Balancing this act of life.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. - Crowfoot, last words.

Today, when I told my husband Greg that I had added a house organized category to my list of daily goals, he reminded me that most businesses learn early on to focus on a few things and do them well rather than being too scattered.

And the guy has a point. And a good track record of advice. He was the one who suggested this blog, which I long refused to consider telling him if I did that, I would run out of things to say pretty quickly and then not have any material for a book. Who knew just how chatty I could be.... He was also the one who suggested that I should try to think beyond the night light because it can be hard to build a business with just one product. And in time, with my 30 ideas a day of brainstorming, I've now expanded that idea considerably.

But I'm not so sure on the desirability of being too focused. Naturally you can think of the person who spends so much time building a business, that he neglects his health and dies a very rich man at age 40. Or the person who is a health fanatic that ends up living to 120, but never took care of his finances and is the oldest person in the homeless shelter. Or the woman who took great care of her health and finances, but didn't nurture relationships with friends or family and now has only her cat to talk to. You get the idea.

I think it is possible to focus on each of the various aspects of life in a way that is very effective. If I only spend 20 minutes a day as I do now developing my business idea or 15 minutes in the garden, but during that time am truly in the moment, focused on just exactly what I want to accomplish in that quarter or third of an hour, I find I can get a lot done. If I spend twice or three times that amount but am scattered, not sure what my priorities are or if being in the garden is even the best use of my time, then I find I'm much less productive.

I also have discovered that days in which I made some progress in all the main areas of my life, even if some areas got five minutes or less, I feel more centered. It's like building a block tower with the kids. My younger son still hasn't figured out that if he uses the biggest blocks on the bottom, to build a strong and wide base, he can go a lot higher. That pithy little metaphor just came to me as I was eating my reheated pizza and sipping a Diet Coke on ice and it occurs to me belatedly that this isn't the most "balanced" of meals....but I digress;-).

So for now, I will continue focusing on my marriage, my kids, my book, my business, my garden, my goal of financial independence, my spiritual health, my personal health/beauty, my growing business vocabulary and now my uncluttered, to be beautiful home. And on days where I may only be able to spend five minute on each for a total of 50 minutes a day, I'll still be seeing those tiny steps toward the ideal in each area. And hopefully, growing more balanced by the day.

Eileen
P.S. The second picture from earlier this summer when the kids were at the grandparents and Greg and I were out looking at the stars....Greg content to do so for all of about 90 seconds. I insisted we try to be in the moment for ten full minutes. As his lawyer's mind must bill in six minute increments, this was not easy for him, but he succeeded;-). Kudos Greg!

Nightly Roundup - Day 352

Luck is not chance-
It's toil-
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned. - Emily Dickinson, poem no. 1350

Marriage - Check


Kids - Thirty minutes of balloon volleyball with the left-over birthday balloons. Mom in the moment for at least 83% of the time;-).


Business - I continue to expand and develop this idea of dual use items. I think it could also be expanded to adults like me that hope to inundate themselves with positive thoughts each day. I've written about my kitchen counter covered with tape players feeding my subconscious happy thoughts each day;-). And of the posters and magnets and books. I think the same concept could also apply to the dishtowels, plates, tea mugs and toothbrush I use.

I read in a 2007 New York Times article that we see 5000 ads a day!

Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today.

And if advertising is essentially a way to get a person to feel they need to buy a ABC product to make them happy or that without XYZ product they are somehow lacking, unfulfilled or not quite up to par, that's a lot of heavy duty subconscious programming. By using the same concept, but turning it on its head, so that in your own home, you are SURROUNDED by positive messages whether from Emerson, Lincoln, Plato, Aristotle or Descartes, particular messages that you chose for yourself, rather than a group of marketers, it seems this would help balance things out a bit.

And I also thought how cool it would be to expand the concept to the great works of art. If a child or adult went to sleep with a quilt showing 20 of the greatest works of Monet or Picasso or Renoir, would this also provide a bit of visual education and sense of well being?

The action step for today was to email a woman who is starting an internet company that involves doing a environmental footprint for items purchased. I met her for coffee to discuss her idea as she was looking for feedback from potential customers and she told me about the mentor program that I'm applying to. I am hoping we might meet again for tea to get her feedback on my business idea. Updated to add we are on for next Tuesday.

Book - Blog.


Garden - Got in a bit of time weeding the big south border. That is one of two big borders/gardens that I plan to have done before winter sets it. (I originally typed in "hoped to have done" but my Dennis Waitley tapes have been admonishing me to avoid hope and may and I wish for more affirmative words;-).


Spirit/catchall- My 30 brainstormed ideas for increased creativity.

FI - Was successful in not spending a dime today.

Health/beauty- Dry skin brushing. Will do a blog on this later.

Organized, beautiful house - A new category. Daryl, from Vermont Cottage has this wonderful web site of dream ideas for a perfect home and it made me think of Oprah's idea that your house should rise up to meet you - that your surroundings impact you on several levels and you might as well make that impact as positive as possible. Also, with cold weather coming on, my nesting instincts kick into high gear so I had Greg help with hanging a wonderful shell light that I'd gotten for $30 early in the summer at an antique store and had stuffed in a closet. I also tackled one of our closets with the goal to get rid of 10 items. I was successful. I put five things in my growing garage sale pile and five things in the donate box.

Business Vocabulary - Check - Looked up Hedge funds, net asset value, portfolio managers and commodities.

Nightly Roundup - Day 353

It's a busy weekend with lots of house guests so I'll keep this short. Thanks again Daryl for the tip on the SAT shower curtain. I tracked it down to a company called Intuitive Learning Company and for just a minute, had my stomach drop at the thought another company had already scooped me on my idea;-). But they are as of now just doing shower curtains - super creative idea and it could fit into my new portal idea quite well.

Marriage - Check!
Kids - Lots of great time with uncles, grandma, great uncle, etc.
Business - More brainstorming and thinking to move beyond just my own dual use educational products and create a portal of sorts for other products that do this. For example, the Company Store may create one quilt a year with numbers or Pottery Barn might create a series of kids plates with the alphabet or the Intuitive Learning Company might be making shower curtains with SAT words or Math concepts. For people looking for lots of dual use items like these, I could create a one stop portal that would list these items as well as the ones I will create myself. Again need to look to revise the executive summary to include this concept.
Book - Did spend five minutes writing about what the book hoped to create. I'm finding that even five minutes does add up and I'm trying to do at least a tiny bit each day for the sake of momentum.
Garden - My neighbor's son-in-law is an electrician who hasn't been able to find much work lately and my neighbor asked if we had any projects that needed done. We did. A long underground cable to the street snapped when I was digging my first garden about nine years ago and we never fixed it. So he ran a new line, complete with an outlet, and now I'll be able to have Christmas lights in the front yard - which should look pretty from the house and the kids should enjoy.
FI - One of our overnight guests saw a mouse in the kitchen early this morning - how nice! Greg is slightly phobic of mice and instantly wanted to call Orkin. But we'd done that maybe seven years ago and had to sign a one year contract that I think added up to $800. And all they really did was set little mouse bate stations. So I went to Home Depot and got a few along with an electronic thing that plugs in the wall and is supposed to deter them through sound waves (what my PETA leanings would prefer). All this was about $45, so far less than Orkin should it work.
Spirit- Just enjoyed the visiting.
Health/Beauty - 30 minutes cardio.
Goodnight - Off to work on my business vocabulary. Decided to do this on a separate blog just for that so this doesn't get so cluttered. But I hope if you're doing the business vocabulary or other, you're finding it mind expanding. I am!
P.S. Pictures of Greg's mom and brother getting ready for a pj party. Can you believe how young my mother in law looks and SUPER kind! I was so lucky to not only be born into a great family, but marry into yet another. I think I may have saved a civilization in some past life to get so lucky in this one;-)! And Uncle Matt in his new Air Force Uniform. Kirk was beyond thrilled to dress up in his Halloween costume next to the real deal!

Nightly Roundup - Day 354

Marriage - check.

Kids - Awesome grandma and two uncles and one great uncle with a friend arriving tonight - party on! Kids will have a ball.

Book - Blog will have to do it.

Business - I think my 30 creative ideas a day is paying off. Last night I had a brainstorm about midnight, to extend this idea of "passive education" (my term) meaning if you have to have a nightlight, it might as well also teach you the continents or the states. Then I thought if a child is going to lay her head on a pillow at night and stare at her blanket, why couldn't the blanket have the planets or the alphabet. And if she must eat a bowl of cereal each morning anyway, why couldn't the bowl have the basic story of the Revolutionary War and why couldn't her bath towel have the periodic chart of the elements? You get the idea. If every item a child interacts with does DOUBLE duty, surely that can only be a good thing. And when I woke Greg up at 1:00 a.m. to write down this idea, he said, "You may have a winner there!" So, quite enthused, I'm going to start revising my executive summary.

Garden - Brought in some geraniums that had rested in the halfway house of the garage.

FI - Updated some accounts. We have to move out of Microsoft money as it's ending this service, which we loved, to a new program and the transfer isn't going well, but the company is coming out with a new product to make it easier and receipts have been piling up as we've waited.

Spirit/catchall- Just being in the moment and enjoying our company, which includes meeting Greg's uncle, cousin and second cousin for dinner and having five additional guests overnight. The neighbors will think we've suddenly become highly social with all those cars in the drive!

Health/beauty - A wee bit (3 minutes?) of core to help offset a large gin and tonic - a rarity for this lightweight;-).

Creating my "Coach Purse" identity.

Early on, I wrote briefly about the Coach purse I had purchased for my 40th birthday. It was about $350, more than ten times what I'd ever paid for a purse. So why did I do that?

I can't say I was buying it because I have an eye for quality and nothing less would do. In fact, my Coach purse, with the gigantic Cs all over it didn't seem especially well made. And if it had been a high quality item, but no one other than myself would have known, I don't think I would have gotten it at that point.

What I was seeking was some sort of outward manifistation that I'd arrived at a certain level. If I were from a certain tribe in the Pacific islands, I might have chosen to wear special feathers or bones or stones to signify some sort of status.

For me, the Coach purse was that status. You may well be reading this thinking, "Good Heavens, how shallow!" And if so, prepare yourself as I read recently in a book by Dana Thomas, that there are Japanese girls who work as prostitutes to earn money to buy Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Hermes bags.

Purses are the "luxury" item within most women's reach, if they choose to go that route. Unlike a Mercedes or a $600,000 home, if a woman wants a $300 or even $2000 bag, she can probably get it. And because of the profit driven goal to mass market "luxury" with a Coach or Louis Vuitton store next to a McDonalds kiask in many airports, luxury has lost its quality, if not its status. At least according to Thomas's book, Deluxe How Luxury Lost Its Luster. She writes that to mass produce these items, they are often made on an assembly line in China right along side purses that are 1/10 their price, often with a Made in Italy tag sown inside.

I had the canvas purse a bit over a year and it showed its wear considerably. The seams weren't holding up well and the zipper sometimes stuck. And by the time I'd seen my 10th highschool girl with the same bag, and been the recipient of one friend's ribbing about whether I thought they'd crammed enough C's on that bag, I was doubting the wisdom of my purchase.

On the other hand, people really did notice the bag and comment on it. "Nice purse!" I heard more than once when I was checking out at a store. Often the clerks knew how much it had cost, even in stores that didn't sell Coach. And one Saturday morning when I set it on the ground at a garage sale while I was digging through a clothes basket of kids books, a woman grabbed it. I jumped up and said, "That's mine!" as she carried it to the woman running the sale. She apologized and said it probably was unlikely to find a real Coach purse at a garage sale.

I got the Deluxe book at the library a few weeks ago and reading about the shoddy workmanship prompted me to call Coach and explain what had happened. They said I could mail it to them (at my cost of about $15.00 with insurance) and they would assess it for normal wear and tear or workmanship defects.

Today I got a letter in the mail from Coach offering me a $367.14 credit for another Coach product. They do not give cash back, though I would vastly prefer that as never again shall I plunk down $300 for a purse.

In closing, I think I learned a few things. If girls at 16 are caught up in wanting to create an image based on an expensive status product, I can only hope 25 years later, at my own age of 41, they will know better;-). But I also believe there is such a thing as quality or art that does bring you enjoyment, and that is for each person to define for themselves. I have a friend who carries a $1500 Louis Vuitton bag, which she's had for almost 10 years now, that brings her a lot of enjoyment and for her it was worth it.

In closing, one irony is that I often grab all the loose change around the house and stick it in a plastic baggie and toss it in my purse. Then when buying something (I usually pay cash), I was pulling this plastic ziploc bag of change out of my $350 purse and how did that contribute to the whole image thing??? Wish me some personal growth this year;-). Eileen

Could 10 new days a word boost you to the top one percent?

Of all our human resources, the most precious is the desire to improve. Anon

I've been listening to Dennis Waitley's, Seeds of Greatness, in the car. Today he talked about the value of a large vocabulary. Paraphrasing what he said,

A large vocabulary that implies broad general knowledge, characterizes the most successful people, regardless of occupation. In this brain over brawn economy, learning ten new words a day, would put the average person among the most learned and well-spoken individuals in the world. It is only 3500 words that distinguish the average from the top percent in their fields. Most people use only 400 words in 80 percent of their daily language and this limits their ability to express or understand many concepts. .

I found this concept intriguing. I once taught a creative thinking course and one question we asked as a group was whether you could really "know" a concept if you didn't have a word for it. You've probably heard the oft quoted statement that eskimos have over 100 different words for snow, based on texture, moisture, etc. Does that then mean that those of us who only know "snow" don't have a similar understanding and never could without the additional words? I'm not sure.

According to Ben Macintyre's TimesOnline article, THE MORE WORDS YOU know, the higher you climb the evolutionary ladder.

Words can be hijacked and misused. Powerful men, for good or ill (both Hitler and Churchill), have understood the might of words. In 1940, a 12-year-old boy wrote to President Roosevelt, asking for help expanding his English vocabulary: “I don’t know English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don’t know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American.” The boy’s name was Fidel Castro.

Words extend the horizon, and our knowledge of ourselves. When Hamlet in Act II, scene 2, is asked what he is reading, he replies “Words, words, words”. He may seem dismissive, but words are part of Hamlet’s quest: through words, he is seeking the answer to the question of to be, or not.

Word power is not about using a complicated and obscure word where a short or familiar one is already at hand. It is not about waving your vocab around to attract a mate. It is about the discovery of a word to describe something in a new and unexpected way.

Adopt a new word. Take it home. Add it to your word family and introduce it to the others in your collection. They will play with each other, form new patterns and meanings, making the world a little bigger, a little clearer.

Since one of this year's goals is to successfully launch my night light company, a more thorough understanding of economics could only help. And since I've determined this year that I'm going all out and willing to take on what I need to, I decided to add five economic terms each day to my vocabulary. I will start with the Wall Street Journal, where I usually just read the first section and the personal section, but skip the finance and marketplace sections. No more! If I'm going out there to build a company, I'd be better served to know just what a common stock split is;-). Any of you starting a new company this year, feel free to join in. Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 355 - 10 days into the program!

We have five very welcome guests arriving tomorrow for the big game weekend and I'm scrambling to find beds for everyone. My good friend and neighbor Cathy just dropped off some air mattresses so I hope to get that job done tonight. And the crazy pile of laundry is about five days worth that I kept dumping on the family room floor from the dryer each day thinking "I'll get to it later"....fly lady would not be pleased:-). That is another of tonight's projects so I'll keep this short. Have a lovely night!

Marriage - Check

Kids - We got out the blocks and played "Monster Trucks" for quite some time. Kirk's dream is to go to one of these events. Can you guess his mom is so not drawn to the Monster Truck Big Jam? But who knows, maybe after seeing it in person, I'll be rooting on Batman or Turtle or Jammer much as Greg does his Iowa Hawkeyes?

Book - I've been getting a daily free "writing lesson" of sorts for the past two days from the following internet site www.writetowin.org. And I've liked the positive tone. The Bestseller book sometimes gets me a bit stressed as it starts to sound impossible, though I think it is a very helpful and practical book. The author of the website looks at things a bit differently. In Ten Lessons to Conquer Procrastination Part II, Earma Brown states:

Weapon #6 Realize your message is significant and deserves
your tender loving care.

Consider what your readers need and want. If your book shares
something unique, encouraging, useful, entertaining, it is
important enough to be written. Think about your gift? God gave
you your gift to share with others. Our gift back to God is what
we do with it. The loving care you put into your gift (book) the
more rewards await you.

Business - Spent seven minutes on my resume, which is required for the business mentor program. That's as much as I wanted to do in a stretch. Does ANYONE like working on those things?? And I was surprised at how much that got done. Then the balance of 13 minutes was spent on an executive summary, which also has to be attached to the mentor application. I studied the ones from the All Things Life Sciences handout that we'd been given that sparked this whole desire to just DO IT and start a company as Nike would say;-). When I get it completed, hopefully within a few more days, I will post it.

Garden- Put down oodles of old Wall Street Journals and the carpet I snagged from my neighbor. They will sit there this winter and that last stretch of garden can then be filled in this spring, hopefully with winter sown plants.

Health-Beauty- I actually got a compliment from a friend - "Your skin is GLOWING!" which I never hear. I told her I'd but oiled my face the night before and that morning with enough to fry an egg (I no longer think that little bottle is going to last till spring), then put on foundation, then a wee bit of blush and bronzer, then added a thin layer of moisturizer. She, who wears no makeup, looked a bit dumbfounded, but reiterated that she thought my skin looked great. So two thumbs up for the MORE magazine tips. And I managed to remove the last of the sad, chipped, too orangish red nail polish that has been on my toes since August......

Spirit/catchall - Have been keeping up with writing down 30 ideas each day. I'm really enjoying this. Will see if day five I find my creativity flourishing.

FI - Did come SO close to a no spend day, but did get one 20 ounce Dr. Pepper in a weak moment. But not bad overall.

Off to pump air mattresses and fold laundry....

Hope your first ten days have seen steps taken to your own dreams. Looking forward to the next 355. Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 356

Marriage - Check.

Kids - Fun time at the pumpkin patch with a friend.

Book - Read a chapter about preparing for rejection in "From Book Idea to Bestseller".

You might suffer from the harshest form of rejection as Poet A. Wilber Stevens did when a publisher returned to him not his beloved manuscript but a pile of ashes. Or you may receive an excruciatingly polite rejection, as one writer did from a Chinese economic journal with this note: "We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper it would be impossible for us to publish any work of a lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that, in the next thousand years, we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity."

I personally would prefer the second letter;-).

Business - Am gearing up for the mentor program and realized that the application requires a resume. Looked the entire house over for my old one to no avail. I haven't needed it in at least four years as I've taught at the same schools. So I began again, about 20 minutes, to recreate my work history.

Garden - Got in the last two shrubs and lots of leaf mulch.

FI - Finished another short chapter in the true story "How I lived a year on just a pound a day." We learn in chapter two she's now hitchhiking to get around and sees a huge environmental problem with so many drivers as single passengers in five passenger cars and hopes that changes in time.

Health/Beauty - Got in 40 minutes of exercise - a rarity.

Spirit/catchall - Plan to read a funny book at bedtime, with no self-improvement ideas whatsoever;-)!

Day 9 of this fun year of goals! What's Working & What Could Use Tweaking?

Begin where you are. But don't say where you are.

14,000 Quips


We're closing in on the ten day mark of our one year to an even better life, and I thought it would be a good idea to check in on what's working and what's not.

Working:

1. The nightly roundup for me has been hugely helpful. I feel each day like I've taken at least a small step on each of my goals and that's SUPER empowering. In days past, I might be on a "be a better mom" kick, but then be frustrated two weeks later when I thought about the fact that I'd done nothing with the other areas in my life. Now I feel each area is getting some care and is starting to sprout some new life.

2. I find myself more energetic than usual. It's kind of nice that there is little if any "what is the best use of my time now?" as I've always got these eight areas that keep me focused. And time spent on any of them never feels wasted. I go to bed with a sense of accomplishment and I awake knowing my main directions of the day. No longer am I wavering about whether the should I do this or should I just do that? And that lack of waffling my friends is spelled RELIEF!;-)

3. Lots and lots of positive messages around the house. I've got my hallway of posters, my refrigerator magnets, my dream poster in my bedroom, another motivational poster on my closet door, I read at least a few pages of some positive book each day, and listen, when possible, in the car to something that goes along with this year of goals. Right now it's an old Dennis Waitley tape that I picked up at a library sale.

4. My blog in general has been a wonderful catylist to jumpstart a lot of these goals. Thanks Greg for encouraging me to follow your idea on that. And thanks Blogspot for the free, awesome blog. Some experts say only one percent of the population writes down their exact goals and that writing them down is a very powerful momentum builder, to which I can attest. Both the book and nightlight idea have languished in the back of my head probably four years or so. And now, having them down on paper, if virtual paper, along with a nightly updates, is getting me there and I hope you're all following your dreams and taking those baby steps.

Not working:

1. The no spend days are not working. I'm zero for three so far. The goal was Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday of this week. Saturday, I was visiting my mom and she asked if I would run into Staples to make a copy of a magazine article about weight. She was embarrassed to do so, so of course I said sure and didn't get into my no spend issue. So there was $1.50.
Sunday, Mom suggested we go to some antique shops as my dad had offered to watch the kids for a few hours. I could have said no. I don't think she would have minded, but I thought, "How fun!". And I could have gone and bought nothing, but when I saw the $25 green coat stand, the $10 garden plant holder, and the great $11 white coat rack, my great grandmother's admonishments of "Do you REALLY need that Eileen?" fell on deaf ears and $48.00 later, I was the proud owner of these three items.
Tuesday, I was out running errands and found I was starving and driving past my favorite bagel place, so I swung in and got myself a bagel and large iced tea for $3.85.
Clearly, I can use some real work in this area. One of the reasons I started the blog is that I'd seen our expenses creep up over the past five years or so and I wanted to get back to our more frugal habits. I really need to recommit to the no spend days, as there was not only monetary, but time costs here that could have been more wisely spent. I am going to try and tweak this and start with just two no spend days and see where I go from there.

2. Driving less - It ties back to the no-spend days. To spend, usually I am driving, so if I have fewer spend days, I will automatically drive less.

3. 30 Tops - Still haven't culled enough to reach this standard. Thinking I may start with 45 as a more reasonable number and tweak it that way.

What's working for you and what's not working? Wishing you a brisk wind to your sails, and just the right amount of tweaking to keep going in the direction you've chosen....

Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 357

Marriage - check
Kids - Carved the tiny pumpkin we got from my aunt Carol. We still plan to go to the pumpkin patch tomorrow for a big one for the front stoop. LOTS of story time
Book - Blog entries
Business - 20 minutes on edutainment article and studying a business plan for a completely different product (portable generator) but getting a better sense of the big picture of these plans.
Garden - Thoroughly watered all new plants.
FI - One chapter in great new book called, "How I lived a year on just a pound a day" written by Kath Kelly and recommended to me by an English woman. Fascinating so far!
Spirit- Nice long chat with my friend Paul, who is married to one of my best friends. He's the greatest guy! When I had my reading academy/study skill business, I was in the local papers and he took copies and had them framed for me. When I needed a new mini-van, but dreaded negotiating for it (Greg was swamped at work), Paul called a bunch of local dealers and had them fax quotes so I could go into the dealer I planned to buy from well armed. I wish a good friend like that on everyone!
Health/beauty - Long walk with neighbor and dogs.

Goodnight!

Your free new garden next spring.

If you're thinking of starting a new garden for spring, now is the time to get that baby going! Pick out the area you want it in and put a posting on Freecycle requesting used carpeting. Usually you'll get more offers than you could use. I always put a note that I'd like to find some near my hometown to save travel costs and have always been successful.

Then put the carpets right over the grass or area you want a new garden and just let it sit through May, depending on your zone. When you pull it up, you'll see lovely brown dirt just waiting to be dug.

The dirt may be compacted if it was a lawn for many years, but go ahead and dig holes for all your new plants, then mulch like crazy!! There will still be a lot of weed/grass seeds in that dirt that will spring to life if you don't put down a heavy layer of newspaper or grass clippings or leaves in the bare areas between plants.

Another great use for carpets is under paths between two gardens. My neighbor was about to toss the carpet in the photo above, and I quickly scavenged it and will put it down as paths in my woodland garden, then cover it with free mulch from the city. If you've never gotten a free dumptruck load of mulch from your township, you're in for a treat. Completely without cost and enough to cover many gardens and pathways. They don't advertise this, so you may need to make a call to your town's public works department. Some landscapers that trim trees will also offer free wood chips. I've never had a problem, but I will note that some say wood chips from a diseased tree could cause problems for your trees, so you may want to research this.

Thinking spring this chilly October day! Oops - not so in the moment;-).

Eileen

Yours, Mine, and Uncle Jed's Journey

My older son and I recently read Uncle Jed's Barbershop. I had gotten it at a garage sale this summer for 50 cents, twice my usual kid's book cutoff of a quarter, because it looked like an interesting story. And it was definitely worth that extra twenty five cents, especially during this "year of goals".

The story appears to have been written by Uncle Jed's niece. It starts in the 1920's and Uncle Jed has a dream to own a barber shop. But "nobody believed him. We lived in the south and were poor. Most people were sharecroppers, and people didn't have dreams like that."

But Uncle Jed continues traveling around the county to give haircuts, often taking eggs or vegetables or a promise to pay later from people who were short on cash and he saved every penny he could. Then his niece, the author, was sick and couldn't get an operation until $300 was paid up front and "my Daddy didn't have that kind of money." Uncle Jed said nothing was going to happen to his Sarah Jean and paid the money.

This was a financial setback, but many years later, he finally had three thousand dollars in the bank. Then came the Great Depression and a neighbor knocked on the door to tell Uncle Jed the bank was broke and his money was gone.

"Uncle Jed just stood there a long time before he said anything. Then he told Mr. Walters that even though he was disappointed, he would just have to start all over again."

He eventually opened his own barbershop on his seventy-ninth birthday.

"It had everything, just like he said it would - big comfortable chairs, four cutting stations, the floors so clean, they sparkled. On opening day, people came from all over the country. They were Ol' Uncle Jed's customers. He had walked to see them for so many years. That day they all came to see him.

I believe he cut hair all night and all the next day and the next night and the day after that! That man was so glad to have that shop, he didn't need any sleep.

Uncle Jed died not long after that, and I think he died a happy man. You see, he had made his dream come true even when nobody else believed in him.

He taught me to dream, too."

Reading the story made me think of my own journey this year, and the importance of savoring it and of disregarding those voices in my head that sometimes say discouraging things or the sense of urgency to "get it done" or "when I achieve this milestone, THEN I'm going to really feel I've accomplished something." Most of Uncle Jed's life was the journey, not the finishing up.

When Greg and I were on vacation awhile back, we had a lovely time, but were stranded overnight at an airport. My dear hubby is NOT a good one for waiting and his anxiety to get back was palpable. I bought a magnet at the airport giftstore that is now on the fridge to remember that the downtime in the airport wasn't "bad time" to be gotten through so the "good time" could begin. It reads:

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Souza
For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles WERE my life. This perspective has helped me see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.

I'm working to get there - to treasure each moment. Wishing you a happy journey - not just a happy destination. Eileen

$20.05 for that dewy summer face in winter - a cheap daily spa?

In the summer, I get some decent color in my face and have something of a "rosy glow" naturally.

Come winter, my pale, colorless skin starts to show a lot of imperfections, not the least of which is skin so dry it sometimes flakes off around my mouth - how appetizing for anyone I'm lunching with;-).

If you are 20 and have naturally dewy skin, you probably don't need to read these tips. If you're in some lovely, moist tropical climate and don't deal with five sunless months of furnace heat blasting your face in your house and car, you can skip this.;-) But for anyone else from Canada to the Upper Peninsula and past your first two decades of life, here are some ideas you might enjoy.

Yesterday, I had some time due to an appointment, and brought with me a stack of magazines from my free magazine exchange to skim. I was really happy with the following ideas, all from the May 2009 edition of More.

1. Moisturize in layers -

For maximum plumping, follow your regular lotion with a heavy cream or facial oil. "On really bad beauty days, I put on oil and wait an hour before looking in the mirror," admits makeup artist Bobbi Brown.

For this, I stopped at Walmart yesterday and bought Noah's Naturals anti-aging Gel Serum for $8.57. It should last most of the winter. I slathered it on last night and lo and behold, my face was much less dry looking and more moist looking this morning! But if you have really oily skin, this may not be such a good idea.

2. Put on two layers of moisturizer.

Apply one before the foundation, then pat on a second, very light coat over your makeup. "This gives your skin a dewy finish and an extra dose of hydration." says Audrey Kunin, MD, a dermatologist from Kansas City.

I'd never heard of doing this OVER foundation, but I tried it last night since I was going to a friend's place, and braving 50 degree weather to get there, and sure enough, it did help keep my skin looking moist. I use the equate version of Oil of Olay. An aside, Oil of Olay products are some of the best buys in lotions because they are every bit as good as many of the far more expensive brands at least according to several magazine articles I've come across. Now as they advertise in those magazines, I don't know exactly how disinterested those comparisons are, but I'm pretty sure I read the same thing in the book, "Don't go to the makeup/skincare counter without me". I forget the exact title, but the author had done an independent assessment of a lot of beauty products. And one other tip from a magazine, never bother to buy a moisturizer that doesn't also contain sunscreen.

I don't have the receipt of the moisturizer, but I'm pretty sure it is about $5.58, so I will round up to $6.00.

3. Go Golden - Use Bronzer

"Skin loses pigment and radiance as you age so either switch to a foundation with a warmer hint, add a drop of liquid bronzer to your favorite foundation, or make bronzing powder part of your makeup regimen," says Sandy Linter, a consulting makeup artist for Lancome.

And I did see the power of bronzer once demonstrated on a cruise ship. My husband and I took a winter cruise one year and they had a free makeup session. What it turned out to consist of was three beauty consultants slathering on bronzer to many pale-skinned midwestern vacationers escaping winter's January chill to Mexico. And I must say, in each case, it did seem to bring some warmth to those faces. So I figured, what the heck, let's try it for the winter. Much cheaper and way better for the skin than a tanning bed. The bronzer I got had a blush on the opposite side of the compact, which is also said to brighten not-so-radiant skin when put on the apples of the cheeks. Cost for bronzer/blusher compact $11.48.

Used sparingly, these products should get me to the first gentle, welcome April showers. May you glow with radiance, both internal and via Physicians Formula, all winter long;-).

Nightly Roundup - Day 358

Good day. We've hit a milestone now to be in the 350's. Hope you're all seeing your baby steps giving you some momentum toward your goals.

Marriage - Check;-).

Kids - I played lots of flag football, not really my sport, but was a good sport;-).

Book - Spent another 20 minutes looking at the next set of questions and did a bit more brainstorming. This is the sample book proposal from "From Book Idea to Bestseller."

>The Book page 1
The Market page 8
The Author page 10
Book Contents page 12
Brief Chapter Summaries page 13
Sample Chapter page 35

The three questions to again focus my/your pitch are:

1. Who will buy it?
2. What other books has the audience bought in the past? My list would include The Tightwad Gazette, The Millionaire Next Door, Your Money or Your Life, Die Broke, and the Wealthy Barber for starters. Maybe some Elaine St. James?
3. Why will the audience buy your book instead of the competitors' books? A good question indeed;-).

Business. Set the timer for 20 minutes. Contacted the New York Company that had made the sample frog light. I was told they discontinued that line because the bulbs were not replaceable. I just figured that was a fluke, but then saw a few other random motion lights on ebay, also called moving picture lamps,and contacted the sellers, but in both cases, the seller didn't know if the bulbs could be changed in those either. That would seem and easy problem to fix.

Garden - Got in three more shrubs and put down several bags of leaves dropped off by a neighbor over the weekend as mulch.

FI - Will just have to count about 10 pages in the book, Think and Grow Rich.

Health/Beauty- Took a few old magazines and in about 10 minutes, culled out three good skin/makeup tips and will post them tomorrow.

Spirit/Catchall - Will be heading over to a friend's apartment tonight to give some moral support and share a cup of tea.

Magazines, Dreams, Libraries;-)

I'm going over to a friend's apartment tonight to share a cup of tea and give some emotional support. My friend is going through a tough time, but I'm hoping along with looking at the past (we all need to just cry it out at times), we can spend a bit of time looking forward and starting a dream board.

Along with some homemade goodies, I'm bringing over some poster board and a bunch of magazines that I got for free at our local library. If you don't have a magazine exchange at your library yet, offer to start one. All it takes is three or four bins or boxes and people drop off and pick out whatever they like. It is a huge help environmentally as the same magazine may go through twenty people as it keeps getting used and put back into the bin. Sometimes pages are missing, but that still leaves lots of helpful info, all for free.

At our magazine exchange, I recently picked up Cosmo, Country Gardens, Country Living, House Beautiful, More, and Harper's Bazaar from this month's edition to two years ago. If I subscribed to all these, I would be out at least $150 annually and have more clutter than my house needs.

When you decide to start your dream board (pictures representing all your dreams), you can get a huge stack and go to it. A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, so if a new baby is one of your dearest dreams, get the cutest picture Huggies ever produced, cut it out and paste it up. If you hope to publish your book this year, find an ad for a bestseller, carefully trim around the "Best Seller" headline, and insert your name for the author's.

It's is a wonderful and mostly free way to really focus on what your dreams and goals are. Then you just thumbtack this dream board to the wall and look at it often, imagining all those dreams have come true. I've done this for over ten years with great success and have my current dream board up in my bedroom where I see it every night when I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up.

A side note, some studies have shown that women can get mildly depressed after seeing an issue of Vogue or other fashion magazine. Both the model shots and the ads, the purpose of which is to convince you you're not quite up to par unless you purchase XYZ, can be a bit daunting. And if you find yourself feeling worthless after perusing Cosmo, even knowing all those poor stick models are airbrushed beyond reality, that it is highly unlikely any of us have ever seen in person anyone faintly resembling the Brooke Shields that appeared on the cover of MORE, and that you really are awesome and beautiful as you are, then probably best to avoid those for a bit;-).

Maybe start with the annual Star cover story that pays some big money to stalking paparazzi to get shots of models and stars without their makeup, no wigs or hairpieces, and with all their flaws for the world to see when they just needed to sneak out for a quick run to Walgreens. And be glad no one is likely behind the shrubs at your local drugstore when you need a two a.m. bottle of baby Tylenol, catching on Kodak, you at your most shabby;-).

So if you have time this week or next, white poster board at Walmart is 58 cents, magazines can be had for free, a bit of glue and a whole new, even better than ever, you emerging soon;-). Best wishes. Eileen

Days 360 & 359

It's now 10:10 p.m. and I am just getting back from a rather long drive so I'll keep this short and double up the weekend days as there was a lot of overlap and I didn't get done as much as I'd hoped.

Marriage - check! Greg got entire weekend to watch football with his brothers without the gang here - and of course, Iowa's victory was icing on the cake;-).

Kids - Lots of awesome time with Grandma and Grandpa!

Book- Brainstormed about 10 minutes to answer the list of questions about why my book will be different from others, how it will help people, what my goals are.

Business - Showed my folks my whole night light idea and gave them the full on pitch - to a rather lukewarm reception - but no discouragement here - remember what they say about prophets in their hometowns;-).

Garden - Got seven shrubs in the ground Saturday morning before we left, just as the first snowflakes began to fall.

Spirit/catchall - Lots of good time with my parents.

Health/beauty - Walked about four miles with Mom's new rescue Cocker Spaniel.

F.I. - Drove around for about an hour with my dad looking at some of his rental properties and just hearing his thoughts on finance. His investments are completely different than Greg's and mine (he's heavily into commercial real estate, but has the construction background, equipment, and contacts to do everything himself) while his daughter and son-in-law prefer to send our investment money to Vanguard. But you can't be around someone like him and not pick up some good finance thoughts.

Write Down Those Creative Ideas or Risk Dimming Your Creativity.

I just drove in from IL and this sleepy driver is going to have to keep it short. But I did come across a very interesting idea this weekend that I wanted to share with you in the hopes some of you might want to take this easy five day challenge.

On the way to and from my parents, I listened to part of an audio tape called "The Einstein Factor" by Win Wenger Ph.D. It has been very interesting.

One concept the book stresses is that we have oodles and oodles of creative ideas and observations that never get to see the light of day. The author claims we each get between 30 and 50 innovative ideas whether a business idea, an invention, a book idea, an artistic impulse, etc. each day. But we don't take the time to record these ideas and over time, in the simplest sense, our creativity itself becomes dimmed because we don't focus or acknowledge it. There is feedback loop problem. But if we reverse this and pay attention to those impulses, by the simple rule that whatever we give our attention to increases, so will our creativity.

He notes that all the great geniuses and inventors were notorious "scribbles" often leaving behind thousands of notebooks full of thoughts when they pass away. And as I was driving to see my dad and mom, this held special interest. My dad, who is an extremely successful businessman, despite not graduating from high school (he later got a GED in the army) ALWAYS had a legal pad handy in his free time. Growing up, I can remember coming out to the back porch many a night and seeing him with an Old Style beer on the patio table and a page filled with incomprehensible numbers and drawings. And during those years he has built several successful businesses. On this last trip, I saw a stack of about ten of these blank legal pads that Mom must have gotten as a bundle deal at Staples, waiting to be filled with Dad's scribbles.

Thus I have seen for myself the value of noting down all those ideas even if only a small percentage come to fruition.

Mr. Winger's challenge is to write down between 30 and 50 random ideas or creative impulses for five days, keeping pen and paper with you the entire time. He insists at the end of five days, your creativity will be soaring and you'll be amazed at the powers of your own mind.

Sounds like a fun and easy, not to mention cheap experiment. Feel free to join in starting tomorrow. Goodnight all! Eileen

P.S. Committed Recycler - I just stopped over at your blog and saw your business idea for the purses made from recycled fabrics, with the pins, etc. What a GREAT idea! Wishing you lots of success!

Day 360 - Off to grandma and grandpa's for the weekend.

Will report back Sunday night. Good wishes to all for a great weekend! Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 361

Marriage - Check - date night - had a wonderful time! And thanks for agreeing to Cajun food sweetie!

Kids - Kirk had no school today so we made it a special outting day which included meeting Greg downtown, a trip to the military museum (he is currently obsessed with WWII), out to lunch (working on some of those table manners - in truth my kids eat like monkeys at times), then met with a friend and her son for the children's museum. So lots of good time together, albeit NOT a cheap day.

Book - Spent about 10 minutes and found the next list of questions in the book From Book Idea to Bestseller and will work on them during the weekend. For any of you also working on a book:

1. What needs does my book address?
2. Who, specifically, needs what I am offering?
3. Does my book solve a problem?
4. For whom does my book solve a problem?
5. Can I write a one-sentence sales pitch for my book that makes its benefits or solutions clear to editors, agents, and readers?
6. Have I organized my ideas into a program from which readers will gain tangible benefits?

Business- Found the company that produced the sample moving frog light in New York and found a phone number, but will need to call Monday. Did spend 15 minutes brainstorming for ideas for what the lamp could have for various age groups. Listed here for my reference.

planets, dinosaurs, alphabet, numbers, multiplication tables, presidents, shapes, Spanish, French, German - basic nouns or verbs with pictures, famous women in history, land forms, shapes of states, parts of atoms, types of rocks, types of birds, types of asteroids, invertebrates, parts of the body, fractions, volcanoes, public service workers - police, firefighters, nurses, historical time lines (westward expansion, Civil War, Revolutionary War, Incas, Mayans, Aztecs), nutrition, parts of the cell, parts of the brain, mini-pictorial biographies or Lincoln or Washington, parts of the atom, weather patterns, sports, mammals, various nursery rhymes, Monet's or Renoir's mini-paintings, parts of plants).

Garden - Will go through garden diary to check what plans I wrote this past spring about buying any bulbs.

Health/beauty - Did seven minutes of yoga and three minutes of walking about with a book on my head.

Spirit-catchall - Posted about eight inspirational posters at a thrift store (I think they were old school posters) and posted then along our upstairs hall as I figured I can't feed my mind too much positive thinking during this year.

F.I. Started reading an interesting book called "Think and Grow Rich Action Pack" purchased for $1.50 at the same thrift store as the posters. It is based on the original book written in the 1920's by Napoleon Hill.

No Spend Days and The Gifts of Time and Creativity!

Something I used to do to great success and am looking forward to restarting is to have four no spend days each week. I've found when I set aside three or four days with the commitment not to spend a single cent, I give myself two gifts. First is the gift of time - no driving time to a store, no parking time, no shopping time, no waiting in line time, no ATM stop for cash time, no getting back out to my car and driving home time and all that added up tends to be significant.

The second gift is the gift of creativity born from necessity. Since I don't draw, paint, play a musical instrument, dance or sing, I find my frugality is a lovely builder of ingenuity or inventiveness.

First off, when I make myself keep a running list for a week or so before spending, I usually manage to get all the errands packed into one day. As a result, I plan my route and am MUCH more efficient with my time. And as I've had a week to plan the list, I'm much less likely to forget something that really is needed. If I didn't notice we were running low on toilet paper Monday, likely by Wednesday, this has caught my or Greg's notice;-).

And on that day of shopping, if I've paid cash and spent the time needed for a $23 oil change with the early bird discount, then spent $98 at the grocery store and $68 at Walmart, $38 to fill up with gas, and $12 for a haircut at Cost Cutters, I find my old habits of browsing at a thrift or book store for "fun" sounds so insane in the moment, that I tend to drive home, unpack all this stuff, and be glad it's at least four days before I can spend money again.

In addition, necessity really is the mother of invention. I ran out of eggs long ago and did an internet search which taught me I could substitute a 1/4 cup of applesauce (which costs less than half the price of an organic egg). I've not had a birthday card or birthday gift on the day needed and used my nicest stationary to write a letter in lieu of a card and baked applesauce bread as a present. I've wanted a new outfit for a special event, then looked through INSTYLE magazine until I saw an idea that used some of what I already had. All of these brought me quite a bit of fun and cost far less in time and money than traditional shopping.

So I've cleared the weekend of spending and tonight filled up with gas and packed snacks as we're going to my parents. This will be my send off weekend to get back into four no spend days a week (made easier by being able to mooch food and supplies off mom and dad;-).

If it works with your schedule to try this for a few weeks, you might find it very helpful. And just when you're sure you MUST break your promise and run to the store, remember your great-grandma probably made it to a store once a month and she's looking down at you encouragingly, saying, "Honey, do you REALLY need that??;-).

Eileen
P.S. This picture, which I treasure, is of my husband Greg's maternal grandma as an infant, being held by her mom, with her grandma to her left, her great-grandma in the lower left corner and her great-great Grandma seated just below her. Two days after the photo was taken, the great-great Grandma died.

Nightly Roundup - Day 362

Marriage - Check;-)

Kids - Fun time throwing rocks into the pond during the rain - mom there mentally AND physically.

Business - Did about 30 minutes today more of general research to create the business plan to then eventually meet with a mentor. Decided to focus on Leapfrog as an educational toy provider and get more info on the market. Went to SEC.gov to look up their company name. Then clicked on Leapfrog Enterprises and did a "filing type" search for a 10-k, which they must file each year as a publicly traded company. So if you're starting a company, this is a good place to gather the inside scoop. On the business plan:

Major Players - according to report are Leapfrog - Mattel via its Fisher Price Brand; Hasbro via Playskool division; and Vtech holdings.
Problems - Competitors introducing similar products soon after they are created at Leapfrog, often for a cheaper price due to materials, sources, labor, etc.
Principal methods of competition in the educational toy realm - performance, features, quality, brand recognition, price, and learning content,
Limits- 60 percent of gross sales depend on just three retailers, Walmart, Toys R Us, Target - and if any of these runs into significant problems, there will be big problems for Leapfrog.
Customers - Our customers generally fit into one of the following categories:
● Retailers that resell our products to consumers in the United States and some international regions;

● Distributors that purchase our products for resale to retailers, generally internationally;

● Direct consumers who purchase our products via our website, www.LeapFrog.com;

● U.S. schools and school districts that purchase our products for use in their classrooms either through education market resellers or directly, through our website, www.LeapFrog.com. (But I couldn't find the breakdown of which customers are responsible for what percentage of sales).
Problem - Declining sales and profits

.

At this point I'm not sure how all this will fit into my business plan, but it gives me a bit more of a feel for the industry. What happened to the good old, "Build a better mousetrap and they'll be beating down your door????"

Book - Talk about overlap. I spent about 15 minutes reading the first chapter of From Book Idea to Bestseller. The seven rules of book publishing are now supposedly:

1. Compete for readers.
2. Think in terms of product.
3. Act like a promoter.
4. Develop and package the project.
5. Design your proposal for a committee decision.
6. Understand the changing landscape of book publishing.
7. Turn the chains and superstores into allies.

Did Jane Austen have any idea how good she had it??

Garden - Brought in more annuals.

Health/beauty - Fun here. I dusted off my old Billy Banks Tai Bo videos that I hadn't used since I was pregnant with Kirk and blew off some steam kickboxing. All that book and business stuff seemed a bit overwhelming and there's nothing like Billy's positive style and a few well placed chops to work off some anxiety. The kids wanted to be part of the action, so I let them work on some kicks too.

Spirit/catchall - Had a lovely chat with one of my best friends on the phone today. We were college roommates and she now lives in New Mexico so we don't get to see each other as often as I'd like. But when we do talk, we connect again in about 2 seconds. Thanks Emelia!

FI - Am trying to work my schedule to only spend money one or two days a week. I've done this in the past to great effect as it forces you to put off buying and often you decide the day you finally shop you don't even want or need half the stuff you would have gotten on impulse purchases. But this isn't always easy to do. Will try to schedule at least four NO BUY days next week.

Flow and The Problems of Closets

I've been listening to a book tape called "Into the Genius Zone" that I picked up at a library sale some time ago. It is a series of taped interviews with various people in the areas of creativity, music, wealth, education, and others.

The main idea behind the series is that when we get into "flow state" we tap into deeper resources of our unconscious. In flow our focus becomes much more pointed and we are able to accelerate learning and achieve mastery of material more quickly.

One section was from Dennis Stevenson, who ran the Money Workshop for several years. In his interview, he kept referring to money as simple flow and that certain things block that flow. His theory was if you have emotional blocks (lots of anger, unresolved issues with family/friends, etc) or mental blocks (lots of undone projects, piles of unaddressed bills, or lots of clutter in your home) that these things also block the flow of wealth.

I was interested in the case examples he gave of people who got their lives in order, such as organizing their finances, coming to a resolution with an old grievance, or simply cleaning out their basements and closets, and suddenly finding they had a lot more energy and creativity to deal with wealth building concepts. His theory, if I caught it right, was that these things you're not addressing, zap your energy and take mental/physical energy away that could otherwise be spent getting in flow.

If you walked into my house, for the most part you would think it was a tidy house. But should you have cause to go into the closets or the lower level of the basement or the garage, you would quickly revise that opinion;-). And I sort of get what he's saying. I have so many things I'm excited to accomplish this year, but certainly know there is a lot of clutter in those three areas that needs to be dealt with. And in some way, it does seem to drain energy every time I open a closet door or go down into the basement and find myself facing a mountain of clutter.

So, endeavor number nine is to clear out the last remaining disorganized areas of my home a bit at a time and see if indeed this does speed up flow.

Have any of you found something similar in your lives?

Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 363

Crazy sort of grocery store, car wash, play date, zoo, Walmart, thrift store day.

Marriage - Check. (Decided we didn't need to be so detailed here for the day when the "Would you bring up the winter clothes?" is replaced with "There is a great Playboy bunny costume on sale at the temporary Halloween store at the mall and you would look just great in that........";-)

Kids - Did the zoo, the playground and a play date. Check!

Book - Note list above regarding running around all day, so blog entry and a paperback book called "From Book Idea to Bestseller" purchased for only a dollar by this optimistic blogger;-)

Business - See above note once again, but I did find this really interesting nightlight at the same thrift store as the book. Though you can't see from the still photo, it has a frog that loops around slowly, with words like Hip Hop. But the idea is intriguing. It looks fairly cheaply made with just a band of some sort of plastic material and if it was slowly revolving around naming the planets or the dinosaur groups, that could be moving closer to my idea. Will look up the manufacturer tomorrow.

Garden - Home Depot shrubs at $3.36 each - a great selection - and almost enough to finish most of the border to the south.

Health/beauty - Got in my eight glasses of water today and stocked up on more fruits than usual when shopping.

Spirit-friends-catchall - Made plans to meet with three of my friends whose friendship goes back to fourth grade sleepovers for the book signing at the library of our hometown for the one who is now a published author - how cool is that! We will then proceed to Pizza Hut, where we spent many an adolescent hour.

FI - Got the Quicken program as our Money program is about to go off and started to install it. Though we had a lot of problems with data transfer and supposedly they are coming out with something new in a few weeks to make that easier.

Saving some money next spring and bringing some cheer for February.

Frost is just around the corner here in WI and it's time to start bringing in the geraniums and other annuals. Here geraniums can be as much as $4.00 each in the spring, and I've found I can easily overwinter them in a sunny window. They drop a few leaves when they hit the furnace-heated air, but settle in nicely, need very little water and usually send out a bloom or two around February, just when I'm starved for some garden color. Then in spring, I start to fertilize and they perk up beautifully to go outside come May.

I've had some success overwintering impatients, mostly just for fun as a six pack is usually only $1.29 or so and they don't seem to perk up very well the second year. This year, I'm overwinting some others just to see what works. I've got some begonias, some salvias (a GORGEOUS dark blue), and some pink polka dot plant.

If any of you have had good success with overwintering plants other than geraniums, do tell your secrets. Also, I have a book on plant propagation that assured me geraniums were easy to propagate, just take a stem cutting, stick it in perlite or another well drained medium, water, and wait. I've tried this for over four years and have yet to make any new geraniums. The first year I had visions of creating five hundred or so "free" geraniums to edge gardens and put in overflowing garden pots, but this has come to zip. So again, if you've happened to be successful at this, do tell, please! I've gotten spider plant and some easy houseplants to root this way and would so like to double my geranium number by next spring.

Best wishes! Eileen

Nightly Roundup - Day 364

1. Marriage - Greg made this easy again just asking that I round up all the winter gear in the basement and bring it up as the weekend is supposed to get quite chilly. (And he does just seem to enjoy being asked - and did ask me if he could return the favor in some way. I asked him to consider baby number three;-). Maybe not quite a quid pro quo for finding his Hawkeyes scarf.....)
2. Kids - Read one short chapter in the mindful parenting book and managed to be in the moment for at least a decent portion of time while I played blocks with the kids today.
3. Book - Blog entries are about it. Need to follow up more with how to write to a publisher.
4. Business - Gave a shot to answering question #1 on my due diligence. This was done with about 20 minutes set aside for a Google search. I doubt this is of much interest unless you're also thinking of a kids product for your business idea, but I'm putting it here to refer back to. And I did learn a whole new term, edutainment, referring to the overlap of entertainment and education that goes way back including many poems and stories and blocks with numbers and letters and animals printed on the sides. The article also touched on start up costs and talked about the story behind ThinkFun, a husband and wife puzzle company started in their basement all of which was educational (no pun intended;)).

Kids’ Educational Toys and Games
The Toy Industry Association estimates that the traditional toy industry (which doesn’t include electronics such as video games and handheld electronic games) is worth an estimated $22 billion in annual sales, with nearly half those sales being generated during the holidays (see “Toy Story” on page 1.4 for a breakdown of popular toy categories). Educational games like Cranium have enjoyed huge mass appeal. In the eight years since its inception, this board game, together with its sibling titles, has sold more than 15 million games in 10 languages and 30 countries. Educational toys like the LeapFrog learning laptops have also been popular. Industry observers believe that educational toys’ mass-market appeal will only continue to grow, as parents continue to search for meaningful enrichment activities for their children.

From Entreprenuer Magazine

5. Garden - Rainy day here, but I did pot up some annuals in case a freeze comes soon to wipe them out.

6. Health/beauty - As crazy as it may sound, I set the timer for three minutes and walked around with a book on my head. My posture, never great, needs some work. My doctor once mentioned during a discussion about breast reduction surgery that it looked like having such heavy breasts had affected my posture. Need to get better about throwing those shoulders back, head held high....

7. Spirit - catchall - Did pretty much stay in the moment with the kids during their playtime.

8. F.I. - No tossed food for the day!

Hope you're all doing well. Only 363 more days to go!

Our $3.12 Dinner for Three and What the World Eats.

My friend Kalpana and I did the 5k literacy walk this past weekend and were talking about American diets. She is from India, and while not a vegetarian, grew up eating a mostly plant based diet. She said during her childhood, the street corners had fresh fruit and vegetable stands rather than what is now becoming popular, McDonalds and pizza places.

Today she sent me a link that was fascinating. It is from the book called Hungry Planet. In it, husband and wife, photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Aluisio set out to find how globalization, migration and rising affluence are affecting the diets of communities around the globe


The link below is to a Time Magazine article that excerpted pictures of various families from around the globe along with a typical week of groceries. The span in prices is nothing short of astounding, from Germany at $500 a week to a Breidjing camp at $1.23 a week.

The differences between the amounts of fresh produce and the amounts of packaged goods is also striking. Here is the link to the Time article.
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373764,00.html

Our dinner tonight was $3.12 for three (Greg had a work dinner). To put that in some context, a family in Bhutan will spend $5.03 a WEEK on groceries. Our dinner costs break down as follows.

Two veggie brats - kids split one and I ate one. $1.00
Frozen corn is 19 cents per cup and we ate 1 1/2 cups or about .29
1/2 a package of .37 Mac and cheese roughly .20 (though as I type I realize I didn't include the cost of the added milk - we don't add butter to it).
1/2 a large can of unsweetened peaches was .77
2 potatoes, split between us at .36
Two glasses of juice .50 (still guessing on this until the next grocery run).

Total dinner for three $3.12.

Hoping to start moving to the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.