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Simple Living Newsletter In this Issue
Current News -All new Season 3 DVDs are now available for sale for $33.90, including shipping and handling. To order, please visit the “Store” section of our website, or call 1.888.789.7475. -Planning for the production of Season #4 is underway – call or e-mail us with your ideas and suggestions for people, places or projects to shoot. -There have been recent changes to our website! Visit www.simplelivingtv.net and check out the resources and tips from every episode of Simple Living and learn about our new advisory board members, along with some other great changes to make your visit more informative and well, simple! Simple Living Tips Spring is almost here! Get started with your spring cleaning early – take just 30 minutes each day to begin de-cluttering your home for a saner, simpler, happier life. For one week, make sure to drink the full amount of recommended water – 6-8 glasses every day – and see how much better you feel. Then do it for another week and another and another until it’s a habit and you feel so much better and healthier! With spring on its way, why not get your neighborhood’s kids together and plant a tree in a local park, greenway, or just along the sidewalk. Make sure to ask for variety suggestions at your local nursery and, if it’s a city or public park, for permission to do so. Calls to Action Is Simple Living airing on your local PBS station? Then call their programmer and let them know how much you appreciate it! Simple Living not airing where you are? Then get on the phone to your local PBS affiliate’s programmer and tell them you want to see us in your area. There’s a reason the first word in PBS is public – it’s all about what the public wants! To find your local PBS station, just type in your zip code on the “PBS Station Finder” on our homepage. Thanks for your support! Pass it on Know anyone who might be interested in our newsletter? Click here to forward this email to up to 5 friends at once. |
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Welcome to the World of Simple Living 
“Simplify, simplify,” Henry David Thoreau told us, from way back in the 19th Century. Today, in a world in which our lives seem to run at breakneck speed, many of us are listening. We’re taking Thoreau’s dictum to heart and trying to figure out just how – on a practical level – to truly make daily living simpler. Slower. Saner. We know that’s one reason you’re watching our public television series, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska. It’s a show full of great ideas for how to slow down and smell those roses. Our show offers you a tasty menu of ways to be more thoughtful consumers, better environmental stewards, enjoy the fruits of community life, and deal with money responsibly. It’s a show that demonstrates just how much fun a simpler life can be! Now, to supplement what you see on the show, we offer you this, the first edition of our electronic newsletter. Here you’ll be treated to an on-line dessert after the main course of watching the show. You’ll go behind the scenes, learn more about how we do what we do. You’ll enter the world of simple living from the “back stage” – meeting field producer Tammy Byerly, and walking side-by-side not only with host and co-producer Wanda Urbanska, but also with her longtime partner in simplicity, writer and director Frank Levering – that’s me! – and our son, Henry. Yes, we’re real people. Living not on a television set but in a real town, Mount Airy, North Carolina. Henry, our nine-year-old, is a fourth grader in a public school here in town, and daily we’re part of a web of community life ranging from Henry’s swim team, to Rotary Club meetings, to selling cherries to our customers at our 99-year-old orchard. In the daily challenge of creating the right balance, our lives are much like yours, and one of the chief objectives of this newsletter is to better connect our lives with yours. We hope to open up the lines of communication between us – to engage in conversation, not just deliver you a television program. To bring your energy and life experience into the mix. The newsletter will arrive quarterly on your computer monitor: March 15, June 15, September 15, and December 15. Keep a lookout for it! In addition to the newsletter’s regular features we want to incorporate what we hear from you – not only your ideas for the show, but what you’ve been learning as you travel the path to greater simplicity. What’s worked for you, and what hasn’t? What are your inspirations? What are your greatest challenges in living a simpler life, and what are you doing to meet those challenges? Tell us your stories, and share your good ideas. To do that, contact Tammy Byerly here in the office at tammy@simplelivingtv.net – and let the conversation begin! We do want to thank you, for your interest and support have played a pivotal role in the show’s striking success thus far. As we enter into production this month for a new batch of shows comprising Season 4, we’re proud of how far we’ve come – and we thank you for helping us do it. Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska remains the only program of its kind on American television, a values-driven, reality-based show on the topic of simplicity. And where else on television can you find programming addressing the social and environmental problems associated with overconsumption? As the ripples continue to spread from the latest reports about global warming from the scientific community, we’re proud to offer lifestyle ideas that can play a key role in the search for solutions. On global warming and other major environmental issues, our show from its beginning has been an outspoken proponent of lifestyle choices that make sense for the planet as well as for people. Indeed, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska traces its roots to Simple Living: One Couple’s Search for a Better Life – a book we wrote originally published by Viking in 1992. Still in print and now available from John F. Blair Publisher, Simple Living -- as the first major book on simplicity since the 1970’s -- pioneered the latter-day revival of interest in the subject. It shares with the television show a combination of depth and narrative light-heartedness, as well as a willingness to explore cutting-edge, ahead-of-the-curve ideas, such as the concept of a one-car family. Simple Living was followed in 1996 by our book Moving to a Small Town, published by Simon & Schuster, and in 2004 by the book Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference , published by John F. Blair, two books that extended our knowledge and that of our readers regarding leading a simpler, more environmentally and socially responsible life. Together these three books and the current stock of 26 television programs – along with “Escape from Affluenza,” a film for PBS that Wanda hosted -- comprise a unique public resource in a variety of media, as well as an unrivaled body of work in the field. As we continue our journey, we’re very much aware that living more simply is always a work in progress. Each day, it seems, we learn something new, and in this newsletter as well as on the television show we hope to share what we learn – and learn from you, as well. Do let us hear from you. And we hope that in this newsletter you’ll find a new source of inspiration – and have fun while you read! For – while it’s true, as we often say on the show, that “nothing’s too small to make a difference” -- it’s also true that having fun in making that difference is what gives a simpler life its real élan. Simple living isn’t about grimly doing your duty; it’s about liberation from the things that don’t matter. And it’s about joie de vivre. We hope that this newsletter will be a reminder that a life well lived is the unencumbered life. Yes, “you can’t take it with you.” But, just as importantly – you can’t carry it while you’re here! Simple Living America Toasts Simple Living TV’s Inaugural Newsletter 
The folks at Simple Living America are proud to partner with Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska and help launch its wonderful newsletter! How could such a significant national public television series bring you anything but the best in newsletter content at this time of monumentally significant crossroads for our society. Simple Living America (SLA) is ready to cycle into a new membership year as the first national, nonprofit member-based organization for the general public centered on simplicity. Its mission is to provide the American mainstream with a means to fulfillment and sufficiency. It works closely with mental health professionals who consider the field an antidote to the stressful consequences of a consumption-driven society. In a mainstream leap, we are publishing a participatory book in 2007 on the theme, Get Satisfied: How Twenty People Like You Found the Satisfaction of Enough. After an avalanche of submissions, the book-in-process is on its way to a national marketing campaign and participatory web site as well. As part of the 501c3 tax-deductible CRESP Center for Transformative Action at Cornell University, SLA offers a great way to take the next step after enjoying Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska programs. Members at the $25 Simplifier level receive:
To join or renew, send your check to Simple Living America P.O. Box 9955 Glendale, CA 91226 (payable SLA-CRESP) or visit www.simplelivingamerica.org to join online. All dues received after March 1 every year are credited in full for the next annual cycle. Questions? Call 1-877-UNSTUFF day or night. Wishing you balance in a complex world!
Tammy’s Tidbits – Notes from Field Producer Tammy Byerly 
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of TV production? Well, this is the section where you’ll find out – get behind-the-scenes stories, anecdotes you won’t see in the final cut, and more! Working on Simple Living for the past year has not only been fun for me, but motivational as well, as many of the ideals the show promotes are ones I’ve held for some time. As I set up interviews and conduct research for the show, I now get more information, resources and inspiration for these lifestyle ideals, many of which I share with Wanda and Frank. There are a few shows from our currently airing Season #3 that inspired me in special ways. When Elizabeth Barbour, featured on the first episode of Season 3, walked in our office door last spring for her interview with Wanda, I immediately knew she would be one of the nicest and most inspirational people I’d ever met – mostly from her friendly smile and casual demeanor. Of course, I was right! Sitting in the background, taking notes during her interview with Wanda, I was not only working, but being inspired for my personal life and career journey as well. As with many other “quarter-lifers” as I’ve heard the term used recently, I have more passions in life than you could shake a stick at and am frequently at a loss as to what to do with myself. Not wanting to “settle down” into a boring desk job, I’ve moved around and experienced some great people, great jobs and great places over the past several years. But at some point, you have to stop and figure out your long-term plans for life – a year and a half ago, I realized that point, for me, is now (which is why I’m living in Mount Airy and had the opportunity to work for Wanda and Frank in the first place). Listening to Elizabeth, a business and life coach, speak about her conversations with clients who are in the same or similar boat as myself not only helped me know that I was normal, but let me know it’s okay that I don’t know what to do with myself just yet and that the journey is also the point – not just the end result. I was also encouraged by her words of wisdom on being able to say no to people, events, and requests for time without feeling guilty about it. The third episode of Season 3 has also proven to be applicable for me. Little did I know while preparing for and shooting Eddy and Anna McGee’s wedding last summer that I would be in the same boat just six months down the road! My fiancé Andy Flynt and I share the same ideals of “simple living” and are striving to plan our wedding to reflect those ideals and the way we hope to live our lives as husband and wife. No presumptuous pomp and circumstance here – just two people in love, being joined as one in the presence of God with family and friends to celebrate. Not to say that it’s not difficult sometimes. While planning, there have been things I’ve seen that are totally ridiculous and unnecessary that the American consumer inside of me screams out “I need that…(fill in useless item that I probably won’t even notice on the big day and will forget all about sooner than later)!” But doing the research for the simple weddings special and being present during the interviews of Eddy and Anna and also at their wedding has helped give me the courage to go against the grain of society’s norm and do things our way, the simple way, the way that honors our values, that will set the tone for our lives together and, hopefully, be an inspiration to others who might be guests at our wedding. Finally, the last show of Season 3, "Public Places, Open Spaces," also jived very much with values I hold and continue to develop. The importance of public places and open spaces not only addresses the pressing issue of global climate change, but also some growing relational problems in our society – loneliness, more and more people feeling isolated and cut off from others, and the increasing privatization and corporatization of our lives. Going from the house to the car to work and back is all the fresh air most of us get in our daily lives – we don’t even have to get out of the car to pick up our daily cup of joe anymore! Public places and open spaces address this – they get us outdoors; they get us into the fresh air; they get us bumping into strangers and maybe even making new friends. These places get us out into the world – inspiring us to get involved, build community, protect our environment and precious natural resources, and live better, more fulfilling lives. Now, we all wear a lot of hats around here on the Simple Living staff – sometimes more than one at the same time! So, though camera shy I have on occasion been pulled in as an extra on the show. See the girl on the first show of Season 3 crossing out items on a list in her car? Yep, that’s me. See the girl with the blue suede shoes in the rocking chair on a porch with the fabulous David Beal? You guessed it – me again. And though I may be self-conscious and will probably never jump at the chance to be on camera, I have to admit it’s kind of fun knowing I get to be in people’s living rooms all across the country. As part of my job on shoot days, I have the sometimes difficult, always interesting, task of putting the lavaliere microphones on Wanda, as well as anyone she may be interviewing at the moment. This past fall, I had the opportunity to not only meet actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. and Earth Day co-founder Denis Hayes, but to “mike” them up as well. To understand this situation, you have to know that hiding a microphone on a person can get well, personal. Let’s just say that putting my hand up the back of both of these men’s shirts to hide the microphone cord was an experience, to say the very least! I’ve never been one to feel star-struck, but meeting such inspirational and well-known figures, and being so intrusive and up-close-and-personal with them, was definitely one of the most memorable moments of the whole production season. |
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