disappointed

After posting on 4/30 that the Texas Senate had passed a Bill regulating sand mining on the San Jacinto, bad news. The Bill died in the House. I had thought it was pretty much a done deal, but I learned something about politics - it's not over until the bill is signed into law. It was the end of the legislative session and the Bill simply did not make it out of Committee onto the floor to be voted on. I am extremely frustrated with how difficult it is to even find out about what is going on in the legislature. Even though Jennifer Lorenz of Legacy Land Trust had regular contact with the Senator's office that supported the Bill, it was not something the public knew about, and it's like a sleuth hunt trying to figure out when the bill is in Committee or being voted on. All I can say is, maybe next session.

What's ahead: Next weekend I am paddling the 10-mile Neches River Rendezvous through lush bottomland hardwood forest, and then heading up to interview some people about the Neches National Wildlife Refuge, currently embroiled in a lawsuit, basically Dallas wants to build the Fastrill reservoir right over the top of the refuge.

The kids got out of school for the summer and are already bored! Ha ha! I told them I'd give them more chores if they wanted... I'm so proud of my babies - they were the only two kids in the entire school to get "Superior Achievement Award" which means they earned a 95 overall average for the year, with no grade below a 90 in ANY subject - including math, science, literature, history, Spanish, Art and PE - all year! Last year, Savannah was the only student in middle school to get the award and now that Sam is in middle school, he got it too! At the beginning of the year, I told Sam I'd buy him a Robo Sapien if he got the same. And he did! Two Christmases ago, we laughed so hard in Radio Shack over the crazy antics of this large white robot. It costs a small fortune!

camping with 5th graders

Had a great trip camping with Sam's 5th grade class. We stayed at Colorado Bend State Park, and took a day trip to Enchanted Rock State Park. It was a wonderful experience because it challenged so many fears of the kids. The first day we tromped through these spring-fed water holes with slippery rocks, muddy bottoms and algae - but they were beautiful with lots of little waterfalls. Some of the kids did not like the mud and algae but all went through everything anyway.

The next day, hiking up Enchanted Rock was awesome. I'd been there before, in fact I wrote about it in a story called Top of Texas for Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine. Sam and another couple of boys were truly terrified they would fall down the rock! It's a steep walk, but it's not rock climbing that we did - just a steep hike up a giant granite batholith. I encouraged Sam and another boy to overcome their fears, and just put one foot in front of the other. They didn't want to look backwards, and they didn't want to go forward at one point, but they did it, and by the end they climbed down just fine. We also clambered through some "caves" made by giant granite boulders and this was a bit scary for me! Several kids were scared at this point too, but we all did it - every single one! They were saying things like they overcame all their fears. ;) It was cute.

That afternoon, we drove back to CO Bend to our camp and "swam" in the Colorado River which had a very swift current but was pretty shallow. I stayed downstream because I was really worried some of the kids would lose their footing and float downstream beyond me or the other parents and Mr W. In fact several kids did lose their footing and I had to grab them, because they would sort of panic and lose their wits. We then went on a night hike and saw a deer and its spotted fawn (only a couple of us saw it) and several armadillos. Later, we looked at the stars. The first night it was partially cloudy but I showed Sam and his friend the stars both nights. I brought my star chart with me! We made Smores the 2nd evening - my favorite!! Here are a few photos.

Overcoming fear... on a steep hike up Enchanted Rock!

A beautiful view on the way.

A brilliant orange prickly pear cactus flower.These little depressions at the top of Enchanted Rock get filled in over many years with dirt, allowing plants to grow. Fairy shrimp live in some of them also.
Mr. W "falling off the rock." The campsite.

Gorman Falls at Colorado Bend State Park. We hiked here the 3rd day, before heading home. Sam sitting by the Colorado River.

koala article... and my first podcast

I traveled down to University of Houston campus to record my first podcast at the KUHF studios. This was a podcast where I was interviewed by OnEarth magazine editor Laura Wright about my article that will appear in their upcoming Autumn issue about The Compact, a movement to stop buying new "stuff" to combat the negative environmental impacts of consumerism. Recording is always fun, and I've definitely gotten more comfortable the more times I do it. The first time I was God-awful! Anyway, I'll link to the podcast when it appears online, probably in a few weeks.

I'm heading to Colorado Bend State Park with Sam and his 5th grade class tomorrow for a 3-day camping trip. Should be fun!

Oh look! My article on koalas "Will Urban Sprawl K.O. the Koala?" is out in the latest National Wildlife magazine. It talks about how they have koala ambulances and a crew of volunteers that rescue koalas hit by cars. Cool beans. I also interviewed Dr. Jon Hanger from Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo's Wildlife Hospital.

City of Angels

I just got back from L.A. where I went to Paige and Hugh's awesome unique wedding, and also met a lot of really cool people! While there I visited with my 2nd cousin Daria, and met up with writer friend Judy Stock (who I've known virtually for probably 10 years but never met) and also fellow blogger and artist Wendee who posts comments here regularly! :) We had a great time. I will post photos soon.

Meanwhile I haven't posted here as much because I've been posting to my Fish Wars blog so take some time and go visit it!

I'm trying to increase visibility so linking to this... Technorati Profile

Ciao and more soon!

one small step...

I am so proud and happy. Today, a bill passed the Texas Senate that will require permits and a reclamation plan for sand mines on the San Jacinto River and parts of Spring Creek - SB 359.

A year and a half ago, I came up with the idea to nominate the San Jacinto River as one of American Rivers "Most Endangered" (they pick 10 every year) and got Jennifer Lorenz of Legacy Land Trust to co-nominate it with me since she runs a nonprofit working to preserve habitat along the river, and I run San Jacinto Conservation Coalition (which is really at this point just me drumming up awareness about various things related to the San Jacinto River).

So the river got selected, due to the problems caused by sand mining all along it's edges. Check out the photo at SJCC main page - it's hideous. I thought for sure the issue would get some media coverage after the big announcement. But the announcement came and went in April 2006, and the much anticipated media hype never happened. A few short blurbs ran in newspapers in the state, but not even a big piece in the Houston Chronicle!

So I said, heck I better write about this myself. I had some concern since I had nominated the river, and there's this whole debate over journalistic objectivity. But nothing was happening. And honestly, although we strive for objectivity true objectivity is impossible, and there are plenty of people actively involved in issues and writing about them - Rick Bass, David Helvarg, to name a few. I gave my talk at UNT recently about this issue of objectivity versus advocacy. I think it's important to be upfront about one's involvement in an issue, to be sure, if one writes about the issue so the reader understands where you're coming from. My piece is a very first person approach.

Anyway, I wrote a couple in-depth pieces for CleanHouston.org but then I wrote a feature article for Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, Many Bayous, One River, which also included my photos nabbing a polluter. I really liked the way it turned out. I didn't know about the legislation in the Texas Congress until several months later but my editor at the magazine emailed a few weeks ago to say that someone had requested 20 copies of my article. Turns out the entire Senate Natural Resources Committee got a copy of the mag issue with my article. Cool beans! The legislation specifically mentions that the river is an "Endangered River" so the nomination and article both helped get this legislation passed! I am very grateful to Jennifer who worked with Senator Tommy Williams who sponsored the bill. Now it just has to get through the House...

Yea! This is the coolest professional accomplishment ever. Let's just hope it gets passed for real!

New York City photos

Jenna and Wendee, together after 20+ years! I last saw her when I was 16, and she was 15. Oh yea we did catch up in San Fran one year after I'd gotten back from Australia in college also.
This place is heaven on earth.... There's one in SoHo, one in Greenwich Village.

Inside the Chocolate by the Bald Man "chocolate factory" which has a chocolate fountain, and pipes filled with chocolate... it's awesome!

Inside the cool Evolution store in SoHo. SoHo by the way means South of Houston and don't ask me how or why New Yorkers call Houston house-ton rather than the typical pronunciation of Houston, but they do. Go figure!

I had to take this for Savannah's sake. One of her favorite words!

Jenna outside The Coffee Shop, where we had brunch. It was a very good restaurant!

Chinatown

A fish market in Chinatown

Miranda, Sharon and Wendee. The original Charlie's Angels! Ha ha! Gads my hair looks greenish-yellow...

Les Miz on Broadway (or in the general area)

Musicians in Central Park

A fountain in Central Park

Times Square - full of motion and energy!

Girlfriend time

I'm heading to Galveston tomorrow to spend time with Kim and Amy and a whole bunch of girls. We'll hang at the beach and stay in a condo there, having a few drinks, talking, hanging out. Yea!

Next weekend I head to LA for my friend Paige's wedding. Savannah was going to go with me, but she had the gall to win 1st place in the PSIA (Private Schools Intercollegiate something or other) competition in - get this - Writing! (OF course, I'm totally proud of her!!) She also won 2nd place in something else and so she will go to the State competition that same weekend. I'd already bought her plane ticket and everything, but I think I'm going to take her and Sam to San Francisco in June instead. I am going for Daline's big ceremony so it will be a fun summer trip. I love the Bay Area. I will also visit my niece Kira, her mom Zofia, possibly my brother, and go explore and show the kids the cool places like Haight Street, and the Point Reyes peninsula with all the seals lounging on the beach, Muir Woods with its tall redwoods, etc. Matt and I went up there once when we lived in LA and I just loved it.

I'm turning my Bohemian Adventures blog into a book... I need a good title. Any suggestions?

A Christian Evolutionist Speaks

I did it! Just as I said I would. Last night I set up a new blog, The Fish Wars: A Christian Evolutionist Speaks. Visit it at http://thefishwars.blogspot.com/

I love NY!

Just back from the Big Apple. Wow do I love New York City. Manhattan is so alive, so full of energy. People moving all night long! I went for the ASJA writer's conference and met with my agent, and with some publishers, and also spent some time catching up with friends and exploring Manhattan. Went to SOHO, Greenwich Village, East Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, Broadway, Central Park... Cool beans. Seeing NYC from the air is also a trip. I loved Central Park also. The day we walked around it was a drop dead gorgeous day, and Sharon and Miranda - two writing friends - and I had a blast. The day before I'd met with a friend Jenna Minardi I hadn't seen in 20 years, who I'd gone to high school with. She now runs a yoga studio in the Hamptons. It was so great to see her!! (Photo to left - NYC through Central Park)

I have been busy working on my book proposal, the book formerly known as "The Fish Wars: How Evolution and Christianity Can Make Peace" which I'm renaming "Losing My Religion: A Christian Gets Fed Up..." I need to come up with the second half of that sentence or just leave it as is. I am taking a much more first-person approach and will talk about how the anti-science fervor, the literalism and fundamentalism and Christian right mixing politics with religion is not just about as opposite as you can get from what Jesus was all about, it's causing a lot of people to laugh at and walk away from Christianity.

My book will also talk about how the people in the church were not there for me during and after my divorce while all my non-Christian friends were. What does this say about the faith? Or about theirs anyway? Not good. I have met person after person who have said the same thing. I am not embarrased in any way to be a Christian. I love the Bible, I love Jesus, and I think it's a beautiful empowering faith. But I am increasingly embarrassed by the Christians... the judgmentalism and narrow-minded pursuit of a political agenda, making creationism, abortion, gay marriage the main topics in their repertoire. What about poverty? What about being there for people in your life, and not running away or judging people who are not perfect? What about forgiveness?

There are certainly many wonderful things Christians have done in the world and continue to do. But in America, where I'm from and what I know, it's a mixed bag. All I know is that many intelligent and compassionate people would not think of becoming a Christian because of its rejection of science - which if you understand anything about the nature of science is as ignorant as it can get. It's actually quite harmful to our society, and quite scary how sheep-like people can be. I used to wonder how people could have ever been so naive as to follow Hitler as a leader. I completely understand now. People often blindly follow and don't think much. Jesus himself spoke of this... referring to people time and again as sheep. It's not pretty folks. Think!

I think I'm going to start a blog on this topic... Stay tuned.

the only friendships worth having...

I came across this awesome paragraph on friendship at Carrie Link's blog, who is a friend of Jennifer Lauck who wrote the memoirs Blackbird and Still Waters, which I LOVED and read several years ago in book club. I had just been visiting her website after thinking once again about writing my own memoir. They live in Portland which is of course where I'm from (Oregon that is). Cool beans.

Reprinted with permission and a very sweet email...
“The only friendships I'm interested in having these days, are the sister-like ones. The I don't care what I look or smell like around you kind. The stay up all night talking kind, the call at 2:00 in the morning when there's a problem kind. The go to the doctor with you for the scary appointment kind. The lingerie and high heel shopping kind. The let's talk about sex kind. The let's talk about depression kind. The let's not talk at all but don't move an inch kind. The I love you every day, all day long, my whole life kind. The love period kind.” – Carrie Wilson Link
Fully Caffeinated Blog

And another great quote by one of my all time favorite authors
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."
- M Scott Peck

quest

I have had a strong desire lately to go on a quest, an expedition of sorts. I have been feeling a pull to write the memoir i have talked about for so long. Of course this is balanced with the need to work on my book proposal for which i already have an agent... also important. i think the memoir will take some time to write anyway. my quest would be to go and meet and interview the people of my life, and the people in my parents' lives, my cousin, my relatives in vegas, and to talk extensively and memory-mine my dad, brother, and "second mom" Celeta. i just feel such a strong wanderlust sometimes, the desire to run away and escape... to search and seek. i also want to go to festivals like the Oregon Country Fair and Burning Man just to experience them and to be reminded of that hippie era i grew up in. It seems so far away... yet it is such a part of me. I hate the hypocrisy and materialism of the place i live. I am not saying everyone is like this, but i see it around me and woe to me that judges, but gads it drives me insane.

When i got divorced, i promised myself i would always be honest with my feelings and who i was and never hide again for fear of someone's judgements. i was so brave then, even as i made mistakes. and now i struggle between the opposite poles of fierce independence and the need to be accepted and loved. it seems so hard sometimes to find people who love you, despite your flaws. everyone wants to judge and run away and not solve problems. i hate that. it makes me angry. it's the way of the world, i suppose, but not the way i want my world to be. to accept humanity is to accept other flawed humans, and to forgive and to communicate and to grow together. I love that i have such amazing bright lights of friendships shining in the world, like the stars above. just wish you all were closer. i do not fit in to texas! never did like it here, even as a kid. and of course the words of my mother ringing through my ears "of course you like texas. don't be ridiculous" ever denying every thought and every statement i make...which continues. so foolish!

luminescence and loss

I was driving to the kids school Friday in a really good mood and i rounded this corner and i saw the sun shimmering down on the grass and i just thought "wow the world just glows, it is luminescent" and then i realized the sun was reflecting off of these silkworm threads that literally covered the grass, and a bagworm had completely surrounded this ginormous oak. I hope it doesn't kill the tree. lately, i've been running and the silkworms are dangling from the trees and they get all over me. i'll stop before crossing the major road and had to remove like 10 off of me!

i was in barnes & noble with my kids today and i picked up this book "Motherless Daughters" by Hope Edelman and i flipped it open and found some passages that blew my mind. although it is written about women whose moms died, in many ways i feel i was raised without a mother because my mom was emotionally unavailable in my early years and then later my dad won custody (when i was 8) and so i had that sort of gaping loss there. i have read a lot of the psychological literature about the effects of various things happening at various stages of life, and i have the patterns affiliated with a major loss during the very early years.

so this is what i related to:

"Self-reliance is perhaps the strongest of the barriers that individuals erect to keep themselves at a distance from others…"

as a very independent person i certainly do this - it's the whole 'i don't need anybody, i don't want anybody, i bought my own house, i pay my own bills, i don't need child support, i am financially independent...' attitude and persona, and yet at the same time there is this deep desire for love, yet i push it away and sabotage things by certain behaviors. i am convinced it is a subconscious way to avoid intimacy.

And here is another thing i related to:

"When a daughter fears loss so much that she believes it inevitable, she avoids forming relationships that might lead to the deep intimacy she craves. This daughter either dodges romance, chooses aloof partners, or extracts herself each time a relationship shows the first sign of long-term commitment. She refuses to make promises or respond to demands, afraid such actions will lead to intimacy that’ll be snatched from her again. She may become proficient at abruptly ending relationships before she has to make an emotional investment, an act that allows her to exercise the control she didn’t have when her mother died."

Changing the World

I am giving a talk Apr 4 at 9am at the University of North Texas Literary Symposium "Writing a Wide Land: A Conference on Texas Nature Writing." I'm working on the talk now, and it's titled "Changing the World One Story at a Time."

If you live in Texas head to Dallas for the symposium! Details online.

I'm working on the talk now with a major amount of writer's block! I know everything I want to say, but getting it all pulled together... that is a bit tougher. I finished an article on The Compact where I had to give up buying new stuff for a month. The piece turned out well. The Compact's Yahoo group - Interesting stuff.

response from a fellow divorcee

This was emailed by a friend of mine in response to my new orleans post, and I thought it was illuminating, and maybe it will help others helping friends going through divorce... Here it is:

I read your New Orleans post and was just reminded at how really dim people are about divorce. It seems like people seem prepared to deal with death and bereavement, but so terribly ill-equipped to handle the idea of divorce. Amazing. It's really like no one understands the profound loss and pain except someone else that went through it.

I had relatives that just totally left me alone, figuring that our divorce was messy and sad. So if a divorce is messy and sad, then ... wouldn't you think someone would want moral support? They were all too happy to chatter away when they knew it was a friendly separation, and go on and on and on. You want to smack them on their heads.

My father has never uttered the word "divorce" to me, nor ever asked if I was Okay or how I was doing, actually. By not speaking about it, these people around me really implied, in my mind, that it was a failure, something to really be ashamed of. Can we just ignore it and pretend that this didn’t happen? No one's asked about my ex, either, but he's doing pretty well. And I'm happy for him. Ours was an exceptionally amiable parting, which really was helpful. In my case, too, the person, oddly, who was able to offer the most support (in the unemotional way he is able to), was my ex.

In the darkest and saddest moments, trying to get to sleep, or steeling myself for a long day ahead in the shower, you feel the weakest. I never once was able to call someone to come over, to just put my head on someone else's shoulder and cry, or get a hug. I was consoling a friend during this time, going through tough times as well, and when I'd call, she'd always assume it was to check on her, but really many times it was to check on me. I'd ask her to come do things, and I feel like she finally got exasperated and said she was doing, fine, thanks, and that she had plenty of distraction and people near to her to help keep her spirits up (in not so many words, but she’s made a point of the empowerment in saying "no"). I'm not sure she considered that I asked her to come along, because I was tired of doing things by myself, and was asking for company for ME. She marvels at how strong and plucky I was, doing things alone. I feel like the world left me little other choice than to do so. She said "No" so many times, I just really got tired of asking.

I know it's about expectations .... I'm so sensitive and compassionate, and tend to expect or hope for the same in others, but I pretty much refuse, anymore, to have high expectations with respect to the empathy people have. It's just amazing, the number of people who have to go through life's difficult daily challenges, without others offering them hugs or support. Another blog I read commented on how sad it is to know of far-away friends that had to go in for biopsies – breast, uterine - and had to go alone. Alone? Think about that. Your post, and these others, just made me shake my head. What's wrong with people? Ugh. People could certainly be more open to ask for help, that's true. But, people could also certainly be far more generous in just offering a small gesture of compassion when they know others are hurting, without waiting to be asked.

But you know you can get electronic hugs from me anytime, Holtcamp.

broken pieces

Broken heart one more time

Pick yourself up, why even cry

Broken pieces in your hands

Wonder how you'll make it whole

...

Creator only You take brokenness

And create it into beauty once again
--"Porcelain Heart" by Barlow Girl

I spent two days in New Orleans working with Camp Restore, a church that is working with community members to help restore homes and yards and neighborhoods. People come from all over the United States to stay at the Prince of Peace church in St. Bernard Parish, which they have renovated into a camp for the “mission workers.” There are bunk beds and showers and a mess hall.

Our group of 51 women and 7 or so men from Christ the King Lutheran church in Kingwood arrived Thursday night, and worked all Friday and Saturday. We worked in teams of seven to ten or so, doing different tasks – some painting, some yard cleanup, cleaning up streets and medians and picking up garbage.

The first day, I worked along Bundy Street right across from the church. A tangled growth of weeds and grass had overgrown the neighborhood entryway and trash and limbs that had not been cleaned since Katrina were scattered on the ground. The homes along the road were mostly abandoned, and their lawns had grown up, some to several feet high. The city or county had just started fining homeowners $100 a day if they don’t maintain their lawns… even if they are not there to keep it up! All of the homes were gutted. We cleaned up this area, replanted flowers on the neighborhood sign, and made it look like a place that was alive again.

What struck me this first day was finding -- underneath all the overgrown grass and roots -- “Meals Ready to Eat” that had been airdropped to the residents during Katrina. It reminded me of the human side of the tragedy – the reality of these people stuck in their homes with no food, scared, helpless, having lost everything they own, and in some cases dying.

The second day I went with another group to Orleans Parish and some of the really bad neighborhoods near where the levee broke.

We cleaned up the yards of two homes and two empty lots where the houses had been razed. One home was in a really bad area, and it was truly astounding the difference we made in the way the yard looked!

I liked picking up the garbage, the large pieces and the small pieces. This is what I found amidst the rubble in people’s yards:

A checker
A marble
Two puzzle pieces
A plastic hair curler
Mardi gras beads
Bones
Books
Clothes
Lots and lots of broken glass
Pieces of people’s homes – roofing, siding, tile…

I have been very reflective during the trip, and tonight and on my 6-mile run this evening I thought about how these pieces of people’s lives were ripped and torn and literally thrown all over the place. Making the neighborhoods and yards look clean and neat brought hope to people. Many people honked when they drove by and gave the thumbs up, and thanked us for caring about their city and their lives. Tonight as I ran, I realized that why I was so drawn to the broken glass and picking up the broken pieces of people’s lives - the garbage - was that was what divorce does. It takes a family and it tears it and rips it and throws the pieces all over the place. My life and my family was torn apart, both my own when I was a child and my family now.

It’s been four years, and I’m still recovering from the pain – pain I caused myself, pain I caused Matt, and my children, and pain that I myself endured through various events. I went through the most difficult challenge of my adult life during those years at the beginning. It was a tragedy, and I needed someone to just wrap their arms around me, and to reach out to me and let me know I was loved and forgiven. No one did (at the church), except – of all people – my ex-husband.

Now years later I can honestly say I am happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and yet I will always carry a sadness that this happened in my life. I am rebuilding my life, like the people in New Orleans have to rebuild theirs. There is rebirth in tragedy, and the pieces of broken glass and shattered homes can form something beautiful in time and truly give strength to the broken, if you are open to rebuilding and strengthening and taking wisdom from the pain.

Coming home tonight in the van, I just thought how much I wished I could have a hug. I wished we women would have hugged goodbye, or that we had hugged at the retreat. I came home to an empty house, and cried a little bit about the sadness and joy and craziness of life. Unlike many women I tend to like alone time and rarely feel lonely. But I will say there are times like these when I could really just use a hug. And just to know that someone cares enough to go out of their way to say so.

My full New Orleans photo gallery is online at http://wendeeholtcamp.com/NOLA/

that's what friends are for...

Suzanne and I cleaned the condo of my best friend from high school, Kim. Suzanne was our other close friend from high school (Cy-Fair in Cypress, Texas). Here are some before and after photos. Kim was soooooo happy!

BEFORE:


AFTER:

What matters most: a Happy Kim! She was so happy she just glowed! We went out to an awesome dinner at Vilagio's afterwards :)

Three amigos! Me, Suzanne and Kim - a little worn out after 7 hours of cleaning!

rebuilding New Orleans

I leave Thursday morning for New Orleans. I have never been to the city, and I am going with my church (Christ the King Lutheran Church from Kingwood, Texas) on a women's retreat/mission trip. We will be painting and reconstructing homes in a severely damaged section of the city with "Camp Restore." I am looking forward to what will certainly be an eye-opening experience.

This month I will have 4 (a record!) articles out in magazines you can buy on the magazine rack!

Sympathy for the Devil, Scientific American, Mar 07. The web version only includes part of the article unfortunately... you have to be a subscriber to get the whole thing. Here is a link:
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=5&articleID=C7780D5A-E7F2-99DF-3F238E0B197AA13C

Or you can read the PDF here.

My other articles this month are:

• Magical Australia E/The Environmental Magazine. March 07. About my Australian travels with Sam & Savannah. Unfortunately you need a subscription to read the online version so pick up a copy to see the photos of the kids!
  
• Ecotopia. Audubon Magazine, Mar 07. A Field Notes news piece about a time share ecotopian island village in Fiji (tribewanted.com) that I have blogged about before.
  
• Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, Mar 07, 50 Quick Getaways.
  
  And I do have 2 pieces in TX Parks & Wildlife's Feb 07 issue that are now online.
  Prickly Paradise: A former farm site, Estero Llano Grande, now boasts an impressive crop of wildlife.
  
  Papa Stahl: With his gift for storytelling and encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world, Carmine Stahl helps bring parks and people together.
  
  This piece I wrote about an amazing man, Carmine Stahl, - and now my friend - who is nearly 80 years old and is just an incredibly brilliant, kind, wise, and good-hearted soul.

An Inconvenient Truth

I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth - with my kids - tonight, and then went on to watch the film win Best Documentary on the Academy Awards. I was thrilled, it felt very gratifying.

The documentary was very poignant, and for something with a lot of facts and graphs and charts it kept my kids' attention quite well (my son falling asleep notwithstanding - he always falls asleep when he's tired and it was his bedtime! He has his eyes on it the whole time until the end...) Savannah seemed to enjoy it and they seemed to drink it in. I loved Gore's humor in it and the way he wove in parts of his life, and what he cares about (the earth, his family) with the scientific facts.

Other than that I am decluttering and clearing out my entire universe, from my email folders to my closet and my file folders... and my closets and drawers. It's very liberating! It is part of my participation in The Compact (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact/) and specifically the "Trash Compact-er." And it's for an assignment! ;) Nothing like getting paid to live and do cool things. Love it! Course my daughter is not at all pleased about me not being able to buy anything... I said just NEW, we can be resourceful girl!

Ugh, it can be so much more convenient and easy to just run to Wally-World... I'm learning. Gotta figure out how to communicate this one better. "Are socks consumables mom, because I need new socks!" LOL. Yes as a matter of fact they are...

my beautiful niece!

I just spent a couple days visiting my niece in Dallas. She flew in from California with her mom, my friend Zofia. I brought Savannah with me because we hadn't seen them in a couple years. It was great to see her - she is a doll!
Kira, Savannah and I were messing around with oreos and I encouraged them to make themselves messy, much to my mom's chagrin!

Kira playing chess with Savannah
At the park.

Self-portrait of myself and Zofia, Kira's mom. We went to this Medieval Times thing in Dallas with the girls.

My best friend from high school, Kim, and I reunited! Going out on the town! OK I look like a dork in these photos but I typically hate most pictures of me and it's something I'm trying to overcome and not be so concerned about that. So here they are!

Planet Earth

My email bohemian@wendeeholtcamp.com is temporarily messed up and not getting to me, so if you emailed me, send it again to wholtcamp@houston.rr.com.

The Planet Earth Animal Profiles for Discovery Channel I wrote are now online! Planet Earth is an amazing followup to the Blue Planet TV series, and will begin airing Mar 27, 2007 in the US. In an online accompaniment to the TV series for Discovery Channel, I profiled 50 animals for these shows: Mountains, Jungles, Shallow Seas, Deserts, and Forests. Or go to the main site for info on the show: Planet-earth.com.