Crisis: Overindulgent Americans!

When will Americans get a grip on their appetites for excess, and start living within their means?

A coworker recently commented to me; "I feel so sorry for all these people who have mortages of $1600.00-$1800.00 (that was her figure, not mine), a month, children in private school, and car payments.... so many are getting laid off from their jobs!"


Ok, is it JUST ME? Or am I being snarly? I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who has to take their children out of private school... period.
That's a luxury. I tried to make that point to my co-worker and her response was: "Well, it's still an adjustment for everyone". .... Okay... so it's an adjustment. There are children who are malnutritioned, abused, and illiterate. That's where my sympathy goes. Not to the spoiled, over-indulged Americans who decided to live beyond their means and buy more house, school, and food than they need. I tried to make this point to my co-worker as well. It was met with: Why shouldn't they have what they want???

Ggggrrrrr.... I told her that anyone who lives beyond their means, will have to live with the consequences if they loose their job. It's sad, yes, but, these people who are *loosing everything* will definately have to learn to adjust, yes, but they'll be better for it in the long run.


I got a good tongue-lashing that included: "Not everyone lives within their means Kelly".. Not everyone lives like YOU DO ..(What does that mean???) ... and proceeded into: "People are loosing all their possesions".. and it's a crisis.
Hmmmm..... that isn't what my parents, my friends, or my grandparents think. Heavens, my grandmother lived in a chicken shack in the great depression and speaks of it rather fondly now. She learned how to get by... and she was proud of that! My parents still save bread-wrappers and twistie-ties, and rewash ziplock bags.


I was raised to calculate the cost of every garbage bag. We used small plastic store bags and wrapped small amounts up at a time, to save money. I used cloth diapers, rubber pants, and still make my own lunch to take to work, in you guessed it; a recycleable plastic container that gets reused daily. It's no great sacrifice on my part.. it's just how I live. I also use cloth napkins, and insulate the dickens out of my attic and turn off lights when I leave the room. Last months electric bill? $66.00 on a 2000 square foot home that is heated mostly with a wood-burner.


And our mortgage can be paid on one income if we needed to. We actually QUALIFIED for over $300,000.00 for a home loan. Unbelievable. We knew it would be ridiculous to even conside half of that, although it was very flattering to our ego's. We argued with the loan officer AND the real estate agent about how much house to purchase. They kept insisting that we can get more house. I know what we qualified for, and I'm sorry if I have to keep bringing up good ol' common sense and smacking everyone in the snout with it, but if you can't PAY for 300k worth of roof, why bother? We bought no more than we need. We are paying not only on the front end of the loan, but also against the principle in a separate check monthly. We want to pay it off fast, so we can enjoy it as our own.

Now, I am not against having some possesions. I am not agianst having quality.
But if it's not paid for, it's really not yours to begin with. I call myself a *homeowner*, but the truth is; The BANK owns my home until I finish every last payment I commited to making when I signed the contract.
Now, my old cars? MINE. Bought and paid for and I have the pink slip to prove it.
I could NOT get through to my Navigator-Driving Coworker, that we all have to make conscience choices and if we put oursleves out on a limb, we ASSUME that risk.


I'm not heartless, and I'm sure it is a difficult transition for ANY family who looses a home, and/or cars, assumed lifestyle, etc.. But they aren't dying of cancer... right? Their kidnsey aren't failing, and their children aren't in a hospital with a rare disease. They just took on too much debt, and didn't count on an economical collapse. It's happened before and it will happen again.

I do place part of the blame on pop-culture, for telling us we aren't living right if we don't have the latest style, car or gadget. I blame the financial institutions for approving people for loans over and above what the family genuinely needs or can pay for. But I want to slap the daylights out of the parents who are raising the next generation to believe if they want something they should have it!

Has noone ever heard of delayed gratification? Or better yet; Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without???

Haley Has Diabetes..Please Pray

Your prayers for Haley would be appreciated. She was diagnosed with with diabetes (type 1) this weekend, and she's a little uneasy about it.
I told her that I'd be praying for her ... and praying that angels keep a circle of love around her at all times. Would you support me in this prayer?

Every year in the United States, 13,000 children are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and more than 1 million American kids and adults deal with the disease every day.


Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose, the main type of sugar in the blood. Glucose comes from the foods we eat and is the major source of energy needed to fuel the body's functions.


Haley's body isn't using the glucose the way it's supposed to, so she will need insulin to help. This is a tall order for a little girl.


Type 1 diabetes (formerly called insulin-dependent diabetes or juvenile diabetes) results when the pancreas loses its ability to make the hormone insulin. In type 1 diabetes, the person's own immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Once those cells are destroyed, they won't ever make insulin again.
Although no one knows for certain why this happens, scientists think it has something to do with genes. But just getting the genes for diabetes isn't usually enough. A person probably would then have to be exposed to something else - like a virus - to get type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes can't be prevented, and there is no practical way to predict who will get it. There is nothing that either a parent or the child did to cause the disease. Once a person has type 1 diabetes, it does not go away and requires lifelong treatment. Children and teens with type 1 diabetes depend on daily insulin injections or an insulin pump to control their blood glucose levels.

Haley is trying to process all this right now. She needs your prayers. So do her parents who are asking themselves why this is happening??? Pray they seek comfort from God and in each other. May this bond them together as a family and may Haley find the courage to be an example to others and teach other children about this disease. She is the only child in her school with Type 1 Diabetes.


From my perspective; Haley is my new hero.

Simplicity Simplified

Simplicity is no more than the absense of confusion.

While we all strive to declutter and simplify our lives, you may look around at your home and not *feel* the simplicity.

Do you feel distracted by having too many items displayed or do they belong together and make sense? Do they serve a purpose?

As you clean up your home, start with putting away anything on counters, (pill bottles, pens, crochet hooks, etc..) and put them away wherever they belong. Maybe now is the time to make a special bin for your crocheting hooks and yarn? Label it while your at it and you won't be sorry.

If taking on your whole house at one time is overwhelming, try it room by room. Still too much? Divide the room in halves or quarters and work it one section at a time to stay focused. Make a list, and cross it off as you go for a sense of accomplishement.

Some of the most beautifying items I've seen in homes are utilitarian. Kerosene lamps, cleaned with a fresh cut wick...just waiting for a power outage. Pretty plants that are medicinal... Aloe Vera, is an exoctic look in a window. A bundle of wood in a copper pot... winters not quite over. All these SERVE you, you don't serve them by keeping up with them for naught.

Put your thinking cap on and work at making your home serene, & functional by simplifying and limiting the amount of items you keep *just in case*, and the items your keeping for no reason at all. If you haven't used it in a year, chances are you won't use it at all. Give it away... get the tax reciept and appreciate the order.

More to come on simplifiying...

Kelly

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!!!

Well, it's time to plant here in Texas. Last year my garden was my joy!

My tomatoes produced until late November. The earth rests, and I give it a little organic help to rejuvenate. When I till it up, it seems as though I am scratching the back of this world, telling it to *Rise & Shine*!

Seedlings are planted, and looked after tenderly until they are hardy. Vines sprout and curl, and corn pops in perfect rows with little arms extended in a *V* for Victory stance.


As the days get longer, and the soil warmer, I strain to win the fight against the nutgrass. It's usually a draw. But the plants prosper and an abundance is laid back for next winter, either in jars, frozen or dehydrated.

By late July I am exhausted, and making loud proclamations to noone imparticular that I will never have a garden again! It's just not worth the effort, and the heat exhaustion, and backaches. Yet, come next January, my Seed Catalogs will arrive, along with a renewed interest in some heirloom seed or hybrid plant that I just can't resist. I will have long forgotten about the blisters and callauses on my hands, and the pain of standing back up after weeding. Days of 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity will be like a faint dream.... And the cycle continues.

I hope when I am old, I'll still have container gardens and reflect fondly of the years when I was able to tame the earth with a hoe in one hand and a water bucket in the other.

One Hundred Years Or Less

Just think, 100 years ago or less, depending on where you lived in the USA, most people built their own homes, and most were under 700 square feet... and if you were lucky, you might add on in time. An 18' X 20' is an pretty sprawling abode. Maybe they made the peaks high, and used the upstairs for sleeping?

It's amazing to see our hunger and greed for more and more grow in less than 100 years. Not to say theirs anything wrong with having elbow room, there's not. But the homes that I considered *mansions* in my youth, are just roomy homes by todays standards.

I guess my concern is the feeling that we need to aquire more, bigger, better, and follow the latest trends, verses preserving what we have and appreciating the feeling of contentment.

I have always loved driving throught the mountains, (Ozarks, Appalacia, both north and south), and collecting little things I find from old cabins, and homesteads, and barns... Sometimes it's a cool rock, or the one remaining cast iron leg from a stove, found buried under the dust and dirt near a foundation. Somethimes it's a near-rotted childs dress, that I hand wash and iron out. These represent a simpler time. And, as I look around my home... these little souveniers are all over the place.

I have a tiny glass bottle that I found in the remains of a barn that burned after being struck by lightning. It contains charred dust that used to be the barn. I had been going up to that old barn for years. Abandoned and behind an old homesteaders cabin, I got permission to poke around from the family. Noone had lived there since the 1970's and I would guess whoever was there had fallen on hard times and just needed a port in the storm. I have taken little amber medicine bottles, a rusted old hay hook..a piece of an old saw... just forgotten junk. But I take it home, clean it up and put it around the house so it gets a second life. Now before you think I'm stealing, most of this wouldn't qualify for trash... none has any cash value. Usually, it's just a piece of history rotting away.

While all this makes for a conversation piece and a memory of my explorations, it also reminds me that life is short, and you can't take any of it with you when you go.

Like I said; I had been going to the old homestead on the mountian for years when I was in the area...just to see if it's still standing. Take one more gander.... The last time I was there, the house, which was once just a one room log cabin and still raw log on the inside, was still standing strong. There was a well out to the side of the house and an enamel pan, nailed to the outside porch area as well as a 1930's soapdish. This must have been where they bathed in good weather. On the inside there was a cupboard. I had never opened it before, but I got nosey and did so. I open the hand-hewned wooden latch and peered inside. Mason jars! Maybe 20 or more? STILL full of green beans. They had to be 40 years old or more. (No, I didn't take any..)

So I slid on through the kitched and looked out the back window. Where was the barn? For a moment, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I know this place inside and out.

Stepping outside, the sun is shining on a heap of charred wood. The barn, that I have pictures of from every visit... of my dog sitting in,.. and pictures of the old tools and tobacco jars left behind is simply gone.

I kick around the blackened wood looking for a sign of anything that I remember. There is nothing. As I turn to leave, the sun bounces off a shiney piece of something buried in the blackness. I kick at it with my boot, and a little bottle, less than 2" high emerges. I pick it up, and blow the dust off. That's all that survived? Well, I scooped up some of the irrodescent blue-black coal dust and put it inside to carry home. It's really a very pretty object and people ask me about it when they see it in my guest bathroom.

What's that little bottle full of? Memories, I say. And thus the story begins, of life on a mountain, of people I never knew, but take time occasionally to honor.

Miso Pretty

Well, here she is in all her glory! Miss Minnie after her first grooming. Not happy. Not happy at all.

The bows lasted about 2 hours, and whatever they sprayed on her as a deoderant made her go into seizures, so before the day was out, I had cut off those stupid bows, and given her yet another bath. She recovered quickly in her *Pirate Puppy* T-Shirt Scott bought her in Seattle. It's the polar opposite of this picture. The shirt is black with a skull and crossbones on it and in red it reads "Pirate Puppy"... But you know what?? She loves that shirt.

So it just goes to show you that sometimes you can wear the outfit, and othertimes, it's more like the outfit is wearing you.

Poor Minnie Lou... I will have to learn to groom her myself.

K.

Minnie Lou

Just sharing a candid of Minnie Lou taken with my cell phone.

She's 5 months, and is a whopping 7lbs. 3oz.... She's actually outgrown her XS clothing and is in a S. Can you believe it??

*snort!

K.