My Steps So Far

Other than starting this web site with the help of Paola Malicki, the web designer who customized the template that my friend and business partner Susan found for free at www.freecsstemplates.org (and that I LOVE because of the yellow butterfly, my lucky symbol), my steps to date are:

• Getting involved with the Share & Care Foundation, an organization in Orlando, FL, whose members drive around areas of town populated by homeless people and distribute food, clothes, hygiene articles, etc. I started by sending them money every month to buy food and other items, and then I began participating in the homeless feeding runs. I also introduced the idea of distributing books (self-help, inspirational, good fiction, literature) along with the food and the rest of the items. Since the initiative was successful (the great majority of the homeless people we encountered were very glad to be offered something to read), I started buying and collecting used books to continue including them in the distribution.

• Contributing financially to organizations such as Coalition for the Homeless (Orlando, FL), Safe House (Sanford, FL), Projeto Crescer (kids' project in Bahia, Brazil).

• Buying mostly organic products, choosing locally-grown produce whenever possible and drastically reducing my consumption of meat.

• Ditching plastic water bottles. I stopped buying and frequently replacing regular plastic bottles, and purchased a few machine-washable poly-carbonated plastic bottles instead. Since then, someone mentioned an article claiming that those are not good for us or the environment, either, so now I'm considering stainless steel (even though these need to be hand-washed).

• Using eco-friendly products. My friend Fabiola Hansen, who was kind enough to provide information on how to make your home more environmentally friendly, in addition to a lot of other info for this web site, gave me a bunch of eco-friendly cleaning products for Xmas, so now I'm using those around the house, too.

• Saving energy. I pulled the plug on a couple of appliances which I don't use that often, so that they won't be sucking electric energy non-stop. And, of course, I buy eco-friendly light bulbs (hey, every little step counts!).

• Improving myself. I guess I should include all my valiant efforts to improve myself and reach awareness (and hopefully Enlightenment, one of these days) by trying (too) hard, getting involved, reading tons of books, listening to loads of meditation/clearing/healing CDs, attending a bunch of workshops and pretty much doing the best I can...

As you can see, my small steps and big intentions are far from qualifying me as an unreachable role model. Much on the contrary; the whole point of this very wordy web site is: If someone like me can do it, pretty much anyone else can, too. Not to mention that, if you had the time and patience to read everything I wrote here, you can definitely do it!!!