The Purple Elephant with the Little Mouse Presents Our Guest Blog: 6 Simple Ways to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle!

Here is the thing…the Purple Elephant with the little mouse hiding behind his ears as usual went to the market to buy some potatoes, corn and ochro (okra) for this soup the owner of the production house was making as all the monkeys had fallen ill with flu. While walking in the market the little mouse squealed and hid perfectly out of sight behind the Purple Elephant’s ear and then he whispered look down there. At that point the Purple Elephant felt a paw crawling up his knee and looked down to see a brown shiny coat dog. It’s just a dog he said to the little mouse…and then the little mouse peeped out from behind his ear again…

“Ooh...that’s nice…for a second I thought it was a giant rat and you know how rats like to bully us mice and I really wasn’t in the mood for such an altercation!” said the little mouse.

“Oh India and Thailand…these mouse and rat games…sometimes I think they are more bothersome than cat and mouse ones!" said the Purple Elephant as he scooped up the tiny brown dog with his long purple trunk! It was then he noticed the dog have a pendant around his chain and wait...lo and behold it wasn't a pendant really but a USB drive and the dog kept licking it...sometimes lapping it entirely into his mouth!

The Purple Elephant whisked the USB drive from the dog and threw it up to the little mouse who immediatley pushed the drive into his notebook to see on it was a blog...this blog from the good people at no other site but...THE DOG ATE MY BLOG (blog no longer exists)! The little mouse read it and felt it would have a home here at the Meady's Musings Production House and so he called up the owner when she gave it a yes well the Purple Elephant waved his giant purple trunk and here it is for you to read! Enjoy it!:)


6 Simple Ways to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle

Joy Paley is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog (blog no longer exists) and a writer on the Guide to Online Schools (blog no longer exists).

These days, everywhere you look someone is giving tips to live a “greener” lifestyle. While it makes sense to keep the earth in mind, a lot of these tips aren’t that easily implemented by people who are on a budget or lack certain skills. Sure, I’d love to install solar panels on my roof or a low-flow plumbing system, but right now what I really need are sustainable tips that help the earth and my pocketbook. So I did some research to bring you these six tips that you can put into practice at home—without expert skills or a lot of money.

Start a Home Compost
Home composts aren’t just for tree huggers and eccentrics anymore. They’re a simple way to considerably green up your home, by reducing the amount of waste you send to the landfill. Instead of putting those food scraps in the garbage, just throw them into a small outdoor bin. Composting takes little effort: Sprinkle some water on your bin of old food, stir it up, and nature will take its course, turning your waste into free yard fertilizer. And, you’ll be saving money by reducing your garbage bill. Here’s a quick guide to getting started.

Collect Rainwater
Why waste money paying for water when you can get it for free? Just set a barrel or old garbage bin under your gutters when you’re expecting a rain shower, and you’ll be doing mother nature a favor. Instead of leaving your sprinklers on all throughout the year, you’ll be able to water your yard with the barrels you collect. This water is a lot easier on the earth because unlike tap water, it’s not being diverted away from streams and natural reservoirs to get your house.

Join a CSA
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, a type of organization that lets the local community support nearby growers who practice sustainable farming. When you join a CSA you’re essentially buying into a farmer’s harvest—helping fund the costs of getting the crop into the ground and tending it. In return, you get a share of their harvest in the form of a weekly produce delivery to your home or a distribution point near you. Use this page to find a list of CSAs in your region.

Use DIY Home Cleaners
Many home cleaners contain noxious chemicals that are harmful to manufacture and pollute our water supplies when they run down the drain. For most daily cleaning jobs you don’t even need those harsh chemicals; you can actually make cheap, nontoxic solutions from ingredients you already have at home. Vinegar, baking soda, and lemons are some examples. National Geographic has a roundup of the essential DIY household cleaners.

Eat Less Meat
Did you know that if you cut out one meal of chicken every week for a year and replaced it with vegetarian food, it would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road? Even if you can’t imagine yourself going vegetarian, removing just one meal of meat a week can drastically cut down the greenhouse gases that result from raising livestock. These simple veggie recipes can get you started.

Buy a Power Strip
Some electronics are real energy suckers—they keep drawing energy from the wall, even whey are turned completely off! Plugging all your electronics into a handy power strip is a simple way to ensure that they’re cut off from the power source and won’t be wasting energy when you’re not using them. It’s a handy way to be frugal and save energy.

Tumultuous Thursdays: Kundalini Yoga, the Shiv and Shakti and Shiv as Potential Energy

UCP/Meady's Musings Production does not own the rights for this image.

A friend came over to the Meady's Musings Production House and the Purple Elephant quickly threw his long purple trunk forward to open the door. The friend entered and said hello and then quickly went over to the guys at the UCP desk and asked them if they were interested in a course in kundalini yoga. It was quite an interesting course but seeing as the owner of the Production House hardly ever pays the guys at the UCP desk a single penny even...no one unfortunately could afford the fees! :( But it got the guys at the UCP desk who are currently writing about this Festival of Shiv 2011 to thinking and they went over to the guys who write the Tumultuous Thursdays blog posts on Meady's Musings and well...this joint blog that is both about religion and metaphysics was born and today appears on both UCP's Festival of Shiv and Meady's Musings' Tumultuous Thursdays! :)

Now kundalini yoga and yoga as a whole is often associated with Baba Shiv as he is seen as the mahayogi and in the image at the start of the post you can see where Shiv's iconography itself can be used to describe the elements of Kundalini yoga and as a whole the key body/energy points in yoga. And this website titled Kundalini Awakening appears to be a very good research source for anyone wanting to know more about the theories behind kundalini yoga.

However the rest of the blog post will delve more into the shiv/shakti relationship that comes out of the study of kundalini yoga and more so the concept that shiv is potential energy and shakti kinetic energy.

Let's define the two terms in Physics as defined by the Free Dictionary:

POTENTIAL ENERGY: (noun)The energy of a particle or system of particles derived from position, or condition, rather than motion. A raised weight, coiled spring, or charged battery has potential energy.

KINETIC ENERGY:(noun)The energy possessed by a body because of its motion, equal to one half the mass of the body times the square of its speed.

Now in Hinduism it is not only seen that Shiv is like potential energy and Shakti like kinetic energy...it is also seen that both Shiv and Shakti are one...so really it is one being that is at one point potential energy and then at another point kinetic energy.

So let's see it as if Shiv is sitting there in meditative post and then while in meditation he thinks up Shakti as this moving dancing female being...then after she manifests from his thoughts as dancing kinetic energy before him he eventually is also aroused and starts to dance with her...his potential energy is converted to kinetic energy!

Seen in the dance of Shiv and Shakti it would look something like this:


Seen in the metaphysical sense as it's impact on the creation and/or destruction it would be something like this:


Think about it is all the potential energy is eventually converted to kinetic energy ...it you have a coil of string and it has this potential energy in it as it is all coiled up but then begins to unravel as its potential energy converts to kinetic energy...what happens when all the string is unraveled? Well you no longer have a ball of string?

Hey but this is no doom's day blogpost or anything...after all this is a joint blogpost on Tumultuous Thrusdays and UCP i.e. Universal Collective Prayer...but we are just analysing some of the aspects of Shiv here and realising more so now how he might be seen as the God of destruction and how his cosmic dance of destruction...or the Nataraj dance has become so world famous...as he gets up from his coiled potential energy position and dances uncoiling as kinetic energy flows! But remember that energy is neither created nor destroyed so the kinetic energy again can become potential as another ball of string or the cosmos is reformed....Jai Bholenath! :)

Slumbering Saturdays....ahmm...Studious Saturdays: Here We Write!

OK so today is the day that Slumbering Saturdays was suppose to have become Studious Saturdays...but it didn't go as well as planned and after a hard week of full time work and a late Friday night...well most of Saturday was spent Slumbering and then Erranding...but as we get to the end of what was suppose to be a Studious Saturday...we are filled with little reproach!

You see we still plan to fill the last hours of the night with some writing and continue to have a strong visualization for next Saturday...us getting up in the wee hours of the morning...sitting at our writing desk...writing away...a few thousand words even before the sun comes up! :)

But for tonight we still did a little bit write...so we will call it a truce and say it is still the launch of Studious Saturdays if you like!

Look forward to blogs on other days of the week as normally themed i.e. Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays and even Funtastic Fridays if we might!

And on our sister blog UCP we shall be launching this year's festival of Shiv! So look for that this Monday!

So until then...to all a good night!

And hope you all enjoyed the cartoon above and the associated movie clip below! :)

Maniac Mondays: Announcements and Starting Over!

First of all Happy New Year! We know it's late in the announcing but we've just not been up to the blogging until now...but here we are again so there! We also want to apologize for abruptly ending the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse and not completeing it but it seems we had our own monkeys to deal with! But we plan to complete it for completeness of story sake and leave it up...so if you want to finish reading the stories even though Christmas has past look for it soon! And hey it's never too early to start planning for the next Christmas! :)

So here we are about to get into February 2011 already and as time passes by on the wheel as it goes spinning...we are wondering...we thought about making some changes to the blog's format but for now it will probably remiain the same as will UCP our sister blog. Well except for one major thing...

Slumbering Saturdays will now be active more often except it won't be Slumbering Saturdays anymore but will become Studious Saturdays! As every Saturday we plan to be nanowrimo like all year round and keep those words to novels yet to be written coming! :)

So join us as we contemplate our HCM-Heart Clutching Moments as we churn out a hopefully most marvelous plot! :)


But all this talk about wheels and time flying by makes us recall one of our favourite Journey tunes as seen here! :)

Advent Calendar 2010: The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse-Days 10 to 11

In loving memory of Tessa and taken from this CBC article.

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 10:10 DEC 2010

As we come to Day 10 of the Advent calendar and the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse we find the animals busy fixing up the house for the arrival of the Purple Elephant's herd. As the Purple Elephant explained again this year although most of us were at the Production House last year and had seen them and heard this explanation already...not all the elephants in the Purple Elephant's herd were purple! Well some were blue...some grey like your typical elephant known to man and some were even red...others brown and yes the elephants explained to us...some were even white! And no not just albinos but actually white for you see it was not just a fable...indeed the legend of the Maharaja's white Indian elephant was true! The Purple Elephant's herd also transcended geographical borders and species and so the herd consisted of Asian elephants as well as African ones and they both learned traits from each other! However the greatest kept secret of the herd that we are about to reveal only on this year's Advent calendar since he did not visit the Production House last year...is this!:

One of the members of the Purple Elephant's herd is not even an elephant at all! He is actually a wooly mammoth! Yes indeed! And no your ears aren't playing tricks on ya! The elephant herd found him one day when he had wandered down from Alaska where he had remained frozen but then thawed due to global warming in 2008 and had roamed down to Canada where the elephant herd had gone to the Toronto zoo to visit a relative there. The wooly mammoth then asked since he had learnt from the other elephants that he was the last of his kind...if he could join their herd? The leader of the herd a blue elephant called Akash said then that yes indeed he could join them and the wooly mammoth was very excited and grateful and has been with the herd since then! He was particularly aggrieved when he learnt of the passing of Tessa at the Toronto zoo the following year! As she was the first elephant he had spoken to when he had gotten to the Toronto zoo! We at the Production House had heard of her passing through the Purple Elephant who had left for Toronto when he heard the news together with the Little Mouse! And we had sent our condolences to all at the zoo but in particular to the relative of the Purple Elephant's herd who lived there.

So anyway as the Purple Elephant continued to talk about his relatives and the elephant herd approached all the animals (Purple Elephant included since he talked but also worked)scrubbed and cleaned and casted reinforcements to the Production Houses' foundation.

And so Day 10 of the Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse came to an end with the animals scrubbing and cementing well into dusk...

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 11:11 DEC 2010

The elephant herd was almost upon the Production House oh dear me! Loud and large orchestras of animal trumpeting could be heard in the nearby with the accompaniment of heavy 'footsteps' thumping forward! The owner of the Production House looked at bit nervous but the Little Mouse reassured her that the foundations were strong this year....the monkeys had really given their all in that respect and she needn't worry! :) And the noises got closer and closer until finally!...

The elephants arrived!

A bigger portion of the herd had come to visit the Purple Elephant this year but you could see the owner of the Production House relax as the foundations seem to hold up! In fact after she relaxed a bit more she grabbed one of the monkeys and kissed them on the head! For really it couldn't have been done without the full corporation of the monkeys!

But enough of the monkeys everyone wanted to hear about the elephants! There were really in all the different colours, shapes and sizes! The wooly mammoth was indeed with them but was very, very hard to recognise as he stood there next to Akash at the head of the herd...you see they had shaved his fur off because he was coming to the tropics and so my friends the wooly mammoth had succeeded where the Canadian bears had failed! In fact you could see the Canadian bears mumbling and whispering under their breaths about you see how they had wanted to do the same thing and they were stopped by the Winnie the Pooh related bears! But then the Purple Elephant explained to the Canadian bears that it was a different case. You see elephants have non-hairy skins...and so because the wooly mammoth is suppose to be officially extinct he had to adapt significantly to continue to remain alive now that he thawed. So he had to try to be like the other elephants in this case. Also his wooly fur was much thicker and longer originally than their bear coats were!

So in the end all were happy...humans, monkeys, bears, elephants and well the little mouse but of course there still remained the matter of the cats...but at least for a while as Day 11 of the Christmas tales of the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse came to an end all of the Production House was at peace for a while as they gathered around and sang along to this john denver song...that they felt suited them all!:)

Advent Calendar 2010:Maria's Pastelles!

One of Maria's lovely and delicious pastelles. You can like Maria's Pastelles on Facebook by clicking here.

As promised during the Advent calendar this year in between The Christmas Adventures of The Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse we will be breaking for a treat or two or well sometimes three! :) So keeping to our promise today the Purple Elephant minus the little mouse talks about a recent visit to a friend of the Production House...Maria! The visit was to hear all about her lovely and delicious pastelles. Why minus the little mouse? Well...you see...the Purple Elephant had to explain to the little mouse at length about the stigma society continues to have about little mice and their presence near food...in terms of the health of humans etc. But the little mouse argued he thought such a stigma was cleared up by now...he knew Mickey Mouse did little for mice everywhere in this regard but of recently there was Ratatouille and in particular the Tale of Despereaux would no doubt have done wonders for removing this stigma! But the Purple Elephant said no...despite there being many clean, well behaved, disease free mice like the little mouse humans still didn't like them near their food. And so it was...so it was...and so the Purple Elephant journeyed off on his own to interview Maria about her lovely and delicious pastelles and here is how it all unfolded!

The beautiful Maria of pastelles fame!

The Purple Elephant did his own version of Q&A on Maria and so from here on in we refer to the Purple Elephant as PE and Maria as well Maria! Also writing in brackets () under Maria's answers are things the Purple Elehant jotted in for explanation or just his thoughts:

PE: So when was the first time you made pastelles?

Maria:I've been cooking with my mother and grandmother since I was allowed to use a knife at age 6...pastelle making is a tradition in our family...we made pastelles at our home and my grandmother's home every November and December. My first memory of making pastelles was probably around age 6. When I moved to my own home in 1995 we moved the pastelle making to my home. The entire family would come over and help to make the two household's pastelles for the season.

PE:And did they come out perfect then or is the product you have today...tried, tested and honed over the years?

Maria: My grandmother's and mother's pastelles were always perfect...the recipe has been handed down and tweaked by myself but I've never had a bad pastelle making experience.

PE: When did you first realise you had something here that was great...like was it you just knew it from your own taste and smell of it...or was it from the response you got from friends and relatives on their tasting it? And when you realised your pastelles were a hit what was your first reaction to this? Or do you remember say the first Christmas when you realised perhaps..."Hmmm...Maria you can really make a mean pastelle girl! :)"

Maria:Friends came to our home our first Christmas in 1995 (in our own house i.e. my husband's and I). And I'd have to send pastelles home with them(as they liked them so much). I also took my pastelles to my husband's family in New York in 1995 and they loved them...they all agreed they were the best they had ever had. They shared them with others there...who said the same. I love pastelles...my family love my pastelles...and if I can say so...they are pretty darn good. I love to cook and feeding people makes me happy so I was so happy that people enjoyed the pastelles. We make pastelles maybe twice a year when the supply runs low...not just for Christmas.

PE: Do you have a secret ingredient?

Maria: It wouldn't be secret anymore if I told you! I believe in using Promasa cornmeal, good fresh seasoning, prime meat (the Purple Elephant does not eat meat and so for that there is soya) and a lot of love! (that the Purple Elephant can handle!)

PE: OK...OK...but then is there one thing that makes your pastelles special...that would make them bear your signature? For example the way you wrap them?

Maria: I've been told by restaurant owners , chefs and family members that my corn is absolutely superb...the texture and flavour is unique and amazing! My husband is the wrapper here...he does a great job of folding them and sealing them.

PE: What was the thing that finally inspired you to take your pastelle making to the next level i.e. move from making it for family and friends into a made to order business-Maria's Pastelles?

Maria: My dream is to own and operate my own restaurant/diner. I have been told so many times that I should market my best skill...cooking! I decided to get into the business of selling my pastelles because I knew we could make a superior product at a very good price and to start building my experience toward my dream. I wanted to share a good thing with others who don't have the time to make them also.

PE: And is Maria's Pastelles just pastelles or do you bake other holiday treats for order? Or can you see yourself doing so in the future?

Maria: Right now I'm just doing the pastelles but I hope to add to my products in the very near future.

PE: Do you have any special kinks in making your pastelles...like one particular place where you get your ingredients...or like their must always be this way or that?

Maria: It's a very exact process for making them and we never deviate from that. Locally grown pimentos are a necessary ingredient...they make a huge difference. And they must be wrapped in banana leaves...the flavour that comes from the leaf and the moisture it keeps in...very necessary.

PE:And before I leave you Maria...other than pastelle making what makes the Christmas holidays or Advent special for you?

Maria: Christmas has always been for us a time for family and enjoying each other. My family business never closed for any period of time other than Christmas...it became a time for us to be together and enjoy the holidays...the food, the decorations, the gifts and just being together. We are also Roman Catholic so for us...the celebration of the birth of Jesus is extremely important to us...reminds us of new beginnings and the importance of the family.


And then the Purple Elephant thanked Maria for giving him such a detailed Q&A session on the thoughts behind the making of her tasty treats! He explained to her about how sad he was to have had to leave behind the little mouse and she was very empathetic about it but explained about how it was with the regulatory bodies and all of that!

The Purple Elephant then tasted a bit of her soya pastelle and trumpeted for they were that good! And they he wished Maria the best of sales for the rest of the year and for many years to come. And again trumpeted as he then proceeded to sing this parang tune by way of trumpets and wished her and her family and friends a Merry Christmas and Bright and Prosperous New Year from all at the Production House but in particular on behalf of the little mouse!

If you need to find out how you can order Maria's tasty pastelles go to her Facebook page and be sure to order before Wed 15 Dec 2010 if you need them for Christmas this year!

Advent Calendar 2010: The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse- Days 8 &9

Darn...we really need to get those monkeys off our backs! LOL! As much as we promised to keep updating here daily we keep slip sliding away! But today you are indeed in for a special treat as we will have two blog posts! One will cover day 8 and day 9 in terms of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse. And there will be an entirely separate one talking about a special Trini Christmas treat!:)
THE CHRISTMAS ADVENTURES OF THE PURPLE ELEPHANT AND THE LITTLE MOUSE

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 8:8 DEC 2010

Now as our story left off on Day 7 we were telling you about the intention of the animals and humans at the Production House to use Satyagraha on the cats who were after the little mouse...

Now the Purple Elephant had pulled down books from the top shelves with his trunk while the little mouse scurried below trying to catch them all. And the owner of the Production House went online pulling down and saving to file relevant documents on Satyagraha. Until some of the books before the animals and humans were as follows :

-The Bhagavad Gita
-The Holy Ramayan
-The Holy Bible: Old and New Testaments
-Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet
-The Upanishads
-The Kalpa Sutras of the Jains

And among some of the websites the owner of the Production House had bookmarked were these:

o http://www.quietspaces.com/satyagraha.html
o http://www.satyagraha.org.za/current/

However the animals and humans refrained from using Wikipedia in their research because they got fed up of seeing the image of its founder Jimmy Wales begging for donations and really no one in the house earned cash except for the owner of the Production House and the guy who worked the UCP desk but then he was paid by the owner. So really only one bread winner and so many mouths to feed and they felt it wrong to just go to the site too you know especially when researching such a topic like satyagraha as it made them feel so guilty somehow…and Jimmy Wales looked even cuter in a begging sort of way than the Winnie the Pooh related bears when begging for his pennies so…they refrained.

Now as the animals explored Satyagraha and how to use it on the cats they realised it was indeed going to be a lot of work and for sure they would need all the animals in the house to pull together...so they first needed to contrive how to enlist the help and support of the twenty odd monkeys of the house! They knew they'd be unruly and perhaps they'd even have to use Satyagraha on the monkeys first to get them to cooperate let alone use it on the cats!

So they called in the monkeys one by one or in pairs if they had coupled monkeys...and asked them if they were willing to cooperate and be part of the Satyagraha on the cats...they explained how the Satyagrahi should behave...and really it all went something like this...as the Purple Elephant and other animals and humans in the room took turns talking to each monkey or pair of monkeys:

"As a satyagrahi monkey/s we will expect you to stand for the truth...infact follow your famous Buddhist monkey friends and say no evil, see no evil and speak no evil! Then monkeys you must commit to the satyagraha such that if you are not happy with the Purple Elephant, the little mouse or any of the animals or humans here whose mission you follow you will bring it to this sangam (confluence/meeting) and it should be honestly and openly addressed here. We must our monkey friends commit to the same cause. We must first be satyagrahi(s) onto ourselves before we try to apply the principles of satyagraha with the cats..." And so the speeches went on and on...till one or two monkeys fell asleep but they quickly pulled themselves out of it and apologised for their nodding off with immediate effect!

And stories aside on this Day 8 of our calendar of stories we recall this famous speech given by the apostle and inventor of Satyagraha himself...Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aka Gandhi Ji aka the Mahatma or simply the Great One!



ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 9:9 DEC 2010

The speeches and briefing of the monkeys continued for two days such that on Day 9 of the Advent Calendar it was still going on. Then finally the Purple Elephant got up from his desk and said:

"Hey guys it's almost been two days enough of these peanuts I need some fresh grass and air! Besides I think I hear steps of an elephant herd on the move and so I suspect some of my elephant relatives must again be visiting us this year!"

The little mouse looked a bit scared and the owner of the Production House started to pull a bit on her head of hair...because they both recalled what happened last year to the house when the elephants came! OMG!

The Purple Elephant seemed to sense this and gave the little mouse a glaring look and then rushed outside to graze in the cool tropical December fresh air. He always likes it this time of year as it's not cold but not hot...just cool...

Whilst the Purple Elephant was out ....the others in the room quickly convened and whispered to themselves that the plan of using satyagraha on the cats would have to be on a hold for a while. Since if the elephants were coming there would be much work to do...much! As last year the house's foundation started to crack when they neared...never mind they stayed outside the house and grazed as the house is only retrofitted enough to allow for one Purple Elephant and not a herd of elephants! But all the same their stampeding still rocked the house...literally!

So they quickly hatched a plan of how to:

1. Prepare for the arrival of the elephant herd.
2. Tell the Purple Elephant what they were up to without hurting his feelings whilst at the same time not being bad satyagrahi(s) themselves...i.e. they could not violate the rule of 'sat' truth!

Anyway the little mouse said he'd handle the Purple Elephant's feelings...and so it was planned that for the next two days while the elephant herd was on the move and nearing the Production House everyone would help plaster additional building blocks and erect certain strategic props such that the house would not shake on their arrival!

And so it was the ninth day of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse ended...