How are we doing so far?

We are almost through our first month of Buy Nothing New...how are we doing?

No exceptions and two lessons learned

At the doctor's office: I like to look at what I call mindless magazines..I can page through and get inspired or get new ideas with minimal effort on my part. It is something to look forward to while waiting to find out if ( in fact) I have been a negligent mother by not bringing my child to the doctor sooner.

While waiting to find out if Ben did ( in deed) have pnuemonia I was paging through a magazine but this time I was really aware of when a new product was being suggested as the solution to a problem.

Since I did not want to be tempted to buy anything new.. I skipped these "articles." There was nothing left to read..…a new product was always be suggested as the solution…even when it was an “article”

So Ben and I spent the time talking about my new discovery.

The Lesson of the Pipe Cleaners

It is rare that Nate (14) is excited about church. So I was thrilled to have him get in the car talking about his class in an animated voice. They had been creating something and there were cool pipe cleaners ( turns out they have funky stripes)

Nate “ we have GOT to get some of these pipe cleaners”

Me ( in my head where I seem to spend quite a bit of my time) I really want to support creativity ( esp off line innovation)..pipe cleaners are not expensive and don’t seem to pose a huge environmental threat. What have we committed to...am I going to ruin all chance of creativity because we can't even buy pipe cleaners ( I now call this Challenge remorse)

Ben “ We have pipe cleaners down stairs”
Nate “They’re not the cool kind”
Ben” No but they work the same…shouldn’t we use those up first?”

Note to Mom:..some times the best thing to do is nothing