First off, Lena - thank you so much for honoring me the request of a post on Over Coffee! I am very happy to be included in your month long celebration of Earth Day and have enjoyed the posts by Sommer and Lisa and as always your posts and tips!Also, I must thank Lena for making me pause and really consider my “green” factor and the purpose of Green Gigs.
I try to live a “greenish” lifestyle and I blog for many different reasons. However, the short answer to why I try my best to lead an eco-conscious lifestyle and why I blog is the birth of our third son temporarily turned our world upside down. This may seem a bit random, but really, they are connected, stay with me! Our youngest son was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a birth defect that impacts heart and lung formation and function and kills upwards of 50% of babies born with the condition. The cause of CDH is still unknown, but it is largely believed to be genetic disorder and some references to environmental factors have been made as well.
As anyone who is a parent can attest to, when something happens to your child it is natural to blame yourself. I consider myself green by “nature and training” and spent a couple years working as an Environmental Scientist long before I ever had children. So there is that little piece of me that always wonders if something I came in contact with caused the manifestation of my son’s birth defect. As such, I feel strongly that living a green lifestyle is in the best interest of our children and their children as well. Anything I can do today to lessen the environmental impact on future generations, matters.
Our little blue bundle of joy thankfully survived and eventually arrived home from the NICU and, like any newborn would, proceeded to keep me up the better part of the night for the next fifteen months. Add to that his tendency to start the day at 4:00 am and my background as a freelancer and I found myself looking to do something during those pre-dawn hours…welcome Green Gigs!
One of the fundamentals of blogging is to post consistently, and our early mornings certainly allowed me to do that. Now that my son is doing great and sleeps later, I have actually become a less predictable blogger, sorry readers. But from my nights of sleep-deprivation and desire to lessen my footprint, I have hopefully helped others find eco-friendly employment!
Thank you Lori for that very personal guest post! I am glad to hear that your son is doing better.
I met Lori through the Green and Clean Mom forum and we quickly became friends (it still amazes me how I can 'click" with people that I have never met). I think Lori’s blog focuses on a niche whose demand is ever increasing, for many reasons. I definitely agree that she is an up and coming women blogger to watch! I will be proud to say I knew her when.... ;-)
I am really enjoying reading about the different inspirations and stories behind why some of my favorite green bloggers started blogging! I hope you are enjoying it too.
Posts
3 comments:
It was great to see you post a personal type of piece, as you know, we follow you quite a bit at Twitter.
The question "why do you blog" is an interesting one, and I'm always surprised at many of the reason's I hear, although I have yet to find a bad one (at least in the green circle)
I think that what it really comes down to is the fact that "We protect those things that we love." for some, it is their children. Protecting the environment (the air, water and soil that sustain us) is a direct protection of those we love.
For others, protecting the environment is helping to protect just that, and for others, its all about future generations.
At Twilight Earth, we are fond of pointing out that Environmentalism isn't so much about taking care of the planet as it is about taking care of ourselves.
Great article, and keep up the good fight.
Adam Shake
Founder of Twilight Earth
Thank you for the nice comment Adam, and I have to agree with you, it does come down to protecting what we love. As has been mentioned on Twilight Earth, saving the environment does come down to saving ourselves. Earth will be here, whether it will support us is another question.
So yes, I protect the environment to protect my children and hopefully others' children as well. I appreciate everyone like you and Lena here at Over Coffee who are doing their part to make a difference, because it does make a difference.
Lori, I enjoyed reading your post about why you blog and your attempt to live an eco-friendly life (I can identify with that).
I think blogging is one of the best ways to create green communities and to support and learn from each other as we find new ways to become greener and more efficient. I've gotten lots of great tips from the many neat bloggers out there and have also learned that I'm not alone whether it's trying to become greener or trying to be a better mother.
Post a Comment