What a beautiful array! The first picture is a perfect arrangement showing the old and the new. The one with the oil pump happily contrasts clean and renewable energy with that other kind that we have come to rely on a bit too heavily ... All great photos with sort of a wistful, yet hopeful quality.

Nice sign roselee. I don't know about stress free. There is so much to get done in my garden at this time of year. I am looking to start my years stint of chainsawing the woods. 1.5 acres and I am still working on planting everything that I got at the swap. I spent all day out in the garden which means that I did not get any work on the building of my interior walls and doors (guilt and stress). I do feel good at the end of the day but..... bugs give me stress too. Deer stress me out and if that is not enough, wild pigs send me into a tizzy. Mountain lions stress me out just a tad. It is a wild wild world out there. I guess I am in a different garden. I should have a sign that says " when you go out this door , you enter the food chain"

I see lots of "for sale" signs in cars. Swim Team was smaller this year at our neighborhood pool. I think more parents couldn't afford the fees. At the end of the school year, there were A TON of fights at my sons' middle school. This is a school were there hadn't been a fistfight for 5 or 6 years and suddenly there were fistfights every day. My middle son was disgusted by the other boys fighting, so I made an appt to talk with the principal. She told me her theory was...the economy. She said many of the boys getting into fights had one or even both parents unemployed, and she thought things were tense at home. The boys were acting it out at school. It made me so sad. I took DS #2 to Music Go Round today to get a bass guitar for his birthday. It's a buy, sell, trade place for musical instruments. It is BURSTING to the seams! We could hardly walk through the store! I think it's a good time to buy musical instruments beacuse so many people are selling them. We got a STEAL of a deal on a really sweet bass for him! Surprisingly, I have seen LESS garage sales this summer than normal. I would think there would be more garage sales. I don't know what's going on there! Another surprising thing is enrollment at the neighborhood private schools hasn't declined at all. There was an article in the newspaper last week showing all the schools & their enrollment. It hasn't dipped at all. (my kids go to public school but I thought this article was interesting). As for me personally, I am taking the bus to work, trying to prolong the life of my car and only use the car for family driving. We have always lived very frugally so we haven't really had to make too many changes. DH is getting a lot less hours at work - his income is down about $8-10K for the past 2 years. We have adjusted, no more eating out, etc. But we still have a few little extras, like swim team for the boys, music lessons & musical instruments for the boys, boy scouts camp and church camp for them this summer, etc. I adjust by spending less on food, buying all our clothing at thrift stores, not splurging on makeup or accessories, etc. Music and sports for the boys mean more to me than new clothes & stuff like that. I've also quit coloring my hair. It looks great just the natural brown (it had been so long since I'd seen it!) and it's saving a ton of $ to not get the coloring services, just haircuts!

Many of the newer schools only install digital clocks around here. The clock used to be used as a teaching tool but then again when I was in school, all teachers were expected to teach. Now, so many don't and the kids suffer. Nay, society suffers too. Interesting that in most jobs if you don't do what you're supposed to do at the quality level expected you lose your job. Even the post office will fire people for non-performance. Not often, granted, but it does happen. Plus a lot of people wouldn't need to have both parents working (at least full time) if they'd back off from what they feel is a minimal lifestyle. They don't have to buy a home they can't afford. They don't need 2 new SUVs plus an RV in the driveway. Once they buy the house they can't afford they don't need to immediately remodel everything. They don't need to outfit themselves and the kids in designer clothes. They could make some food at home rather than living on drive through barely-edibles. Instead of spending hundreds and thousands on useless toys and trinkets because "it's Christmas" do something you can afford. The "annual vacation" putting them in debt is a joke and I don't care if "they need the getaway". If they'd learn the concept of saving, and that just because you have money or worse, credit, does *not* mean you have to spend what you can't afford to spend. And so on. Many times during my life I've heard people go "how can you DO it???" and instead of explaining common sense to people not-so equipped I gave up and just responded "I'm not you".