Introduction

Two people that I know and love have started blogging, so I decided to give it a shot. The first person is wisemd. She is going to take Med school by storm, and she's tracking her progress for those of us who miss her terribly. The second person is my husband. He is a percussionist, drummer, and drum-line instructor. He is also a graphic artist, but he doesn't have that on his blog, I don't think. Go to his blog and be wowed. Now, both of these people have very good reasons to have blogs. Wisemd is living an interesting and fast-paced life in Med school, and she's going to be cutting stuff open and telling us all about our own gooey insides. Adam is advertising his fabulous drumming abilities for the convenience of those who wish to hire him for projects, teaching, and other exciting, drum-related activities. I, on the other hand, had to search hard for something interesting to tell about myself.

Here's what I came up with.

I am a recently married writing tutor with a love for hyphenation. My husband and I were married five and half months ago.

 Us five and a half months ago

My husband and I have decided to embrace a life of "poverty." Let me explain in a list (I love lists almost as much as I love hyphenating.):

1. We have agreed that we need to be more aware of global poverty and the role that the United States and other Western countries have played in it.
2. We have decided to avoid spending money on stuff.
3. We have agreed to save and donate what we don't spend.
4. We have decided to change the way we eat to reflect a healthier lifestyle and a more global mindset.
5. We believe this is what Jesus wants us to do as Christians.
6. We have a lot of friends who agree with us, and we are trying to help build a community of Christians who pursue activities that have eternal profit; support each other through prayer, relationships, and other ministries; and try to get other people to join the club (love Jesus, do what we're doing, etc.).

Now, we are still trying to figure out how this works. We are trying to be guided my our moral convictions, rather than what people tell us we need (which is actually one of the biggest challenges we are facing - people telling us we're crazy, I mean, and that we need salary-based jobs with pensions and 50k a year and a house and a dog and... you get the picture). What I intend to do in this blog is to tell you what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how you can do it, too, if you were so inclined.

Our first real challenge has been to pick our battles. I would love to be able to afford fair-trade coffee. However, even though we are choosing a simplistic life of not-spending-money, we actually are still pretty poor. Also, according to this journal article, fair-trade coffee might not be all it's cracked up to be. So we should buy cheaper, less-fair-trade coffee, and send the money we save to charity. Get it? That's the kind of stuff I will try to discuss in this blog. I will also explain what it's like to be a one-car family and stay that way and what we do for entertainment, among other topics.

I will also talk about stuff like, "Raw Milk is Pretty Rad", "I Can't Find Good Local Produce", and "Do I Really Need That Skirt?" (The answer to that last one wound up being "yes." I was weak.). I will also give you "Adventures in Tutoring College-level Writing," "All About Being Married to a Philosopher Who Likes to Hit Stuff with Sticks," and "My Daddy Is Publishing His Book Soon."

If you have kept reading, cool. I will try to be interesting, but without my verbal cues and hilarious facial expressions, I'm not sure how I will accomplish that. Anyway, I leave you with this quote:

"We have grown literally afraid to be poor.  We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life.  If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition."  ~William James (1902) (from whom the title of my blog also comes)