Amy Suardi recently started growing some of her familys food. On many days, she can be found with her children in the front yard of her home in Washington, tending their edible garden. Later, the family might make pizzas (using herbs theyve grown), tidy up the house (with cleaning supplies theyve made), watch a DVD (TV programs are not permitted) or play games the children invented.While Suardi, 42, has fashioned a lifestyle for her family that is reminiscent of a slower, less stressful era, she is also decidedly 21st century: She blogs about her life, and gets paid for it.

I dont make a lot of money, but the trade-off is that I can be home with the kids, she says. I can also make dinner every night and take care of the house.

For Suardi, thrifty living is at the heart of the life she craves. On her blog, Frugal Mama, she shares her experiences, offering insight on creating a high-quality life on a small budget.

Her expertise, she says, is based on learning to live on a shoestring since college, first as a single young woman in New York, then as the wife of a doctor in training.

My philosophy, she says, is about finding the fun in saving and keeping life simple so we have time for whats important.

With her husband, Enrico, now working full time after recently completing his medical training, and with Suardi earning money by writing, the couple has more income than ever before. However, they are also both in their mid-40s, have four children (ages 10, 8, 4 and 1), almost no money in retirement and a 100-year-old house that needs work.

For Suardi to remain an at-home working mother while they bulk up their retirement savings, the family cuts corners wherever possible: The children attend public schools and co-ops and wear secondhand clothing. The adults drive used cars and use pay-as-you-go cellphones. They clean their own home, shop at thrift stores, dont have cable, walk instead of drive when they can and eat most of their meals at home.

We live frugally out of necessity, but I would continue to do so even if I had a lot of money, says Suardi. Being frugal has led me on interesting paths and made us a better, closer family.

Money problems

It all started out of conflict.

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Freeing cash for splurges

The Flanagan Memorial Pool had its grand re-opening Friday evening, hosting an open house and free open swim at the facility. Manager Markie Proesel said that although the pool had been closed for remodeling since October 2010, a lot of work had been done to the building. Initially, the whole shell of the building was taken down and a new exterior was built. The pool remained the same. They added a couple of extra features to the locker rooms. A party room was added and the cardio room was relocated to a larger room. The office was also. The old office is storage now. There is neither a balcony nor hot tub anymore, she said. Proesel said she and Assistant Manager Lindsay Dixon put a lot of work into the facility. We redid the locker rooms by ourselves, which included sanding and refinishing the lockers, the flooring, adding new mirrors, grouting the floors and painting. She said the pool opened for business May 3, and has attracted plenty of swimmers. We got the OK to open up, and we wanted to get going before we had a grand opening, Proesel said. The remodeling funding came from the Flanagan Memorial, which Proesel said continues to make the swimming pool a not-for-profit endeavor. After a year off, the Flanagan Flyers swim team is also back in session, participating in its first swim meet Thursday. The pool has hours for open swim, lap swim, water aerobics and is also available for private parties. Swimming lessons are available. They also have yearlong-, six-month and one-month memberships available for in-district and out-of-district families, couples, singles, seniors and individuals.

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Open house held for swimming pool

While Irene did more damage in the Northeast, states farther south are more likely to take a lashing from tropical weather during the new hurricane season that started June 1. The remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl late last month did little damage in North Carolina but served as a reminder of the urgency to rebuild houses before more storms arrive.

Irene caused $15 billion in damage and killed 49 people across an area that stretched from the Carolinas to Vermont. North Carolina took the hardest hit in the Southeast, with at least $1.2 billion in damage, not including uninsured crop losses.

Its like how I expected, said Charles McKinney, a volunteer who came to Virginia. When something like this happens, when it first happens, you have all the media attention, you have the FEMAs and the insurance people. And everybody descends upon the area. But three months this has been close to a year later, and these people still have no homes.

About 2,200 households in Pamlico County, which has a population of about 13,000 people, registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 104 households received a temporary housing unit from FEMA, a local volunteer leader says. More than 350 people completed the grant application for either buyout or elevation assistance.

The founder of Eight Days of Hope, Steve Tybor, said that while Katrina caused the most damage of any disaster hes seen, he finds the situation in Pamlico County more shocking because so much time has elapsed since the storm.

People dont realize people are still living in homes that are like they were the day after Irene, he said.

Pamlico County is the ninth area visited by Tybors faith-based group, which is based in his hometown of Tupelo, Miss. Tybor started it after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Its volunteers descend upon a disaster-stricken area for eight days to repair houses. The 1,685 volunteers in North Carolina came from 43 states, Canada and Australia.

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9 months after Irene, people in NC still suffer

08-06-2012 23:42 Five Acre Artist Retreat & Desert Hideaway WILD MOON MESA Web Site: Wild Moon Mesa ~ Situated atop 5 beautiful acres on Cooper Mountain mesa in Joshua Tree, California, this newly remodeled, fully furnished, turn-key Casita features fabulous and far ranging vistas of wide open Mojave Desert, surrounded by the rugged, tall peaks of Hidalgo, Bartlett, and San Gorgonio Mountains. Hike, climb, ride and roam right outside your front door. Star-filled nights and beautiful sunrises await you. A perfect artist retreat or California High Desert getaway. WORK CREATE PLAY In addition to the Casita, Wild Moon Mesa features a fully equipped detached studio + loft with its own separate bathroom. Designed for use as a creative workspace, office, music and art studio, it is also perfect for use as an additional guest room, offering privacy and comfort for your visiting guests. A wonderful addition to the property, it is perfect for creative professionals who work from home, or those wishing to take a working holiday. Artists, Designers and Fabricators will enjoy the large workshop space created from the oversized three car garage on the property. Designed and used for custom art fabrication, there's ample room for just about any type of workshop, hobby or craft. Not in need of a workshop? It easily converts back into a two car garage that's large enough to house your full size truck, bikes, and tons of recreational gear, with even more storage available in the second ...

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Joshua Tree House For Sale - Wild Moon Mesa - Video

DANBURY -- An oversized bucket loader put dirt into dump trucks lined up on Bank Street Monday, as city officials oversaw site work at the new headquarters for Head Start of Northern Fairfield County.

Crews were removing dirt on the corner of Foster and Bank streets before beginning the foundation for the one-story building.

It's scheduled to be ready for the summer of 2013.

"It's very exciting,'' said James Maloney, who manages the federal Head Start grant as president and chief executive officer for the Connecticut Institute for Communities.

"The staff are delighted. There are a lot of advantages to have the program's staff in the same building with the classrooms," Maloney said, since now the offices are across town from the classrooms.

The project has been financed with a $4 million state grant and a $4 million city bond.

The city demolished the former Immanuel Lutheran School in December to build this facility on the site after the old school proved too expensive to renovate.

This building will have four early Head Start classrooms for 32 children, age 6 weeks to 3 years; 11 Head Start classrooms for about 220 3- and 4-year-olds; and classroom for parent training and other facilities.

The early Head Start and 11 Head Start classes will move from the current location at the Mill Ridge Educational Center, and Maloney said he hopes the other two Head Start classes at Mill Ridge will have space in another city school.

The city plans to renovate the educational center for use by two middle school programs. Head Start will continue to run its two Head Start classes at Sacred Heart School and two at the Laurel Gardens housing development.

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Head Start building project under way

An instrument deck for NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission is readied for installation of instruments. Two instruments have already been installed: the white box on the lower right is the Energetic Ion Spectrometer; the black box in the upper right is the Central Instrument Data Processor. Credit: NASAGSFCLambert

The decks have arrived. Engineers working on NASA'S Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission have started integrating instruments on the first of four instrument decks in a newly fabricated cleanroom at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The MMS mission consists of four identical spacecraft, and each instrument deck will have 25 sensors per spacecraft.

"This is the first time NASA has ever built four satellites near simultaneously like this," says Craig Tooley, project manager for MMS at Goddard. "It feels like we're planning a giant game of musical chairs to produce multiple copies of a spacecraft. One instrument deck might be 2/3 finished, while another one is 1/3 finished, and the same people will have to test a nearly complete deck one day, and install large components on another one another day."

MMS will fly the four spacecraft in formation to investigate how the sun's and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other -- a process that occurs throughout the universe, known as magnetic reconnection.

By going into space to observe magnetic reconnection where it is happening, MMS will both study a fundamental physical process that occurs throughout the universe as well as observe one of the ultimate drivers of our space weather, which affects modern technological systems such as communications networks, GPS navigation, and electrical power grids.

Goddard manages the MMS mission and is building the spacecraft in-house on-site in a specially designed cleanroom. Dr. James L. Burch at Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in San Antonio, Texas is the principal investigator for the MMS science investigation. SWRI oversees the entire MMS instrument suite for NASA, with various instruments being built at other institutions, including the Fast Plasma Instrument, which is being built at Goddard.

Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Instrument integration begins at Goddard on MMS spacecraft

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Assistant City Solicitor John Flor looks for evidence to link the excess garbage with a particular property on a sweep of New Bedford rental properties.Natalie Sherman

By NATALIE SHERMAN

June 09, 2012 12:00 AM

NEW BEDFORD The crew of camera-wielding city officials that swept through the South End Friday in search of miscreant property owners snapped pictures of rotten food, ripped furniture, burned-out porches and abandoned properties and received kudos from residents even their targets.

Just last month, the city slapped a $50 fine on Richard and Toby Demello of Scott Street because the people living in the family's second property including their son didn't place their trash inside barrels on trash day.

"I paid it. I got no problem with that. I think they're going a good job," Richard Demello, 74, said.

Friday's survey was the Task Force's third since its launch in April. Previous mayors have also organized task forces to try to clean up the city's neighborhoods.

"The over-arching goal is to have more orderly, more vibrant, more livable neighborhoods," Mayor Jon Mitchell said. "Houses with numerous code violations obviously detract from the neighborhood's quality of life."

In the previous two sweeps, the city identified 200 code violations involving serious structural problems or safety hazards and issued orders for correction on 79 properties, according to information provided by Assistant City Solicitor John Flor, who heads the Task Force.

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Task Force conducts third neighborhood sweep

Reazo Redinger called it a labor of love and faith.

Redinger led 1,000 volunteers who built the new 40,000 square-foot Old Apostolic Lutheran Church off Dike Access Road in Woodland over the last year.

"It's amazing how well the volunteers worked together," said Redinger, the building project manager.

The need for a new location arose because the congregation, launched a century ago and now numbering 5,000 members, has grown too big for its two other locations, one each in Battle Ground and Brush Prairie. Both of those were built with volunteer labor in 1967 and 1995 and will continue to be used.

"Many churches are struggling to attract the youth. We don't have that," said Dave Halme, chairman of the church's board of trustees during construction. "I look out there (at the members) sometimes, and I'm like 'whoa.' I'm 61 years old, but the average age of the congregation is probably in the 20s."

Halme said planning for the new church started in 2000, but the site wasn't rezoned or supplied with utilities until last year. When work began, volunteers were divided into teams based on their trade. Teams worked in shifts to build the $4.5 million church, which leaders say is probably worth three times that. Donations financed the entire project.

"We were fortunate enough to have contractors in the congregation" in addition to architects, engineers and a wide range of trades workers, Halme said. The only work contracted out was for acoustic engineering of the slanted ceiling. The new church features two lobbies, a sanctuary that seats 1,400 people, a dining room, a large nursery and Sunday school classrooms.

All of the work was done on Saturdays and evenings on weekdays after many of the volunteers finished day jobs.

"There was a camaraderie between volunteers, and everybody was working together and enjoying themselves," Redinger said. "People with white-collar jobs came out to do Sheet Rock or something with their hands you could hardly get them to do at home."

Volunteers put in about 55,000 hours.

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Congregation completes work on new Woodland church

The former sanctuary of Sharon Baptist Church located at the intersection of Ga. Hwy. 211 and Ga. Hwy. 124 in Braselton will be demolished to make way for a shopping center, according to plans submitted to the town.

But a cemetery located behind the sanctuary and still owned by the church will remain untouched.

Braselton Acquisitions and Development, LLC, is asking the town to annex approximately 3.39 acres that was once part of the church land.

Only tracts A and C are listed for sale and would be zoned general commercial if annexed into Braselton, according to plans. The cemetery (tract B) will not be developed or disturbed.

Braselton Acquisitions and Development plans to build a 6,733-square-foot retail building where the churchs former sanctuary is now located, according to the companys application. Its request includes few other details about potential development, other than construction will finish in spring 2013.

Sharon Baptist Church moved from the site in June 2011 in the wake of the widening and realignment of Ga. Hwy. 124 and Ga. Hwy. 211, not far from the doors of its sanctuary.

In recent months, the Georgia Department of Transportation has been clearing land and moving utilities in preparation for the $5.2 million project at the busy intersection in Barrow County. The crossing also includes a Shell gas station and RaceTrac plans to open a store and gas station in the area.

The DOT estimates that the major overhaul of the intersection will be completed in April 2013.

Sharon Baptist Church is now located on Dee Kennedy Road, Auburn.

The Braselton Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the annexation and rezoning request on Monday, June 25, at 7 p.m. The Braselton Town Council will also hold a public hearing on the planning commissions recommendation commissions recommendation on Thursday, July 5, at 4 p.m. A council vote is expected on Monday, July 9, at 7 p.m.

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Church slated for demolition for retail building

The Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral received approval Friday to demolish two historic buildings in the 3700 block of Chestnut Street, clearing the way for construction of a 25-story apartment tower.

At a lengthy hearing of the city Historical Commission, the cathedral and its private development partner agreed to conditions imposed by the commission that seek to insure that a portion of development profits flow into repair and renovation of the historic cathedral's bell tower.

"We are committed to preserving the church itself," the Rev. Judith Sullivan, cathedral dean, told the commission. "We are all about preservation."

The proposal before the commission was unusual in that the cathedral and its partner, the Radnor Property Group, argued that the demolition is "in the public interest."

By choosing to proceed in this fashion, they compelled the commission to weigh the relative value of historically designated properties and to consider the possibility that a commercial development, built on the ground of demolished historic properties, is good for preservation.

"We're placing a value judgment in saying that the cathedral is more important," said John Mattioni, a commission member.

The cathedral plans to demolish its own parish house and rectory known together as the parish house placed on the National Register of Historic Places and on the Philadelphia registry in 1981, to construct the apartment tower plus office and retail space.

Well-known church architect Charles M. Burns completely designed one of the three-story brownstone parish buildings in 1902 and redesigned the facade and additional features of the other to complement the cathedral.

At that time the cathedral, also designed by Burns, was known as the Church of the Savior; it was placed on the local registry in 1981 with the parish house and rectory.

At Friday's hearing, members of the historical commission grappled with the meaning of "public interest" and sought repeatedly to determine the amount of money the developer was willing to commit to cathedral restoration. The cathedral's proposal was based on the idea that the commercial development, built on church property, would provide revenues for restoration that the cathedral would not otherwise have. How much money, and how and when it would be used proved difficult for the commission to determine.

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Episcopal Cathedral gets OK to raze historic buildings, erect apartment high-rise