Wednesday, July 29, 2009

We have a baby (dog)!!!

So, Ben and I are pet-sitting a cute puppy. He is a rottweiler (maybe a rott mix, not sure) He's 5 months old and almost as big as Odin, probably around 50 pounds or more. He's huge and has big paws. We have had him for two weeks, and it is unbeleivable how much he has grown. He was a little wild and a little nippy when we first got him, but he learns very fast and is fitting into our household very nicely now. I have been running him around the lake and it is funny to watch his crazy, uncoordinated puppy run. He is not so great on the leash, because he lags behind, which is not a problem I had previously dealt with since my dogs are more inclined to pull foward than lag behind. But he is a doll off leash, he seems to have no desire to run off.

I am substitute teaching today, and I would like to talk more about my carreer options and choices. I cannot continue now though becuase the bell just rang, and my students are arriving. What it comes down to is, I don't think I'm a carreer oriented person, I prefer to work part-time:) Now I'm off to teach 7th grade health!

I will write more later.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Kazak :'(

So, it's been awhile.

The main thing on my mind lately has been the disappearance of my precious boy Kazak. Our kitty has been missing for over a week now. We went out of town 2 weekends ago and have not seen him since. (I knew I should have taken him with us) I have posted flyers and visited shelters. So there is not much else I can do, but hope for him to come home. He is very friendly so I suspect he has found a new home. He is microchipped so wouldn't it be funny if he got turned into a shelter 10 years from now and then returned home to us? Sad in the meantime, but funny when it happend.

Since he is microchipped I was reluctant to check the shelters, seeing no point in it. Finally, yesterday I decided to check the shelters just to feel better about myself. So I went in and saw all the poor doggies and kitties in cages who just wanted to come out and have a human pay attention to them. I wanted to adopt every single one of them. So now I am debating over whether I should get another pet or not. I am giving Kazak a little more time to come home first, and then I am still not so sure. I have no problem with the everyday responsibilities that animals come with, but I would like to do some more traveling before I get much older, and settled (and own lots more animals) (and have kids), and it seems like it won't be easy to find someone to watch my pets if I leave the country.

Two students at NC State have the H1N1 flu now. I hope Ben will not get!!

I will try to pick a more interesting subject for my next blog update, and I will try to make that sometimes in the next week.

signing off -

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Cook for Good

This is interesting. Linda Watson from Raleigh makes home-made healthy meals for $1.16-$1.67 per person per meal. Linda Watson and her husband, who consider themselves "flexitarians", wanted to change the world. She decided to go 3 months only spending about $1.50 per person on each meal. It worked! Now she has created a fairly balanced diet using this scheme. She went a couple weeks only shopping at Whole Foods and the Durham Farmers Market, and said it only raised her costs about 50 cents per person per meal (she calls that her "green" diet).

her website is cookforgood.com

here is the link to an article about her http://www.miamiherald.com/news/environment/story/1031202.html

Tips and notes (www.cookforgood.com)
Chickpeas produce an especially wonderful broth, better than any canned vegetable broth I've tried. Freeze this broth in a muffin tin, then pop out the little cups of broth to use for making rice, chickpea-noodle soup, or any recipe that calls for chicken broth.

NC Food Policy Council bill

The NC Food Policy Bill was passed in the senate recently. It will go into effect July 2009! It's goal is to have 10% of the food economy in NC be based on local food by 2020. Also, it will fund a council of 20 members (NC Sustainable Local Food Policy Council) in order to figure out how else our state is going to work to improve the local food economy.

The benefits of this bill are many, including: creation of jobs, it will stimulate statewide economic development, circulate money from local food sales into the local communities, preserves open space, reducing the use of fossil fuels and thus reducing emissions, increasing consumer access to fresh nutritious food, and it will provide greater food security for all North Carolinians.

Here is the link to the bill: http://www.indyweek.com/pdf/040109/SB1067.pdf

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

5/12/2009

This will be a place for me to post ideas that I am thinking about, plans for my future, plans for my present, books I am reading or would recommend to read, names of people or groups that I am interested in, concepts/subjects I am learning about, and links. Also It is a place for me to post pictures and updates on my life and family.


So, I have just read about the people we call New Urbanists. New Urbanist support renewable energy, electric transport and walkable cities. They focus on creating cities, towns and neigborhoods that are pedestrian centered. They focus on the neigborhood as a unit and favor local economies and local sustainability. New urbanist neighborhoods are designed to contain a diverse range of housing and jobs, and be WALKABLE. They focus on the physical design of urban places, as well as fostering a sense of community. Americans need to rethink the pros and cons of density vs sprawl.

New Agrarians should form an alliance with New Urbanists. This will encourage a sense of community and a local sustainable economy. Preventing suburban sprawl will keep the city dwellers in the city and leave the land to be used constructively. The farmers will have available land in close proximity to the city/market, and the urbanists will have local, fresh, delicious food available in close proximity. This will eliminate many costs involved in the shipping of food; including the environmental costs of the unneccasary use of fossil fuels and the emmisions they produce.

To read more about new urbanism check out these links:
http://www.newurbanism.org/
http://www.cnu.org/