A Whirlwind 2010 So Far

Yes, it’s been a few months since I’ve blogged because so much has happened here at Casa de Nature Deva. We’ve had chicken issues to deal with in our tiny flock of 4. We became foster parents in February. We’ve been really sick! Even me! And we’ve been working on more home renovating projects, this time it’s the removal of the redwood deck and installation of a new patio and making plans for a front yard garden including raised beds.  We have been getting our main garden going, too and succession planted all winter in the greenhouse. And then there are the school projects – I am the chairperson of the new garden being planned and built at my son’s elementary school.  And of course, working at our real jobs, too.

So yeah, we’ve been busy.

I’m sure out of all that you thought, “Foster parents – when did that happen?” Our son, now 6, really, really wanted a sibling to live here and we felt that our best option to help out in our community at the same time would be to go the foster care route.  We went through the training and home inspections, background checks, etc all of last year and we finally became certified as a foster/adopt home in October, ’09.   We received a call on February 3^rd of this year about an emergency placement of a little 22 month old boy who was dealing with neglect, speech delay and failure-to-thrive issues and those were some of the main things we thought we could help out the best with so we agreed and he’s been living with us ever since. For the most part it’s been great but he came to us sick with the RSV virus which is really tough on little kids and I caught it (or some other virus) from him due to being coughed on, lack of sleep/new stress and was sick for a good 2 months myself! Very unusual for me but we all got sick to some extent after he was placed with us.

The good news is that even though the little guy was dealing with illness and being underweight, he ate like a champ, was mostly happy, teethed 4 new teeth, grew in shoe size and height and because he had to go to his pediatrician so many times due to illness, we were able to keep good track of his weight gain and in 3.5 months of living with us, he’s gained 4 lbs! He’s finally getting better now. Sometimes when you are eating very little and what you did eat was crap, your body will purge out the bad stuff so I think his body has been doing that since he’s been thriving in all other ways at the same time. Good nutrition helps correct so many things!

My son is thrilled to have another boy here to play with, we got them bunk beds for their room and they are behaving just like brothers do – sometimes great, sometimes not so much. But you can tell they love each other. We hope we can adopt him but only time will tell, it’s all up to his bio-mom now.

Even though our lives were turned upside down and so quickly since this was an emergency placement I can see the good it’s had on this little boy.  It’s just like when you give birth and the whole family has to deal with the growing pains – this is similar to that except in our case, the “baby” is 2 and came in with his own experiences that we all had to adapt to. Even with just my short 3.5 months of doing this, I can see how fostering a child who is desperately in need of help is so important to do and how my family’s positive impact on his life will stay with him even if he’s returned to his mom. And the way the rules are changing here in my county, even if he’s returned home, we can still visit with him and help him/them if his mom agrees to that. A child can never get too much love and it really does take a village to help raise one!

Blog Action Day ’09 – Climate Change

Today is Blog Action Day where thousands of bloggers all over the world write about today’s very important topic – Climate Change. I’ve been a big proponent over the years of people being aware of what I’ve always called “Earth Changes” which now is referred to as “Climate Change” but they are both one and the same thing. It’s one of the major reasons I relocated – I had so many dreams telling me I have to move it was hard to ignore them after a while.

I am a professional psychic/medium (as well as other specialties) and I have been guided to learn to live my life in as self-sustainable a way as possible and have lived this way in both a rural setting and a suburban setting for the past 15 years. I’ve been an astral traveling dreamer at night my whole life and I can remember back in the‘80s having the start of my earth change dreams where I could fully recall them and wondered why I was being shown this and what was it all about? It was like fitting pieces of a puzzle together and I started tracking strange weather info in the news. Then in the early ‘90s I came across different Native American prophecies that foretold of a great time of change and upheaval starting to happen on our planet: “Turtle Island will pull into her shell” is what the Hopi have said regarding the USA (Turtle Island). They are the keepers of this ancient and very accurate prophecy. According to them, we have passed “The point of no return.”

One of my recurring dreams I’ve had over the years in my astral travels regarding earth changes is being in New York City (I am a native NYer) and looking out of an office building window down at the street below and seeing the buses driving through water that came up to their headlights. I say to a co-worker, “Why is there so much water in the streets?” and she tells me that there has been water rising around here for some time now. She obviously has gotten used to it and says, “Let’s go check out this new club after work” and I think she’s crazy and feel that we must evacuate ASAP. I get this feeling of urgency and my co-workers think I’m the strange one and go on with their life and adapting to the rising waters around them.

There have been times over the past 15 years where friends will email me photos of massive flooding going on in NY, tunnels being closed, cars submerged (my own mother’s car went under water in a parking lot from flood water). But then it all eventually returns to normal and people seem to forget until the next time. I keep watching the events escalate – a tornado touching down in Brooklyn? I don’t recall any tornadoes in the metro NY area when I was growing up!

I had a very vivid astral travel dream just a few months ago of being in Antarctica and watching a major ice shelf collapse and then all of this water came rushing out with such force. I got so upset over this and kept saying in the dream, “No more sea level rising” and heard back, “This is the way it’s going to be, due to the actions humans are taking.” Two days later, I heard on the news about a huge ice shelf collapsing in Antarctica which scientists said was unexpected and they were surprised about it.

My son, now 5.5 years old, has had some pretty interesting earth change dreams of his own already – he has given us pretty detailed descriptions (in 5 year old terms/descriptions) of being inside a volcano and it was going to erupt. He had a series of these dreams every night for about a week then they stopped. Less than a week later, there were a few volcanoes that erupted in the “Ring of Fire” around the Pacific Ocean.

From what I’ve been seeing both psychically and tracking in the news all of these years is that climate change is REAL and events are happening at an alarmingly fast pace – faster than the scientists have even predicted and mostly due to the choices and actions we humans have taken. I think by now it’s pretty impossible to ignore the increase in frequency of major traumatic climate change events like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, rains/flooding/mudslides, extreme droughts/fires. It doesn’t mean the end of the world is coming but it does mean MAJOR CHANGE for millions, maybe billions of people many of whom will have to start over from scratch in a new location or, will cycle off the planet during a major weather event.

So what can we do? We all have to learn new skills (and yes, some you won’t like but learn them anyway), learn to adapt mentally and physically and find locations you resonate with and feel in your gut are safe areas to live/raise your family and to build community in. We all have to work together. And respect the Earth, herself. She’s going through a lot!

We who are aware of what’s going on must step up and DO SOMETHING to help both our fellow humans AND the animals that are so affected by climate change.  There is still some time left to change the laws to end the abusive practices corporations are doing to the planet. Let your voices be heard by your governments! Let’s hope all countries join together to make radical shifts now to law and policy so there will be some semblance of a nice planet left for our kids to live on. As I see it, if we don’t make the changes NOW, our children are going to have to deal with MUCH worse!

Kid Safe Chemicals Act Declaration

I’ve written about the Kid Safe Chemicals Act before. It’s just wrong that there is not any real regulation of the chemical industry and how those unsafe chemicals make their way into our bodies. What do you think those chemicals do to our children – and how about our babies in utero? They come into the world pre-polluted! That’s enough to make you say – disgusting!

Well there is something we all can do about it – Sign the Declaration! At least we have a fighting chance now that the new administration is in place and making changes to help the people. This would be one huge step towards improving everyone’s health – especially our children.

The Kid Safe Chemicals Act (KSCA) would put the burden of proof on chemical makers to document the safety of their products before they go on the market.

It just seems illogical that this has not been happening all along.  Please take 2 seconds to click on the link and sign your name!

Food Democracy Now! Please Sign The Petition

Please take a few seconds and sign this important petition today! The sustainable agriculture community has developed a list of six names that would be appropriate choices for the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. There is a nationwide effort underway to get as many signatures as possible on this petition that will be sent to our President-elect in the next 24 hours and time is of the essence.

An excerpt from their letter to President-elect Obama:

Today we have a nutritional and environmental deficit that is as real and as great as that of our national debt and must be addressed with forward thinking and bold, decisive action. To deal with this crisis, our next Secretary of Agriculture must work to advance a new era of sustainability in agriculture, humane husbandry, food and renewable energy production that revitalizes our nation’s soil, air and water while stimulating opportunities for new farmers to return to the land.

We believe that a new administration should address our nation’s growing health problems by promoting a children’s school lunch program that incorporates more healthy food choices, including the creation of opportunities for schools to purchase food from local sources that place a high emphasis on nutrition and sustainable farming practices. We recognize that our children’s health is our nation’s future and that currently schools are unable to meet these needs because they do not have the financial resources to invest in better food choices. We believe this reflects and is in line with your emphasis on childhood education as a child’s health and nutrition are fundamental to their academic success.

This could be a breakthrough for our organic farmers and sustainability in general if the right person is chosen to be the head of this department. We already know that Obama/Biden have a “Plan For Rural America” which I have blogged about before so now we just have to ensure there is a really great US Secretary of Agriculture chosen to make this vision a reality.  Please pass this on to gather as many signatures as possible today! Spread the word! Thank you.

My Local Sustainability Fair – Part 3

Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.

All of the talks I went to were extremely interesting and informative. The best one though was by the keynote speaker, L. Hunter Lovins. She is an internationally recognized expert on climate change, green development, energy efficiency, resource use, land management and “natural capitalism.” She was named Time magazine’s “Hero for the Planet” in the year 2000.  She has also founded a school named Presidio School of Management where you can receive your MBA in Sustainable Management.  One job that these graduates are excelling in is helping large companies to convert their corporations to become more environmentally friendly and find ways for them to save money at the same time. Others go on to work for the EPA or even start their own eco-friendly businesses.

During her presentation, she spoke to us about why it’s important to build a sustainable community. For one thing, it’s prosperous for all of the residents and you will feel secure and self-reliant. All residents will have assured supplies of water, energy, food and basic services.  Being sustainable means fully valuing and enhancing all forms of capital: financial, manufactured, human and natural.

One idea that was mentioned by several speakers including Ms. Lovins was the “Triple Bottom Line – profit, protection and people.” This refers to what are the financial, environmental and social impacts of an organization, business or community? This is what we must think about when we are in the planning stages.

She talked a bit about businesses and mentioned that businesses also need to remember the most important thing which is to always start with efficiency. There will always be surprises in business but as companies are now realizing, protecting the climate is profitable! This is evidenced by Walmart who has very large sustainability goals in place and they are actively taking steps to become more green and sustainable to help their company’s bottom line as well as the planet. Since announcing this, their stock prices have gone up even in a bear market economy. I know this seems crazy that Walmart is committed to this but since they are leading the way, other large corporations will surely be following soon enough.

Ms. Lovins is also a part of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) which is a large group of experts working together to help find solutions to reversing the damages caused by climate change, improve our economy and our national security. A plan for our 44th president’s first 100 days in office regarding climate change has been produced and since we have now had the election a few weeks ago, we know our new president is on board with halting climate change and creating economic growth by moving forward with new technologies and greenhouse gas regulations that will help save our planet and grow our economy at the same time. A win-win for all once again.

Here is the background on what PCAP is trying to accomplish:

One of the most important challenges facing the 44th President – arguably the most important challenge – will be to quickly and effectively address the three interrelated problems of climate change, energy stability and national security.

Leading climate experts estimate that the international community has 10 years to make dramatic changes in greenhouse gas emissions if we wish to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. A similar need for action in the next decade is being created by the growing international competition for oil, the approaching peak in world petroleum production and America’s increasing dependence on oil from unstable or hostile regions. Left unaddressed, these problems may create unprecedented economic and environmental hardships and increasing global tensions.

By the time the 44th President takes office, the window of opportunity to prevent these crises will be one-third gone. The people of the United States, as well as other nations, will be looking for an early indication of whether the President intends to lead the world’s largest energy-consuming and greenhouse-gas emitting nation on a responsible course of action.

To help the President launch effective Federal leadership on these issues, the University of Colorado and several partner organizations are engaging the nation’s science, policy, business and civic leaders to produce a Presidential Climate Action Plan (PCAP).

The plan will contain a broad menu of policy and program recommendations for the President, rather than advocating a particular policy. It will be announced early in 2008. During 2007-2008, the project will operate a web site that offers resource documents and background information on climate policy to assist the Presidential candidates in forming their climate-action commitments.

If you’d like to read the full plan, click here.

In summary, this whole event was very inspiring for me to attend. I am so happy that the ideals and beliefs about how my husband and I like to live our lives for the past 14 years are becoming more mainstream and widely accepted.  I am really feeling optimistic even in this bad economic downturn that our country will be implementing these new environmental changes that will be beneficial for everyone on many levels. The time has come and the changes have to be permanent. We are still currently before the “point of no return” and we have to make these changes so we can keep living on this beautiful planet. Don’t you agree?

Agricultural Changes Coming To America

Last week I read the article, “Farmer In Chief” written by Michael Pollan. It is probably the most thorough article about our current food and agricultural system here in the U.S. and what we need to do to shift the  agriculture policy to make it better. Pollan calls it his “Sun-Food Agenda” and it is written as an open letter to the next president. In my opinion, this article is simply amazing. And even better, Obama read it and even quoted from it before he was elected:

Obama’s quote (from Treehugger):

There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy. I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

Willie Nelson, the musician and the president of Farm Aid, wrote a letter to Obama offering him every resource that Farm Aid has available to assist him in creating a new farm and food policy that supports a sustainable family farm system of agriculture.

From the letter:

There is broad agreement that our farm and food system needs to be drastically reworked. The good news is that the work of building an alternative to the industrial food system is well underway and Farm Aid is proud to have been a leader in this work, something we call the Good Food Movement. The Good Food Movement has grown and thrived almost entirely without the support of the federal government. However, now is the right moment for the leadership of our country to take a role in this important movement. In fact the future of our economy, our environment and our health demand it.

I am waiting to see how this all will unfold once Obama takes office. The way things are run now is clearly not working for anyone on any level anymore. This has to and will change at the policy level and thankfully we have a very aware president-elect that will make sure at least some major agricultural changes take place at that level.  It’s already been shifting at the grassroots level as you can tell by the huge surge in consumers buying organic produce, pasture raised meats, attending farmer’s markets, joining CSA’s and the rising awareness of people wanting to take charge of their health starting with nutrition and knowing where their food comes from.

I especially love that he wants to make school food come more from local farmers and be of higher nutritional quality.  This is going to really help the low income families who rely on this food program sometimes as their kids’ only source of calories for the day.

Here is the plan from the Obama/Biden Real Leadership For Rural America pdf regarding the farm to school program:

Bring Farms to Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support providing locally grown, healthy foods to students as a part of the school meals program. This will both reduce childhood obesity and grow vibrant rural economies, supporting community-based food systems and strengthening family farms. They will support funding for farm-to-school projects for food, labor, equipment, and staff training. They also will allow schools to give priority to local sources when ordering food. Currently the USDA prohibits schools from requesting local products during the bidding process. Finally, they will expand commodity support to include the school breakfast program as well as the school lunch program.

The farm to school program is already being initiated in one school district in my county right now and I’m hoping my school district will be next to embrace this program.

This is just so great, I’m completely excited that finally I can be happy my government has listened to We The People and will act upon what is best for it’s citizens and not the corporate greed system that has been destroying us and our planet for so long.

My Local Sustainability Fair Part 2

Click here for Part 1.

After finishing up at the Agriculture presentation, I moved on to the presentation about Water and Climate Change. The first speaker was Charles Montgomery from The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. His words were very profound to hear spoken to the masses. I have known this info for a while but many people don’t like to discuss or even believe it.

Charles said, “The world is rapidly warming due to the greenhouse gas effect. CO2 and methane are great in small amounts to balance the cold effect but in large amounts, they are disastrous.” The problems really started to escalate in the 1970’s and it is way worse in the western part of the U.S. And ground zero for global warming in the U.S. is CO, UT, NM, AZ.  90% of global warming is caused by human activities (including factory farming).  There is a coming crisis in the water supply of the western U.S.  From north to south, it will be getting hotter and drier. Where I live will stay approximately the same because I am near the mountains and the runoff. Woo hoo!

He did say with the earth’s temperature increasing, we will be getting more rain rather than snow so there will not be much snowpack in the mountains and also melting will be happening earlier which means the evaporation rates will be accelerating. Really not a good thing for all the states that rely on the Colorado river basin. He said that by the year 2100 or sooner, we are going to dry out the system. We are still currently before the “point of no return” temperature-wise so we need to make major, global changes now before it’s too late for us to be able to do anything about it.

He did leave us with this final thought, “We have to take action now, climate scientists around the world are terrified right now. Think about sustainability collectively.”

The next person to speak, Tracy from the Great Western Initiative spoke about water conservation and all that we can do. He gave examples of what sustainable, technological developments came out of Australia where they have been suffering from severe drought for decades. Another fun fact I learned is that 20% of energy used in the U.S. is to treat, pump and distribute water. I personally think the whole pooping in our water supply is wrong, disgusting and both a waste of energy and polluting of a dwindling valuable resource. I hope we will start to change our thinking on this soon since our water is drying up. There are many alternative options to this.

He also talked about “community based social marketing” which helps to identify what the barriers are to people’s behaviors changing.

What we can do: education: influence the schools, be aware of our own use, check for leaks, how do you spend your money, tell the stores, vote with your dollar.

Communicate: Telling your friends your story will then lead to changing attitudes. Change then becomes part of our social fabric and it becomes sustainable. (Which is why I am blogging about this in such detail).

The last person to speak on water was a woman named Cynthia from Aware Colorado. She spoke about the connection between land use and water being blocked from getting into the land by impervious surfaces. Now some towns are designing parking lots and roads with pavers instead of blacktop so that water can seep back into the land instead of just evaporate. She also talked about new street designs that have swales to catch the water, different street edges for water to get into the soil, xeriscaping, native plants that need less water, gravel roads instead of blacktop to absorb water, rooftop gardens to help with regulating a building’s heating and cooling and natural ecosystems put back in place.

The other two presentations on Alternative Energy and Recycling I didn’t get to hear but since I’ve lived off the grid for a few years I know all about the greatness of solar and wind power and the stupidity of us as a nation not utilizing this free power source. But we can all right now buy wind power through our local power company or a reputable online company.

Recycling in our town went up a notch recently when curbside pickup went single stream and that makes life easier for people who choose not to recycle the items that were not picked up at their house. Now they can recycle much more since almost everything is being picked up from their house and they don’t have to make a special trip to the recycling center. They also had posters up saying they would be doing curbside compost pick up within the next few years for those townspeople that don’t compost or have a garden. Amazing!

All of the speakers I heard that day were very enlightening and really helped get the message out and got people thinking. The best one was the keynote speaker, L. Hunter Lovins. I will write about what her message was in part 3.

My Local Sustainability Fair – Part 1

This past weekend I attended a Sustainability Fair that was sponsored by my town and was completely free for us to attend.  They even served a free lunch. The info I have below is really important and I feel very lucky that it was presented to us. This Sustainability Fair was a major highlight for me to have right here where I live since this lifestyle has been a passion of mine for the past 13 years.

Having lived in my conservative town for the past 6 years, I really never expected the concept of real sustainable living to reach the mainstream consciousness here so soon especially since this town is not as liberal or environmentally friendly as other places in my county.  Attending this entire day long, well coordinated conference with expert speakers talking about all areas of sustainablility and how do we work together to achieve this for the single purpose of making this town the most sustainable and eco-friendly place to live was just so deeply rewarding to me on so many levels.

At the fair, they had an expo area with lots of companies explaining what they do in different areas relating to environmentalism. They also had presentations in different rooms by a few different panels of experts, most of whom were local to either my county or state. The topics covered were: Agriculture, Water, Alternative Energy and Recycling. There was also a keynote speaker and then lunch then a breakout session where we went to brainstorm and give ideas on each topic.

Since there was only time to go to two presentations out of the four, can you guess which two I picked? If you read this blog regularly, you can tell I’m pretty passionate about healthy food especially seasonal, local and organic plant based foods. Agriculture was my first stop and it was great.

There were 3 presenters and the first was a man named Tom who owns a large, local farm and builds solar powered farm equipment. His designs have been patented and he is now developing a solar powered tractor. His description about his whole way of living was inspiring to me.

Another man, Adrian from our county commissioner’s advisory board spoke about better farming practices and the need for younger, sustainably aware farmers since the average age of farmers now is 55. He spoke about how all of the confined animal feedlots (CAFO) are just so cruel to the animals and horrible for the environment also use the most fossil fuels and contribute to the the largest output of greenhouse gasses (including dairy and all kinds of meat production). That’s huge and the sooner we do away with these inhumane ways to raise livestock and go back to the local farms for pasture-raised flesh foods and dairy, it’s better both for the people’s health and the greatly minimized environmental impacts. We should not be eating animals everyday, 3 times a day. Plant based foods are healthier and better for you and the planet. Limit the intake of animal based foods (especially the cheap, antibiotic-laden factory farmed meats & dairy) because they are the biggest contributors to our planet’s degradation.  CAFO also uses and pollutes enormous amounts of water (which I will speak about in part 2).

Next, a woman named Cindy spoke that runs our farmer’s market here in my town of which it is part of the larger county run farmer’s markets organization and there are many of these markets here in my county which is a great thing for the people and the local CO farmers. She said on the last day of the season (Nov.1st here), our largest farmer’s market in the county made $80,000 just from selling produce. Not from the arts and crafts vendors or the prepared meals food carts. Just the farmers themselves.  That is astounding to me (and to them, too!) because it shows how many people are really interested in fresh, regional, seasonal, organic foods. It is what we need for our health and what is also good for our planet. So glad it’s on the upswing.

She also spoke at length about how many people are considered “food insecure” and how food banks and shelters are adding 200 people every week in our county and it’s only going to get worse as we go into this economic depression. There was talk about some trial programs my town just did with growing potatoes in a public park area on only about an eighth of an acre and volunteers came and dug them up a few weeks ago and donated all of the potatoes to the food bank.  They grew several hundred pounds with very little effort so more of this type of growing on public land will be happening in the future to benefit the food insecure.

Cindy also spoke about the farm to school program aka – the “School Food Project” that they are trying to get established in my school district. Currently, in the bigger city in my county their school district is being trained by none other than Ann Cooper from Berkeley, CA’s school district (and I posted a great TED video of her speaking a few weeks ago). This woman is an amazing dynamo in terms of getting off the processed, subsidized food bandwagon which helps to make kids fat and unhealthy and she is also teaching the kitchen workers how to cook real food again from many locally sourced food items from farmers and it’s all done on the school’s budget.  She also advocates teaching and growing a garden at each school and educating the children about where food comes from. I truly admire this woman and am so excited she is working with our neighboring school district because this means that program will come to my school district at some point and I would love to help out with getting that going. This is especially great for all of those children that have to rely on the free breakfast and lunch program and who have to consume many highly processed foods everyday. This will help turn the children’s health around by eating high quality, nutritious food which will also increase their mental acuity as well as educate them about sustainable living skills, too. All win-win.

Next, in part two I will write about the water and climate change presentations I went to and the very enlightening info I learned there.

The Dawn Of A New Era

I can’t tell you all how happy I am that we as a nation can now move positively in a Greener direction with the election of Obama as President.  He has said that one of his first initiatives after stabilizing the economic whirlwind that’s going on right now is to get alternative, sustainable technology going here so we can end our dependence on foreign oil, create millions of jobs that cannot be moved overseas and lower our carbon footprint which will basically save the planet at the same time.

Since I write (and live) a mostly green, sustainable and health blog, this is one of the chief things that I have wanted to see for many years.  Having been involved in this lifestyle since the mid 1990’s, I can’t tell you the heartbreak I have had over watching Bush not give a damn over the state of our planet and therefore the people and animals who have to consume the water, air and frankenfood allowed to be so polluted and denatured under his administration.  I am OVERJOYED and FILLED WITH HOPE that we can actually survive now.  For a while I was not too sure. I think Obama will make wise choices for each position in his administration and even Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s name is on the short list for heading up the EPA which I personally think is an excellent choice considering all the years he’s worked so hard for the environment through the NRDC. (I highly recommend you read this letter from the president of the NRDC through that link).

It gives me goosebumps to see good people that work for the greater good of all to be put in positions of power to ensure we clean up the gigantic toxic mess Bush/Cheney let happen and make our planet safer and cleaner and greener again for our children to grow up in. We do need more regulation in certain areas and many people have been working hard to get certain legislation passed such as the Kid Safe Chemicals Act, the Safe Toys Act, getting the US to sign the Kyoto Protocol, etc.  This is necessary and needed to keep us and our children safe. Regulation is not a bad thing especially when corporations are getting away with murder, basically to make a profit. We are not lab rats, we are fellow citizens of the world who are being polluted on so many levels that millions of us are sick and dying, again good for the corporate drug companies to make a buck, not good for the people suffering and dying from toxic overload that causes cancer and other diseases.  Obama is aware of these issues, has young children and wants to focus more on preventative medicine and good health and wants to clean this up.  That is something stellar to see in a leader because preventative medicine is inexpensive and does not make much money for the drug companies.

And to be clear, I see him as a human, dealing in the world of duality just like the rest of us humans and I don’t hold him up to be a savior or anything like that.  I am just so happy that a person of high intelligence, thought and caring for many different issues and is progressive and wants to do things differently and more wisely than the old and decaying ways that no longer work for us as a collective.  Those ways just simply won’t work anymore.  It won’t be easy, we are going into an economic depression and have to deal with getting through that chaos even with Obama as president.

When I heard “44th President” I was excited because the number 44 is a “power number” according to numerology  (which is the metaphysical science of the vibration of numbers developed by Pythagoras in the sixth century BC) and the definition of the number 44 is “universal builder with insight; can institute and assist world-wide reform for the good of mankind; can manifest his postulates.”  I feel Obama’s energy and soul wisdom is the right person to embody the power of this title.  He is fair and balanced and listens to the advice of others who may not agree with him. That is a mark of a great leader.  I know he is fulfilling his karma and will be a real unifier of humanity who is ushering in a new way for us all. And lawd knows, the entire planet is desperate for the US to go in a new direction!

Have you seen the footage of the viewing parties across the globe on our election night and the massive celebrations taking place in other countries once Obama was elected? I think that really says something and we Americans need to take note of that.  The most powerful nation on earth has finally chosen a leader the people of the world feel represents the greater good for all.  And I hope and pray that we all can move forward working together for this very purpose because we don’t have that much time left to keep destroying the planet without more and more dire consequences being thrust upon us all.

photo: haneybabe

Halloween Parade 2008

Last Saturday was our town’s annual Halloween Parade down Main St. Yes, I live in a town with a Main Street and seasonal parades and other fun events here.  This town also has made Money magazine’s list for the 100 best places in America to live (we are in the top 50) several times, too.

Since we had just gotten back from vacation a few days earlier in the week, I had no costume for the boy and didn’t even have any time to get one before we left.  My husband did make a set of foam swords this summer for them to have sword fights since Leif was obsessed with doing that with anything he could find.  So, I decided to work around that. At first he was going to be a knight in shining armor but then we didn’t have time to sew a helmet and wound up making him a gold crown instead so he declared himself a king – “a good king” to be precise.

I went to the local fabric store and got him some shiny gold fabric to make a cape and I’m sure he will get a lot of use out of that since what boy doesn’t love a cape to play with?   We made him a crown out of an old paperboard sign and painted it and made a shield out of cardboard.  My husband painted him a coat of arms on the shield that had a nature theme – a leaf and vine, what else for King Leif?

It turned out to be a very inexpensive, fast, homemade costume out of mostly stuff we had on hand including the paints.  And he loves it!

Good King Leif

The King and his good friend, the Knight

The King and his good friend, the Obama-supporting Cow.

The King got tired and decided to hitch a ride upon his noble steed, aka Daddy.

Another favorite thing he has been really into this past week was a temporary tattoo we got at our local democrat office of Obama on a postage stamp.  He wanted it on his belly and loved showing it off.  I took many shots of his cute belly:

On Halloween, we plan on going to our rec center’s huge annual Halloween carnival that has lots of fun carnival games for little kids, several bouncy houses and a spooky boat ride across the large pool.  The pool area is dimly lit and there are still more places in there to play games and win prizes.  In another room, they bring in small animals for a petting zoo. We’ve gone the past 2 years and he just loves it.  Yet another great thing this town does for the children that live here and all of the events are free.

After that, he likes to go trick or treating with his Dad and loves the idea of getting things from people even though he really does not like candy (I know, strange) but that is probably because we don’t eat candy or any products with high fructose corn syrup in them so he just doesn’t like the taste. I buy him these organic, naturally sweetened lollipops which he loves so I give him those instead of the candy he collects. I am trying to get him a Unicef box so he can collect money for Unicef instead of candy he (or we) won’t eat.

I hope you all have a very happy and safe Halloween with your kiddies!