live my priorities and passions

As much as I love the sound of this goal, I find that most of my priorities and passions are captured under other goals, making this one a bit redundant.

in keeping with my current priorities. It was a good exercise actually – made me really see my goals again, with fresh eyes; gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate what I’m working toward and what I can really let slide.

Having time to myself is extremely important to me, and I find that I don’t get nearly enough of it now that M & I share a house. Often I pine to have my little house all to myself again, but that would of course cost me the niceness of having someone to come home to, someone to share a daily laugh with, someone to kiss good night. So I think the solution will be to make more time for myself when he’s at work. I’ve started staying home later in the mornings and coming in to work at 8:00 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. or earlier, but I’m thinking that after August, when school starts up and I’ve paid off three of my six big debt-drains, I’m going to try to reduce my work hours to allow myself at least a morning at home alone. I definitely have to make this a priority, and free up time for myself.

I love when doing one thing accomplishes more than one goal. Like this morning, when I walked to work. With that simple decision, I met my objectives to exercise daily, spend more time outdoors, and be a friend to the environment.

If only my walk had burned off 30 lbs, taken me past the northern lights, and been on my way to a pedicure rather than to work, I coulda knocked off a whole family of birds!! :+)

Just seeding an idea – I’d like to build a website that, among other things, provides (and collects!) information about 100-mile foods and products available in the London and area. My web skills are very novice, but if possible, I’d like to learn how to offer a searchable database for visitors, as well as some 100-mile recipes, AND some kind of bulletin board for visitors to post their ideas, discoveries and recipes. I’d like too, to offer a “Trading Post” where we could trade our surplus garden bounty, and/or buy in bulk and split costs. Something like that. Needs more thought – and a rainy day :+)

Good news! I received an e-mail back from organicmeadow.com – indicating that “Our cheese, ice cream and 4L bags of milk are
produced and packaged within the 150 km’s (I’m not sure if that qualifies to the 100mile diet) They should be available at your local grocery store.”

I’ll soon have all the info I need to host my/our first “100-mile-diet-day”!! Maybe we’ll bring the point home and make it extra special by going strawberry picking first in the morning :+)

I want to give this a try sometime soon. Maybe just start with a day, and if all goes well, try a weekend, and gradually work up to longer periods. For some reason, the prospect makes me a bit nervous – it seems like a huge undertaking. Even though I’m quite excited about all the benefits, and even the challenge of creating delicious local dishes, I can feel a little fear of failure in my belly.
So for now I’m just thinking about where I’d find enough food to sustain us, and I’ve realized the following positives:
M’s dad grows BUCKETS of pears and plums, and there’s an apple orchard just on the outskirts of town, so those fruits would sustain us all autumn and could be prepped & preserved for winter;
In the ‘next town over’ there is a big grain mill that sells every grain I can think of, as well as flours, pastas, cereals and mixes made from the grains. They also sell beans and jams, so I’ve e-mailed them to ask about where their products are grown.
There is a sugar bush west of the city that I absolutely love so I know where I can get our maple syrup!
I’m growing herbs, strawberries, peppers and tomatoes myself this year.
All summer long, on Thursdays and Saturdays, local farmers set up stands at the market to sell their produce – perhaps with enough preparation, I could freeze, dry and can enough some stuff for the winter?? Maybe enough for one 100-mile diet day per week?
Don’t know about fish yet – we have great lakes close by but I’m so out of touch, I don’t even know if it’s safe to eat the fish that come out of those waters.
I’m sure I can find local honey, veggies by the bushel-full, and dairy. I think soy is a huge crop around these parts too, but again, I’m so out of touch with where my food comes from, I’ll have to investigate further.
We even have a vineyard nearby (sparta??)
I’m going to keep thinking on this, and please pass along any other ideas and tips you might have!

Like everyone, I hold some causes more dear than others. The environment is probably my biggest effort right now. My oldest love is supporting the library and literacy, and next oldest is the humane treatment and protection of animals. The ones I’m most excited about is the laptop project ( http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml ) and www.kiva.org (thank you Dave!). My latest actual donation is the Green Party of Canada ( http://www.greenparty.ca/ ) because they stand for everything that is good and progressive and natural.
I would like to live my concern for these issues by donating more and more regularly. I must work this into the budget in some way that I can sustain year-round. Also, I might appeal to the giving nature of so many of my friends and family – perhaps we can make a ‘donation trade’ at Christmas’ and birthdays to each other’s preferred recipient, rather than exchanging yet more stuff.

I’ve printed myself off a “stage 1” checklist of things to do to save energy, which is considered a ‘two week plan’. I’ll progress to the longer-term plan after that and see what all I can do to conserve further. Plus, I’m investigating a few carbon-offset providers to see who will sell me my offsets. Did a little research and found that offsets aren’t all created equal, so at least now I’m armed with a list of questions to ask before buying from any one company.
Also considering signing up with bullfrog power – it’ll increase our rates quite a bit, BUT, if we’re conserving in all these other ways, well then maybe we’ll come in close to even but with a much freer conscience and a much teenier footprint.

I am a confirmed dilettante – I wanna dabble in just about every hobby, from scrappin’ to tennis to bellydancing to meditation, to investing and stock-trading, to photography and watercolour painting, to skating and gardening and playing harmonica and learning to speak Russian and French… you get the picture. Anyway, I got to wondering if my being a dabbler is in the way of me finding my passion? OR, if perhaps my dabbling is a symptom of not having a particular burning passion. Are there people in whom passion flows only shallowly?? Or, is it nature’s plan that I dabble until I stumble upon my passion?? What if, when the universe was doling out passions, those at the end of the line, who were left after all the passions had run out, were given instead the ability to have fun and enjoy just about any activity?? Maybe I’m one of those folks?