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Living Lightly
Susan Vogt on living more simply but abundantlyBrowsing Posts tagged Humor
Some people should take more risks, some less – that would be some of our children. Generally I’m a risk averse person. I’m cautious and long ago decided that if I’m going to die a tragic death, it should be for a cause. Thus, being shot while in a civil rights protest or because I [...]
…For my bumper stickers. Now usually I am proud that we have finally been able to downsize to one car. I know that the single factor that can make the most difference in energy conservation for most people is to reduce auto emissions by driving less. The fact that both Jim & I work out [...]
To balance my last blog about giving our car away (and deciding whether ecology trumps saving money), I thought I’d turn to chocolate. One of our sons gave me a delightful Christmas gift of a box of chocolates delivered once a month. Unfortunately, the third and final installment came right as Lent was starting [...]
As the months roll on, I’ve gotten quite a few messages on this blog, through e-mail, and in person that others have caught the “giving away” bug. They might have caught it from me or it might have just been the right time in their life to let go of more stuff. If I have [...]
…dust. One of the unintended side effects of pruning my books is that I now have some empty spaces on the first bookcase. I blew a lot of dust off the books I’m giving away, but now I realize that there was a value to having all the books crammed together – the dust was [...]
As we close out the year I thought it would be fun to survey all the useless stuff I still have hanging around the house. Should I just trash these items or could there really be a use for some of them. It all started when I found a box of 124 floppy discs. On [...]
…beds. I’m trying to give away a roll-away bed plus a mattress from a long ago discarded sofa-bed. I put them up on FreeCycle and got two interested takers but so far my “takers” are no-shows. I’m even throwing in 11 sheets and 4 pillowcases to streamline my linen closet. I know these mattresses don’t [...]
As I’ve been talking to people about giving stuff away, they’ve been giving me some interesting leads on other similar efforts. You’ve probably already heard about the book, The Power of Half and how the Salwen family decided to downsize their lifestyle by half including selling the family house to move into a home half [...]
Since it’s Halloween, I’m taking a break from giving away my kids regular clothes and rummaged through our old “costume box” to see if I really needed to save all the stuff for a grandchild who doesn’t live in town or for gag costumes for special events. I decided the ghost costume made out of [...]
I don’t know which is worse – a pacifist family playing Paintball or buying clothes for one time use. Before you judge me too harshly, here’s what happened. Our family was on our first family vacation with young adults plus spouse, grandchild, and girlfriend. Everyone got to choose one activity they’d really like to do [...]
…a smell. While I was perusing the garage for things I could give away I couldn’t help noticing a foul odor. At first I thought it was an old bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. We hadn’t used it in years but I was afraid to put it in the garbage since it might be classified [...]
Should I count by one’s or seven’s. Technically I’ve only committed to giving one thing away a day, but sometimes things come in groups and it just doesn’t seem honest to count lettuce by the leaf or to count each zucchini for a day. Since last Sunday I chose 7 of our son’s sweaters to [...]
…things gotten illegally? – like traffic signs? I don’t remember which of our kids liberated the seven large, heavy traffic signs (STOP, Men Working, Speed limit 25 etc.) that were stored in the garage. I don’t know where or how they got them. It’s probably best I don’t know. I listed the signs on an [...]
For years I’ve wondered what possible purpose in creation there could be for poison ivy or mosquitoes. Well, I’ve found a use for poison ivy – a plant to dump my hazardous chemicals on without guilt. You see, after taking all my hazardous materials to the special disposal place last Saturday, I found that even [...]
We call it the “tool closet” but it didn’t make sense to get rid of any of our tools. This closet, however, does store a number of other miscellaneous items. I decided to keep all the puzzles since they are good for visiting children – especially if they don’t speak English, but threw away the [...]
This is the day you’ve all been waiting for: “Dead Pet Day.” Over the years we’ve had a dog, hamsters, mice, lizards, rabbits, fish, and birds. We are now petless. I decided to keep the dog dishes for a grand-dog who visits and I kept the rat trap to prevent visiting rats from staying. I [...]
