Back to school, Annie auditions and Moon Cocoons

Kids open houses are this week, just had Perry's yesterday at the Kindergarten Learning Center, and he is very excited about his teacher and school! We live so close to the school that a bus doesn't even come, so we will be walking to the girl's school and Perry will be riding a bus to the Kindergarten from the elementary school. We popped some sweet potatoes in the oven this morning and went on a walk to the school, only took 17 minutes! We also are slowly becoming more involved in the community theater here in Sebring, and Todd went to a toast that was held for his former high school drama teacher yesterday at the theater. He had a good time, made some good connections and found out that the long awaited Annie auditions are upon us!! The girls will be auditioning (their first auditions!) on Saturday, doing cold readings (we're practicing with parts from Annie as well as books we enjoy reading as performances, like the Gruffalo) and we're very excited! Also, spent some time looking at this page today that has some really awesome eco-dome designs (the moon cocoon):

About to post another round of eBay auctions tomorrow, will update as soon as posted. Last run of auctions were very successful, I just have to get in the habit of weekly thrifting and listing. Once the kids are in school and it's just Alden and I at home we'll find a smooth flow to the art of continuity with postings.

Our summer

This summer, we found sacred spaces in Florida- our new home




Watching these kids grow over this summer has been a magical experience!













For more pictures, check out our photobucket: http://s1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh558/jupiterspace777/

the thrifting identity

Today, I went out to hunt and gather in the big world. I explored the uncharted territories of the Lutheran thrift store and found an immense amount of bargains that are either for kids back to school or for eBay sales  next week. I realized while I was shopping how much more comfortable I am within the world of the thrifters. I suppose to some it could be an alternate dimension that could be feared, with the screaming children, the hoarders, the trash disciples and the bag ladies. I suppose being a thrifter brought about a good deal of my interest in anthropology... from the time I was walking I absorbed every picture in the national geographics that my grandfather hoarded in his closet, and each trip to a goodwill with my nannie and poppa, grandparents or parents growing up was like a living national geographic to me. There were always relics from a plethora of different cultures, and the world of thrift itself was always it's very own cultural experience. I've spent most of my life within the walls of a thrift store or another, and it wasn't until today, at 31 years old that I realized how at home I felt. I walked around the many rooms of the church thrift store, tickled at how organized it is, so tickled in fact, that I left my name and number as a contact for volunteering (which entitles me to first dibs on items as well as 50% 0ff!) and found the company of the older church ladies very soothing to my soul. I made one last stop at the habitat for humanity restore before shipping my eBay items, in search of more items to resell or school clothes for the kids and found more treasures! Everyone I met, employee or shopper gave me the nod or a smile. I looked around and I thought to myself, I like this life just fine. And I do. Perhaps it's growing up, perhaps it's getting to know myself deeper, but I am happy with where my life is,  right now and that is a very good thing indeed.


Today's finds include:

Bissell baglass vacuum (talked them down to $6)
HUGE bag of kids clothes, me clothes and eBay clothes, four records and a magnet ($20)
Two stylish and eBay worthy winter coats ($2)

Objective

So, decided on an objective to follow for the (this) Jupiter Space blog-
Obviously, I want to chronicle our business pursuits regarding our online vending, art sales, festivals we participate in etc, I also want to chronicle what life with a family of six living on a small budget, living minimalistically, travelling with kids, etc so this will be the dedicated family blog. For all things cooking, cleaning, budgeting, family, child rearing, kid shenanigans, dreams, performances, art, travel, business etc etc.
I'm in the process (finally!) of uploading our entire summer's worth of pictures onto photobucket and will do a few blog entries on the trips (tomorrow?) I will also be creating both girls a blog to upload their art and writing that will be linked to this page (will do the same for the boys when they get older)
...more later.....

Gifting as new ethics for business (eBay)

Nearing the end of my most recent auctions on eBay, which were acting as a sort of social experiment in the concept of gifting as a business practice. I've been working on ways to incorporate the 10 principles of burning man http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/principles.html into the default world over this past year, and my most recent experiments have involved gifting vs tithing, and I have been doing some observations to artist on eBay who begin auctions for their art at the minimum 1cent bidding, often with free shipping! I'm very drawn to this idea, as for me art has always been something that though I (as most artists, I'm sure) would greatly love to reap the benefits of  being able to live off the profits of my art, I will continue to produce art, nonetheless as it's something I feel driven to do. Watching these types of auctions was exciting as most of the bidding ended at well over the starting bids, and during this I had the idea that really 1 cent being the lowest minimum bid possible on eBay means you're basically willing to give it to someone (this is especially true with auctions that the seller pays for shipping, that one I'm still working on, and have greatly reduced the cost of shipping to take some of the shipping cost myself) and the gift of random monetary value is being exchanged with the artist. Also, starting at $0.01 is allowing the market to set the price more based on it's level of novelty, and in this way is more like stock trade. My most recent auctions were more successful with lower starting bids, and I think my policy from now on will be the 1 cent model (though, still in the experimentation phase of developing our business model). There is a new round of auctions we're in the midst of preparation for, and this will be the final pricing experiment before I've created a median of starting bid prices to consider for future auctions. The money from the most recent auctions will go towards new inventory when we go to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area in a few weeks. As for the other 10 principles applied to default reality, I will be discussing this more during the next few weeks at blueaugustmoon.blogspot.com