My creative outlet

I have discovered a deep love for gardening. I don't care how hot, cold, windy, or even sometimes rainy it is, I love to be outside tinkering in my yard. I'm constantly surveying it to figure out what I want to do next.

Of course, when you discover you love something, you start wishing you could do it every day instead of just here and there on the weekends or weeknights. So a year or so ago, I investigated a few plant-oriented career options. Without much luck, though. I thought about a horticulture degree, but the nearest college to offer one would take 1-1/2 to 2 hours to get to one-way. Not an option! I figure working at a nursery would probably take me down more than a few notches in pay, so that's out. My boss and I joked that we should open our own nursery and call it "Two Burned-Out Accountants". We figured the name alone would peak customer's curiosity to get them in the door, and our sparkling personalities would take care of the rest. But it was really just daydreaming talk.

Since none of these options will pan out, it looks like I'm stuck with the goal of making "Yard of the Month" in our neighborhood. We get a picture in the monthly newsletter and a nice description. I'm partially there - I think we have the prettiest border in the whole East Side of Fort Worth.

I think the best therapy in the world is digging in the earth and planting things. Here's a quote I found in an old gardening book while staying in a really neat B&B in Fredericksburg:

All my hurts
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk
A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush,
a wild rose or rock-loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pretty darn funny

Check these out-the worst album covers of all time.

Entitlement vs. obligation of responsibility

Something I'm noticing more and more these days is the fact that we as Americans feel entitled to certain rights and priviledges, which I don't have a problem with. The problem occurs when you don't mix any sense of responsilibity into that entitlement. For example, we are entitled to have a safe place to live. But does this mean we should build the biggest house on the block, which will not only waste land space and building materials, but also energy to heat and cool? Also, we feel we are entitled to cars that get us safely back and forth to wherever we need to go. Do we not also have a responsibility to buy vehicles that use less gas, and to maintain that vehicle so that it releases the least amount of exhaust into the air? And what about recycling, and water conservation - small things requiring little effort, but that could make a big difference?

Which leads me to the money issue. I know that income makes a difference. I will even come clean at this point. With a child on the way and two big dogs, we needed something bigger than our Honda Civic. I will admit that we ended up buying a small SUV after realizing that station wagon prices had exploded to a range higher than our budget. But I feel really guilty driving my car on ozone-level warning days. And if a person is working two jobs just to make sure his or her family has food on the table, pollution or urban sprawl probably does not rate very high on your list of priorities. I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about people who are making a pretty good living and SHOULD be thinking about these things. Why don't more people think less of "me, myself and I", and more about their communities and the greater good of everyone? I understand that America was built on individualism and the "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps" mentality. But I wish I could talk to the founding fathers and ask if the "pursuit of inalienable rights" meant that you could forego any sense of community and step on anybody and everybody just to reach this goal. Somehow I doubt it. And I also don't think they meant for us to make sure we had the biggest and best compared to all of our neighbors. But how do you change this mindset? How do you make people see the bigger picture? I just don't have an answer for that one.

Lightbulb over my head for the day

Way to partially solve the energy crisis: Take a small portion of every dollar of profit the oil/gas companies are making and put it into public transportation development. I'm talking trains, train tracks and secure depots in every suburb, stops along Farm to Market roads. I know everyone is always saying that Europe's system won't work in the US because we are too big and sprawling, but isn't it at least possible as long as the money is available? And think of the jobs all of that construction would create! The only hitch is how to make the oil and gas companies do it. Maybe a portion of the tax we already pay when we buy gas could be funneled into this project. Because the whole point would be to start weening us Americans off of our attachment to our cars (and speaking from experience - even certain people who read this blog who have chances to take the train to work don't want to give up his or her vehicle.) How to change THAT mindset, speaking in my best West Texas lingo, is a whole 'nother problem.

Super-sized lessons

I've been watching a new TLC show, Honey, We're Killing the Kids. The show has a nutrition and diet expert coming into homes to help the entire family eat healthier and excerise more - with the motivation for the parents of knowing their kids will live longer. She spends three weeks coming up with new goals for everyone to reach. Several things about the show fascinate me.

One is watching the kids, used to pretty much nothing but fast food and junk food, almost get sick eating healthy food. I can sort of see this, because I got addicted to fast food in college. It has taken me years to lose the desire to run by a fast food restaurant for lunch every day. I think it really does alter your taste buds, because I never really enjoyed eating fruit until now, but now I'm starting to crave nectarines and pears instead of Big Macs.

Another thing that just floors me is that the Moms on the show (not to be sexist, but they are always the ones doing the grocery shopping), have no clue what some of the fruits and vegetables on their healthy buying list even look like. They have to get the stockers at the grocery stores to help them find the asparagus.

And the Dads do so little to help. Not only with meal preparing and cleaning up, but with disciplining the kids. All the families on the shows I've watched seem to have that in common.

It's normally a pretty interesting outcome, although I wonder how long the transformation will keep up after the three weeks is over. Just doesn't seem like a long enough time to change years of bad eating and exercise habits. But I guess credit should be given to TLC for at least bringing the issue into the limelight a little more.

The ugly truth

Something in my life has caused me to become a complainer. I don't think I used to do this. I complain about the little complexities of life that can drive you crazy. I complain about how I feel. I complain about how there's never enough time to get everything done on my to-do list in my head. The weird thing, though, is that I consider myself to be pretty happy person. In fact, I am at the happiest place I've ever been in throughout my whole adult life. I honestly can't figure out why I do this. I guess complaining is like nail-biting - a very bad habit that I need to break. I think something that may help is focusing more on the current moment, and not thinking so much about what I need to do tomorrow, or when I get home from work, or what I didn't get done the day before. It's really hard to actually do, though.