Recycling

The plastics dillema is hard to solve but there are some who will take all our junk!

S&D recycling will also take misc. plastics, just make sure you explain you don't want to be paid.

The Start of Summer

I posted a while back about some changes that I wanted to make in my life. They are slowly happening. I have a small garden in the backyard with the first little tomatoes becoming visible, I've spent the last several months slowly getting rid of possessions, cleaned out the garage, started removing shrubberies and trees from the front yard, learned how to prune and take care of the roses, regularly mow the lawn, by trial and error figured out how to edge, borrowed a chainsaw for the next project (trimming the juniper), and am generally living a life I can be proud of.

While I have found plenty of things to keep me busy since school got out (including a week of VBS) I have found myself this past week back to my old habits of sitting in front of the computer or tv, staying up late, and generally being unproductive. Today is my last day of work until August and while I will miss it immensely it is an opportunity for me to tackle all of those summer projects that need to get done. I realized yesterday that one of the reasons I have accomplished so little this past week is that I am alone. Lamar at school, Joy at dance camp, and Laura in Hawaii has left me to sleep in and putter every single day. Next week I want to live differently. I want to jump right back in to moving and working with excitement. I was talking to someone last night about how good it was to have a weekend off from the busy schedule... but I think that getting rid of the busy schedule can be just as daunting (though more relaxing) than the work schedule. I never thought that I wouldn't get things accomplished because  I couldn't decide what I wanted to do instead of what I had to do.

Summer Restoration

It seems as though I have been going non stop for too long. It really hasn't been that long but I am finding that living life is far more important than stressing myself out. Living with people with whom I want to spend time with, having a place to call my own, and nearing the end of my formal education have all changed the way that I look at life.

This week I have spent a little bit of every day in my garden, working in the yard, working in the house, reading, sitting, eating, enjoying everyone's company, even some video games. This is life. I want to use this summer to set the groundwork for living deliberately and sustainably. One by one I am trying to change habits in order to become a better steward of the resources that I have been blessed with.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life..." ~ Thoreau