Book selling

I am a book hoarder.  I love books.  I love to read.  I love to have them covering my many bookshelves.  It has taken a long time to decrease my consumption of books.  I learned to love the library.  That sounds silly, but I used to want to have the books I read on MY shelf.  Anyway, I'm over that.  Now, I'm even over keeping my accumulation.  There are a few ways to get rid of books and make a little money. 

First, become a seller on Amazon.  It is very easy.  You just go to the Amazon site (www.amazon.com for those of you who have been living in a cave for the past decade) and click on set up a seller account.  Amazon lists your books, takes the money, charges a standard fee for your shipping ($3.99) and notifies you if one of your books sells.  They even create an invoice and address label for you to print and send.  I made anywhere from $12.00 to $2.00 on books and I usually made .50 to .25 on shipping.  Not a lot of money, but it pays you to decrease your stuff-load. 

The other way to sell books is to take them to second hand bookstores or even mixed new/used bookstores. Some places ask that you make an appointment or come on particular days.  Other bookstores allow people to come in at any time.  For one local store in town, I know I can drop off a box of books and the owner will credit my account -- but that is because I live in a small town and can just trust the owner.  I also go to Hastings bookstore sometimes to sell books.  Yesterday I took 6 books to Hastings and got a $6.50 credit.  Not so great of a return, but these particular books had been listed on my Amazon account and weren't selling anyway. 

The final tip I have on book selling is that stores will always give you more money in store credit than in cash.  So, if you are a book junkie like me, it is best to take the credit and know that you will use it later. 

Happy off line ready!

To phone or not to phone

I know that if you are ten years younger than me or more, you have already figured this out.  But, I'll go ahead and display my techno-simpleton thought process for you anyway.  For the past 4 years I have had a cell phone and a land line, as well as wireless internet in the house.  Gradually, I have moved from using the land line to using the cell.  I don't talk on the phone much in general and never exceed my minutes.  I email or facebook instead.  My extended family lives on the East coast and I live in the Pacific time zone making evening phone calls difficult.  And my three girls sometimes make phone calls any other time of day difficult as well!  So, I canceled my land line and long distance services.  It will save me $24 for the land line and $3 base charge for the long distance service (+ whatever minutes I used each month).  So, that doesn't sound like very much but it adds up to $324 per year.  I can think of better things to do with $324 than having a phone sit on the kitchen counter that I don't need.  For example I could spend the money renting a cabin for a weekend, or paying for more ballet for the girls, or paying for holiday gifts, or 4 massages, or 108 lattes, or spending a night in the closest big city -- Seattle.  I need to keep reviewing my bills so I can find more $324 savings to enjoy!
 

Not so glam farm life

My wonderful friend Kate runs a small organic farm, makes incredible soap, raises two children with her husband Brad and is my go-to straight-talking therapist/girl friend. Tonight we worked in her shop to get ready for the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning.  Actually, I think I got in the way a lot and slowed her down but it was fun.  I labeled soap and lip balm (some of it upside-down) while we girl-talked.  Kate can smack some sense into me -- in a nice way.  I was sure I needed to start a business right now selling locally-made products.  Kate was not so sure...and she was right.  At about 10:00 tonight, Kate went outside the shop and we realized how cold it had gotten.  I guess that hard frost is coming tonight.  She realized that the garlic braids she made today and all of the season's onions were hanging in her huge barn.  After we got the garlic braids back into the soap shop building, we went back for the onions.  They were hanging high up in the rafters of the barn.  Kate got her ladder out and handed down bunches of big, beautiful onions.  She pushed them in a cart back to the shop and we put those inside.  While we were doing this, I realized if I had not been there Kate would have been out in her barn at 10:00 on a freezing October night doing this herself,  I can't believe how much work her small farm takes.  (Her husband manages another organic farm for Washington State University.)  We joked a little about how glamorous and rewarding farm life is.  I know Kate wouldn't trade her small farm existence and artisan soap making, but people should also understand how much work she and other small farmers do.  The financial rewards are small.  The work is difficult.  Organic and micro-agriculture have become so popular, I am not sure people really realize what life is like for the farmers. 
Tomorrow's market will be cold and I don't know that Kate will make much money there.  I wish I could pay her for all the valuable lessons she shares with me -- like what it is like to freeze and climb ladders multiple times for properly cured onions.  I hope she charges extra tomorrow for those and that everyone in Moscow buys some.  She deserves it.

Harvest

We had our first light frost this week and while I know that weather and climate are not the same (see this funny Second City video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5nNbPWYHOA ), our first frosts in the last two years have been later than in the previous eight that I've lived in Idaho.  Tomatoes in October!

The first frost represents the final push for harvesting, consuming and preserving food for the winter and early spring.  This fall the girls and I picked 77 pounds of apples at a U-pick orchard.  Yum!  We have eaten lots of slow cooker applesauce (10 cups peeled sliced apples, 2 T. cinnamon, 1/4 cup honey: cook on low for 4-6 hours. Stir and eat warm!) and I have dried about 3 pounds of apples (I mean three pounds dried -- probably 30 pounds of apples).  I also dried zucchini for soup, onions for soups and sauces and made jams and jellies.  I like dehydrating as a food storage method.  The food takes little space and no maintenance.  I don't have to run an extra freezer all winter or stand over a steaming canner in the summer.  In the summer I dry outside on screens in the sun, at this time of year I use a dehydrator or my convection oven set at 140 degrees F.  It warms up the kitchen a bit on cool days and it is very little work once things are diced up.

This weekend I need to make some tomatillo salsa, eat it fresh and that will probably be the end of our garden produce except a couple of pumpkins.  

It will be a little sad to lose the garden to a harder frost that must be coming soon but also nice to get my kitchen back from canning jars and the hum of the dehydrator.  I guess it is no wonder I posted last about buying a little convenience food.  I have been peeling, cooking and drying constantly for the past few weeks! 

I know I'll enjoy all this preserved produced during our usually long cold winter here.  It will be nice to have a reminder of the garden and orchard harvests, eat well and cheaply and gear up for next spring.

Explanation of Sustainability and the Convenience Nemesis

I show this video to my students at the University of Idaho.  It is a very straightforward explanation of our unsustainable consumer culture.  Thought I would share it with everyone:
www.storyofstuff.org

As I find myself falling off the smart consumerism wagon once in a while, this video serves as a good reminder of why we buy (and buy and buy).  I think my biggest nemesis is convenience.  This week and last, I bought the girls snack packs of food for our snack drawer and lunches just out of fatigue.  I know it makes no economic sense to buy little bags of goldfish crackers or little cups of applesauce. And, I know that it is way too much packaging. I do it any way to avoid the 10 extra minutes it would take me to put things in small bags or to dish out a bowl of applesauce.  The work, spend, worry about money cycle has taken hold of me lately.  It's time to sit back a little and re-evaluate.

Wool craft table

Just a quick update to tell everyone that I will be selling my wool felted creations -- hats, pins, toys etc -- at the Moscow Food Coop on Sunday, October 10th from 2:00 to 7:00 pm.  Stop by and see me!
Julia
You can see some hat samples at www.woolia.etsy.com! Or check out Indigo in her fab wool hat at the bottom of the blog.