Taking out the trash ...

Yesterday I was surfing 'round the net, reading blogs, checking out what others have posted about their New Year's resolutions, and what-not. I came across Hip Mountain Mama. The post for the day was this: One Small Change. I'm not really a resolution maker. I've done it, sometimes with success and sometimes with a definite lack of success. On reading this post I was struck by the simplicity of the idea, and I was all over the list making process for what I would like to change in my world. It's not about making resolutions, it's about changing your life one small step at a time and I like that.

Starting point. I've been working on becoming vegan for several years now. It's been a slow but positive and rewarding change in my life, my health, my attitude. I believe if everyone became vegan the entire world would bloom. Of course, it's not likely to happen any time soon. Sad but true. Getting my own husband to become vegan/vegetarian would be the equivalent of single-handedly reversing the effects of global warming! The only one I can change is me. So January is the month to begin one small change toward moving even farther forward in my journey to being completely vegan.

Now, I'm sure there is a hand raised out there with the question of, "Why is it taking you so long to convert?" attached to it. It's a good question and I have a number of reasons.

1) It's a really big switch, even from being vegetarian. Veganism is more than not eating meat. It's about eliminating ALL animal products/by products from not only your diet but from your life as well. It's about becoming educated. It involves learning what and where all that stuff is (manufacturers are sneaky) and finding an alternative. Even with internet accessibility to lots of alternatives, acquiring them is not always simple and easy. While there are as many approaches to being vegan is as there are people on the planet, for me it also means being eco-conscious. Yep, tree-huggin', dirt-worshipin', savin' the planet all rolled into one big enchilada. It means being aware of the impact you have in everything you do.

2) So, again, it's a really big switch. Think about all those things you've used/loved/consumed all of your life and suddenly not having any of it. When I started out I was overwhelmed. The more I learned, the more I felt the need to go through every single thing in my house and throw it all away. My shoes were nearly all leather. My health/beauty care products were animal-tested and had horrible chemicals in them. Cleaning products were equally as toxic. My carpet, my art supplies, my knitting and quilting stuff, my books, my light bulbs, my cat food, my Jeep, my brand new wool/cashmere Land's End pea coat ... ALL BAD, BAD, BAD! I'm not wealthy. I couldn't just chuck it all in the trash and buy everything new. And trashing it was BAD, too! Starting from scratch was (is) completely and totally unrealistic. I had to stop, breathe, and form a reasonable, practical plan.

3) Health. Priority one. Learning about diet, vitamins, minerals. Many people who become vegetarian forget there is more to it than just eating tofu and vegetables. They end up suffering a host of health problems and go running off to the doctor - who is inevitably going to convince them to start eating "normal" again. It's important to know what replaces what in a vegetarian diet. Where do you get your protein if you aren't eating steak and eggs? What about vitamin B12 (again, found primarily in meat, eggs and dairy products)? How much do you need of everything? No one book or website gives you a 100% run-down. And what if you don't like tofu? It takes time to learn what you need, how much you need, and where to get it in a way you will still enjoy it.

4) My husband is a carnivore. He's a person who doesn't give much thought to just how those paper towels got from Point A (manufacturer) to Point B (kitchen counter). He focuses on the convenience of having them. Period. I'm not saying he's totally oblivious, but he moves through life like most people do. If you want a cheeseburger, you don't think about how it started out as a living, breathing, feeling, thinking cow - you just go to your favorite burger joint, order it, eat it, and then go about your merry business. Learning to compromise what I want vs. what he wants has been a challenge. Some things have been easy to switch (he loves the Kiss My Face shaving lotion) but others, sadly, will probably never change (he loves cheeseburgers). This means that no matter how much it makes me cringe I still have to buy stuff I don't want to.

5) The great art of compromise. Not only does my husband's way of life conflict with mine, I sometimes conflict with myself. Example: I am an artist. The bulk of my art supplies are not eco-friendly. I know every time I buy a tube of paint I'm buying a 'bad' product. There are places you have to learn where you will drawn your line in the sand and where you won't. I may be okay with using fabric bags instead of plastic at the grocery store, but I'm not giving up my art ... and I'm not going to try making my own yellow ocher or Prussian blue paint. I'm not going to try making my own paper. I'm not going to make paintbrushes. I'll leave all that up to somebody else. Sand = Line.

There is compromise in other things as well. Some from simple cost factor - organic is expensive, and accessibility - I live in a small town with limited options. Internet shopping is not an option if the shipping cost is outrageous, which is often the case. Driving an hour or more to shop in a larger city isn't always practical either. Part of being earth-friendly means being aware of not only what I buy, but where I buy things. I personally think Wal-Mart is evil on many levels, but if that's the only place I can buy the toothpaste my husband likes then that's what I have to do.

6) Living with or living without? Think about the things you just don't want to give up for any reason. Everybody has something they just don't want to let go of, stop using, or live without. Over the years I've been switching to a vegan lifestyle I've come across a few things that I just refuse to let go of. Some are personal, some are emotional, some are practical, some are simply because I am human and I'm not perfect. My art supplies are one example, as I said. Another is my jeans. Okay, I hear the WTF???????'s in the crowd. For years and years and years I have worn Levi jeans. What can I say? They 'fit' me. I've debated the issue from all angles and perspectives. I know they are "bad". I know all the reasons why I should NOT wear Levi's and y'all, that's something I just have to suck up and live with. I'm not comfortable with my other options and that's okay. If I come across them used on ebay or in a thrift store, in my size, and in good condition, that's wonderful ... but if I have to buy them new, then I will and I won't apologize for it. I won't give up my Levi jeans.

So what, after all this long list of reasons, is the point? What "One Small Change" is up for January?

Trash.

Yeah, trash. I've been a plastic bottle (husband is a coke drinker) and can recycler for a long time now. But I haven't been very diligent about other recyclable materials. I want to start with paper products. Like everyone, I get junk mail (though I've reduced that by quite a bit), there are those paper towels, cereal boxes, product packaging, etc. that fills up a trash bag quicker than you might think. I'm going to clean out the bottom of my pantry and set up better recycling system - adding bin to include paper stuff. That is the first step and I'll do it today.

Now, the next question is what to do with all that paper stuff? Some of it would be perfectly safe to burn or compost, some not. I'll have to find out more about that aspect but it shouldn't be too difficult. What has this to do with stepping up the vegan thing? The change is ultimately taking less trash to the landfill and lowering my impact of polluting the environment = in my book that's a really good vegan thing.

Namaste, y'all ...

New Year = New Blog Design

Thought I'd start the new year with a new page design for my blog. Yeah, I'm wild and crazy like that. Not sure I like it so much yet. Always a work-in-progress. Eh, it's only the first day of the year ... I still have 364 days left to tinker with it - who knows what might happen.

Namaste, y'all ...

2010, The New Year

Let's just see what happens.

Namaste, y'all ...

Enough already ...

Just when I'm starting to relax about the whole "SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!" drama I get another jumpstart to my morning. Dragging myself out of bed, 56.7% still asleep, my head-cold in full swing, I stumble into the bathroom with visions of a nice hot shower and a fervent hope that at some point in the process I'll start to feel better.

What I find, to my horror, is my cat, Tuck, hunched in the 'I'm going to attack and kill it' position beside the vanity cabinet. From the angle I'm approaching I can't see what he's looking at. Naturally the first thought in my sleep and cold fogged brain is ... "OH F&$@! The SNAKE!" I almost did the girly scream. I'm instantly awake, shivering, and ultra aware that I'm buck-naked and shoeless. Not good at 7:30 am if there is a snake in your house.

I'd finally started to relax a bit since the SNAKE IN MY HOUSE! adventure a couple of weeks ago. I've stopped jumping at shadows, stopped thinking about the little bastard slithering into my bed while I'm sleeping. I was making progress. I was even beginning to analyze WHY there was a snake in my house on a 'message from Spirit level'. After all, Snake is my totem. It's my power animal. It's the animal representing my time of birth in all cultures. It's my greatest phobia. I am Snake and Snake is me. The Divine Comedy/Tragedy of my entire life's story.

But let me back up and tell the first of the tale ...

A couple of weeks ago I started collecting boxes to hold all the stuff I was clearing out of my house for a yard sale I was planning with my friend Rena. I had a few of the boxes stacked beside the back door. One morning after I had come home from a short trip of doing errands in town I decided to get busy cleaning out one of my closets. I reached for the boxes beside the door. An odd movement beside the box caught my eye.

It took a couple of seconds to register that I was staring at a snake. Half second later it clicked in my brain 'King Snake', harmless, small one, IN MY HOUSE ... OH HOLY MOTHER OF ST. PETER!!! A SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!!!

I felt all the blood rush from my head to my toes. For some inexplicable reason I thought about the fact I was wearing flip-flops instead of solid shoes. I made some weird squeaking noise. I started backing away, trying not to faint, trying to remember to breathe.

I rounded the dinning room table and moved toward the kitchen. My mind going ninety miles and hour over anything and everything I might have in the house to catch the thing. Somewhere in that few seconds it crossed my mind I'd probably have to get close to it again to catch it. Standing there, shaking and on the verge of hyperventilating, I turned my head back toward the snake just in time to see the last five inches of its' tail disappearing in horrifying slow motion down into the heat/ac vent in the floor. I proceeded to have a nearly full-blown panic attack. Why I didn't faint there on the spot, I'll never know.

A snake, alive and loose, in my house. A nightmare turned real. I called my best bud, Sue. Sue knows how to kick snake ass. It was a glimmer of hope in a dizzy, heart-pounding ordeal. In two leaps I was on top of the living room chair, frantically dialing the phone, gasping for air and trying not to cry. "There's a snake in my house!", I squealed into the phone when Sue answered. I swear, I think she laughed.

I babbled the whole episode into the phone, my eyes glued to the vent, feet tucked up as far under me as I could get them. She says call Animal Control. This meant I had to get off the chair, cross the living room to get to the phone book. Though my eyes never left that vent, I managed to do it. She said she would call her son Chris and see what he suggested while I made the call to Animal Control.

I couldn't find the phone number so I ended up calling the Sheriff's Dept. to get it from them. Nice woman answered the phone, listened with sympathy to my slightly hysterical chattering, and told me she would call for me since no one worked at the A.C. on Saturday. She promised she would call back. While I waited on the chair, Sue called and said Chris recommended closing all but that one vent and turning on the A/C full blast. Snakes are cold-blooded and it would seek heat, meaning that hopefully the thing would crawl back out of the vent.

I can't begin to describe how hard it was for me to go around the house, reaching my hand toward those vents to close them. There are twelve vents. The thing could have made it to any one of the others. Eleven times I had to stand and scan the area around the vents before I could get near one. I think I had eleven mini panic attacks.

About this time my sister, Glenda, called to tell me she was on her way over to help me with the yard sale stuff as we had planned a couple of days earlier. Didn't take her but 1.3 seconds to realize from the sound of my voice I had a problem. "What's wrong?", she asks. "SNAKE in my HOUSE!", I whined into the phone. Like Sue, Glenda laughed. She said she would bring tape and we could tape the vents closed.

That sparked an idea. With it being summer here, I couldn't very well close those vents off indefinitely. I needed an alternative, and I had one.

The husband had recently completed a 'honey do' chore of replacing the screen on the front door. There was screen material left over. By the time Glenda got to my house I had cut pieces of screen to fit over the vents. She taped them in place with packing tape. The one vent the thing went down we left open, but covered with a box and netting to catch the thing if it came back out. Turned the A/C down as far as it would go. Waited for what seemed like eons. No snake. After a couple hours or so Glenda went home. Not going to accomplish much with the yard sale stuff with me freaked out over the snake.

All the rest of that day I was a nervous wreck. Anything I caught in my peripheral vision made me jump. Shadow on the floor, I jumped. I kept a hawk eye on the snake trap. I couldn't do much but wander around the house, fidgety and completely ill at ease. By nightfall, I was exhausted but still highly anxious. I wouldn't go into a room without turning on the light and scanning the floor for some slithering dark shape, anything out of the ordinary. I didn't sleep a wink for jumping at every noise. Kept the covers tucked around me like a burrito, visions of the thing crawling under the covers seeking warmth. For the first time in years I went to bed wearing pajamas.

At one point, around 3:30am, I heard what sounded like the cat whacking the cardboard of the box I had placed over the vent. I literally levitated off the bed in fright. All I could imagine was the snake had come up out of the vent. That Tuck, being curious of the scent of the snake, had knocked the box aside and let the thing loose in the house. I'm still not sure how I got my nerve up enough to go check to see what happened. Fortunately, the box was still just as I had left it. Didn't see Tuck anywhere. It was an awful, sleep deprived night.

The next morning I made a bee-line to check the box. Still no snake. And while I'm standing there contemplating the situation the thought crosses my mind that the packing tape Glenda had used might not hold up so well against the cold air flowing from the vents. It damn sure wouldn't stand up to a curious cat.

I needed Duck Tape.

I searched the house from top to bottom. No Duck Tape. I had to make a trip into town. A 20 mile round trip for a $3 roll of Duck Tape was well worth it. I was showered, dressed, gone and back with Duck Tape in hand within an hour. I took a minute, got into as close to a Zen place as I could, then started re-taping the screen over the vents. I couldn't let myself think about the thing possibly crawling up and out of a vent while I was taping it. I couldn't think about anything but taking my time and covering those vents as methodically and completely snake-proof as I was capable of. I even took away the snake trap and taped up the vent the thing went down. It was only after I had finished that I sat on the sofa and cried. Big ol' sobbing, from the gut crying. Fear, stress, no sleep. I was due for a good bout of boo-hooing.

Over the next few days I stayed on high alert. I wouldn't go into a dark room without turning on the light and scanning the floor as I did that very first night. I watched the floor as I walked even in the daylight hours. I dreaded opening a cabinet door or dresser drawer. I poked my shoes before I would put them on. I tried not to think about HOW it got into the house. I tried not to think about it being trapped in the ventilation system. I slept in pajamas.

I've gotten more at ease in the last week. I still scan the floor as I'm walking. Still turn a light on before I go into a room, but the pajamas are back in the dresser drawer.

Then this morning happened. Tuck in attack position in the bathroom. Me naked and barefoot. I'm sure God got a big laugh at me at 7:30am this morning. A foot long King Snake reducing me to a whimpering girly-girl. I didn't think it was very funny. It took a full ten deep breaths before I could peek around the corner of the vanity to see what Tuck was fixated on.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing there but air and carpet.

Furry little feline vermin with their totally bizarre behavior. And I swear he actually had the nerve to look up at me a grin.

So that's my morning. Hope yours started better.

Namaste, y'all ...

Open Hands Online!

Okay, the most important news of the day is I finally got the Open Hands Reiki Natural Healing website online. We are officially www.openhandsreiki.com. Happy days, I'm tellin' ya'. Been one of those monkeys on my back, needing to get it done and only able to tinker some here and some there with it for months now. Granted, it's a 'canned' template to start with, but it's something. There is still the work of getting it plastered all over the internet with search engines and such, but again, it's functioning as is and that's a good thing. The nitty-gritty of a "real" website with our logo and all that jazz is down the road a little ways.

Other news in my world is that I finished a painting (!) but haven't had time to take photos and get it on my website. Shoot, I haven't even put the picture hanging wire on the back of it yet either. I'll tell ya' the truth, just having a brush in my hand again was nice ... really nice. I'd have no problem running away to Bora Bora to do nothing but paint for a few months.

Like everyone else, times are tough and it's been living a day-by-day thing for me for awhile. Although things are difficult, I'm grateful I have so many good things in my life. I have a good, kind man as a husband. I have food, clothing, and a roof over my head. I am humbled by the wonderful friendships I have. I have Open Hands. I have the sweetest cat in the world. I have my studio and my art. Today is a beautiful, sun-shiney day. Yep, blessings abound.

Remember to hug somebody today ...

Namaste, y'all ...