Parastoo's story

Wow. This letter gave me goosebumps. A big thanks to Parastoo for sharing such a personal and powerful story with us!Parastoo and her husband“I was born in Iran and lived in Europe for seven years before immigrating to the United States, fourteen years ago.When I moved here with my husband, the unlimited amount of stuff got to me. It all looked very exciting and the options to buy things felt unlimited... but we had just finished dental school, and could not spend much. So when we got our dental licenses, and finally started making a decent income, we got wild :) We moved into a 3700 square foot...

Read more »

12 ways a small house has improved my life

When I moved to the US, I dreamed of living in a large home. Mansions as seen on TV, represented my American dream.When Scott and I bought our first house, we indulged my aspirations. But after seven years of living large, varied circumstances led us to move into a house half the size. The move presented logistical challenges and I worried about "status", but I was excited about change.Today, I have completely embraced small living, and could not even envision going back to big (I actually dream of smaller).I have come to learn that bigger is not necessarily better.Here are areas that I have found...

Read more »

Penni's Story

Zero Waste is providing relief to a debilitating health condition... Thanks for sharing, Penni! (beautiful backyard you have there!)"My name is Penni and I live in extreme Northern California. Our home for 35 years has been our ranch and we are ten miles from the nearest small community. A weekly 70 mile round trip is required for almost all shopping. We have been careful to maintain three quarters of our land in a wild state and farm organic hay. We grow a large garden each year, and have a solar net metering system for all domestic use. I’ve been carrying cloth grocery bags for a decade,...

Read more »

About those air travels...

When I first mentioned the idea of writing a blog to Scott, he advised against it because we fly to France to visit my family every year. "You're going to get hammered for that" he said.Boy, did I find a lot of buzz in the comments about my recent travels. We have covered meat consumption, toilet paper and car usage, even white walls;)... Today, you have expressed concerns about my carbon footprint related to going away for Christmas and going to New York to tape The View. I am happy to provide answers: Some may think we are perfect, but we never said we were... we only try to do our best - and...

Read more »