sambucus

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be famous. I know what you're thinking, or what I would be thinking if I were you. But you're wrong. I was a very realistic child. I wanted to be famous, not for the money or the purely for the fame. I wanted to be famous because of the influence that I knew stars have.
See, I didn't want to be the President, because as far as influence goes, the President doesn't have as much as say... Madonna or Nicole Kidman. (Disclaimer: I was a fan of both in '92... not so much now)
When I was 5 years old, I did five year old things. I ran, I played. But I also knew that when I grew up, I wanted to go to college to be a veterinarian. I didn't know anyone else my age that knew what a veterinarian was, let alone spell the word.
When I was 8 I wasn't learning to paint my nails or learning to wear make-up to prep for impending crushes. I was collecting rocks and categorizing them. I was worrying about litter and why my family didn't recycle. I was too poor to donate anything, but I worried about other little kids that had less than I do.
My mother sent me a card once for no reason when I was about 8 years old. To this day, I still have it. On the front is has two perfectly round foliaged trees on a wide green landscape with baby blue skies. Across the top my mother wrote the words, "Earth to be saved by Liz". On the inside of this card was a note that told me, in so many words, that if I wanted, I could move mountains.

Somewhere around the same time of pubescence I lost sight of all of the things that were really important to me. I don't know if it was outside influence or the fact that from the age of 13 to the age of 17 I felt a complete lack of control over anything in the world - including my own life. I went through a lot, but we'll save that for another time.

Anyway, after some serious time alone with myself, I regained that need to heal the world around me. I regained the passion that I had lost. It started, again, when I found this book (in a dollar store no less) called "Act Now, Apologize Later" written by the president of the Sierra Club, Adam Werbach. And I started back up again. I knew of a local chicken processing plant that was draining into a local creek. I started a letter-writing campaign that went on for months. I wrote letters to the city, e-mails to the plant, and called the sanitation and health departments in that area. Sadly, nothing was done about it, because the plant was basically the economy of that small city.


Don't let me just focus on the environment. Because though it is important to me, there are so many other things.
*There needs to be more of a focus on art in schools.
*Our country needs to develop a Robin Hood policy inside our own territories. (I'm not saying we shouldn't help other countries when needed, so don't leap to that conclusion.) There should be some sort of a thing for rich families to connect with poor families in an attempt to help out.
*Animals are still being skinned alive in some countries.
*We need stronger no-tolerance laws for drugs and violence. More places with easier access, yet stricter policies for people to get clean. More help for people to stay clean once they get out of rehab. I'm not talking about pot here.

I get discouraged easily. That's just something about me that I need to work on. I'm getting there. I think all too often people push things to the back of their mind either because they are too lazy to do something or because they don't think they can do anything. There will be no more of that for me. And if I stop caring, you feel free to call me on it! I don't even want fame or influence anymore. I just need the knowledge that I'm doing what I can instead of putting things on the back burner.

Anyway, since I've been about 20, at least once a year I go through everything that I own and give what I don't need or use to Goodwill. I don't celebrate many holidays. I'm not very religious. But there is one tradition that I do have. Every year before Christmas, I make my daughter go through all of her toys to decide what she wants to give away to other kids before she gets a bunch of new stuff that she probably won't use. I also buy from Goodwill, too. That also helps people that work at Goodwill to keep jobs.

I have so many plans, too.

I want to start recycling. I found a recycling center in my area. I'm very excited about it. I even found adorable little recycling bins for it and added them to my Amazon wishlist. If I can come up with the money, I'll buy them.
I encourage everyone to find recycling centers in your area.

The husband and I want to plant enough trees to offset out Carbon footprint. We're going to do half in Scotland and half in Ireland. Here is the website to that: Pledge A Tree. And we want to save up to buy a huge chunk of land in the mountains, probably in TN, and do absolutely nothing with it. Just the thought of undisturbed land makes me happy. Although, I don't know if this is something the husband really wants or if he's just going along with it because he knows how badly I want it.