Ideas & Inspirations!

Happy New Year, everyone!  I trust you all are relaxing, reflecting and looking forward to all of the possibilities the 2013 has in store for each of us.

Speaking of reflections…Since officially finishing school on December 17th, I’ve found myself feeling a bit resistant to being online all the time.  Maybe it was the holidays, wonderful celebrations, catching a nasty (and lingering) cold and travelling…maybe it was an unconscious unplugging after a year and a half of online courses…maybe it was just exhaustion.  Whatever it was, it’s given me an opportunity to reflect on this space and community and has given me the chance to think about what I really want to do as I continue to enjoy both and evolve as a person.

Here are a few of my thoughts on how to tweak this space so it can (hopefully) be more enjoyable all around…

Anonymous comments – After much debate, I’ve decided to disable anonymous comments.  As I’m sure many of you have experienced, the spam has become ridiculous and is making a mess of my inbox and my comments sections.  Right now I have it set up to allow Registered Users… but if there is a better way to handle anonymous/spam comments, please let me know (comment moderation? word verification? another trick I’m missing?) and I’ll try that instead if this doesn’t work.  I hope this doesn’t affect any of you too greatly…please feel free to let me know if you experience any issues commenting (feel free to email me) and I’ll try to help you through it.

Upcoming features in 2013 – With school behind me and some more time on my hands I have had so many ideas come to the surface!  I am so excited and so inspired to share some of these new features with you all in the coming year.

• 7,000 Feet – The High Desert Garden – When I began writing in this space nearly two years ago, one of my original intentions was to share some of the unique experiences in gardening and keeping chickens & bees in the high desert.  Somewhere along the way, however, this was lost.  Through this feature I will address a variety of topics including the water concerns, historical gardening techniques, our growing season and native plants.

• Reuniting Children with Nature – Taken from the guide I pulled together for my senior project in Environmental Education and the years of experience I have gained working with groups of girls in an experiential setting, I intend to share 52 hands on, low-cost, fun activities around nature, the environment, animals and food over the coming year.  Studies have shown that our children are suffering a variety of ills and I believe that a lack of time spent in nature has a direct link to much of the dis-ease.  Each of the activities I will provide have been either created by me or collected from a variety of sources and will hopefully provide some inspiration to get out into nature with the children in your life, whether they be your own children or children you work with.

• Expanding Ripples – I have found that the social and environmental issues we are facing these days can feel incredibly overwhelming, big and unchangeable, despite our continued work to affect positive change in our own lives.  This feature will highlight individuals and organizations who are working for positive change…taking small (and large) steps to create positive change for our environment and in our communities.  My hope is to not only re-inspire like-minded individuals by spreading the word about and shedding a bit of light on those who work tirelessly for the betterment of our planet and our society.  I have developed some questions and have contacted a couple of organizations to start with, but would love your feedback on this!  I firmly believe that passion and action are priceless and that one person can inspire countless others…just like the expanding ripples in a pond are caused by a single disturbance.
• Do you know of an individual or small organization that you think deserves to be highlighted?  Would you like to be highlighted?  If so, please email me at trinityvision3(at)gmail(dot)com or comment below with any ideas or suggestions.