Month: November 2010

Being Green – Thanksgiving

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Hi Folks:  It’s Thursday as I write this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post, even though you won’t get to read it until tomorrow.  It’s just that tomorrow also happens to be the birthday of someone very special to me, and, well, we have other plans.

Today is also Thanksgiving for our friends south of the border, a day where everyone takes time to reflect on that which is important to them.  By some strange twist of fate tomorrow is ‘Black Friday’ in the US, which I understand is like Thanksgiving Day for retailers and credit card companies.  Here in Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving last month, a topic that Marcia and I covered in our weekly ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post, but one can never have too many things to be thankful for! Continue Reading →

One Year Later…

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Hello, Dear Reader:

Well, it’s November 23rd, which means that our little corner of the ‘net, M&M’s Musings, was launched one year ago today.  In the past year we’ve published 246 blog posts in a dozen different categories, and compiled 130 pages.  Some of those pages relate to creative stories that we’d already written, but there’s also our ‘Twitter‘ page on social networking sites and most of the pages relate to our weekly ‘He Says, She Says…‘ posts.  Has it been worth it?  Well, it’s been both a challenge and a delight to us at different times, depending on the subject we’ve taken on.  Is it worth it for you?  We certainly trust that it is, and we’ll keep doing our best to keep our posts current, informative, and maybe even a little bit fun.  We’ve received some wonderful comments from people on the content here, and we appreciate everyone who takes the time to come by and visit with us.  We look forward to seeing you again soon!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S.  Many thanks to our son Nick for setting this up for us! (It didn’t take TOO much prodding to get us started…)

He Says, She Says… Releasing Historical Patterns

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Hello, Dear Reader:

One of the Energy Medicine Cards, revealed at a crossroads in Marcia’s work day recently:

RELEASING:

Examine your beliefs. Assess your emotions. Wherever there is historical pattern, be willing to throw it out and see anew.

~ Energy Medicine Cards

It is with the prompting of this simple suggestion that our topic was chosen …

Read on…

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Being Green – Greenbuild 2010

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Hi Folks:

A short ‘Being Green‘ post this week, and a day late it is, too.  T’is now November 20, and that means the Greenbuild International Expo is winding down for this year; people are taking down their booths and taking in their final tours of the ‘Windy City’.  I wasn’t present for this conference, but I’ve been following what’s been happening through the web and through Twitter, and there have been some great presentations.  A number of videos from the conference are available through the Greenbuild Speakers page; more archived sessions will be added shortly.  In addition, the people at ED+C magazine have a blog site dedicated to Greenbuild, available here.

I don’t know if Greenbuild is the largest conference of its kind this year.  It certainly isn’t the only one, and more and conferences, sessions, workshops, etc. have been coming into being around the world every year.  I find it fascinating to see because when I wrote my first letter about Canada’s environmental issues to a federal politician some 37 years ago, I couldn’t imagine the tour de force that the ‘green’ movement has become today.  Entire new industries have been created, new products invented, new policies and regulations brought into being, and thousands or more likely millions of people now work in a field that in one way or another helps the planet and its inhabitants.

When I used to write those first letters all those years ago, I had one subscript that I added to all of them:  This earth may be some 25,000 miles in diameter, but she’s a tiny blue marble in the vastness of space.  If we screw this up, we have nowhere else to go.  So, to everyone who works in an environmental or ‘green’ field, to everyone who helps to educate upcoming generations to understand their amazing legacy, and to everyone who, in his or her own way, tries to walk a little more lightly on the earth, my thanks.

Hugs,
Mike.

P.S.  A part of the Greenbuild conference has been a number of walking tours of the host city, Chicago.  Seeing ‘green’ skyscrapers is probably the better option, but I have to admit that the ‘Chocolate Tasting‘ tour would get my vote… assuming it’s organic, fair trade chocolate, of course.

He Says, She Says… Sweet Innocence of Children

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Hello, Dear Reader:

Our ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post is a day late this week because we were off visiting our grandchildren yesterday.  Such a wonderful time for us to reconnect with family and to live in the ‘now’ that these little ones experience.   It sparked our topic for this week, the “Sweet Innocence of Children“.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

Being Green – ‘Biophilic Design’

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Hi Folks:

Friday once again, and time for this week’s ‘Being Green‘ post.  The title for this week’s post came from a webinar I watched this week called, “What is Biophilia, and What Does It Have To Do with Sustainability and Illusions of Nature in Architecture?“  It was the title of that webinar that attracted me to it, because ‘biophilia’ translates as ‘love of life’.  It’s a term first coined by biologist E. O. Wilson and described in his book of the same name.  Basically, biophilia means that we have an innate and unbreakable connection to this little blue marble we call earth.  Nalini Nadkarni’s TED talk “Life science in prison” speaks well to this. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings: From Anger to Forgiveness of Self

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Hello Dear Ones!

A friend has a deck of meditation cards. You shuffle them while considering a question you want answered or an issue or emotion you want clarified. Since yesterday’s decision to no longer wear the mask of anger (see my blog post Anger = Fear, Masked) I wanted to know where to step next – what direction to take to heal this issue further. The wording on the card was generally this:

“Forgiveness is for you and you alone.” Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings: Anger = Fear, Masked

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Hello Dear Ones!

Interesting that last week Mike and I wrote about “When dreams do NOT come true” in our He says/She Says post. Here’s a direct link to my take on the topic … Marcia Says … Notice I talk about being angry.

The week before, tied in to a Hallowe’en theme, our joint topic was on the masks we wear. Today I’ve had a strong – very strong – inclination to connect the two: anger as a mask.

It’s easier to be angry than it is to be scared. Anger is familiar. It is within my control. I can mumble, grumble, explode, lash out, blame others and the Universe as much as I want.

Fear, on the other hand, leaves me feeling helpless, powerless, lacking in control, weak, vulnerable, even impotent.

Being angry I feel powerful, in control. Being afraid, I feel like a victim. Continue Reading →

Mirror Images in Lightroom

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Hi Folks:

Let me preface this by saying that yes, the following can be done easier and faster in Photoshop.  However, I wanted to try it in Lightroom for two reasons.  The first is that not everyone owns, understands or can afford Photoshop, and the second is that I’m always interested in pushing to see what I can accomplish with a given piece of software, so sometimes on weekends I like to play around in Lightroom, experiment a little.  Sometimes those experiments work out, and sometimes they don’t, but it’s nothing too serious either way. Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… When Dreams Do NOT Come True

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Hello, Dear Reader:

A desire arose within Marcia four weeks ago. An ad appeared in the employment section of the local newspaper requesting applications for a position Marcia had both the skill and the passion to tackle. She felt it a perfect job fit and a truly outstanding role. Thoughts of moving into this role had her excited! The added advantage of a more remunerative wage than her current position offered, plus medical benefits and other perks had her submitting her revised resume with a very wisely worded, professional cover letter.

She got an interview. In fact, she was the first to be interviewed by a 3-person panel. It went outstandingly well. Marcia felt she set the bar high for all other candidates being considered. As she had been taught and because it felt right, she then sent an e-mail to all 3 interviewers the day after the interview to thank them for their time, their expressed interest and the pleasure and privilege it was for her to have shared with them and learned from them during the process.

Due to a large number of qualified candidates and a week’s unavoidable absence by one of the interviewers, there was a two week wait to hear the results. By the  Thursday of the second week, Marcia thought (at Mike’s wise suggestion) to send a  “Thanks for taking the time to interview me, I’m still interested …” e-mail to each of the 3 interviewers. She was in the midst of composing this e-mail when the telephone rang. Continue Reading →