Skeptickle

Love the following series. They really should be hung in a gallery somewhere.

LOL! Thank you Rob for giving me permission to post those.

We had a good experience buying our first home mostly thanks to the seller that we bought it from. I finally got the time to sit down and write her a Thank You note for leaving behind so many cool things like lovely planters full of plants, the kitchen table, a list of services she has used and recommends, and notes on maintaining the house. We really couldn’t have asked for a better person to buy a house from. I’ll even forgive her for being a Republican and being part of the National Republican Committee (when you move, the next tenants always unwillingly find out about your business). However, one thing that was not so desirable that she left behind was a crapload of subscriptions to various catalogs. We got a deluge of catalogs the first week of our stay and they just kept on coming. I’ve counted upwards of fifteen different kinds, including some obscure ones that I never even knew existed. What a terrible thing for the environment! And it was a total hassle to shuffle through them to get to the important mail. I finally got fed up with them last week and tried to find a way to stop them from being mailed in the first place. I could call the companies one at a time but I’m shy on the phone and hoped for a more streamlined process.

I found Catalog Choice from a web search and I really like their user-friendly website. All I had to do was register, search for the catalogs, and then check or fill in my preferences for them. They save all my preferences in their system and inform me when my preferences are confirmed by the company. So far, I only have one confirmation but they say that it usually takes a few weeks for most companies to get to these requests. I donated a little bit of money to Catalog Choice because they are a nonprofit organization that is providing me with a very useful service. Try it! You’ll help save your sanity and the environment all at once.

Image borrowed from Brian Scott Berkovitz Photography via Flickr.

Love this quote, via Wide Open Spaces:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and that as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.  I rejoice in life for its own sake.  Life is no “brief candle” to me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” 

-George Bernard Shaw