The Good Consumer...

With Christmas coming, it's time to remember to be a good little consumer. This presentation is well worth a watch.

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I was so desperate to buy cheap plastic crap that I trampled someone to death. Oops!

Sorry. My bad.

I didn't mean to kill them, but I was just so desperate to buy more plastic crap at Wal-Mart that I accidentally trampled a worker to death.

Accidents happen, hey!

I'm guessing God will forgive me - He understands that sometimes you just gotta have that bargain. Sometimes you just can't let anything stand in the way.

I mean, at least I got my cheap plastic toys for the kids. They're gonna love what I got them!

*** *** ***

Thanks to Theresa at Pondering The Myriad Things for pointing this one out. Yes, I'm disgusted and horrified too. Especially as it happened on Buy Nothing Day.

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Light To Unite for World AIDS Day

Bristols Myers-Squibb will donate $1 for every person who visits the site below and clicks to light a candle for World AIDS day.

Please visit the site and bring a little more light into the world!

Also, if you operate a blog, why not post a link to the site, and help spread the word!

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Larry Lessig: How Creativity is being strangled by the law

Eliane pointed at this link in a comment on my previous post about the Creative Commons and Copyright. It is well worth a watch - interesting and informative.

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The joys of Creative Commons...

This post is nothing to do with cutting the clutter, and everything to do with fair sharing and respect for creativity.

I'm talking, of course, about the Creative Commons. If you haven't come across the commons yet, check out the commons homepage and get to know what this project is all about.

In CCs own words:

"Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free."

Why artists like me support the Creative Commons

I support the Creative Commons because I believe that copyright has got out of hand. If Disney and its ilk get their way, some artworks that should have belonged to the world - freely - years ago will NEVER be given to the world. The image of Mickey Mouse will continue to be owned by a corporation forever, even though the man who created Mickey is long dead. Our kids will never be able to draw Mickey at school with crayons, for fear of prosecution. That sucks.

The reason I draw your attention to Mickey Mouse in particular is that Mickey is the reason that copyright was recently extended. Copyright originally lasted only fourteen years. Now, thanks to the Disney Corporation wanting to continue profiting from Mickey, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Works of corporate ownership have copyright lasting for 120 years after creation, or 95 years after publication, whichever comes first.

This means Mickey won't be okay for your kids and mine to draw for a long, long time. Not only has this 'Extension Act' affected Mickey, but all music and literature and other forms of art of the same period that were set to be released to the public domain.

Now, I'm not one to bet, but I'll have a few dollars on the chance that when just before Mickey comes up for review again, we'll see another 'Extension Act' happen. Disney has clout, and Mickey generates megabucks, and the poor old mouse will never become public domain, not if DisneyCorp can help it. Which they can.

What if Copyright had existed in Biblical times?

People all across the world are getting more than a bit peeved with the way the playing field is not exactly level. I mean, imagine if 'Extension Acts' had been around in the days of Mozart, and Bach, and Beethoven? All the works of these great musicians would never have become freely available. Choirs and orchestras around the world would NEVER be able to afford to perform them. And you can bet there would have been some greedy corporation, of no (or distant) relation to any of the great men themselves, raking in the megabucks and lobbying for yet more 'Extension Acts' every time the clock ticked around to D-Day.

Would this benefit Mozart, or Bach, or Beethoven? Unless you can see how money can possibly benefit a dead person (remember, the Extension Act affects copyright only after the artist is already deceased), the answer is clearly no. The Extension Act was created purely for Corporate profit, and not for the benefit of any artist.

As for great works of religion, forget them too. Go further back in history, and you can be certain that the less-than-scrupulous descendants of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would doubtless have found a way to make lots of cash by copyrighting the gospels.

Our great poets would cost a lot more to buy copies of as well, and yes, there would be a corporation owning Shakespeare too - you can bet on that. No A Midsummer Night's Dream performances by high schools around the world - they wouldn't be able to afford the rights.

Forget Romeo and Juliet - only legal versions of the play could be performed, and any alterations to how the owning Shakespeare[TM] MegaCorporation decides it should be performed would end any chance of your town's theatrical society having a go.

From the sublime to the ridiculous - imagine Moses' descendants copyrighting the Ten Commandments, because they figured they could make a bit of loot out of it, and buy a few more sheep and goats. God may have had the idea of the Ten Commandments, and you can't copyright an idea, only the form the idea takes - i.e. the words that Moses selected. God would have got nothing out of the deal, but Moses' descendants would have done very nicely, thank you very much.

Yes, I am choosing what are probably offensive (and pretty silly) examples of copyright gone amok. These imaginary examples above should offend us all. And they point out exactly what is wrong with copyright that has no end.

You see, if copyright doesn't end, an unnatural stasis is created. The form of an idea - and sometimes the great idea itself - becomes stagnant, and cannot be shared in the way that great ideas should be shared. Our human society can only grow and flourish when there is a free exchange of information, and art, and music, and ideas, and thoughts, and beliefs. When we put the clamps down, we stifle everything that can be good, and wonderful, and powerful, and creative, and beautiful in our intellectual world.

That's not to say that all ideas and all art forms are good. But the population as a whole can only morph those forms of creativity and let them be what they can be when full access is enabled. Great art, like great music, can only rise to its best when as many people as possible have access, to give their own interpretation and understanding to it, and to recreate it fresh and new.

I have lost track of the number of times, as a serving committee member on various choirs over the years, we have had to avoid various wonderful pieces of music because we couldn't afford to perform them legally. In cases like this, everyone loses out - the artist included. As a composer, I'd be very sad if a choir didn't perform my work because they couldn't afford to. I think most composers would feel the same way.

The Creative Commons - a great solution for great works

As I stated above, a lot of people around the world are fed up with copyright. They ignore it, sometimes openly, and flaunt their piracy with illegal works and knockoff products that have, in some cases, caused a huge amount of financial loss to artists.

I understand the piracy point of view, and empathise with it quite a bit, as do many of my peers. When you buy a legal copy of a CD but can't put it onto your own Ipod (also bought legally) to listen to because of the anti-theft software, you really start to feel like you may as well just download every illegal copy you can, and never bother with legal music or art ever again. The system treats you like a thief even when you do the right thing. The ratbag inside us all is tempted to just throw the law to itself and ignore the rules and pirate everything. It would be cheaper.

Except for the fact that...I respect artists and musicians, and I believe in paying honestly for what I use and appreciate and enjoy. So I continue to buy legally, and it seems the recording companies have taken the hint, and the anti-theft software has been toned down recently. I think maybe the artists themselves complained too. The anti-theft software was paranoia taken too far.

Piracy isn't the answer. If the pirates win, and the artists go out of business due to knock-offs and theft, we end up with a world where little original work is produced, and that is not good. I don't want to see that, and I don't think anyone else does either.

Creative Commons takes a different approach. It offers a series of licenses whereby artists can choose from a range of licenses for their work depending on how freely available they wish to make it for the public. The licenses are easy to select from and understand, and the site is easy to navigate.

I believe that we need to take a positive stance regarding copyright - both towards respecting the work of artists, and towards respecting the needs of the wider community regarding access to what artists create. I should also point out that CC licenses also exist for the scientific sphere - although I am talking primarily about art in this post, Creative Commons covers all aspects of creative licensing.

So yes, I believe Disney have gone too far. I believe Creative Commons is a good answer to the dilemma Disney and their cohorts have created. The time has come when we need to recognise that although artists should have the right to profit from our creativity, it is also our duty and our honour to give what we produce to the community, and to the world, as a gift to share and enjoy. Free of charge.

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Consumer kids

I have young kids. A boy just turned four, and a girl not yet two.

Even though they're littlies, the consumer culture is already out to get 'em. Kids TV is filled with adverts for plastic trashy toys and junky foods, and even the channels that have no ads have shows with toy tie-ins.

Everywhere you look, it seems the advertising execs and factory owners are doing their best to grab at my kids and make money from them.

It is working. I had to take away the Thomas The Tank Engine[TM] catalogue that came with my son's birthday presents - he was burning a hole in it with his eyeballs. Before the catalogue came he was enjoying reading his books. Then the catalogue took over.

Speaking of books, have you noticed how many kids' books have toy tie-ins? Most of my kids' books are related to TV series and toy lines. Theyre good books, but you do get sick of seeing the same thing over and over.

So you try to buy the 'classics'. No such luck in avoiding consumerism there. It seems Disney owns Winnie The Pooh[TM], Snow White[TM], The Little Mermaid[TM] (yes, it was a fairy-tale before Disney got its clutches on the story), and Peter Pan[TM].

Disney owns our daughters' daydreams...

I remember a friend of mine telling me about her four year old daughter's dress-up day at kindergarten. The kids were instructed to come dressed as their favourite storybook character.

You guessed it. A classroom of Disney Princesses[TM] appeared, all in identical costumes, presumably bought from K-Mart. Only my friend's daughter was different, dressed as her favourite Hairy McClary, in a costume her mother had made her.

Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a princess. There's nothing wrong with Thomas The Tank Engine - minus the [TM]. And there's certainly nothing wrong with Winnie The Pooh. Some of the products for and associated with these characters are excellent, and my kids enjoy them. Some are real favourites.

But there is absolutely something wrong with a culture that saturates our kids with this stuff, by only a handful of acceptable mega-corporations, until our kids all churn out identical daydreams. Huxley's Brave New World - the world of dream conditioning and children grown in sterile bottles - never seemed more hideously real.

To ban, or not to ban - that is the question

I'm not saying that we should ban Disney[TM], and The Wiggles[TM], and Crayola[TM], and Play-Doh[TM], and Hi-5[TM], and McDonalds[TM], and Pumpkin Patch[TM], and Thomas The Tank Engine[TM]. Almost all of these have products and toys and entertainment that can be fun and interesting and rewarding for our kids.

Banning never solved anything. Just ask our American friends about prohibition.

What I'm saying is that perhaps, in this world of corporate saturation, we should choose the alternative, when the alternative exists.

Find a balance

Instead of Disney Princesses[TM], The Wiggles[TM] and Hi-5[TM] videos, maybe we should look for the older cartoons that were made before kids were seen as an endless pool of revenue for corporate high-flyers. My son recently discovered original Tom and Jerry cartoons - and he loves them! (I do too).

Better yet, take the kids outside to play in the fresh air. And if its raining, dig out some old CDs or LPs of fifties and sixties music, and tell the kids to put on a song and dance show for you. The old 'doo-wop' music, in particular, is great for kids to sing along to, and my kids love silly songs like "Octopus's Garden" by the Beatles.

Instead of McDonalds[TM], take them to a non-chain restaurant. Our kids love Circadian Rhythm, a vegan family-friendly cafe just a couple of kilometers from here. The people are friendly, they know us and our kids - and our money is going directly to a family, and not to some giant mega-company overseas somewhere.

Instead of commercial Play-Doh[TM], make your own. I'll post recipes in an upcoming post for both standard and gluten-free playdoh. Its cheap to make, and you can use it with a whole stack of cookie cutters and rollers that you probably already have in your kitchen drawer.

Instead of Thomas The Tank Engine[TM], why not take the kids outside with some footpath chalk, and draw some railway lines for them? They can play trains on the chalk lines. If you want to buy toys, there are a whole stack of generic wooden railway sets that fit with the 'Thomas' toys yet cost a small portion of the price. Your child will NOT know the difference. Or care.

Instead of buying new designer clothes for your kids at expensive shops like Pumpkin Patch[TM], search the secondhand shops, both online and in your neighbourhood. Ask friends, and build up a network of families that trade clothes. Kids need to get used to budgeting, no matter what their age, and clothing is a good place to start.

I know that my kids have too much of the [TM] stuff. They have heaps of luxury toys, and live in designer clothes - although this is largely thanks to a very generous grandmother rather than due to me!

Our world is filled with corporate, name-brand madness. Our kids grow up in this, and by the time they reach school-age they value themselves and build status depending on what they have, rather than who they are.

Having and not-having

Even when I was at school this was the case. I had a friend who used to dread 'no uniform day', because she had nothing to wear that would give her status. Another friend of mine loved it, because it gave her the chance to wear a $400 leather jacket her silly mother had bought her. One girl got lots of attention by her peers, the other was shunned. Such is the nature of teenage culture.

What do we want our kids to be?

In the end, whether we have the ability to shower our kids with trendy, expensive gifts or not, the question is - should we? I don't think we should. Our kids need to learn humility, moderation, budgeting, the value of possessions, and frugality. These values are what will give our kids real worth as adults, not the clothes they wear or the items they own.

Loving parents, great kids

Being a good parent is a balancing act. You feel like you're on a wire, and fate is throwing rocks at you that you have to dodge all the time. Our kids are not who we expected them to be. Society isn't what we expected it to be. The job of parenting doesnt stop when we go to bed at night, and it doesn't end when our kids go to school, or to university, or get married.

We do our best to be good role models, but all the time we find ourselves questioning who we are, and who we want to be. Maybe we need to remember that not only do we have the potential to change our kids, our kids too change and transform us. Just as we teach our kids humility and respect, they teach us those gifts as well.

Corporate culture is about profit, but family culture is about love. We love our children, and we do what we hope is best for them. Sometimes we fail, ad sometimes we struggle with the challenges in our own lives. That's what being a parent is all about too.

I hope, as my children grow older, I'll have taught them that you can be a train expert without the latest Thomas[TM] product. You can sing and dance without the latest Hi-5[TM] sing-a-long hits interactive DVD. And you can be a princess without a Disney Princess[TM] costume.

And if they make too much noise in the living room, we'll all head to the park and go swing on the swings. And no-one will ever trademark that.

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Awards...

I've been given two awards from two amazing bloggers.

The first is from the awesome Chile over at Chile Chews. This sustainable blogger puts the rest of us to shame. She teaches us that there's always a new path to discover on the journey to sustainability, and that our travels can be rewarding and fun as well as challenging.

Here's my award:



I don't think I'm uber-amazing at all, but hey! I'll accept the compliment! Thanks Chile - right back at you! ;-)

The person I'll tag for this is someone a bit special, who does not fall under the mantle of 'green bloggers' and whose blog most of you have probably never read.

She does work that benefits thousands of families including my own. It's the amazing Kim Stagliano, who is also the Managing Editor at Age Of Autism.

You make more of a difference than you know, Kim. I think you're uber-amazing, and you deserve this award far more than me. Actually, you deserve a bag of them.

Thanks for all the work you do, and continue to do, and for everything you will never receive credit or recognition for. There's a special place in Heaven reserved for the mothers like you.

---

The second Award is from Belinda at Belinda's Place. Here's the award:



This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day.

And I have to tag, so here goes. I'll limit it to four, or I'll be here forever with all the amazing bloggers out there!

• To BevB - who inspires me daily.
  
• To Gavin - who shows that humour, sensitivity, and caring for the planet really can sit well together in one person.
  
• To Eliane who is just awesome.
  
• To Melinda who runs Elements In Time: One Green Generation, a blog that is truly amazing, informative and life-changing.
  

I'd like to thank all of the wonderful bloggers out there for the sharing you do, and for opening your lives up just a little bit to the world.

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We are the music-makers...

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream."

- Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

I love music.

I love my Ipod. I love my music collection. I love my CDs. I love attending concerts - it doesn't matter what sort of music, and I'm as much a fan of Elgar as AC/DC. John Denver rocks my world, and Wendy Rule - well, she rules!

But most of all, I love to create music. In these tough financial times, we all need music more than ever.

Yet more than ever, we find that we can't afford the latest CD, the recent release by our favourite artist, the newest tickets to whoever is touring. Sometimes it is even too expensive to go out to a hotel and listen to a band. By the time you factor in drinks, and entry, and transportation, your wallet takes a real hit. Professional music is getting too rich for the everyday Jane's (or Joe's) blood.

It's time to think differently about music.

It's time to remember the past. Before there were Ipods, or Top 40 charts, or CDs, or cassettes. Back before LPs, and reel to reels, and gramaphones. Before recorded, paid-for, professional recorded music. Back to when practically everyone played, and sang, and just did music because they loved it.

There were families like mine who have a piano and sing together at night. The piano - or the guitar, or the harp, or the harmonica, or the accordion - took the place of television and radio and stereo and boxed, packaged, prefabricated entertainment.

There were people like my brother who plays his guitar just for the hell of it, and doesn't worry if he is good or not. There were people like my friends who are choristers and sing in choir - not because they are religious, but simply because they love to sing.

There were people like me who made up songs and wrote them down and shared them freely, not caring for profit. There were people like a friend of mine who conducts a university choir without payment, and often without recognition or acknowledgement, simply because he loves to share his joy of music.

There were people like my grandma who sang all her life in church choirs and barbershop groups. There were people like the MOTS who is a really good pianist, but will accompany anyone who loves to sing and needs a handy piano player.

It didn't matter if you weren't 'recording quality', because no-one was recording anyway. It didn't matter if you didn't draw an audience, because music wasn't generally a for-profit exercise. Music was just a part of life, as basic to our existence as going for a swim at the beach or kicking a footy around at the park or going for a walk in the forest in the evening and smelling the scent of the trees and the earth.

In these days when the professionals are costing too much, we need to remember O'Shauhnessy's words. Because they hold truer than ever. We are the music-makers. We are the dreamers of the dream. We've only forgotten it, and let our dreams sleep a little while.

Music doesn't belong to just a few - a talented, wealthy, chosen elite who can make a living by selling their product to us, the plebs who listen and admire and kowtow and buy posters and tickets and merchandise.

Music belongs to all of us - to the most awesome voice in the choir that soars to the heights and makes you feel as though you could fly, through to the least able person who just grooves along with the beat yet still has a great time.

Fact is, it really doesn't matter if your compositions will never be as good as Beethoven's. Beethoven is dead - he's not writing any more - what our world needs now is you, and me, and our friends and family. All together.

It doesn't matter if you'll never sing like Dame Nellie Melba, or like Freddie Mercury. They're gone too. But you're here. You have a voice, and our world is aching for melody, and for rhythm, and for the sound of fresh voices that come from the real world - not from a world of recording studios and echo chambers and 'fixit' machines that alter pitch and tone and everything else beyond recognition.

As for me, I know I'll never be a great composer. I know I'll probably never write a 'Magnum Opus' that makes the music world sit up and listen. But that won't stop me writing music, and it doesn't make what I do produce any less valuable and beautiful. I'll write till I go deaf and can't see the notes any more and my brain is soup and my voice is gone. And I'll probably write even beyond then, because I love music so much.

I know I won't ever be a great singer either. My voice will never make men weep (although the choristers next to me might cry a little at my top Cs!). I'll never be center stage in a ballgown, singing The Queen Of The Night, but I'll sure as chickens have a go at it at home, and laugh at my inability to hit the top notes! Who knows - maybe one day!

You see, it really doesn't matter. Because when I do sing, I sing with joy and with happiness, and I love what I do and I do it with others who also love to sing. That's what it is all about.

Music isn't supposed to be about perfection, although we can admire those who do it well, and enjoy performances that come close.

I think the professional music industry has forgotten this. They've become so obessed with getting everything perfect that the soul of music - humanity's intrinsic flaws - has been lost from it. So much of the modern music scene may as well have been written and performed by computers. It probably has been.

Judges and Critics

We hear so much perfect music in our everyday that we're often afraid to make music ourselves, for fear of falling short in the comparison. I hear the girl next to me who sings with the beautiful voice, and I become afraid to sing out, because I worry that my own voice lacks the same beauty and clarity. Another person hears a great guitarist, or pianist, and so is afraid to play in front of his friends because he fears he will be compared, and in comparison look sad and low.

We fear to make music because in our networked world we see and hear the excellent and extraordinary musicians of the world daily. This is a shame. Too many adults are afraid to sing, and afraid to dance, because others are watching and possibly judging, comparing us to the one-in-a-millions who live in some distant country and who are really quite irrelevant to our own reality.

Perhaps, above all, we are afraid of the harshest judge of all - ourselves.

In choir we sing quietly, afraid our mistakes will be heard, and we will feel foolish. So we make no sound, and the person next to us does the same and is also quiet, and the whole choir, instead of singing loudly and clearly and learning by our mistakes, mutters and learns nothing. Because of a stupid fear that someone, somewhere, might think we are silly.

My life changed as a chorister when I realised this, and I started to sing out. I'm still not great, but if I make mistakes, so what? Everyone else is making mistakes too - that is what rehearsals are for! And there isn't a singer alive who didn't pull a dud note here or there!

In the end, I realised I'd rather sing out and enjoy my voice and my contribution than forever be what a friend dubbed a "plastic alto" - you can see these people in choirs, but you'll never hear them!

We are all musicians. Every one of us. Go to any babies' music class, and you'll be convinced of this. Every single baby is loving the music, wanting to participate and make sound, and be a part of the music and the rhythm and the fun. It is only when we become ridiculous adults with inflated egos and insecurities that the musician inside us hides and disappears.

We are the music-makers!

Get music back in your life, if it isn't there already. The options are endless. Even if you can't keep a tune, you can still share in the joys of real music by singing carols at Christmas with friends (trust me - your friends won't care if you're off-key!). Try learning to play a hand drum like a bodhran - it doesn't require pitch but does require good co-ordination! Handbells can be fun too.

Join a choir - you really don't have to be religious! I've sung in choirs since 1992, and the vast majority of choristers I know are not churchgoers, or religious in the slightest. They just love music.

There are choirs that focus on swing music, on gospel music, or on any type of music you care to name. There are also choirs for all different age groups, so don't think for a moment that you will be the only 20 year old stuck in a room of 60-somethings - or vice versa! Check out your Yellow Pages, the Internet, or your local University.

Start, or join, a band. If you play an instrument already, check out cafes and hotels that have noticeboards. Often bands that are looking for instrumentalists or vocalists will post notices.

Dust off the piano, if you have one. Get it tuned, and take some lessons. If you already play, schedule a regular sing-a-long with friends. Or if you play guitar or another instrument, invite some friends over and sing together. It really is fun!

Another great alternative is hiring one of the famous musicals on DVD, and singing along with it. Sure, this is getting the professionals to help you out a little, but so what? 'The Sound Of Music' and 'Grease' (among others) are both available in sing-a-long DVD versions. Both are available at good DVD rental stores.

Connect, connect, connect...

Creating your own music is completely different to listening to boxed music. Compare being in a choir or a band to listening on an Ipod - the one builds community and friendship, the other is a solo activity where you are tuned out from the world. One connects, the other is an almost complete disconnect.

I'm not saying that Ipods are evil. I love mine, and I love listening to music. But I think that a balance is called for, and I know that in my own life I spend far more hours in choir each week (between 9-11 hours) than I do listening to recordings (possibly 3-4 hours). On top of that I rehearse at home, compose music, and sing with friends on an ad hoc basis.

The amount I do isn't for everyone, but a balance between creating and receiving music sure is a good idea. Even a couple of hours of music-making a week is a wonderful experience for anyone who loves to be with friends, have fun, build community, and have a good time.

So what am I trying to say?

I'm saying that music only comes alive with participation. Music is meant to be shared - and you can share music with little or no money at all. Music is environmentally-friendly too - from music libraries that lend scores out through to just improvising with a hand drum and a group of people who want to sing, it uses few resources, yet contributes greatly to wellbeing.

Bring music into your life, and you won't regret it. If you are musically active already, introduce a friend who hasn't had this in their life to the joys and wonders of making music. Music is a gift that I give thanks for every day. There are millions of people all around the world who agree with me - we'd like you to join us!

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Saving money and doing it yourself

I've been thinking about all the things people used to do ourselves that we now relegate to 'professionals'.

Here are a few examples of areas where we can save money by doing things ourselves.

Haircuts

I need a haircut. I really, really do. But should I pay a hairdresser $40 (minimum!) to get a haircut, or should I do it myself - or ask a friend to do it? After all, I've only rarely had a cut I'm really happy with, and most women will say the same.

As for the kids, I always cut my son's hair, and I cut my daughter's hair the one and only time she's had a cut. I figure in the course of my son's small life, giving him four cuts a year, I've probably saved a good couple of hundred dollars. And he looks great.

I'll do the same for my daughter, I think. And the kids balk at home haircuts as they get older, I'll offer them a choice - they can have a professional cut (which probably costs $20, or I'll do it and give them $10 (or whatever ha;f the cost of an average professional haircut is). I'm winning, and they'll be happy!

I usually cut the MOTS' hair too. He won't be happy about me revealing this, but it is true. And why not? His hair is easy to cut, and we save the cost of a mens' haircut by doing so.

From growing hair to growing food

I've talked about this issue before, but even in our current digs with no garden, we're growing food. Our six varieties of lettuce are now ready to harvest, so we'll be eating home-grown lettuce in our salads for the next few weeks - all grown in pots in the laundry, in a sunny north-facing window! Not bad for an investment of a few pots and seeds.

My oregano, which I have grown from a cutting, is also looking great, as are the onions, beans, carrots, cucumbers and radishes I have going crazy in their pots. I've now run out of room for pots, or I'd grow more, but the point I am making is if I can grow about 15 varieties of edible plants in an apartment with no balconies and no garden, then anyone can. It's easy, and a real cost-saver.

Now I'm looking forward to having a BIG garden of my own. More on this in later posts, but here's hoping we're out the apartment real soon!

Permablitz your Garden!

If you live in a typical suburban home, chances are when you look out of your window, you see an expanse of grass (which some poor bugger has to mow!) and a few trees and shrubs.

If this is what you see, you're not alone. But help is at hand. If you live in Melbourne, Australia, the Permablitz network can help you. Get in contact with them right away! If you live elsewhere, why not consider starting your own Permablitz network in your own city or town?

Permablitzes transform boring, useless suburban gardens into useful, practical edible gardens. If you visit the Permablitz website, you can learn how this is done. But in short, you volunteer at a few Permablitzes, helping transform other peoples' gardens, then other volunteers help you transform your own garden in return. Easy schmeasy!

Permablitzes build community, and help people save money by helping them to establish fruit trees, veggie plots and small livestock in their backyards. They are a great way of sharing knowledge and information. I've attended a few, and I can also vouch for the fact that they're great fun.

I think there's more than enough grass in the world, and I hate moving. I don't know anyone who enjoys it, actually, unless they've got one of those ride-on mowers, in which case its the ride they're enjoying and not the mowing anyway! I also think that although ornamental plants can be lovely, the place for them is the city Botanic Gardens. Home gardens should be to feed the family and help the family budget. Even the smallest patch of dirt can make a difference - I'll testify to that when I eat the first of my potted lettuces!

Get your skates on!

People used to make their own transport a lot more. These days, we rely on the car - ugh! - which is serviced by other people. Cars cost a lot to run, a lot to buy, and cost a lot to the environment. Then there are all the hidden costs to the community. Just ask Green With A Gun for the details. He did an expose that would turn the most avid car lover into a car loather!

Getting independent with transport can be as simple as walking to the local shops. If possible, walking to work can be an option. If you, like me, are buying a new home (or considering moving rentals), think carefully about where your next home will be. Think of the advantages of being able to walk to work, to your social activities, and to children's activities and schooling.

I spent ten years living in Melbourne (Australia) - a city of nearly four million people. And I lost track of the amount of cars I would see with 'Mum's Taxi' stickers on the bumpers. Chauffeuring kids is no joke. Parents seem to be spending more and more time taxiing their kids from school to sport to art class to music class, and all of this costs time and money and petrol.

But if you live within walking distance of your child's school and sporting grounds and music classes and art classes, the hours of transport you can save over the course of a year are staggering. This also means real independence for your kids - instead of being chauffeured around, they can do it themselves in a very real way. And even if you feel unsafe with your children moving themselves about and still want to transport them yourself you'll save thousands on reduced petrol costs by living closer to everything you need.

Other independent transport possibilities include skateboards, bikes, trikes, roller skates, inline skates, scooters, and pogo sticks! Get creative, and get yourself freed from the addiction to petrol that our whole world has!

The financial gain of living within your means

A lot of us have forgotten how to live within our means. We buy haircuts and manicures and pedicures. We eat out every lunchtime. We employ cleaners and cooks and gardeners. When we get married we hire wedding organisers and when we die our loved ones hire funeral directors. We hire caterers for parties and our kids wear designer clothes and we throw out our own clothes after one season.

In our society 'budget' means nasty and family savings are almost unheard-of. Banks encourage us to borrow to the last cent, and to put everything on credit. We use other people's money on a daily basis, and then wonder why we get into trouble paying even the minimum when the bill comes in. Our society is toxic with debt, yet even now, in the beginnings of the financial crisis, we are hearing so-called financial 'experts' - yes, the 'professionals' again - telling us that everything will be alright if only we have the courage to spend our way out of trouble.

To me that rings alarm bells. Digging your way out of a hole never did work in the past, and there is no reason to believe it will work now.

Fact is, the system is broken, and we need a new financial system. The current economic system is one based on the assumptions of continued economic expansion and growth, and these things cannot happen in the finite environmental system that is planet earth.

The best thing we all, as families and individuals, can do is to learn to live within our means. That means getting out of debt, learning sensible tactics for everyday living that minimise spending and maximise savings, and learning to rebuild community and connections with other around us.

Everyone makes mistakes, but the good thing about life is that not all of our mistakes have to be lived with forever. Some can be fixed, by changing our behaviours and our habits. The sooner we learn the better.

The more we think creatively about how to live wisely, save money and become active, the more we start to live positively.

I believe our world is asking us to change. I believe we should demand change from ourselves. Even the smallest change can make a difference, whether it is walking to work once a week, or growing lettuce in pots in your laundry!

So why not post a comment to let me know about the changes you're making, or link to your own blog posts where you talk about the changes for the better that you are making in your own life! I'd love to hear from you!

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Chocolate-free - three months DOWN!

Here's the widget for your blog, if you'd like to challenge yourself and go chocolate-free. Just copy the code in red:


<a href="http://cluttercut.blogspot.com/2008/08/chocolate-free-for-year-oh-no.html"> <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2745808218_36c6377b0d.jpg?v=0" width="200" alt="Chocolate Free for a year!"/></a>

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I've now been chocolate-free for three months.

No cheats. If I did, I'd just be cheating myself and that would be, like, dumb.

Do I miss it? Yes, and no.

Yes, because there are times when I mosey into the kitchen and am sniffing around for something to nibble on. Nothing quite hits the spot. I don't want fruit, and I'm not much of a biscuit person. Pickles don't do it, either. So I go without, and I really wish I could have chocolate. In pre-chocolate-free days, I'd have nibbled a piece or two (or half a block!).

Do I crave chocolate? No. There has been absolutely no moment when I've felt I just HAD to have it, and that my challenge was in danger of being broken. I'm tougher than I thought - or maybe just not an addictive personality.

So here I am, three months on, and still chocolate-free. And if you ask me, I'm pretty proud of the fact. Friends who know me well can't believe it. I'm pleased to have come this far. I've proven something to myself, even if it is only that I don't need chocolate to survive! ;-)

But I'm starting to think that at the end of this year without chocolate I might not make it a lifelong challenge. I'm glad I left myself the option when I went chocolate-free for a year to choose which way to turn after the year is up - when I have made it through, I can either continue chocolate-free forever, or I can return to chocolate-consuming ways. I've made no vow, I have nothing to prove, and the choice is mine.

If I do decide to return to chocolate, you can be sure I'll do it in a big and chocolatey way! I won't just go and have a small bar of Green & Blacks. Nor will I just one morning, nine months from now, pour myself a cup of hot chocolate in the morning instead of my cup of black tea.

Instead I'll host the chocolate party to end all chocolate parties. There will be chocolate everything, and even Willy Wonka would gasp in awe and the obscenity of the number of calories I will devour and encourage friends to consume in one night ;-) It will be deliciously disgusting, and I might even ceremonially throw the bathroom scales out the window in respect of my guests before we start...hehe.

And if I do have a chocolate party, and if you live in my part of the world, be sure to drop me a line so I can invite you!

So...chocolate restraint after a year, or chocolate gluttony? Who knows? All I know is I will make it through this year without chocolate, and I'm pleased to have found willpower I never knew I had. If nothing else, my Year Without Chocolate has reaffirmed for me that I am a strong and capable woman - even when it comes to chocolate!

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