Posterboards and the great people behind my project.

This class was awesome.  So thank you to all of you guys!  Yay you!  I wanted to include a few pictures of my poster because if it’s to be reused I won’t have any to share ever again!  I’ve learned from some of the other presenters in this course that a big step is just ‘letting go’ of material goods.  Being too good of a consumer is nothing to be proud of and I’m teaching irrational habits to my children!

So pictures are a wonderful way to go!  Taking photos of the things I want so I can have them forever without the mess.  I’ve started to do this with some (but not all) of my children’s artwork as well.  Because they create a TON of it.  Anywho…

Here are my three super kids in front of the poster.  The one on the far right made this poster twice as hard to put together than it should have been.

Also the can in front is an industrial sized Ravioli can that we were saving to use as a camp stove.  Turns out Ravioli’s had some of the highest BPA’s tested.

I felt this was the most important to the course and this project.  It seemed the environmental effects of BPA were rarely talked about.  And the more research I did the more I realized it was a serious concern that should be addressed.  Anything that messes with the developmental cycle of animals in the wild that WE put there should be evaluated and NOT dismissed.

Many people thought that these may have been exaggerated risks.  But even if there is a grain of truth (which research provides evidence of concrete proof) this shouldn’t occur for a product that could easily not be used to package our food stuffs.

Thanks again everyone!  It was such a fun class and I took away a wealth of insight from our group discussions.

Also…. I wanted to share with everyone the wild garlic that I didn’t get to bring in to the last day of class.  : (   Here’s a picture though.

This is where my youngest son got a small cut and his older brother decided to try a “natural bandaid”.

And Morels we found on the same trip.

Postertime

I already gave my wrap up blog, but it was suggested that I post some pictures of my poster. So here they are! Thank you for all of the feedback I received in class. It’s been a really interesting and educational semester in this class! Good luck to all of you!

Clothes conclusion

I’m really excited about the progress I’ve made so far in my project. It was definitely a huge learning experience, and I had to confront a lot of personal issues that would prove to be a hindrance to accomplishing my goals. It’s funny that like my closet, my conscience and emotional self has lightened. I faced something that I had shrugged off for years and justified it for just as long, with our culture, our society, and basically everyone else besides me being at fault. Learning the places were clothing comes from, how it was made, who made it and how it got here has opened my eyes completely. Similar to how most of the time we haven’t the slightest clue as to what we are eating, where it came from, how it was made, who made it and how it got here… It’s when you start caring enough to learn about it, do something about it, and encourage others to do the same that one person can start to make a difference, and change can begin to take place. Though the things that I do as one person may not be visible from outer space, I know that as a collaborative effort, and those going on right now that I would like to be a part of, the change can be palpable, through cleaner air, cleaner water, smaller landfills, and happier people free of corporate tyranny domestic and over seas.

They say that all good things must come to an end, but though the project is done and the class is coming to an end, I know that I’ll continue practicing what I have learned. I know that I will keep on talking about it with friends and family and keep on annoying them when the subject comes up . I’ve harped a lot about awareness and education because I’ve gained a lot of awareness myself throughout this entire class. I’ve tried to practice some of the ideas and virtues that I’ve seen many of you tap into and I feel like I can make a difference. For example, eating less meat, refraining from buying bottled water, and over all just being wary of how much of our earth’s resources I consume. I feel that I have fully rejected the idea that buying clothing makes me happy, because in fact there is no kind of happiness that had been brought by looking at my own clutter and waste day to day while thinking about the consequences my irresponsibility could have had. I am determined to continue my self restraint and use my better judgment when it comes to buying clothing, and as well other things that can be considered as wants, as opposed to needs. It’s good for me, and the environment I live IN, not next to or near by. There will be no finger wagging to others this time or anytime, since I’m still learning ( and will continue to learn) more about how what I choose to buy can deeply and adversely affect others that I will probably never see and the places were they live that I will probably never visit. All in all, I do feel like a much smarter and savvier person than I was before I took this class, and I think my closet agrees.

Tips, tricks, and the harsh reality

Okay then! So in the blog entry I promised you all that I would find out different ways that I can use and re-use old clothing instead of discarding it to end up rotting in some landfill completely useless. I also mentioned that I would put up some research, but I didn’t specify what. Well, I’ve done research on quite a few different things, so here we go.

One problem that has irked me this year is that a lot of the shirts I own are mysteriously sprouting tiny little rips, like the fibers came loose and they simple unraveled, forming an unsightly tiny hole. They are enough to make me gnash my teeth at the sight of them. I wanted to figure out ways to prevent them, and over all, make clothing last longer so I can get more wear out of them. Something I’m going to need to know if I’m planning on keeping what I own for as long as possible. I know that clothing doesn’t last forever, but I do know full well that they are at least supposed to last a lot longer than a month before popping a hole!

One of the reasons I would buy clothing like marked down tees was to save money, but I never really thought about all the money I could be saving if I took better care of what I had so I wouldn’t have excuses to buy more. Deep thinking right? Well I’ve done some reading around from various sources and I’d like to share with all of you some basic ways to give your clothing a longer life-span, so like me, you can implement them right away! If you already know some of these tips, then keep on keeping on!

Do not put cotton clothing in the dryer unless it clearly states it is pre-shrunk!

How many times have you pulled out the favorite sweater or the “they fit perfectly” jeans and as soon as you put them on, it feels like you exploded? I have, enough to put them on and look like a pole jumper warming up for a jump to try to get them feeling comfortable on me again. I know that can’t be good for its closet life, being constantly shrunken and stretched, shrunken and stretched over and over again every time it’s washed and dried. Well, I’ve decided to erect a clothes line in my sunroom. It gets a nice breeze and at the same time it won’t be hit directly by the sun, so the colors won’t fade. This is actually a change I’m looking forward to, I’m really tired of having to “work-out” my clothes to get them fitting right again and I’m sure this will save a ton of electricity, since the dryer is a monster, and apparently, it’s the second biggest energy consumer in the household! Yikes.

Don’t rip out price tags, use scissors.

I know this one seems kind of silly, but I think it deserves to be mentioned. When I bring something new home, I usually stick it in my closet, and when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I rip it out in a hurry. I didn’t really think about how it could lead to holes in the future, I just wanted to wear it and wear it now. This will be a simple fix, and probably the easiest tip to follow.

Use baking soda and hot water to brighten white clothes instead of bleach.
This one was a shocker, since I though bleach was the only thing you could use to get white clothes looking, well, white again. The reasoning behind this is simple. Bleach isn’t good for your clothes, or the environment. Understandably bleach is corrosive, and will eat your clothes over time, gradually shorting its wear time with every wash. I found a website called Scorecard, ( http://scorecard.org/ ) an informational data base on all kinds of pollutants inside and outside the household. According to Scorecard, bleach is “deemed to be a high risk environmentally and a slight to moderate risk in the workplace.” Even though it breaks down into naturally occurring substances, like oxygen, salt, and water, it also breaks down into a chemical called AOX, or “absorbable organic halides,” which has been proven to be toxic to sea-life, and that’s where most of it ends up; in the water. I think we can all go without bleach, seeing as there are so many alternatives that do just as good with cleaning and disinfecting.

As soon as your clothing is out of the dryer, (or washer in case of using a clothes line) check for any damage, like missing buttons, rips or holes. The faster they can be mended, the better.

This is pretty self explanatory, since we all know that if we let a harmless rip go unattended to it can lead to a huge hole later on due to fraying of the material. I guess having buttons on hand would be handy! And as stated in another fellow student’s blog, so would learning how to mend.

Okay so hopefully these will prove to be useful, money saving, and green for myself and whoever wants to practice these tips. Now I’ll go into the more grim part of my research. How the materials that we ware on our bodies and their manufacture are destroying our beautiful planet. Clothing production essentially hurts the environment at every stage; from growing cotton, through burning energy to make and transport them, to disposing of them in landfill waste dumps. For example I found out about this once massive body of water called the Aral Sea, located near Kazakhstan, had actually been drained nearly to the point of no return due to the cotton industry. Gradually the water level fell as they diverted the resource into irrigation, and returned to the water the toxic pesticide runoff, turning what was left of the water, a sickening green hue. It was said to be one of the largest man made ecological disasters of all time, and to this day, they are trying to recover what they once had with little luck. This was all caused by the increasing demand for clothing, which caused a need to farm fast-growing cotton that needed much more water than a desert region could sustain. Everything is interconnected. It’s these connections that are becoming more and more apparent to me. The effects of clothing waste and clothing demand seem so invisible to us, but this particular effect, can be seen from space.

I’ll move on to a lighter subject to announce that I’ve found some really useful ways to reuse the more “junky” clothes that I have, like a pair of jeans that have been worn past any hope of repairs, with an enormous rip, that’s more like a fissure in the front, from being worn with a hole too long then washed and dried… (Had I known of the tips above I probably would still be able to wear them…) I cut up pieces of it and I’ve been using it instead of paper towels in the kitchen, and wow… I haven’t had to even open a single pack of paper towel since I’ve been using the jeans instead. It’s pretty much the “everything” cleaner, and most importantly, it was free! I’m using an old polo as a rag for the bathroom, and a ripped undershirt is going to be material for one of my projects. Whatever I’m not going to use right away will be saved for a rainy day, -not- thrown away. Getting over the stigma of “oh god I used to wear this and now I’m rubbing it all over the sink” wasn’t too hard either. Re-using really is useful and I definitely can get used to it!!

Some quick thoughts to BPA

As my final blog I wanted to focus on how it effected my life, this project. Almost naturally we’ve given up nearly all of our household canned foods. In fact I came across this fascinating chart on canned foods, I wished I had found it earlier so to include on my poster

I had a lot of people ask me about safe allowances of BPA found in foods.  It really hasn’t been that extensively studied, but it’s measured in parts per billion…. which is just saying  it’s always going to be small.  But even small amounts over long periods of time can be dangerous.

One thing I wanted to make clear was that there were environmental effects to this.  BPA can leach into soils, groundwater, and even be found in the air!  It’s literally all around us.   This means it has effects on fish, amphibians, invertebrates, mammals… life forms other than us.  And similar effects as well, as a fake estrogen it’s disrupting the life cycles of all sorts of organisms.

Add to this that these plastics are notoriously difficult to recycle and you’ve got suddenly an entire landfill leaching toxic plastic chemicals into our environments!  It really is a curious thought why companies even use this type of plastic at all.  If it has harmful biological effects, and can’t be recycled in plastics.  Where is the value in such a destructive product?

Well the value is that it’s cheap.  And large companies only care about the profits.  An unfortunate side of big business is a lack of care.

Clothing, boxes, and family

So far so good, I talked to my parents about my project, explaining the whole thing and going into detail about how I needed to do something within the community that would help me reach my goals. What I had in mind was to donate a large portion of my clothing (mainly the ones that I keep saying I’m going to wear but –don’t-…) to a charity in need. Putting our heads together, we decided that to get everyone into the groove of my endeavor, we should have a garage sale. It would help my parents get rid of some extras around the house, and help me whittle down my closet (and maybe get a few bucks to save for rainy day in the process.) The prep for my part of the sale would require all of us to get into our respective closets and scrounge around, looking for the good stuff. I thought it was pretty funny that my mom, like me, had brought out clothing for the sale that still had the original price tags on them…Never been worn, simply bought because they were nice, not because they were needed. I had an uneasy laugh at that one.
I did the necessary planning, advertised it in the Manhattan Mercury, and bought signs; put them up, the whole shebang! I was hyped up for this, and I was really happy to see my parents getting into it too. I had my hopes up high for this sale, mostly because we had really nice clothing out, but also because we had a pretty sweet set up, complete with 2 tier clothing racks (with really cute hats on the top) and everything. Again, the main purpose was to give the clothing a second life, one outside the confines of the closet, not to make money. Funny enough, my parents helped a lot with reminding me of that. With the prices set at 25 cents to a dollar tops, the clothing was actually moving. At first I was a little nostalgic and grabby with the clothes I put out, since it felt a bit personal, to have my things out there that I hadn’t really had the time to emotionally part with quite yet, but once I saw people buying it, I actually felt giddy. Yes, giddy! You actually CAN sell clothes at a garage sale! Who knew? Anyways, at the end of the very long day, we ended up with about $200 dollars in total (Trust me, it wasn’t the clothes, it was the furniture!) and I think it was safe to say it was a success. Unfortunately, at the end of it, as we were packing up, we still had 2 very large boxes filled to the brim with clothing. Salvation Army was not an option for me, since I have known of their open discrimination against homosexuality (I know they are a private charity and can make whatever rules they want but, seriously? They aren’t getting a sent out of me.) so we decided Goodwill was the right place. It felt really good to give back to the community.
The whole garage sale thing was actually a fun experience, and I felt silly after all was said and done that I was so stressed about it at first. And the whole nostalgia thing wore off pretty quickly. I think I’ve accomplished so far a big step in the right direction. Now that I have a fresh start, I’m determined to keep what I have as long as I can, and to refrain from adding to it irresponsibly. I still have quite a few stashes of clothing that need attending to. For my next blog, I’ll put up some more research, since I have a ton of it, and also, what I plan to do with the clothing that was not fit for sale/donation. Until next time!

Finished?

Not quite.  For the last month or so I have been waiting to post my final blog in order to get some things in order.  Mostly, it gave me a chance to propose these ideas to different communities I am involved in and reflect on their reaction.  Statistically speaking, Over the past three months I have saved about $45.  There are two different ways I was able to save this money. 

1 – Reduction in use of water bottles (only using one) = $25. 
2 – Avoidance of buying plastic items (mostly drinks) = $20.

Before this project, I would have at least one water everyday from packages that cost about $6 for every 24 bottles.  More often than not, I would buy other bottles for convenience in the price range of $1 to $1.25.  So, $25 is a rough estimate.

Also during this project, anytime I would be purchasing an item that was contained in plastic, I would avoid it and wait until I could make another choice.  For the amount of coffe, tea, other drinks, or food that I refused to buy, I estimate I saved at least $20. 

Both of these estimates are not very precise, and would vary for each person.  I’m not a large coffee drinker, in fact, I drink water most of the time.  So, for someone else who doesn’t drink water much but enjoys sodas and other flavored/caffeinated drinks – the result would be different.  However, there is no doubt that money would be saved here. 

Although I attempted to g out how this project looked for me financially, I reflect more on how much I did not consume when I could have made the simple and easy choice to do so.  My financial stats do not contain all of the to-go cartons I never used, the daily newspaper I put back on the rack (except for the crossword..), and it does not contain all of the efforts I made to make environmentally conscious decisions rather than ones for my own convenience.

In my communities I gained much more of a perspective of where my peers thoughts were.  Up until my last blog all my feedback had been from people who had never thought twice about recycling or their consumption levels.  When they heard what I had to say, I usually realized they had stopped listening as soon as I said the word, “recycle” or “reduce”.  I was plesantly suprised!  In my English class for example, I teamed up with another girl from my class to present ways to recycle on campus.  We did a presentation of all of the local opportunities here, and of all the ways you can reduce your consumption on a daily basis.  On the day of our presentation, out of all 6 groups that presented THREE were about environmental topics!  One even said that hybrid cars were just a capitalist ploy to get money, because in the longevity of their life they have 25% more emissions than normal cars.  WHAT?!  I have no idea where he got his information, but wow.  Is this true?  I haven’t gotten the opportunity to check around.  But my point is – I totally underestimated my classmates motives and ideas.  Needless to say, I was glad to know other people were at least thinking about their choices, and attempting to educate others. 

Another plesant suprise I had was finding out information that related so closely to this topic in the most unusual places.  I was coming out of one of the residence hall dining centers, and they were handing out bags.  They were reusable shopping bags.  And sure, we’ve all seen these before.  But it had some interesting information on it.  Zero paper bags can biodegrade in landfills because of the lack of oxygen.  Fourteen of the plastic bags contain enough petroleum to drive a care ONE MILE.  There website has other sorts of information and resources at www.onebagatatime.com. 

In the end, I have hope.  I have hope that we can turn this around, and do what is best for each other and the world that we live in.  Ultimately, we have to reduce.  That is the only thing that will help solve the problem.  Without it, we will always be searching for some sort of unknown solution with energy, recycling, and many other obstacles.  People will definitely say they support these actions, and even that they believe it is necessary.  But they must act.  Action is crucial if we want anything and everything that needs to happen become a reality. 

To summarize (but never finish), there is no such thing as “Out of sight, Out of mind” so let’s get rid of this idea.  We do affect what is going on in our waters like the collection of plastic waste in a plastic garbage patch.  We must act NOW.  We are never in this alone.

RALLY CRY: ONE PERSON CAN DO IT!

This is the End, my friends. And a New Beginning.

I loved this project. I hated this project. It was such a developmental, uplifting and rough time for me. I had to learn not only about sustainbility in eating but also sustainability in keeping myself accountable for the things I do in my life.

For instance, I told alot of people at my presentation today that I re-conceptualized my body as a battle ground, as a cite of protest and a starting point for sustainability. Before this project, when I thought about people hurting the environment with their actions I thought about people littering, not recycling. Now I know that eating, the very act of consuming is in itself a choice to be environmentally stable-or not.  Reducing your carbon footprint is as easy as reducing the amount of meat you eat. This doesn’t mean you have to be a hardcore (hXc) vegan or even a vegetarian 100% of the time (although I think it’s completely awesome when people choose those paths.)  It means you choose a meat-free dish once a day. Or you only eat meat three out of the four days a week.  These efforts alone can cut your carbon footprint by 25%, reducing several tons of C02 the average American would usually eat.

Vegetarianism was easy, veganism was more difficult, and local produce was nigh impossible for me, mostly because of travel and scheduling that week before spring produce was available. And although nature.org thinks that vegans produce 72% less carbon that meat eaters, I learned that the statistic might be flawed. For instance, vegans might rely on tofu, or tempeh, or veggie burgers for their main sources of protein. These have nearly as high a carbon footprint than does anything else–they require process, packaging, shipping, refrigeration, and are sent from a location to a central warehouse and then to your local supermarket.  The simple fact might be that if you’re only concerned about meat eating and C02 emissions, eating locally grown meat is the better and more sustainable choice. But as we pointed out–there are a multitude of reasons for eating or not eating meat. Some people cannot stand the cruelty done to animals. some people are worried about health. it’s all about balancing and making choice.

Those choices, however are important. To restate some statistics from an early blog post–there’s a lot at stake. 1/3 of C02 emissions comes from the food industry.  91 percent comes from methane and carbon production in farm management–this is largely factory farms and CAFOs. So yes, even eating vegetarian food cannot escape this statistic. However I am more aware of my body and my environment and how they interact with each other. I have gained a new sort of spirituality that helps me realize just how much control I have over myself and how I treat the world around me. I eat less meat, and sort of just see the world differently. It’s like a new lens in life. And I’m supremely grateful for this project and the new beginnings it’s provided me.

Gardening The Future.

I have now presented my poster to the class about my window farm. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to learn about window farming. Showing my window farm to people gives me an opportunity to educate others about creative gardening and producing/buying local organic food.

I was asked many times today about what I was going to do with window garden now that the class project is over. My garden will live on so do not worry. My window farm will be moving with me to a Boy Scout summer camp that I run. There it will hang in a window in the dinning hall. With this prime location I will have around 1500 people walk by it during the summer and I am sure that many of them will stop to take a look.

The possibility of having 1500 people learn about local food is an exciting idea that I cannot turn down. Exceptionally sense most of that 1500 will be middle school kids. Teaching kids at a young age is the easiest way to make meaning life changes.

And after camp the garden is moving with me to Chicago where I hope to expand it.

I hope that many of you are think about making your own window garden, and if you do please let me know. Here are a few things that I have learned from making my own can could help you.

First, herbs are the best to plant in a window garden because many of them do not grow to big. This style of gardening is not good for large plants. Also herbs allow you to continually harvest them without completely killing the plant.

Second, do forget to water them. The bottles themselves are not very big and with that they cannot store a lot of water. I have to water my garden every two days or it will quickly dry out. I learned this the hard way and my lettuce has not fully recovered from it yet.

Last, come up with a design of your own. You could simply build one close to mine or you could be creative. Being creative with your garden makes this project such a fun to do. A good friend of mine is now making one out of old sections of plastic plumbing of different sizes. Some of the pipes even have right angles in them so he can be even more creative with the design. He is planting wild flowers in his.

Over all this has been a fantastic project. I have truly enjoyed designing and building my garden and learning about environmental issues at the same time in class.

Living a Transformation.

So to start my final blog off I thought that I would include this, it’s a list of what time of the year vegetables could be harvested in Kansas.  It’s pretty amazing how much we can actually grow here.

Time of Year Fresh Produce Available in Kansas

April (late)Lettuce, Radishes

May (early)Lettuce, Radishes

May (late)Collard Greens, Endive, Lettuce, Scallions, Spinach

June (early)Cauliflower, Collard Greens, Endive, Lettuce, Peas, Scallions, Spinach, Turnips

June (late)Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Chard , Collard Greens, Endive, Peas, Potatoes, Scallions, Snap Beans, Turnips

July (early)Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Chard , Okra , Peas, Potatoes, Snap Beans, Turnips

July (late)Broccoli, Cabbage, Cucumber, Eggplant, Lima-Bush Beans, Melons, Okra , Potatoes, Snap Beans, Summer squash, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes

August (early)Cucumber, Eggplant, Lima-Bush Beans, Lima-Pole Beans, Melons, Okra , Onions , Peppers, Snap Beans, Summer squash, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes

August (late)Cucumber, Eggplant, Lima-Bush Beans, Lima-Pole Beans, Melons, Okra , Onions , Peppers, Snap Beans, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Winter Squash

September (early)Eggplant, Lima-Bush Beans, Lima-Pole Beans, Melons, Okra , Onions , Peppers, Salsify, Snap Beans, Sweet Corn, Sweet Potatoes , Tomatoes, Winter Squash

September (late)Beets, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Eggplant, Lettuce, Lima-Bush Beans, Lima-Pole Beans, Melons, Peppers, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Salsify, Snap Beans, Sweet Potatoes , Tomatoes, Winter Squash

October (early)Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Eggplant, Endive, Kale , Lettuce, Lima-Bush Beans, Lima-Pole Beans, Peppers, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Salsify, Snap Beans, Sweet Potatoes , Tomatoes, Turnips, Winter Squash

October (late)Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Endive, Kale , Lettuce, Potatoes, Salsify, Spinach, Sweet Potatoes , Turnips, Winter Squash

November (early)Spinach, Turnips

Now I would like to take this to talk about my personal growth because of this project.  This semester was by far one of the hardest I have ever had the pleasure of living through.  Without creating an overly long sob story I’ll break it down with as few details as possible.  To start off with a close family member is on her death bed, then a very close friend of mine was murdered on my birthday and on top of that I was trying to do the never ending task of saving a friend who was lost to a very hard addiction.  On top of all of this the support that I could always count on was disintegrating as I watched my family slowly fade into new and very separate lives.  The toughest part was that all of these things happened within the very short time span of two months.

I will not lie and say that the delayed start on this project was planned, as all of these things bottled up inside of me I fell into a deep depression and put off my school work as well as everything else.  When I finally realized the time crunch I had pushed myself into I started taking this project seriously and it actually became the guide to my newly dysfunctional life.  These meditations did far more for me than what the project was intended for.  On top of becoming more aware of nature and where my food came from I actually was able to dig myself out of this self-ridden depression.  This project forced me to sit down and really take into consideration my feelings on what had happened.  In the few weeks of this project I really got to know myself and for the first time all semester I was able to cope.

Through the meditations I learned that death is a part of life, and all though we are all very aware of this fact it’s one that our society tends to ignore.  One day we spoke in class about how we’re taught to view death as a medical failure as opposed to a natural process, and this consumed my mind during most of my meditations.  Although I can’t say that I believe my friends death was anywhere close to natural I know that she lived the best life she could, and I was blessed to share a part of it with her.  I don’t think I would have been able to come to any conclusions about these situations without this project, simply because I wouldn’t let myself.

I would hate to take away from the purpose of this project which was to become more aware about what is happening around all of us as far as the downfall of our own environment and I defiantly learned a lot about where I stand on certain issues.  For instance because of this project the way that I shop for clothing and food has changed dramatically.  I am more conscious about my purchases and have actually started growing vegetables with my friends.  When I began this project I never would have thought such a big transformation would take place, but in the end I am so very grateful for it.  There has never been a more appropriate time to get to know myself, and as corny and cheesy as this sounds, these meditations saved me from a very, very dark place.  So thanks to everyone who supported my project and through it all supported me, I would not have lived through it without you.  End of sob story… and of my blogging.