As I get my blog revamped and revitalized, I thought I’d post something that struck me recently. As we head into Christmas, I hope everyone steps back and realizes just how fortunate we are.

Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back 
in my earlier days.”

The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment f or future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truely recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn’t do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. 
And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Thanks to my friend Cris, over at Goodeness Gracious, I’ve been able to get some hands-on time with some fun Verizon technology! 

If I am to be completely honest, I am a fairly loyal Apple user.  I love my Ipad, Ipod and wish I had a Mac as a computer.  However, as I’m trying to branch into other brands, I was excited to try the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. 

The screen is 7 inches.  And the colors were pretty awesome.  It was just like using my laptop, only on a smaller screen.

The one who seemed to love it most was my Lion Cub.  He is a big fan of stealing his sister’s Ipads, so we have been debating buying him his own Leapster or other screen toy.  Now I’m thinking he wants this tablet! 

One advantage to this tablet is the size.  Although I was a bit uncertain about using a smaller tablet, I did like how it could easily fit in my purse.  Then the kids could play with it during doctor visits, endless meetings I drag them to, or in the car. 

I am still learning what apps are available for these types of devices so I didn’t utilize the apps like I could have.  I also appreciated how long the battery lasted.  I seem to burn through the battery on my IPad.  I felt this battery lasted a bit longer.

And now the tablet is back in a box and going back to Verizon, as I only got to play with it for a few weeks.  I had to pry it out of my little guys hands! 

While Verizon is providing me their fun new gadgets to experience, I am not getting paid for the experience.  And the opinions are mine.  Do you really think I’d give you someone else’s opinions? 

And there is another gadget waiting for me to play with it!  That post will have pictures.  Life has gotten in the way of blogging the past few weeks.  I will save those details for later posts.

I have said over and over that I have the best job in agriculture. As promoter of my state’s wine industry, I have the pleasure of working with 63 fabulous wineries and winemakers. I get to watch many new wineries open and see their wine be enjoyed by thousands of consumers. One of the really neat events I do every year is the media for our Indy International Wine Competition.

The competition takes place over three days at the Purdue Memorial Union Ballrooms. This year we have over 2600 entries from 41 states and 14 countries! Wineries from countries like France, Australia, Argentina and Germany have all sent their best entries to the competition. And even more exciting is to see states like North Dakota, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, Washington, Oregon and Indiana send their wines! States that you didn’t even expect to have wineries often make outstanding wine!

This picture shows what the Purdue Memorial Union ballrooms look like with 10,000 bottles of wine in it! Boiler Up!!

We invite 50 judges from around the world to go through these wines. They award gold, silver, bronze or no medal ratings based on the quality of each wine.

What are they hoping to win? Wine of the Year!! The best wine of the entire competition! More on those winners next week!