Gone Wireless, Finally

I have finally dragged myself into the 21 Century of Internet accessibility. I have now gone wireless in my home. Before, I would drag all the cables and stuff along with my laptop into the whatever room in the house I wanted to be in at the time and have to reconnect everything. Cables would be all over the floor, not to mention the mess I made of my office unhooking everything. (I hate cables and wires!) Then I would have to reconnect everything back in the office when I was back in there.

So this is my excitement for the week. Gone wireless! Now maybe I will pay more attention the my blogs here, seeing as I can be outside if I wanted or just relaxing in the bedroom, and get an inspiration. I can just blog away anywhere.

Potatoes, Potatoes

I’m so excited!! I have potatoes growing beside my back porch. Now some of you would say, “So what! I grow potatoes every year.” Well, I have not been able to have a real garden since I was in my twenties. That has been over fifteen years ago. I have lived in areas where conventional gardening was out of the question. I have container gardened; cultivating herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, leafy greens, squashes, some beans and even a couple of stalks of corn one time. Some things didn’t like being confined to container and wouldn’t produce well. But I keep trying.

So, back to how excited I am about having some potatoes growing out back. It was actually a goof, just to see if they would grow. I was going to have mashed potatoes for dinner one night and when I got out my bowl of potatoes, some of them had started to grow some very nice “eyes”. I thought to myself, it would be cool if I planted them and they grew. So I just cut them out like I remember doing as a child, and used the good part for dinner. I took my cuttings outside and dug a little trench beside the back porch and covered them over. I really didn’t think they had a chance to survive, as it was the beginning of March and still pretty cold outside. But survive they did and they poked their stems out of the weeds and dead grass where I planted them. I pulled the weeds away so they could get more sunlight and I could see them. They are growing strong and I cannot wait until they are ready for harvest and I enjoy some of my very own home grown potatoes.

Recycling - Being Kind to Mother Earth

Over the Christmas holiday, I went "home" to visit my family. I am the black sheep and am the only one who lives outside the "hour drive circle" the rest of my family is in. They all have children and busy family lives; football practice, band, after school activities, things like that. Busy, busy, busy my family is. Me on the other hand, I was never blessed (or cursed :-) ) with children. My children are fuzzy.

But back to the topic. Recycling. It is a very conscious effort on one's part to help the Earth by recycling. My youngest sister, who has three kids, ages 14, 8 & 2, is my model for my recycling efforts. With all she has to do, she still finds the time to separate items into different containers. Watching her the week I spent with them got me to thinking why I couldn't implement the same routine in my own home. I use paper, cardboard, aluminum and steel cans; why not separate them and take them to the firehouse where the county recycle center is for our town?

Since the beginning of the year when I started my own recycling efforts at home, I have reduced the "trash" going out of the house by over half. I find myself looking at just about everything to see if it has a recycle number on it, separating glass and cans. I even bought reusable bags at the grocery store. I'm so proud of myself. But I should have been doing this a long time ago!! Our Earth has been in jeopardy for a long time now. I was reminded of that this weekend by a DVD I bought my boyfriend for his birthday.

I don't know who may remember the Saturday morning cartoons of "Schoolhouse Rock"? I loved those cartoons! So did my boyfriend. Well, I found them on DVD and we watched it this weekend. Remember the one with the Earth singing about recycling? That was almost 40 years ago. And the hippies of the 60's? They knew what they were talking about, but people just didn't want to listen because of their lifestyle. They recycled and organic gardened.

Now, Earth friendly just seems to be a new way for someone to make a buck. What I mean by that is, because it's popular and the trendy thing to do, you have to pay alot more for products. I'm am confused as to why that is. I saw a commercial on TV for "earth friendly" cleaning products from a major chemical corporation. You could order all three for just $18.99. By the time you add S&H, you would be paying over $8.00 a bottle for Earth friendly cleaning products. I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in my little corner, money is kind of tight. I'm not saying the Earth is not worth helping, I just disagree pockets should be lined to do it.

The same goes for organic vegetables. By reading up on definitions of organic gardening, basically it means growing without the means of artificial additives. Simple enough. so why it it so expensive to purchase organic food?? If you don't use all the extra additives, doesn't it mean the cost would be less to grow? Most certifications allow some chemicals and pesticides to be used, so they can't say the bugs are eating their crop.

Well, I digress. Point here is I am proud of myself for my effort in recycling in my little corner of the world. Should have been doing it sooner, but better late than never. And it has given me a feeling of accomplishment.