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!

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.

The End to a new Beginning…

When I started this project I never realized how much I would re-learn. When I mean re-learn I just realize just a couple of days ago that I actually had forgotten some things I used to do before I came to college and somehow I lost along the way. Then re-learn because I had to learn how to brush my teeth and turning of the water, or take shorter showers. This also helped me spread the word to other people such as friends and family regarding what I was going and why I was doing it. I also think that just because the project is over does not mean I will stop and go back to my old ways. At least I want to believe and try that I will continue to be cautious regarding my usage as well knowing that I can live without eating meat 2-4 days out of a week, plus greens are good!

As far as the ovo-lacto vegetarian goes, I am please to say that it brought me back to what I used to do before I got to college.  What I mean is that before college, I would not eat so many process foods or even can foods, i would normally eat fresh food. When I say fresh not always organic but not canned. I would also not eat out as much if I did it would be on the weekends on Sundays as a treat and only 1 meal. How did being an ovo-lacto vegetarian help me do that? Well to start of I wanted to eat healthier than what I had been, and I knew that most of the foods I had were meat related microwaveable meals. Excuse was no time to cook, or too tired to cook. As well as the cheap the better since I am poor.  So when meat was cut off from my diet 3 days out of the week I had to re-invent my meals. I found it a bit hard to find microwaveable meals that did not contain meat, or in other words that were fresh and healthy. So I actually had plan my meals, and most of the recipes where ones I learn from home and they all require fresh ingredients, even if some people substitute it with other non fresh ingredients. That forced me in a way to buy only what I needed for that particular dish and probably 10 time healthier than a Banquet TV dinner plus I had left overs!

As far as dinero ($) having a plan of my week meals helped me not to buy out of the list items like chips, juice, cookies and well junk food saving me money! plus having left overs helps because I would not always have to cook the next day unless I wanted something different then I would just save the left overs for another day.

Another perk is that I have lost some weight, and that’s because I actually get full with a meal instead of having to eat 2 TV dinners. I also feel healthier even if I have been getting sick lately… I think is for the lack of sleep not nutrients though… but Its the end of the semester and I am always sick toward the end… but over all I have also worked out, and when I walk I don’t feel like I am about to die! So Woohoo!! Plus when I don’t buy my TV dinner is less cardboard

Water usage… I have cut down a lot of my water usage, my showers have been cut down to 12 minutes and if i’m not too dirty 9! If I don’t shave then 5 minutes. Over all m usage of water has lowererd and I’m happy for that. I no longer wash my dishes by hand since my roommate prefferse to do it plus according to this article a dishwasher is better than hand-washing: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/08/dishwasher_vs_h.php

Electricity usage: This last bill was $65.52! so if you remember from $138.65 to $81.03 and now to $65.52 15.51 was saved from the last bill to this new one. Over all savings have been $73.13 so I think that says pretty much everything. I won’t deny it’s been hard at times, because unplugging everything can be frustrating in the beginning but after a while its just part of your daily routine.

Recycling: I never thought that most of our trash was made up of cardboard, paper, and plastic.  As I mention before before we took out 4 trash bags of more if we had extra people over, but now since we recycle we only take out 1 trash bag a week or 2 if other people are over, or my roommate eats out then we have extra trash… Eating out and having left overs make a lot of trash… never thought about it before but they just take so much room… and most of the containers can’t really be recycled… but over all thanks to recycling our trash has been cut down more than 50%. This I should have known because I used to do this all the time in California, but when I moved to KS in 2002 somehow it just diapered… or in other words its easier to be lazy and just do one movement instead of two… that should not be so!

Over all this project made me happy, it made me realized what I was missing and it makes me crave healthy food! I will be going to the farmers makerket this saturday!! I can’t wait I love food, and when its fresh and good for you even more!

I have to give thanks to Dr. Carroll for giving us this opportunity because I believe we all learned so much not only new information but we learn new things about ourself, and I know we will all take something with us from this projects. I am not looking forward to having my own garden of fruits and vegis, and just eating more healthy and in hopes that some people might also get motivated to be more green and diminish their foot print on earth.

Also Fox has some good ideas that we can all try, please take a look:

http://www.fox.com/earthday/

Also if you are intresting in doing something good this can help you start that project:

http://www.dosomething.org/dosomething101/home

Also you can enter to win the Green home from HGTV, the car you can sell since its an SUV. But how cool is it to have such a green home, and be close to shops and all you need in walking distance! At least thats what they said.

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv-green-home-2010-giveaway-enter/package/index.html

P.S

As I said this is the end to a new beginning! I hope its the same to all of you.

Here is my presentation board.

It pretty much has the information that is provided here in my blog, just more colorful:

Breaking it down to #’s, and $!

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the late post, my computer got the Blue Screen of death and been without a computer… I am curretly in Hale.

Okay last blog I mention that this blog would be conduction of money and how much I have actually been able to reduce my usage in electricity, water.

Electricity

Well I will start with my Electric (Westar Energy): Before I started this project our Electric bill was $138.65 our latest bill turn out to be, $81.03 We saved 57.62 , I am expecting the next bill to be even less. All it took was some extra blankets, unplugging any electrical devices not being used, and making sure the lights were turn off. I mean think with that 88.45 you can do a lot with! When my roommate and I SAW the big difference we were stoked! It might have been hard at first, but in the end it was totally worth it.

Water

Water: We don’t pay for water at our apartment, but I found this awesome tool, that is a calculator on how much water you use. I have the initial water usage and the final water usage with mostly my usage, and some information about my roommate water usage.

First Results: As you can tell, they are horrible, I was shocked to see that… Also if you are intrested in figuring out how much water you use, here is the link:

http://www.tampagov.net/dept_water/information_resources/Saving_water/Water_use_calculator.asp

As you can tell there is a big change in my water usage. It is sad how much water I still use, but have done a lot better then when I first started. I will like to invite you to use the calculate, and see how much water you use! Its unbelievable, and to think that there is people that don’t have water, while I waste a lot of it…

Recycling/Trash

As far as my recycling I have counted how many times we took out the trash before I started to do this. Now keep in mind that I was only able to recycle for a whole week, meaning separating bottles, cans, cardboard etec. for one week, since my roommate was not too happy to have that around the house.

Before not doing any type of recycling we took out the trash 4 times in 7 days.

When I started separating the cardboard it made it to 3 times

the whole week while I recycle all that was possible, 1 time.

As of now we are only recycling cardboard items and since I am trying to get things that are not package in a box our trash is now 2 times in 7 days (that includes the bathroom trash as well)

So in other words we started by taking the trash 4 times in 7 days to now 2 times in 7 days, so half our waste are recyclable!

Here is a “Trash Trivia Game” even if it says its for 4-6 grade, I think some of the questions most of us don’t know the answers to! try it out!

http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/TrashGoesToSchool/Trash.html

Food!

Well when I started this project I bought the cheapest things I could get for my money, so normally I would buy food for 2 weeks that would bring me to 60-76 dollars, that would include microwave oven ready foods, Ramen, chips, juice, ham, bread, box dinners were you just add the meat, Beef (steak, ground beef, chicken you name it).

After the project i bought food for only a week, had meals plan, and it cost me 50-57 dollars: it consisted of lentils, cheese, milk, tortillas, eggs, vegetables such as cilantro, onion, peppers, lettuce, fruits, tomatoes, strawberries, mango’s, apples, pears, and grapes as well as more. I would still buy some of the frozen pizzas (have a week spot for them) and cereal but overall I felt I would get more full in one sitting instead of having to keep munching when I did the TV dinners. Plus I also had leftovers that helped a lot when I had no time to cook. I have not lost any weight but Its good to cook again! I won’t deny that sometimes I am too tired to cook, but for the most part I love to cook and I had started to forget about it. One could say that I may have not save much money, but I think other wise, I had more leftover food, and I actually got full with just one plate instead of having to munch on something else since most TV dinners did not conquer my appetite! Also if you plan your meals ahead it helps too!

Here is an article that talks about junk food as an addiction that maybe causing obesity:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62R23O20100328

Hope this helps!

Hope to write my final blog this Friday!

Thanks for reading

WATER USAGE

RESULTS
PER CAPITA DAILY WATER USE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD (gallons)
INDOOR WATER USE		OUTDOOR WATER USE
Bathroom	30	Lawn Watering	0
Toilets	20	Other Outdoor Uses	0
Faucets	180	GENERAL WATER USE
Laundry	1	<!—->
Dishwasher	1
Hand Washing Dishes	27
Click one of the categories above to learn how to reduce your water usage. COMPARISON BETWEEN YOUR HOUSEHOLD AND THE TAMPA AVERAGE* HOUSEHOLD Total Per Capita Gallons of Water Used in the House Per Day Per Month Per Year Your Household 259 7874 94535 Tampa Average 106 3180 38690 New and improve calculations of water reduction. RESULTS PER CAPITA DAILY WATER USE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD (gallons) INDOOR WATER USE OUTDOOR WATER USE Bathroom 20 Lawn Watering 0 Toilets 20 Other Outdoor Uses 0 Faucets 72 GENERAL WATER USE Laundry 1 <!––> Dishwasher 1 Hand Washing Dishes 2 Click one of the categories above to learn how to reduce your water usage. COMPARISON BETWEEN YOUR HOUSEHOLD AND THE TAMPA AVERAGE* HOUSEHOLD Your House Tampa Average Interior per capita gallons per day 116 64 Exterior per capita gallons per day 0 40 Total Per Capita Gallons of Water Used in the House Per Day Per Month Per Year Your Household 116 3526 42340 Tampa Average 106 3180 38690 *Based on Tampa Water Department data.

A Green Thumb and Good Intentions

My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. ~H. Fred Dale

The last of life has withered out of all of my plants but the tomatoes. I left them with my mom as galavanted off to Northwest Florida to go stay with my sister for a week for Spring Break and they didn’t make it. The tomatoes did though, which makes me think that they are pretty tough plants and can definitely be grown indoors. My mom, of course, blamed herself for them dying and went and bought me new ones. My replacements are ones that are already raised and ready for transplant and I think I am going to plant them in the garden in my backyard rather than try to keep them inside. One reason is because it is beautiful outside and it gives me a reason to go out there. Also, when my plants began to die my mom set out to do some research and the most common answer she got was that the plants needed to in fact be planted outside.

Another reason is that we have ants right now and they are getting bad. For the most part, bugs in my house really don’t bother me, I know that sounds gross or whatever but they exist whether we see them or not and I’m over it. Unfortunately yesterday when I was watering my plants about a million ants went scattering in every direction and they were coming from the plants. This is a problem. I hurried up and carried them all outside trying to get most of the ants safely outside, sadly a few lives were lost.

Since I will be going to Florida for the summer, I have some friends who are really excited about taking advantage of a planted garden for the summer and my roommate and I will still be paying rent at out house so this shouldn’t be a problem. I will post some pictures next week of the planted garden, I plan on getting it all done by Wednesday evening.

I’ve concentrated a lot of communal living as an alternative living style. I realize communal living is not for everyone, so I’d like to introduce everyone to a couple of other concepts that might better suit different people.

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

You all should also check out Earthships (http://earthship.org/). I am not even going to post pictures because they can’t do them justice, they are truly sensational.

I think that it is important to remember that while all of these houses are beyond awesome, we do have a lot of houses around the United States that are already built and there are ways to make them incredibly sustainable as well. Most of all we need to work with what we have a make that as environmentally friendly as we can first and then move beyond that.

Paper this! Paper that!Too much Paper everywhere! ohh the trees!

Okay so I am sorry for the delay but I could not start my next part of the project due to my roommate not wanting to have the recyclable within site and that is hard to do since well I can’t really put them outside our apartment door or we would probably get into trouble. So I waited for her to head out for spring break so I could do it!

When I started to recycle I really thought i would be getting lots of plastic things, why? I really don’t know, I just really thought that would be the main waste. To my biggest astonishment it was not… It was actually paper? It seems that most of the containers or things I would have or buy would be in a box, or some kind of package that is made out of paper and it just seem it was paper this paper that it’s crazy totally Loco .  It’s not exaggeration when I recycle it was mostly boxes(cereal boxes, hot coco boxes, pancake boxes, yogurt container boxes etec), paper, some plastic not much technically one, no aluminum, and no plastic bags since I am using tote for bags.

I hate that use so much paper, I know someone won’t say the name but I feel they waste so much paper, but I know they are trying to do and are doing something good, but I hate the fact of the use of so much paper!

Do you use a lot of paper? what Ideas can you give me for using less paper

Also I now know where Howies recycling center is located! (I know, I know, I should have known this but I did not, and thanks to this I know do! So I feel happy )

I wanted to say that recycling was the easiest things to do because it brought me back when I lived in California, so i guess its like riding a bike, you never forget! The only sucky part was having to wait to do when my roommate was not home. Plus the only thing I did do while she was here was the paper recycling and I kinda got a bit upset not mat just a bit upset because she would trash cardboard boxes into the trash and I would take them out, and separate them at the side and in the end she started doing that as well, but when it was her turn to take out the trash she would mix them with the trash! I was like :O  wow… I asked if she had done so with the rest of the times and she said yes… so that was a big bummer…So I told her that I had been recycling it and she just said Oh, I forget we have a cardboard recyclable outside… so yeah..

Also I wanted to recommend the movie No Impact Man: The Documentary, I watched it during spring break and I think he brings up really good ideas and perspectives. Now whether I do what he did, I probably would not be able to go without toilet paper, the fridge and electricity.

So my fastest shower time is________ is___________is_________ 5 minutes!!!!!! WOOOHOOOO!! Amazing in my book! Now I don’ think I will always be able to do 5 minute showers but! I can def do 10 minute showers. So that’s not too horrible is it?

I am also very excited because we get our electricity bill sometime this week so I will know how much I have save! I do have to say that I did slip  I fell asleep with the lights on Saturday night, but for good reason! While I was in the kitchen someone try to open my front door, that freaked me out so I thought that perhaps leaving the lights on would scare them off or something.

Ovo-Vegan is going well, I am amazed on how I do not miss the meat. I have to say that cheese is my biggest savior!

I am excited because I hope that by Friday I can compare all the bills and let you guys see what’s been going on money wise. I also saved some receipts when i bought food and what not, so we shall see how that goes. Also how my body feels by eating more fruits and greens than meat, eating out and what not.

Well sorry for the delay! Will write as soon as I get all my bills!

Thanks for reading! Hope you guys had a great spring break!

Invisible sucking Vampires! :O

Hellooooo! My dear classmates!

It is I the Invisible sucking Vampire Slayer! ohhhh yeeaahhh… J.K… I am not good jokes…

Any who, I have begun with week 3! and that is to save energy!

So I lower our temperature in our apartment from 75 degrees to 65-67 degrees, you can’t really tell exactly put assume its in there, we have the old retro thermostats, so It’s in between those numbers. I get cold really easily so I am always wearing a sweater now and days, as well as I feel like a baby because I carry my blanket with me everywhere in the apartment because I’m cold, but It is all worth it! It’s not killing me or my roommate, I actually think my roommate loves it! Why? she is warm blooded and is always hot. Me I am always cold…

Another thing, that we do is ( hence the title for my blog) unplug all appliances that we are not using, so that way they won’t be sucking on energy! as I will post this video, if you hear the last part, It is shocking on how much energy they consume and how much we pay for that!!! So I’m sure some of you guys knew and some did not. My mouth drop when he mention how much money we spend on those sucking little buggers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGAOZllghYo

I have also replace my regular light bulbs to energy light bulbs, ( not in roommate room just mine),  I also turn off all the light that may be on when we don’t use it. We also open windows for light during the day, and then lights for the night.

Reducing my water usage: So I was finally able to take a 10 minute shower!!!! I acomplish that on Friday! I time myself (started timing when the water was turn on and off) I was so happy! I was able to wash my hair 2 times, and scrub my body 2 times as well, and shave half my legs, so not bad eh?! I was impressed so I hope I can keep that up! I wonder if I can do a 5 minuter shower… maybe that will be my next goal… seems too short of a shower time… but I shall try!

Oh oh I am not starting to get better at turning of the water while brushing my teeth! WOOHOO for me

Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian: So I finally went to the store to get the ingreadients for the cheese… well that was the plan… as I read what was needed I realize I don’t know some (1 or 2) ingredients… so I have to research… It looks really easy I just did not realize it was hard at the same time?? So again I must push that for another week… But I did took a picture of my awesome omelet! I have been eating more eggs than normal… So my omelet has, cilantro ( love it), onion, tomato, cheese, and aguacate with a green salsa. Its soooo good! you guys should totally try it!

Well that’s all for now!

Eat ‘em up

Hullow all! I hope you are all having a wonderful week and your own projects are going well!

This week I’ve really been trying to focus on observing my consumption and the consumption of those around me.

One of the things I have started noticing, after spending a morning in the student union by Caribou Coffee, is the amount of waste created by disposable coffee cups. I decided to do a little bit of research and was shocked by the incredible number of these cups used annually. According to this website, http://sustainabilityissexy.com/facts.html, it is estimated that 23 BILLION paper cups will be used by AMERICANS ALONE this year. This is utter madness! I will absolutely continue using my reusable mug now more than ever. Sadly I haven’t gotten to use that little fella for the past week. . . going caffeine free has been pretty rough. There has only been one time so far that I couldn’t go on without a Diet Coke … whoops!

Other than my lack of caffeine and other beverages besides good old fashioned water, things have been going pretty well.

My friends and I have taken to sitting in the dining hall for quite a long time during our meals and this has provided me with an excellent opportunity to observe how others are consuming. There is A TON of waste generated, and I know I’m only seeing a fraction of it. Whether they have been given too much food, which is very likely because the dining hall employees are serving us and some give massive portions while others are more appropriate, or perhaps they dislike what they got, something has got to change. So much food, with nothing wrong with it, is being thrown out every day for every meal.

Several of my friends have been raised with the “you get it you eat it” mentality and they stick to it hardcore and encourage the rest of us to follow suit. It’s a great thing that they are promoting a waste reducing habit and I have found it to be helpful with getting my project started.

One of the most difficult foods to try to stop eating has been French fries—curse their greasy, salty goodness!! There are some meals that I do a better job of editing out my “wants” than others, but this coming week is when I am really going to crack down on myself.

Speaking of dorm food … here’s an interesting link that talks about some of the programs (farm-to-fork, all taste … no waste, recycling efforts, and food repurposing) that K-State housing and dining services are trying to implement http://www.housing.k-state.edu/dining/sustainable.php. I found these to be very interesting and I’m glad to have learned that our university is taking steps in this direction.

You stay classy, San Diego. I’m Ron Burgundy?

Reducing water…. harder than I thought!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all well

I want to start off by telling you guys that well I guess 45 minutes ago it was Ash Wed. so that means Lent has started! so that will make my 3 days of ovo-lacto vegetarian become 4 days out of the week now!

Okay so Week 2! reducing my water usage… let me tell you, I am having a hard time! One reason being is because I have been used to using as much as I want that it’s hard to try to limit myself. The other hard part is getting my roommate to take shorter showers… I can’t really force her since I guess this is not her project.

The things that i have found not so easy are, turning of the water while washing my face, brushing teeth and washing dishes by hand. I have also found it hard to try to do less laundry (my family would probably think I’m a pig for having so many dirty cloths on my laundry basket!) it’s been hard because i normally separate my cloths by colors, towels, sheets, jeans and sometimes i don’t have enough of one but i still wash it by itself. Las week I manage to do only 3 loads of laundry instead of 5 (with all cold water) that was a proud moment! I did blacks, whites with sheets, colors with my towels and that made my 3 loads.

Things that have been easy have been, taking shorter showers (me only) I normally take a 40 to 35 minute shower and have cut it to the max of 15 minutes! I am trying to see if i can do a 10 minute shower, and so far I have fail miserable! I don’t want to rush and not get clean after all, but i think it can be done! So i will keep you posted and see if i accomplish that. Making sure the dishwasher is full before turning it on. Also I have been re-wearing my cloths if they are not too dirty instead of dumping them into the cloths basket.  So not bad right?

To keep you updated as far as my Ovo-lacto vegetarian part of the project, it has not been too hard but i believe that since I will now have 4 days instead of 3 days will make it harder for me. I already messed up today! I had 5 chicken nuggets! I felt like the biggest loser ever! So for that I will give myself a punishment and have no meat at all for the rest of the week. I also realize that It helps putting an alarm on my phone in the morning telling me not to eat meat that day ( I know may sound stupid but it helps me!). I have yet to do my own cheese and pizza but will be hopefully doing that next weekend with the help of my roommate perhaps? she gave me a maybe… so when i do I will make sure to post pictures!!! and who knows maybe you guys might want to try doing it too!

What I’ve eaten last week and this week has been mainly ( soups, cheese pizzas, salsas, more lentils, potatoes, cereal, vegetable soup with Mexican fresh cheese (that was yummy) and eggs with tomato, cilantro, onion, and jalapenos choped into them, they are very yummy! (besides my slip of chicken nuggets today have done well)

Thanks for reading, and loved the comments on my first blog, thank you guys! It’s appreciated!

Final Blog

Before this class I have to say did not know what an aquifer was and I had never heard of T. Boone Pickens or the Ogallala. When she briefly described what the Ogallala was and how municipalities were selling it off, and the fact that it was a huge water supply that was diminishing extremely rapidly, I was intrigued to say the least.

In my first blog I researched and presented the basics of the Ogallala, including what an aquifer actually is, how big the Ogallala is and was, how much water was being used up, and in what ways the aquifer was replenished. I was shocked to learn that the Ogallala one of the largest aquifers in the world, expanding across 174,000 square miles and eight states: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. I was stunned to discover that more than 95 percent of the water being pumped from the Ogallala is used for irrigation and the Mid-West High Plains is responsible for an astonishing 65 percent of what is being used for irrigation. It made me wonder why we are trying so hard to produce crops in areas that are not meant to produce these crops, and why we don’t care about the amount of water we waste trying to produce crops in these arid areas!! I also researched the effects the diminishing of the Ogallala had on the panhandle region, and how this water shortage effected their economy and crop production output. I also researched T. Boone Pickens and his position in the “water industry”; how he is involved in water ranching (the selling off of sections of the Ogallala). I was shocked to find that in some places in Texas, water is more expensive than oil!! I also studied the image of water in religion, and how it is seen as such an important aspect of life; without water, we could not survive. Finally I took a look inside how media effects how we view water, and I was hoping to find that because water is seen as such an important amenity to our species, there would be a great deal of information on water, and how to prevent the overuse of water. I found a few websites and companies like Save Water America that had a lot of information on how we can greatly reduce the amount of water we currently use.

One of the main things I took from this research project was that I am so privileged. I know I have said this many times, but I truly mean it. I am so blessed to be able to have easy access to such amenities like clean water. This is a privilege and many of us often forget this, taking water for granted. It is scary to think that we have become such a greedy breed, taking more than we need, and not thinking about the repercussions our greediness has on this earth and our natural resources. What will happen when we run out of these natural resources? Where will we turn next?

Throughout each step of my research project I became more and more intrigued with the information I found about the Ogallala and also other types of problems faced by water shortages. The more blogs I completed, the more I began to understand how truly blessed I am to be able to have access to water. It really frightened me to find out that researchers predict that 36 states (that includes Kansas) will be in a water shortage within the next five years. I began to comprehend what this would mean for me, and what kind of effects it would have on everyone’s daily lives. Water is such an invaluable resource, and honestly I am scared to see what will happen next if we continue to mistreat this aquifer and misuse our water supply.

What I have learned in this class is that this misuse of natural resources is cyclically tied into ecofeminism. We cannot live without water, without clean air, without natural resources, but the world can certainly thrive without humans. In fact, it may be able to thrive better if we weren’t here! As we read in ‘Women and the Environment’ article, ecofeminism is a connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature. With the misuse and the abundant and careless overuse of water seen by millions of us everyday, water is clearly being seen as a “down”. Because the water is seen as unimportant and many men(human race) think of water as this endless resource, some begin to see it as just a simple object that is always going to be there and they being to mistreat the resource. As we discussed in class in accordance to the ‘Deep Ecology’ article, ecofeminism sees nature as everywhere and everything. Ecofeminists believe that nature is everywhere, and nature is involved in our everyday life. Just think about it, you breathe air everyday, you eat food everyday, you drink water EVERY DAY! You cannot escape from nature, we are always surrounded by aspects of nature, and without it we would perish. Nature can go on without us, be we need it to live!

I would love to learn more ways on how to conserve water, and I hope that as time passes, more attention is brought to the subject of water. With the assistance of the media, I believe information is more likely to get out there faster and further than by everyday discussion. I believe education is very important. It would be most effective to educate people about water shortages and how to conserve water, and learning these new concepts and incorporating them in your everyday life would be the most effective treatment to conserve our natural resources. However, this cannot happen if people do not know about the Ogallala and our water resources. I will definitely keep updated on new and improved ways of conserving water, and I will keep track of the Ogallala and how much it is diminishing.