Happy Earth Day! (Ten Tips)

Hello Friends,

Hope all is well. Happy Earth Day. Today is the day to celebrate our planet. We need to be mindful of the place that we call home. We must take better care of our habitat. If we don't we will soon have to find another place to live.

Use this day as a reminder to take care of the earth. It should become a daily practice. The following are some great tips to help preserve the earths' resources. Begin to employ these energy saving tactics. If enough people adhere to these practices, the planet will be a much cleaner and safer place to live.

Remember that we are connected to nature. There has to be a balance between humans and nature. If we exhaust the planet of its resources it will no longer be able sustain us as a people. Love your planet. Respect your planet. Give back to your planet. Mother Earth will certainly return the favor ten fold. Have a great afternoon and thanks for listening. Blessings!

Ten things you can do this Earth Day
Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Wondering how you can make a difference? Here are 10 things you can do to help the planet, whether it's Earth Day or not.

1. Leave your car at home for a day (or a week or a month) and try walking or biking. If work is too far away to walk, take public transit or carpool. One city bus eliminates the emissions of 40 cars.

2. Turn off the lights, the computer and the television when they are not in use. Using only highly efficient and money-saving appliances can reduce the electricity consumption of an average household to one-10th of the national average.

3. Try eating meat-free at least one day a week. A meat-based diet requires seven times more land than a plant-based diet. Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world.

4. Choose foods produced organically, locally and in season. Support your regional farmers and farming industry: buying locally and in season is better for the environment than buying foods that have been shipped hundreds of kilometres to your local market.

5. Put a composter in your backyard or use your green bin to reduce household waste. Composting organics has two key benefits: it reduces the amount of waste going to landfills and when added to your garden, helps nourish soil and plants.

6. Turn off your car's engine if stopped for more than 10 seconds. If every driver of a light-duty vehicle avoided idling by five minutes a day, collectively, we would save 1.8 million litres of fuel per day, almost 4500 tonnes of GHG emissions.

7. Set your thermostat above room temperature in the summer and below room temperature in the winter. For each degree you adjust, you can save 5% on your utility bill and 1% on your energy use.

8. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). A CFL uses only 25% as much energy as an incandescent bulb and lasts 10 times longer.

9. The simple act of recycling has more impact on the environment than the average Canadian thinks. The amount of wood and paper North Americans throw away each year is enough to heat five million homes for 200 years.

10. This is a great opportunity to brag. Tell someone what you're doing to make the world a better place. Support the cause. Encourage them to get involved too.

Source: Earth Day Canada

Be Prepared For What The Universe Has For You

Hello Friends,

Hope all is well. I'm completely moved into my new apartment and I love it. It is everything that I had been wanting for the past couple of months. I loved my old apartment but it was starting to get a little cramped.

I started to focus on the apartment that I wanted while being grateful for the one that I already had. My new apartment is a lot bigger. So much that I have to much space and not enough stuff. I see that as a blessing. An opportunity to grow.

I learned an important lesson about being prepared when opportunity presents itself. When I was first told about the apartment I hesitated. I was asking the Universe for a bigger apartment, but when given the opportunity, I froze up a little. I began to think of everything that was wrong with such as move. I thought things like:

-I'm already comfortable.
-The move will take too long.
-I have no one to help me.
-I don't have the time to move right now.
-The rent is going to be too high.
-I have to change my address again.
-I have to switch over all my utilities.
-Moving my turtle tank is going to be a pain.

This is the short list. It seemed like within a minute I thought of a thousand reasons why I shouldn't move. I got what I wanted but I wasn't prepared for what I got. I have written about preparation and opportunity before, but it really hit home once I stopped and looked at the move as an opportunity rather than a chore.

A lot of us are wanting "things" for our life. It could be a new car, a new career, or a new relationship. We are asking and asking, but when the opportunity presents itself we sometimes crawl back into our little shell.

Begin to prepare yourself for opportunity. If you are asking for something, begin to live that life. If you are wanting to start a new business, start living like you already own the new company. Get into that mindset. Do all the research necessary for that particular business. Know your business inside out. Once the opportunity is there, you will be prepared to go ahead full steam. On the other hand, if you don't prepare, you will probably fail very quickly.

Here are some great preparation quotes to help us to remember to be ready when opportunity knocks. Memorize one or two of them. Use these quotes as a reminder to yourself. Preparation is very important to creating the existence that you want. Be ready for what the Universe has for you. Many blessings ,and thanks for listening.

Miguel De Cervantes
To be prepared is half the victory.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.
The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

Henry Ford
Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success.

John F. Kennedy
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

Johnny Carson
Talent alone won't make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: 'Are your ready?'

Eleanor Roosevelt
One thing life taught me -- if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you.

Samuel Smiles
He who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Louis Pasteur
Luck favors the mind that is prepared.

William Shakespeare
All things are ready, if our minds be so.

William Arthur Ward
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

Almost Done

Hello Friends,

Hope all is well. I finally got my cable and internet hooked up today, so I just wanted to say hi to everyone. I should have everything in my new apartment organized by the end of the day and life will be back to normal.

Thank you for those of you who emailed while I was making the move. I truly feel like I'm part of a positive global community that looks out for each other. I was surprised to see that people had left messages just checking up on me to make sure I was okay. I am truly blessed.

I'm going to go back to organizing the apartment. Here's a short video with some great quotes for Dale Carnegie. I just picked up his book How to Win Friends & Influence People. It was recommended to me by two different people this week, so I'll take as a sign that I should read it. Have a great day everyone. Many blessings!

Change = Growth

Hello Friends,

Hope all is well. I'm in for a hectic weekend. I'm moving apartments. It won't be a hard move, as I'm just switching to a bigger apartment in the same complex. A move is still a move. Most of us have changed locations so you know what I'm in for.

I'm excited for the change. Like I said, it's a bigger apartment. Lots of light. A definite upgrade. I'm blessed. For me change is good. Some people resist change because it's unfamiliar. It's risky. It's unknown. It is so much easier to just stay where you are in life. But where's the growth?

When my landlord approached me about taking the apartment, I hesitated at first. The first thing that came to my mind was, "I can't afford it. It's too much." I almost said no then I thought to myself, "C'mon Dex. What have you been writing about for the last week?" Focus on what you want instead of what you don't want.
So I switched my thinking from "not having the money" to "I will have the money. No problems."

Well the next day I just focused on having the money to pay for that first months rent. That evening I got a call from my friend Nelly. Nelly is an example of positivity always at work. She needed a favor and before she even asked me I began to get goosebumps.

This is what she asked me. "My friend Hazel and her sister-in-law need a weekend getaway. They wanted to stay at a hotel on South Beach but it will be too expensive for them. Is it possible for them to pay you $100 a day to stay in you apartment. They want to stay for 5 days."

An opportunity was placed in front of me and I had to take it. More than half of my rent will be paid for me this upcoming month because I simply shifted my focus to what I wanted. It won't be a hassle because one of my friends will be moving into my old apartment so I can stay with him for those days. It all works out.

Some people call it lucky, buy I don't necessarily believe in luck anymore. Gary Player, one of the greatest golfers of all time said, "The more I practice, the luckier I get." It's the same for focus. The more you practice focusing your thoughts on what you want, the more the Universe conspires in your favor.

Have a great weekend. I probably won't get to post again until Monday. Who knows I might get some inspiration and write something amidst all the chaos. Remember to let the Universe figure out the "hows" and "whens" of our existence. The Universe always gives us what we are wanting as long as we are willing to allow for it. Enjoy this short poem about change. Don't resist. Just "go with the flow." Blessings!

Change

Change is everywhere,
All around us.
If you do not notice any change,
You are not changing.
If you do not notice any change,
Have you seen,
The ocean,
The skies,
The seas,
The land?
If you do not notice any change,
You, alone, will never change.

Kelland Chew