Posts by Lori

OK, I think I decided to amp up my blogging skills and start vlogging. However, I still feel really silly about it. I am on youtube if you can believe it. I am actually part of a 100 day raw food challenge online. Here is My Day 1 Video. I have vlogged for a week now. I am obviously super low tech…LOL. I brought my camera to film my kids in gymnastics practice, and ended up making this while I was leaving. Why not, eh?

http://www.youtube.com/user/Inspire2Act

I may be a little behind the times as far as movies. I just watched “The Bucket List” last night. I was in tears(AGAIN)… I love movies that make us want to live better lives and this movie did just that for me.

After the movie I made a list of what I would want to do if I only had 30 days to live. Talk about a time crunch, right? So, 30 things went on my list. I wasn’t very hard to pull it together. It really just affirmed that I need to move forward with my dreams and do the silly things that I put off. Then I asked my 2 kids (12 and 10) to write their list. It really helped me understand what they valued and dreamed of doing. It makes me want to be a better mother for them and provide them the opportunities to do what it is they feel is important. I became all teary eyed reading their list. Some things are so small that they seem insignificant, yet it means the world to them. How well do we know our loved ones?

Well, here is my list of 30 things.

1. Go on a hot air balloon ride
2. Play on a flying trapeze and practice gymnastics with my kids
3. Jump off the rock at Waimea Beach (I always want to but I chicken out)
4. Swim with dolphins and sea turtles
5. Kayak out to rabbit island and have a picnic
6. Go horseback riding (I LOVE HORSES)
7. Spend the day surfing, laying on the sand, playing volleyball
8. Watch the sunset, a fire pit on the beach, BBQ, make smores and watch the stars
9. Live in a tree house on a tropical retreat, pick food from the garden
10. Travel to Fiji
11. Travel to Bali
12. Travel to Greece
13. Travel to New Zealand & Australia
14. Mentor under an amazing raw food chef & create edible works of art
15. Visit all the amazing raw food restaurants
16. Spend time at a wellness spa
17. Have a massage everyday
18. Have a make over and look as beautiful on the outside as I feel on the inside
19. Go snowboarding, sledding, snowmobiling, & ice skating
20. Learn to sew with Mehgan
21. Learn to play the guitar with Alex
22. Take couple dancing lessons
23. Take interior design and landscape design classes
24. Enjoy intimate concerts by Jack Johnson, Michael Buble, Jason Mraz
25. Go rock climbing & have a picnic on top
26. Swim in a waterfall lagoon naked
27. Enjoy a helicopter ride
28. Ride bikes along the coast
29. Play hide and go seek in the dark with my kids
30. Go indoor skydiving ,then maybe try the real deal 🙂

Making this list reminded me of how many things I would love to do but I put off. Is this “put off” a slap in life’s face? Life is meant to be lived. I felt like I have taken my life for granted. It’s good to be reminded and humbled. My kids always say…life is meant to be fun and enjoyed. If today was my last day to live, would I spend it any differently? Would you?

Living in Southern California, I can’t help but feel concern for the water supply and how we use our water. Here are some facts about what we are using or wasting our water on.

1. Four to seven gallons of water are required to flush a toilet. Placing a brick in your toilet tank to serve as a dam can save one to two gallons of water with each flush.
2. About five gallons of water are used if you leave the tap running while brushing your teeth. Just wetting and rinsing your brush uses only a 1/2 gallon of water.
3. The average household uses about 245,000 gallons of water per year. The average person about 188 gallons daily.
4. On average, 20 gallons of water are used to hand wash dishes. An automatic dishwasher requires 12-20 gallons.
5. Only one percent of the earth’s water is suitable for drinking water. The rest is salt water (97%) and glacier ice (2%).
6. The earth’s surface is 80 percent water, equaling 362 trillion gallons. Water is the most common substance found on earth.
7. The human body is made up of 70% water. A person must consume about 2 1/2 quarts of water per day (including water, food, etc.) to maintain health.
8. A pineapple is made up of 80% water. Many of the foods we eat contain water, including a tomato (95%), and an ear of corn (80%).
9. Watering the lawn at 5 to 10 gallons per minute for a half hour equals 300 gallons! Automatic clothes washers use about 30 gallons, a tub bath requires 36 gallons, and a shower uses 35 to 50 gallons.

Anyhow, we started entertaining many ideas on how to conserve water and make sure we are using only what we need and not being wasteful. It has turned into a household challenge for us. We try to see who can use the least amount of water. Now, I still have a long way to go. I still need to completely remove my lawn since that seems to be our biggest water guzzler. I also started thinking about rainwater (which we hardly receive in So Cal), and grey water, which is usable water for gardening and so forth.

As you search you tube ANYTHING is possible. I figured how much water my household uses on flushing the toilet and it is close to 75,000 gallons of water a year. That water can go to better use. Here is one way to alleviate that water waste.

Ok, so my kids laughed at first, but then said it looks like a good idea. Hmmm… am I ready to go to this extent? It is environmentally friendly especially since we are on a raw food lifestyle and everything we eat is compostable, but still. My heart says this is smart, my mind says this is out of my element. I know I will eventually do this….just one green action at a time.

This clip answered more questions

I just placed an order for more seeds. Yes, in the middle of summer. Most people order before spring, but a new gardener like me hasn’t established a system yet. I am sooo excited because I bought things that I have never even seen before like a red and orange carrot, black tomaotes, cinnamon basil, I mean the list goes on. I love the fact that I will grow things that are not only organic and biodynamic, but they are rare and uncommon. Who wants to grow the same exact thing that you can pick up at the market? I find the uniques varieties far more alluring.

I have also finished building four more 4×4 raised beds. I will use them for my kids gardening experiments for school science.

My ultimate gardening goal is to have a beautiful organic edible landscape that provides food sustainability that is super nutrient dense. It just makes sense to grow food rather than work on a lawn that serves no major purpose, especially since I am in Southern California which is experiencing a water crisis. It makes no sense to see miles of lawns in a place where we are in need of water. If you are going to be watering something you might as well be growing food.

I have really been enjoying learning as much as I can about gardening this year. I have been exposed to gardening with sea agriculture, rock dust, ormus, compost tea, worms, bees, bio dynamic, bio intensive, square foot method, and so on. I can’t say that my garden is flourishing out of control like many gardeners are experiencing right now. I learned I was missing nitrogen from my soil and that stunts the growth of the plant. So, while researching online I found many sites talking about urine in their garden as a great source of nitrogen. WHAT?!?! Ok, this immediately repulsed me….NO WAY am I going to PEE in my garden. Well, then it started making a bit of sense. I mean, I would go to the garden shop and put chicken and bat poop in the garden. So that’s just as gross, right? I started thinking about my diet and the fact that I eat raw foods. I eat sprouts, seaweeds, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, superfoods, and so forth. All of which would go into a compost bin safely. I don’t consume any animal products. Anyhow, I started to apply it to my garden…go figure… I am seeing peppers that are finally producing rather than the flowers just falling off. My teeny tiny canteloupe has tripled in size. I know it sounds disgusting, but proof is in the ….PEE…LOL.