Another speed post

So, the day went by quickly and here I am trying to fit in one last March post. I had a beauty set to go the other day, but Blogger hosed me. It had Easter reflections, gardening updates, library/librarian complaints, plus a really funny exchange. Really a good one... Ah well....

Last night the boy led our mealtime prayer for the first time ever. It brought tears to my eyes and also scared me a little. I probably could have led a table prayer at 2 and half, but did not have the environment that supported that. Already my son is indoctrinated into so much--this is just another reminder to take tremendous care with this developing brain, heart and spirit.

The next book is Powerdown: Ooptions and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg. A few pages in and I know it's going to be another enlightening ride.

Also, yesterday I visited the Sacramento stop of the Eyes Wide Open exhibit. This is extraordinarily powerful and if it comes close to you, you must must must go.

That's it. Time to go home.

Wake Up!

I think I spent 2000-2004 asleep on some level, well, not asleep, just in shock (from the election, and from 9/11), and then legitimately occupied with growing, birthing and raising a new person. If there's any silver lining to the outcome of the 2004 election, it's as a wake-up call to activism. Would I have been lulled into complacency if "my team" won? So, this is a call out to wake up, to do whatever you can to speak out against bad policies on a local, state, and national level. We don't have the time to march on the streets, but we can do something. An email to our senators and congresspeople, a quick phone call, our choices as consumers.

Links of the day:

• If I Were a Rich Man: The elite few benefit from the Bush tax agenda. The rest of us get stuck with the bill. by David Cay Johnston (At Sojourners).



• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities



• Jim Wallis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Blowin' my Mind

Very hard to concentrate on this Monday, in large part on account of the wind, which is blowing lots of nature around, and into many eyes. And so, it zaps the energy a bit, makes one feel a little less sharp than one would have been. And, so, the solution is to take a blog-break.

That, and I'm getting pulled once again into a life-topic, so I want to spend all my time learning about it, tweaking the life to conform to it, etc. The latest read is Radical Simplicity, recently teaching me that if everyone lived according to the way I live we would need 3 planets. Now, this is with a partial-vegetarian, 1 10-yr old car per household, modest-consuming existence. The size of the footprint has a lot to do with where I live, but is a lot less than my average compatriot (who uses roughly 24 acres of bioproductive land vs. my estimated 14). I can't imagine going "off the grid"--don't have the huevos for it, plus I like my quasi-urban amenities. But, the challenge is there to decrease the footprint within the current context. I know it can be done, the work is in the how.

Another (related) serendipitous book-find, by virtue of working in a library: The Meat You Eat: How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America's Food Supply, with foreword by Wendell Berry, who recently spoke here. That this book would stick out to me among all the others on the book truck, that the foreword is by someone I recently saw speak, etc., just reinforces how the connections are in place and we just have to train ourselves to be more observant of them.

Toward Peace

This post falls under "other aspects of personhood" I suppose. Slowly pulling my head out of the sand to do some small thing for the cause of world events. This comes up in the form of a local group taking on various projects. A few links found along the way: The Ground Truth: The Human Cost of War, a documentary; Operation Truth, mentioned on the Ground Truth site, has a lot of information about troops' experiences, Iraqi history, etc. Also, Peace Alliance and Foundation.

This among all of the other things: family, work, self-care, gardening. Have decided to go with tomato plants cultivated by others vs. waiting for my puny seedlings. A concession to the newbie experience. Otherwise: seedlings looking good for squash and cucumber, and hoping for eggplant any day.

More Dirt!

This weekend is one of the many Home and Garden shows in this region (my mother-in-law and her best friend work in this arena, on two differently owned shows). This is yet a third-party, but all have worked together at some point in the past. I'm just excited about getting gardening ideas, getting any freebies, and maybe a corn dog along the way.

Sunday may be slated for making yet another potty-training charge. We talked about it over breakfast this morning, and sent the boy off to school with his Thomas underwear to show his teachers. Hopefully they will rally round him so he's psyched to tackle this project.

One week after vacation, and I'm slowly digging out. The post-vacation cold didn't help--if I hadn't just been gone, I would have taken more time off than I did to recuperate. I can't imagine 2 weeks worth of backlog.