The Best Songs in Life are (Mostly) Free, 2009

When the office building you work in pipes relentless John Tesh Radio Show for 6 hours hours a day, you are bound to dig for some musical gems and experiences to load up the iPod. My journey of songs for 2009 took a very cheap and fruitful path. It felt like being a hunter-gatherer. So, if you live in J.T. Hell, don’t worry, I’ve found all the medicine you need. And made lists–many lists…

Toward more of what matters

Bring on Two Thousand Ten.

I started writing this more than a week ago, before it actually was 2010. Just didn’t finish it ’til now, but it means the same now or then.

I’m not making any resolutions this year. No big list of goals. Not even my usual “Not Do” list of things I need to quit. 2010 is the year of the Ingalls. That’s all we need, the things Laura and Pa and the crew had a bunch of:

1. Lots of time being with family,
2. Quiet time for reflection, and
3. Major connection with nature.

This list is really what matters. At the heart, it’s about rethinking our concept of happiness–giving ourselves permission to be together in different ways. Centering our time together around love and conversation; with each other, with ourselves, and with the rest of it. This is my hopeful intention for the new decade upon us.

(Thanks to Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy for the re-inspiration–just paging through again.)

Anyone can sh*t in a bucket

I compost lots of stuff. Have even tried a cup (it failed). But this! This is something:

screenshot from Time.com.

“Humanure.” Has a nice ring to it. Better than “shit in a bucket.” Yes, there are actually neighborhoods in real American cities who collect their own poo and put it all together to make some “extreme” compost. My neighbors (and lovely wife) have put up nicely with unmowed grass, boxes of worms, bags and piles of rotting leaves, soybean stalks blowing around, and lots of dandelions. A community shit bucket might just be over the line.

A friend sent me the link a while back, and I’ve actually been contemplating the process. I doubt I’ll start a humanure club in the village, but it shouldn’t be that big a deal. Seems everybody practiced humanure up until a couple generations ago. Heck, I remember utilizing the old outhouse in our backyard many times as a kid too busy building tree fortresses or destroying ant colonies to go into the house. Thanks for the fun Mike.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html

or a bag…

I would normally scoff at things touted “single use,” but this PeePoo bag is interesting. If I still need to dig a hole in the woods, not sure why I need a bag though.

http://springwise.com/non-profit_social_cause/peepoobag/

Mission Failure (plus waiting for dinner)

Merry christmas, honey. That’s how I started. I made a nice little gift certificate on the back of some cardboard that read “No Laundry Duty.” One full year of no laundry–I thought that would be the most awesome gift I’ve given in a while. And it was only part of the package–there was also a new scarf from Turkey (the country, not the bird) and a real gift certificate to a craft/art store. How sweet, I proudly said to myself–she HATES folding laundry. I’d just schedule in one night of laundry each week, and it’ll be no sweat and feel really good to give her a free pass.

Then she sent this to my phone today, with the friendly text note, “Merry Christmas Jaimie .”

the disappearing laundry pile

When I left this morning there was a small mountain of clothes sitting there in our laundry room, where now there is apparently a clear and clean floor. Seems it took four whole days for my little plan to be worthless. Must get home to add some fine print to the back of that thing. “No Laundry period officially begins January 1, 2010.”

Waiting for Dinner

And, just for a little bonus, Zoey and I share the same sentiment about the hussle and bussle of the holidays:

couldn't wait for dinner

Thank You 2009

It time for all those Christmas cards and letters and family pictures to rain on my mailbox. Like last year, we’re sending ours out via bartblog. So, happy holidays bartblog family and friends.

As Jaimie and I were reflecting on the past year, an obvious theme emerged. Thank you.

That’s it, we’re just plumb full of humbled gratitude this year. So many blessings, and you’ve been such a big part of most of it. Thanks to you, to life and most of all to our munchkins. We made a little video to show you what we’re most thankful for. Roll the tape..

NOTE: One photo (of Hope being a climate activist at Falls Park) was taken by my friend Jamie Horter, not me. She has oodles more talent than me, though she did attempt to teach me some photography once.

Say Hello

It was ultrasound Tuesday again.

Verses from a December weekend

Two to share. A haiku inspired by a story I heard from Krista Tippet’s Speaking of Faith, and a freestyle verse on time and procrastination. By freestyle, I mean sometimes (usually, actually) I just scribble down some things really quickly on the fly, without any work or careful editing. It’s just kind of verse-improv. It’s usually not very good stuff, but I share it with hopes it will give you courage to try it.

1.

Skates find dark abyss
Glass roof exit hides tonight
Rest in cold surrender

2.

Tomorrow. (Written in the kitchen)

Don’t worry any more,
I’ll surely  start the morrow
with vigor’s determination,
Upon my proclaimed quest.

We’re right here by the door.

Light years ’til the dawn,
Far off across the wilderness,
No telling if far and wide
Will ever take us there.
Old day is never gone.

But wait–my plan is still within,
Untouched, as now becomes yesterday.

What if the buzzer sounds
And I am waiting still?
That perfect time
For my quest to just begin.

The next step that I make
We may fall through into another day.
Could be here already
By the end of this next breath.

Just blink and I will wake,
In time to turn the key.

Wrapping a Ribbon on Copenhagen

Jamie Horter, my friend and co-worker at the Green Project, just finished up two weeks of leadership and action in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is part of the Will Steger Foundation’s “Expedition Copenhagen” team, a dozen youth representing the Midwest (that’s us) at the United Nations Climate Conference that ended Friday. While President Obama calls the Copenhagen Accord a “breakthrough,” most feel it isn’t much more than an agreement to make an agreement later. Lost in the media hoopla about failure in Denmark are the powerful stories and relationships that were sparked and shared.

Thanks to Jamie, I was able to experience a few of them from afar. We skyped several times during the Conference and she shared some cool, and some heartbreaking things. Her team made this video before they departed, with a message of hope. We still can change the future.

Live from Copenhagen

I skipped lunch today so I could talk on Skype to my pal Jamie Horter, who is in Copenhagen at the UN Climate Talks.  She told me about spending her day in the ‘Bat Cave’ (a cold room literally under a pond in Copenhagen), and living in the Matrix the past two weeks. I heard the real story about demonstrations (100,000+ peaceful demonstrators, about 20 knuckleheads), about the tricks big countries are playing to make decisions when poor developing country leaders are out of the room, and how capitalism is much more important than survival in the Bella Center.

Jamie also told me about the Kenyan people she’s been working with about the suffering happening right now in their country, and the tear-jerker talk the President of the tiny island country of The Maldives gave today (his entire country will soon be under water)… People are dying. Right now. And we keep pumping more and more climate changing gases into the air with abandon.

And so I pass on lunch. Will it matter?

Hopelessness is creeping in. Can we really save ourselves from ourselves? I need a shot of Hopenhagen.

Stick to the Science, Save the Future of Humanity

It’s really that important. See this graph from Bill McKibben at 350.org? The talks in Copenhagen right now are settling. Leaders of big countries are throwing their weight around in the name of economics and politics, settling on agreements that will mean catastrophic consequences for people, and all species, all over the world in the next 90 years. This is not something that our great grandchildren will need to worry about–it’s something people in poor parts of this world are suffering from right now. And it will get much, much worse. Bill, the most level-headed, science-based, smart climate activist I’ve followed, calls it “devastating.”

So, click here to call your leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference. Just ask them to stick to the science, not the bullshit.

And, if you feel like doing something unusual to show your support for the millions of poor people who are or will be starving due to climate change, join thousands of others around the world in a day of fasting on Thursday. Whatever fasting means to you. To me, it’ll mean eating nothing for a day, just to remind myself how what I do each day effects people on the other side of this beautiful planet.