Hello Rss feeds

Well, I decided to stop being OCD and post a pic of the house because it’s been an awful long time to keep up with this not posting nonsense. I misplaced a few pictures from April, and I refused to let myself post out of order. That’s as good an excuse as any, right?

So here we are. We have brick, we have a roof (that still needs trim), and we just got our septic system and our heat turned on this past week.

Life is good. Even trailer life.

Cardboard

I saw this here and knew I had to share.

Revelation 3:15-16

Be the change

Go here now and donate. “A cheap restaurant meal in Thailand costs only about a dollar,” so skip lunch today and pay it forward. Even $5 is enough to make a change.

From Carrien at “She Laughs at the Days”:

A few months back my brother in law met a man in northern Thailand who used to be a member of the Shan Resistance Army. (Think the guide in Rambo 4.) They basically tried to protect themselves from the Burmese army who periodically would surround a village with heavy artillery and give them two hours to hand over all of their food, all of their pigs, and all of their women or they would open fire on everyone. This man, Chala, is now on the Thai side of the border. He took my brother in law through the jungle and showed him all of the places where he used to hide. Now he uses his knowledge to find kids in the jungle.

You may be wondering why exactly would he be wandering through the jungle along the border and looking for kids? Because they are there to find. They are usually orphans, they have been running to get away from the Burmese army. They have escaped and often witnessed the deaths of entire villages before they could get away. They head for the Thai border where they know they will be safe. Chala finds them and takes them in. He feeds them and gives them a place to sleep. Right now he has more than 40 kids. He’s had to move them several times because he keeps running out of money. He does all this out of his own pocket. I get to figure out how to help him help them.

Right now he’s only able to worry about keeping them alive, but there will be more to consider in the coming years. Ultimately they will need school and counseling and job training. They will need someone to help them grow up. They need someone to love them right now. They are excruciatingly poor. They sleep on a floor and eat whatever is cheapest to buy. It would take so little by our standards to take care of them properly. When we get to Thailand next year we are going to start with helping these kids. We may take some of them into our home in Chiang Mai if it will help in the long run.

In a few weeks we’ll have the site up and anyone who wants to donate toward helping Chala and those kids will be able to do so. My husband will be meeting him the last week of August and will hand deliver any thing you give to him when he gets there.

Be the change. You can change the lives of people you’ve never met who live on the other side of the world.

Movin’ on up

I’m quite a bit behind on posting my picture taking of the house building project. This one was taken on April 11. It doesn’t even look like the same house. I’m taking pictures, but I’m avoiding uploading them to Flickr because their new uploader sucks a big peanut. I hope to post more, but I have to wait for the weather to cooperate before I plug my external hard drive back in.

And yes, I was totally April Fool’s joking on this post. That’s just me using my Photoshop skillz, baby. I am such a visual person that it’s making this do-it-yourself homebuilding experience almost painful.

Fin

“But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”

Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha

Chicken Little Shit a Skittle

A few weeks ago, Undercover Grandmutha told me that she went to one of those members only bulk discount giants and spent over $300 on her Oh Shit, We’re Gonna Die stash. She and my dad promptly drove it to a remote facility in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t tell me that she’s begun construction on an underground bunker, but I’m sure it’s only because if she told me, then she’d have to kill me.

I’d love to think that this economy downturn dark cloud is just a phase. Perhaps it’s just the election year that makes people cautious, or so SpyDad likes to tell me. I won’t deny that I just wish I could reach through the TV and strangle the national news anchor reporter that predicts that we’ll be dealing with $10/gallon gas this summer. As the dollar grows weaker, stuff gets more expensive. I get it.

When will it stop? How do we/I make it stop?

Maybe the question I need to ask is “When did it start?” I’ll admit that I am a child of the Gimme generation. My parents rarely obliged, but my friends were always getting the latest and greatest (insert something here). I think it’s grown progressively worse as my generation started having kids. They have more than they know what to do with. But at what price? China is becoming a powerhouse, and the United States is suffering. Our jobs are being handed out to the lowest bidder. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer. Yet we keep buying crap we don’t need because the generation before us and the one before that had nothing. I think that our number is about up with that respect. Do you really think you can maintain spending and filling up at the pump at $180 a pop? SpyDad is already there at $100 a fill-up every three days. It hurts. It hurts really bad.

So, although I don’t have any answers as to when it will stop, I do have some theories as to how we can make it stop. When you shop, do you ever pick something up to look at its place of origin? It’s rather eye opening. I’ve know for awhile that a lot of cheap candy comes from Mexico. However, during the metal shaving scare this past Valentine’s day, I’ve been taking notice of where my money is really going. You’ve surely heard stories of China’s ever blossoming pollution epidemic. Remember when the Songhua River in Beijing was contaminated after a petrochemical explosion in 2005? I cannot honestly believe that food and candy made or packaged in China is not made from or washed using local water sources. It makes my dog drinking from the toilet not look so gross.

So what is the answer? Don’t buy it. Buy foreign only if the country is known for environmental responsibility or if a product of the country directly attributes to reducing pollution or consumption of non-renewable resources. We make decisions every day, and the decision to not purchase something is just as important as the decision to purchase something on sale. In fact, I think the decision to not purchase something is more important than ever.

Just repeat to yourself, “I do not need a Wii.” It will be okay.

An excerpt

“We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.”

- Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha

Poetic Injustice

I keep in touch with a co-worker from my former job as a supervisor. Well, she keeps in touch by sending me about two email forwards a day. I’m not really into those kind of emails, but at least it gives me an excuse to ask how things are going every once in awhile. Here was her latest reply.

“Same old, except {your former boss} is no longer with the company. He quit to go
into business with a friend.”

So, this asshole that made my life hell and turned it upside down ended up leaving? It made my stomach churn. But you know what? Nothing has changed there. It’s just as stressful for my replacement as it was for me. Nothing has changed…except for me. This all happened for a reason, and I know that this is where I’m supposed to be, right here and right now.

Happy Earthday!

Well, I have to wish the Earth a Happy Earthday today. It’s also my brother’s birthday as well as my grandfather’s birthday. Isn’t it so much easier to remember dates like that when they’re all on the same day? From now on, everyone should celebrate major birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and minor medical procedures on major holidays. It would do everyone else a big favor!

I was farting around on the net today when I clicked on Terrapass.com. I really don’t buy into the whole carbon credit craze. I think that comes from my simplistic penny pinching nature. I think we should all work on reducing our footprint or impact on the planet, but carbon credits almost remind me of paying tithes for a sin just before you step foot into a brothel.

Okay, so this isn’t 1814, it’s 2008. We live in an overcrowded, materialistic, overtaxed, gasoline-guzzling, polluted country that likes to give it’s children cheap toys from China laden with lead paint. Something has to give eventually, doesn’t it? Children don’t need 5,000 toys. If we spend the same amount of money on 10 quality Made in the USA (or insert your country here) age appropriate toys, then we’re supporting jobs, our economy, and a sense of ownership and responsibility in our children. Ownership and responsibility in our children? You try paring down your wares to 10 items see how your sense of ownership and responsibility for those items skyrockets.

We are becoming a disposable nation. Our landfills are full. Our vehicles don’t last more than 6 years. Can’t find something? Buy another. It’s a vicious trend, and it’s all occurred in the last few decades. Long gone are the days of doing without or repurposing items over and over again.

We crave new because we think it is better. Our economy, our children, and our Earth suffers for it.

Well, I don’t know where those last few paragraphs came from. I suppose I had an inner soapbox struggling to get out! So back to terrapass.com…

I’ve written before about my quest to include energy efficient technology into the home we are building. My brother-in-law, who is quite insane, or at least just drives everybody in the family insane, sent me a link (that I appear to have deleted) to a company selling light switches that turn off all electric appliances in a room. This helps to eliminate the drain that electrical appliances have while plugged in…even while they are turned off. The theory was great, but the price tag was absolutely nauseating. I think the cheapest starter package they offered was $2,000. Terrapass has some links to purchase a various green products, and the one that caught my eye the most was the Smart Strip surge protector. For $32.95, you can rest assured that your 52-inch flat screen is not sucking out any more money from your wallet than it has to when you finally figure out a way to get it home. It’s also ingenious for computer energy waste. I have three power strips at my computer desk alone, just to handle all of the huge transformers that come with peripherals these days. As an added bonus to getting a smart strip, you can rest assured that thousands of dollars worth of equipment is protected from those nasty electrical surges and storms.

Well, I hope you all have a very Happy Earthday. I think I shall spend it offline today, and maybe go plant a tree…or maybe a vegetable garden. Okay, so if you know me, I’m more likely to plant my ass on the couch in front of the TV. But the outdoors are definitely calling my name today.

Food for thought

Thank you so much for all your warm birthday wishes. Turning 30 was so easy and so hard at the same time. I had many fabulous moments, but did I just sleep through most of my twenties? Where was the adventure, the trips to Dubai, and the swimming with the dolphins? Okay, so maybe it’s enough that I live vicariously through Kalki. But still, am I just wasting this precious gift of life I’ve been given?

I found this quote on a blog I visited for the first time this week. The blog author shared this quote, and I think it was something my heart needed to hear. Perhaps it will become my mantra in my 30’s.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson