Paid For

It was 7 degrees below zero this morning when I left for town, and the car started right up. The car is a 1998 Ford Escort station wagon with almost 150,000 miles on it. It’s showing some rust (did I mention I followed the salt truck into town?), but it’s paid for, and has been for a long time.

When Bill and I met, he had a van that was more than 10 years old. He used to joke that he had paid for it three times: once in principle, once in interest, and once in repairs. I know conventional wisdom says you should trade in any vehicle that inspires your mechanic to send you a gift certificate at Chrismas (thank you, Lance’s Garage). But I don’t think we’ll be doing that any time soon.

We need to avoid having another monthly payment until we no longer have a mortgage. We’ll have our house paid for in a few years -- sooner, if we can apply a little extra to principle from time to time.

For now, my preparation for longer trips includes a preventive maintenance visit to the garage. My husband calls and asks Lance to check the car over as if his own wife were going to be driving it. If Lance ever tells me not to take this vehicle, I can always rent another car for the trip.

But for now, this car still gets 38 miles to the gallon. It gets me where I need to go, when I need to be there. And it’s paid for.

Building The Pile

Welcome to Compost & Creativity. I’m Donna Kallner, a fiber artist from rural northern Wisconsin. For most of our lives, my husband and I have been self-employed. We’ve had lots of practice at coming up with creative solutions to challenges faced while trying to make art and make do. And in trying to make a difference in the world, we’ve learned that even small things can yield big results.

Everywhere we turn, we meet wonderful people who are also trying to make do and make a difference. This blog is a place to share ideas. Thanks for coming by and joining in.

I’ll be posting once or twice a week about topics related to living well but simply – things like vegetable gardening, composting, food preservation, bread making, growing and gathering craft materials, homebrew, winemaking, low-cost low-impact recreation, pets, housekeeping, clothing, craftivism, community, volunteering, vehicles, books and blogs. I’ll post occasional creativity exercises, DIY gift making tutorials, and PDF resources that make it easier to get volunteer jobs done in your local community.

To stay up-to-date with what’s happening at Compost And Creativity, subscribe to this blog, using the button in the sidebar.

Building a blog is a lot like building a compost pile: It can be done with little thought to the ingredients and left on its own, and still produce results – eventually. But the results will be better and we’ll have something rich and fertile sooner with a healthy mix of elements added to the pile.

Here, the key to the mix is you. I hope you’ll share your ideas and experiences. Join the conversation related to a post by clicking the Comments button at the bottom of it.

Want to write a guest post for Compost and Creativity? Send me your ideas at donnastitches[at]gmail.com.