We stayed with Justin’s gorgeous cousin and her husband and son, enjoyed some homecooked meals in the evenings and several trips to Madison farmer’s markets. It was so incredibly kind of them to open their home to us over the weekend, and I know Justin especially was really grateful for the time spent with them.

I was also able to sneak in a bit of hooping with Denise and her family. I loved it! Being able to ask questions and even answer a few, and just have fun. I can’t wait to find more of these.

We “commuted” during the day to Jennifer and Mark’s home not far away to do some work with them. I had the honor of initiating a brand new dready mama! Jennifer’s long beautiful locks had already been started, so we spent a few hours tightening up the existing and finishing up the rest of her head. Isn’t she just gorgeous with dreads? I can’t wait to see them take shape over the next few months.

Perhaps the most fun was seeing and working on their very own 1982 Winnebago Brave! Look familiar?? Yup, that would be Benny’s big bro, sitting a little longer and with a much different layout. Justin really enjoyed doing repairs, comparing vintage quirks and getting Mark started on the rest of the refurbishing process.

Mark is a baker and they are looking to start a unique and inspiring mobile venture across the US with their four children. I’m super excited to see how their family’s journey unfolds! Hopefully they’ll be starting that blog soon. Hint hint.

Thank you both and good luck to you guys!

Current location: En route from OKC to Dallas for the Rethinking Everything conference!

I hope that you’ll check them out and support the ones you love!

Straight from the hands & heart of Melbourne-based artist Jess Loyer, Full Spiral Designs is a collection of nature-inspired jewelry made with 100% recycled metals & natural gemstones. With a belief that designs inspired by natural beauty ought to reflect a respect for this earth, she strives to use eco-friendly materials. Her organic metal work & playful application of color makes her pieces earthy & fun.

Family of Movers is a family of five on a mission –converting a school bus into their “new” home/lotion & shampoo lab to tour the country spreading Ebelegy love around while using their hands to build houses. Ebelegy is Lynne’s passion. She creates handmade organic hemp lotion for eczema, psoriasis and dry skin. “Please if you have a skin problem, you can get healing here.”

Mama’s Herbal Soaps came into being over a decade ago inspired by Shauna’s Great Grandmother ‘Mama’ and her love of soap making and nature, her childhood which was spent running wild and free in the forest, and her overwhelming desire to be at home with her children. Shauna’s soaps and herbal medicines are precious gifts which she is grateful to share with you and yours.

FreeHippie represents small steps by the artist, Rebecca Galardo, in trying to create progress towards a harmonized world for herself and her customers. FreeHippie carries handmade, high quality resin jewelry made with re- & up-cycled items, hemp jewelry, spiritual items, statement pieces and dreadlock adornments.

Founded by Barb Lundgren and Sarah Parent, Rethinking Everything Magazine publishes powerful stories of deeply transformative change. Their cutting edge online delivery offers so much more than a paper magazine, including video and audio from our contributors. Are you ready? You’re about to change.

Blog readers can enjoy a special “Organic Sister” discount!

Have you been dreaming of traveling, around the country or maybe even around the globe, but think it’s unrealistic or aren’t sure how to make it happen? Did you know plenty of regular people – with or without kids or partners – have already made it happen? Whether you’re caught up in the But’s or stuck on the How’s, Magnus and Maria, of Extended World Travel, can get you started!

WE ADD UP is a global campaign using organic cotton t-shirts that literally “counts you in” to help solve the climate crisis. Choose your preferred action – from showering together to breastfeeding – and they will hand-print your unique number to show the world that small actions add up. Also, a portion of each sale goes to a non-profit organization working to implement the solution your item promotes!

Suzy is a Mama, Wife, Business Owner, Environmentalist, Activist, and Nature Lover. She spends her days running her online shop Hip Mountain Mama and environmental blog One Small Change, cherishing her children, and spending as much time outdoors as possible. She dreams of creating an Eco Village, living off the land, and respecting the earth and the people who live on it.

Paul and Elizabeth are unschooling parents, long-time travelers and small business owners of Caracol – Inspired Jewelry. Caracol specializes in fine silver jewelry handcrafted by independent artisans here and abroad. All of their jewelry is hand-selected for its unique style, high quality and fair-trade standards.

This one seemed to be a top pick – along with its quoted card!

I’m am super pleased, however, to announce the two winners chosen by Random.org…

Of the laminated print, the winner is……#50 Lauren who commented:

I’m happy for you and feel good about this move you made. Of course you should sell your photos! I love the one of the frog… He did look like a zen master there on that long leaf… good luck with everything! I love your blog.

Of the set of cards, the winner is…#122 Rebecca who shared this on Facebook:

Tara is someone I have been inspired by (her life and her photography) and have been following on Flickr for I think 2 years. She is now opening up her own photography shop – and giving away two prints I entered the giveaway and so should YOU! My fave is ‘Boxcar Dreams‘. Anyone else have a fave?

Thank you to everyone who entered! You have truly, truly filled my heart.

We couldn’t be more excited! We’re heading south to Dallas, Texas for the annual Rethinking Everything Conference starting on Friday. Although  it’s their 14th year, it is only our first year attending RE and we can’t wait to spend 5+ days with some awesome conference veterans doing some awesome conference connecting.

Some inspiring things we’re looking forward to:

• Seeing some Texan friends
• Joining in the stop-motion animation fun
• Hooping with new friends
• Discussing Big Ideas
• Adding our voices to the documentary
• Playing in the pool
• Eating yummy food

Will you be there?

Want a little Rethinking goodness in your inbox?

Check our Rethinking Everything’s quarterly ad-free magazine, chocked full of inspiring stories of individuals who rethought and rediscovered amazing ways to live.

If you purchase from this link you’ll get $15 off the regular price and access to all back issues, while helping me to support my family and my passion for blogging.

What’s been inspiring you?

It can be a story, quote, or excerpt; a piece of art you made or a pair of earrings you love or some fantastic article that left you in awe.

Submit your blog post link below or share in the comments!

I’ve been up to something.

Something both yummy and provoking that challenges my self-doubt and insists I push through the fears I’d rather avoid, thank you very much. It’s exciting and terrifying in the very best of ways.

I’m now selling my photography.

The idea fell into my head several months ago with such determined assurance I felt for sure it hadn’t come from me. And the way it quickened my heart and stirred up my fears confirms (as it always does) that it’s exactly what I’m suppose to be doing.

Of course, as is my fashion when I’m confronted with facing my own self-loathing demons, I procrastinated a good four months. But thanks to Visionary Mom and her awesome teams, I’m finally moving forward with a dream I’ve only toyed with for several years.

I’m still wracked with doubt. As a self-taught photographer, there is much I have left to learn and I seem to insist on perpetuating my doubts by comparing my work to the work of the many other fantastic, experienced artists doing their thing.

I almost gave up completely until this quote was whispered to me:

“Use the talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” – Henry Van Dyke

I am very, very far from the best. You could write encyclopedias on what I’ve yet to learn. And some of my attempts make even me laugh. But occasionally I stumble across a shot that lights me on fire, and am in awe to hear it do the same for others. So, this is me singing my little bird song, adding my voice to the chorus of very best in the woods.

To add to my awe and amazement, within a week of putting my prints for sale, I sold my first! Not only did I sell my first, I sold it to someone in the UK. And I don’t care what anyone says, no one is bursting the bubble of excitement I create by calling myself an international photographer.

So without further ado, I’d like to introduce my RedBubble.

It’s where you can find my favorite prints, and order them to your specifications. You can also find cards and postcards with some of my favorite shots combined with some of my favorite quotes. And if there is something you’d like to see added, let me know!

The Giveaway!

I can’t wait to share my prints with TWO lucky winners:

• The first winner will receive an 8×12 laminated print: you choose your fave photo and border color.
• The second winner will receive a collection of each of my cards: you choose either postcards or notecards or a combination of the two!

How to enter:

There are FIVE ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment here telling me your favorite print or what you’d love to see me place on RedBubble
2. Tweet this giveaway (you can use the ReTweet button below) including the name of your favorite print
3. Share this giveaway on Facebook, including the name of your favorite print
4. “Like” The Organic Sister on Facebook
5. Blog about this giveaway, linking back here and to my RedBubble account, as well as sharing the name of your favorite print.

Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry for them all to be counted!

The giveaway will close August 31st at 8pm CST and the winners will be announced shortly after.

Good luck!

You know sometimes I’m amazed Justin and I not only made it this far, and are still so in love with each other. We had both come from divorced parents and I especially didn’t have very many healthy relationship models. Neither one of us really knew what love was or what marriage took to succeed. But we did know we didn’t want to put our child(ren) through the pain we experienced as children.

A few of our single friends have asked us in the past how we did it: how we found “the right one”, how we made things work and how in the world we stayed so passionate for each other. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks, trying to understand our own romantic journey and discovery, or self-discovery really, trying to find our own “keys to marital success”.

The journey is different for everyone, I’m sure, but here are the things that made the difference for us:

• Letting go of our type: I was The Bagel Girl and Justin was a construction runner at the time; we both had daily stops at a tool warehouse in town. He spotted me and worked on intuition. My first impression of Justin was “not my type” (based on my type until that point, I can now see that was a good sign), and although he didn’t say so, I wasn’t exactly his either. Justin was accustomed to thoughtless, high school girls; I was accustomed to assholes. So when I started talking philosophy and theology on our first date, he knew I wasn’t the standard cookie-cutter girl. Likewise when I watched him turn his truck’s system down (yeah, he was one of those guys with extremely large and loud speaker systems in his truck) upon entering a residential area, I was literally shocked. Neither of us would have been able to get to that point of noticing these new and interesting qualities had we not stepped outside what we thought we knew about “the perfect date”.
• Letting go of the fairy tale: A very well-meaning woman had once told me, as I was sobbing over a broken heart, that “if it was meant to be it wouldn’t be so hard”. I loved her to death but something about those words didn’t sit right with me. For all of our lives, we’re read fairy tales and “happily ever after” stories. But love doesn’t always come in and sweep us off our feet, carrying us away to Perfect Marriage Land – especially when you’re entering into the relationship with so much baggage. Justin and I went into our relationship knowing that we were in love and that we would have a lot of work to do to figure out how exactly we should put that into action. The first two years of our relationship and several periods throughout were fucking hard. There were moments no one thought we would (or should) make it through. But because we accepted in advance that it wouldn’t always come easily, we didn’t let the worst of times tear us apart. We kept pushing through it, focusing on what we wanted with each other and building our partnership skills along the way. I can’t imagine where we’d be if we had given up.
• Remembering it’s not 50/50. This one came from my Grandma (who has been happily married since 1954) and is probably the greatest key to our success. I had asked her several months before our wedding what her best advice would be and she was quite adamant that a good relationship is never 50/50. It’s closer to 80/20…you just have to be willing to give more than you take. This one challenged me at the time, but she insisted that marriage needs to move from a place of generosity. She explained what I now know to be true in regards to marriage or parenting: unconditional love and endless generosity do not create selfish people who walk over you; it creates an environment of kindness and compassion. It fills people up until they have no choice but to pour it back into those around them.
• Never letting myself go. This one also came from my grandma as well and seriously rubbed up against my feminist mind. After all, shouldn’t Justin love me regardless of whether I wear makeup or gain weight? The answer is yes. But letting yourself go has more to do with Who You Are than what you look like. Justin fell in love with me because I was determined, strong-willed and cared deeply about myself; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If I “let myself go” – stopped learning and fighting for what I believe in, sat on the couch eating junk food in my pajamas watching trash TV, stopped being the best person I could be…if I let go of my role in our partnership and did a 180 on my personality, he was obviously going to feel differently. He fell in love with me for Who I Am, for my best qualities and for my desire to impress him with those qualities as I did when we first dated. And he’ll miss that person if she leaves just because “we’re married now.”
• Filling each other’s voids. I used to feel resentful anytime I felt I was “mothering” Justin. Likewise I felt uncomfortable admitting that I needed him to care for me the same way. But recently we’ve come to see the amazing healing power and stronger connection that can be had when we symbolically “parent” each other. I believe we marry the person who can love us the way we’ve never been loved and our gift of understanding, kindness and generosity has the power to fill voids we’ve been aching to fill. Together we can right the wrongs of one another’s pasts, giving each other what we may not have had enough of and sheltering one another just as a loving parent unconditionally and automatically shelters their child.

There are a myriad of other things I feel contributed to our success: being open and honest but knowing when honesty would be more hurtful than helpful, understanding our first role is as Zeb’s parents but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to neglect our needs as lovers, being silly together and that sometimes we need reminders of it all.

I’m glad to have written these things out; I love when messages like these come through me, as well as to me. The past few weeks have given us new challenges as we navigate this life and our unjobbing experiences and it’s good to be reminded of these principles of mindfully choosing unconditional love, generosity and compassion.

What about you? What have you learned about love?

After La Crosse, we headed back across Wisconsin to a small town an hour outside Green Bay. Zeb’s Gramma flew into town and we met her at her brother’s home for five beautiful days.

Tom and Mary live on a beautiful beach lake. We happened to reach them just as the weather cooled down. It could not have been a more serene setting.

We spent the first day playing with cousins, eating yummy food (they had a plethora of yummy gluten-free foods just for me!) and enjoying the water.

The next day was much the same: tubing, boating, playing in the sand, hooping, eating, chatting.

The third day was spent in one of Justin’s favorite places: Lambeau Stadium! We toured the stadium, inside and out. By far the most memorable part was walking through the players’ tunnel. As you start to walk down the door opens, you hear insane cheering and the announcer introduces “the team”. It was hilarious and exciting to have a taste of what the players must experience as they come out on the field.

The fourth day was spent on the lake again. This time we also did a bit of birding and actually saw a American Bald Eagle! I can’t describe how beautiful and majestic this bird was; a very powerful site to see. Zeb had even seen the nest on an earlier boat ride; apparently the nests are about 5 feet in diameter!

The day to leave came too soon. I was worried that Zeb would have a difficult time saying goodbye, like he did in Nashville. But he was impressively calm. Perhaps knowing we would see her again in a few short months for the holidays helped…or maybe, as he said, he’s just getting older. Either way it’s amazing to see so much change in him these past few months. He’s just such an amazing kid.

More photos from our time on the lake can be found here.

Current Location: Heading into Decorah, Iowa today through Saturday!

Let’s Grow Old Together from Tara Wagner on Vimeo.

Ten years together, 8 years married. Still madly in love with butterflies and goosebumps.

Happy anniversary, my love. Here’s to this moment and many more.

Current location: Noah’s Ark, Wisconsin Dells

Bench Monday – Not Back To School Edition:
No shoes, no school, no limits on where we can go!

For many of us parents, it’s that time of year again: uncrowded museums and theaters, awesome off-season travel deals and great prices on art supplies and notebooks.

Yup! It’s NOT Back To School Time!

Just like last year, we’re having a Twitter party for unschooling and homeschooling families not wanting to be left out of the late summer commotion. For the next three Mondays (today, Aug 31, and Sept 6) we’re going to work at trending #notbacktoschool. Last year we had all kinds of funny updates, awesome quotes and incredible links – talk about inspiring!

Want to join in? Here are some of the inspiring examples already up:

• Headed out #notbacktoschool shopping. The list: hair dye and a laundry bag. via @hmsdragonfly
• We r sleepin in, then having pancakes, then making a Happy NBTS collage for the playroom via @angsmg
• We are living in a Butterfly Wonderland today! Monarchs, Swallowtails, Admirals & more sipping from our Cup Plants’ nectar! via @innerwizdom
• “School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.” -Ivan Illich via @Idzie
• Just made our to-do list for today, full of fun things. And we can change it whenever we want to. via @serendipitymama
• “Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”~Oliver Wendell Holmes via @AutodidactMama
• Everyone sleeping in, following their natural body clocks for #notbacktoschool Monday via @luckiebyrd
• E7 is gathering his $. Looking up nerf guns online. Figuring out which are good deals. Such passion via @faithvoid
• Today? We’re taking it easy, sorting legos, and eating gorgeous organic watermelon the farmer picked for us himself. via @LaureenH
• So glad to not be fighting the crowds of folks dropping off little people into little boxes via @italsista
• “By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn.” ~John Holt via @NjoyLifeUnskuln

To follow along the madness this year, click here!

Would you like to join in Inspiration Mondays?

No need to follow any rules; it’s just a fun, no-obligation sharing of whatever inspires you.

You can share a link, story, quote or excerpt; it can be a piece of art you made or a pair of earrings you love or a fantastic article. Share a link to your own post or inspiration in the comments!

Do it however you’d like, just tell me: what’s been inspiring you?

[Current location: Madison, WI heading to the Dells!]

I’ve recently said two things I never thought I’d say:

1. “I really just want to eat, not smell dirty underwear.”
2. “I’m getting my 10 year old 11 year old a cell phone.”

I won’t even try to explain the first. But the second…well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Zeb got a cell phone for his birthday.

He has actually been asking for a cell phone for about a year. But I wouldn’t even consider it. I was stuck on the idea of buying a ‘tween a cell phone and the social stigma that it carries with it.

But now that we’re on the road, the reasons were mounting. First, he’s often invited for sleepovers with new friends and we want him to have easy access to us without feeling awkward about waking anyone up to use their phone in the middle of the night. And there are times when he stays home by himself while we run errands or go for walks.

But most importantly, he misses his friends and needs more connection with them. And when we could add another line, a few more minutes and free Friends & Family phone numbers to keep him connected to the people he loves for less than we spend on a trip to the bookstore, why wouldn’t we? It would be selfish not to.

There is a lot of debate about kids and cell phones. Some of it I understand (like the possible affects of radiation on growing kids), but some I struggled with (like the arbitrary age we impose as “acceptable” to own one).

But it wasn’t until I could see his needs that I even realized my own hypocrisy.

See, I don’t think our kids are “growing up too fast” just because they have the same technology an adult uses; Zeb has his own computer, after all. And I don’t feel they’re spoiled because they have a tool that is hardly treated as a “luxury” anymore in our modern world. And why the hell aren’t kids entitled to luxuries anyway?

Insisting that kids can’t have something we ourselves use and enjoy (and can hardly imagine life without) is just another way of insisting kids aren’t people, with opinions and desires as valid as our own.

Sticking to my stubborn and unfounded opinions and holding tight to a few extra bucks a month I was invalidating my child’s need (or desire, which is still a need on some level), as well as his position as a whole, equal and meaningful person in our family. It was me insisting on what he needed and deserved and telling him we deserved more. Youch!

I’m not saying every parent should run out and buy their kids a cell phone or that you’re somehow a bad parent if you don’t. What I am saying is I think we’re better off looking at things we feel is automatically off limits to our kids as just another resource.

This means not vilifying their interest in owning something we own and working with our children to meet their needs…in whatever way makes the most sense to all parties involved. That means looking at a cell phone no differently than an art class or a giant sleepover or a new book: things like budget and capabilities can be considered together and, if necessary, goals can be created and met cooperatively.

In our circumstance, Zeb’s new cell phone is something we remember to charge for him at night, I carry in my purse most days and we foot the bill for. It’s not tied to his chores and it’ll never be taken away from him. And it’s something he sees no differently than he does any other “thing”: it’s a resource, one more thing to enjoy and use as needed, but nothing to obsess about (like his parent’s used to, I might add).

What do you think? Do you see everything as a resource
or are some things off limits?

If you’d like to discuss this particular issue in depth, I’m available for coaching.