Does your life sometimes feel like a “Lifetime Hotel?” Mine too….there are constantly people, places, and things coming and going. Talk about feeling like a conveyor belt…I guess life always makes us grapple with changes.

Each year that rolls around I’m always astonished at the people who have left my life, and the new ones that have come along. Indeed, there are always those that seem to be around…but on the edges there are always the losses, and the welcomes. Even now as I speak, there are two elderly members of my family that are entering the final stages of their lives. As much as I want them to live forever, I understand that there is a time for everyone. Watching how they are coming to terms with their circumstances gives me great strength, dignity, and courage in my own life. They talk freely about how much time they have left, how they want to be remembered, and their wishes for after they are gone. This past Christmas many of my family gathered around the table laughing and joking that we were all “still here,” while out of the corners of our eyes there was a glance, wondering, would we all still be around to celebrate another holiday?

At the same time, new life entered the fold…nothing is more miraculous than seeing the shine in a newborn baby’s eyes…reminding us all what a miracle Life truly is. The children look to us for guidance, for us to show them around Life’s Hotel…the safe places to play, the rooms to avoid. As the merry-go-round of Life spins it wheel each year, it never ceases to amaze me who jumps on, and who jumps off. This time of year in the northeast of the United States, the ground, the flowers, the trees awaken with new life….ready to blossom and bring forth their rainbow, knowing full well that in the Fall, they too will fold up and go away for the Winter.

We all live on the merry-go-round….being told when we got on, and wondering when we too must jump off. The merry-go-round of Life is quite busy, while also quite peaceful. There are no real surprises….we all know that we come, and we go. What happens in-between is what it’s all about.

Enjoy the ride,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2008 Jennifer Avalon

There was a great story a couple of nights ago on the NBC Evening News, featuring the Crave Brothers Wisconsin cheese farm. During the day while they were going about milking the cows, one of the brothers had a revelation. He thought to himself, can I turn the cow manure into energy? Lo and behold, the Crave brothers constructed a methane container where energy was created to service the farm, and 120 surrounding homes. After the process was completed, the condensed manure was cleaned and recycled back to the fields as new fertilizer. Go green? Go manure!

Now crazy as it seems, I got to thinking….with all the manure that we humans deposit in our toilets daily, why can’t we build plants where the methane created from our manure and waste be transposed to energy? Did you ever think that our contribution to the toilet bowl could end up powering our homes?? A few more stories like the one on the evening news, and I do believe some town or city is going to put this idea fully into practice.

As far as stretching gas mileage, a local television station, WBZ in the Boston area, did a fascinating report on a New England man who has invented a way for a car to get up to 150 miles per gallon with a hybrid automobile. The contraption that he demonstrated was a converter that turbo-charged the battery system in the hybrid, and gasoline was only used when the batteries got low. See, there are people out there looking at ways to solve our energy crisis.

It’s astonishing that many times the greatest inventions or ideas take place from people mucking about in their garages, or doing a job that is totally unrelated to a problem that it solves. I do believe it is only a matter of time before all of our homes will have solar panel roofs. What a waste of space right now, where energy can easily be created to power our homes. Trust me, we’ll all get used to seeing those panels on our roofs when we get our future heating and electrical bills.

We haven’t even begun to try the numerous solutions to our energy problems. With oil hovering around $110.00 a barrel, it’s only a matter of time before we start seriously considering the ways we get energy. So remember the next time you go to the bathroom, how valuable your “deposit” really is.

Go Green, Go Solar, and by all means, Go Manure!:)

Jennifer Avalon

© 2008 Jennifer Avalon