Two Blog Milestones

Without me even noticing, I passed my 500th post two posts back.  This is actually post #503.  Just to think that I have been writing about the greening of me and my family for two years now, and that my green epiphany goes all the way back to October 2006.  Three action packed years of greening and learning to slow my life down and live sustainably.  What a fantastic journey it has been, and continues to be.

The other milestone is that if I keep receiving visitors at this rate then in the next two days I will have clocked over my 50,000th visitor to the site with a total of about 78,300 pages read.  That also amazes me that so many people are interested in what I do and think about the current range of situations that face humanity.  On average about 130 visits a day, but more than I ever thought I would receive.

So what has changed in 3 years and what have I learnt?  Well, quite a bit.

1. I now own the Honda Civic Hybrid that I drive and I paid the lease out with cash from all the frugality!
2. I can never seem make enough compost for our vegetable garden and orchard.
3. Chickens make me laugh every day, each one has a personality, and they are certainly not dumb animals.
4. I love my family more each passing moment, and am so proud that they have each incorporated a little bit of greenness in each of their lives.
5. Home grown vegetables taste fantastic, and store bought tomatoes are for people without taste buds.
6. I learnt to feed the soil, not the plant.
7. Making cheese is a rewarding hobby.  I wish I had room for a goat or cow!
8. That writing your thoughts down somewhere is good therapy.
9. That Peak Oil and Climate Change are the two biggest issues that face humanity today, and we foolishly did it to ourselves.
10. Having a solar power station on your roof is just simply amazing.  It is a great talking point and saves you more money in the long run than your initial investment.  I laugh when the media complains about the price of electricity going up.
11. I believe that what I write about people who push my buttons, I would say it to their face if ever given the opportunity.
12. I have live a full life, know who I am and what my goals are, lofty they may be.
13. We all have ups and down in our life, but this simply builds resilience and determination.
14. Hard work never hurt anyone’s soul, just the type of hard work you do and how much you treasure the outcome.  Fruitless work zaps your mind, body and soul.  I still live with this dichotomy every day I commute and I think that when I figure out what to do about it, I will be complete in all three areas.
15. Home baked bread is just divine, and so is any meal you make yourself especially if you grew some of the ingredients yourself.
16. Saving money is easy when you cut consumption of stuff
17. That starting and helping to run a community group is fulfilling, and a great way to meet like minded people in your local area.
18. A life lived in fear is a life half lived.  Do green things you never thought you would do, and always try and think outside the square.  It is like chicken soup for the soul.
19. I have learnt that who we think we are is just a collection of our current self beliefs.  These beliefs and behaviours can change in an instant as I certainly experienced 3 years ago.
20. I believe that growth of a country should not be measured in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but with a different indicator like a Gross National Happiness indicator as in the Kingdom of Bhutan. 

Really, it would take me a month of Sundays to really write down how much I have changed and if I had a happiness bar (like in the game, The Sims) above my head it would be full to the brim.  Sure I have down days when things don’t seem to go right, but with a little bit of reflection I bounce back even stronger. 

So even though this post has been a largely inward looking, I just though I would share a few of the wonderful things I have learnt and done during the last 3 years at these two blog milestones.

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
– James Oppenheim