Happy Birthday to SCOTT DAVID SANDEFUR!

Dude, you're almost as old as ME! Remember when we were kids and would argue about our difference in age? I'd say, "You're about three years younger." And you'd say, "NO! I'm 2 years and 10 months younger than you! That's not three years, it's TWO years!!!" Heehee! We were such nerds! (By the way, you can CLICK on the picture collages below to see them much larger)



I'm sure glad that you're my brother. I consider myself lucky to have shared my childhood with you and blessed to still talk frequently with you today, as grown-ups. And I'm tickled that my son, Brandon Scott, gets to proudly carry your name. What an honor!

I love you, bro!

(Above are pictures of Scott as a child and below are pictures of Scott all grown up...lots of neice and nephew shots. Click on each collage or picture to see it enlarged.)


If you have a moment, please leave Scott a birthday message in the comments below. Thanks!

Happy Four Months To Me!

Oh my. He's growing up so quickly. Just wanted to share his latest trick. He loves to sit up by himself (but we still stay close by for those little topples that do occasionally happen). I'll put up a new slide show or collage in a few days--still snapping pictures all the time.

Small Town Nebraska

Just a few years ago we were living in a busy, bustling suburb of the enormous DFW, Texas area. We could pretty much go in any direction and inside an hour we'd bump into a mall or two. There were grocery stores, gas stations, and churches on just about every corner. Running any one errand could easily turn into a full day-long event due to traffic, long waiting lines, and other distractions along the way. We shopped anonymously--rarely bumping into those we knew. If anything happened to one car, then life, as we knew it, would come to an absolute halt--so we had to have two cars. A cell phone was imperative lest we lose our loved ones and only hear from one another once we were getting ready for bed each night.

Today we live in small town Nebraska. And while it's definitely not without its own set of unique issues and frustrations, life is much slower and simplicities seem more appreciated. We often walk to the library, to the video store, to the grocery store, and to church. The "police" are no longer some anonymous group of mean-spirited people out to get you--now they are Bob, whose children play ball with yours, and Joe, whose wife owns the adorable little bakery down town. The mailman still walks door-to-door to deliver mail and you bump into your doctor at the grocery store every Saturday. The teenager next door knows your phone number by heart because that's your ID number to check out videos where she works. When there's a parade, the question isn't "Will you be going?" it's "Which corner will you be standing on?" If you go to the state park or the movies (only one theater--four movies), you call a family or two to see if they want to come along. That's just what you do when you live in a town of less than 6,000 people (half of whom are students).

In small towns, I love how "family" includes more than those related by blood. It includes those who call to tell you they missed you at some local gathering and those who drop by a couple meals after you have a baby. You simply can't disappear for any length of time (or fail to blog for long) without having a neighbor or friend check on you. You matter. You belong. What once felt claustrophobic is now so comforting.

I want to remember that the "small, small world" syndrome is what we make it. We can all decide to take life more slowly and familiarize ourselves with others or we can close our doors and watch opportunities slip by. No matter where I live, I always want to know all of my neighbors and have block parties on 4th of July the way we've done here every year. I want to attend small business open houses, house warming parties, and fit in as many trips to the various home held Christmas parties open to the town. I want to get up early enough on Sunday mornings to stroll to church and not be in such a rush afterwards that we can't accept a friend's invitation to lunch.

Yes, I've done my fair share of complaining about missing the conveniences of big city life. It's time to make amends because I believe, in many ways, this secluded, small town life has certainly saved this family some future heartache. There are hundreds of eensy teensy precious moments that we might have looked right over had we not been forced into a much lower gear. The one we were in previously was far too fast. And being on cruise control only aided our inability to see more than we did. It's nice to finally savor the moment.

ONLINE QUIZ: I am Elizabeth Bennet

Take the Quiz here!

I've always considered these tests to be so goofy. I must be really bored this morning because I did it anyway. I was thinking to myself, If I really were an Elizabeth Bennet, I wouldn't be taking this dumb quiz! What do you think?

Here is the final result: "You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of ridiculousness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed."

Hot Summer Days Cool Rainy Nights

Just wanted to share more Miller summer pictures. The kids all love going swimming--even Brighton. We've been going pretty regularly. It's a very nice way to cool off on these near 100 degree days. The funny thing is that usually right after we get back home, we have a thunderstorm of some sort. They're often short downpours, but provide just enough clouds and wetness to cool things down before bedtime. It's also kept our beautiful green grass in the front yard nice and lush. On this particular day we came home around 5:15 and about 15 minutes later, an unexpected hail storm swept through. I shot the video below from one of our back windows. By the way, you can see that the green weed killer Lee made is working back there--LOL!

The rest of the pictures from this day can be found in our Picasa account HERE (including BJ's new antique school desk given to her by our local video store manager). ENJOY! Oh, and pix from LAST year's hail storm are HERE.

The Story of Stuff

I know. It's odd. I've been offline for the better part of four days. There's a reason. I needed some time to regroup, to look, again, at the world around me--at the things I've accepted and believed about my world, to see what needs to be changed, and to see what role I might play in that change. This has been a LONG time coming, but something had to be the proverbial "last straw." And, of all things, it was an email forward from someone I respected. So today I'm going to bump a few other drafted, stock-piled posts I've been slowly working on for this one.

Most of you know that I don't usually do "forwards." I try to use email more to communicate personally, to write letters or notes to friends/family, to make personal announcements, etc. With all the information passed on email (by the way, I currently have over 2,000 unread NON-spam emails in my account to be read), I hardly have time to read email forwards, to check validity of some stories with snopes, and to decide where to file it, if anywhere. I have even less time to decide who, of my email friends, would enjoy it and whether THEY have the time or need to read it. So...on Thursday my friend Teddi, who also doesn't usually do forwards, forwarded me the following link to "The Story of Stuff," I was surprised...yet intrigued. This must be important. She warned that it was 20 minutes long, but well worth 20 measly minutes of my life. And I believed her because, well, she's Teddi. I could easily give 20 minutes of undivided attention to this video.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I've been humbled and literally silenced since watching this video. It's taken me a few days to find my public voice again. As a matter of fact, I've visited this story more than 4 times. The first time I watched, I was looking for political and other biases. Because, let's face it, there's always bias in every. single. message. But once I made it beyond the blame game and some not-so-subtle sarcasm, I found the meat of the message. It wasn't pretty.

Granted, a good portion of it is something I've known for a long while, but there were some underlying things in the second half of the video that I wasn't precisely aware of. It haunted me as I walked through my house looking at my "stuff."

Just a few examples (disclaimer: these quotes may not be exact, I was writing as quickly as I could while watching):

Only 1% of the total materials produced and purchased are kept beyond 6 months.

The average house size has DOUBLED since the 1970s.

We each create TWICE the amount of daily garbage today that we did just 30 years ago.

The US has less than 4% of our original forest.

We have 5% of the world's population, but we use 30% of the world's resources.

If the entire world consumed resources as fast as we (the US) do, we'd need 3 to 5 planet Earths.

Furthermore, I was stunned by the Planned Obsolescence and Perceived Obsolescence that grew out of the aftermath of WWII. That's what angered me most because I've bought it hook, line, and sinker. Planned Obsolescence was when designers purposefully discovered ways to create products to break fast enough to keep the consumer's business booming. Ever heard the famous phrase "They don't make 'em like they used to?" It's true. They don't. On purpose. And when breaking didn't work fast enough, Perceived Obsolescence stepped up to make it necessary to replace items more quickly.

An influencial voice of the post WWII time was President Eisenhower's council of economic advisors chairman who stated: "The American economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods." So...produce, we did. Another influencial quote during the beginning of American consumer capitalism was made by Victor Lebow, a 20th century economist, who said in 1955 that:

"Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... we need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

Since watching I've been making a list of items I've bought that we had to throw away within months to a couple years of purchasing for failure to work or for being outdated. And this is just a start:

several irons, several hairdryers, dozens and dozens of beeping, flashing toys, many broken picture frames, broken pots/pans/dishes/tupperware, 4 non-working computer monitors in just five years, hundreds of pens, furniture (book shelves, desks, chairs, beds, etc.), several cell phones, several home phones, answering machines, digital cameras, printers, DVD players, TWO ovens, VCRs, TVs, multiple baby items (car seats, etc.), many, many, many flashlights, many firestarters, yard stuff (broken hoes, rakes, shovels, etc.), tire tubes, many shoes, fans, old non-recyclable satellite dishes, and plenty more...

My list doesn't even touch the regular consumables that we threw away daily like plastics, diapers, styrofoam, etc. Ick! I'm rather pleased over the multiple treasures we've found that were used or discarded elsewhere--and the various items we've recycled either by donating to others or finding a decent new home for. But recycling isn't nearly enough, folks. The need for "stuff" is a crisis. I'll have to track down the quote, but I believe it's Dave Ramsey who says that it takes us 3 years to accumulate today what it took our parents a lifetime to acquire. Scary stuff.

There are many suggestions provided in a link at the end of the presentation. One of the suggestions was to go unplugged more often, which we did this week. Annie Leonard says that even if online communities give us a good jumping off point, studies show that advocacy has a greater impact on change when practiced in our own communities as opposed to online/Internet communities. Not only did I talk more with my surrounding neighbors and friends in my town, but I got far more accomplished in my home than ever before. WOW! I definitely think I'll do it more often. We've even discussed getting rid of our TV completely (if we could only get NFL games online in real-time, we'd probably make this change TODAY).

As always, I'm still sorting through this information--will continue checking other sources--learning what I can about my own community. I'm curious what you think about all this. If you do take the time to watch this video, I'd love it if you'd drop me an email or leave comments below.