The U.S. has more than 8,000 farmers markets in which growers sell directly to customers. Arguably, nothing makes us richer in what matters than eating well, in good company. And eating locally makes us and our community richer on multiple levels. So, "The Joy of Eating Locally" is the topic of Thor's and my next ...
Savory Zucchini Pancakes For Breakfast, Lunch Or Dinner
That's actually three zucchini pancakes at top of tonight's dinner plate. My photography's not the best-but this way of using an abundant resource IS. A premise of the Diamond-Cut life is to use what we've got on hand and enjoy it fully, letting abundance flow toward need *. If there's one food resource that's abundant ...
Top Ten Tips For Hosting People
Our relationships with others are central to our happiness, much more central than wealth or possessions. A large body of research has proven this (see this post on the peak of happiness in the U.S.), and it is foundational to the diamond-cut life I've been chasing and writing about since 2007. My husband and I ...
Top Ten Tips On Drought-Tolerant Gardening
Drought-tolerant gardening is a more important skill than ever, due to our steadily warming climate, decreasing water supplies, and our need to be resilient. Plus, growing things is joyful, and builds community because we end up talking with our neighbors while we're gardening. They can also be less work and create lower water bills than needier, (more…)
Living Off The Sun, Or, No Electricity Bill
One year into having our rooftop solar panels installed here in Portland Oregon, we're living off the sun. That's to say, we producing slightly more electricity than we're using. Yippee! (The wonks among us call this achieving net zero.) What’s the secret to living off the sun? The secret is to use (more…)
Feverish With Spring Planting
I love the written word, as you probably know. (And did you know I'm giving away a copy of my novel, Revelle? You can enter the drawing by subscribing to my weekly blog posts, to your right. Easy to unsubscribe with a click any time). But this week's post is a nod to the fact that sometimes visuals ...
Tips For Living Happily With Others
When I googled “tips on living with others” just now, my posts from 2008 and 2009 on that topic were the first two things that came up. Given that folks seem to be coming to me for this advice, plus the fact that most of us will live with one or more others for a ...
Do Pets Raise Our Quality Of Life? Part 1 of 3
Diamond-Cut Life is about having a rich quality of life -- different from 'standard of living', which is defined by income. Today's topic, part 1 of a three-parter that will go into January, was suggested by friend and DCL reader Dana. Dana feels so strongly that pets improve our quality of life, he is challenging ...
How Readers Break The Rules At Christmas
Diamond-Cut Life is about more joy and less stuff. It's written by a mostly joyful person (me) who feeds her happiness by putting people, nature and God ahead of buying more stuff. That's a fairly subversive thing to do and promote these days. It breaks the culture's unspoken rules that we've got to consume a ...
How To Slash Your Heating Bill
This post has gotten thousands of views since I originally put it up in December 2008. It's definitely the time of year to review how to conserve energy and the money we spend on it. The main principle in slashing home heating bills is to keep people warm, when they are in the house, rather than keeping unoccupied space warm. It's easy ...
