Diamond-Cut Life

Later this week I plan to post on election results and also on how to save 40-50% on your electricity bill like my household does.
But this morning is that one single morning of the year in which daylight savings time yields us an extra hour — which we can fill as we choose. Given that [...]

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Are you allowed to establish a legally recognized family with the person of your choice? That is, do you get to marry whom you choose?
I can — because I choose someone of the opposite sex. But millions of Americans with a different choice are denied the right to marry the one they love. That’s wrong, [...]

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Sustainability needs lots of entrepreneurs. It needs outside-the-box thinkers and doers to help us find new ways of producing, consuming and being of service to each other. I’ll bet that you, yourself, have a talent or idea you’ve fantasized about making a living at.
I spent 1992 to 2004 as a small business owner, designing and [...]

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I’ve read that the average wedding in the U.S. costs $20,000. (I wonder how many fights ensue over getting it all paid off?) Portland’s green wedding of the year, that of our friends Noelle Studer and Eli Spevak, was long on community, short on materialism. The joy and vitality were palpable.
Here Eli and Noelle [...]

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A major predictor of a person’s happiness is the number and quality of relationships in that person’s life. And money can be a make or break in any type of relationship — marital, parent-child, friend-to-friend, dating and courtship, roommates and housemates.
I believe that when we put relationships and integrity first, money and healthy finances [...]

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Having noticed unusually high readership of my last post How To Save Money On Gas, I’m going to soon write a sequel with more tips on that topic, including from readers, via comments.
But man does not live by gas alone. We need our spirits to be fed, too. Enter poetry. This poem of mine, a [...]

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I am blessed to be in a truly happy marriage. My husband Thor and I take deep delight in each other, and deep trust. But my life has certainly not always been this way: I’m a survivor of two divorces, many more break-ups, and staggering amounts of emotional pain.
My, how things can change. Specifically, [...]

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