Inspiring Mama:: Tara of The Organic Sister and A Giveaway!

I recently learned of Tara and her blog, The Organic Sister, and was instantly hooked. She is not living the typical lifestyle of most of the blogs I am attracted to. Tara and her family are living on the road while exploring and having a blast. I love traveling and exploring new places, so was really interested in learning more about Tara and her unique way of life. I hope you will enjoy learning more about Tara and maybe be inspired to get out there and see more of our world.

Suzy: thank you Tara for visiting with us today!

Tara: Thank you for the opportunity!

Suzy: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your family?

Tara: We're a family of three currently living and learning full-time on the road. We travel in a small RV powered by solar and waste veggie oil. We're passionate about so many things: sustainability, unschooling, mindful parenting, gaming, connecting with people, hooping, sculpting...we love life and learning and the freedom we've discovered on the road.

Suzy: I think it is so amazing that you are traveling around and experiencing so many new things on a daily basis. What moved you create this lifestyle for yourself and what keeps you going?

Tara: It was really a financial decision at first. Justin was facing a layoff and we knew we'd need to move out-of-state for work. So we decided to roll with it and turn a potentially negative situation into a seriously awesome one! At first we assumed it would be short-term, but we're loving it more and more and it's become hard to imagine settling down just yet. We love watching Zeb (our 10 year old son) embrace and explore the world through traveling and unschooling and that is definitely one part of what keeps us going.

Suzy: Can you talk about one of your favorite places or experiences that you have had on the road?

Tara: It's only been two months and it's already impossible to narrow it down! It seems that anywhere we are is our new favorite place! The whole experience just continues to get better and better. We really love meeting so many amazing people and making profound connections. We love experiencing the history of a place firsthand or just slowing down and enjoying a quiet evening in the middle of nowhere.

Suzy: How do you make a living while traveling?

Tara: We like to do lots of things! I've been a massage therapist for 10 years and I do that where I can. Justin is a carpenter and jack-of-all-trades and finds side jobs or short-term work as we travel. I'm also slowly branching out into freelance writing and working on a few other projects that I will hopefully be ready to reveal over the summer!

I've also just begun to offer personal coaching [http://theorganicsister.com/unschooling-coach/] for families interested in moving toward unschooling and/or mindful parenting. I really love helping families move past conflict or stress to embrace trusting, loving relationships and a lifelong passion for learning and this has given me a perfect way to offer support and validation for other parents on this path.

Suzy: Do you have any advice for other families who are interested in trying out this lifestyle?

Tara: Do it! The opportunities available to unschooling and full-time traveling families are so amazing and the experiences are far beyond what we imagined. It's impossible not to be profoundly influenced by the freedom and joy you find within a nomadic and/or unschooling lifestyle.

Suzy: Any plans to settle down in the future?

Tara: We'd like to someday find a place that feels like home. I'd love to have a homestead again. But we're not making plans just yet. We're enjoying this too much! :)

Suzy; Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Tara!

Tara: Thank you Suzy!

The Giveaway: Tara is giving away a free 30 minute unschooling coaching session to 1 winner. If you or someone you know would be interested in this, please leave a comment here. We will announce the winner on Friday June 4th.

Congratulations Missy!

Missy said...
"I would love to have a coaching session. My son is currently a Montessori kid and I'm scared to transition to unschooling, but super interested. We are working toward getting out from under our house and doing the RV thing for year to travel the country and "find our place". I also have a daughter, age 2. I'm scared about reading and writing and spelling and math and about whether or not I'M strong enough and dedicated enough to unschool my kids. "

Inspiring Mama:: Tara of The Organic Sister and A Giveaway!

Inside Out: An E Course

Back in December of 2009, I learned of an E Course that was starting in January that looked right up my alley. The title stated "A Creative Adventure of Self Discovery"...and that was it for me! I am very into doing self work and trying to be a better person. I am also a creative person by nature, so a creative adventure to self discovery really appealed to me.

I took this E Course in January and had such an amazing experience. I came away with a new outlook on life and a new energy to enjoy the things that are important to me.

Shannon, the creator of this class, is hosting another E Course this June and I jumped at the opportunity! The class is 4 weeks and it structured to be taken at your own pace. To learn more about the class you can visit the website here. You can also read a post that Shannon wrote for our One Small Change Blog regarding her class here.

I hope you will join me on this creative adventure!!

Inside Out: An E Course

Feature Friday: Handmade Wood Toys

We have been selling the Natural Branch Wood Building Block Sets and the Toddler Branch Stackers from Natural Earth Farms for a while and just love these truly natural wood toys.




These are handcrafted by a small family business who builds the toys only from wood harvested from their own homestead in Northern Vermont. Each toy is handcrafted with love. We absolutely love supporting this small family business through our family business.

We decided it was time to add to Hip Mountain Mamas selection of fine handcrafted wood toys and no one was happier than our own children when the shipment arrived. Our kids jumped at the opportunity to have a tea party with the handmade tea cups and saucers, run around all crazy with the new streamers, play with the new wooden cars, and try their luck with the classic ball and cup game. Needless to say it was hours of creative, imaginative, and fun play.

These are high quality handmade toys that you can feel good giving to your children or as a gift to any child in your life. They will repay you with smiles and laughter...

Feature Friday: Handmade Wood Toys

Exploring Something New: A Show of Hands

Our explorations this week led us to our local down town strip. I had walked by one of the newer stores a few times while commenting that I would like to stop in. Well, with this challenge in mind, I finally made the effort to go down town and check out "A Show of Hands". And I am so glad I did! We popped in on Saturday and ended up chatting with the owner, Wendi, for about 20 minutes while really enjoying checking out all the amazing hand made items she filled her shop with.

I learned that the store's original fate was to be more of a yarn shop with spinning wheels, bags, and other crafty items that weren't sold at our other local yarn shop. Although, she still carries spinning wheels and yarn, the shop is filled with many other hand made and vintage items with the majority being locally made.

I am very excited to have found such a unique and beautiful shop just minutes from my home...it sure does make supporting local easy!

After leaving "A Show of Hands" we were pretty inspired to continue to support our local down town. So, instead of going to a different, not so local, lunch spot, we stopped in 2 doors down and ate at a wonderful cafe called "The Mandolin Cafe". We chatted with the owner there as well learning of our similar love for seeing live music and discussed summer shows that we would be attending. Then we ate a simple, yet delicious lunch, followed up with some scrumptious ice cream! Yum!



If you would like to join in on this "Exploring Something New Challenge" I would love to have you. Feel free to grab the button on the side bar and join along! You can read about how it works here.

Exploring Something New: A Show of Hands

Wash Wednesday: Round 2

I thought I would join in for another fun round of Garden Mama's Wash Wednesday! You can view my last weeks photos here.

Enjoy!

Lots of summer clothes on the line!

This time of year we wear a lot of Baby Legs!

Trips to the pool will mean a lot of towels hanging on the line!

These 2 dresses are on my line every time I dry!

Wash Wednesday: Round 2

Tree Huggin' Tuesday: Nature and Science School

About 6 weeks ago my family and I attended an open house at one of our local elementary schools, Big Thompson (Big T). The attraction was that the school just became a Nature and Science based school the previous year and we were curious about what went on there. We had no intention on switching elementary schools for our Kindergartner, and in fact had the house on the market ready to move to a new town. But....after visiting this school, we transferred my daughter to attend this school for 1st grade and took the house off the market.

While visiting the school we learned that they do a lot of the same things we do in our own home and that you don't find in the typical elementary school. Some of these things include composting, recycling, gardening, and an overall experience with intentional connections to nature. I was also very drawn to the amazing sense of community at this small rural school.

At the open house we took a tour of their 4 acre outdoor educational center. Getting the kids out of the class room and into nature is very important at Big T and I am excited that the kids will get to know this 4 acre of land very well and all the creatures and plants that inhabit it.

For today's Tree Huggin' Tuesday, I wanted to bring this Nature and Science program to your attention...whether you live in this area or not, if these are things you are passionate about, it is worth looking in to. I feel very lucky to have found this school and plan to send my kids there for their entire elementary school lives...this means setting up roots in a town that I almost left, and to tell you the truth, this really excites me!

If you are near the Loveland Colorado area and you are interested in this program, please give Big T a call. It is a free public school program and they take transfers from out of district. It would be great to let them know within the next couple of weeks if you would like to place your child there so they can work out details with class size, etc. If you are not in the area and this interests you, I encourage you to check out your local public school district to see if there is something similar going on in your area (and if not, is it something you can help make happen).

To learn more about Big T and their Nature and Science Program, please visit their website http://www.bigthompsonelementary.org/

I would also like to direct you to a nice post that Andy did on our One Small Change Blog regarding the recent oil spill and our dependence on oil...you can read this post here.

Happy Tree Huggin' Tuesday!
~Suzy

Tree Huggin' Tuesday: Nature and Science School

Inspiring Mama: Wynne Odell of Odell Brewing Co.

We have been enjoying the fine beer from Odell Brewing Company for a number of years. I had the chance to see Wynne Odell, owner of the brewery, speak a few months ago and it really got me thinking about how a business can have a positive effect on its community. Not only does Odell Brewing Company produce a high quality product but they understand their place in the lives of their employees, customers, and the community at large.

The brewery has made a major investment in being green, they give back to the community in many ways, and most importantly they share many of the same values as our family business. Their success, well managed growth, and ability to stay down to earth is really something that I appreciate. So grab a 5 Barrel Pale Ale or Easy Street Wheat and enjoy this glimpse into the life of Inspiring Mama Wynne Odell.

Andy: Thank you for taking the time for this interview. We absolutely love your beer and I have a great deal of respect for the way your company has grown. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to start a Craft Brewery?

Wynne: I grew up in Cleveland, but left to go to college in Walla Walla, WA and then to business school in Seattle, which is where I met my husband, Doug. In 1986 , after we had our first child, I was working in banking and Doug was running a one-man landscaping business. Neither of us were particularly excited about our work, so we looked at Doug’s homebrewing hobby, which had pretty much taken over our 600 sq ft house, and thought hmm…., maybe there’s something there. Doug travelled around the Northwest visiting breweries, all of which were extremely open in sharing their successes and failures, and I wrote up a business plan. Doug’s sister, Corkie, our brewery business partner, lived in Fort Collins at the time and convinced us to move down here to open our brewery. Doug and Corkie’s folks helped us renovate an old grain elevator building and we were off and running.

Andy: Your story is especially inspiring to me as I am working very hard to build my own company. What advice would you give to our readers who many be thinking of starting their own business?

Wynne: Nothing new here, but:

Pick something you love to do because you’re going to be spending an awful lot of time doing it. For us it was an easy choice: Doug loves everything about beer and I love everything about small business management.

Bootstrap it: We only had three stockholders, so didn’t have to contend with the random interests of a raft of investors who weren’t involved in the management of the business. We also made much smarter decisions about how to invest our money because we had so little of it. We’ve been profitable from year one and debt free for most of our 20 year existence.

Andy: The Brewery has seen tremendous success over the years. Other businesses struggle to keep from 'selling out' as they grow, how have you managed the success and growth while still keeping true to the mission of your company?

Wynne: I love this question. A while back our Board, which is comprised of Doug, Corkie and me, sat down to create a formal Vision statement for our business. We always knew we were doing something right, but hadn’t successfully articulated what that “ something” was. We became frustrated as we discussed it, because we had no clear agreement on how big we wanted to get or how broadly we wanted to distribute our beer: everything we threw out as we brainstormed was more value based than metric based. And then it all clicked – we believe our business is successful because of a strongly shared set of values that everyone who works with us believes in and lives by. So our resulting Vision statement is summarized as: Our values help us to support and celebrate what’s most important to us – our beer and our people - and our beer and our people then work together to create value for our customers.

Andy: The brewery just completed a major expansion. The building was constructed with the environment in mind including solar panels, porous concrete to reduce rain runoff, and many other energy saving features. Why has Odell Brewing Company made such a large investment into being green?

Wynne: Our commitment to sustainability is one of the shared values I refer to above. Our full blown Vision also includes the statement : [we are] responsible to our community. We define community as co-workers, customers, vendors and physical communities in which we sell our beer. Part of that responsibility is to protect and promote the quality of life in and for all our communities. As a manufacturing business, we use more resources than many other businesses but that heavy resource use also gives us a bigger opportunity to make a difference. We have goals built around water, energy and material use, working always to minimize our impact on the environment.

Andy: Thank you, Wynne, for taking the time to share this inspiring story with the readers of Hip Mountain Mama.

If you would like more information about Odell Brewing Company please visit their website. If you don't live in one of the 9 states they currently distribute to, I recommend you look them up when you get the chance.

~Andy

Inspiring Mama: Wynne Odell of Odell Brewing Co.

Hip Mountain Mama Happenings

We have been having so much fun over here at the Hip Mountain Mama Headquarters. Summer fun has finally begun and we are looking forward to camping trips, festivals, backyard barbecues, playing in the river and all the fun to be had over the next few months. I love using this blog to fill you in on our family adventures, interviews, etc., but I thought today would be a good day to catch you up on all that is going on at Hip Mountain Mama.

First of all, we are very excited to be designing our own stainless steel water bottles. We need your help with this....we have decided to put our logo on one side, and would like to put either an image or saying on the other side. If you have an idea, please head over to our facebook fan page, find the thread that starts out "we are designing our own..." (3 or 4 threads down), and leave a comment with your idea. If we choose your idea, you will win a free water bottle. We already have some great suggestions, and can't wait to hear more. If you are not already a fan of the page, please click the "like" button at the top so you can stay up to date, learn about deals, and have some fun with us!

Next, I wanted to let you know that we are having a blast with our One Small Change Project and would like to congratulate all of those who are moving right along with us in making environmental changes.....we really are making a difference together! I have been introducing our sponsors lately and they have been generously offering deals and giveaways. If you have stepped away from One Small Change or haven't checked it out yet, now is a great time to pop on over and see all that is going on and join in on this grassroots movement. We are still open for a few more sponsors and are always welcoming guest writers! To stay in touch, you can also join our One Small Change Facebook Fan Page.

And, lastly, Andy and I have been having such a blast making videos for You Tube. We shot 2 videos for Mothering Magazine's website and we had so much fun, we decided to keep going with it. You can view our You Tube Channel here and if you want to get notified when we publish new videos, please feel free to subscribe.

That's about it for today. Thanks for all your friendship and support! I will leave you with our latest You Tube Video that we had way to much fun making!

Hip Mountain Mama Happenings

Freature Friday: Jennifer Joy Tote Bags and Coin Purses

This week we are featuring beautifully hand dyed and screen printed tote bags and coin purses made by Jennifer Joy. We love all of the Jennifer Joy products that we carry including the handmade hemp/organic cotton skirts that we featured a few weeks ago but these tote bags are my favorite.

I personally have two of these tote bags. I use them almost everyday. They are great for a trip to the Farmers Market, taking books back to the library, going to the park, the gym or anything else that comes up in your busy life.

The bags are made of 100% organic cotton. They are hand dyed and screen printed by Jennifer Joy giving them a unique and beautiful look. Purchasing these bags help support another small mama owned company.

We are offering these at a great discount to make room in our warehouse for more unique products. We don't have many of these left so hurry up to get your hands one now.

Freature Friday: Jennifer Joy Tote Bags and Coin Purses

Exploring Something New: A Challenge

I was so inspired a few weeks ago when going for a walk out my sister's back door (you can view that post here). I didn't know this area existed and when I was in it, I just feel in love with the beauty. It got me thinking about all the other areas in my town and surrounding towns that I have not visited. It is easy to get caught up in the day to day and visiting familiar places, so this is why I decided to start the Exploring Something New Challenge.

I would like to encourage you to explore new areas in your town this summer. It can be a new park, river, beach, bike trail, lake, hike, dog park, or campground. How about trying a new restaurant, coffee shop or popping in to a new shop. Discovering something new can be so fun and exciting and what better time to try new things than in the summer months! So, please join me in getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new!

Every Thursday for the next couple of months, we will be posting here about a new area that we discovered. Please leave us a comment on Thursdays and let us know what your new discovery was...and if you blogged about it, please leave us a link to your blog. Make sure to link back to this post so others can join in as well.

This week we headed out to a local area that is 1 mile from our house. We had never been there because it is primarily a fishing area and we don't fish. Yesterday, being inspired by this new challenge, we decided to check it out. Here are some photos of our new discovery:

Exploring Something New: A Challenge

Wash Wednesday

As you may know, I started hanging my laundry outside to dry in April. So far I have been having a blast with it....yes, a blast! Yesterday morning, I enjoyed hanging my laundry at 8:00 am while a few of the neighborhood kids came out to say hi to me before they left for school. I also enjoy my own kids helping out by handing me clothes pins and pieces of their clothes. I am also one of those people who loves the way the laundry looks hanging on the line....like a work of art almost! So, I am joining in on Garden Mama's Wash Wednesday and will be sharing with you a few photos of our clothes line from the past few days! Enjoy!

**If you are participating in One Small Change this month, head on over and let us know how your change is going!

Wash Wednesday