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Simple Living Newsletter
June 2007 issue

In this Issue

	NCFI Renews Sponsorship of Simple Living for Fourth Season
	Northern Hospital to Sponsor Simple Living
	The Power of Now
	Tammy’s Tidbits – Notes from Field Producer Tammy Byerly

Current News

Wanda recently appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, speaking about America’s search for simplicity in small towns. Visit the main page of our website to download and view a clip from the show and read a related Associated Press article.

You can now download the first chapter of Wanda’s and Frank’s book Moving to a Small Town for free! Visit the resources section of our website to find the link and take the questionnaire to determine if you’re a good candidate for small town life.

Simple Living Tips

If you’re concerned about summer travel with high gas prices, become a tourist in your own community – patronize your parks, museums, swimming pools, and public places in your hometown or area, as well as nearby state and national parks.

When outdoors this summer, be sure to always wear a hat and sunscreen and drink lots of liquids, such as water and juice.

Summer is a great time to catch up on your reading – why not visit your public library or swap books with a friend. If you don’t have time to join a regular book club, set up one meeting this summer. Bring a pot luck dish and agree to read a certain book in advance.

Eat plenty of homegrown fruits and vegetables this summer. If not from your own garden, then patronize a local farmer’s market.

Calls to Action

Help us spread the word about the simple living lifestyle: Now is the time public television station managers and programmers are looking at their fall schedule. Contact your local public television station to make sure they know you’d like them to carry Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska.

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NCFI Renews Sponsorship of Simple Living for Fourth Season

The Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska series recently launched production for its fourth exciting – and transformative – season of programming. This upcoming series, consisting of 13 half-hour shows, shot for the first time in high definition, will be released to public television stations nationwide in April 2008 through American Public Television (APT) in Boston. Once again this year, the series is working in partnership with UNC-TV. This new set of offerings will add to the series’ catalogue of 26 programs already in distribution.

NCFI Polyurethanes is corporate sponsor.

“NCFI Polyurethanes is pleased to underwrite season #4 of the Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska public television series for a second year now. As a manufacturer of premium, energy-saving insulation and cushioning products, we believe our company’s mission of saving energy, protecting the environment and providing environmentally friendly products is compatible with that of Simple Living,” says Steve Riddle, president of the Mount Airy, NC-based NCFI. “We are excited about the series’ evolution and its presentation next season of 13 half hour programs.”

Simple Living’s host and co-producer Wanda Urbanska is delighted to work in partnership with NCFI. “We at Simple Living are proud to be associated with NCFI, which won the EPA’s prestigious stratospheric ozone protection award for its energy saving line of products,” says Urbanska. “It is an added benefit that the company is headquartered in our hometown of Mount Airy, NC.”

For more information on the energy-saving products of NCFI, visit www.ncfi.com.

Northern Hospital to Sponsor Simple Living

Northern Hospital of Surry County recently announced its silver sponsorship of season #4 of Simple Living.

“Our recent – and likely, future – successes with attracting and keeping medical professionals to our community has been with lifestyle-oriented individuals who were attracted to Mount Airy by like-minded individuals,” explained Bill James, Northern Hospital of Surry County’s Chief Executive Officer. “The medical professionals we are attracting like the small-town feel of Mount Airy, its location, and the well-educated, family-oriented peers already here who share a passion for outdoor fitness and ethnic diversity. I see the Simple Living public television audience as being similarly inclined.”

As a community healthcare system, Northern Hospital of Surry County’s mission is to provide access to quality healthcare services for the community it serves. Its vision is to be the hospital of choice for the patients and providers in its service area. At Northern Hospital of Surry County, you will find a well-equipped hospital with a 24-hour Emergency Department, an excellent medical staff and over 700 well-trained nurses, therapists, technicians, support and administrative staff. Years of innovation and development have allowed Northern Hospital of Surry County to offer services not usually found in a community hospital.

For more information, check out www.northernhospital.com.

The Power of Now

Those who are fans of Wanda Urbanska’s simple living message, and who have seen me on her show describing the attributes of a Not So Big house or remodeling may be interested in knowing about the book I’ve just completed, The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters. It came out on May Day of this year, and has already begun a quiet revolution, encouraging readers to rethink the way they inhabit their lives by engaging in a little life remodeling.

The core message of this book is not new to those who are interested in simplifying their lives, but the “how” part that this book prescribes provides an entirely different way of slowing down and simplifying without having to do something drastic like selling everything and moving to the country. This book shows readers how to simplify right within the life they are already living. The secret lies in a surprising place—inside each one of us.

In my Not So Big House series I helped readers to see that although we live in a three-dimensional world, where the heights and surface characteristics of our surroundings affect us deeply, most of us make our decisions about our dwellings based on a two-dimensional floor plan. The secret in house design lies in the fact that we need information about the third dimension in order to determine whether it’s going to feel like home or not.

Now in The Not So Big Life I’m revealing the importance of another dimension of experience. We think we understand what time is, and we go about trying to manage our schedules to make ourselves feel less rushed and harried. But linear time is as much of an abstraction as the two-dimensional floor plan is an abstraction of a three dimensional space. “Real” time takes place in the present moment, and it is only by engaging completely in the moment that we can find the meaningfulness and vitality we are seeking with all our acquiring and consuming behaviors, and with all our attempts to find time to do the things we really wish we were doing.

When you aren’t thinking about the past and you aren’t worrying about the future you can “be here now” as the saying goes. It’s not what most of us think. It’s not something that’s simply trendy and it’s not something that’s just for spiritual practitioners. It’s for everyone who wants to simplify and who wants to live more fully. There’s a lot more to this book than I can explain in a short newsletter article, but I hope this description has piqued your interest.

If you’d like to further explore the ideas this new book contains, there’s a website where you’ll find all sorts of support materials to help readers get the most out of the book at www.notsobiglife.com. You can order a copy of the book or the audio version by clicking: www.notsobiglife.com/the_book/order_the_book.html.

The Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska public television series has made an important contribution to helping people see through the mirage that is purported to be the American Dream. In conjunction with a Not So Big Life remodeling, I believe there’s every possibility that we can bring things back into balance—one person at a time. The solution lies within every one of us, through the direct experiencing of our own lives.

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!

One of the neatest aspects of my job is having the opportunity to visit restricted-access locations and meet some exceptional people. Here’s the skinny on a couple of recent experiences that stand out as we enter production of season #4, to be released to public television stations starting in April 2008.

Bill McKibben may or may not be a name well known to you. Mr. McKibben was one of the first to sound the alarm concerning global climate change back in the 1980s with his book The End of Nature, when I was still a skinny little kid wearing Jamz shorts and playing in the sprinkler on hot summer days. Our Simple Living crew recently had the opportunity to interview him among the bucolic, rolling hills of Pennsylvania Amish country. We made the 400-mile trek from North Carolina to Lancaster, PA, where he was giving a presentation to an eclectic group of college students, retirees and a variety of others at St. James Episcopal Church, co-sponsored by Franklin and Marshall College and the Lancaster Literary Guild. We were much inspired by his words of wisdom during the evening presentation and knew we were in for a treat when we would meet with him early the next morning for a one-on-one interview.

I’ve learned that sometimes one of the most frustrating things about this business is when you have too much excellent footage to fit into a half-hour show. This is definitely true of our footage of the interview with Mr. McKibben. Our phenomenal, hour-long interview – coupled with the live footage from his speech – will probably have to be cut dramatically, leaving out many insights and priceless wisdom. Mr. McKibben is certainly one of the most intelligent and inspirational people I’ve ever met. His views on the environment, our economy, climate change, and many other issues were well thought out, unique and seem independent of popular media and culture. He also has a well-balanced understanding of both conservative and liberal ideologies. One of the points I was most inspired by is his ability to merge his Christian faith with his scientifically based beliefs about our world, our current climate crisis, and our environment. This is an interview, and a person, not easily forgotten. I certainly came away from those hours spent in the same room with Mr. McKibben a bit awestruck, very much inspired, and ready to go make waves – and change – in America.

Another exciting experience with the Simple Living crew – this time accompanied by my soon-to-be-husband Andy Flynt and DejaView Media’s Council Bradshaw – took place along the shores of Lake Michigan. As Andy cleverly pointed out, we learned first-hand why they call it “The Windy City” – it’s all that traffic whizzing by you and all those skyscrapers creating wind tunnels! Commissioner of Chicago’s Department of the Environment, Sadhu Johnston, and his wife, Manda, welcomed us into their home and inspired us with great ideas for simplifying one’s life during their interview as their delightful baby girl entertained us behind the scenes.

After the interview at home was finished, Mr. Johnston graciously took us to the roof of City Hall. In most cities, that wouldn’t be that exciting a prospect. But Chicago is full of “green” surprises, city hall’s rooftop garden being one of them. Limited-access, a friendly maintenance man unlocked the door to the roof and, instead of stepping onto black asphalt as one would expect, we set foot in a garden. The garden was laced with little paths, native species of flowers and shrubs, as well as honeybees, whose home was the honeybee hives set up on the roof to pollinate the flowers. This rooftop garden would be essential in decreasing the energy needed to cool the building below, reducing the urban heat island effect, so common in densely populated urban areas. It was great fun to see a garden on top of a roof in such a large metropolis. Looking down at the busy city streets below and waving to people directly across from us in their mid-way up a skyscraper offices was a unique experience for a small-town, Southern girl like me. The people Andy and I were waving to across the way seemed to get a kick out of it as well, many of them cheerily waving back. What a fantastic view the City of Chicago has given them!