Philisophical Friday_Hard Work Pays

November 13, 2009 at 11:45 pm (Square Foot Gardening)

Today I saw millions of dollars being given away.  Millions!!!money

Chicago Public Schools in association with Seimens Corporation offered high school seniors with a record of academic success free money to go to school.   The scholarships are contingent on the students following through with the appropriate paperwork and maintaining their GPA, but if they follow the rules, the money is theirs.   There were two or three students who were offered four-year full ride scholarships FROM MULTIPLE SCHOOLS no less, some with a value of over $80,000.  One school even threw a laptop into the kitty. 

So the message to the kids out there:  Listen to you folks when they tell you school is important.  These young people earned this money by keeping their grades up.  The better your grades, the more money you could potentially get.  You show “them” that you’re serious about your education, they want you to be on their team, and they’re willing to entice you onto their team with a financial incentive.

The message to the parents out there:  Start early instilling into your kids the importance of working hard and doing well in school. 

As our babies grow up and enter young adulthood, ultimately they will decide (despite our pleading, our preaching or our threats)  how much effort they will put into their education.    Millions of dollars of free money to build a road to their future is a nice carrot to dangle in front of them.

Congratulations to my son for you hard work, particularly this last year.  Thank you to you dad for being able to open your eyes a little wider about the importance of buckling down and getting your school work done.  And thank you, thank you, thank you Virginia State University for offering my baby some moola to attend your institution.

And it’s not too late.  Almost all of the representatives from the colleges said there was more money still available to give away. 

Here’s a site that you might find helpful:  Choose Your Future

Happy Gardening Planning For Your Future!!

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Philosophical Friday

November 6, 2009 at 7:05 pm (Square Foot Gardening)

Love is not not being able to live without someone…

…it’s not wanting to.

Holding_Hands_by_knightrazor

~  ~  ~

 

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Art Imitating Life

October 19, 2009 at 10:24 pm (Square Foot Gardening)
Tags: ,

I hope the gardeners out there got a chance to watch CSI Miami tonight. 

CSI

 The episode was about the deaths of two youngsters who ate contaminated vegetables at a restaurant.  The culprit was traced back to, guess what?  Genetically engineered corn.  The show touched on a lot of hot topics:  Genetically engineered seeds, farmers losing their land when the genetically engineered produce cross pollinated with their produce, contaminated animal feces contaminating the soil, the food safety issue, Big Brother (Monsanto?) taking “calculated risks” with us consumers.  

I saw the CSI episode after coming from the grocery store and thinking $3 for a bag of organic onions was expensive when the non-organic onions cost $1.29.  I’m having much more respect for organic produce.  I’m having even much more appreciation for the fact that I like gardening, I like to grow my own food, and I hope that the eyes of the public were opened by tonight’s episode of CSI and that it encourages everybody to grow a little of their own.

Happy Gardening!!!

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Philosphical Friday_Volunteerism_Giving a little…Getting a little more.

October 2, 2009 at 5:18 pm (Philisophical Friday, Square Foot Gardening)

I’ve been told by folks who know me best that I have a strange way of thinking about things.  Well, they might be right.  I’ll let you be the judge.  Every Friday (or most Fridays, you know how life can be) I’m going to share some of my thoughts with the blogosphere.  You decide:  Innovative Thinker…The Thinker…or, Girlfriend, you need a little help!

I know when you volunteer you’re supposed to do it as a selfless act of giving.  Well, would it be so bad to get a little something out of the deal? 

I recently volunteered to pull weeds in the garden of the person who helped my mother-in-law set up a really large garden many years ago.  I got so much pleasure from that garden, which was a whole city lot, that I jumped at the chance to work in the garden.  But would I have done it if I didn’t get something out of the deal?  I don’t honestly know.  This was a volunteer day to earn your “badge” for the Building Urban Gardens (BUGs) class I took earlier.  I was on the fence about working on the badge, but when the volunteer opportunity came up for Rowan Tree Society’s community garden I figured I’d give it a shot.   I was a little surprised to see how many other people were there.  The Excelon Group had quite a few of their employees out doing volunteer work.   (I wonder if they got something out of the deal.)

The next week I volunteered at the Great perennial Divide sponsored by Open Lands.  The call for volunteers included “free plants.”  I’m such a sucker for free plants.    The Great perennial Divide is a program that supplies free plants to community gardens (even backyard gardeners if they donate plants). 

It was an extremely well organized event.  You must pre-register in order to participate.  I was going to participate as a backyard gardener, but if I volunteered I could kill two birds with one volunteer day (free plants and one more day of volunteering for the BUGS program). 

On the morning of the event, the gardeners check in, are given a number, and promptly at 10 a.m. start driving their cars into the parking lot where the plants have been separated into individual  allotments.    My job as a volunteer was to load plants into vehicles.  Approximately 45 cars and trucks were literally stuffed with free plants.  So, what did I get out of this volunteer experience?  Free plants, of course, but I got the chance to look and handle literally hundreds of plants.  (Hmmm.  Do I hear a future post?  When does a hobby become an obsession?)

While I was loading the plants I ran into Sandra Patterson, a friend of one of the ladies from the BUGs class who also has a large area for community gardening and a club house.  She told me that their next project is installing a rain garden in the club house’s back yard and that they need volunteers.  What can I get out of the deal?  Free education on how to install a rain garden.  Yep, I’m more than happy to “volunteer.”

Volunteering

Is it selflessly giving of yourself ….

….or selfishly satisfying an internal desire?

Either way, everybody wins.

Happy Gardening!!!

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