The Compacting

First, thank you @ and Tharini for giving me company.

Hope that you're doing better than me. I broke my pledge by buying my daughter a little pair of denim overalls - for her teddy bear.

I avoided temptation by going straight to what I needed when I had to go to Target. I finally gave in when we spent four hours wandering about a mall yesterday (and I figured an outfit for her old bear is better than a new bear).

Ironically, the most temptation came from the same site which inspired me to simplify. I would really like to have those net bags.

On the other hand, last week I finally gave away her old cloth diapers through freecycle. Freecycle lives up to its name - everytime I use it, I feel freer and lighter.

Walk Slowly, Live Wildly: Let the Compacting Begin

I've decided to take this up: Walk Slowly, Live Wildly: Let the Compacting Begin

Will anyone join me?

Here's the compacting pledge:

In light of the destructive effects of personal greed, we pledge to curb our purchases, cease frivolous buying, and choose to simplify our lives. Excepting only those things needed for work and the health and safety of our families, we pledge not to buy new. Further more, we will actively seek to pass on possessions we no longer want to those who are in need. In doing so, we hope to educate both friends and family about the corrosive effects of being in a constant state of want, nurture in ourselves the uplifting state of giving, thus reducing the load on the environment and creating a more sensible path for our lives. For these reasons, we join the Compact.

To start with, I am going to stick with this for a month. Baby steps :) I can already think of a couple of exceptions that I'll have to make:

1) Digital camera
2) Snow clothes for my daughter

A Link to Bliss

I love this, probably more because of all the clutter in my life that I long to get rid of.

Happiness is a small home.

Ironically, after I looked at all the lovely pictures that she posted, my first thought was that we "need" a new digital camera. Am I incurable?

Spoooooooky

Last night I couldn't sleep very well, and I thought I imagined it when I heard a strange noise. It sounded like somebody was having a nightmare and moaning.

Then I heard it again. A low howl followed by two short bark like sounds. I still wondered if somebody in the house was having a bad dream. And then I heard it again. And again. And again. It sounded too much like an animal, but too little like a dog, so the next time I heard it, I prodded my husband in the shins and said "What's that?" He said, "Go back to sleep. It's just a coyote."

Just a coyote. Just a coyote! There was an almost full moon outside, and a coyote somewhere below the window. How could I go back to sleep?

We live in a very thickly populated neighborhood, but happen to be right across from an unpopulated wetland area. We've seen various wildlife crossing our street or lawn, including several turtles, small snakes, turkey, and once a deer. But none of that, including the snakes, was as unsettling as this coyote.

We've distanced ourselves from the wild so much, that the wild cry of the coyote was very disturbing. The coyote was the one that weighed not much more than my three-year-old, was rarely aggressive toward humans, was all alone among the houses of different and powerful creatures, and we were the different and "powerful" creatures who were safely inside, so I'm not sure why it gave me the chills.

After a while, the neigbors' dog started to bark back at it, and the coyote's cry moved farther away and faded.

But just in case, I prodded my husband again and said, "Are you sure the garage door's closed?"


Excerpt from wikipedia: Hearing a coyote is much more common than seeing one. The calls a coyote makes are high-pitched and variously described as howls, yips, yelps and barks. These calls may be a long rising and falling note (a howl) or a series of short notes (yips). These calls are most often heard at dusk or night, less often during the day. Although these calls are made throughout the year, they are most common during the spring mating season and in the fall when the pups leave their families to establish new territories. Many people find these calls eerie or disturbing while others find them to be quite beautiful. Additionally, the coyote's howl can be very deceiving: due to the way the sound carries, it can seem as though it is in one place, when it is really elsewhere.