How to Save Money on Gas

By: Karla Wheaton

 

With the current tensions in Libya and other countries in the Middle East, the price of gasoline keeps going up and up. Gas prices near where I live are around $3.50 to $3.60 a gallon. This also comes at a time when many families’ budgets are already stretched to the max.

I don’t know about you, but this situation has me thinking. What can you do to save money on gas while also using less fuel to help the environment?

What can you do to your vehicle?

• Minimize the weight you are carrying around in your car by cleaning out the extra clothes, kids’ sports equipment, and bags of items to donate to charity from your trunk.
• Be sure to check your tire pressure regularly. Under-inflated tires can increase your fuel cost up to thirteen percent.
• Take care of your car by keeping up with regular maintenance and changing your spark-plugs.
• Use regular gas instead of premium. There is little difference in energy content between the two, but the premium can cost twenty to forty cents more per gallon.
• Don’t top off your gas tank at the pump and make sure your fuel tank cap is on tight and working right.
• Keep your luggage inside your car if possible. Using a loaded roof rack increases fuel consumption.

What can you do while driving?

• Drive as if you don’t have brakes and be gentle with the accelerator.
• Avoid idling. If you are waiting for someone and you’ll be parked for ten seconds or longer, turn off your car’s engine. Turning off the engine and then restarting it uses less fuel than idling for any time more than ten seconds. For every two minutes a car is idling, it uses about the same amount of fuel it takes to go about one mile. Idling is also linked to increases in asthma, allergies, heart and lung disease, and cancer.
• Go slower up hills and faster down them.
• Park in the first spot you find rather than driving around for another one. Also park for easy and direct departure.
• In a hybrid, pulse and glide. How does it work? Say you are on a road and want to go sixty miles per hour. Instead of driving along at a steady sixty, you accelerate to seventy (that’s the pulse), and then coast in neutral with the engine off down to fifty (that’s the glide.) This technique can save gas with a hybrid, because you are basically using no gas at all during the glide.
• During the colder months, “warming up your car” really only needs to take thirty seconds rather than ten minutes.
• Don’t drive too fast. One of the biggest gasoline wasters is excess speed. Gas mileage usually decreases rapidly with speeds above fifty-five miles per hour.
• Use the air conditioner less. It can increase fuel costs from thirteen percent up to twenty-one percent.

What sort of lifestyle changes can you make?

• Limit your driving. Find more fun things to do closer to home. Use public transportation like the bus or a train when you can. Carpool, walk, or take your bike. Work at home if your boss will let you.
• Find the best gas prices. The website GasBuddy.com will let you know what the prices are by town or city and then by gas station in your state. Fuel prices can vary ten percent within a few blocks.
• If you have one close by, buy your gas from a discount store like Sam’s or Costco. It doesn’t make much sense to drive too far out of your way to get to one of these places, though.
• Limit your purchases when prices are high. Only fill your tank up halfway when they are higher and completely fill your tank when they are lower.
• Buy a different vehicle – a diesel, a hybrid, a smaller car, a motorcycle, a scooter, or alternative fuel cars such as those that run on biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electricity, or ethanol.
• Instead of having two cars in your family, share one. My husband and I shared one car while we were saving up to buy our home. We saved money by paying less for insurance, car maintenance costs, taxes, and inspection fees.

Some of these tips may seem obvious, but let them serve as good reminders. Even if we can’t run out and buy a hybrid, at least there are some things that we all can do to save some money and help save the planet.

One last thought – in Europe they pay 5.64 Euro or about $7.85 per gallon for gas. Why so much? It is mostly because of taxes. Is that crazy or just really smart? Look how many more people walk, bike, or use public transportation in European countries than in the United States.

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[Photo Credit: TahoeSunsets]

How to Adopt a Baby

By: Katherine Malmo

1. Talk to friends and friends of friends about their experiences.

2. Try not to get lost driving around foreign neighborhoods looking for a community center that will host the Journeys of the Love, Hope, Heart, Blessed-Child’s Dream of the Christ’s Open Adoption agency meeting.

3. Ask the social workers what programs/countries will let you adopt if you are single, over 40, in a same-sex relationship, and/or a cancer survivor.

4. Choose the agency that can answer your question.

5. Get fingerprinted, background-checked, dig up the value of your house, find pay stubs, photocopy bank statements, get friends to write references, find your dog’s vaccination records, have the pet store where you purchased your fish sign an affidavit of its health, make a list of every illness you’ve ever had, dig up the name of your third grade teacher who could verify that indeed your favorite color was lavender, make a list of your stuffed animals and their names and how well you took care of each and every one of them, and promise, that if they could talk, they would guarantee that, if given the opportunity, you’d be the bestest mother ever.

6. Ponder questions for your autobiography like, how do your parents feel about education? Resist the urge to say they hate education and schools and especially do-gooder teachers, but that they also hate puppies and kittens, rainbows and balloons. Do not say your parents are puppy-kicking balloon-poppers.

7. Invite a social worker into your home and show her that you keep your medicines locked away, your fire ladder in the baby-to-be’s room, and your floors shiny-clean.

8. Wait.

9. Wait.

10. Wait.

11. Try not to punch the social worker who says you seem really anxious about this when you’re waiting to hear from a prospective birth mother.

12. Make a spreadsheet with everything an infant could possibly need –from diaper wipes and burp cloths to gliders and strollers –while you wait.

13. Decide you’re sick of waiting and start researching other options/agencies. Find the notes from friends of friends you talked to ages ago.

14. Resist the urge to get a tiny dog or a gerbil or any other small animal that you can carry in your purse. Resist. A Chihuahua is, in fact, not a baby.

15. Find an independent facilitator. Send her your homestudy.

16. Don’t let her pressure you into a situation that isn’t right for you.

17. When she yells at you, you may want to tell her she should be ashamed. You may stop talking to her.

18. Hand the phone to your spouse when she calls a week later. She’ll tell him your baby has been born.

19. Leave a bag of dog food on the back porch and, on the way to the airport, ask your parents to come get your dog.

20. When you meet your baby, she may be wrapped in a purple hand-knit blanket and have an orange bow stuck to her head with a dab of maple syrup.

21. Spend 3 weeks in a rented condo/bachelor pad.

22. You may dream that you can’t find your baby buried in your bedding and you may wake up pulling the sheets off your bed panicked. Totally normal.

23. Go ahead and check your three giant bags and a boxed-up pack-n-play on your way home. The airline will look the other way.

24. When you get home, open your doors to your friends and family. Let them love her. Take their pictures with her. Let them celebrate. They’ve been waiting too.

25. You may run into her room while she’s sleeping to be sure she’s still breathing. Also totally normal.

26. Dress her in tiny hand-knit socks and hats. Take pictures.

27. Put her in a swing. Take a picture. Watch her crawl. Take a picture. Put a ponytail in her hair. Take a picture. Put her in the snow. Put her in the water. Lean her against the dog. Take pictures, pictures, pictures.

28. Go to the courthouse and have your picture taken with the judge who finalizes the adoption.

29. Put all these pictures in a book. Read her story to her. When she’s two she may ask who the man is in the picture at the courthouse. You’ll tell her he’s the man who said you’d be her mommy forever and ever. She just might kiss him and say Thank you!

30. You may be exhausted and, probably, very grateful you didn’t punch anyone in the face, call your parents puppy-kicking balloon-poppers, or get a tiny dog or gerbil or other small animal that could fit in your purse.

Katherine Malmo is the Norwegian-American mother of an African-American three year old who loves Curious George, Mavis Staples and cookies; and the wife of an extremely likeable software engineer with a fondness for roadside furniture and a habit of whistling in his sleep. In 2005 Katherine was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer and spent a year in treatment. These days she is cancer-free and blogs about her family, adoption, race, health and living a low-toxin life at HystericalMommyNetwork. Her book, Who in This Room, will be available in October 2011.

Modern Living: Simply Sorted

By: Shira Gill, Personal Organizer

Modern living is hectic enough as it is, but once you introduce kids into the equation, keeping your life simple and organized can seem like an impossible dream.

As a new mom and a professional organizer, I have learned that sometimes it only takes a few minutes to see big results. Conquering the clutter will restore your energy and bring calm and balance into your life. Here are a few simple tips to get you started:

1. Refrigerator makeover!

First, toss anything that has expired or gone bad. Next, ditch the junk and replace it with healthful alternatives. Skip the soda and make spa water by filling a few glass pitchers with water, lemon and cucumber slices or fresh herbs. Instead of buying TV dinners loaded with salt and preservatives, try making a lasagna or turkey meatloaf that can be frozen in individual portions. Store nuts, veggies and fresh fruit in grab-and-go containers so you’ll have healthy snacks when you’re on the move.

2. Ready, Set…Clean!

Feeling short on time? Get the whole family involved by challenging them to a clean up race. Set your kitchen timer for 10 minutes and use the time to toss stray trash and return misplaced items to their correct homes. When the timer “dings!” everyone will be shocked at how much they were able to accomplish in such a short time. Celebrate by playing a game or indulging in a yummy dessert.

3. Mail Overload!

Use a standing file with dividers to store all incoming mail. Designate one day a week for bill paying, scheduling, and responding to invites and you’ll never have to worry about overdue notices or overlooked obligations. Recycle the trash and junk mail right away. You can also reduce junk mail by canceling unwanted catalogs and opting out of unsolicited commercial mail for five years by contacting The Direct Marketing Association. To register with DMA’s Mail Preference Service, go to http://www.dmachoice.org

4. Important Everything Holder

Ever panicked because you can’t remember where you stowed the key to your safe deposit box or your child’s birth certificate? Take the guesswork out by creating an “important everything holder” and storing it in a safe place in your home. Mine has everything from family passports to treasured photos and my original wedding DVD. Any time I need to locate one of these crucial items, I know just where to find it.

5. Bedroom Bliss

Need a vacation but short on time and/or funds? Splurge on some fresh flowers and a scented candle and make the bed with your best set of sheets. Take a few minutes to straighten up, leaving the floors and surfaces as minimal as possible. Put on your favorite CD or iPOD play list. Your bedroom will be transformed into a chic retreat in no time. Now you just have to promise to relax!

Shira Gill is the founder of Simply Sorted and Simply Sorted Baby and keeps things tidy in the SF Bay Area. For information and to sign up for her free monthly newsletter please visit www.shiragill.com

The Average Green Joe

By: Susan Howard

1. Bring your own bags to the grocery store.  Once you do it you’ll get over the hump, plus you can look down on everyone else in the check out line.  I heard about a woman that forgot her bags and got so mad at herself that she hand carried her purchases item by item to her car.
2. Don’t get your receipts at the ATM.  You can view the transaction without getting a paper copy.  All you do is get them and then throw them out two seconds later.  (We got this one from Oprah.)
3. Recycle.  If you aren’t doing this by now I mean really you are so 80’s.
4. Don’t use the department store bag when shopping. Be sure to hang onto receipts so you don’t get busted Winona Ryder style.
5. Go veggie mostly.  There’s a whole phenomenon about raising cattle and their poo, but I am not sure if you’ve had your breakfast yet, so let’s just say the poo can be lethal, but really.
6. Use environmental cleaning products.  The one I know is Mrs. Meyers, but there are a ton out there.  It’s funny when you wash something down the drain you think “bye!”, but that water goes somewhere.  Full disclosure: I still use Comet sometimes.
7. Take quicker showers.  What happens to you people in that shower?
8. Re-insulate your house.  Although this is fairly expensive and we have not yet done it, supposedly you save a bunch on your heating bill, and use less energy.  Plus get the bragging right with your neighbors.
9. Check on Craig’s List for something you might have wanted to purchase new- you know: re-use, re-cycle, re-purpose.

10.  Tell all your billing companies that you want your bills paperless.  I’ve got to get on this one; there are still a few that send bills to us.

And if you have trouble doing these things- read Annette’s article “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” and you will feel compelled to do SOMETHING.

Enviro-Mentally Exhausted

By: Caren Gillespie

If you met me in person, you might think I’m pretty eco friendly. Compared to many people in this country, I am! I’m a former Dead-head, long haired, yuppie hippie who started caring about what was happening to the earth from early on. I was very into Earth Day in the 90s. I planted trees, rode my bike everywhere, hiked the mountains and basically did what I could with what education I had and what resources were offered at the time. Flash forward to the new millennium and here in Seattle, you would think Earth day is every day. Here, “eco” has come a long way. Armed with my grocery totes, I fall right in with other Seattleites who gravitate to the “organic products” available to us everywhere. But I think we still have a long way to go.

we have access to so many things in this country that “help” save the earth but, in its abundance, it begs the question “does it really help?”

Consumer Reports recently did a study and found that a large percentage of Americans stopped buying eco-friendly products because they were too expensive and they didn’t feel they worked well. It’s amazing in a world with iPads and robotic surgeries, we cannot make a product that works better on cleaning my dishes than me spit washing them. In a nutshell (organic of course) here are my gripes about our uber-green movement:

Warning: Going green means actually turning green!

Light bulbs: I walk into my living room in the evening and notice a green glow….”Honey, why does it look different in here?” He replies sheepishly “Oh, I didn’t think you’d notice. I put in those CFL light bulbs.” Yes, I noticed! How do you not notice when your house has a hue of green? He put them in the bathroom too; this is where I get ready to face the world every morning! Yes, I know there are CFLs with different light ratings, but we’ve tried them all it seems and none come close to the warmth of the incandescent. Again, can’t we invent an energy efficient light bulb that reflects light the same as a standard? It’s a light bulb!
Laundry detergent: in our house the “whites” load is now anything but white. Look at an eco-friendly person in white closely enough, and you’ll see they aren’t wearing white but a shade of greenish-grey that all the “eco” detergents seem to leave.
Liquid Hand Soap: Great, they are sulfate free, but did you know that if you pour a whole bottle of oil down your drain, it will clog? If you read the ingredients of the Eco-liquid hand soaps you will see they are made up of mostly oil! It’s my theory but I have some clogged drains to prove it. Did you know that being green is chic now? Tell me you haven’t bought a hand soap or household cleaner simply because you liked its label. I have.
Organic produce:
If you are an organic produce buyer like me, you are also damned.

It’s not enough to buy organic, because if you do buy those organic grapes from Chile, your carbon footprint has increased because of the fossil fuels used to transport them to the U.S.!

So now some people think it is better to buy local conventional (non-organic) produce than to buy imported organic produce. I get it, we don’t want to use the Earth’s resources but we also don’t want to poison our children, so we deny them grapes and bananas and most other things because here, in Seattle, we have apples….apples people!

Grocery shopping on the whole gets a bit out of hand here in Seattle. It’s a brave soul who forgets their reusable bags at a grocery store—we actually came real close to passing a law banning anything else!

You feel the tension mount as the bagger utters those dreaded words almost spitefully and unforgivingly loud “PAPER OR PLASTIC MA’AM?”

Well at that point, you might as well have set a forest fire in the mountains. It is unrelenting scorn you will feel in this city, not an ounce of forgiveness. Let’s be honest. We’ve all been on both sides of this. With all this pressure, it’s no wonder that Amazon Fresh is so popular these days. No one watches you buy non-organic Cheetos and high fructose corn syrup-y soda. It’s all private; like that “Playboy” magazine that comes cleverly wrapped in brown paper so your mailman and neighbors won’t know your significant other likes a good “article” now and then.

Are you rolling your eyes now, thinking I am “that” mom who just doesn’t get it? Yes I get it, but succumb to it all? No way. I used to walk into a grocery store and have this unexplainable anxiety as I would shop. I had to let that go. I want my kids to enjoy food, not worry about it so much. I don’t want them to feel that anxiety in the school lunchroom as their friends envy the lunch they brought. “Hey! How come you got chips? The tuna came from a can, not fresh caught.” Honestly, I do teach my children what healthy food to put into their bodies and respect how it makes their bodies feel. They are happy with one small scoop of ice cream and consider that a treat instead of the gargantuan sizes restaurants serve these days. They know the difference, but they also know they have the freedom to make choices. I feel I also have that right. So yes, I will bring my reusable bags a ‘plenty to my local grocery store, farmers’ market and even Target and occasionally I will forget them. I have a compost bin on my kitchen counter with rotting food (which just seems like an oxymoron for a healthy environment, but it helps our Seattle parks), but an eggshell might find its way down my drain. I buy healthy food for my family and make most of our meals at home. I even bought part of a cow from a sustainable and organic local farm last year. Yes, I have my limits and am very conscious of my “footprint”, but to keep up with the eco trends that riddle our city, well, I don’t have that kind of time or money. It comes down to what works for your family and not necessarily the easiest route but one that doesn’t deter from more important things in life. Choose your battles, be mindful of your actions and consequences and don’t worry so much, it’s a good example for everyone.

The Green Challenge

By: Brandy Black

Are you up for an eco challenge?  A way to reduce your footprint?  An experiment?  In 2009 a documentary called “No Impact Man” was released, this film was about a “guilty New York liberal, Colin Beavan [who] decided to practice what he preached for one year.” This meant he would turn off the electricity, stop making garbage, give up TV, compost and give up public transportation “all the while taking his baby daughter and caffeine loving retail-obsessed, television-addicted wife along with him.”

I saw this in the theatre and it was not only an inspiring journey but filled with many funny tender moments with this family. No Impact Man is available on DVD if you want to check it out. However this is not about the movie but a one week experiment that Colin presents to us.

Are you up for it?  Check it out…

For more information or to sign up for the experiment go to No Impact Man

It Ain’t Easy Being Green

By: Annette Cottrell

There is so much buzz in the media these days about being green:  green products, eco houses, hybrid cars.  Every time you turn around there is a new chance to “do the right thing” by spending money.  I think many of us are unsure about what the right thing to do is, so we plunk our money down and substitute the new green thing for the old not-as-green thing and carry on with our lives.

It’s been said that eco buying is elitist because only those of us with expendable income can afford to buy organic food and special biodegradable garbage bags.  But it’s precisely those of us with expendable income who are doing the most damage to the planet.  We are buying more stuff made from finite natural resources that will end up in landfills mere months later.  We all need to realize and admit that We. Are. The. Problem.

Why should we care that the world’s natural forests are nearly all gone?  Or that animals in the Amazon Rain Forest and indigenous peoples are becoming extinct when it’s not happening in our own backyards?  Because our consumption and disposal habits are doing this.  We are the problem.

And because we are the problem we need to be the solution.

Why Green Products are Not the Answer

At some point we need to take a hard look at our behaviors.  Maybe merely swapping labels isn’t the answer.  Green products are one of the fastest growing trends today.  But do they really help?  They may use fewer chemicals and toxins, although there is no requirement for “green” manufacturers to do so.

Much like the high fructose corn syrup industry, which launched an ad campaign last year claiming to be healthier than sugar because you use less of it, the “greenness” of these items may be more in the marketing message than the actual product.

Certainly green products use the same packaging, distribution channels, and disposal processes that conventional products do.  So are they really that much better than?

The Lost “R”

Anyone who came of age in the eighties or later has had the credo “Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle” drilled into their heads.

What you may not remember is that in the late seventies, when this campaign began, it was originally “Refuse, Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle.”  Somehow the Refuse part conveniently disappeared from the slogan.

It’s precisely the Refuse part that we need to practice and that will do the greenest good.

You’ll find several days’ worth of reading on how to reduce, re-use and recycle all over the internet so I won’t re-hash those fine and worthy tips here. Instead I’ll share my story with you and hope that it inspires you to refuse some level of consumption in your life.

I Refuse

A year and a half ago I read “Animal Vegetable Miracle” followed by “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and they shook my world.

I vowed not to give a single dollar to a food company or feed lot operation again.

I drew a line in the sand and have crossed it with only a few exceptions since then.

I bought a counter top grain grinder for about the same chunk of change that I had previously spent on my espresso maker.  I found a local grain farmer and bought 50 pounds of wheat berries from him.  I learned how to use those wheat (or spelt or emmer or rye or oat) berries and a few other ingredients that everybody has in their cupboard to make almost any non-refrigerated processed food product you could buy at the grocery store.

It’s the greenest thing I’ve ever done.

What’s in Your Garbage?

Look at your recycling and your garbage can the next time you take out your trash.  If you’ve already contacted http://opt-out.cdt.org/ and you aren’t using disposable diapers on little ones it should be mostly filled with food packaging.  Imagine if there were no cans, tetra packs, boxes, or plastic wrappers to throw away.  What would you have left?

A Shrinking Problem

Once we had eaten down our cupboards of existing food stuff and stopped buying unnecessary household cleaners, our garbage virtually disappeared.

Suddenly I was not creating demand for the manufacturing of boxes that felled trees, cans that mined the earth, waxy tetra pack linings that required the manufacture of BPA and other toxic chemicals or plastics.  I was not creating demand for food companies to create synthetic ingredients, preservatives or additives for processed foods.  I was not supporting a distribution system that flew or trucked non-local -or worse -out of season foods grown in heated greenhouses half way around the world.

I was not supporting feed lot operations that were not only inhumane but destroyed watersheds and ozone layers.  I was not supporting a commodities market that destroyed small and diverse farmland.  And I was not supporting seed companies that threatened the survival of open pollinated, heirloom seeds with GE varieties which then required more pesticides to bring to market than heirloom, organic crops did.

I was becoming less of the problem but I knew I could do more.

I took out my lawn and planted an organic fruit and vegetable garden.  I grow all of our produce and can some things, but have learned to eat seasonally since it requires no canning and less effort on my part.

Any plant parts we don’t eat go to our backyard chickens.  I grow forage for the hens who eat my cover crops, scratch it up while hunting for any bugs that might destroy my crops, and till it in.  They poop while tilling and thereby fertilize the garden for me.  In addition to that gardening help, they give me beautiful organic, free-range eggs the likes of which you will never find at a grocery store.

Any food we don’t eat the hens eat or we compost to fertilize the garden.  The garden feeds us and the hens, who feed us and the garden.

I have completely re-thought food.

Re-thinking Food Leads to Re-thinking Consumption

I’ve done lots of other things like only using cloth diapers, rechargeable batteries, and LED lightbulbs.  I turn down my thermostat, turn off unnecessary appliances, carpool, wash my car less often, do not use chemicals on my lawn.  These things are important too.

But something happens to you when you rethink food.  It makes you rethink your whole life because food is the most fundamental thing there is.  It’s the fastest way to change behavior, or build community, or create happiness.

Somehow we’ve lost the connection with food and it’s filtered through to every aspect of our lives.  We are disconnected with what we eat and what we are doing to the planet.

Once you stop going to the grocery store for food you will look at every item in your cupboards.  You might learn to make toothpaste from salt and baking soda, or lotion from olive oil and beeswax.  You might start cleaning your house with baking soda and vinegar and feel confident doing so because those two, non-toxic items, when used in tandem, kill more germs than bleach.  You just might refuse to buy all those other unnecessary products, rather than trying to swap a white-labeled product for a green labeled one.  You might just refuse.

My message to you is this:  rethink food and refuse.  It will be the most powerful, greenest thing you will ever do.  And if everyone did it we could change the world.

Annette Cottrell blogs about living sustainably in the city at www.sustainableeats.com

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. [green image: flickr member Dylan 66]

Estate Sales

By: Tanya Ward Goodman

Planning to re-decorate?  Looking for the perfect stockpot?  Need a love seat or a side table or a place to stash your magazines? Forget Ikea, take a pass on those fine and fancy things at DWR and hit an estate sale.  If your love is mid-century, you can find original 1950s sofas.  Looking for Asian antiques?  They’re out there.  A brass lamp shaped like a fish?   It’ll probably turn up.  The estate sale is not only one of the most eco-friendly ways to furnish your home; it’s also great fun.

I love touring open houses and antique stores and so it’s funny that it’s taken me so long to come around to estate sales.   At an estate sale you not only get to walk through some pretty amazing houses, you get to rummage through drawers, garages and cupboards, too.  The secrets that are tidied up for the Sunday open house are all on view at the estate sale.

An estate sale is different from a garage sale in that it encompasses the entire contents of a house.  That means you’ll find paperback books for twenty-five cents next to original oil paintings priced at five hundred dollars and up.  It means that you can find impersonal things like drapes and muffin tins along with the most intimate of souvenirs.  Recently, I was at a sale in Arcadia where it seemed that everything in the house had been purchased at a department store.  It was all very nice, but it didn’t tell me that much about the people who had lived there.  In a bin in the kitchen, I found a little jar filled with seashells, a tin box crammed with rubber bands and a pile of cookbooks.  Each of these things helped outline a delicate shape of the former owners.

Some owners leave a deeper impression.  At a sale in the valley, I found a lot of what I have to call “sled dog art.”  There must have been two hundred pieces in a collection that would have made Jack London proud.  Shelves were crowded with paintings, drawings and statuary all depicting huskies trudging through the snow.  It was amazingly specific.  Though I didn’t buy anything at this particular sale, I took this detail home with me.  Perhaps one day it will show up in a novel or a short story.  Perhaps mention in this article is enough.

For a writer, an estate sale is fertile territory indeed.  I find wonderful objects but also snippets of conversation or the sudden movement of a buyer to a true “find,” all of these, potential sparks to story. Collectors hunch over I-phones looking up the value of this piece or that, neighbors grab all the boxes of holiday decorations from the garage and often, one soft soul or another mourns over a pile of family photographs or a box of slides.

For me, it is impossible to skirt the fact that an estate sale is about an end.  Often it’s death, divorce or foreclosure that releases these things back into the world.  What I find heartening is that what had meaning to one person can have a different kind of meaning to someone else.  The accumulation of a life can be spread out over dozens of other lives.

I am not a dealer, I don’t have a really good idea of “value,” but I know what I like.  I look for things that speak to me, that seem to belong with me.  I always have a few categories I’m looking to fill: side tables, garden statues, dining room chairs, but I leave myself open because some of the best things I’ve brought home I didn’t even know I was looking for.

DETAILS, INFO and ETIQUETTE

If you want to take a trip to an estate sale, consider signing up for email notification with some local estate sale companies.  Hughes Estate Sales http://hughesestatesales.com/ and http://www.estatesales.net are two good listings.  These sites will give you advance warning of sales in your area and they often post photos of items available.

Most sales start early.  The most serious buyers are there even earlier, so plan accordingly.  At a recent sale in Pasadena, there was a line to get in.  On the second or third day of a sale, discounts are often given, though there often isn’t much left.

If there are price tags on items, it is customary to “pull the tag,” to claim it.  Though I have seen people darting through a sale pulling tags willy-nilly and then returning them later after they’ve taken a breath and decided what they really want, this doesn’t seem very sportsmanlike.

Be sure to find out if the sale is cash only.  Many dealers will take credit cards, but it’s good to be certain.

Bring your own box or bag for “smalls.”   Tiny items are tricky to lug around while you browse.

Enjoy recycling, reusing and refurbishing!

Product Of The Day

Brought to you by Out With Mommy- K. Pearson Brown

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New car seats for kids usually come in huge, wasteful cardboard boxes, but not the Cosco Scenera Convertible Car Seat, packaged in the first-ever eco-friendly travel and storage bag. The carry bag has eliminated over 65 tons of paperboard waste, saving an estimated 2,700-plus trees a year, and cut warehouse and transportation costs by 33 percent. The seat features a 5-point internal harness system and detachable cup holder. Fits children 5-35 lbs. rear-facing and 22-40 lbs. forward-facing. Target. $54.99.

Eco Product Of The Day

Brought to you by Out With Mommy- K. Pearson Brown

All-natural, low-fat and dairy and allergen-free Jolly llama Sorbet offers premium frozen whole fruit in individual 3 oz. squeeze-up tubes four flavors (strawberry, blueberry, acai, and mango) naturally sweetened with pure cane sugar and averaging just 75 calories each. Ages 1+.  Find stores or order online at Jollyllamasorbets.com.  $1.69 each or $36 for a 24-tube case plus $12.50 shipping/handling.

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