It's Good to be Green

For the first time since I discovered my desire to be "green", I feel like I am following through - walking the walk as it were, instead of just talking the talk. And it doesn't just feel good to do the right thing, but it's fun too. I love my reel mower - it's a great workout, it's quiet, and I love the way it cuts the grass. It cuts like clippers instead of chewing the grass up and spitting it back out. The outdoor clothes dryer (okay- it's a clothesline) is the bomb! My sheets smell so good that it's hard to get up in the morning. Recycling, with two recycling centers conceniently in my area, has become second nature. The compost pile is starting to shape up, and hopefully with some more tine I'll actually be producing some of the black gold people keep talking about. One of my biggest green habits is using natural cleaners and I've doing that since Rachel was born because of my fear of having dangerous chemicals in the house. When I started using natural cleaners I found out my sinuses were less bitchy so that was more incentive to stick with it. I can actually thank Victoria Moran for turning me on to natural cleaning because right after Rachel was born I was a big, fat, emotional mess and I was looking for comfort and solace. Somehow I stumbled across her book, Shelter for the Spirit and I decided it could be the thing to lift my spirit and all I can say is that it must've been divine intervention because that book changed my life. In some small way, it was like leaving the dark behind for a small view of the enlightened life. It opened the door and of course,the rest was up to me. I've read several of her books since then and while I find Shelter for the Spirit to be the best by far, her books are excellent when you need motivation and a boost for your spirit.
There are so many ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and sadly some of those ways are not within my reach right now. I can't afford a hybrid automobile or "green" paint (someday, though!) and biking or walking to work and other places is not an option because we live too far out, although I am trying to get my hip back in shape so that I can walk to the store and walk Rachel to school. My garden is still quite small by most standards, but I dream of the day when I can grow all our food - well all the food that can actually be grown, anyway. This is a journey unfinished and I have many miles to go , but this is one of the most beautiful, scenic journeys on which I've ever embarked. And I'm luckier than most because since we've expanded the fenced- in area to a portion of the front yard, the Van Goats can keep me company while I garden. They are great with fertilizer.

My Heroes! Check out the Getty Museum - they're showin us how it's done!

May 9, 2008
Green Pastures
The Getty Museum has announced plans to clear the flammable brush on its Brentwood grounds the old-fashioned way—with a small flock of goats. According to the press release:
The goats are supervised by goatherd Hugh Bunten and his dog Steve, who live in a tent on the Getty grounds while the goats work. Hugh is there to keep the goats “focused,” says his wife Sarah, and also to protect against coyotes (which they see a lot) and mountain lions (which they’ve never seen, but you never know).
The eco-friendly fire-prevention initiative coincides with the museum’s exhibition “Oudry’s Painted Menagerie,” a survey of life-size animal portraits by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686. . .1755). While there are no images of goats or coyotes, the show does include one ten-foot-tall canvas of a lion.—Andrea K. Scott
Posted by Andrea K. Scott

The Pressure of a Post

ARRRGGGGHHHH! I haven't posted in over a week! OMG! My loyal readers are waiting with bated breath. My sponsors are gonna dump me! Wait a minute.........I don't have any sponsors! Ha ha ha! Sometimes I fuckin crack myself up. This blogging thing is great and because nobody reads this it's even better. I could just sit here and type "watermelon, watermelon, watermelon....." That takes me right back to high school when I was in chorus and hated it so I just stood there and sang "watermelon, watermelon, watermelon..." Nobody knew but my my cohort standing next to me and she was continually amused by the apathy on which I sailed through my high school years. She had study hall in my Algebra II class and she almost dropped her teeth (and they weren't dentures) when she looked down the row of desks and saw me snoozing through a test. My teacher sucked, I hated math, and I totally just couldn't get it so what was the point of stressing myself out. Seemed like it was as good a time for a nap as any. I secretly wanted to be brilliant at math, but I gave up somewhere around the 9th grade. Mysteriously, I got a B in geometry (no sexual favors were involved - the teacher was a woman anyway.) but other than that aberration, my career in math was spectacularly sucky. I slaved over a pencil and calculator in college for a B in elementary not-quite-algebra class. (Again - no sex acts were necessary.) It's totally amazing how I have completely left my subject behind for something completely unrelated. And it doesn't matter!!! No one's reading this shit anyway. My ability to segue in to an unrelated topic reminds me of this girl, Tammy, who used to do the horoscope on FM98.1 in the mornings. She would start out doing the horoscope and then she completely leave the horoscope behind to talk about herself - she was frickin hilarious! There's nothing like that on the air anymore. Another indication that radio just isn't what it used to be. Now there's just stupid shit where people try to annihilate each other on air. Long gone are the days of Tammy and Shakespeare Man. Shakespeare Man - totally brill. He could take any song and turn it into Shakespeare speak.Imagine recitations of "Here Comes the Hot Stepper" and "When I Come Around". I loved driving to work in the morning then.
Okay - now let's take a look at this: I started out talking about how I hadn't posted in over a week and ended with Shakespeare Man. This may be why I get strange looks from the Van Goats sometimes.

Rain, rain go away...........

you're tearing the ass out of me and my back yard. I know we need rain because we never get any during the summer, but this is getting extreme! My poor goats were paddling around the backyard this morning. I did get to mow the lawn yesterday and plant my gardenia, so I've got that going for me. Loving the new lawnmower - reel mowers are the only way to go. No gas, no oil, no pollution and you can actually hear your kids calling you while you're mowing. I realize that maybe some people wouldn't feel that that aspect of it is a plus. I, being the walking neurosis that I am, really like to be able to hear my kids while I'm mowing. So here's a picture of the fabulous lawn mower that I bought:

Yeah - it's cool, right? That's what I'm sayin. It's just so freeing to not have to go out and fill up a gas can to be able to mow the lawn. I did see on a website where you can order one of these beauties that someone said " it's not difficult to push of these and don't let anyone tell you it is.Anyone who says it is hasn't seen or pushed one of these in something like 20 years." I'm paraphrasing of course, but you get the drift. Well, it is a little tougher to push but that's okay because who couldn't use a little more exercise/resistance training. I don't know, that whole remark just seemed kind of pompous, condescending smart-ass to me. Hey - my dad didn't use one - nobody did when I was growing up. People were still too friggin glad to have lawn mowers with motors. Of course, I haven't seen one! Someone asked me the other day if my lawnmower was hard to push and I said "Yes, sort of - but it's totally worth the effort!" It totally is..........so get one already!!!!

It's Not Just a Job.....it's a Huge Disappointment.

Well, it was good to be back at work again. I had an angel on my shoulder apparently since we didn't get run into the ground like we usually do. Although I enjoyed most of my time off, I have to admit it sort of does feel good to be actually earning money instead of just spending. One thought I once again revisited this weekend is that nursing totally sucks now - even fun operating room nursing. Insurance companies, management, you-name-it etc. have conspired to render nursing something no longer bearing any resemblance to what it was when I first started 22 years ago. (Okay, I'm old, right?) Nursing was still great when I first graduated from nursing school. We had enough of the appropriate resources to take care of our patients - we had enough fucking time to take care of our patients. Now, you get called into the office for spending too much time with your patients because if you are doing that, then you are most likely having to stay late to finish all the bullshit stuff that has turned nursing into paper pushing and if you're staying late, they might be having to pay you overtime. Of course, we don't even use paper anymore - it's all on the computer. Don't get me wrong, I love computers - I'm using one right now, but there are times when paper is better. Eventually I left real patient care for the operating room where my biggest chance to feel like I'm taking care of a person is making sure that my eyes and my voice - the last ones they see and hear before they go to sleep - are making the patient feel better about where they are. I have to make the patient feel that they are in good hands for the duration of time they're in the OR and I don't have long to do that. So that's the extent of feeling like I'm still a "real nurse". I love OR nursing, or at least I did until management "managed" to suck the heart and soul out of it. It's not about the patient any more - it's about the friggin money. It's about making sure the management gets their bonuses; it's about making sure there are plenty of managers in department meetings and on committees, even if it mean there aren't enough actual caregivers. So these people have bonused, expensed and partied hospitals into places that are hacking their supplies and staff down to a very bare bone to keep from going under. Like we didn't see this shit coming.
If I had known then what I know now, I would still be a lifeguard. WTF - you're still saving lives , right?

All good things must come to an end.......

Well, it would seem that my time of recuperation has come to an end. I have to say that after I got over feeling like my butt would never be the same again, it was really cool being off work all this time - there's a silver lining in every cloud. I have loved being off on the weekends, occasionally sleeping late and of course, being away from work so long that I have now forgotten all user names, passwords and my locker combination. It has been a fun time and we've been able to do things on the weekend, which is awfully nice since most fun things happen on the weekend. I can't really say that I want to go back to work, although I am sort of looking forward to having a paycheck again.

Anyway, I have loved every minute of being home full time with my peeps.