Tag: trash

Tend the Land

Jennifred Jones

God put us in the land and told us to tend it.

We have a lot of tending to do I noticed walking through a parking lot the other day.

We will always be cleaning up after other people, but we need first to begin cleaning up after ourselves. If we can keep our allotment of land orderly (front porch, driveway, sidewalk, garage, barn, shed, bathroom, etc.); it will foster in the eyes of others the care of your ‘land’, and just might motivate them to tend their land better.

‘It’s not my trash, it flew out of the trash truck and landed in my yard!’ ‘I didn’t break the glass bottle on the street in front of my house, somebody else did!’

We’re sending signals to others around us how we do things in our land. Let’s send good signals that we are clean, neat, tidy, orderly, caring and respectful people. We will have to send these signals repeatedly, daily, over and over. That’s just the way it is. But it is worth it! You will feel better because you were helpful and did something good. Indirectly, others will feel better because things are orderly.

We individually can’t tidy up the whole world, but we can tend our small ‘plot of land’.

What do I need to tend to today on my land?

Neighborhoods

Jennifred Jones

We all live in some sort of a neighborhood…

The street we live on is our neighborhood.

The apartment floor we live on is our neighborhood.

The county road we live on is our neighborhood.

We have people around us wherever we are, we see them, they see us.

We’re not trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, that’s a whole stress factor we don’t want to get trapped in.

We…I…desire to make my part of the neighborhood attractive and well kept for me. Everyone’s morale is lifted when they drive by and see somebody’s place well kept.

We can do a ‘shabby chic’ on our yard if need be…might be overflowing with crabgrass and peeling paint on the fence, but if we keep things trimmed up, add some flowers and keep them up, sweep and edge the walk, put a fun brightly colored table or chair on the porch, it will look happy, people will notice and smile, and it didn’t take much effort or money to do it.

Daily, it seems we have to pick up trash that somehow ‘landed in our space’, but that’s part of keeping our place up. Go ahead, take your trash bag and walk up and down your street or alley and clean it up. Next time you go out and it looks fresh and tidy, you can feel good, and rightly so, that you did it. You belong to the neighborhood improvement committee and whether anyone says anything or not….they noticed!

I think today, this Sunday, is a good day for me to see what I can do for my neighborhood.

Let’s get going!

It’s Not My Responsibility

Jennifred Jones

The stretch of highway between home and work is 5 miles of treacherous roadway. ..curves with steep embankments, abrupt drop-offs just inches away from the white line, caved in culverts under the roadway making unsafe, uneven road conditions. Top this with a little ice and snow and one of the many accidents/fatalities is ready to occur, and many have. This road intersects with another state road at a yellow flasher.

Well that all sounds terrible, why doesn’t somebody do something about it???

I am that somebody.  You are that somebody.

One of the yellow flasher lights was out for months, I was sure it would be fixed as other highway trucks were driving through when I’d go by. Finally I emailed the highway department a thoughtful note that perhaps they didn’t realize the bulb was out. Within 3 days it was fixed and I had a nice response back from them.

Several years back there was a lingering pothole, at a corner in town, growing larger every day during the winter and it would damage your car if you fell into it. I emailed thethe street department and that very day they sent someone to fill it. I thanked them for it.

There are many things that seem to slip through the cracks unnoticed that could be changed for the better if someone would speak up. I’m not referring to complaining about any little thing I disagree with, but for normal everyday things we can begin to show our care for others by speaking up to obtain the help needed.

This is my community and I want to help improve it. I wrote in a previous blog about just picking up the trash around your neighborhood and workplace for a real morale booster.

I believe we allow ourselves to be overcome in our thoughts to do good by thoughts of, ‘mind your own business’, ‘it’s not your concern’, ‘it’s not my responsibility’, ‘somebody else will do something, ‘they’ll think I’m sticking my nose in someone else’s affairs’. So we shrink back.

Yet we love reading stories about others who stepped up and caused a miracle, preventing someone else heartache, merely because they spoke up to a need they noticed.

Let’s silence those voices and begin to change the areas in our surrounds by contacting the necessary authorities in a respectful manner. Let’s not shrug off what we can do something about and then complain because no one has done anything.

I am contacting my highway department about my road today.

I will get back with you…

How about your hometown?