if you don’t mind a little cheese in my post!).
Anyway, here’s Lance on Conan, courtesy of YouTube.com. And for those of you with TV, please check out the show on the Discovery Channel Tuesday night. I’ll be wishing I could see it (I don’t have TV) and will hope they will put it on the Internet soon!
How is the Financial Crisis affecting you?
I was listening to NPR in the car with my husband the other day and there was an interview with a gentleman who has a new book out (I am totally forgetting the name of book and author, so if any of this sounds familiar, please someone let me know because I’d really like to read the book!). The book was, of course, about the “financial crisis” but also about how what we buy is being logged and recorded by various stores so that they can send us better more exclusive deals. Basically he was saying that every time I use my super saver card at Shaw’s, they have a record of what I buy.
The reason I was so interested was because he called me a barnacle. Yes, I’m a barnacle. Apparently, those of us who don’t get sucked into the special deals and then buy the other expensive stuff so that we will feel a part of the grocery store family, are barnacles. A drag on the store’s marketing machine perhaps?
I’m a barnacle because I have no store loyalty. I will shop where ever there is cheaper stuff. Including Wal-Mart – so let the horrible emails begin. I will shop at Wal-Mart simply because I believe I shouldn’t have to pay twice as much for canned soup just to show off my brand loyalty.
In essence, I am looking out for number one – which in this case is numbers one through eight – and I will shop where ever I can get the best deals without sacrificing nutrition and health.
So, I guess Shaw’s won’t be sending me a lot of coupons for fancy schmancy stuff – but that’s OK because I won’t buy it anyway!
This got me to thinking about the larger financial crisis. Everyday, my husband lets me know how much the Dow crashed during the day. He tells me about all the potentially scary scenarios out there. I think he finds it entertaining – in a watching a car crash on the Interstate kind of way.
But, as of yet, I’m waiting for the financial crisis to affect little old me. Except for higher gas prices – which I think is a good thing – and higher prices on some food items, the financial crisis has not affected me very much. Is it because I’m used to being relatively poor? And I mean that only in a “compared to the rest of middle class America” kind of way. I don’t believe we are poor at all. We don’t have a lot of money – or any investments (which, I guess, is a good thing) – but we have plenty of food, space to grow more food, a roof over our heads (which I don’t take for granted), wood in the shed for the winter and our health and wits!
I didn’t experience the boom of the early 90’s and I haven’t really, yet, experienced the crashes. Money is always tight for us, but we’ve chosen a life that doesn’t give us a lot of spare cash and we are very used to making do with very little.
We drive used cars; we heat with wood; we shop little; we buy clothes at thrift stores; and the list goes on. It makes me wonder if we are better equipped to deal with the “crisis,” because we never really had it all that good?
Of course, I would be very bummed if our clients were unable to pay us, but I think we could get by. We have other avenues of income – even if they aren’t currently our main sources.
Am I saying that the financial crisis won’t affect me? Certainly not, but as of yet, things are still pretty even-keeled here. I just intend to keep on going like we have – being frugal, trying to save, making do and doing without.
How is the financial crisis affecting you?
Is Putting a Baby in Full-Time Daycare Child Abuse?
I’ve been having a bit of a battle about my Attachment Parenting post.
To those coming into the debate fresh, let me clarify my position. I believe wholeheartedly in the following:
- staying home with my children absolutely through the first year and beyond if possible (except for short outings).
- co-sleeping.
- breastfeeding – exclusively for six months, and at least for one year.
- wearing my baby as much as possible.
- feeding healthy foods 90 percent of the time (I’m never opposed to birthday cake) – and always organic when possible.
- homeschooling – although I do have a daughter in our local public high school.
I believe lots of other crunchy, yet conservative things too. But these six are the most relevant to the topic at hand.
Happy Birthday Baby!
Kiara is one – and walking! Oh my, where does the time go?
Seems like just a day ago she was this snuggly little baby and now she’s practically a full-fledged toddler!
A Fine Mess: Humor and Help for Living Simply
g-diapers – convenient and eco-friendly!
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