My Intrepid Five-Year-Old

Amie asked me the other day what would happen if no more electricity came out of the walls. The context was simple: she was upset that it took so long to recharge the batteries of her toy hamster. The fact that the possibility occurred to her shows, I believe, some of her Mama’s influence. And …

Power Down

Do you think about the future? Do you wonder what it will be like? Or do you live like it’s always going to be the way it has been? ~ I found at least 5 entries like this one, all in drafts, abandoned. As I prepare for the growing season with more resolve and urgency …

Lifestyle Changes

Wow, Sharon has another great blog entry up: Dreaming a Life, about radical lifestyle changes – “whether they come from adapting to a deeply damaged climate or from addressing the crisis, whether they come from adapting to depletion or from enduring it.” Sharon points out that much of the political unrest we are seeing comes …

General Malaise Barely Evaded

Why do I even look at the news – my “consumption” of which is out of spiritual necessity minimized to reading the headlines in Google News? 8-year-old boy shoots himself in the head at a firearms expo, 7-year-old boy kidnapped then shot to death, Neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Obama. The places where my jawbone fits …

Global Disaster

Ok, very very depressing post here… I repeat: very… Who hasn’t seen that old tv-movie, The Day After? I watched it, on Belgian television, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I don’t think my parents knew what it was about, and they probably weren’t paying much attention as it unfolded, because otherwise they would have …

I want to do Peter Says

 A little update to my Simon Says Peter Says entry. When Amie wants to play the game now, she says: “I want to do Peter Says”. Then she does what Peter says, yells “No!” and undoes it. “I want to do Peter Says” is a strange way of asking for the game, isn’t it, because she …

“Dimming the Sun”

Complacency  I probably shouldn’t have watched “Dimming the Sun” on NOVA/PBS yesterday. Did you see it?  I stumbled upon the last half hour of the program by accident and by the time it was over, all the old feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and inadequacy made their comeback. And of course, whenever they do that, they are worse …

Homesteading for a Happier Child and Community

Dreaming We are dreaming about moving to a new place. For us that means selling this one and buying another one of approximately the same price, which means that, if we want to move, we need to move out- out of Brookline. We’re currently in a 1050 sq.f. basement apartment in a condominium. We adore …