My Personal End Poverty Week

A blogger I follow had a post in it that captured my attention. Apparently, by checking in to this too late, I missed Blog Action Day October 15th. I'll have to wait until next year to get involved.

But it made me remember-uncomfortably-earlier today when I felt aggravated that we don't have enough room in our living room to make the 62 inch screen tv look proportional to our other stuff. The TV is a generous gift from my stepson to his dad and me.

Anyway, it forced me to look at some reality that I didn't want to look at while I was feeling sorry for myself.

According to Global Richlist, my spouse and I are in the top .91% richest people in the world! Of course, so are most of us Americans.

In fact, when I was a teenager and was convinced that my mother and I were poor (we were), we were still in the top 12.02 percent.

With the gross excesses that we in this country enjoy, and with all of our collective complaining and demanding of the world's resources, no wonder the rest of the world hates us.

While there are times that my boxer eats better than the humans in our house while we painfully wait for payday, we still eat better and more often than does most of the populated universe.

So. I am making this week my own personal Stomp Out Poverty Week. I am going to do a sort of Lent, or fast.

I will:

1. avoid drinking mass produced drinks like sodas
2. take lunch to work, saving on fuel emissions and cash, and cutting down on waste in packaging
3. will keep my driving to a minimum
4. reuse as many items as possible, within appropriate health limits
5. print only the most necessary paperwork
6. refrain from complaining about my lot in life, and will express gratitude for how blessed I am
7. provide help and assistance to others when possible
8. donate to my local church and donate unwanted items to the Osage Tribal Shelter (because poverty is in our own community)
9. talk to my husband about donating a Christmas meal to a family
10. choose a child on the Angel Tree at Wal-Mart so that a child can recieve something from my family anonymously.

I challenge everyone who reads this here and on my other blog to do the same: do it your way. Decide on ten things you will do this week to chip away at the blight of poverty. Even in hard times, if you have a home to go to, a bed to sleep in, clothes you never wear, food you will probably never eat, blankets you aren't using, warmth and shelter from the elements, you are more fortunate than most of the world.

I'm doing my part this week. How about you?

God bless you and your loved ones this holiday season.


(check out Globalrichlist by clicking on this entrie's title)

I Struck Fear in the Heart of my Husband

When I told him I think I could design and make my own furniture. Out with the ugly couch I made slipcovers (pic) for. We never have to buy furniture again. I'll be making it from now on.

"You won't even use the saw I got you last year!" he says.

"That wasn't a gift, that was bought to fix the floor in that dive we left two years ago. And anyway, I want a circular saw. And a table for it."

He rolls his eyes and winces as though he is having birthing pains.

Seriously! How hard can it be? All I need is a frame, some stuffing, and some fabric! I even researched it on the web, and found this; http://www.ehow.com/how_2202480_build-sofa-scratch.html . It's a little rough, but it's like the little black dress; you can dress it up or dress it down. I'm sure mine would be fabulous! wink.

Rethink Repot

So I came up with over thirty plants that need new training pots. More than likely half of them will be getting colanders or pond baskets because that's too many to come up with good pots for; I am not a nursery owner. Neither am I independently wealthy. I don't plan to show any of these plants for a few years, so...I'll opt to save my marraige and go with the abovementioned pond baskets.

Pond baskets are the best thing since buttered bread. This is because roots planted in them self-ramify. You can't get better drainage. By the time your plant is ready to be put into its first bonsai pot, its root system is much better developed than something coming out of the ground or other type of pot.

I know that there are more attractive options available to more aesthetically minded bonsaiists, but they are beyond my very limited budget. I prefer to spend my miniscule budget on trees rather than training pots. I usually do not fill the pot to the top with soil, either, forcing roots to form in a shallow manner.

Sooo, gotta keep my eyes peeled for these boogers since they aren't commonly on the shelves this time of year.

Also this year nearer to spring, I plan to try lining a few half crates with mesh screen and using these as planting boxes for my larger material. Same results as the pond baskets, and easier to move...

Fall and the Inevitable Pause

Fall has come and all of my trees are tucked away under their benches. Much to my DH's chagrin, I have moved the most recently collected trees into my art studio/shed. It's too cold to paint out there right now anyway. I am so eager to work on my newly acquired stuff, but I have to be patient and wait. In the meantime, I am updating my inventory lists, identifying how many training pots and pond baskets I'm going to need, and I'm appreciating the finer things that I won't have time to notice in the spring. We are worried about our ARM raising again, making our house payment impossible. Lacking knowledge about what to do next and being called an irresponsible borrower on conservative talk shows is getting intolerable.

It makes little things like studying bark an even nicer escape.

I'm still not over my favorite nursery closing. It's been open forty or fifty years, and they have had some of their plants so long that they have grown through the bottom of their pots and into the ground and reached heights of thirty feet in some cases. My bonsai buddy and I could go on an excursion and drag stuff out of there for pennies on the dollar. Most of my 60 or so projects have come from there. None of my trees are anything like a finished bonsai (if there is such a thing). They are all projects in the works. All but a very few of them are still in tubs and training pots, or in the ground for fattening up. Most of them are still awaiting heavy pruning or trunk chops.

I plan to use this space for chronicling their progress and to record the damage I do to them! Hopefully, the damage is minor and the artistry will be high. More than likely the BS will be of more note.

Alas, it is winter time and all I can do is plan and think and look. Today I am admiring the bark on my old man pinion pine tree I collected in February 2005.