Sweet Dreams and Good Morning

I hope you wake up in the morning feeling beautiful....

2 Minute Breaks

     I installed Stumble Upon's toolbar for Firefox on both my home and work laptop this week. I love it! It's nice to take a 2 minute break now and again to put your head in another space and see the cool things that people are up to.  
     There are also the not-so-cool things that people do, but those sites are on at least one person's cool list, so even if I "thumb it down" I know someone else out there will "thumb it up." Don't take this thumbing lingo out of context. It is simply Stumble Upon's user rating system. When you make a Stumble Upon account, you click check boxes of categories that you are interested in like photography, philosophy, dance, yoga etc...When you click the SU icon on your toolbar Stumble Upon takes you to a site that other people "thumbed up" who had similar interests as you.  If you like a site, you give it a thumbs up; if you don't like it, you give it a thumbs down.

Here are a few things I Stumbled Upon this week:

What I'd Tell A Younger Me | The Frisky  

(waaaay better than any of those chain emails you get with similar titles)

Amazing Ukrainian artist!

The Uniform Project

This reminds me that being at peace, mentally, physically, and emotionally contributes to a restful nights' sleep:

"Mental tiredness sometimes causes Insomnia as even a sluggish mind does not allow you to sleep putting your body in a state of low energy." ~ emzr.com 

 Crazy, Random, Paper Thing

Vermicomposting

I walked home from work to find a USPS Medium Flat Rate box on my steps labeled "Perishable Live Worms." I was so excited!

Me and two of my friends drilled holes in plastic bins, shredded paper, and scored some sawdust from a local wood-shop. With the help of Barb Finnin's apartment composting tutorials, we successfully made homes for our travel-weary worms. Now, we feed them each time we have extra kitchen scraps - broccoli stumps, toast, fruit peels, all the yummy leftovers (minus animal products) - and they turn it into high quality compost.

Say hello to the little red wrigglers:


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HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

(photo: cygnus921/Flickr)

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!!

(Happy St. Patrick's Day in Gaelic)

You studied WHAT in college?

      I hold a degree in what many people have made their life-long hobby and what others consider the latest fashion trend. My college diploma says Sustainable Living, which to me is more consuming than my hobbies and more impactful than a fashion trend. Sustainable Living includes the text book definition: living a life that can be maintained and endured over a long period of time without damaging or depleting Earth’s natural resources; and surpasses this definition by emphasizing the importance of experiencing a sense of fulfillment and happiness with the quality of one’s life.

 

(photo courtesy of Brandon Neil)

There are many off-the-beaten-path degree names out their – Transformative Language, Military History, Consciousness Studies, and Interdisciplinary studies in which students design their own major; as well as traditional fields of study such as Business Administration, English, Fine Art, and of course the educational catch all – Liberal Arts. With all these options how do students choose their major and what are they doing with their degrees?

Here are my answers to these questions:

How did you decide what to study in college?

Many people pursue a skill they have been previously successful with; A-grade math students can make excellent engineers or chemists. Others delve deeper into an extra-curricular activity; community theater enthusiasts may seek to make it big on Broadway. Still others use the college experience to explore where their special skill-set or passion lies and post-pone specializing until grad school arises on the horizon. I decided to get a degree in what makes me happy. 

I saw the Sustainable Living Degree program at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) as a way to ensure my life had a positive impact on the planet and its creatures, facilitate my continued connection with nature, and to increase what I call the “happiness factor” in my life. The “happiness factor” is my capability to experience happiness. It consists of all the enjoyable things I do that make my least favorite activities more enjoyable. For example, as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed being outside; Building snow-people in the winter, dancing in Spring rain storms, swimming outdoors in the Summer, and watching the leaves turn colors in the Fall. If I do these things as the seasons change, then seasonal maintenance activities like protecting myself against colds and the flu and spring cleaning are actually something I look forward to. By doing the things I enjoy, I am better able to accomplish things that I must get done and my overall success rate increases. This is how I approached my education: if I do something that makes me happy and brings me inner satisfaction, I’ll find a way for it to positively influence my quality of life and material success.

What do you do with a degree in Sustainable Living?

I graduated with a BS in Sustainable Living January 31^st, 2008 and have been asked this question many times under different circumstances, first, when I was studying for my degree, next upon graduation, and then when I was working as a college Admissions Councilor at MUM.  My initial answer was always the same – save the world! That is what my friends and I told each other when we were studying. We had lofty ideas of how we could change the world and create paradise anywhere for anyone, and if worse came to worst we would at least be equipped to create a mini- paradise (complete with window herb gardens, indoor compost units, and low flow faucet heads) in our post-college apartments.

The reality is that the earth is faced with enormous challenges right now – we’re losing ecosystems, energy prices are rising, temperatures are rising, and many people around the globe don’t have access to basic necessities, such as food and water. Thinking that the Earth needs us to save it may well be an egotistical idea, maybe it’s humanity that needs saving;  but regardless of who or what needs saving, it’s difficult to ignore that there are global problems hungry for solutions. 

Sustainable Living requires integrating practical skills and logical thinking with creative problem solving and imagination. After 4 years of studying things like solar and wind energy, organic farming and permaculture design, environmental law, and leadership in a hands-on setting, Sustainable Living students are primed to join the workforce of any industry, or to start their own organization, to help create solutions to life’s challenges. 

Currently, I am the Sustainability Director for a new start-up online membership shopping club. We feature environmentally friendly and socially responsible products at a discount of 20% or more in order to make them more accessible to wider audience and lessen humanity's collective impact on the planet. 

Choosing to purchase products from companies that are making as many positive choices as they can, in regards to their operations and product manufacturing, is a way of voting with your dollars and making a statement to industry leaders about the types of issues that are important to you. These statements are being seen, heard, and responded to. Companies as big as Wal-Mart are responding to these dollar votes by undergoing serious re-evaluations of their business practices and actively making progress to reduce their negative impact on the planet.

NGOs, Non-profits, community groups, as well as the Federal Government are rallying to find solutions and whether you are a degree holding individual, a sustainable hobbyist, or a concerned citizen there are ways to get involved and make an influential impact. Explore the options popping up in your local community or check out these sites for specific ways to pitch in:

www.sierraclub.org

www.instructables.com

www.energstar.gov

www.mcdonough.com

A Moment

Most calendars remind us what day it is, whose birthday it is, when so-and-so is going to come for a visit, when we are going to visit so-and-so. My calendar reminds me that the world is bigger than this moment; that right now waves are crashing against lonely islands, whales are swimming with their young, and people are sky diving...
 

(photo credits from top: Anna Bruen, Associated Press, jacobsco.com)

I have one of those picture a day wall calendars and it hangs just above my right shoulder when I'm at work, a little bit in front of me. If I turn my head just slightly, I see an amazing array of photos. This month's highlight is a golden-orange, whiskered monkey face that would have to try very hard to be any more majestically cute!

(photo credit: scienceblog.com/afrensis)
Red flanked Douc Langur AKA "golden-orange, whiskered monkey face"

The calendar on my wall features a new country each month and a different picture on each day. Looking at it reminds me that tomorrow is Wednesday and that each year is made up of months that are made up of days in which an unfathomable number of activities, thoughts, and emotions are expressed in an unfathomable number of moments. Sometimes I get consumed by what is going on in a single moment, but then I remember that moments pass and life continues, that in fact life is continuing all around the world even in the single moment that I feel consumed by; People are being born, dying, laughing, crying, taking their first step, walking home form school for the 52nd time this year - all in a moment. This reminds me of the power that a moment can hold and that we each have a choice as to how we live our moments. Imagine what would happen if every single person on the planet chose to experience happiness at the same time, just for a moment...

I acknowledge the taste of cheese here, but you know what? Sometimes truth is cheesy. YUM! Provolone!

It's March and this is my blog!

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb....

 

So far, there are no lions roaring at my window, but I am still looking forward to the lamb at the end of the month!

Questions about my first blog:  

why do it? 

how to do it? 

when to do it? 

on what to do it about?

My answers: 

I'm blogging because life is happening.

I don't know how to do it, but do it I will!

Expect blog updates weekly... 

I'm using this space in a patchwork of ways to highlight events and activities that are silly, inspiring, beautiful, outrageous, saddening, thought provoking, confusing, amusing, and even just plane normal.

Stay tuned to see how this develops!!