At http://whole-living.blogspot.com

 Peace.

When my husband was a young teenager, one of his hobbies was to drive around the country with friends and smash mailboxes with baseball bats. Every time he tells me one of those stories, I kind of want to knock him out (in the most non-violent ways, of course). I’ve never been the victim of mailbox vandalism, but I know many people who have and it’s not a fun experience.

Today I came across a website that offers mailboxes designed to out stand these ridiculous offenses. SeattleLuxe.com has many differenct designs, but one I especially like is the Strong Box which looks like a normal, wimpy curbside mailbox, but is constructed to break a bat if anyone ever tried to destroy it. And if mailbox vandalism is something popular in your area, it can save you time and money in the long run to own it, not to mention the waste of having to throw out one or more damaged mailboxes into a landfill.

This site also sells a huge variety of mailboxes for other purposes. Some are designed for decoration and novelty to beautify your home. Many have locks for tamper resistance in case you fear someone trying to steal your mail or your identity. There are also commercial boxes and design-your-own options.

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”

-Dorothy Day

In 1987, Congress declared March as Women’s History month to celebrate the contributions of women throughout U.S. history and take note of its teachings. In accordance, I’m highlighting the life of Dorothy Day, a women who spoke and lived for her values, including human rights, peace, and compassion. Dorothy Day’s writings and life has been a big inspiration to me for the last four or five years and she is someone I think everyone should know about.

Day’s Early Years

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn in 1897, but spent most of her childhood in Chicago and eventually returned to New York as an adult. She spent her young adult years as a journalist and activist for Communist ideology. Although she had a spiritual side, Communist teachings convinced her to ignore it for a period of her life.

As a liberal activist, she picketed for labor and women’s causes (and got arrested for it), wrote for many leftist publications including the Masses, and lived a life verging on wild: with many lovers, one illegal abortion, and many a night spent drinking and talking politics with others.

Day thought she had found a ideal life in her late 20s, living with Forster Batterham, her husband by common law marriage. Batterham was an introverted biologist as well as an ardent atheist and anarchist. They lived a simple, peaceful life together for several years in their sea-side home near New York.

The birth of her daughter, Tamar Theresa, in 1926 sparked the beginning of Day’s life as a devout Catholic with the help of a nun who lived nearby. Even though it was tremendously difficult for her, she eventually left her husband when he would not allow Tamar to be baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. She went on to live as a single mom, writing for income, and growing spiritually in Catholicism for many years.

The Rise of the Catholic Worker

During this new period of her life, Day struggled to reconcile her radical roots with her new-found spirituality. Most of the radical activists of the day were atheist, and most of the Catholics seemed to be blind to many of the world’s injustices.

At age 35, she prayed for a God-sent way to use her talents for the workers and the poor. The next day a radical, former French peasant showed up at her door. Peter Maurin brought her new ideas about how Catholicism and social activism could come together and bring about a better world.

With Maurin’s vision and Dorothy’s talents, the two began a Catholic Worker newspaper which covered their ideas on spirituality, peace, and the worker’s movements of the time. The circulation soon reached 150,000 and reached people throughout North America.

Not long later, the two took the commands of Jesus into action with a House of Hospitality in the slums of New York that provided food, shelter, and compassion to the poor during an economically devestating era. Together, this movement became a forefront in the journey of racial justice, active non-violence, and the practice of the works of mercy mentioned in the New Testament.

Over the years, the movement grew, with nearly 100 Catholic Worker Houses at any one time as well as a few communes with the same ideals. Although most are Catholic, religion diversity is accepted, and some are even based on difference religions including Quaker and Buddhist.

Day’s Legacy

By her death in 1980, Dorothy Day had spent over 50 years living in voluntary poverty, putting her life and heart into an active devotion for the gospel and making real positive change for what Jesus would call, “the least of these.” The movement she began is still flourishing and continuing her work and in 2000 the Vatican began the process of considering her for sainthood.

Love is the Measure

Other than the belief that your life should speak your truth, I’ve learned countless lessons from the writings and life of Dorothy Day:

-Some of the best saints were really good sinners too. It was true of St Francis and Buddha as much as with Dorothy Day…it’s just not easy to find that deep spiritual insight until you make it to the darkest corners of the human soul.

That doesn’t mean to just go nuts with the veniality, but to search for truth and do it on your own terms. When it’s real to you because you found it yourself, you can move mountains.

-Poverty can’t stop you if you have faith. The Catholic Worker Movement started with nothing. They never had a fundraiser. They never were sponsored by big rich fellows. But they grew and inspired and changed countless lives.

Pray, visualize, do that stuff “The Secret” tells you to do, whatever, just believe in your purpose enough and the cosmos will make a way no matter how little you have to begin with.

-A child is one of the most precious gifts you could have. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in having my own children until I ready Dorothy Day’s account of her daughter’s birth. She made me realize how beautiful child birth is and how lucky I am to be a women who can bring a baby into the world.

Her quick conversion to what seemed to be her true calling came with pregnancy and showed me how powerful a new life can be for anyone.

-Change is a struggle, enjoy the ride. Day was jailed several times, lived in poverty, and had to deal with all kinds of difficult people on a daily basis. Instead of getting weary and giving up, she got weary, wrote and learned from it, and went on. Until the day of her death, she was still working for reform and following what she believed God called her to do.

-Weird little street dudes could change your life forever. Well I don’t know if this is very true for most people, but I still like to believe so.

-Love isn’t easy. Work at it anyway. Day once wrote, “Love must be tried and tested and proved. It must be tried as though by fire, and fire burns.”

When you feel defeated and overwhelmed it’s the last thing you feel like doing. But only through love, through compassion and empathy, will anything worthwhile ever come about. So love till it hurts and then love some more. Eventually it will be your ever-burning torch you can light the world with.

Personally, I’m pretty hardcore about drinking water, and I want my son to be the same. Drinking water is a crucial element of good health, but it’s a habit hard to aquire in our culture.

That’s why it’s super important to try to make drinking water a part our children’s lives so it will become a habit that will stay with them. My son is just an infant, so his primary drink is formula (I am unable to breastfeed due to medical reasons), but I’m trying to get him into the habit of drinking water by providing it in his sippy cup throughout the day. I also have him drink it while I feed him solid foods.

Some people think it’s acceptable to give young children, even infants, soda. I’m going to get on my high horse and say that it’s absolutely not okay to do so. Soda is full of sugar (and not just any sugar, high fructose corn syrup!), caffiene, and a bunch of other crap that is terrible for young teeth and young bodies.

Beyond that, giving your child any flavored drink on a regular basis is setting him up for thinking that everything he drinks should be flavored. This will mean more work to keep him on a healthy diet when he’s older. You’ll also be setting yourself up for higher grocery bills to sooth his desire for flavored drinks when he could be consuming mostly water.

If you’re already in this situation, I know from experience that you’re not doomed. My siblings and I were raised in the same household, drinking and loving soda from a young age. Although I have a small addiction to soda, my drink of choice is water. And my teenage sister is the same way due to my overzealous water preaching. Now as far as my 13 year old brother…he may be doomed!

One thing I have found that works for kids (including my 9-year-old nephew) who hate water is Propel Vitamin Enhanced powder packets. These flavored packets are added to water and make them taste good. They also add some vitamins to the water, and with a suger content of 2 grams per serving, they are aren’t a bad substitute for plain ol’ water if your kid drinks it happily.

-Wise Bread has a thorough review of Seventh Generation’s Paper Products. Here’s a link to some Seventh Generation coupons highlighted in the article.

-Money Saving Mom has had some great links lately, including:

• Free Traditional Medicinal tea samples
• Celestial Seasonings Book Club Starter Kit
• $1/1 coupon for Laura’s Lean Beef
• FreeBate for Ronzoni Healthy Harvest

-Freebee Friday at A Healthy Balance reminded me that Orion Magazine offers a free trial issue. I took advantage of this offer about five years ago and was so impressed, I bought a subsciption for my library so I could read it and share it with others at the same time (and I rarely buy magazine subscriptions).

-Want Not wrote a heads up about a grocery clearance at Amazon.com. This includes some really awesome products including organic milk and herbal teas!

Have any more suggestions? Send me them in a comment and I’ll post with a link back to your site.

My mother-in-law just asked me to explain to our friend how Vent-flow bottles work. My mouth dropped as I thought about it. I had no answer. So I am so technically-challenged I can’t even figure out a baby bottle, but luckily there are brighter and more inspiring women out there.

The Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India provides training in applied technology to encourage sustainable development in rural communties accross the globe. Women from undeveloped, rural areas have become a important element to this progress. Many are taking the first steps to bringing green energy to their communities and opening up new opportunties for the inhabitants. These women take a few months to study at the college, learn solar engineering, and then return home to lead development.

“When I return, I shall make my village a well planned place….The inhabitants of my island will be very happy because they will profit from the availability of electricity to carry out activities at night; our children will be able to review their school notes in the evening after classes, women and fishermen can continue to smoke their fish at any time they need to. In that way, we shall live like the whites in Marseille.”

-Francoise Douhou of Mbwape village in Cameroon, Africa

For more information, visit http://www.barefootcollege.org/.

I’m not an old lady yet, but I’ve been a few places and taken some misturns that have eventually led to a little insight. And one thing I’ve learned? Having some hate in my heart has made some things better for me. Of course, hate for sentient beings is just setting you up for bad karma, but hate - in general - is a natural human emotion so why not use it for some good?

I confess, I’m so very happy that I hate:

1. TV. I thought television was uncool and bad for me many years before it was something I could happily avoid. But today, even though I’m living in a house with cable and lots of people who watch it, I have no desire to. I can proudly say that I want to kill my television just as much as the average Culture Jammer.

This is my plan to add years to my life. Every second in front of the set is really just dead time…and I’m saving that for after my funeral.

2. Driving. With some love for walking mixed in, of course. For instance, I would much rather park in the very farthest end of a parking lot and walk than even attempt to drive in the over-crowded, pedestrian filled area toward the front.

The world is so beautiful in slow motion, fresh air in your face and feet on the ground. It’s good for the body and saves in gas money too.

3. Meat. Yep, PETA got me when I was 15: young and impressionable. I’m no longer a vegetarian, but meat still grosses me out and I’m glad. Although not all of it is as evil as I once thought, the majority of it is inhumane, unsustainable, and bad for me. And when I’m not watching my diet closely, not eating meat is usually the best bet so I’m lucky it’s what my subconscious chooses to do.

4. Dead end jobs. If I didn’t hate them so much, I wouldn’t try to get anything else out of myself. I wouldn’t push myself, I wouldn’t try to be frugal to avoid working as many hours at them, I wouldn’t look into new income-making ventures. And if I didn’t do that stuff, life would just be dull. I would be depressed. And my mom would give me more lectures.

5. The GAP (and similar places). Oh my goodness, this hatred has saved me so much money over the years. I can’t tell you when it first came about, but I just hate clothing companies that charge you $50 for some cheap garment made in a sweatshop for two dollars. Yes, I still think their stuff is cute, but I refuse to pay any company that much money to exploit people in other countries.

So there are some of my positive hatreds. Now if only I could get some hate going for Diet Pepsi….

If you currrently have a mortgage on your home, mortgage refinance might be something you want to look into if you want to save some money. There are several possible advantages to home mortgage refinance including lower rates, shorter term loans, and a new ARM (adjustable rate mortgage).

A website I have come across recently is Refinance.com, which allows you to look into great opportunities if “refinance home mortgage” is on your to-do list. You can get a quick quote in minutes, check out the latest interest rates, and use some awesome tools like their Amortization and Refinance calculators to help you make informed financial decisions.

Beyond refinance, there are other things you can use this website for. If you need to use the value of your home to borrow some cash, you can apply for a home equity loan. Or you could apply to get a loan to pay off you debts with the Refinance.com debt consolidation program.

Got less than perfect credit? No problem. At Refinance.com, they understand that your credit report may be full of blemishes and it is still possible to get a mortgage refinance, a home loan, or even a loan with your home’s equity. So if any of that is something you need right now, take a trip over to their website and see for yourself.