20 minutes in another world!

Have you ever heard the phrase "Take time to stop and smell the roses"?  Well, why stop at the roses?  Let's face it, we all have very busy, hectic lives which leaves us hardly any time left to enjoy the "other world" around us.  I am 100% guilty of this.  Between work, school, family, and other responsibilities, there is barely enough time to sleep.  How am I supposed to make more time to explore a whole new world?  Well, it's time for a change!  Today I decided to spend 20 minutes of my lunch hour out in the "backyard" at work.  Yes, I am fortunate to have an area behind our building that has grass, trees, and picnic tables, but I have to admit, I have never really taken advantage of it.

I began at 12:15pm on Tuesday, February 28th.  I had to bring a blanket to sit on because it rained all day on Monday and the grass was still wet.  The first thing I noticed are the ants.  There are a ton of them.  I'm not sure why, but it seems that ants are much more visible right after it rains.  Next, I look up at the lemon tree we have and I notice a hummingbird looking for food.  We used to have a hummingbird feeder in that tree but one of the stray cats that live in the yard knocked it down a few weeks ago.  I guess we should put the feeder back up, we wouldn't want anyone to go hungry.  This hummingbird was beautiful, and I had never seen one quite like it.  It's head was bright red.  I wish I had my cell phone with me so I could take a picture of it, but since we are not allowed to have our phones on us during work, I had left it in my car.  I decided to look up "red headed hummingbirds" on the internet when I got back from lunch and I found out that it was most likely a Male Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna).  The web-site I credit for giving me this information and picture is:
http://biologybiozine.com

Here is the picture similar to what I saw:

Isn't it beautiful?

Next, I decided to close my eyes for a few moments and just listen.  Aside from the usual sounds of big rig trucks driving by (I work across the street from the DMV that gives truck drivers licenses) I heard several birds chirping.  I wasn't able to see the birds when I opened my eyes so they must have been hiding in trees, but they were sure loud.  I also heard a couple of dogs barking from the lot next to us.  They are very friendly Rottweiler dogs, but they are also very good guard dogs.  The last thing I heard was someone from the front office paging me for a phone call, and at that moment I knew that my 20 minutes in another world was over.  However, you better believe that I will be spending many more lunches exploring that new world I found today.  You should give it a try yourself, it really is an eye-opening experience.  It doesn't matter if you are out in a park or in the middle of an industrial area like I was, you can always bet you will see some form of life that you never really saw before.

P.S. This is a satellite view of my work that I got from http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Ecological Footprint

Have you ever wondered how your current lifestyle might effect our planets resources?  What if there were some simple steps you could take that would help reduce the amount of resources we use on a daily basis.  There is a web-site that you can go to that will help you understand how your everyday activities are impacting our planet, and it will also give you helpful ideas that you can implement into your lifestyle to make a positive impact on our planet.  The web-site is www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator.  I went to this web-site and completed the quiz myself.  Below are the results of my Ecological Footprint:

     If everyone lived like me, we would need 4.4 planet Earths to provide enough resources for our population.  Obviously we do not have 4.4 planet Earths to spare so there are definitely changes that have to be made.  To support my lifestyle, it takes 19.4 global acres of the Earths productive area and 20.6 tons of carbon dioxide.  To break down my results of the quiz even further, it shows that the largest area for improvement for me would be in services that I use, which accounts for 45% of my Ecological Footprint.  This is followed by mobility which accounts for 17%.  So what did I learn from this exercise?  Well, I learned that if I make some simple changes in the way I live, I can do my part to help reduce the amount of the Earths resources that are used to sustain my lifestyle.  If we reduce the amount of animal products that we currently eat by half, we would use 645 million fewer global acres, which would cover 484 million football fields.  More impact can be made if we purchased more products that use less packaging or are made from recycled material.  Using public transportation one day a week instead of driving my SUV could help make big impacts on the amount of resources used.  The web-site offers several more ideas that will help make the necessary lifestyle changes needed to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to live full healthy lives on this planet.  Go ahead and log on to the web-site yourself and see how you can help by changing your Ecological Footprint.

www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator

A Little Info About Me

Hi, my name is Paula and I want to welcome everyone to my blog “Love life and everything in it” I started this blog as an assignment for my Environmental Science class in college, and I hope you enjoy reading what is on my mind.  I thought I would start off by telling you a little bit about myself so you can get to know me.  I live in Perris, CA. with my husband Duane and my two sons Nick and Cameron.  Duane and I have been together for just over 22 years and I have to say, he is my best friend and soul mate.  That may seem like a cliché but honestly, we have been through so much together, that it is the truth.  Our son Nick is 18 and is attending his first year of college.  Our son Cameron is 12 and is currently in the 7^th grade. The picture above is of Cameron and Nick, and Nick’s girlfriend Keaina at Disneyland.   I am 41 years old and I’m not embarrassed to say that.  I believe that if you lie about your age, you are truly only lying to yourself.  We are a household that loves its pets.  We have two dogs, Daisy and Dexter, and one cat, Patches who is almost 14 years old.  We also have a hamster and an 80 gallon fish tank.

I am currently attending Moreno Valley College and Riverside City College to get my Associates degree in Math and Science.  I decided two years ago that even though I had a good successful job, I could move up in my career if I went back to school and earned my degree.  It has definitely been a challenge working full time and attending classes at night (12 units a semester), however at the same time it has been rewarding.  My kids have learned how important it is for them to continue their education while they are still young and do not have all the responsibilities that a grown adult has.  I do not want them to struggle the way I have had to these past few years.  I have a great job that is really supportive of my continuing education goals.  I work for the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory in San Bernardino, CA.  We are a veterinary diagnostic lab as well as a food pathogen lab that is a division of the University of California at Davis.  I work in the Microbiology and Food Pathogens section as a Research Analyst.  I love my job and I love coming to work every day.  Not a lot of people can say that about their employment, so I am proud to say that I can.

I decided to take this Environmental Science class, not only as a degree requirement, but as a curiosity to the other side of science that I am not familiar with.  In other words, I work with all types of bacteria on a daily basis in the laboratory, but wouldn’t it be interesting to know what kind of role those microorganisms play in helping maintain balance in our environment. Okay, that was the science geek in me coming out.  I could go on and on about my thoughts, but then I would not have much to write in the future, so I will stop for now.