Our "no new things" policy has an offshoot of "making things." In part, the focus on making things was inspired by a great book I'm reading, Richard Sennett's The Craftsman (he talks about the value of making things, slowly and attentively, with one's hands). I'll write more about this book later when I'm not tired. And in part, the focus on making things happened organically: with our veto on buying no new things, we started to make things instead. I think it probably also has something to do with noticing things (which I'll also write about later).
Michal is the most industrious in our family in this respect. She made (today alone): a bird feeder, several pages of her scrapbook, more shrink art, a plaster cast of her hand, paper(!) (she pulled out a paper-making kit she has--it won't be finished until tomorrow), and dinner for herself, me, and Joel. I made a box to hold kleenex (cut up squares of flannel--not everyone's cup of tea but I'm preparing for when we run out of kleenex). Ben drew. Joel surpassed us all with the size and ambition of his project: he made a new 6' high shelf-like structure (which is almost a cabinet) for our firewood. It took all day but it looks great and is practical.
Today, for the first time since we began this project I saw something new that I wanted to buy: a new bicycle (I "need" a bicycle) that is gorgeous and looks just like a bike I used to own (that I loved) that was stolen from my cottage over fifteen years ago.
Today we into Chapters, browsed for 20 minutes (before a movie we were seeing), and bought . . . nothing! Probably a first for us. I did write down the titles of a bunch of books that I will try to get at the library.
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