Dollar store woes

In my life as a parent, there is no retail hell quite as visceral as taking my children to the Dollar store. It's a fate I try hard to skirt, avoiding the places like the plague that they are. They are just so full of constant temptation for children-balloons, obnoxious holiday decor, sparkly crap, plastic toy wonderlands, and cavity inducing treats. And it doesn't take a 6 year old long to figure out just how cheap $1 is compared to normal shopping experiences. Because of the toll it takes on my psyche we rarely go to the Dollar store, but every major holiday seems to chip away at my resolve and we always end up there for something random-this Halloween it was glow sticks for trick or treating. So the dollar store conundrum is fresh on my mind.

I really don't think dollar stores are responsible for cultural decay, but I'm not joking when I say that I think places like it have contributed directly to it. I think All A Dollar, Big Lots, and the like have done a lot to harm our mindset as a culture, and especially our consumer culture, so central to the American way of life. The value we place on goods is irretriveably altered when we pay only $1 for them. We don't expect much out of the product's design, we don't expect it to exude taste, we aren't supporting the labor market that produced the product, and we certainly don't expect it to last. I have issue with all of these things going by the wayside, but encouraging disposability is to me really egregious. I bet 50% of land fills are now filled with the broken down rejects someone bought at the freaking dollar store! Trust me, I tried this summer, and it is hard to unload the stuff at a garage sale, let alone have it hang around for years in your own closet.

Last summer I read an awesome book called Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. It was an enlightening read about the global practices behind producing goods cheaply and the psychology of how good deals and cheap goods have infiltrated our consumer experience and mentality. The book depressed me on a lot of levels--thinking of the plight of the foreign worker making silly products for hours on end that no one needs in dangerous conditions is a hard pill to swallow-but the thing that really struck me most was the way cheap goods have changed our expectations of products and therefore our expectation of workmanship and quality. It is frightening to think that we have traded in the concept of heirloom quality for sheer quantity or the hope of a larger bank balance in exchange for inexpensive goods.

Being married to a craftsman, someone who can build actual useable things from scratch, I've learned the value of creating by hand. I've seen the work it takes to produce a chair from a hunk of wood, and it is something so hard to put a price on. It's someone's time, sure, but it's also someone's knowledge and someone's pride in what they produce. It is intensely personal work to make something by hand. And it's that sense of the personal that sets the creation apart from mass production goods. Anyone can buy a dresser from IKEA and save a bundle but is there a story behind the item, a point of view, other than how cheap it was or the frustration of putting it together?! Can you name something you own that you feel you would want to pass on to your children? Why do you feel this way about it? What sets it apart from everything else you own? I'm willing to wager you aren't looking at something you bought at IKEA or the Dollar store.

Things that we truly value are priceless. Literally. You cannot put a dollar figure on them and yet that is the only criteria shoppers use when perusing the aisles of dollar store establishments. "But it's so cheap!" "Can you believe this is only a dollar?" And that's exactly the mentality that gets all of us. These places thrive because it feels good to get a big bang out of a little buck. A 6 year old feels it, we feel it. It's a difficult thing to combat and a very difficult thing to say no to, especially in tight times like these. But I think it's worth considering the impact buying cheap has on us as a culture and on us as a personal consumer.

I've accepted my impact politically and socially as a consumer, but I'm not willing to accept the classic American consumer moniker if it means increasing trash, not treasure, on the planet. If we as Americans are consumers above all, let's be good ones. Let's elevate our possessions to being bastions of good taste, design, sustainability, and personality. Ghandi's old saying "we must be the change we wish to see in the world" was surely never meant for consumer practices, but I'm convinced there isn't a more political, or aesthetic- altering, stand we can take as a culture. I think we could change the fabric of culture more quickly by refusing to buy cheap than by the ballot box. It's an interesting power to wield, the power of the wallet, and definitely something worth our thoughtful attention when making those purchases that make the world, our world, go round.

p.s. The author of Cheap was interviewed on Radio West last year. I seriously heart our local radio west situation, and this episode is a great one hour program on all these topics and more. Give the podcast a listen if you can!

Big ups and trying not to fall down

I love when the inner world of my heart and the outer world converge. I've had a lot of sunny moments this past week that match the absolute golden beauty of these late fall days. Exciting things are afoot for me and for Jaren and the kids seem to be happily progressing. Feelings of deep gratitude for my uber-lovely parents and all the support and gracious generosity they bestow on me and mine are making me feel full. I am so lucky to have the kind of parents who are equal parts friend, confidant, and cheerleader. They have gotten me through rough patches since I was a wee thing and here they are still, at 35, stepping up to babysit my kiddos, allay my fears-both real and imagined, and buoy my reality. I am so, so lucky.

And to top it off, I got to go to the desert this weekend! I think Utah is a gem on many levels, but I don't think words can describe the magic of the red rock desert. When I head south, I feel like I'm going home. I love Southern Utah in the spring when the desert landscape is alive with flowers and life that defy the arid landscape, but Fall is pretty damn spectacular. The huge Cottonwoods lining all the rivers and washes were blazing yellow, and against the blue sky and deep amber rock it was almost too much contrast, kind of like technicolor or a hand colored photograph. We treated our kids to their first Goblin Valley experience and they were just the right ages to scramble and climb among the rock formations and really take it in. We spent the time hanging and hiking with dear friends and admiring the grandeur of a very mighty landscape. Again, it made me feel full of light and love.

It's a lucky life to lead and I know I'm blessed or fortunate or whatever you want to call it. I get worried when things feel like they are on the uptake, though, like something is bound to come crashing down. It's the "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" equation. Is it human nature to feel this?

I can't recall where I first learned about the term momento mori, a Latin phrase that translates to "remember you must die" or "remember you will die" but I've been pretty fascinated with the idea for awhile. Manifestations of momento mori occur in a lot of architecture and art, especially from the Middle Ages and Puritan era--most are dark paintings full of grumpy old men holding skulls or oversized time pieces or the occasional church with human bones and skulls prominently displayed, symbols of impending death. Macabre though it may be, I love this concept. I've been considering carrying a little momento mori of my own, something that cautions me to think about the now. I love the idea of reminding myself, even in my most light hearted and happy state, that time is always short, life cannot be lived forever. It's counter intuitive, but I find this comforts me. My biggest fear just might be letting my very own life pass me by; to feel regret or that I did not live to the fullest extent of who I am. To me, that can really only be achieved if I stay mindful about TODAY. This very minute is really all that we can control right? Who knows what will happen next?

I like skulls and black. And a pocket watch is cool, but I don't think I can go that literal with my momento mori. So I'm thinking, for me, what better manifestation of momento mori than to carry around the perfect little smooth rock I collected in the desert this weekend. It feels good to my fingertips and fits perfectly in my pocket. Rounded by eons of time, rinsed by flood and rain, and baked over and over again in the scorching desert sun, it is a tiny fragment of one of the most beautiful pieces of this Earth. Let's hope its tangible presence in my jeans helps me strive to be a beautiful fragment in this crazy world too......

Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Just when I think the state of things is in the toilet and that humans have successfully destroyed the delicate balance of the planet for good, something comes along to make me re-evaluate and feel hopeful. I do believe progress is being made on the waste front. I've never understood why when one company discovers a great, eco-friendly solution, all other companies aren't required to follow suit. Interestingly, it seems that consumers (more and more) are forcing this issue, not government, and maybe that is the genius of the capitalist culture? We are taking a stand and requiring our products and our companies to consider the waste and the pollution their businesses create. Money talks way louder than politicians, I guess, and that puts us as consumers in a pretty powerful position, but one that also requires responsibility.

Plastic water bottles (think Dasani, Aquafina) are a huge pet peeve of mine. I can't think of another product that more appropriately represents all that is wrong with mainstream America. Buying something in place of something you already pay for via your faucet at home is itself ridiculous, and then made even more so since consumer protection places have consistently revealed that fancy "spring" water is rarely from any place more pure than a faucet anyway, and in fact is subject to fewer regulations. It's just tap water that has been repackaged and refrigerated for your convenience. Plus plastic water bottles have become a serious blight to our environment. Though plastic bottles are recyclable, less than half end up in recycling bins, the rest of the billions go to the landfill where it will take several hundreds of years for the plastic to photodegrade into smaller bits, which still never completely disappear from the soil and the water system. And to make matters worse, it takes barrels and barrels of oil to manufacture the bottles in the first place, a definite waste of finite resources.

Americans drink more bottled water than any nation on Earth and we probably have the easiest access to plumbed water. Ironic, right? Consumer awareness creeps in, however, and I have started to notice just how many people carry stainless and plastic water bottles now, filled at home, rather than purchasing yet another plastic bottle. Not only is it budget conscious, it is so much more earth friendly and those stainless bottles are indestructible (unless you put them full in the freezer and forget about them like Jaren did-in that scenario they explode!) Even the plastic bottles themselves are beginning to be made from biodegradable components, the best ones being 100% plant based and able to degrade completely in 75 days. That's progress, folks!

I'd love to see the same thing happen with the Ziploc style plastic baggie business. Fabric, oilcloth, and glass containers are much better looking anyway! Check out these cutie pies sold on Etsy, they are my personal favorite. But I'm seeing a lot of things like this pop up in Whole Foods and even my "normal" grocery store. Change creeps in. I mostly remember to bring my cloth bags to the store now. (Finally realizing I needed to keep them in the car was a major boon for that issue.) And I am watching to see if California will become the first state to completely ban single use plastic bags from retail stores, a measure that hopefully will lead to an eventual national ban, or at least increased consumer awareness.

Perhaps these are small peeves to voice, but seriously, en masse, think of how much plastic waste we as the biggest consumers in the word could avert with just small decisions and small lifestyle changes. Lord knows that if the American public doesn't put up a fuss about these issues, nothing will change. Big companies will just keep pumping out unnecessary products that are bad for the Earth and therefore bad for humans. It's back to the old "you must be the change you wish to see in the world" Ghandi deal. I believe we can do it if we stay vigilant and stay open to changing our habits.

But if you need a little more incentive to stop buying those flats of bottled water at Costco, or pretty much any other plastic item, check out these photos from the amazing Chris Jordan taken of albatross chicks near Midway Island in the North Pacific ocean. Our oceans are becoming a wasteland of floating plastic, and sea birds and other sea life are eating our trash and dying because of it. The photos are tragic and telling and hopefully a true harbinger of hopeful change.....

PARLEZ VOUS MONEY?

I hate money, or more properly said, I hate the lack of it. It's a super drag to be poor! Prioritizing needs and not factoring in wants takes a toll on the psyche. I've recently had to say no to an expense that meant something to me-an annual trip with girlfriends whom I dearly love. It just wasn't in the cards, or the bank account this year, and owning up to this truth, as right as it was, has been surprisingly difficult.

I don't know about you, but we live with a certain amount of subterfuge in our finances. Absolute zero is never actually absolute zero, thanks to modern day credit and card-age. It is so easy to live beyond actual means, especially when means fluctuate as wildly as ours do. We are used to a feast or famine cycle around here, and it is all too easy for us to think we are just paying for something now, in the interim, until the big money comes up or the paycheck gets sent from the last job or whatever excuse we offer up. Saying no to the recent trip was a manifestation, an exercise, in acknowledging what I can actually afford RIGHT NOW, with the bottom dollar, rather than what I would like to afford. I do that neat "what I would like to afford" & purchase trick all the time. And it feels good in the moment, whereas this no/denial thing hurts a lot in the moment. I hate to miss out on fun. I hate to miss out on memories and chick flick movie marathons, and Ketel One popsicles, damn it! But big picture me is attempting to focus in on what is gained from a sacrifice like this. It's a pretty tidy, short list at this point, but I have to admit to feeling a nice sense of responsible control and a good dose of putting family needs first. It gets down to brass tax sometimes, and I have to be willing to ask myself whether a trip for me or snow boots or dance lessons for the kids is priority. Kids will win every time when you put us head to head. And that actually feels good to acknowledge. It makes me feel like a bona fide grown up, even if grown ups do get to have less fun.

I think one of the interesting things about money is that it definitely makes the world go round, but in my world, no one ever talks about it. I don't know what a single friend or family member in my life makes or how much they live on. I don't know whether someone could retire young or whether they hoarde food stamps in their purse. It's simply not a subject we breach. It feels awkward to even write about money to me. I feel exposed, judged, and gauche. What is this about? Is there a reason to keep money a behind closed doors topic, whether you are talking about wealth or poverty? Why does it feel so strange to "admit" that I can't afford something? And why do I so rarely hear others express this simple fact? There is no way every single person I know has massive savings and plenty of dough. Financial statistics for my generation, not to mention the current financial climate, just don't bear that out.

It makes me wonder if the language of affordability is a bit like learning a foreign tongue, something that only practice can make fluent? Perhaps it is time for our entire culture to take a little Rosetta Stone course in money talk? I wouldn't mind having a few well rehearsed phrases in my arsenal, ways to politely explain to a friend or loved one that I can't afford a certain something, or "I've exceeded my monthly budget for eating out, oops!", without feeling any ensuing awkwardness and/or pity. I guess that's the crux of it all. We seem to be trained in this culture to believe that when we talk about our money we are revealing something private, personal. But in a way, money couldn't be less so. It's cold, hard cash at the end of the day; flimsy paper. It represents facts and sociology but not really an iota of personality. It reveals something about me, but more in a text book way than anything interesting. Talking about money in the positive or in the negative seems like it shouldn't be dirty laundry. It should just be about admitting the status quo and making decisions based on it.

And probably there are plenty of people out there who do treat it that way, I've just never been one of them. But I'd like to try to be. I'm a huge believer that silence on any subject gives it an unnamed power; the if we don't name it, we can't fix it (or we continue to fear it) paradigm. I hope that owning up to my own patch of scarcity right now is brave. It feels brave. It feels a bit like I've been caught with my pants down too, but I'm going to go ahead and assume you won't mind the view. :) But let's be clear. There's no pity party going on here. And there shouldn't be. Good things come out of want, that's something I know: reinvention, creativity, and honest to goodness gratitude. I see A LOT of wealth in that trio.

Summer's bounty

September feels like a big, lickery kiss. The breeze is soft and whispery and feels like such an antidote to the hot heat of the previous months. The chill in the morning and the evening makes for the best "windows open" sleeping weather of the year. I've always loved September. It brings the changes of Fall to your door, but gradually enough that you can still soak up the last gasps of summer. I can see the clumps of orange starting to form on the mountainside and all the edges of my aspen leaves are ringed and crispy, getting ready to change, but for now I'm still in my t-shirt and shorts working in the garden with my sunglasses on.

My garden still isn't quite up to snuff (learning curve!) but I'm proud of the successes we've had this year. We've harvested lots of beets and carrots, herbs of every stripe, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. My big tomatoes are just barely ripening which means once again I've started them off a little too late. I would have liked to get the BLT situation up and running back in August! Jaren and I have a tradition of planting morning glory seeds every spring along whatever fence line we live by. It has been fun to watch them creep up the fence all summer. This year's patch is glorious, a mix of solid sky blue and blue and white striped flowers. I love their trumpet shape and the fact that they only open until the heat of the day takes over. It's like a little welcome to this day sign to me every morning.

I think the garden treasure I'm happiest about this summer is our peach tree. Neglected for years and under watered, we babied it this summer. We pruned it really hard last fall following the traditional rule to keep the tree to 3 main branches. We read up on the proper way to thin the masses of hard little green fruits that pop out by the hundreds in the spring after blossom time, and were shocked to learn that you take 90% of these off so that the tree can concentrate on growing the peaches you do leave on into delicious, big fruits. We've watched the 100 or so peaches left on the tree ripen all summer, going from pale yellowish green and fist sized to baseball round and a deep orange kissed with heavy burgundy. We fondled them until we were sure they were perfectly ripe and a little bit soft to the fingertip before we picked. Last night we celebrated our patience and filled an entire bucket with huge, perfectly ripe, beautiful, peaches. I made cobbler and we sat on the deck soaking in the fact that we grew these little puppies from scratch! It was one of the most satisfying moments of my summer.

Celebrating harvests is a great end of summer ritual. In a future year when I get the tomato thing down I want to have a tomato tasting party like this one I saw in Martha Stewart Living. The last couple years have taught me that I love to can and preserve and I'm eager to put up salsa, peaches,pickles, and jam over the next couple of weeks. The steamy kitchen should also make for a nice antidote to the fresh chill in the air.

Enjoy your last gasps of summer.....it's a special time of year.

Farm Fresh

It is difficult to express the devotion I feel to our three chickens without sounding completely nuts. But over the 6 months or so we''ve had them, the relationship has become, well, a relationship. When we started down the road of chicken raising, I figured it was going to be a great learning experience and an opportunity to connect directly with an important and every day food source. I didn't expect that my family would be charmed to the point of love by the actual chickens themselves.

Matilda, Honey, and Macaroni have become a part of the family. They are legitimate pets (something I am grateful for given the fact that due to allergies this family will never have a conventional cat or dog) and a source of nearly constant entertainment around here. They have distinct personalities and excel at different things. Honey is our best insect hunter. She can find, or steal from the others, an insect faster than you can believe. Matilda is skittish, but self-assured. She has a regal long neck and does a funny side to side neck wagging thing when you hold her, almost like a dance. Macaroni is our crowd pleaser. She is so full of personality and spunk, I really feel like we've had conversations. She's the most aware of us and seems to genuinely want to interact. And as if all this weren't enough, they eat our leftover food scraps and fertilize our yard!

My kids are in love with having chickens. Cleo is the mother hen and takes her role as chicken boss, protector, and trainer quite seriously. She spends a good hour at least with them every day-petting, handling, and no doubt, torturing them with attention. She attempted to teach them some skills this summer like walking around a maze of golf balls and getting them to sit after a pat on the head. Those efforts haven't been all that successful, but she did manage to get each chicken to jump up to her head height (4 ft) to retrieve raisins and sunflower seeds to eat. When they free range around the yard, both kids hold them and do things like swing in the hammock or dig in the sandbox with a chicken on their lap. I believe all three chickens have taken rides on bikes and scooters-please don't call PETA. The interactions are hilarious and I admire so much the fearlessness and love both Cleo and Flynn show for these animals.

Being chicken owners has had a few annoyances, of course. We used to let them free range all day in the yard but when they went from cute little baby chicks who would stay by our side and aimlessly peck the ground to full grown chickens capable of scratching up and pecking at every single beautiful plant in the yard, we started to get mad. As of last month, Jaren and I both felt the damage was enough to require that they stay cooped and in their run full time. (Luckily we were able to move the coop to a new area to create a much larger space for the chickens and kids to roam together.) The poop is pretty annoying and definitely has a way of sticking deeply to shoes. They are messy eaters and spoil their clean water with dirt the minute you set it down. We've had a scare with a neighbors dog taking a nip at Matilda, and one night we accidentally shut the gate to the coop area when the chickens were out, and when we came home after dark, found all three chickens asleep roosting in trees and on the fence out in the open in our yard.

But seriously these issues are nothing compared to the fun and enrichment the chickens have brought to our family. And let me tell you

the very best thing that has happened to us in weeks was coming home from our vacation to learn that MACARONI IS NOW AN EGG LAYING HEN! Hip hip hooray! Now fully mature, Macaroni has started laying daily eggs and they are lovely; small in size, perfectly oval, and a light brown creamy color. Cleo runs down to the coop in the morning and gathers the egg and every day her excitement is just as much as the day before. It is like a daily treasure hunt for her. I personally love the sound Macaroni makes once she's laid...it's like a triumphant little announcement: BBBOKKK! BBBBOK! BBBOOOKKKK! You can't help but feel her pride embedded in the sound.

It is pretty great to have a pet give you something back-something useful and edible even! Mac's eggs are delicious. The yolks are bright orange, not yellow like the ones I buy, and they taste seriously creamy and rich. I like eggs but I know once all three hens start laying I'm going to have to get serious about ways to use up all the egg plenty. I see lots of crepes, german pancakes, quiches, and egg sandwiches in my future. Tough life!

P.S. Lucky, lucky me...my sister in law, Lisa, is a wonderful photographer and at Flynn's recent bday party captured the above shots of my kids with their chickens. I am so glad to have these moments captured! Thank you, Lisa! Check out her work at http://www.3peasphoto.blogspot.com/

I still love summer and am a very official Motorist.

I certainly hope absence makes the heart grow fonder because I have been plain absent around these parts, haven't I? Chalk it up to summer travels, minor states of emergencies, and a general feeling of my life being on fast forward. Oh, and school is starting and I possibly went a bit mad and joined the PTA board of Cleo's school! Hello, time commitment!

I'm sad for summer to be coming to a close-there will never be enough days at the pool or bbq'd chicken in my book- but I am feeling ready to usher back some structure in my household. I've been sadly delinquent in crafting and reading and cooking anything that requires time in the oven. My heel callouses are out of hand and it is probably time to put on a pair of socks again. But man, it has been a fun summer. Swimming and tubing on rivers, learning to fly fish, hiking and smelling like campfire, sticky sheets and fans in the window; gin and tonics and fun bbqs and new groovy vintage patio set out on our deck; dirt under my nails and hummingbirds zooming overhead; clouds of white roses and cascades of blue morning glories; training chickens to jump; watching Flynn learn to ride a scooter; sandbox digging, Cleo's fairy house making; road trips and camping plans and happy babies being born and made. Life fairly overflows during summer doesn't it? And summer, I'm still not done with you yet!

We just returned from our annual summer road trip. For the last three years we've made a plan with one of my best friends from college to meet up and camp or spend a few days in a cabin somewhere we want to explore. It has become a great tradition, one made even sweeter by the fact that our daughters are only 3 months apart and fast friends. (We are pretty sure they think they are some kind of relation-some hybrid form between cousins and sisters.) I've gone off about my love of the road trip before, and I can't help but do it again. It is truly the best way to travel if you like landscape and regionalism and believe in the luxury of time. That is probably the single most ironic thing about road trips-the method of transport may not be luxurious and its definitely not convenient- but the act of meandering state to state without regard to time truly is. As a culture, we pride ourselves on quick flights to Vegas and convenient non- stops direct to Paris from Salt Lake, and yet there is nothing in those kind of journeys that makes me feel relaxed, and even less that engages me or piques my interest about where it is I'm traveling to. LIfe looks lifeless when seen from 30,000 feet.

When I lived in New York and rode the subway everywhere, the whole city felt to me like a disorienting mish-mash of disparate locations; walk up a set of stairs at 59th Street stop and you get Bloomingdales, walk up another set at the Bowery and you get restaurant store supply shops and cheap booze. It always felt like a puzzle (or teleporting) and it wasn't until we bought a car and drove the city more that I started to notice the subtle ways the pieces and neighborhoods fit and flowed from one to the next. The same thing happens for me on road trips. I love to watch the land flatten out into grassy plains and deep gorges and then rise up again into voluptuous mountains. You can literally see the tectonics and erosion at play. I like to watch the idiosyncrasies of local places-how some farmers in an area are suddenly partial to circular hay bales and others stick with the tried and true rectangles. Or the way that American cars take over the road as soon as you leave any sizable city. I like that I know that pretty much every small town in America has something called the Knotty Pine. And I love that road signs on forgotten highways often refer to drivers as "motorists" in the very 1950s technical way that we still call our summer cooling devices "air conditioners".

It's really satisfying to me to be thorough, I guess. And road trips are nothing but thorough. There is no way around the hundreds of miles of sagebrush plains that is so much of the West. But instead of noticing the expanse of more of the same, I try and relish it, waiting in suspense for the land to shift and the next town to come into view. It's really great work if you can get it, but believe me, you can get it if you try.

(All photos above are from the recent trip and courtesy of the awesome Hipstamatic app and Shake it app for the iphone. Everything looks better all old-timey doesn't it?)