Economic Stimulus… what to buy?

Daniel and I just received our economic stimulus check in the mail.  We had previously signed a pledge (started by Ariah) to give away half of it…  The idea is to use it to stimulate the economy while helping someone else.

So… what do we buy?  Some ideas we have or have gotten from other people..

1.  Buy items for Safe Haven or other homeless shelter.

2.  Buy supplies for a women’s ministry (one was named that helps women after they’ve been in prison).

3.  Buy medical supplies or other needs for our yearly Haiti trip.

4.  Buy gift cards to local restaurants and somehow hand them out to people in need.

Any other ideas? Let’s hear your thoughts!

My cousin and family in the news

I’m so excited, just read a really cool article about my cousin and her husband, Jennifer and Clifton Green, along with their two children. The article is about their adopted child from Africa and the length Clifton will go to keep his daughter’s hair looking good. A well written and wonderfully sweet article, check it out when you get time. It brings up some great conversation about international adoption and what issues parents should consider. I’m really proud of my cousin and her husband.  :)

Here’s the link:

Perfect braids show depth of dad’s devotion

Scott vs. Catfish

Our dear friend Scott Williams is in town for a couple of weeks to visit. Daniel lived with Scott for about 3 years while in optometry school in Memphis. Yesterday, we went fishing at Josh’s uncle’s pond…caught several bass, a snapping turtle (by accident…or was it, Josh?), and almost a gigantic catfish. You’ve got to see this video!!!

For all of you who know Scott, feel free to leave messages to him in the comments and I’ll make sure to relay them.

PS. Sorry about the long sabbatical away from blogging. Obviously we haven’t blogged much lately, and I won’t promise that’ll change real soon. But, we’re about to get the condo rented out, so normal life (what is that, anyway?) shall resume again. Maybe.

Peace,

Daniel and Amanda

Declaration of Delirium - Death by Term Paper

I really didn’t want to post this one. It’s just dumb, politically offensive, ridiculous and somehow I said “wee” instead of “see” at the end. Maybe that’s the funniest part…a mistake that made “one can wisely wee…” But anyway, I’ll excuse myself, again, by stating that I was only a teenager and not yet mentally developed (I’m still working on that second part).  :)  So, without further ado,  here’s the worst of my work as a humor columnist…

(on a side note, my neck is definitely yet slowly improving)

Declaration of Delirium - Mona Lisa to Nose Warts

Change of pace

Our pace has been quite crazy lately. First, Oprah, then Haiti, a very busy month at work, sending out hundreds of patient letters, finishing our wedding book in a ridiculous amount of time…if you’ve ever seen a beheaded chicken, that’s been us.

It’s also meant very little blog posts. Sorry for the hiatus of sorts. Now that things are calming down a bit, and several deadlines have been met, we’re looking forward to getting back to a more normal routine of blogging. And to start, I thought I’d have a little change of pace on blogging, too.

So, tomorrow, I’ll begin a fun series of posts called Declaration of Delirium. That was the name of the humor column I (daniel) wrote as a junior in high school. I was criticized for being too crude in my writing. It was a reasonable critique. Back then, I was a big fan of Dave Barry, a nationally syndicated humor columnist. My mom and I used to read his column and laugh out loud. If you’ve read any of his stuff, you may see some similarities in writing styles…well, as similar as you can get from a 17 year old farm boy / band geek. Hope you’ll enjoy.

Other things that have been going on:

*We had our first meetup with people interested in freeganism, and it was a fun evening with great discussion and contributions from everyone.
*This weekend is reunion weekend, where we’ll spend time with our dear friends from community in north Nashville. I can’t wait…I haven’t looked forward to something this much since our wedding and honeymoon. :)
*March was seriously one of the best months I’ve had yet as a self employed independent optometrist. I’m excited to see my practice growing, and desperately need to start figuring out how I’m going to hire someone. I’ve considered hiring part time workers from SafeHaven family shelter, but haven’t made any concrete decisions yet. Any other ideas on a way to hire a part time employee and at the same time help someone out who needs an ethical employer?
*Amanda cleaned the apartment yesterday, and it looks awesome. Thanks again, honey.
*Everyone is moving out of the condo that I own, so I will need to find renters soon.
*The weather is beautiful here. I love spring.

That’s about it for now.

Peace.

Typical American?

When other countries think about typical United States of America citizens, what do they picture? Rich business men? Hollywood stars? Tomato farmers? Well I hope it’s not the lady I saw yesterday, who is becoming increasingly common in these luxury-filled, lazy, consumerist days.

I watched as a lady returned to her Ford Excursion (the biggest SUV they make, I believe…it was basically an unarmored, gas guzzling, civilian tank) from Staples. She’d walked about 40 feet to get to her SUV. As she drove off, I noticed a cute little Jesus fish with a cross inside. She proceeded to drive approximately 30 feet, left her spot and crossed only one row of parking spots to the next isle, and parked again…this time walking another 40 feet into Petsmart.

Is it OK that this upsets me? Maybe I could just be angry at the society, or even at the religion, who’s produced lazy, wasteful consumers like this woman…rather than being frustrated with the woman itself, caught up in the middle of its genius marketing.

Then it’s also good for me to remember that I, also, lived less than perfectly yesterday. I was super busy at work, so to get a break away from work I drove to McDonald’s and ate some chicken nuggets for lunch. (I’m sorry, you guys!!!) Then, though I bought 100% recycled paper from Staples, I probably only bought it cause the package was torn and it was on sale. Ariah, how much purchasing power is that?  :)  I also forgot once again to bring my own plastic bags and let them bag me up. We’ll use them again, but we’ve got plenty already…I’m so bad about remember to take my own. So, self, instead of being mad at others for how they’re living, let’s take that plank out of our own eye first.

:)

Frugal entertainment

Have your significant other (or good friend) cut your hair. This is only entertaining when the significant other or friend has little experience in cutting hair, but it always saves money. I grew up getting my hair cut by my mom (even occasionally through college and optometry school) so it’s nothing new for me.

Amanda does a great job cutting my hair. Has been for probably almost a year now. Each time she swears is her last time, cause it stresses her out. Somehow, though, I’m able to convince her when the time rolls around again to try once more. Her stress is all self-derived. It really doesn’t bother me when she messes up, or if my hair doesn’t look right…but she seriously does an excellent job. I’m going to go watch her get a haircut so hopefully I can try out my barber skills on her someday.

I used to care more about my hair…I used hair spray as a teen, styling gel in college, and pomade until I ran out of it a couple of months ago. My pomade was the good American Crew kind that costs like 10-15 bucks for a little jar, and even though it lasted for a long time I decided I didn’t want to pay that anymore. So I ran out and stopped using any product, period. Without product, my hair has little pieces that stick up at the back. But somehow (maybe because I’m married to a gorgeous woman and my desire to look impressive has decreased) I don’t mind.

*Personal side note: To white guys who want to try and save on pomade, I do not recommend getting the Murray’s product, made specifically to work well with African-American hair, even though it’s only $1.87 per jar. As advertised, it did hold my hair in place…for approximately 3 weeks. 

Anyway, she cut my hair the other night and did a great job. During the actual haircut, though, there’s usually at least one or two mistakes. This time she stood back and just started looking at my head and laughing hysterically (which made me laugh, of course). Tears came to her eyes as she told me she had cut a hole in my head. My haircuts are so fun…I’ve never had as much fun getting my hair cut as I’m having now.

I thank God that somehow, not completely through efforts of my own, I have developed a self image that’s deeper than how my hair sticks up or how my clothes aren’t always stylish. I also thank God everyday for my awesome new hair stylist, who loves the wisdom of frugality more than the trendiness of a $20 haircut.

While we’re on the subject, though, anyone know of a homemade recipe for any kind of hair gel, pomade, cream, or anything I could dab on the back of my hair so it stays in control? It’s not enough to pay for, but I always enjoy a little chemistry experiment.  :)

Electrical Woes

So imagine this scenario…you drive a big V8 Corvette to work every day. You can afford the gas, but you get tired of your monthly auto gas total of $450. You start biking to work 1 day a week, you try to cut out any unnecessary driving, and you avoid the manly urge to accelerate quickly. Your gas the next month? $432. “Dang girl, what happened?” you ask. So then you make the plunge…you sell your Corvette and invest in a Toyota Prius. Still biking some and driving as little as possible, the expectation is great when you calculate the gas totals at the end of the next month. And the number is….$437.  ???

Our electricity bill was $117 this past month. We unplugged our heat completely, we switched to energy efficient lighting, we turn everything off when we’re gone or when we’re in another room, our two space heaters only operate when we’re at home and then only some of the time, we don’t watch TV, and we still can’t get our bill down. Frustrating! We feel like something must be wrong, like we could turn off and unplug everything for an entire month and would still have a $100 bill. But so far NES has been very anti-helpful. They’re basically placing the blame on the space heaters…it’s nice to have a scape goat.

Any ideas? Specifically, we’re interested in having someone come out to do an electrical audit and find out what in the world is draining our energy! NES no longer offers that service. Anyone know of a place that does that in Nashville?

Electrically yours,

Amanda and Daniel

PS. Going back to the first story, yesterday Daniel biked to work for the first time since winter started. Excited to be back on the road with two wheels. Also feeling rather embarrassed (after visiting Chicago twice and seeing tons of bicyclers) about quitting during the cold months. Maybe we can work on that for next year.

“Well, we’re back.”

Almost a direct quote of my favorite fictional character ever, Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings).

We’ll post more about our trip to Haiti later. For now, I just want to get something posted so everyone will know that we made it home.

It’s fascinating to us how many articles have been written about the show and about us! For those of you (ie. our moms) who want to read those, here’s a list. We were also interviewed on a live talk show last night called the Allen Hunt Show, based in Atlanta, GA. You can check it out too if you’re interested in how we come at freeganism from more of a faith angle.

Our Allen Hunt Show appearance

Sustainablog
AssociatedContent
RadiantMag
BlogHer

More Christian divers

All of the articles that I’ve seen are mostly positive. The comments are often quite negative, but if those people would simply come read our blog many of their arguments would be explained. People often point out that while they won’t dumpster dive themselves, they are inspired to find other ways to reduce consumerism, waste, and needless consumption. Awesome. We are so grateful and happy that so many people are being encouraged to change from our decision to “go public.”

We’ll post again soon. Don’t forget to send an email to nashvillefreegan@gmail.com if you are interested in meeting up somewhere in the Nashville area for more conversation.