Passionate Hodgepodge

What a title for this post, eh? It's just that I have plenty to say about multiple topics and didn't quite know how to categorize it... and I certainly don't want to make separate posts at the moment. These are all topics I am passionate about!

GREEN LIVING & FRUGAL LIVING

Green living (which goes hand in hand with frugal living) is on my mind heavily this morning. I was going through my daily newsletters piled up in my e-mail inbox and came across a message from a gal on my local Freecycle list. (If you're not involved in FreeCycle, please get involved! It's an organization devoted to recycling items and preventing trash from filling up our landfill. What you might see as junk, someone else could find a use for... and vice versa. I've scored some much needed items from there and it's 100% free and voluntary.)

Okay, back the the topic - green living. A gal was posting some items and had a link to her blog, which focused on green living. I've always had a passion for green living, but never took too serious of a step towards making the changes. I felt overwhelmed since in our society, it is more expensive to live a green and eco-responsible life. Sad isn't it, when it's cheaper for us to buy pesticide and genetically altered food products than it is to buy wholesome, fresh, natural foods that are best for our body? Being a single mom of 2 children, I knew I couldn't afford it.

But looking over this gal's blog, Back to Basics by Green Living, I was introduced to some fantastic ideas. I also saw that she, too, has had to take small steps towards living a greener life. It has given me hope and inspiration, and I plan on making small changes beginning now. I'll be sure to post my progress, ideas, and such on that as I go along.

As I said before, I feel green living goes hand in hand with frugal living. Most of you know my passion for frugal living already, but lately I've been not so frugal, much to my demise. In feeling "pumped up" over feeling like I can slowly tackle green living, I need to take that same bit of "umph" and apply it to my frugal living. I am a little powerhouse of information when it comes to frugal living... but lately I have not been applying it, nor sharing it.

Most of you already know, but I have a website I've created to help show others how to live frugally called Frugal-Family. I've slacked and stopped adding information there... mostly because of time issues. With working full time, church, kids' activities and so on, it's hard to find the time to properly update it. Not anymore... this is another thing I need to tackle!

More on green living later and the small steps I am making, plus my plan of where I'd ultimately like to be in regards to living a more ecologically friendly life. I also promise to start adding frugal topics into this blog, too. After all - both of these topics do bring happiness to me, especially when there is more money in my pocket to spend on needed items... or just to relive some pressure from less bills.

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Two articles I read today have me wanting to hop on top of my home and just scream at the top of my lungs. One is promising and one is downright disgusting and frightening. Let's start with the bright ray of hope... then move onward to disaster.

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HEMP

I said hemp - not pot, not weed, not marijuana. Yes, hemp comes from the same plant family, cannabis sativa, but they are of different varieties. (Imagine a chihuahua and a wolf, they both are from the canis lupis family... and look how different they are.)

Hemp is grown in nearly every industrialized nation in the world... except for the U.S.A. Most of the reasoning behind this stems from ignorance about hemp and the difference between it and marijuana. The active ingredient of pot that gets one high is THC. The level of THC in marijuana is anywhere from 3-20%, whereas industrial hemp is around 0.3%. Big difference there, eh?

Hemp is grown for agricultural and industrial purposes. Hemp is rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, making it an excellent food and body-care ingredient. It is also used to make paper, clothing, to biodegradable plastics, fuel, and so much more. It was published in Popular Mechanics magazine that hemp can be used to produce more than 25,000 products!

Taken from Wikipedia: "Hemp requires little to no pesticides, replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen , controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces lots of oxygen, considering how fast it grows. Furthermore, Hemp could be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the process of which uses bleaches and other toxic chemicals, apart from contributing to deforestation), cosmetics (which often contain synthetic oils that can clog pores and provide little nutritional content for the skin), plastics (which are petroleum based and cannot decompose), and more."

You can see the enormous benefit in harvesting and using hemp! But at the moment, you can only grow hemp in the U.S.A. with a permit from the D.E.A., even though it's proven that hemp does not contain enough THC to be considered a drug or anywhere near it. And from what I've read, it's dang near impossible to get a D.E.A. license to grow it. If you'd like to get involved, visit the Vote Hemp site. You can also Send a Letter to Your Legislators to let them know how you feel about the status of hemp in the U.S.A.

WE ARE EATING GENETICALLY CLONED ANIMALS

If that title isn't enough to sicken you and make you want to become vegetarian, I don't know what will. Were you aware of this at all??? I plead ignorance here - I made a decision not to read newspapers or watch the news for several years now. With all the stories focused on violence and hatred, I got tired of crying and feeling depressed every time I read/watched them.

I knew about genetically modified plants and such... and I guess that should scare me just as much, too. But it didn't. I wasn't wild about it, but it just didn't affect me as much for some reason. But I had *no* clue they were cloning animals for livestock purposes. And we are eating their offspring. Do they realize the repercussions that could wreak havoc on our bodies from this? And the FDA not only approved the use of food from cloned animals, they also have agreed NOT to require that this information be on any labeling associated with said byproducts. Please read the entire article about the FDA Approving Food from Clones and also submit a letter to let the FDA know that you are appalled and completely against this coming into force as federal law.

I mentioned vegetarianism above and for good reason. I've been veg a few times in my life. I didn't miss meat at all during those times. The only reasons I really went back to eating meat is because it was more affordable to eat "regular" foods than it was to eat healthier, plus the higher costs of meat alternatives. I put "regular" in quotes only because mainstream doesn't tend to accept vegetarianism and still thinks of it as "weird".

After reading the above, I'm really contemplating making a move back to no meats. Not to mention the recent nightmarish video caputred showing the abuse of poor cows that were sickly and being tortured to death.

My daughter was veg for a while with me, too. My son - that's a different story... although he doesn't eat a lot of meats, he prefers carbs, but doesn't really like any fruits or vegetables, so it would be harder for him. I may try to gradually move the kids towards it, since I know it's more difficult for them to make the change than it would be for me.

We have a local natural health food store that apparently has a big selection of free range, organic-fed, non-genetically engineered meats plus a big supply of other foods, supplements, etc. I've never been in there, but I've heard they have great stuff. But, I've also heard the meats are a bit pricey, so I don't know if I could even afford them. Plus I still feel guilty when I eat meat, seeing as I am such an animal lover. We'll see how this pans out.

Enough for now... Off to stalk Happiness for a bit. (*^_^*)