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TO-DO LIST

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HEY! HAVE YOU HEARD?

Well what do you know? Seems they've come up with a new name for doing just what we've been talking about on our blogs - blogs like Down to Earth, Redneck Mother, Beauty that Moves, and Eyes of Wonder - for some time now. It's called "insourcing." I'm thinking there must be a whole lot more people jumping on board than we realized, if they had to coin a special phrase for it.

According to Ylan Q. Mui at the Washington Post, the economic downturn is forcing America's households to learn a tough lesson: how to fend for themselves. Wal-Mart is reporting a 30% increase in sales of starter sewing kits, and Proctor & Gamble has had many more people calling their hotline, wanting to know how to dye their hair at home. Fears about being able to make mortgage payments have triggered such a dramatic change in behavior, that "marketers and businesses have coined a name for it. They call it 'insourcing': doing yourself what you once gladly paid others to do for you."

Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy (every retail merchandiser's bible), says "There are many of us that have been spending money that we can't afford to spend and have taken on habits that we had no business taking on." These time-based trade-offs, such as pet services and yard maintenance, are some of the easiest forms of economizing that a person can do. Underhill predicts that this newfound self-sufficiency will last even after the recession is a distant memory, for "Americans have always taken some pride in doing things for themselves." I hope he's right about that.

John Kelso, popular columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, says insourcing is when you decide that, since you're being taken to the cleaners by the economic downturn, you will stop going to the cleaners. He has no plans to attempt removing his own appendix with a pocketknife, but he has begun to toss his Yorkie in the bathtub, even though Ziggy gives him a dirty look as if to say, "If I were a Doberman, I'd kill you." If you have your own insourcing techniques and skills that you enjoy, such as making your own soap, candles, brie, or moonshine, Kelso wants to hear about it. Just send your insourcing tips to jkelso@statesman.com, and he'll share them to help others save a few bucks.

MEDITATING ON MEDITATION

For years I have been curious about meditation. I worked with a girl in college, back in the early 70s, who was big into TM. There was something different about her. I wanted to understand where her calm glow came from, but when she tried to explain it to me, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I thought about it again when I was reading Eat, Pray, Love. I adored the chapters set in Italy and Bali, but the way she spent her days in India? Well, that's pretty much my idea of Hell.

I've always referred to my time on the porch each day, watching the sun come up, as my "morning meditation," but that's not really accurate. As I understand it, to meditate is to empty one's head of all thought, and to just BE. What I do is more like releasing my brain to run free and explore the stratosphere at will, then, when it lands on something it finds interesting, I slowly rein it back in and begin to write about whatever it has discovered.

I've also grown to appreciate the many solo car trips I've had to make since my parents' health began to decline, not because I enjoy driving (I despise it), but because the monotony of it forces me to drift over into right-brained mode, where I am most creative. I've come up with some of my best design ideas and creative problem solving while driving or taking long walks, but I suppose that doesn't really count as meditation either, huh?

The subject came up at coffee yesterday, since one of the Muses is taking a class from a visiting yogi. Again it was explained to me how meditation is a way of banishing monkey-mind and pulling yourself fully into the present moment. Later that afternoon I was outside, watering my plants by hand, when suddenly I thought "Eureka! This is it! This is how I meditate!"

You see, usually, whenever I step outside, or even view my garden through the window, I am immediately bombarded by a thousand little voices, each crying out "Please trim me!", or feed me, or move me, or get these nasty aphids off of me! It's hard for me to concentrate on the garden's beauty, because I'm too busy thinking about all the work that needs to be done.

It is only when I reach for the hose, and turn the faucet handle, that the voices finally go quiet. All of my attention becomes completely focused on the one plant that is beneath this trickle of water, and at last I can see it. Really see it. I notice its tiny details, realize that it's not even one that I planted, and must have been delivered by a bird or the wind. I can see how much it has changed since the last time we visited. Finally, I am fully present in the moment.

Once I have completed my circuit, I go back to the faucet and shut it off. Then I turn around for one last sweeping look. Only this time, I hear no voices. Instead, I am struck dumb by its beauty, and filled with awe at the utter miracle of it all.

A NEW WAY OF EATING

There was a time when I spent at least a couple of hours every weekend going through my cookbooks, deciding which entrees to fix for the week, making out grocery lists, and shopping. While at the grocery store, I would throw in a head of lettuce, a couple of cans of beans and fruit, some fresh broccoli or asparagus, and rice or potatoes. Notice how the veggies were a very minor afterthought to the meal-planning, and stayed pretty much the same year-round.








It just occurred to me recently that all of that has somehow been turned upside down in recent years - especially since moving to Wimberley. My new go-to, easy-peasy weeknight meal goes something like this: Start with whatever fresh veggies I got from The Bountiful Sprout or the farmer's market this week - last night I roasted broccoli and new spring carrots, tonight I will toss together a quick slaw from cabbage and kohlrabi. While the veggies are roasting, or whatever, I whip up something simple to go with them, using an egg or some cheese, and maybe a slice of artisanal bread or a fresh tortilla, all from TBS as well. One night it might be goat cheese toasts with a dab of roasted tomatoes. On another it could be my Italian egg sandwich, migas, or a fritatta. Ooh - that reminds me! Tomorrow I'm going to do a site visit for a producer who wishes to sell her goose eggs through TBS. Ever tasted one? I ought to be able to make a doozie of a fritatta from those!

On weekends, when John is here, we turn to slow food. Lovely braises and stews, usually involving manly cuts of meat - much easier now that Richardson Farms has joined TBS as a producer. There was a great article about them in the latest edition of edibleAUSTIN. If only they hadn't used that darling photo of their toddler, hugging a precious little piglet, on the cover. I'm afraid that image just might intrude upon my enjoyment of those beautiful pork cutlets I recently ordered from them.

WILL THE REAL GARDENER PLEASE STAND UP?

I read many blogs these days about people who are growing their own food, and I want desperately for us to be those kinds of people. There's just one problem. We're not. In order to have a productive veggie patch, someone in the family has to be willing to do a whole lotta grunt work. I'm looking around and wondering, who's that gonna be?

Ten or fifteen years ago I fell madly in love with gardening, because it was a great creative outlet for me. I didn't particularly enjoy the back-breaking labor of digging and hauling, nor the never-ending tedium of trying to keep multiple huge beds watered and weed-free during long, hot Texas summers, but I put up with that facet because I was so desperately happy to be doing something creative.

John didn't fall in love with gardening. He fell in love with me being a gardener. He adored having a gorgeous view from every window in the house, taking his evening stroll along the pathways while smoking a cigar, visiting the fishies in his pond... But pruning? Weeding? Turning compost? Reading up on a plant to figure out how to keep it happy? Fuhgiddabouddit!

My biggest problem was that we kept moving. I'd spend several years landscaping our yard from scratch, get it just to the point where it was starting to fill in and look good, then we'd get transferred, and I'd have to walk away from it all and start again. That, coupled with encroaching age and arthritis, made it harder and harder to get motivated each time. Then, along came Seasonality - our house here in the Hill Country.

When we decided to buy it, we sold our house in the Houston burbs (the garden pictured here), rented a townhouse closer in, and spent every other weekend in Wimberley. I couldn't begin gardening here yet because I had no way to keep things watered, or protected from critters, between visits. So, for three years I was a woman without a garden, and had to be content with container gardening at the townhouse. I had my work as visual merchandiser to satisfy my creative urges, and since I no longer had to spend every spare moment weeding and watering, I was able to take up writing.

At last I am in the Hill Country full-time, but now I have more creative outlets than I know what to do with! Also, my body took a good bit of abuse during my years of lugging pottery and statues into groupings at the nursery, and I am extremely hesitant to do anything that might land me back in physical therapy, and have me referring to Vicodin as "my best friend". So, here's poor John, tapping his foot and wondering when I'm going to come to my senses and go back to being the gardener he once knew and loved - the one who was willing to unload and schlep an entire truckload of mulch singlehandedly. Well Dear, I have only one thing to say. Fuhgiddabouddit!

But wait! What is this I am seeing out the window? Why, someone just spent their entire weekend schlepping mulch to all our beds, without even being asked, and it wasn't me! By golly, there's hope for us yet!

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

There was an article in our paper this week, proclaiming something on the order of "When the going gets tough, shop local!" It had nothing to do with the locavore movement. It was about supporting local businesses in an economic crisis. If you are like me, trying to make the pennies stretch as far as possible, your first thought is probably "Yeah, right - buy all my groceries at the local store, when I can get them in the city for a fraction of the cost." But, after I had time to mull it over a bit, I realized that those "savings" come at a price.

One question we should all be asking is, why is it that those big box stores can afford to sell their products for so much less than our local merchants? If you don't know the answer to this, then you need to watch this great little video, called The Story of Stuff (it deserves an oscar!).

Second, think about what happens when you spend your money in your local community, as opposed to leaving it with Mr. Big Box in the city, or Ms. Dot Com, on-line. You begin to cause those little "ripples" I've mentioned, don't you? As the money passes from one hand to another, it's saving local jobs, feeding local families, keeping local businesses afloat, giving you more local choices and helping to preserve everything unique about your little community - the very things that made you fall in love with it and want to move there.

Third, think about those things that an independent merchant has to offer you, that you just can't get from Big Box and Dot Com. For six years I worked at an unusual, independent garden center in Houston (pictured above). Time and time again I overheard customers telling our salespeople "I can get this same plant at Home Depot for a lot less," and that was true, they could. So why did those very same people keep coming back to shop in our store? Could it have been the excellent service they received there? Maybe they liked knowing that there would always be someone nearby to assist them and answer their questions. Perhaps it was the quality of our product. They had seen all the TLC that our plants received, while the one's at Big Box were pretty much ignored, then tossed in the trash when they started to look too bad (you can afford to do that when you only pay pennies per plant). Maybe they kept coming back because their gardening attempts were more successful when they shopped with us, since they weren't being sold plants that were inappropriate to the season and climate. Personally, I like to think they came to us for inspiration, since that was my job at the nursery. I hope that just wandering our pathways gave them so many ideas that they couldn't wait to get home and get started. How often has that happened to you at Big Box? I also knew of young moms from the neighborhood who took a daily walk around the place with one child in the stroller and another in a tummy pack, and who occasionally baked us cookies as a way of saying thank you. Can you do that at Dot Com? Isn't all this worth a few extra pennies?

Many of you have probably seen tee-shirts and bumper stickers sporting the logo "Keep Austin Weird", but have you ever leaned in close enough to read what's written below? If so, you know that it's actually a reminder to support local businesses, for they are what makes Austin unique. I am quite fond of that logo. I'm even more fond of the one pictured here, on the bumper of my own car, and I'd like to thank whoever wrote that newspaper article this week, for reminding me why I put it there in the first place.