Starting over…

Fall is not the season that is associated with re-births or fresh starts; that award usually goes to Spring with its new leaf buds and baby animals all over the place.

By the time the vernal equinox happens, the sweetest corn has been eaten, stone fruits and berries are waning, sunflowers have begun to bow down, baseball is feverishly racing toward a pennant before the first snow of the season, and leaves are beginning to turn and lose their tenuous hold on branches. Strangely I never have the feeling that things are coming to an end; but that things are just starting. Rather than feeling as if something is ending, I always feel like Fall is the beginning of something exciting! The first day of school; the fashion seems to be the ‘most important’ and drives the biggest magazine advertising (September issues!) of the entire year; apples appear at the farmers markets; and the weather finally cools off enough so that I have the energy to finish the projects that have been languishing during the last hot weeks of the summer months. For me, Fall is the time that I take things on that I have wanted to do and when I recommit to projects that I have set aside for whatever reason. This has been a year of change and new beginnings for me; things that have not changed have somehow become stronger; and still other things have shifted just enough to feel like they are new again.

As I write this, I think of all the things that I put aside while I was considering where to go next and wondering which ones I will choose to pick up again. There are some loose ends to tie up, but overall, I will be moving forward and enjoying this new life as it presents itself.

Chahut de nouveauté!

Fear of walking

About six months ago, NPR broadcast a short piece about how difficult it was to walk in some communities. I know that I like to walk as much as I can instead of driving and look forward to the time change in the Spring because it means the street I usually walk home on won't be dark by the time I get off the train. I have used this platform to encourage you to bring your own bags to the market, now I would like to encourage you to try walking to a destination once in awhile. This is the perfect time of the year to try it since it is not too warm and we could all use a little fresh air after being cooped up inside most of the winter. True, it might take you a little longer, but you might be surprised. I found that it takes as long to drive my car, park and walk to the train platform as it does to walk there, and as a bonus, I get some exercise that I would not have if I had driven. Same with going to the drugstore or the market for a couple of things, grab your reusable bag (or backpack) and stroll with a purpose. Your heart, lungs, kids, and grandkids will thank you for doing your part to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Support a Local Artist Today

Recently I spent some time in Santa Barbara, CA catching up with an old friend. She was on the left coast to perform with a group of Santa Barbara musicians, one of which had written something specifically for my friend to perform. On my long drive home, I reflected on how many events like this there actually are across not only the United States, but around the world. The performance I attended was part of a series of events put on by a community college. If you look on any school's website, you will find a calendar full of instrumental and vocal music performances, plays, art exhibits and other events put on by faculty, staff, and students. Add to this the number of community groups not affiliated with a schools, and you could find something to do every day and night of the week. Most of these groups work as hard to put on a performance but sell tickets that cost a fraction of what tickets to a professional group would cost. Now, before someone gets upset, I am not suggesting that we not ever attend an event put on by a professional organization ever again. I AM suggesting that we find a local group that presents the type of work that we enjoy and attend their performances and exhibits on a regular basis. The amateur groups are most likely comprised of folks that are accountants, doctors, lawyers and the like who want to express themselves in a way that they find themselves unable to in their work and family lives. They are proud of the work they do to prepare for the performance and love it when there is a full house to which to present their work.

Scavenger Hunting

Today we spent some time weaving our way through one of my favorite places to peer into, pick up, turn over and open up stuff; Urban Ore on Murray Street in Berkeley. This for profit location takes in gently used items and re-sells them in their huge (and cold) warehouse and their outside lot at a low, low price. Helping out those looking to stretch a dollar and preventing the items from going into our already bursting landfills. The assortment ranges from broken tiles, bricks, doors still hanging in the frames they were hung in when ripped out of an unsuspecting structure, sinks, toilets, windows, furniture, and an entire wall full of electronic doo-dads that I usually spend the most time hanging around imagining what I could make out of all that stuff.

We have purchased 'containers' for our garden (out of service terracotta sewer pipe & metal duct work), stepping stones (unused pavers), extra seating for inside and out (old church pews), and my favorite find to date; a metal stand that once refurbished, went just inside our front door to catch keys, sunglasses, handbags, and mail. Based on the shape and colors of the sticker (lovingly preserved) on the front, it originally stood in the service area of a Texaco station. It is the perfect height to write comfortably while standing next to it, and the inside is full of slots and places for order pads, pens, and those fun reminder cards that they stuck in your visor so you knew when to stop by next. Some steel wool, primer and two colors of paint later the piece was suitable for inside the house, inspiring a more industrial feel in the room where it now lives.

Before & After

Our mission this afternoon was to find something to use as a new television slash cable box slash DVD player slash mini stereo stand. It is good to have a vivid imagination when going on a scavenger hunt since the idea was to find the shape and height that would work and we would sand, paint, or stain the item to fit our decor. Our first find was a solid wood mantel with an electric heating element, complete with realistic looking logs on a grate. Perfect width and height, the ledge was the right size for the television, but where to put the rest of the stuff? Next we found a changing table, complete with built in steps, but decided that would be too odd, even with a coat of paint. In the end, we didn't find what we were looking for, but did find a really great lampshade for another re-use project that I'm working on. More on that when it's finally finished. Until then, I am ready to be the 'light' of the party!

(images are author's own)

But I do try...

I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I do try to consider the impact of the things I do. One thing that I have been trying to get better at this year is to use my own bags when I shop. Not that long ago, I would only see a few people (hippies!) carrying their own canvas bags into the health food store or at the farmer's market. Now more and more people show up at main stream stores toting their own bags. Many stores have signs at the door as a reminder to shoppers and some offer a discount or raffle entry for customers that use their own bag.

Plastic shopping bags are forever; according to scientists that know about how this all works, they take many centuries to degrade. There are so many plastic bags flying and floating around our planet right now, they are one of the most common items found during litter clean ups, right up there with cigarette butts. In order to curb this flow of plastic, several cities in the state have recently enacted plastic bag bans with several others considering putting them in place. This is a trend that is starting to gain momentum, and if widely adopted across the country, could mean millions fewer plastic bags making their way into landfills, waterways, and open spaces.

I can hear the outcry with all the reasons why you need those bags. "I need plastic bags for diapers/dog poo/trash can liners", "I use paper bags for collecting my recycling/sort newspapers", but I'll bet we can all live with fewer of them laying around. Personally, I've found that since I get a plastic bag on my newspaper every day, I can save those and use them for my dog walking duties. I use a paper bag in my recycling station, but empty the bag into the bin and use it several more times (sometimes for a couple of weeks) before it goes into the curb bin itself. This has led to the realization that I should bring bags (and egg cartons) back to re-use at the farmer's market and that I should probably start to consider all the bags I get from places other than the grocery store.

In reality this is something fairly easy for everyone to do. I found the hardest part of using my own bag was remembering to take it back to my car after I had unloaded the stuff into my house. This was eventually solved by making it a point to hook them onto the door so that they were in the way the next time I went to leave. Also, I always have a small nylon bag rolled up in whatever purse I am carrying for those small purchases that come up as you are out and about in the world. Of course some of this could be solved by stores adopting the European model of charging for any bag you use. I still have a paper bag that I paid for in a Swiss grocery store that has been used within an inch of its life. I paid for it, I'm going to get my nickel's worth! This model would have to be adopted widely and consistently and would probably need a large scale public education program to support the change.

There are so many other things that you can do, but if we all try to start with this one simple thing in Twenty-Ten, we can slow the avalanche of thin, plastic bags around this big blue marble of ours. Let's all try.

How to Use a Blog

I believe that weblogs, or blogs are a tool that can be used effectively as part of a planning process for several reasons. They are easily accessed by anyone with an Internet connection, they make it easy for the reader to do deeper research on the posted topic, they provide a way for information to be shared quickly, and give the writer a way to easily communicate with more than one person at a time. I have used my blog to show off photographs I have taken during my travels, let my friends and family know what I am up to, vent on topics that I felt strongly about, and most recently, to explore a few planning topics that I was interested in learning more about.

Anyone with an Internet connection can search for an access blogs on any topic imaginable. Just choose a topic, enter a few related key words into a favorite search engine, and millions of results can be returned. This not only gives the searcher many choices to look through, but it can help to focus a search topic once some of the returned content is reviewed. Blogs usually provide fresh content every few days and can be a great way to gain a lot of knowledge quickly without having to purchase several books or periodicals. Using a service such as Google Reader to organize a list of favorite sites makes accessing and reading blogs even easier.

Because blogs usually contain links to sites with more information, the reader can often learn more about a given topic than what was posted on the blog itself. Ideally the author has spent some time himself or herself looking for sources that support their opinion and have linked them appropriately, allowing the reader to verify the data and form their own opinion. This can be especially helpful for municipal or regional agencies that may not have the time to give much background information on a topic during a public meeting. The agency can provide a summary of the of the topic being discussed as well as links to appropriate background information. Meeting attendees could be directed to use the blog for pre-reading or follow up reading, meeting schedules and other information.

A blog can also be used as a tool to reach out to customers, community members, and any other interested parties. As an independent planning professional, they can be a place to showcase knowledge and specialties to others that might also be interested in those topics or who are looking for a resource with a particular knowledge base or skill set. It is a simple way to market yourself or your firm to both current and potential clients. By updating content regularly, the blog will be visible to a broad audience who are probably finding it via search engines.

In the past, a writer might have written an article for a newspaper or magazine and anyone with a comment about the content would have written a letter to the Editor of the publication, looked for and found an envelope and a stamp, addressed and finally mailed the letter to the Editor. Several months later, if they were lucky, the letter would be published in the periodical and rare still, a response provided by the Author or Editor of the piece that provoked the comment to begin with. A reader can comment on a blog post in real-time, agree, disagree, add some additional thoughts, or discuss the ideas found in the posting. In some ways, it can be like having a conversation with the whole world at one time.

Blogs are easy to start, provide a way to easily communicate with multiple audiences, and give the writer a way to market their knowledge to a broader audience. With the addition of micro-blogging services such as Twitter and Tumblr as well as the explosive growth of the popular social media site Facebook, municipalities and other agencies must be able to work effectively within all of these structures, including blogs to provide content that supports their strategies. All of these services are free and allow content providers to post thoughts, links to articles, and information quickly and easily, ensuring their message is seen and heard by a wide audience of friends, foes, and fans.

Re-Use, Re-Furbish, Re-Cycle your Wardrobe

In October, Levi Strauss announced both a partnership with Goodwill and a program to tag their clothing with information on what consumers can do once they are done wearing the item they have purchased. The new care labels not only encourage a 'donation when no longer needed', they also encourage washing in cold water, washing less often, and air drying to prolong the life of the garment. All ways for the consumer to reduce the environmental impact of the purchase.

This particular strategy encourages a donation to Goodwill, but there are many organizations that will take clothing to re-sell in their shops including the Salvation Army, St. Vincent De Paul's, and many other regional organizations. Other alternatives include taking gently used clothing to a consignment shop. Consignment shops will take your items, merchandise them in the shop and split the proceeds with you once the garment sells. Or arranging a neighborhood clothing swap to freshen up the wardrobe. This is particularly useful when there are kids in the neighborhood, as they grow out of something, it can be passed along. Teens can update their look without breaking the bank and Adults can not only save money, but will probably find something for their closet as well. All of these methods are a way to have something new without the impact of manufacturing a brand new garment.

Encouraging the reuse and recycle of apparel is one way for individuals to have less of an impact on the environment. By consuming fewer brand new garments, consumers can help manufactures have less of an impact as well. Despite many garments being made from renewable materials like cotton and wool, the manufacturing process itself can have a big impact on the environment. Another popular apparel fabric is polyester, a petroleum based product that uses a large amount of resources to manufacture, which in turn creates emissions and other waste products that go directly into the environment. None of this takes into account the impact of growing the material, transporting the raw materials to the factory, transporting the finished garments to a retail outlet, or the consumer driving miles to a shopping mall. Obviously, this is less than ideal.

Realizing that we can reduce the environmental impact of the clothes we wear by purchasing classic, quality items that can be worn for more than one season is somewhat liberating. It gives us permission to spend a bit more, because the garment will be worn for years. The rise of fast fashion chains such as H&M, TopShop and Zara has meant that more items are being purchased and discarded as fashion trends come and go. By purchasing less, wearing items longer, and passing them on when they no longer fit or are needed we can keep unwanted clothing out of our landfills, reduce the impact on the environment, and probably all have more money in the bank.