Stayin' Alive

OK, so I’m unmotivated to update the NNY blog. Does that mean NNY is dead?

No way!! We are going strong! To date, we have bought 2 “new” things (unused) things in 3 months. They were a cub scout neckerchief and webelos book (go figure that it would be cub scouting that would ruin our streak since I already have a bad attitude about the price of cubs. I hope the CEO of BSA is enjoying his cush lifestyle courtesy of fact that my eBay purchases of those two items both fell through & we ran out of time before our first pack meeting)

Speaking of eBay, I think it’s eBay’s fault that NNY doesn’t feel as revolutionary as I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong: we aren’t buying “new” things or dumb things (depending on your definition of dumb), but we ARE buying things like used snow pants on eBay, so the whole online shopping/packages on the doorstep thing is not dead.

I could MAKE it revolutionary by saying “no online purchases”…maybe we will do the last six months like that. It makes me feel a little nervous just to consider it.

The times I feel NNY most acutely are when I see Scott walking out the door with the stapler (“please guard that with your life!” or when Juju gets an invitation to a birthday party (“This certificate is good for one afternoon of ice skating with Juju”).

A few weeks ago my saintly dad fixed our hair drier—it died one day as I was trying to blow dry the seat of my pants (after sitting in a chair that Cal had visited with a water bottle) (and I really didn’t want a used hair drier). 

Having my dad spend 30 minutes fixing that old thing makes no economic sense, however, he IS part of why I feel so funny about sending things to the landfill. He doesn’t like to shop if he can help it, but one time when I was a teenager he came home from a trip to our area’s newish Walmart and said, with a look on his face that I’ll never forget, “They had a $20 vacuum. How could you even make a vacuum for $20?” The implication of disposable appliances made me feel as sick as he looked. Hopefully, as he fixed that hair drier, he still felt as strongly about conservation as he did then :-)

A "Nothing New" Birthday

We had our first NNY birthday! 

Juju is a great age for an NNY birthday (kindergarten); she's not really clued into this season's must-haves (fingers crossed that the American Girl catalogue doesn't follow us here). A couple of weeks before her birthday we decided to make her a gymnastics beam, which is fully permissible under NNY rules but has a certain "bigness" factor. 

It was fun to make and inexpensive (two parts of the NNY venn) (and possibly environmentally friendly in the sense that it wasn't shipped to our house or assembled/transported 6K miles from China)

She also got much-needed socks (new...socks are an NNY exception) and a pair of second-hand jeans.  Every parent has had the "Berenstain Bears Too Much Birthday" experience where the birthday/Christmas hoopla exceeds the kid's ability to process. We have found that 3ish simple gifts is a sweet spot and avoids the thing where they toss the freshly opened gift to one side so they can tear into the next package. Once we include cards/gifts from grandparents, it feels celebratory but not overboard (at least for ages 0-10. We know things can change as kids grow up). 

For her birthday party, we filled all seven passenger seats of the van (even the front seat, which I  learned afterwards is illegal, even if the airbags turn off...) with giggling girls and went to a neighborhood cafe/bakery, where each girl ordered a fancy treat. Then we headed to the park to play.  The girls had a blast, and nothing new was necessary. 

 Last year I was reading a "minimalism with kids" book and the author said that his family tells everybody, even grandparents, that they won't accept gifts. I get it--if you are trying to live the simplest life possible and someone give you extra stuff that you will just get rid of, well, that's no good for anyone. BUT we're not minimalists and we don't receive THAT many gifts in any case. Maybe I should have said, "no gifts" for Juju's party (as I often have) but I didn't, and she had fun receiving them (and thankfully they were cute but simple). 

Anyway, birthday success! We don't have to worry about another kid one until March :-)

PS. We thought keeping score would keep us from buying used things that we didn't really NEED, but it was a major pain to calculate and had no effect on our habits. So: from here on out, no score, just adherence to the rules.