Enoughism

Two weeks ago, Jared was working hard on a social studies project on whether children really need all that store-bought toys, versus homemade toys and fun that can be had from things found at home. He chose the topic because he is fantastic at having fun from anything! His teacher tried to loosely wrap his project around the topic of "Consumerism" and he asked me what is Consumerism? That led to a fantastic conversation and discussion and we found this definition on Wikipedia: Consumerism is the equation of personal happinness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement called Enoughism.'" Now that led us to Enoughism which is defined on Wiki as: Enoughism is the theory that there is a point where consumers possess everything they need, and by buying more it actually makes their life worse off. Now isn't that a thought!
Jared surprised me by his understanding, and we talked about not buying any more toys unless he gave some away, and he reminded me that I have enough vintage rings already and I do not have enough fingers to wear them on (!) and moreover, my harddisk is bursting with the digital kits I've downloaded and bought (lol)! Finally Jared said, I don't think we have Enoughism yet, but I think what we have is TooMuchism!! I totally agree! Now to set the example (they are never too young to learn) to know "contentment with holiness is great gain".

On the Ryan front, he has since added 3 more phrases to his conversational repertoire since I did the layout two posts down (the strong and silent type). When he tries to tell me something and I take a while to get it, he says " Oh, never mind". When I ask him too many questions, he says "It's Classified". When I try to remind (ok nag) him, he says "Fine! Fine! Fine!" My friend tells me she read James Dobson's comforting words that our children may go mute as they enter deeper into their teenage years, but no worries, their vocabulary will return in time. That's comforting!
Actually for all his angst, he is a very wonderful boy, just last thursday, I got home so late and finally had my dinner at 10pm, after which he offered to wash up all the dishes, pots and pans for me, now that's the sweetest thing ever! So what if he is of very few words? :)

It's a little late, but I do want to thank everyone for making the sale a great one, thank you very much! I've been closing in on the deadline of a project at work, and working on a special 'project' on the designing front as well, so no layouts to show except for catch up on my 365. I've reused my last template (you can find it a few posts down) because I love it so much!




And this is what I came up with for the next two weeks. I honestly can't wait to complete this album and get it printed and hold it in my hands!! 4 more months (about 9 layouts for me since I do 1 layout per fortnight) to go!!





You can download it here. Let me know if I've helped you keep going in your 365 project!