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Simple Living Newsletter
September 2009 issue

In this Issue

	"Less is More" Released at Local Food Dinner
	Americans in Warsaw: Wanda & Henry Go to Poland
	An Ounce of Prevention through a Roll of the Dice
	Wanda to Write the Builders of Hope story
	Wanda Speaks at American Library Association Meeting in Chicago

Current News

Savings are up; Trash is down

Did you know that American households are saving more -- despite the economic downturn? In fact, according to the Commerce Department, the savings rate reached 6.9 percent of after-tax personal income in May 2009 -- the highest rate since 1993. This is good news for long-term household financial security and suggests that Americans are evolving into more thoughtful consumers.

Another positive development coming from our economic downturn is that the amount of trash we Americans throw away has shrunk in size. That our landfills are filling more slowly suggests that we're better using the things we already possess

Simple Living Tips

for fall from Wanda

1. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. In this economy, this traditional simplicity mantra carries not only an environmental imperative, but helps you save money. First, reduce your needs. Think through each new purchase, and buy used or borrow items whenever possible. Reuse: use something you already have. If that thing has no use to you, recycle it! Find another home for yesterday’s appliance, shirt or hat. Someone else could use that thing you no longer need – especially now.

2. Get organized one room at a time. Or I should say one drawer or shelf at a time. Clutter can be overwhelming, so tackle the project a little bit each day. Or put aside a half an hour every Saturday to put your closet or pantry in order. If you stick with the plan, before you know it, your efforts will add up to real progress.

3. Consider shared housing. Housing is an enormous expense, so why not join with others to share a place? This is a no-brainer for singles, but single parents may also want to consider this option. Give multi- generational housing another look. The benefits are not only financial but you can earn dividends in increased human contact.

4. Stop the daily newspaper. This is a hard one for me to suggest as I got my start in media working with newspapers and am sentimentally attached. I love little more than stretching out on a Sunday morning with a broadsheet paper and a cup of coffee. But the truth is that you can get most of what you need on line these days and you’ll save money -- and a lot of trees -- in the process.

5. Give more to charity. I know, I know, everyone’s strapped these days, but all the more reason to dig a little deeper into your resources. After all, Americans have managed to save more money in a hurry, so why not give generously, too. The need for food, clothing, shelter and medical assistance is enormous today.

6. Wintertime readiness. It’s only fall but it’s not too early to start preparing your house for the cold weather that’s coming. Check around your home for drafty spots and seal them up. Consider adding insulation where you know you'll need it.
 
 

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.

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"Less is More" Released at Local Food Dinner

Salisbury, NC - A local food dinner and book signing event held at Catawba College’s Center for the Environment in Salisbury, NC on Aug. 20 marked the official debut of the new anthology, Less is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness, just released by New Society Publishers as the lead title for its Fall 2009 list. The anthology – edited by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska – includes contributions by leading writers on simplicity and sustainability, including Bill McKibben, Bryan Welch, Ernest Callenbach, Sarah Susanka, Duane Elgin and many others.

Wanda’s essay recaps four seasons of producing and hosting the Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska series. Cecile writes about simplicity conversation circles and her neighborhood “stop-and-chat” campaign in Seattle.

Dr. John E. Wear, Jr., director of Catawba’s Center for the Environment, contributed an essay about “Educational Foundations for Change.” The sell-out event at the Center drew a crowd of 150 to dine on local chicken, late-summer sautéed vegetables, including eggplant, squash and carrots, homemade cornbread and a heavenly peach cobbler. A group of 28 from Mount Airy traveled in eco-friendly fashion via motorcoach and van, arranged by organizer and simplicity stalwart Ann Vaughn. The anthology is dedicated to Ann E. Belk, of Charlotte, a long-time friend and supporter of Simple Living , who was in attendance along with four of her children.
 

Americans in Warsaw: Wanda & Henry Go to Poland

Wanda Urbanska’s personal odyssey of simple living takes a new turn this fall as she travels to Poland for a long-anticipated sabbatical. Wanda and her 12-year-old-son, Henry, will spend a school year overseas exploring Polish culture and family roots, while attempting to eat as many pierogis as possible without impacting cholesterol count or clothing size!

“I’ve always tried to live on less, to reduce my footprint,” Wanda says. “On this sabbatical, my experiment in simplicity will take a new turn. We plan to stay in Warsaw but without a car, so we’ll have to walk everywhere or use public transportation. We’re renting two rooms from a gracious Polish woman and will attempt to blend into her household as seamlessly as possible. The total number of possessions I’ll have are what I can fit into two suitcases. My ‘office’ will be my laptop.”

Inspired in part by Leonard Kniffel’s remarkable memoir, A Polish Son in the Motherland: An American’s Journey Home (Texas A&M Press: 2005) which recounts his eight-month sabbatical in 2000, as well as by a moving essay by Wanda Muszynski in the new anthology, Less is More, “Creating A Life You Love,” Wanda Urbanska decided to try her own journey of discovery and exploration to the motherland – or fatherland -- in her case. (Edmund Urbanski, Wanda’s late father, was a native of Poland.)

“A Poloniophile my entire life, I seized this opportunity to go to Poland and really dig in,” Wanda says. “It’s equally important for me to provide an enriching cultural experience for Henry.”

For his part, Henry flew ahead of his mother as an unaccompanied minor so that he could start school with his new classmates on September 1. Henry is already immersed in the study of Polish and French, along with Polish history, science, math and English at the Canadian School of Warsaw. Via email, Henry reports that the hot, homemade lunch served daily in school of fresh local ingredients makes his standard-fare peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich back home pale by comparison. “The meals are great: soup, a main course and then dessert!” he wrote home recently. “I’m having so much fun here. School is a blast!”

Until his mother joins him on Oct. 3, Henry is living in the home of Oliwia and Jarek Malinowski and their sons Bart and Wiktor. The Malinowski family has rolled out the red carpet, offering their own version of the famed Polish hospitality. Wanda’s cousins, Monika Malcher and Ewa Zbierjewska, have also extended themselves to welcome their young American cousin.

Henry Urbanski Levering & Bart Malinowski

Wanda will continue her work from abroad, including several new writing projects as well as her blog. She’ll also attempt to keep up with Henry’s rapid acquisition of the Polish language.

An Ounce of Prevention through a Roll of the Dice

By Tony Kvale

My personal memories of pure leisure often involve board games. I have always enjoyed everything those games introduce to a social gathering: creative expression, learning and applying new information, controlled chaos, and being around friends and family. When you’re sitting around a table playing a board game with family or friends, time slows, engagement commences. To sip of the cup, you must take time to drink it all in: to study your partner or opponent’s expression, to read the signals in their eyes. Aunt Amelia’s fierce competitive spirit is outed; Uncle Charles’ generosity is on display.

Boisterous laughter is often intertwined with many party games. Decades later, I still recall the surprise of seeing my uncle smile, then watching his body contort with uncontrolled laughter while playing a board game.

However, the adage of laughter being the “best medicine” represents just the beginning of health benefits associated with playing table-top games. The paper, “Well Connected?: The Biological Implications of ‘Social Networking’ ” correlates the rise of distress and disease to our age of decreasing social interaction. While the rise of electronic media allows us to instantly communicate with a large group of people, it is the face-to-face benefits that appear to be more beneficial for our health, comfort and longevity.

In the Feb. 19, 2009 issue of Biologist, The Journal of the Institute of Biology, findings suggest diverse benefits to immunity, cardiovascular and mental function for people in closer proximity and frequency with others. Quite simply, we need to make time for more frequent weekend get-togethers. Author Dr. Aric Sigman writes: “Social connection, both objective and subjective, is increasingly associated with physiological changes known to influence morbidity and mortality.” In one example, people with more social bonds are less susceptible to the common cold than their more socially isolated counterparts.

For me, beyond its serious nature, this study is a simple reminder to be present together. Who knew an ounce of prevention may come through a literal roll of the dice?

Tony Kvale has served the natural products industry for manufacturers, retailers, and consumers for the past 11 years. He is also the founder of an eco-friendly board game company, Kvale Good Natured Games, and inventor of the Head1Liners creative writing board game. www.HeadlineGame.com

Wanda to Write the Builders of Hope story

Wanda Urbanska recently signed a contract to write a book about Builders of Hope (BOH), a Chapel Hill, NC-based nonprofit which rescues tear-down homes, moves most of them, performs green rehabs and creates affordable housing communities. The book, tentatively titled Building Solutions: Rescue Homes in a Tear-down World, will be published in 2010.

This book will document the creation of the organization, its rescue and rehab process (for which a patent is pending), while profiling many of the players involved, including construction workers, homeowners, home donors, political leaders and BOH principals and employees.

“I learned about Builders of Hope when I read an article in the Wall Street Journal calling its first development ‘the most politically correct housing development on the planet,’ " says Wanda Urbanska. “When I went down to see for myself what they were doing, it knocked my socks off.”

Founded in 2006 by Nancy Murray, the organization reclaims and recycles sturdy but outdated housing stock, thus saving millions of pounds of waste from the landfill. It then customizes floor plans for its buyers, “greenovates” them to make them affordable and energy-efficient, and uses New Urbanist principles to foster community. (Houses typically sell for between $89,000 and $175,000.) What’s more, the organization trains workers in the construction arts – many of whom have fallen victim to substance abuse and homelessness. By 2010, the organization projects that it will have rehabbed 175 houses – with many more planned in Charlotte, NC and Atlanta.

“We’re delighted that this publishing venture will allow us to spread the Builders of Hope story,” says Nancy Murray. “We’re ambitious. We want to bring this formula to help provide affordable housing in every city in America.”
 

Wanda Speaks at American Library Association Meeting in Chicago

Wanda Urbanska was an auditorium speaker at the American Library Association annual meeting in Chicago on July 12. Her topic: “A Greener Library, A Greener You.” She spoke to a large crowd of librarians at McCormick Place to make the case that the era of overconsumption in America is over, that the disease of our American affluence, “affluenza,” is on its death bed. Wanda bolstered these points by citing evidence in rapidly changing behavioral patterns in our country: Americans are driving less, saving more, and putting greater thought and action into such issues as food security, transportation choices and energy efficiency. She drew on the research for several of her articles for “American Libraries” magazine on the topic, citing the “best practices” of librarians who are “going green,” such as the Fayetteville Public Library in Arkansas and the Popular Library in Cincinnati-Hamilton County, Ohio. To view Wanda’s entire presentation on line, go to  alfocus.ala.org