Updates this past week includes:

• Congrats to Natty of Divine-Designs for winning Amazing April website of the month contest!
• 1 new layout available as a premade and as a wordpress theme
• Magnificent May 2010, website of the month contest has started. APPLY! NOW! GO GO GO! 

I was looking through my massive collection of random photographs over the years for some weekly photography entry challenges and I came across some really interesting ones. For now I will show these four. From time to time I will hopefully start uploading more. I decided to titles these “Building Blocks” … signifying the building blocks of my life. Set I of many more to come consists of four photographs arranged in no specific order.

In order from top-left corner, going clockwise: (warning, some words may not make sense… it’s late. I cannot sleep. Too much coffee. Very exhausted)

1. Color My Life: I was born in the springtime, and this picture not only signifies my first breath, but the flower also demonstrates my personality. The flower is what we Vietnamese call “Cam Tu Cau” … meaning globe of myriad colors.
2. Always on Bed of Roses: Green is for hope, and this frog was given to me by someone I consider to be a close friend and a great illustration of all that is good in humanity. The title for this photo is borrowed from the phrase “on a bed of roses” … Wiki describes this phrase as:
   

   Bed of roses is an English expression, which means an easy and peaceful life. Most likely based on a rose representing happiness and love, so a bed of roses would represent a very happy life.

   I chose this title not only as a symbol of my gratitude to the wonderful people in my life who makes me feel so lucky to be alive, but also as a wish … to continue lying on a bed of roses… for always.

3. Journey of a Thousand Miles: This photo was taken in Viet Nam, in a small, peaceful, underdeveloped village where I took my first step, spoke my first word… This was home. The Chinese has a proverb that states “A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step”. This was the road that led me away from home, on my own two feet, alone and scared… on my way to first grade. It was also the road leading me away from home and to America 15 years ago.
4. Ever After: Tiny fake roses using a Valentine’s Day advertisement as a backdrop. We all, at one point or another, search for love in a world where love has become the ultimate symbol of materialism. No longer are the days where girls are serenaded and guys are given hand embellished handkerchiefs as a token of affection. Okay, maybe not so old school… but I feel like dating has been tainted my the marketing media, and while fake roses and diamond rings may last forever, happily ever after should mean more than that. Paper hearts won’t last. We share experiences that hallmark will never be able to illustrate, print, and invoke similar feelings in other people.

I was throwing out the trash today and I literally cringed at the bags of bottles, plastic, and cardboard in the dumpster bins. I realized it’s hard to sit there and dig through your trash to separate them.

But why not turn recycling into a routine? Growing up, my family did not recycle. At some point in high school, I started pointing out the fact that if they made use of recycling bins, no longer would there be the days of  “oh gosh there’s no more room in trash can!” … we had those tiny trash cans, not the larger ones. Additionally, we used to spend so much time and energy reducing the actual size of cardboard boxes – tearing them into tiny pieces or folding them a certain way – so that they can fit into the trashcan with all the other smelling things. Eventually, my family and I started watching each other, making sure that no one was “being lazy”. It was difficult even for the adults to get into the habit of walking out to the recycling bin every single time… BUT…

It wasn’t that hard to change an old habit.

Now, we’ve established an unbroken routine. We take out any piece of recycling immediately if it’s not raining or too late at night. Otherwise, it sits on the side of the garage reminding us to throw it out the next morning when someone starts the car. We never let it pile up in the garage. Last night’s recycling always gets taken out that morning before we head off to school and work.

Nearly every week, our recycling bin is filled to the top and our trash can now has plenty of empty room. It makes me feel like we’re producing less waste

I understand that for every family to force younger children to walk out to the trash all the time is very difficult. It’s like trying to pry them away from an episode of Pokemon or Yugioh so they can start their homework. It’s not difficult, it’s nearly impossible! It’s not just children, when you’re living in a location that requires a long walk out to the trash bins, how often are you willing to walk out there 10 times a day to do the right thing for the environment? I know I had some trouble coping with that myself, because I did not want to go out so many times a day, but I also did not want to let my recyclables pile up.

This prompts the question: why not have a recycling bin/can inside the house or right outside the back doors? You don’t have to walk far, or even really step outside. Recyclables do not rot and smell so you can wait until the bin is filled before dumping it out (of course I wouldn’t recommend a gigantic bin… unless you have the muscles to lift it ;D …) I don’t understand why we have to be so inconsiderate of our environment if there are simple solutions that does not even require us to not be lazy. So you throw the plastic bottle in a different bin right next to the trash bin. WOW… you know that is oh-so ridiculously difficult!

Does anyone else have different recycling routines they would like to share? Perhaps different routines work better for different people.