Jen's Den

I was just looking at our bank statement online and saw that we earned a whopping $0.04 interest this month on our checking balance. The entry says the interest rate is 0.09% -- 9/10 of 1%. Wow, I said to myself sarcastically, we're rich. Then it occurred to me -- we really are rich, in all the things that really matter.

My partner and I say a blessing every night, thanking the universe/god/goddess/higher power for the abundance in our lives -- the roof over our heads, the food on our table, the love we share, our families and friends, and our fur-babies. And at Christmastime, we are even more keenly aware of our gratitude -- thankful that we can buy a tree and a few gifts to exchange, and enough food for a filling meal and even leftovers.

We try to share our "riches" when we can. This Christmas, we both had the same idea, and didn't discover it until we opened our stockings. There, among all the chocolate treats, was a card announcing a donation to Heifer International. We had both "purchased" a flock, one of geese and the other of chickens, in each other's honor -- and even more serendipitously, we had both given an "extra" cash donation to Heifer International ... in the same amount. The extra donation is for them to put where the need is greatest.

Heifer International is one of our favorite nonprofit organizations. They are modeled on the idea that providing livestock for those who live in abject poverty, in countries all over the world, is the smartest way to help people help themselves. Instead of a one-time gift of food or toys, a gift of a flock of chicks enables a family to raise the chickens to adulthood, which then lay eggs (providing nutritious food for the family and village), and raise more chicks, which then lay more eggs, and ... you get the picture. Just $20 for a flock of chickens, geese or ducks and the family gains an ongoing enterprise and can share the chicks with family, friends and other villagers, who then get the eggs for food and raise more chicks of their own, and so on. What other charitable enterprise can enable such a small donation to still be giving years down the road?

Besides poultry, you can give a goat or a cow (hence the origin of their name) or you can contribute a share of a goat or a cow if you can't fund an entire animal (they're more than the poultry flocks), or sheep, a pig or llama or water buffalo, honey bees, rabbits, or just a general donation to be used wherever it's needed to help people become self-sufficient.

It's truly the gift that keeps on giving. If you're looking for something meaningful for that person who doesn't need another book, CD or tie, check out http://www.heifer.org/. They're open 24/7/365, so you can shop anytime, and you can print out a gift card from the website or request one to be sent.

Posted by Jen at 11:25 AM | Permalink

There are some really simple but incredibly useful things we learn in childhood that we never forget. The one I use probably more than any other is the number of days in each month, as in the rhyme my mother taught me:

"30 days hath September,
April, June and November,
of 28 there is but one,
and all the rest have 31."

It's so easy to quickly figure out how many days there are in the current month: just remember the first 2 lines in the rhyme. If the current month is September, April, June or November, then it has 30 days. If it isn't, and it's not February, then it has 31. Simple.

And how many of us still recite the alphabet (to ourselves) when trying to find something that's filed in alpha order? Quickly now -- what comes after PQRS? T, of course.

My favorite, though, is another rhyme my dear mother taught me: "A pint's a pound, the world around." It refers to the fact that 16 U.S. fluid ounces of water weighs about one pound (in the U.S.).

Why is this useful? Well, in most cases it probably isn't. But if you're the one who always puts the new 5-gallon bottle on the water cooler in your office, you'll want to know how much it weighs. Remember there are 2 pints in a quart and 4 quarts in a gallon (you did learn these equivalents in high school, right?), so ... if 1 pint weighs 1 pound, then 1 x 2 x 4 x 5 = the weight of the water in a 5-gallon bottle: 40 pounds. Plus the bottle maybe adds another pound or so.

So remember ... 30 days hath September, T follows PQRS, and a pint's a pound. You now know everything you need to succeed in life.

Posted by Jen at 01:55 PM | Permalink

It first dawned on me that the $2 per workday I was spending on drive-through coffee could be put to better use when I sat in my recliner one night, took a look around me at the dust and dog hair that I didn't have the energy to vacuum up, and decided to stop beating myself up for not always having a neat and tidy home.

A friend had recommended her housekeeper and, after much discussion, we finally decided to swallow our pride and call her. It was probably the smartest thing we've ever done.

She is a delightful, energetic lady, wise way beyond her 32 years, who spent about six hours working her tuchus off the first time she came to our house. The most significant impact of her efforts on my feeling of relief was delayed, however, until the next morning, when I realized I could actually walk into the kitchen without slippers on and not worry about stepping on a sticky spot of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream that had dripped on the floor. I walked out of the kitchen, paused, looked at the bottoms of my BARE FEET, and Lo and Behold! They were CLEAN!!

Yes, in case you were wondering, most of the time when we drop food on the floor we do wipe it up right away. Or the dog does. But there is that occasional rushed intermission when the commercials have ended and our favorite show is coming back on when we may have dripped a glob or two and not paused to clean it up.

There is something about the feeling of having a really clean house that is hard to describe. It's not just pride of ownership, although that figures into it. Unfortunately, it seems that now our energy level is inversely proportional to our increasing years.

We still have lots of "stuff" to throw out, but just knowing that the floors are clean makes the prospect of having a neighbor actually come into the house when she wants to borrow an egg not quite so daunting (instead of asking her to wait on the front porch for the egg!).

Maybe it's just psychological, but paying someone to do something you just have no energy for is a good thing. I know many people will read this and say well, that's nice if you can afford it. Believe me, with one of us on a staff writer's salary at a small-town newspaper and the other on disability, I didn't think we could either. Until I took a closer look at where our income was going.

For me, that daily $2 for coffee on the way to work added up to about $500 a year (2x5x50, allowing for 2 weeks of vacation)! When I looked at it that way, it really did seem like an extravagance I could give up, or at least cut back on for the sake of having clean floors.

Now I buy organic coffee at the natural food store and make myself a cuppa Joe when I get to work, using a one-cup coffeemaker I've had for years. (You can find them just about anywhere.) The housekeeper vacuums, mops and dusts every other week, and it really IS something we can actually fit into the budget. And when we have some extra bucks, we have her stay a bit longer and help us clear out some of the clutter in the garage or office.

When I was a kid, my dad quit smoking. But, he continued to put the 35 cents per day that a pack of cigarettes was costing him (yes, this was WAAAAAY back when) into a huge jar in his closet. When it filled up, he took it to the bank. Eventually he had saved enough to buy my mom a mink stole. Not that I advocate buying a dead animal's coat with your savings if you quit smoking or make your own coffee at work, but think of what you could do with that money -- besides hiring a housekeeper.

For $500, you can:

(1) donate some of it to CARE (http://www.care.org), one of the most worthwhile organizations in the world that has many different programs fighting hunger, poverty, AIDS/HIV, and increasing access to education in developing countries, especially for girls. Or, to Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org) to provide a cow, goat, alpaca or chickens to a family in a developing country that will help them become self-sufficient by selling the milk, fleece or eggs in their village.

(2) buy a small TV for the kitchen so you don't have to miss the first few seconds of your favorite show after the commercial, if you're still dishing out the ice cream.

(3) buy two round-trip tickets from Eureka to Portland to visit Powell's, the coolest bookstore in the world (http://www.powells.com).

I'm sure you can think of all kinds of other ways to spend $500. And what the heck, make it $400 and buy yourself that special cup of coffee once a week. And maybe even a scone. You're worth it.

Posted by Jen at 12:14 PM | Permalink

Last night I was reading the ad inserts in the paper for today's after-Christmas sales. It got me to thinking: Who on Earth gets up at 5 a.m. the day after Christmas in order to be at the stores at 6 a.m. when the sales start? Are people that cranked up with shopping adrenaline that they didn't get enough of a rush BEFORE Christmas? Or are they just waiting for the sales to do some late holiday shopping for people they weren't going to see before Christmas anyway?

In any case, this urge to splurge confounds me. I don't understand the need to spend, spend, spend. Whatever happened to "Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify!" (Henry David Thoreau)

Personally, I've been inspired by having to clear off the coffee table to make room for our little table-top tree. This is the first year we bought a tree that was less than 5 feet tall, and I'm hooked. It's so cute! And it only needed one string of lights, and has plenty of room for all our favorite ornaments.

Anyway, in making room for the tree, I went through some piles of stuff that had been on the coffee table for (ahem) a few months. OK, about 12. Lo and behold, it ALL went to the recycle bin! Outdated catalogs, magazines, newspapers, maps for a trip we took a year ago, and on and on.

So I'm inspired to tackle a few more piles tonight, a few tomorrow night, and so on. In fact, I'm even excited about it. Maybe I've finally caught the feng shui bug that I've been chasing for years that has so far eluded me, just out of reach.

I'm reading a great book on feng shui called "Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life" by Karen Rauch Carter. I have several other books on feng shui, but this one is my favorite. I'll try to remember to add some quotes from it to this blog in the near future.

One suggestion I found incredibly useful (and so obvious I can't believe I never thought of it): Place an attractive basket for recycling junk mail somewhere near the front door or wherever you dump the mail when you come into the house. Never take the junk mail any further than that basket, and don't even open it - just drop it in its place. When it comes time to take in the recycling, or put it out for pickup, just dump the basket into the recycle bin. The recycle center doesn't care if it's unopened, as long as it doesn't have stuff like CDs, pens or other freebies in it.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year, cyberfriends! May 2008 bring less clutter to your space!

Posted by Jen at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)