Recently I was asked to wright a short bio on myself for a local radio station that is interested in interviewing me about “being green” below is what I wrote. While writing this I realized, I have a lot to say. that is where the idea for this blog came from. Then one day I herd that I could do it my self. later that same day about 2:00pm I was laid off from my job as a landscape inspector for the City. By 3:00 I was at home on the computer learning everything I could about doing my own Blog. In moments I realized I had a lot to learn. At this point I think learning Chinese might have been easier. I was determined to have it all set up by morning. About 9:00pm my head and eyes were spinning, so I went to bed. by sure persistence this is 5 days later and I am up and going.
Remember I have a lot to say on being and getting green so….
I hope you keep coming back for more…
My “bio”
It all started back when I was a kid, my parents were/are hippies, and in the late 1970’s moved from Los Angeles to a 60 acre ranch (in the middle of nowhere) in Northern California, to be “self-sufficient”. Mother Earth News magazine was the “bible” for the back to the earth crowd, and it came every month to our house. I never remembered much about “saving the planet” it was about being self- sufficient, and it sure was a cheap way to live. With a limited income, lots of property and no trash service you sure learned how to make the cycle of life work for you. At first we made a monthly trip to the dump, but as time went on, those trips became less frequent.
By 1980 I had had just about all I could take so I packed up my stuff and moved back to LA. I met and married my husband; we bought a house in Redondo Beach with almost no land. This was about 1985, before there were city recycling cans and a recycling center in the grocery store parking lots. I do not even remember the bottles and cans having a cash value. I had a garbage disposal and once a week trash pick-up. The most I did was growing my own tomatoes (because they tasted better). Ido remember the occasional newspaper drive or the neighbor kid asking us for aluminum cans.
In 1988 we moved to Riverside, I wanted some space for our 2 boys, and daughter, still to come, to grow up. Back when track homes where going up at a record pace, we bought almost 2 acres with a 30 year old house. That was 21 years ago. The first thing I did was put in a vegetable garden so I could have vegetables with taste. But again, I had a garbage disposal and once a week trash pick-up, but this time I was on a septic tank. It was after the first septic tank back up that I realized things had to change. At first the garbage just went in the kitchen trash can, and then when that started to smell the trash went to the barrels. But slowly I started remembering all the things I had learned. I can still remember the first Earth day that the media made a really big deal about. I was living in Riverside and still getting the LA Times. I canceled my LA Times subscription on Earth Day “to save a tree”. That was the start of the Media making a fuss over saving our planet. I thought they were silly because they were acting like all this recycling and reusing was a new concept.
Through the 90’s money was tight for us, my husband was in law school and the kids were in private school. It is amazing how easy you can cut cost when you put your mind to it. The ironic thing is to live truly cheap and frugal is so green. You buy less and reuse everything also you take hand-me downs or buy stuff used.
Today, because I have almost 2 acres I have taken advantage of all of my opportunities. We have blended the cheap, frugal and green lifestyle into our everyday life and if you were to come to my house you would not even realize these simple differences/modifications until I pointed them out. We reap the benefits but we don’t deprive ourselves. We live nothing like the Birkenstock wearing, garlic eating, arm pit hair growing, unshaven, commune style living, free love hippies of the 60’s and 70’s.
Today our kids are all grown and I work for the City of Riverside as a Landscape Inspector. I also keep my self busy with gardening, riding my horses, volunteer projects and the Riverside Rose Society. My husband is a well respected Criminal Defense Attorney in the Downtown Riverside Court. His hobbies are cooking, brewing beer and making wine. He cooks the things I grow and raise (animals and vegetables). I also grow the hops for his beer and the grapes for his wine.
There are so many things we do on a daily basis, without thinking about it, that are green because they save us money. I have learned there are many simple ways to live a better and healthier quality of life with little to no effort. Most things I do take no expensive fancy gadgets or machines.
