Show and Tell Friday

This morning while I was thinking about Show & Tell Friday, hosted by Kelli over at http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/ I struggled once again with what to share. I always try to avoid the fine line where "Show and Tell" can quickly become what teachers refer to as "Bring and Brag". When I went to school we didn't do the Show and Tell thing, it was just not something we did. I wondered why since the public schools all did it and it looked like fun.

This morning I looked up the psychology of "Show and Tell" and got an idea of why we didn't do it in school. It certainly does help one develop verbal skills and accustom the child to speaking in front of others but it is thought to have started to help develop self esteem, by sharing things that make a child feel good about themselves. Where I went to school, we were taught it is better not to brag and to be humble, so you can see that my early education is still working on me. I have trouble with show and tell. Everything I think about seems like a brag. Maybe blogging in general has a touch of the brag to it. Then again, maybe we are all just trying to define our lives and share our basic reasons for how we live and what we enjoy. That seems rather noble and no doubt is the real reason so many people blog.

So what to share that isn't like a brag ? That is the big question.

Ahhhh, I thought of something to show and tell.... A lifestyle.

The show and tell part of it (which seems very brag like to me, but hard to get around it I think) is the first magazine cover and article I did about our lifestyle and how to live simply and on less than an acre of land. I laugh at the thought that being published sort of makes you an expert in some peoples minds, but isn't really so, I am no expert, just older and have found a few things that work and know for sure what doesn't work.

The cover shows Melissa holding some of the show rabbits the girls raised to make money one summer. The magazine article came out in the early summer of 1996.

Later, I am going to write a bit about our journey from the yuppie, spend more than you make lifestyle of Southern California, to the simple, no debt, low stress lifestyle we live now.