Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska Newsletter

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Simple Living Newsletter
March 2009 issue

In this Issue

	SPRING GREETINGS!
	Dear Readers,
	Eat Better for Less This Spring
	Wanda Signs Book Contract with Krause
	Looking for Common Sense Wisdom
	Vacation Matters Summit Planned
	From Consumerism to Sustainability
	Wanda’s Tips for Spring

Current News

Sign up for Wanda’s Facebook page. A Facebook page has been established for fans of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska. It’s free! Click on button to sign up, and join the conversation.

Utilizing the wonders of national phone-ins that showcase mental health and simplicity experts, Simple Living America celebrates a new member benefit in 2009: free monthly guest speaker conference calls for one unforgettable hour, including Q&A with each. Become a member of Simple Living America at www.getsatisfied.org/join to participate in as many calls as desired during the year. Conference reservations max out quickly, so members who don’t want to miss a word of sanity and simplicity but are unable to make a call when scheduled will receive 24/7 telephone playback access upon request. Upcoming speakers include: April - Dr. Allen D. Kanner (co-editor, “Psychology and Consumer Culture”); May - Dr. Robert E. Thayer (author, “Calm Energy”); June - Dr. Yukio Okano (Kaiser Permanente psychologist); July - Wanda Urbanska; August - John de Graaf; September - Dr. Cecile Andrews.

The January ’09 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, ran a feature article, “Back to Basics,” describing how an increasing number of Americans are embracing simple living while seeking personal fulfillment. This article identifies Wanda as “the de facto Martha Stewart of the voluntary simplicity movement.” Check it out; this meaty piece is packed with useful information.

In memoriam – Millard Dean Fuller (1935 – 2009). The loss of Millard Fuller has been hard to accept for those of us at Simple Living. Millard Fuller was a great and fearless leader, a champion of equalizing opportunity through providing affordable housing to the underserved worldwide. The co-founder with his wife, Linda C. Fuller, of Habitat for Humanity International and later the Fuller Center for Housing, Millard was an early and ardent supporter of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska. In 2001, he and Linda donated a weekend of their time for an early fund-raising event in North Carolina, and the couple appeared on series on several occasions. Rest in peace great servant, remarkable man.

Simple Living Tips

1. Pack your lunch. What better way of feeling good about what you eat than when you make your own lunch. As with many other simple living choices, at-home lunch preparation carries multiple and overlapping benefits. You not only save money but you bring conscious thought – and intention – into your life.

2. Declutter your home to help clear your space, your mind and the flow of energy in your living space. But don’t chuck perfectly usable stuff into the trash. Take it upon yourself to find a new purpose for your outdated items. Donate them to charity, have a yard sale or consign them to generate some cash.

3. Reduce your use of fossil-fueled transportation. Bike, walk, carpool or take public transport whenever you can. Your body, your pocketbook and the planet will thank you for it.

4. And finally, take a page out of the First Family’s book and plant a new victory – or kitchen – garden this spring. What a great way to establish a closer connection to nature and to help appreciate what you eat. Start small. Remember, no bite is too small to make a difference.

Calls to Action

SIMPLE LIVING with Wanda Urbanska is broadcast on public television stations throughout America. If our series airs in your area, call or email your station manager or director of programming to tell him or her how much you appreciate the program. If we’re not included in your market, contact that person to request that they carry the series. Help spread the word about the benefits of the simple living lifestyle. Remember, nothing’s too small to make a difference. A call or email to your public television affiliate is a small gesture that can make a big difference to you – and to the world!

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SPRING GREETINGS!

Simple Living Newsletter sponsored by NCFI

Dear Readers,

Enjoy your March Simple Living enewsletter as we move into spring! I love it when my 11-year-old son Henry brings me a surprise daffodil or hyacinth picked on his walks home from school. Spring represents a season of renewal, of change, the flowering of new promise.

Much ink and attention has been devoted to the dire financial crisis our nation and globe face today. Yet the time has never been better to embrace lifestyle simplification, to evaluate changes big and small, to pare down your consumption levels, to broaden your circle of friendship. Simple living is a philosophy and a lifestyle that we at Simple Living – along with colleagues worldwide – have been advocating for decades. It’s a good thing when even the frugal become more frugal and when the extravagant stop to reconsider and search for new answers and direction. Here’s to a better tomorrow!

Enjoy, Wanda

Eat Better for Less This Spring

By Laura Bruzas

What better time is there than the arrival of a new season to revisit your eating and dining habits and resolve to make change? Adopting some of the ideas listed below can make a big difference:

1. Leave winter behind and get the biggest nutritional bang for your shopping buck by embracing local foods. Fresh produce starts to lose nutrients three or four days after harvesting. The average piece of U.S.-grown produce travels 1,500 miles over a four- to seven-day period before reaching your grocers, so most produce is nutrient-zapped before it reaches your dinner table. Check your state's agriculture department website for a month-by-month list of what's in season in your area this spring; buy local when possible.

2. Develop a green thumb. You'd be surprised at the diversity of foods that you can grow with minimum fuss in your own home or apartment. You can't get any more local (or fresh) than food harvested from your own windowsill. A few foods that can be successfully grown indoors include salad greens, tomatoes, green onions, herbs and garlic. And if you are lucky enough to have a bit of outdoor space (balcony, back yard, etc.), the possibilities are endless for what you can grow.

3. Declare war on waste. Inventory what you have at home before you go grocery shopping and plan your weekly menus around items nearing their expiration date. A study from the University of Arizona found that the average family of four in the U.S. tosses 14 percent of the food they buy, because it either spoils or goes uneaten. That's double what was thrown out 20 years ago.

BIO: Laura Bruzas is a green kitchen economist, author of 50 Simple Ways to Eat Well for Less, and founder of HealthyDining.org, an all-volunteer community education and outreach effort promoting food choices that foster personal wellness, conservation and animal compassion.

Wanda Signs Book Contract with Krause

Wanda Urbanska has just signed a contract with Krause Publications for her latest book, tentatively titled, “Reclaim the Good Life: Common Sense Wisdom from Wanda Urbanska.” It is slated for publication in May 2010.

Wanda’s new book will present solutions for managing money, reducing consumption and debt, while offering wisdom on issues involving work, home, family and healthy living. She’ll draw on her 20-year career as a simplicity and sustainability advocate to help readers establish common-sense habits for survival and happiness – always needed but never more so than during these challenging economic times.

“We’re delighted to be working with Wanda on “Reclaim the Good Life,” says Candy Wiza, acquisitions editor for Krause’s new Simple Living line of books. “As a leader of voluntary simplicity, her inspiration, intuition and understanding of the needs of people and community are outstanding, and I look forward to an enjoyable, long-lasting and beneficial partnership.”

Krause Publications – the world’s largest publisher of hobby and special-interest books – will release four titles in its Simple Living line throughout 2009, including “Your Eco-Friendly Yard” (June), “Natural Alternatives for You and Your Home” (July) “Grow Your Own Tree Hugger” (September) and “Quick-Fix Healthy Mix” (December).

Krause’s mission to “Enjoy the simple things in life while you reduce, reuse and recycle” and Urbanska’s goals through her Simple Living platform are beautifully aligned. “ I'm delighted to find a new publishing partner in Krause,” Wanda says.

Looking for Common Sense Wisdom

Wanda is looking for stories of individual transformation – and actionable tips – from simplifiers living in the United States and Canada to feature in her upcoming book, “Reclaim the Good Life.” If you are making conscious efforts to transform your life – to live lower on the food chain and reduce your carbon footprint – and have common sense wisdom to share, please send an email to Wandaurbanska@simplelivingtv.net with your ideas and contact information. Wanda may be in touch!

Vacation Matters Summit Planned

By John de Graaf

Cecile Andrews and I are currently planning the first-ever national Vacation Matters Summit, to be held at Seattle University from August 10-12, 2009. Some 300 stakeholders from universities, the travel industry, labor, religious organizations, family groups, environmental organizations and business will come together to talk about the value of vacation time in improving Americans’ health, family bonding, access to nature, workplace productivity and overall life satisfaction. The conference will include eight plenary speakers and nearly 50 workshop presenters in several tracks: health, family, social justice, recreational, educational and social benefits, business and policy changes. Cecile will be making a presentation on “simple vacations.” More broadly, the conference will look at the prospect of cultural change following the recession.

Vacation Matters Summit is sponsored by TAKE BACK YOUR TIME. Full information will appear soon on the TAKE BACK YOUR TIME website, www.timeday.org, or at www.right2vacation.org. Registration is moderately priced at $95 ($45 for students); food and accommodations at Seattle University will also be affordable for most. For more information, email me at jodg@comcast.net.

BIO: John de Graaf is the national coordinator of TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, an organization challenging time poverty and overwork in the U.S. and Canada (see www.timeday.org). He's co-author of the best-selling Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (Berrett-Koehler, 2001/2005) and the producer of numerous PBS documentaries.

From Consumerism to Sustainability

By Erik Assadourian

Climate change grows more threatening every day. Yet most responses offered so far only attempt to address the symptoms — namely greenhouse gas emissions. Curbing emissions through technology change or efficiency measures won’t be enough. Instead, we have to focus on the root problem of climate change – not to mention many other ecological and social problems – the consumer culture. To succeed, we’ll need to replace this failed cultural system with a new viable system: a culture of sustainability that focuses us away from tying our well-being so closely to how much we consume, and instead focuses on living a satisfying life sustainably . If we cannot engineer a cultural shift, we risk consuming our planet until it literally cannot sustain us.

“State of the World 2010” will paint a picture of what a culture of sustainability could look like and how we could develop it. More importantly, it will provide many case studies of the “cultural pioneers” who are already hard at work creating this new cultural system. Case studies will include: individuals hard at work to create social marketing campaigns that use the techniques of advertising to market sustainable living; leaders of social movements redirecting priorities like Slow Food and Take Back Your Time; business managers who are creating businesses not to maximize profit but to maximize societal benefits; and educators who are centering schools’ curriculums on lessons of sustainability. “State of the World 2010” will illustrate the growth of this new culture of sustainability, and the people cultivating it, and in the process, hopefully inspire many more to become pioneers themselves.

BIO: Erik Assadourian is a research associate at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC. He is project director of State of the World 2010, www.worldwatch.org .

Wanda’s Tips for Spring

1. Resolve to eliminate – or reduce –SUIs in your life. SUIs are the “single-use items” that have insinuated themselves into the daily fabric of American life. We’re talking about disposable coffee cups, plastic utensils, foam doggie boxes, beverage cups, paper towels, paper napkins and the like. SUIs support a culture of convenience and disposability – a “no-fuss, no-muss” mentality – from which those pursuing the simple path invariably move away.

2. Reuse your former throw-aways. Baggies and the like do good work in keeping your sandwiches and munchies fresh. But instead of throwing them away, wash them out and reuse. You save precious money and our environment.

3. Help pay your mortgage (or rent) by considering a house-share. Our living spaces have grown so large, do we all really need all that space? A guest room and bath could make excellent quarters for a single person who’s low on cash. Not only are you providing housing for someone, and generating income for yourself but building new relationships that – with the right care and handling – could last a lifetime.

4. Increase your donations. This may seem counterintuitive during this time of economic crisis. But if you’re feeling pinched, imagine how hard others – especially charities – are strapped today. The feeling of generosity is a freeing one. Consider direct donations of much-needed item like food, cleaning agents, books, clothing and garden supplies. Remember, local charities are generally the best.

5. Have some fun! Celebrate life with friends by organizing a pot-luck meal and clothing swap. Or be inventive and swap something different like tchotchkes, garden tools, books or kitchen utensils. Or try baby clothes, Christmas decorations, or jigsaw puzzles. Whatever you organize – bringing people, food and curiosities together – promises to deliver a special event which will add fun and excitement into your life without costing you more than the price of a casserole.

6. Consider co-coaching. Coaching is a great way to help bring change into your life and the life of a partner, friend or designee. Instead of plunking down cash to hire a professional, find a trusted friend, relative or individual through a barter network to work with. Study up on what’s involved and set guidelines, then establish a regular weekly or biweekly call (or meeting). It’s a wonderful (and free!) way of bringing about change in your life. Having an advocate for your journey, like a soccer coach rooting on from the sidelines, can help you gain clarity with your professional and personal goals.

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