Ring Bell

My sister sent me a doormat for my birthday. What a chuckle to have at the front door!

Isn't this what we do? Busy ourselves with a distraction rather than wait patiently. Waiting patiently seems like a waste of time. Waiting patiently is being mindful of the present moment.

Oh, i do pull weeds when i'm waiting--at the car dealership for my car to be serviced, in the food coop parking lot, or just walking down the street. Pulling weeds seems like a very useful activity. It keeps me active.

On the other hand, a mindfulness bell has rung. I could take a moment to be mindful of now.
Then i'll pull some weeds.

Fresh-Squeezed Orange Juice

My sweetie came home from the grocery store with a bag of juice oranges last evening. I immediately juiced up 2 glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice--with pulp! A delicious (and non-alcoholic) aperitif.

Of course, fresh-squeezed orange juice meant 6 orange rinds for the compost.

Isn't this the way it goes? You buy something beautiful without thinking about the waste stream it's going to create. In the case of food, the waste stream is fairly immediate and visible. Orange rinds into the compost bin. As you already know, orange rinds do not decompose very fast. Composting citrus peels takes time and patience. Many other non-food items can take hundreds or thousands of years to compost.

Here's another opportunity to bring mindfulness to shopping. Take a moment and visualize the entire lifestream of that item. Where did it come from? And where is it going?

I use a plastic fork to eat a grab-and-go something. That takes 10 minutes. I throw the plastic fork away and it will take more than 100 years to decompose.

We say we want to save the earth, but do we act accordingly?

Wasted Food

I have this thing about wasting food. I don't like to do it. I'm the person who takes home a doggy bag even though i don't have a dog.

I am a member of the clean plate club, even though most professional women i know order salad at a restaurant and then send half of it back to the kitchen. I used to think of this as wasting food.

Then i saw that all food is "wasted." It goes into our bodies and comes out as waste. The leftovers that don't go through our bodies are also waste--going directly to the compost or garbage disposal or landfill.

Anyway you cut it, food become waste. That's just the nature of it.