{"id":17672,"date":"2017-04-22T00:10:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T04:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=17672"},"modified":"2017-04-21T23:10:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T03:10:45","slug":"simple-thanks-and-r-e-s-p-e-c-t-for-earth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/simple-thanks-and-r-e-s-p-e-c-t-for-earth-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Simple Thanks and Respect for Earth Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Earth2017\"<\/a>

All creatures great and small make up our earth. Treat all with respect and the world will be a healthier and more compassionate place.<\/p><\/div>\n

Many years ago when I was a child I lived a very difficult life. Money was tight for our family (consisting of my mom, my step-dad, my brother and sister, and assorted step-family members who stayed with us on unpredictable, varying days). We lived in a very rural area \u2013 miles away from the small town\u2019s main street that boasted of an ice cream shop and a tiny movie theater – and relied completely on farming, gardening, hunting, and fishing to sustain ourselves. Clothes were homemade and food was made from scratch – it was a physically demanding life and I was always jealous of my friends who lived in town, buying their food and conveniences in the supermarket and whatnot.<\/p>\n

While many of my memories are extremely painful – I was a very sensitive animal lover, so you can well imagine some of the horrors I had to witness or participate in – with today being Earth Day it got me to thinking as I\u2019ve aged, that I\u2019ve also come to respect and appreciate what I once found objectionable.<\/p>\n

Living off the land for survival tends to give you a different perspective about the world around you. Frugality, respectfulness of nature, patience, and a commitment to hard work become a part of who you are. I\u2019m not saying those traits don\u2019t exist in current day, but for most of us, we\u2019ve been brought up to expect the conveniences around us so that we inadvertently take them for granted, often causing our precious Earth to suffer.<\/p>\n

\"earthday\"<\/a>

Take a moment for earth day to look at the amazing world around you. This is the planet we live on – treat it with respect and and be aware all you do to it affects future days to come.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m not perfect \u2013 I no longer rely on the land to survive and I enjoy the conveniences that make my everyday life easier – but I do try my best to be as respectful as possible. Perhaps that\u2019s why I have such a low tolerance for certain things \u2013 for example, littering makes my blood boil. If you can\u2019t find a trash can to throw something away immediately, wait until you can. Our earth is not meant to be a receptacle for soda cans, water bottles, foam cups and more. Wildlife suffers, the earth suffers, and there is no excuse for it.<\/p>\n

And wasting water \u2013 that’s a major pet peeve of mine. I can’t tell you how many times here in Florida I’ll see someone’s water sprinkler on while it’s raining outside and it makes me nuts. Within the United States alone there are several regions under severe drought conditions, not to mention many countries where water is nearly non-existent. Try to be respectful of that in your everyday life – turn the water off while your brushing your teeth or doing the dishes and only turn it on when you need to rinse instead of keeping it running from start to finish. Can you imagine how those without water would feel knowing you\u2019re letting precious gallons of water just waste away for no reason? I daresay they’d be flabbergasted at the nonchalance of it and we often treat it like it’s an unlimited resource.<\/p>\n

\"sink\"<\/a>

Jazmine shares one of my favorite public messages – help to conserve water by shutting it off when you’re not usin it!<\/p><\/div>\n

Recycle, reuse, reinvent. Don’t waste food on your plate – rather than throw away what you can’t eat, figure out a fun way to incorporate the leftovers into a creative new meal. When it comes to our cats, if you have toys or items your cat doesn’t use, such as scratching posts, consider donating them to your local shelter. I could go on and on but I\u2019ll leave it to one of my favorite pictures that says it all – Explore, Appreciate, Respect, Treasure, and Honor.<\/p>\n

\"RESPECT\"<\/a>

Our world is truly magnificent – get out there and enjoy it – just remember it’s only ours to borrow and we have to share it for generations to come.<\/p><\/div>\n

How about you – what kind of pet peeves do you have when it comes to keeping our planet healthy and green? What are some of the simple ways you contribute to making our earth a better place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago when I was a child I lived a very difficult life. Money was tight for our family (consisting of my mom, my step-dad, my brother and sister, and assorted step-family members who stayed with us on unpredictable, varying days). We lived in a very rural area \u2013 miles away from the small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1124,3],"tags":[961,962,678],"class_list":["post-17672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-events","category-inspiration-healing","tag-earth-day","tag-recycle","tag-respect"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Earth2017.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17672"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17679,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17672\/revisions\/17679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}