SortaCrunchy

grieving

It's altogether too uncommon a thing to meet a follower of Christ who truly, truly gets it, you know?

Someone who truly understands that it has always been and will always be about love.

When we moved here two and a half years ago, we decided at the last minute to take a Financial Peace University class at one of the Baptist churches in town.  The class leaders, Mark and Becky, made us feel welcome and wanted from the start.  Those were hard days for us.  We felt so lost and lonely.  They invited us in. 

We joined that church, and Mark and Becky always greeted us with hugs and smiles.  Eventually, Kyle and I served alongside them in Sunday School leadership, and our friendship with them continued to grow. 

In a community where literally almost every single one of our friends has either parents or in-laws or grandparents in town, we couldn't help but to feel a little unanchored.  Mark and Becky kind of adopted us and the girls, loving on us, feeding us, checking on us all the time.  It's hard to receive love that like when you aren't used to it, aren't used to needing it.  I'm sure at times we were a little stand-off-ish, but they never relented in pursuing us.

Life had dealt some heartbreaks to each of them.  Both were wounded deeply by divorce when they met each other.  Somehow, God brought them together and brought them through any lingering pain that might have crippled a second marriage.  You've rarely seen two people more in love.  Holding hands, arms around each other, "my honey," they were the picture of the warmth and richness and passion and joy that a marriage grounded in the love of Christ should be.

We loved how they practiced hospitality so easily and willingly.  Their offered their home to be used for anything and everything.  Our girls have spent so much time there that they know exactly where all of the toys for grandchildren and other little ones are hidden away.  They both loved people in a way that was completely free of prejudice.  I have to believe it was because of the rough spots in the past that they had a particular heart for those who were lonely, hurting, and on the fringe.  Love, love, love.  That's what they did.  They loved Christ and they loved people.

It's because of Mark and Becky that Kyle and I were able to go on the Walk to Emmaus retreat last fall.  They both have loved and served in that community for a long time.  They stayed after us for more than a year to go on a Walk, and when we finally confided that we just didn't have the money for the registration fee, they quietly and happily paid our way.  They sponsored our Emmaus experiences in every sense of the word. 

Just yesterday, I was at an Emmaus event.  As always, Mark wrapped all of us up in his giant teddy bear hug.  He played with the girls and, as always, they basked in the glow of his attention.  Later in the evening as I was about to leave to drive home by myself, he grabbed me to hug me again, telling me that he loved me and to drive safely.

This morning, we received the crushing news that Mark was killed in a car accident on his way to work.

It's always a shock, isn't it?  There are times when it's expected, and even then it unhinges us.  When it's unexpected . . .To have just been touched by someone's warmth, to hear the familiar cadence of voice, to share the same patch of air to breathe, and not even twelve hours later . . . gone.

Kyle has been doing what sensing-thinking types do: he sprang into action, planning to deliver a meal to the family tonight and organizing an hour of prayer for the family tomorrow morning.  He's already planning how we as the Body of Christ will minister to Becky in the days to come.  I have been doing what intuitive-feeling types do: laying in bed or staring out the window and crying.

I'll still announce the Gadnke winner tomorrow, but then things will probably be quiet for while as we process and grieve.  In the meantime, go hug somebody you love.

The Confessional: I Need a Warning Label

A few days after we started the Oasis project, I printed this out for my husband.

I needed for him to read this part especially:

Not a bit of that was a surprise for him. 

I think the reason I find such comfort in understanding my personality type is that I struggle with feeling like I am defective.  (Heads-up: transparency happening.)  As much as I have grown into my skin, grown into who I was created to be as my 30s have unfolded, I still can't shake a perpetual belief that deep, deep down, I am broken.

And so when I read assessments that pretty much perfectly describe how I function in this world, I can't help but to feel better.  It's not just me.

People with my personality type tend to live by a strict internal code.  When my outward actions don't match my inward idealistic standards, I am miserable.  And yet, because of that big old P at the end of my type, I am prone to just thinking about how I am unable to do what I know I need to do instead of acting on what I need to do.

I truly do feel like I need a warning label:

WARNING: The person you are meeting, speaking to, reading, or emailing is most often experienced by others as flaky.

She operates in the world of The Big Picture, and therefore details often fall off of her radar screen. 

She will most likely:

1) Read your email and need to think on a response.  She will then forget to email you the response, even though she has spent a good deal of time thinking about it.

2) Hear your prayer concern and feel a great deal of empathy for you and your situation.  She will probably think about you for days, praying for you often as you come to mind.  She will, however, neglect to tell you this.

3) Recognize that you are going through a difficult time and think of no less than a dozen elaborate and thoughtful ways to minister to you in your need.  She will probably act on none of these ideas, even though she has given them all a great deal of thought.

4) Be your biggest supporter and cheerleader at the beginning of a project.  Her enthusiasm will eventually fizzle.  She is distracted easily by shiny things.  Going the distance is not her strong suit.

5) Agree to read and review your newest book or project.  Weeks will pass before a review is finally published.  This does not mean that she did not love your project; on the contrary, she probably loved it so much that she feels her review of your work must be absolutely perfect before she can publish it.  She is often crushed by the weight of her own standards which propels her directly into inaction accompanied by guilt.

6) Interrupt you.  Her mind is constantly making connections, often at a speed which outpaces human speech and good manners.

7) Astound you with her incredible clumsiness.  This may or may not be related to her personality type, but you should have fair warning nonetheless.

8) Start a multitude of projects and finish few.

9) Not take criticism well.  She is keenly aware of her shortcomings and imperfections, always hyper-aware of the ways her outward actions don't meet her inner standards.  When those imperfections are recognized by others, it can be crippling.

10) Personify capriciousness, fickleness, moodiness, and procrastination.  She is also prone to being driven by her feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings.  

If you have the great misfortune of partnering with her on a project or serving as her editor, please know that she will accomplish absolutely nothing without a deadline.  Be assured, however, that she rarely misses deadlines altogether as she is capable of intense micro-focus and dedicated energy as a deadline approaches. 

Finally, if you are counting on her to take an action of some sort, she will probably disappoint you.  And even if you aren't actually disappointed with her, she probably thinks that you are.

Do you think I could have that printed up on business cards to hand to people I meet? 

This is all very true about me, but I'm not telling you to garner any sympathy or to have you respond with warm fuzzies. In fact, I'm closing comments on this.  And I'm not sobbing at the keyboard as I write, either.  In fact, I amused myself quite a bit as I thought of all of the ways people should be warned about me.

These are just some things I thought you should know.  Tomorrow, I'll be sharing with you the other side of the shiny coin that is moi.

(Ohhhhhhh, shiny . . . )

this you will love: GADANKE {a giveaway}

Giveaway now closed! Thank you for all of the entries! The winner is comment #4:

which means the gift certificate goes to Shannon.  Congratulations!

Fifth grade.  If I recall correctly, that's when my love of journaling began.  I've been a sucker for a blank page and pretty pens for so long that I honestly cannot imagine life without them.

Do you love a good journal, too?

Today, I'm excited to share with you a very very fun giveaway for fans of journals everywhere!

Meet Katie.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I'm sure you already know Katie.  She's the writer of Making This Home where she shares her family's adventures in splitting life between two countries - a 480 square foot apartment in Berlin and a house in the Rocky Mountains made of repurposed old tires.  As of this year, she'll be joining me on the Simple Mom contributing team to share about DIY & Making it Handmade.

And if that isn't all charming enough, she's also the creative force behind Gadanke - a shop specializing in handmade journals.  But these aren't any ordinary journals; Katie handcrafts each book and fills them writing prompts, pockets, doilies, pretty papers, doodles, lists.  Each Gadanke journal is made from 100% recycled papers, vintage fabrics, and domestic materials whenever possible. 

The pages above are from the {Something Serious with Something Silly} - Doodle List journal, one of six styles of journaling books created by Katie.  The newest design {Seeking Grace} is a prayer journal and was just released this month.

(Curious about how to pronounce Gadanke?  Check out Katie's fun explanation in her FAQs!)

Gadanke was born a few years ago around the time of Katie's grandmother's 90th birthday.  NPR's StoryCorps was in town.  Katie shared with me:

The two of us decided to hop into the recording studio to capture some pieces of her story.  I had all sorts of prompts to help her with her story telling.  (I was always the listener, the one who asked question after question.)  The only problem?  My grandma couldn't remember.  Too much time had passed.  Later, my dad turned to me and said, "Katie, I need you to write down your story."  I knew he wished he had his mom's stories.  So I started writing.  I started wondering about all of the other women who have stories deep inside of them, and I started thinking about how my tendency to just listen and ask could help put those stories onto paper.  Gadanke was born with fabulous writing prompts and recycled papers.  I feel so lucky to be living my dream.

Isn't that such an incredible story of bringing creation into the world?  I love it.

And I know you will, too, and that's why I'm thrilled to tell you that Katie is offering a $30 gift certificate to the Gadanke shop for one lucky SortaCrunchy reader!

This gift certificate giveaway is open to readers around the globe and will run from today, February 22nd until Saturday, February 26th.  Here's how to enter:

*** Visit the Gadanke shop and leave a comment telling which journal you would like to have for celebrating the stories of YOUR life. ***

Extra entries - LEAVE ONE COMMENT PER EXTRA ENTRY!!!

1) Follow Katie on Twitter
2) Like Gadanke on Facebook
3) Tweet about this giveaway
4) Post about this giveaway on Facebook
5) Subscribe to Katie's blog - Making This Home

Thank you, Katie, for such a generous gift! 

Happy shopping, everyone!

Parenting Your Polar Opposite

I've been a fan of Jamie Martin and Steady Mom from the first moment I clicked on her site.  I am thrilled to join her contributing team, and my first column - Parenting Your Polar Opposite - was published there today.  I would be delighted to have you join the discussion over there!

You'll Get Nothing and Like It

Special guest post from author Sarah Pinneo

“We’re not going to buy anything in January except food,” I announced at the dinner table, just before New Years.  I’d been feeling overrun with holiday excess.  January would be a perfect month to streamline—to acquire nothing, to refrain from indulgence, to fully appreciate just how fortunate we are.

This decision was met largely by yawns.

“What about ski lift tickets?” asked my seven-year-old.

“Oh honey,” I reassured him.  “We’re still going to ski.” Or Daddy would rebel. “And buy food, and gas for the car.  Just no stuff.  We just got so many new things in this house, we’re going to take a break.”

“What is January?” my five year old asked.

“Thirty one days,” I told him.

He waved his Mickey Mouse fork dismissively.  “That’s not so much days,” he said.

And he was right.  It was nothing at all.  My exercise in restraint was petty by any measurement.  Many of the world’s people don’t have enough money for basic necessities.  And even among those who do, there are far more dramatic experiments than mine.  There’s the Atlanta family who gave away half their net worth, and environmental activists who choose to give up even toilet paper.

Baby steps.  Baby steps.

I knew I was going for a smaller statement—I just didn’t realize how small.  Only one item even came up—my seven year old needed a black felt tip pen to complete an art project.  Though I was sure we owned four million art supplies already, no black felt tip or marker could be found anywhere on the premises.

Aha!  A teachable moment.  “I guess you’ll have to use a colored pencil.  Or buy it with your own money.”

No fool, my son.  He asked his grandparents to lend him a pen.  But that led me to explain my quirky experiment to my mother, who immediately assumed the worst.  “Honey, if you’re strapped for cash…” she began.

“No, no,” I assured her.  “It’s an experiment in delayed gratification and ingenuity.”

But it was in many ways a failed experiment.  My son’s ingenuity led him to pry art supplies from grandpa.  The rest of the family failed to notice at all—except for my frightened mother.

It wasn’t until the end of the month that I noticed all the benefits that had accrued to me.

I’d had no idea how much time my silly plan would save me.  The typical four weeks’ onslaught of catalogs went directly into the recycling bin.  “There will be more catalogs in February,” I reminded myself.  Even better—the email address that I use for commerce was opened only to stay on top of all the deleting.  Oh look—a coupon from Borders, 40% off?  Delete without opening.  Take 30% off sale prices at Lands End.  Delete.  J. Crew, Talbots?  Delete, delete.

I’m not much of a shopper.  I rarely buy much from these places.  But what I didn’t realize was how often I opened the messages anyway, and then needlessly lost a half hour of my precious time.  Eureka!  An entire month of deleting junky emails prevented me from dithering over L.L. Bean turtlenecks in size 6x-7, or trolling Replacements.com for teaspoons to replace the ones which mysteriously disappeared since our wedding 12 years ago.

It wasn’t money or closet space that I saved in January.  It was time.

And I put that time to good use.  I wrote two magazine articles, two new pitches, and 12,000 words of a novel.  I made pumpkin pie from scratch.  And not once was I lured by the promise of free shipping, or Exciting Spring Fashions.

When January ended, so did the moratorium.  But I continued to delete and recycle with glee.  At least I did until the moment my older son informed me that both his boots and his shoes were getting tight.  (This from a child who barely notices shoes, so it must be true.)

Then I wasted a perfectly good half hour on shoe sites, only to remember how hard it was to judge things from a pixilated photo.

The boy and I will just have to head to an honest-to-God store soon, when we’re both good and ready.

 
Sarah Pinneo writes about food, family and fiction from Hanover, N.H.  She is the author of the novel Julia’s Child, forthcoming from Plume / Penguin in 2012.  She is the co-author of The Ski House Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 2007)

photo courtesy of Mark Strozier

3 Natural Ways to Nurture Your Child in the Winter

Even a snow grinch can find ways to enjoy mothering through the winter.  Come over to Simple Organic where I'm discussing Three Natural Ways to Nurture Your Child in the Winter. 

(grumping around did not make the list)

 

Mothering Magazine: Goodbye, My Friend

One of the worst things about your favorite magazine closing its doors on publication is that you don't know that the last issue you received was The Last Issue until weeks and weeks after its arrival.  I have fiercely guarded my last issues of Wondertime and Cottage Living, sparing them from the brutal purging of stuff in the past few weeks.  I enjoyed those magazines immensely, and I am still sad when I think of them closing.

Sad is not nearly a big enough word to describe how I am mourning the closing of Mothering.  Yesterday, Peggy O'Mara announced that Mothering is transitioning to a web-only company.  Honestly, I am devastated. 

I can still remember the first time I picked up a copy of Mothering and flipped through its glossy pages.  I became a member of MotheringDotCommunity (MDC) in November 2005, but it wasn't until several months later that I was able to find a copy of the print magazine.  I stood in the Whole Foods in Austin and hardly moved, hardly breathed as I skimmed the pages with a mix of reverence, joy, and awe.

To see page after page exploring, celebrating, and affirming the lifestyle and parenting choices that came so, well, naturally to our family but often made us feel so unlike those around us . . . Warmth from my head to my toes testified to my heart's acknowledgement of like-minded. 

But we were poor, too poor to splurge on a year's subscription, and so I held on to that feeling of community-come-to-life that I had found in the pages of Mothering and was happy enough to find like-mindedness at MDC and in other natural family living blogs that were launching around the time I started SortaCrunchy.

When we moved away from the Austin area and out here to the plains of Oklahoma, the hardest part of the transition for me was making new friends.  It had happened so easily in Texas.  It was, for a variety of reasons, not easy at first here.  I struggled with lots of feelings of isolation.  And so it was from that place of loneliness and loss that in December 2008, our first Christmas back in Oklahoma, I splurged and finally bought a subscription to Mothering for myself. 

Its arrival six times a year in my mailbox for two full years was always a day of delight and communion.  The articles were well-written, intelligent, and informative.  The letters from other readers sometimes offered thoughtful critiques and respectful objections to articles published in its pages, but mostly the letters professed what I felt - tremendous gratitude for and admiration of Mothering.  I even loved the ads!  Natural toy companies, cloth diapering businesses, baby carrier makers - every ad supporting Mothering's publication also supported its mission.

And now, just as The Bard wrote, "Welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing.”

My soul sighs heavy for the loss of this great publication.  Yes, I read in Peggy's article that Mothering will continue on as a web company, full of lots of wonderful web-based features such as podcasts, online seminars, wikis, blogs, and more.  I'm wishing them all the best in their transition.

All of the readers of Mothering know, however, it simply will not be the same.  There was one thing I found in the printed pages of Mothering that cannot be replicated in an online experience: intimacy.  Whereas online content is open to all and invites in immediate reaction from every reader, the pages of Mothering offered quiet, singular, personal reflection and response.

I felt an intimate connection to each writer who contributed to Mothering, like maybe she had me in mind when she sat down to pen her article.  There were no comments to slog through following each article, no myriad of voices shouting approval or dissent, clamoring to make their opinions known.  There were no "like" buttons, no flashing ads offering distraction, no opening of various tabs to follow-up on a thought expressed within an article.

In those beautiful moments in which I snuggled in with a cup of tea and Mothering, there was only the solitary enjoyment of a community that spanned the world.  The moments I spent in its pages enriched, nourished, and inspired me - body, mind, and spirit.  The loss I feel for its closing is very real.

I'm thankful for the family at Mothering that has seen the publication through generations of readers.  May the legacy live on in the lives and families changed by your work.

Our Give:LOVE Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you one last time for all that you have done to spread the word about the Give:LOVE Valentine project.  I am completely, ridiculously thankful for your support in this project.  Some of you have emailed to say that you either didn't do Valentines or had another approach in mind, but you went ahead and donated to Love146 anyway. 

My heart is so full and happy thinking of all of us joining together in this incredibly powerful work.

Last week as we weathered two more snow days, Dacey and I got busy on her class Valentines.  I showed her all of the choices, and she chose the mini-cards designed by Michele.  I'm pretty sure this is because that child still has a thing for birds.  Also, she loved the poem cards.  She might be my daughter.  I don't know.

Anyway.

We printed out enough for her class and got to work.

Last Christmas, I made journals for two of our nieces, and my sister - The Artist - had suggested I get some spray adhesive to assemble those.  I was thankful to have that on hand as we adhered the backs of the cards to the fronts:

After the two sides were joined together so that no man could put them asunder, I cut them out and Dacey grabbed her newly beloved colored pencils to begin filling in names.  Her Pre-K class from last year was looped up to do Kindergarten together, so it was really easy for her to use the yearbook to personalize each card.

(No, we didn't get a list of names.  Not sure why on that.)



We decided to give sunflower seeds to each of her classmates.  The teachers ask that no sweets be sent (yay!) and we both love the idea that when the sunflowers bloom in the summer, it's like getting a gift all over again:

Next, she labeled brown paper bags to keep everything together.  We finished it off with a little curling ribbon, and ta-da:

Do you have pictures of the Give:LOVE Valentines in action?  I would LOVE to see them!

*** Also, reader Beth emailed me to let me know that TOMORROW (TUESDAY) NIGHT on PBS, Frontline will be airing a special called Sex Slaves.  It will examine the problem, why it's so hard to stop, and why there is so little help for the victims.  I'm planning to tune in.  Just wanted to make you aware as well! ***

I'm not a really big Valentine-sy person, but I am all about redeeming a sorta made-up holiday for something much bigger.  Thank you again for joining me in this!

7 Quick Takes: Been A Long Time Edition

We had two more snow days this week, and I am using today to tie up the loose ends. 

Wishing/dreaming/hoping/praying that this was the last of the snow and we can charge full steam into Normal Life now.  So while a sky full of sun melts of snow outside my window, how about some 7 Quick Takes?  Haven't done these in a while . . .

1. I've known for a long time that when I am hormonal, I should ban myself from the computer.  The things I say/write/do always make me cringe when everything levels out again.  A perfect example of this is the snow grinch post.  Gah.  How embarrassing.  Oh, waaaah.  I have heat, electricity, Netflix, Dish, food, and a beautiful family to cuddle for days on end.  Poor me. 

Meanwhile there are children who depend on school to receive two meals a day who may or may NOT have eaten while we've been out of school for snow.  There are houses that have little or no heat, people who lost days of work and therefore lost income while everything was shut down, I mean, just real real things to complain about.  I'm so spoiled.  I hate that I wrote that.  forgive?

2. Do you think you could narrow down your personal possessions to just 100 Things?  I saw The 100 Thing Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul in Steady Mom's sidebar, and I have to admit, I am intrigued by the idea.  Hmmmmm.

3. The best book I didn't tell you about last year is Jonathan Merritt's Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet.  Absolutely fantastic read.  Over at not one sparrow, you can read a very brief excerpt from it on the topic of factory farming.  I really need to write up my thoughts on that book.

4. Okay, so speaking of books.  I realized after I published this yesterday that there are, in fact, a few more KEEPER books floating around here.

For example, I stashed these on a shelf in our "art studio" (officially located in one corner of the laundry room):

Also, my copy of Radical is around here somewhere, as is When Helping Hurts. I am pretty sure I've loaned out my copy of Interrupted, but I'm puzzled as to what I've done with Evolving in Monkey Town. I KNOW I didn't purge that one. Did I lend it to you?

Anyway.  It was just bothering me that I had said, okay, I've cut it down to two shelves of books, but obviously that isn't entirely true.  Mostly true, though.  That counts.

5. I love music, but I do have a tendency to get stuck in musical ruts.  I listened to Patty Griffin pretty much exclusively for two years because I couldn't fathom there was anything else out there.  Pandora has helped me to become more adventurous, but even then I'll get stuck on one station and play it for months on end.  (If you'll recall, it's been Forest Sun for months and months.)

So, earlier this week, Boo Mama linked to this video for Fire and Dynamite from Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors and INSTANT OBSESSION.  I've played it/listened to it so much this week that it was actually sorta in the soundtrack for a dream one night.  That's weird. I know.  So I promptly made a Drew Holcomb Pandora station, and I gotta say: giving ol' Forest a run for his money.

6. I have to brag on my three year old for a second.  We are in some BIG TIME half-age angst, but every now and again we have a little moment of our sweetheart Aliza, and it's blissful.  This morning, I was helping PTO at Dacey's school get Valentine gifts ready, and I thought we would be there for maybe an hour.  It turned into two-and-a-half hours, and she was just GOLDEN.  Didn't complain, didn't get into things, didn't meltdown over anything; in fact, she was a pretty good little helper. 

I love those little glimpses of who she really is when things aren't feeling all unsettled on the inside.

7. Fifteen years ago this weekend, I took a boy whom I had only been on one date with to a sorority party.  The theme was handcuffs, which just speaks to you of class and elegance and charm, doesn't it?

I think I cuffed him pretty good:

He hasn't been able to shake loose of me since.

You can read more 7 Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary!

 

 

Give: LOVE :: Giving my heart, my books

Today, Give:OASIS meets Give:LOVE.

Even though I've confessed to being a bit of a hoarder, a lot of the clutter and stuff we've cleared out since the beginning of the year has been laying around the house due to laziness, not love. 

When we started the Oasis project, Kyle and I had a long talk about our books.  We may have a lot of differences, but we have always, from the moment we met, been united in our love of reading.  And not just reading.  Collecting.  Collecting books. 

When we were young marrieds with no children, we would go to the bookstore at least once a week for Date Night.  Even though we always said we were just going to browse, we always ended up with armfuls of books, many of which we couldn't afford.  Our amassing habits weren't confined to retail bookstores, either.  We would shop half-price bookstores, estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores, you name it. 

We ♥ books.

But now, we've decided that we love simpler, lighter, less complicated, less stuff living more than we love our books.  (and we love our books a whole, whole lot)

Kyle has decided to give all of his books away, and we've been doing that slowly but surely.  Here is all that he has decided to keep, stacked neatly in his bedside table:

I have given most of mine away (even going so far as to ship my cookbooks to cookbook-collecting friends in other states).  I've listed tons on Paperback Swap.  And as the book collection dwindled, I was down to four shelves (give or take) of the books that I have loved the most.  Used the most.  Enjoyed the most.  Returned to the most.

But, we're trying to be brutal, you know?  Out, out, out, and all that.

And I've been so inspired by everything my friend Marla is doing to raise money for their Cambodia trip.  She makes no claims on being a crafter, but everything that will sit still is being turned into something lovely to sell from her house these days.  And while I've been delightfully overwhelmed with the incredible response to the Valentine's Day Cards for Love146, I've wanted to do more to raise money for them during this month of Give:LOVE.

See where I am headed with this?

I have, with no small amount of turmoil, pared my book collection down to these keepers on my bedside table:

and on this shelf:

Everything on these two shelves have now been listed in my Amazon Seller Storefront - On The Plains Books:

(except for these two which I can't list through Amazon.  Anyone interested?  Email me and we'll work out a deal)

So, here's the deal.  This is different from buying a book in my Amazon shop.  Those books come directly to you from Amazon and I get a teeny little affiliate commission from everything you buy through my shop.

That which I sell from On The Plains Books, I get paid directly for (after Amazon takes their cut, of course), and I send the book right from my shelf right to you.  And from February 10 to March 15th, all profits from books sold through On The Plains Books will be donated to Love146!

Summing up:

• Buy a book (or two!) from On The Plains Books. 
• Make sure that you put the book directly in your Amazon cart from the link in the On The Plains Storefront.  In other words, don't click through to the other used and new listings or you will lose the link to On The Plains and purchase it from someone else.   You will know you are buying from me if you see this above your Add To Cart button:
  
  
  
• I donate profits to Love146
• You'll get a package from the windy plains of Oklahoma with a note from me and maybe a little something else, too.  You never know.  I'm nothing if not unpredictable.

I know many of you are working on cleaning-out and clearing-out projects of your own.  What have you gotten rid of lately that you thought you would always hang onto?