Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
The following is a guest post by Hanmi Meyer, Diamond-Cut Life’s site admin. Portland Rise Above Plastics Single-use plastic bags represent one of the greatest environmental catastrophes of our generation. It is estimated that 60-80% of all debris in the ocean is plastic. Plastics take hundreds of years to break down at sea and most [...]
Tags: activism·climate change·conservation·energy conservation·environment·green living·Oregon·outdoors·peak oil·petroleum·plastic·saving money·surfrider foundation·thrift·waste
Staycations in lieu of travel vacations let us have fun while living within our means and not racking up any credit card debt. Plane trips, especially for whole families, quickly run into thousands of dollars, not to mention the way restaurant meals cost double to ten times what you’d spend cooking at home. Plus, any [...]
Tags: carbon footprint·email·family·fun·green living·happiness·ktylerconk·long-distance relationships·phone conversations·relationships·staycations·thrift
My sidekick Hanmi Meyer and I are pleased to be posting this morning our new page Resources For Good Living. It’s a set of links, well-labeled and organized, to cool sites that help us increase our happiness and lower our consumption. While this opening date is a bit behind schedule (the summer solstice had been [...]
Tags: bicycling·carbon footprint·consumption·contest·energy conservation·family·fun·gift certificates·green living·happiness·life·links·Oregon·outdoors·religion·renewable energy·resources·thrift·water
Yesterday afternoon I alit at the Amtrak station here in Portland, heavily laden with my laptop, book-bag and purse. It would be quite a trudge to where I needed to go. What should conveniently appear at the curb but a pedicab, pedaled by a lovely young woman named Margaret? Margaret, who leases her pedicab from [...]
Tags: bicycling·carbon footprint·cars·Cascadia Pedicab·fun·green living·happiness·Oregon·outdoors·pedicab·technology
Call me lovestruck, call me dreamy-eyed. Forgive me if I’m a little gushy today. WES and I have discovered each other. WES takes me to all the best places . . . from Beaverton all the way to Wilsonville . . . through lush, green countryside . . . fertile wetlands . . . . [...]
Tags: 844steamtrain·bike lockers·carbon footprint·climate change·commuter rail·green living·happiness·Higgins·love·trains·WES·Wilsonville
1.) Ads. Don’t want ‘em. I’m jonesing for readership, not dollars. 2.) Hatchet jobs on anyone or anything. I’m here to be constructive, not tear things down. I’ve angered some people with some measured criticism, but at the same time I’ve suggested a positive path they might consider taking. I’ve even rewarded someone who took [...]
Tags: ads·cars·consumption·fun·green living·happiness·life·rich and famous·technology·thrift·water
As some of you know, I struggle not just with a weakness for Haagen Dazs, but some clothes-horse tendencies, as well. While I can proudly report 17 days of abstinence today from any ice cream (and I don’t feel deprived, I feel fine), I confess to a little shopping episode at Patagonia before I left [...]
Tags: clothes·consumption·Go Green With Jean·green living·Jean Baumann·Naked Lady Party·Rex Burkholder
The economy has many of us scared and tense, whether or not we still have the job and homes we had a year or two ago. Thor and I are lucky that our jobs and house situation are yet unchanged, but of course we’ve lost a big portion of what we’d put away for retirement, [...]
Tags: fun·green living
Vermont has beat out Oregon in becoming the first state to allow people creating their own renewable energy to be paid competitive rates for the energy they are putting into the grid. Vermont’s feed-in tariff legislation passed May 27, 2009, and is a breakthrough in the energy world, which has been dominated by large utilities [...]
Tags: green living·Oregon·renewable energy·technology·thrift
Watching General Motors going through its tortured downsizing, bankruptcy and reinvention of itself makes me think of how bloated our relationship to cars here in the U.S. has been for decades. (And I wish with all my heart that every laid-off employee will find a new job soon.) What all of us need and have [...]
Tags: carpooling·cars·General Motors·green living·happiness·Oregon·thrift·vanpooling
Read via RSS reader of your choice (for example, Google Reader).
Subscribe