Since the end of October and the election that screams "voter fraud" and "voter box hacking" there has been a lot that i've wanted to say. Unfortunately i work two jobs and it takes a migraine to get me to rest. I survived Christmas but my thoughts never made it from my brain to a computer screen through my fingers until now.
There is something rotten in the state of the United States of America. I have been living with hope that things would change in 2013, but now i know that the fight has only just begun. Something needs to change, and part of that something is me. I've been hiding and waiting as much as possible, licking my wounds and biding my time. I've been doing it for fourteen years and it's time for it to stop. It doesn't matter if i ever feel the Holy Spirit again, what does matter is if i fail to serve Him. I'm not a journalist, i have a bias, and i am tired of being silent. So my first resolution for 2013 is to write more. I am struggling when trying to write fiction, i don't know if i can ever recover what i lost during the time i had Bell's Palsy. But i will persevere and maybe someday the words will reconnect with their definitions and i can reach my creative urges outside of the dreamscape. In the meantime i hope to blog with new purpose and stand for truth even if it is too late to make a difference.
Two of my causes are not really my own. Right now it looks like freedom of education and freedom of medical choice are in jeopardy. I'm still considering becoming a doula...or even a midwife. Even if i never get married or have children i still think that a woman's reproductive rights are important. The way i see it, there are forces in the world that are doing everything they can to make it easier to get rid of "unwanted" children and harder to have wanted children. Furthermore, this election's results, whether they are legitimate or not, are very much a result of the mainstream media's failure to report important things and government schools' success in brainwashing America's children. My life is always going to be dedicated to strengthening education and birth rights. To both of these ends we need to make stronger families. I'm not a wife but i am part of a large family that's hurting right now. I don't know what i can do but i will be praying if nothing else.
This year i am going to take the plunge and go back to being barefoot. As a child i was barefoot as much as possible. Summers in Arizona i would go barefoot more than you might imagine, goatheads being more painful than hot asphalt to be honest. My feet are starting to get stronger even as they are starting to show the effects of being stuffed in shoes for far too long. Right now i am reading The Barefoot Book by Daniel Howell, Ph.D., and i highly recommend it. So in 2013 i am going to continue to wear Vibrams, flipflops, and Sanuks as much as possible...but i am considering going so far as going barefoot in public someday. It is perfectly legal, it might surprise you to know. My feet aren't ready for that yet, but they are stronger than they used to be. Right now i will continue to strengthen my toes and lengthen my achilles tendons. Hopefully there's also a way for me to strengthen my arches.
For the first time ever i intend to plant a garden. It will have to be in containers because the land here is horrible for growing anything edible, salty high desert. I might kill more than i harvest but i'm going to try to grow things. I'm also going to try to shop for organics and non-GMO items more often. And become more educated about food in general.
Lastly, i intend to arm myself and take a conceal carry course even if i cannot obtain a permit. I was taught how to shoot from a young age and have always been afraid of guns. I want to conquer that fear in order to defend myself and my family. At one time i wanted to serve in the military, but that was never possible because of my weight. I still want to hone the skills my father gave me and acquire new ones.
There are, or course, other things that i want to accomplish this year, but these are the main ones. I still dream of learning how to play the drums or a stringed instrument, for example. And another triathlon, a better job, are also goals that i am pursuing as much as personally possible. I have recently lost some weight, amazingly enough, but am also trying to embrace my more to love beauty more than ever before.
I hope all of my readers (whomever you may be) had a happy Christmas season and will be even more blessed in the new year.
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Saturday, July 16, 2011
not as limited (or dirty) as we thought
Did anyone else know that oil is not technically a finite resource? It's composed of algae and formed underground after "millions" of years. This is something i've been wondering about for a while, since discovering that coal has been forming in the area of Spirit Lake since the Mount St. Helens eruption (upon some further digging, this seems to be controversial and perhaps not as certain).
So apparently Solazyme has been testing this fuel for a couple of years now, on its own and with the US Navy, and now Japanese companies are starting to pursue the same technologies. But interestingly, oil in nature is fossilized algae, but this oil seems to be made by the algae...they feed the algae and it converts plant matter into oil that has less contaminants than what is pumped out of the ground. That's pretty amazing.
So apparently Solazyme has been testing this fuel for a couple of years now, on its own and with the US Navy, and now Japanese companies are starting to pursue the same technologies. But interestingly, oil in nature is fossilized algae, but this oil seems to be made by the algae...they feed the algae and it converts plant matter into oil that has less contaminants than what is pumped out of the ground. That's pretty amazing.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Global Warming and CO2
This is kind of old news, but it seems to world isn't warming after all, and hasn't been since 1995.
Climategate U-Turn
World May Not Be Warming, Says Scientists
Since hearing about those articles, something i have been wondering about lately is whether or not there's enough Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Look what i found:
Earth in Carbon Dioxide Famine, Says Scientist
What prompted me enough to write this today? Silly videos like these:
What i don't understand is why they claim wind power is all that great, as it's very finicky, but also claim solar power is both good and bad. Does anyone take stuff like this seriously? i guess it was good for a laugh, if nothing else, but it didn't make any sense whatsoever. For one thing, i'm pretty sure nuclear power has nothing to do with fossil fuels. Who has climate change killed, anyway?
ETA: Since i haven't stated my position on environmentalism lately, maybe now is a good time. i do not believe that Global Warming is a man made phenomenon that we need to be worried about. There's more trees in the U.S. now than when the continent was beginning to be colonized. i also do not consider Carbon Dioxide to be a pollutant because it's a natural substance. Humans breathe it out, plants breathe it in.
i do, however, consider myself to be a conservationist. i believe in national parks. i believe in (controlled) hunting in order to prevent wildlife overpopulation. i believe in reducing and reusing, but that recycling sounds good but is often a waste as we ship our recycling to China and back. i plan to breastfeed and use cloth diapers if i ever get married and have kids, and maybe even compost and garden. In fact, i am very green for a Republican, maybe even too much so. Most of the things i do cost me more and probably aren't actually helping the environment at all.
Climategate U-Turn
World May Not Be Warming, Says Scientists
Since hearing about those articles, something i have been wondering about lately is whether or not there's enough Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Look what i found:
Earth in Carbon Dioxide Famine, Says Scientist
What prompted me enough to write this today? Silly videos like these:
What i don't understand is why they claim wind power is all that great, as it's very finicky, but also claim solar power is both good and bad. Does anyone take stuff like this seriously? i guess it was good for a laugh, if nothing else, but it didn't make any sense whatsoever. For one thing, i'm pretty sure nuclear power has nothing to do with fossil fuels. Who has climate change killed, anyway?
ETA: Since i haven't stated my position on environmentalism lately, maybe now is a good time. i do not believe that Global Warming is a man made phenomenon that we need to be worried about. There's more trees in the U.S. now than when the continent was beginning to be colonized. i also do not consider Carbon Dioxide to be a pollutant because it's a natural substance. Humans breathe it out, plants breathe it in.
i do, however, consider myself to be a conservationist. i believe in national parks. i believe in (controlled) hunting in order to prevent wildlife overpopulation. i believe in reducing and reusing, but that recycling sounds good but is often a waste as we ship our recycling to China and back. i plan to breastfeed and use cloth diapers if i ever get married and have kids, and maybe even compost and garden. In fact, i am very green for a Republican, maybe even too much so. Most of the things i do cost me more and probably aren't actually helping the environment at all.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
my New Year's resolutions for 2009
i don't usually do New Year's resolutions. My general mentality is that if something in your life is worth changing, there's no point in holding off for the new year to come around. However, this year, i am ever increasingly mindful of the fact that i am still single and the big 30 is just around the corner. i know, i'm only 27, and i have three years left, but what if i'm never married? Am i always going to be waiting to try things after i'm married? Is everything important going to be forever delegated to the realm of "once i get my own place"? i don't know if i will ever be able to afford my own home, not when i have dead end jobs now and student loans to pay after i graduate (hopefully in May 2010). i can't keep waiting for my life to begin, yet that's all i have been doing for as long as i can remember. It's time for something to change, to get to my goal #15 at 43 Things - stop procrastinating and get organized!. So, in this vein, i actually have some New Year's resolutions to make.
1 - get rid of clutter and get organized
i know this will not be cheap, to get storage in the form of Rubbermaids or baskets, but it needs to be done. Cardboard boxes that are falling apart are cluttering up my walkways; they aren't pleasant to look at or trip over. i have too much stuff, i want to simplify, and working at a place like Hobby Lobby it has become painfully obvious to me how much money people spend on junk that they really don't need. Sure, sometimes the junk is pretty (sometimes it's soooo not), but it's still not necessary. i live in a really small space, i don't need to fill it with things that i don't need anymore, and i don't want my space to be a mess.
2 - live conscientiously
Okay, part of my problem with fulfilling resolution #1 is where am i going to find the time? In a couple of weeks i'll be going to school full time, and i may have a part time job at the same time. i'm not even sure i can handle that workload, let alone feel like i have a life or have time for relaxation. The trouble is that when i get home i am exhausted and want nothing more than to fall into bed and play WoW or watch a tv show/movie, etc. There's not necessarily anything wrong with those things, but it contributes to my mess when all i do is toss stuff down anywhere. When clothes come out of the dryer, i need to fold them and put them away immediately. When i drop something, i need to pick it up. Everything needs to have a place and i need to put it there so i can find it, not lose it or damage it. So no more letting things slide because i'm tired (/sigh).
But there's other aspects to this goal, as well. i'm going to be talking about them a lot in this blog. For one thing, i'm sick of just following everyone else and not thinking through my actions. Do i really need to be bringing home/using plastic bags? Should i be drinking water out of little plastic bottles? i want to start conserving and Re-Using, and there's no point in putting it off any longer.
3 - live healthy... and hopefully lose weight
i.e. ban high fructose corn syrup from my diet (this means Coca-Cola, among other things) and cut back my portions and intake of unhealthy foods (such as those that are fatty, fried, and meat, which i eat entirely too much of ). For the past couple of weeks i've been eating fast food nearly every time i go to work, gradually gaining back the ten pounds i lost when running three times a week this fall. i need to lose weight, perhaps not to get a perfect body, but to at least get below 200 pounds. But even if i don't see results--ever--i still need to keep running, keep moving, keep making smart choices for my body. It would be easy to just give up, keep drinking Coke every day of my life, but i'm not going to do that. Just because i feel like a failure when it comes to my body doesn't make i can give up.
4 - conquer my brown/black thumb and replace it with a green one
Growing my own food is something i've been wanting to try for a couple of years and would be healthier than always buying from the grocery store. i'm not sure i can compost here, because my dad feeds everything to the chickens and goats, but that is a goal that i have for the future.
i guess that's all i can think of right now, but this is all a work in progress. i'm sooo tired right now, i have many ideas floating around my head and even crammed in the back of my brain, but this is my beginning. Lets see where it goes from here....
1 - get rid of clutter and get organized
i know this will not be cheap, to get storage in the form of Rubbermaids or baskets, but it needs to be done. Cardboard boxes that are falling apart are cluttering up my walkways; they aren't pleasant to look at or trip over. i have too much stuff, i want to simplify, and working at a place like Hobby Lobby it has become painfully obvious to me how much money people spend on junk that they really don't need. Sure, sometimes the junk is pretty (sometimes it's soooo not), but it's still not necessary. i live in a really small space, i don't need to fill it with things that i don't need anymore, and i don't want my space to be a mess.
2 - live conscientiously
Okay, part of my problem with fulfilling resolution #1 is where am i going to find the time? In a couple of weeks i'll be going to school full time, and i may have a part time job at the same time. i'm not even sure i can handle that workload, let alone feel like i have a life or have time for relaxation. The trouble is that when i get home i am exhausted and want nothing more than to fall into bed and play WoW or watch a tv show/movie, etc. There's not necessarily anything wrong with those things, but it contributes to my mess when all i do is toss stuff down anywhere. When clothes come out of the dryer, i need to fold them and put them away immediately. When i drop something, i need to pick it up. Everything needs to have a place and i need to put it there so i can find it, not lose it or damage it. So no more letting things slide because i'm tired (/sigh).
But there's other aspects to this goal, as well. i'm going to be talking about them a lot in this blog. For one thing, i'm sick of just following everyone else and not thinking through my actions. Do i really need to be bringing home/using plastic bags? Should i be drinking water out of little plastic bottles? i want to start conserving and Re-Using, and there's no point in putting it off any longer.
3 - live healthy... and hopefully lose weight
i.e. ban high fructose corn syrup from my diet (this means Coca-Cola, among other things) and cut back my portions and intake of unhealthy foods (such as those that are fatty, fried, and meat, which i eat entirely too much of ). For the past couple of weeks i've been eating fast food nearly every time i go to work, gradually gaining back the ten pounds i lost when running three times a week this fall. i need to lose weight, perhaps not to get a perfect body, but to at least get below 200 pounds. But even if i don't see results--ever--i still need to keep running, keep moving, keep making smart choices for my body. It would be easy to just give up, keep drinking Coke every day of my life, but i'm not going to do that. Just because i feel like a failure when it comes to my body doesn't make i can give up.
4 - conquer my brown/black thumb and replace it with a green one
Growing my own food is something i've been wanting to try for a couple of years and would be healthier than always buying from the grocery store. i'm not sure i can compost here, because my dad feeds everything to the chickens and goats, but that is a goal that i have for the future.
i guess that's all i can think of right now, but this is all a work in progress. i'm sooo tired right now, i have many ideas floating around my head and even crammed in the back of my brain, but this is my beginning. Lets see where it goes from here....
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