Organically Inclined

I love creative - and cheap - Christmas gift ideas! So, I spent the morning looking around for some gifts that I could make and give to my teens too. I found some really wonderful sites with some fantastically creative ideas. This, then, is my own little blog carnival of great Christmas Gift ideas:

1. A Scrappy Belt - for teens.  This is from the blog Juicy Bits and is such an amazing idea!

My 15 year old daughter just loves funky belts to wear with those low-rise jeans I love so much! There are a lot of instructions, so visit the site to find out how to do it.

2. Fingerless mitts - these are great for guitar players and any teen who is just too cool for you (that would be all of my teens). I knit these for my teens last year and they loved them, but Elemental Stitches has a great way to make them without knitting - you just need an old sweater or two!

3. A Laptop Sleeve - from Living Creatively. This is a great idea, especially for teens and college students who are always taking their laptops around. Make a bunch of different sleeves in a variety of colors for quick style changes!

When we first moved back to Vermont, I was terrified. Without a steady job, I didn’t know exactly from where our money would come. We were always on what I believed to be the edge of poverty. But then I started to think about it. Were we truly poor?

Everywhere I look – books, radio, television – there is someone telling me how to “eliminate debt” or “build wealth.” And the majority of these programs are geared for people who have high-paying jobs, huge homes and new cars and are feeling the “burden” of too much debt. What I don’t see a lot of are books or shows dedicated to helping people live – and live well - off $10 an hour. In order to be on a “debt diet” one needs to be able to acquire debt. I dare say that most financial experts would argue that you can’t live well off $10 an hour. Those families who make $10 an hour are impoverished and should be educated as to how to make more money. And that’s where the help ends: “Get a better job, get some debt and then I can help you.”

So what is poverty?
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“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

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.

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I have always been fascinated by the Amish. Truly, I am fascinated by anyone who has committed themselves completely to their religion. I am not that way. I have not committed myself to one religion. I am more of an “a la carte” girl, myself. although, as a girl, before deciding I wanted to have a lot of kids, I wanted to be a nun - go figure!There is something very, almost romantic to me about that kind of commitment. But at the same time, there was a time in my life when I tried very hard to be an atheist…and if you had asked me, I would have told you I was.

I never really believed that there wasn’t a God, but I couldn’t justify it - or rationalize it - as being true. For a long time, it seemed impossible to me to believe that there could be a God. For a variety of reasons, that’s changed for me now (and maybe someday I’ll go into them), but for right now, I have to tell you about this book “Amish Grace.”

What an amazing book.

Amish Grace is a story of forgiveness in the face of horrible tragedy. After the shooting in a Nickle Mines one-room Amish school house, where five little girls were executed and five more critically wounded, the Amish - and in particular the Amish families who were affected, forgave the shooter. What’s more, they not only forgave the shooter’s family - he left behind a wife and two children - after the news got out and the Amish were flooded with many letters and money, the Amish community shared the money with them, as they too were now without a provider.

Beyond the shooting, the book looks at forgiveness as being a whole part of being Amish. To be Amish is to forgive. It’s the first thing they do.

The most interesting part of this book is to hear the rare account of how difficult it can be to forgive - but you do it anyway because that’s what God wants from us. “We’re human too,” one Amish man said.

I’ve always idealized the Amish. I read another book about them a while back about a midwife who spent time delivering Amish babies - and they are the most stoic people.

“Amish Grace” though, was a wonderful, heart-wrenching incite into a culture that shies away from the spotlight, doesn’t proselytize their faith (they believe in illustrating their faith through good works rather than “mission” type work), and truly believes in living each day as it is given.

I am humbled by their strength and their resolve. And even if you aren’t humbled by them - this book is an interesting, well-written read and a peek into a culture we rarely see on CNN. Just reading it has helped me on my own journey to seek grace.

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.

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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.

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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.

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“It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom.” - Albert Einstein

I just love this quote. I have an interesting opportunity to compare my oldest, who is now 16, and my fifth child, Jack, who is almost 4. I was so concerned as a first time parent that my child be able to do everything. I made sure that he knew his letters by the age of 3 - he was reading by four, knew his numbers, could write his name, etc., etc. I admit it, particularly in his younger years, I pushed and pushed. Mostly because he just seemed so smart that I felt if I didn’t I was neglecting my duty as his mother.

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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!