Making Connections: A Year's Worth of Intentions

Mike and I just returned from a Very Long driving trip to see family throughout Georgia, Alabama and Florida. We took many back roads and it is the result of what I saw during our odyssey that sparked me to make some new choices. We passed abandoned strip mall after mall where not just merchandise, people's hopes, dreams. plans and buildings themselves are becoming disposable and apparently worthless. What I saw lining great swaths of American heartland was bleek. Depressing. Hopeless. We humans have made so many wrong decisions regarding our stewardship here on earth. It started to dawn on me that rather than be angry about what I was experiencing I was being afforded a great opportunity to take a hard look at myself and my own stewardship.

With this in mind, I've made some resolutions for the new year and I want to share them with you to help motivate me to stick with them. Here they are:

• Accept NO plastic bags from stores - bring my own
• Buy no new clothes all year (consignment, resale and other no-cycle items ok) Those of you who know me will know this could be a toughie for me. :-)
• No shopping at Wal-Mart or other low ball bid retailers
• Yes to local, hand made and re-purposed - I'm sensing a potential clothing loophole in this item, I'm ok with it ;-)
  
• Choose one day a month of NO electricity including internet, lights and other optional uses...
• Make one drawing or sketch a day - doesn't have to be fancy, finished or even particularly well thought out
  
• Update these PonyXpressions at least weekly
• Oh and one more thing...I have to plop into a savings jar for my dog JoJo one dollar for every use of the eff-word I make. It upsets him and usually doesn't make me feel any better anyway, so time to find new ways to express.

Wow, talk about synergy....2 hours after I posted this a pal sent a link to this site: http://www.storyofstuff.com
It's an animated talk that brings together complicated issues and offers a reasonable bite sized way to make lasting positive impact through personal consumer choices. The timing of getting the link blew me away! I hope you like it.