Ann Leach

What started out as a way for me to fill time while Isabelle was at Space Class at the Neil Armstrong Space Museum, turned into a fun day of adventures (and purchases) for the whole family. During the hour I spent at the mall by myself, I found an old-fashioned sifter which  was the only item I went in looking for. I do prefer this old style with the turning mechanism rather than the new ones with the squeezy handle, which tires out both of my hands long before I'm done sifting. This was a $7.50 win. There was also an interesting end table and a set of dishes that I took pictures of to show Kenn. But it was time to go and pick up Isabelle, which I did. We went out for a diner lunch and because she hadn't been to the Mall for a while and we had time to kill before picking up Kenn, we went back to the Mall and explored a different area. As we poked around the different stalls in the rooms, we came into a large room with an assortment of old children's toy

"Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling" by John Holt This book.....  oh this book...  is just amazing. It's taking me longer than a week to read because the author says such amazing things, such profound things....  about children, about child-rearing, about learning,....  that I have to set it down and process for a bit before I can return and take in more. For example last night, in the chapter titled "Learning in the World", he shares stories submitted years ago to his newsletter by people who are experiencing learning in the world. What does that mean? We tend to presume, based on experiences, that learning only happens in classrooms under the direction of teachers, but that's just not true. And once you open up access to the world to people (little and big) who are enthusiastic about learning, have curiousity, the possibilities are endless. I feel compelled to share one of the stories with you because this, to me, is a perfect exa

IS FRUGALITY BAD FOR THE ECONOMY? This topic comes up fairly regularly in certain frugal circles I'm in, and there is a fair amount of debate about it. So  this evening when I came across this article in Amy Dacyczyn's book "The Tightwad Gazette II" I was inspired to share. I'm sort of a politics/economics junkie. Every weeknight I forgo Wheel of Fortune to tune into The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS. The show's format includes a panel of experts on a given topic--who sharply disagree. When the topic is the recession, typically you can see a professor of economics from Harvard Business School duke it out with some guy who won the Nobel Prize for economics. Though I'm not an "expert," one question I have been asked to comment on it "If I'm frugal, isn't that bad for the economy?" It's true that plenty of economists believe we need to get that American consumer confident and spending again. This thinking, that w

The Tightwad Gazette II by Amy Dacyczyn Amy was the Frugal Zealot who came on the scene in the early 1990s with her monthly newsletter, was interviewed for a local newspaper, and had her big break through when she appeared on the Phil Donahue show. That one appearance boosted her subscription numbers from 1700 to 40,000. By the time she closed up shop, she had published the newsletter for 6 years, had published 3 books, and wrapped it all up with The Complete Tightwad which combined all 3 books and included highlights from the last year of the newsletter. So it's all ancient history (oh that hurts to write). Why read it now? Because her ways of thinking about money, about reusing, about being frugal are gold. Sure, her references to technology are dated, and who writes letters to manufacturers anymore, but the techniques she used and shares in the books for making wise financial decisions are solid. And that's why she shared them, so we could learn to think for ourselves rathe