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I have been struggling in my own head with something for a while now that I thought I had resolved. I guess the law of balances decided to make it quite clear, however, just exactly how it works.
My belief system is set up around the idea that you take responsibility for yourself and your actions and you do so in such a way that you cause the least amount of impact, harm, or suffering on anything not-you involved. No, I am not a perfect person, but I try my hardest to live by my moral and ethical beliefs.
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My garden is all but shut down for the winter. There is still a few edible green things out there but they are few and far between: turnips, kale, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts. Usually this would be cause for a serious bout with the blues for me. Not this year, this year I wanted things to be different.
I used some cold frames to extend my season this year, but was only partially sucessful with that. I learned a lot: cold frames need venting as much as possible or things tend to mold with all the moisture, even warm the lack of sun causes things to grow much slower, frosted tomatoes don’t ripen off the vine. I went ahead and closed down the beds that were cold framed a couple weeks ago and planted a cover crop in them.
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Well, it’s that time again. 2012 is here, and I’m doing my usual “New Year’s Resolutions”. Fin noted that my resolutions are really more goals - and I’m ok with that. I’d rather have goals to accomplish than vague notions of things I’d like to do.
Anyway, here goes.
1. Pay-off 2 more major debts Continuing with the “Dave Ramsey” plan here. At some point, I’ll chronicle the travails of Fin and I working our way out of debt. It’s been a long road, but the end, while a ways off, is finally coming into view across the horizon. 2. Make liquid soap and write some tutorials on Soaping Mostly, this will be a challenge in obtaining potassium hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide is fairly available at a few local hardware stores. I’ll also need to do a little bit of research into the differences between the saponification processes. I’d also like to write some tutorials on how to make soap, for other curious people.
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For over two years now I’ve been comitted to an every other week meat pickup that consists of the trashed meat from a major retail chain. This is a twice weekly pickup, of which I only participate in twice a month. The average size of the pickup is in the 1500lb range….every time.
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I’m currently in Denver for a wedding so of course I had to go check out the local fish stuff! Too bad I’m a weekend early for the local fish club meeting :(
We went to the downtown denver aquarium yesterday evening and it was truly amazing. I took a bunch of pics from my camera phone and some of them turned out pretty awesome. The link is here if anyone wants to see them.
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Mostly I’m far too lazy to go find the laptop, set it up, log in, post, balh blah blah blah from the computer. Usually by the time I do all that I’ve forgotten what I wanted to post anyway. I downloaded the google Blogger app for my Android phone…so we will see how this works out for me. Hopefully it will lead to me posting more, especially since I originaly intended to keep track of progress in the garden and with other things urban sustainability like….and that has been a complete and utter fail all around. My total of posts has been completely lame in the last couple years now(!) This blog has been up.
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2011 has been something of a rough year, rather have in the “bad times”. Things are looking up now, and looking back, I see a lot of Fin and I supporting each other. It’s weird how nasty happenstance can make a relationship stronger. But, that’d be the subject of another blog post.
I’m going to make this recap short.
1. Better manage eating out and bringing lunch to work
EPIC FAIL. I’m getting slightly better at the end of the year, but Sept-Nov were really awful on this.
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If you’re going to do some shopping tomorrow, why not support locally owned businesses instead of mega-chains?
http://kansascity.about.com/od/shopping/tp/HolidayGiftsKC.htm
http://www.kckidsfun.com/2008/11/kansas-citys-toy-stores/
Eden Alley notes on Plaza
Consider stopping by the “HMS Beagle” in Parkville, MO or “Brookside Toy and Science” in Brookside. If you’re shopping online, consider using a smaller online store, Etsy, etc… And remember when shopping for yourself, most of these super awesome “black friday deals”, can be met and then some at local thrift stores - with the bonus of supporting various charities.
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I promised myself to never really discuss politics here. Political discussions often devolve into shouting matches on the internet. Still, the whole “occupy wall street” and “tea party” crowd have grown in such popularity that I can’t seem to turn around without seeing something new from them. Fin and I started this blog with the goal of expressing our journey down a different lifestyle, and these two groups converge at a portion of that journey for us.
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