Unstuffed: Something Special for Ma and Pa

Friday, December 25, 2009

Something Special for Ma and Pa

A) This episode makes me just a teeny bit weepy.

B) I so totally want Ma's red bonnet.

C) There was a time when I didn't need a saddle to ride a horse either. That was a long time ago though and it doesn't really have anything to do with anything, except that watching this clip reminded me that I used to ride horses a lot, sometimes without a saddle.

D) I so totally want to make Mary's winter bonnet/scarf for myself.

E) I wrap all my presents in brown paper, string and cloth too! Can I get a pioneer's fist bump yo?

F) I think Pa is handsome.

G) What are the chances that bonnets will come back into style? How weird would it be if I started wearing them regardless?

and finally,

H) I hope you all receive something special today.

Wishing you simple blessings, small gifts and boundless love.

Amber

3 comments:

Tony R. said...: oh yeah, fist bump on the brown paper!; December 25, 2009 at 10:36 PM
Ferdzy said...: A) I watched it with the sound off, so no weepy here.

B) I've been looking at a *lot* of old bonnets lately.

C) I've never ridden a horse in my life.

D) There was a whole lot of excellent millinery in that episode, although some of it looked suspiciously like, ahem, acrylic.

E) What those brown packages need is some potato prints!

F) I think Pa is handsome but uses way too much hair product for a pioneer.

G) What are the chances that bonnets will come back into style? I'm kind of thinking they might, at least some of the more practical ones. I'm probably going to make a Lapland bonnet. My Dad found my old one that I got (in Lapland!) when I was 7 and gave it back to me for Xmas this year. Alas, it no longer fits, but I could use it as a pattern.

and finally,

H) I hope you had a restful yet zestful holiday.

p.s. Word Verification - trews. Ha!; December 26, 2009 at 9:29 PM
Amber said...: Thanks Tony! Happy holidays to you and yours!

Hi Ferdzy. Hee hee! Thanks for the great comment and I'm so glad I'm not the only one a bit smitten with bonnets!

I'm already working a pattern out in my head for one to crochet.

I also just discovered the Sontag the other day. Now I can't decide which to make first.

Wonderful holiday wishes to you too!; December 27, 2009 at 9:07 PM

Raison d'etre

In 2008 I didn't buy anything new for the whole year. Food and basic toiletries (but not toilet paper) were the obvious exceptions (twice I broke my own rule). Used items were allowed, but I tried really hard to reduce consumption as much as possible.

I finished my year successfully, and along the way learned a lot about how much the world consumes, the waste we produce, sustainability, voluntary simplicity, climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, the water crisis, the food crisis, voting with your dollar, voting with your fork....

Now, I've transformed into a slightly nutty, very passionate, gardening, preserving, DIYing, simple living, nature loving, weed eating, backyard medicine making, urban homesteader, and I still don't use toilet paper!

With the help of the Awesomedudeguy (ADG), I'm continuing my exploration of living lightly and frugally, while increasing my self-sufficiency and resiliency, staying debt free, and preparing for a climate changed, resource depleted world, in uncertain economic times.

My nothing new restriction is lifted, but I continue to be a gentle, local consumer as much as possible.

My hope is that some of the information and resources I post about here will be helpful to others. Thanks so much for stopping by !

Yours in unstuffing,
Amber

"Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with dandelion, make a sorry figure for the drawing room" ~Emily Dickinson

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that.... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature." ~Abraham Cowley

"The laws of nature are under no obligation to cater to our culture’s emotionally charged fantasies of perpetual progress and limitless growth." ~John Michael Greer

"Sometimes we think we are too small to make a difference in this big world. Our actions seem insignificant in comparison to global issues such as climate change and population growth. However, the reality is that action on an individual level is exactly how big changes are made. Without individual and family sustainability, there’s no community sustainability. And without community sustainability, there’s no global sustainability. In fact, earth-wide change is absolutely impossible without individual change.
It really does come down to you and me."
~From Living Sustainably: It's Your Choice

"The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop." ~Mark Twain

"It is not enough simply to abstain from theft...We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers. It is our duty, therefore, to borrow no more from the world than we absolutely need, and to make full and proper use of it. Taking more than we need, and wasting it, is a form of stealing from the rest of humankind."
~Commentary on Sutra 30 The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali