The Green Frugal

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Aluminum Canoe – $1000.00. Life Vest – $100.00.  

Getting wet and dirty with your co-workers to make our rivers clean – priceless! 

Guided by the Tualatin Riverkeepers, Cash4Books employees donned life vests, grabbed their paddles, and donated their Saturday morning to retrieve garbage littering the local Tualatin River. The event was one of 150 restoration projects taking place throughout Oregon – part of SOLV’s annual Beach and Riverside Cleanup. 

Working from canoes, Cash4Books collected everything from lawn mowers to picnic tables from the waterway. Volunteers paddled approximately two miles along forested riverbank scouring the shallows for garbage and debris. Although most were expecting to find Coke cans and plastic bags, the trash found along the river was on a grander scale. A rogue dock, too large to fit within the canoe, was towed to shore for removal. Volunteers even recovered a mattress and bed frame. Unfortunately, the box spring was never found. 

   Although once a vacation destination, the Tualatin River is now one of the most polluted rivers in Oregon. Tualatin Riverkeepers (TRK) is a nonprofit organization working to protect and restore Oregon’s Tualatin River System. Last year alone, TRK volunteers donated over 10,000 volunteer hours to projects including nature education, habitat restoration, paddle trips, and advocacy. They plan “to restore nearly 250 acres of flood plain habitat on the Tualatin River, protecting water quality, reducing flooding and creating homes for wildlife” this year! 

For more information about their mission, and how to get involved, please visit Tualatin Riverkeepers. 

Cash4Books employees after removing trash from the Tualatin River

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American Library Association's Banned Books Week Poster 2010

Imagine walking into your favorite bookstore or library and finding certain titles- Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Judy Blume’s  “Forever”, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, just to name a few- missing from the shelves not because of budget cuts or any financial reasons but because they were banned.

Scary thought, right?

In these modern times we live in, you wouldn’t think literary censorship still occurs. But it does. Only recently in Stockton, Missouri, Sherman Alexie’s Young Adult novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” was removed from schools citing objectionable language and sexual content. In Texas, Ellen Hopkins was uninvited from the Teen Lit Festival because her novels tackled topics that were deemed age inappropriate.

Due to language, violence, sex, the topic itself, or even just a different viewpoint, lots of people will find something unacceptable in many books. That’s fine. Unfortunately, there are also people that band together to demand these types of books be banned from schools, libraries and bookstores. That’s not fine. They may have the best intentions but if their challenges result in actual banning, others are denied the opportunity of reading the books and forming their own opinions.

Banned Books Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of this issue and to make sure censorship doesn’t occur. It’s a constant battle and not always successful. As readers, we have to do our part. Back in Texas, with the whole Ellen Hopkins controversy, several authors who were slated to appear at the Teen Lit Festival withdrew to show support. The event has since been cancelled.

BannedBooksWeek.org is a great resource to find more information in regards to its history and purpose, actions on what’s being done to combat literary censorship, and lists of banned and challenged books.

Share your thoughts with us on your favorite banned books and celebrate your freedom to read!

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My two young sons and I have been going to the same few parks since they were born. We all love being outside, playing together, finding new friends and I love the fact that they are free! Researching local parks for a company picnic, I came upon huge lists of all the local parks I’ve never even heard of – and an idea was born! Visit and enjoy as many parks as we can in all seasons to find the best! … Or just play around as much as possible.

A little about us…

My name is Bronwyn, I like parks so crowded with people that you lose yourself and I love deserted playgrounds. Adrian is 3 and a half, he prefers walking to running and likes gross things that I don’t want him to play with. He loves swirly slides and the swings. Isaiah just turned a year old, he likes any animal that he can grab and stick his face on. He also enjoys swinging and yelling as loud as he can in the open air.  These two adventurers are happy to join me on my park find and I hope you find equally great company to join you on yours!

Pirate Park in Bethany (NW Portland)

Pirate Park

In the middle of a suburban neighborhood an adventure awaits young pirates and their parrots (or little brothers, as I like to call them). This park is AWESOME. Two substantial play structures both shaped like pirate ships; one ship for the youngin’s – shorter slides, easier to climb, closer to the ground – and one ship for the older folk. At either end of the playground are identical swing sets and in the middle is a BIG sand pit with a push-button water fall! This is where we spend most of our time, building castles and sand lady bugs – a new one Adrian did all on his own! This park is primarily playground structure, but there are walking trails and some small fields a short distance away. I have to pry Adrian’s little fingers from the waterfall when it’s time to leave.

Tualatin Hills Nature Park (Beaverton)

At the entrance to this park is the Nature Park Interpretive Center, which houses a small library, classrooms for preschool, a nature store, meeting room and exhibit area. My friends actually held their wedding reception there! The park itself is forest with paved and non-paved trails. Both of my children love to wander the paths like new explorers, finding newts, listening for birds and squirrels dropping nuts. Several times now we’ve even had deer cross our paths. Bridges span marshlands and creeks. Wild bunnies run past, making my boys squeal. Several different trails lead to different things or circle back. The park is highly frequented but it never seems “busy” with how big the park is (222 acres!) and everyone you meet is extremely respectful and friendly. This is the park that Adrian requests more than any other… “Mom! Lets go to the nature park, I NEED to see some slugs!”

So this is my free idea! Go find new parks for you and your family; you could even make a log book, take pictures, and describe unique experiences. Not only will you be having fun discovering new places, but you’ll have a wonderful memory book, too. It would be great to hear from you about the fun things you find!

Here in the Portland Metro area we are lucky to have www.thprd.org and www.portlandparks.org which will give you complete lists of all the parks. Here is a link to all the National Parks www.nationalparks.org and I’ve been googling “New York parks”, “Kansas parks”, etc. and found many websites with lists. Or go old school and peruse a map! Another, more involved, park finding tool is to read books about your town, a lot of the time they make mention of parks that no longer have names or have hidden entrances. Its a great way to find a one-of-a-kind park.

I hope you have fun park hunting! We’ve already begun and we love it!

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  Have you ever bought a book from a used bookstore and found some small treasure inside? A bookmark, a picture or maybe something really cool like money? Here at Cash4Books, we look through thousands of books every week – guess how many of those have something hidden in the pages? The rule of Finder’s Keepers applies here more than ever.

 Some things we’ve found recently:

Valentine found in a Psychology Text Book

A hand written valentine on red construction paper: “Happy Valentine’s Day!” on the front. On the inside, in child’s script: “Hundreds of years ago in England, lots of kids dressed up as adults and went singing from home to home. In the Middle Ages, people drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. If a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, she would marry a sailor. In Wales, wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on Valentine’s Day. If a woman saw a goldfinch flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, she would marry a millionaire.” You can bet I’ll be bird watching next Valentine’s Day.  

Your horoscope on a bookmark

A bookmark about the 4 of Clubs in relation to your birthday. April 30^th, May 28^th, June 26^th, July 24^th, August 22^nd, September 20^th, October 18^th, November 16^th and December 14^th. “You have a practical mind and are a builder of ideas. Your later years are often filled with financial blessings…” I wish my birthday was one of these.

A High School Musical 3 bookmark! YES! With all the characters on a sparkly background!

 A Weight Watchers bookmark that proclaims: I LOST 5 POUNDS!!!! (I didn’t. But I might keep this one.)

 An empty invitation to “Miss Laura’s School of Dance and I love dance week! February 10^th through 14^th 2003”. Heck yes! I’d go if I had a time machine.

Who wouldn't want this postcard?

A postcard of Bruce Lee!!! ← I might take this one home, too.

 All of these things (unless we decide to keep them for ourselves) get put into a big stuffed drawer by my desk, and I later use them for giant collages on cubicle walls or the carts we use for shelving. We probably have the most decorated warehouse in the nation.

 This is just one more reason you should buy used books, you never know what you might find. On the other side of this, next time you’re selling or donating some books, maybe place some cool finds in the pages and make someone’s day!

 Until next time…

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Cash for books.

Sounds like a great idea, right? But what self-respecting bibliophile would even consider selling anything from their hard earned library?

Many years and much money have been spent amassing such an impressive collection. People have commented on and commended the titles on the shelves. An organized system has finally been settled on.

Why would anyone want to give that up?

I’m not saying everyone has to part with their books, of course. If they aren’t cluttering your life, then by all means keep them.

However, if books are just there for aesthetic reasons- when in fact you know nothing more about them aside from what’s written on the jacket flaps – then things might have to change. If the books have managed to overflow their shelves and become mountains around the house, then things definitely have to change.

For the Love of Books by Earl. Illustrations by Michael B.

The first step in any problem is acknowledging there is one. After that we can discuss solutions.

How do you stack up? Do you have book clutter? Or are they organized in a way that would make even the strictest of librarians swoon?