Perky Prose

My New Website is Active

I've been tinkering with a website for quite some time now.  My Etsy site has been successful, however, I wanted to reach a larger audience.  Well, I FINALLY finished my new site http://www.perkyprose.com/!

I still need to work on getting better pictures taken, but I like the way it turned out :)

Vancouver Island Trip!

Hi everyone!  It's been a looong time since I've posted anything on the blog, but I've had some medical issues lately and I've also been traveling for work A LOT.  I want to describe my recent trip to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada - one of the most beautiful places on earth...seriously!  This will just be a quick post with some picks...

My work sent me to  Vancouver to attend a World Sturgeon conference (see my post about sturgeon-fish below if you don't know much about them).  Of cousre, the conference was great - and I met a ton of researchers - but the BEST part about the trip was that my husband flew up to be with me AND we went salmon fishing with 2 of my co-workers and hung out in the city of Vancouver.

My co-worker Jason and I went on a hike and stumbled upon a really cool lake:

 

Someone had even put rocks underwater in the lake spelling out PEACE:

So....after the hike, we attended the conference all week (I'll spare you the details of this).  However, I want to get on quickly to my favorite part - salmon fishing near Pacific Rim National Park!  Here I am catching my first salmon :)
and here I am holding her up:
Yes!  The best part about fishing is that you get to listen to your friends tell stories about their other fishing trips, you get to listen to the captain tell stories about other salmon fishing trips, and you get to be on the water enjoying beautiful scenery. 

So...I showed you my salmon, but I also caught  a particular cod fish whose swim bladder swells when you bring it up from depth.  It also tastes really bad.  Since you can't eat this fish or return in to the water, we decided to feed it to a BALD EAGLE.  My co-worker Jason caught this on film.....

AWESOME

 

How can a trip to Vancouver Island get any better than this?

 

Disease Clusters and Toxic Chemicals

We've all seen the Julia Roberts movie, Erin Brockovich, right? - The movie where an unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply.  If you haven't been living under a rock for the past 10 years, you've probably seen that movie and were made extremely aware that certain areas where people live can concentrate toxic chemicals at levels that can contaminate their resources and expose them to a higher incedence of certain diseases.

 

My father is a medical doctor and my sister is in her first year of medical school.  Because of my close association with the medical field all my life, I've always been interested in diseases and their causes.  That's why I want to spread the word about something we can prevent.

Today, Natural Resources Defense Council and the U.S. National Disease Cluster Alliance released an issue paper documenting 42 disease clusters in 13 U.S. states (http://www.nrdc.org/health/diseaseclusters/files/diseaseclusters_issuepaper.pdf).  "Disease clusters" are similar to what happened in Erin Brockovich, whereby areas where folks live may exhibit an extraordinarily high rate of a rare disease.  Being an environmental attorney, I want to do something about toxic exposures like this and alert folks to the particular law that could help -->  Toxic chemicals should be identified and controlled through reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), so these chemicals don't pollute communities and continue to sicken people.

Here are some examples contained within the NDCA report:

Birth defects in Kettleman City, California, including twenty babies born over less than two years with birth defects, and four children born with birth defects so severe that they have since died, in this town of only 1,500 people.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) – a very rare disease - in Herculaneum, Missouri, a town affected by a major lead smelter and decades of pollution.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) in Wellington, Ohio, where residents are three-times more likely to develop MS than in the rest of the country, a disease whose causes are unknown but are thought to involve a combination of genetic and environmental causes.

Birth defects in Dickson, Tennessee, a striking cluster that was identified by a non-profit organization called Birth Defect Research for Children, created by the mother of a child with birth defects, which gathers information about birth defects nationally, links families, and works with scientists to identify patterns that require investigation.

Male breast cancer, childhood cancer, and birth defects in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. More than 60 men who lived on that base have been diagnosed with male breast cancer – an extraordinary and alarming finding which is almost impossible to occur by chance alone, and one which deserves urgent attention.

Let's become more aware of this and help in any way we can!

Royal Wedding Draws Near! I cannot wait!!!

So I am girly and giddy with excitement! Kate and William's wedding is less than a month away. I can't WAIT. This is to satisfy my craving for all things Royal Wedding -

BOOYAH

 

How an oil spill can affect coral reefs

 

After the Gulf of Mexico oil spill occurred, many folks were concerned with the coral reefs on the Flower Garden Banks.  These are some beautiful reefs off of the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.  In addition, ocean current prediction models had some of the oil leaving the Gulf and passing under Florida where the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary is found.  The oil did not reach the reefs as some feared, but most were researching and anticipating what the effects could be if the oil had reached these diverse reef ecosystems.

We can look to past oil spills to see what the impacts might be if a spill were to occur near a reef in U.S. waters.  One extensively studied spill occurred at Bahia Las Minas, Panama in April, 1986. An estimated 60,000-100,000 barrels of medium-weight crude oil spilled into the waters of the bay, causing widespread lethal and sub-lethal effects to coral.

In contrast, in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf Spill in January 1991, the largest oil spill in history, an estimated 6.3 million barrels of oil were released. Given the magnitude of this release and the coral reef impacts noted at other tropical spills, there were dire expectations of severe impacts to reefs in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. However, to date, the extent of coral reef damage directly attributable to the Gulf Spill has been remarkably minor.

Impacts of oil spills to coral reefs are difficult to predict because each spill presents a unique set of physical, chemical, and biological conditions. How corals are exposed to oil—and the composition of the oil at the time of impact—bears directly on how serious the impact will be.

There are three primary modes of exposure for coral reefs in oil spills:

• Direct oil contact is possible when surface oil is deposited on intertidal corals that live near the surface of the water and become exposed with the tides.
• Rough seas and a light, soluble oil can combine to mix the oil into the water below the surface, where it can impact corals. Corals are exposed to less oil beneath the water surface, but the lighter oil components that mix easily are often the most toxic.
• Subsurface oiling can occur when heavy oils weather, or mix with sediment material. This increases the density of the oil to the point where it may actually sink, potentially smothering corals.

The effects of oil and dispersants on coral reefs are contradictory.  Laboratory, field studies, and actual oil spill events often appear to show diverse results for effects of oil and dispersants on coral reefs.  The old notion that coral reefs do not suffer acute toxicity effect from oil floating over them is probably incorrect. Direct contact with spilled oil can lead to coral death, but depends on coral species, growth form, life stage, and type/duration of oil exposure.

Longer exposure to lower levels of oil may kill corals, as well as shorter exposure to higher concentrations. Death may not be immediate, but rather take place long after the exposure has ended.

Instead of acute mortality, it is more likely that oil effects occur in sublethal forms, such as reduced photosynthesis, growth, or reproduction. Early developmental forms (like coral larvae) are particularly sensitive to toxic effects, and oil slicks can significantly reduce larval development and viability.

Coral communities may recover more rapidly from oil exposure alone than from mechanical damage. Recovery of coral reefs after oil exposure; however, may depend partly on the recovery of associated communities (e.g. nursery or foraging habitats, such as mangroves and seagrasses) that may be more seriously affected than the reef itself. Recovery time depends on the type and intensity of the disturbance and can range from several years to decades.

Credit: http://coralreef.noaa.gov/aboutcorals/facts/coral_oilspill.html  Much of this post comes from NOAA's Coral Conservation Program.

 

Wedding Reading Folders - My New Etsy Store Launches

I've opened a new Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/WeddingReadingFolder.  These folders used to be listed within my Perky Prose shop, but I thought it best to separate them from the multitude of journals they were listed with.  Many folks told me that the wedding reading folder was a great idea, but I felt that the idea was lost amongst the journals.  Now they stand out in a shop of their own!  Here's my new cute little shop avatar:

My wedding reading folder idea was born as I was "standing at the altar!"

I am a recently married gal who had an outdoor wedding. I loved the idea of having a beautiful eco friendly wedding and letting nature provide the backdrop. My sister in law and brother both did wedding readings and we had an officiant do the ceremony.

My sister in law proceeded to do her wedding reading from a crumpled up and folded piece of paper, and my brother proceeded to do his wedding reading from his iphone! The officiant came with a bunch of papers he held in his hand.

Pastors, priests, officiants, and our loved ones we've chosen to do wedding readings need a beautiful decorative folder that holds their reading(s). No more crumpled papers or mobile device readings here!!!

50 Ways to Save the Ocean

I’ve had folks ask me how they can help protect and conserve our marine environment and its creatures in a hands-on kind of way.  I know that a lot of people would rather physically help out a cause and donate their time and effort rather than their money.  It’s weird letting your money go to a huge pot and not knowing if it will be used for what you intended it to be used for. 

A great resource for this type of hands-on help is a book by David Helvarg (Founder of Blue Frontier) called 50 Ways to Save the Ocean.  The Forward of this book, which is written by Philippe Cousteau, sums up the book  just perfectly, “If there’s one thing I learned growing up in my family, it was that we as individuals need to protect the environment-not only by volunteering, donating money, or going on great adventures of discovery, as my grandfather and father have done, but also by making fundamental changes in our everyday habits.”  This is something I try to do every day, but it’s really hard to do in our current society.  Admittedly, I still don’t do this 100%.  We have to constantly remind ourselves to make changes in our habits every day and keep on top of ourselves about this!

I won’t give up all 50 ways to save the ocean, plus this would take up a ton of space and time, so I’ve decided to pick my top 10 favorites that are the most doable and can make the biggest impact:

1.            eat organic and vegetarian foods – Here’s a reason why you want to do this: “Every year, farmers in the (U.S.) Midwest use as much as 140 pounds of synthetic fertilizer for every acre planted in corn and other chemical-dependent crops.  Every spring, surplus fertilizer and other agricultural chemicals wash down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico where they encourage the growth of a massive algae bloom.  When the algae decay they are fed on by bacteria, which suck the dissolved oxygen out of the water.  The lack of oxygen creates a “dead zone” larger than New Jersey that kills every form of sea life that cannot flee its reaches.”  As you can imagine, this could happen in many more places and on many more rivers than the Mississippi.  You can apply it to your major river system as well.

2.            eat seafood that’s healthy and sustainable – Eating the right fish protects your health.  Eating the wrong fish may leave the plate empty for the next generation.  You can see an older post of mine about seafood choices.

3.            conserve water – Water you save helps to keep clean rivers flowing to the sea.

4.            conserve energy – Energy conservation reduces the impact of power plants, which can poison ocean waters and fish.

5.            be a marine sanctuary (or other type of marine protected area) volunteer – Our marine protected area systems are in need of volunteers to grow, prosper, and accomplish their missions.

6.            use less plastic – The plastic that finds its way into the ocean never stops polluting because it never breaks down.  It can end up in the stomachs of fish and other marine life which places them in peril.

7.            opt out of the throwaway culture – What we throw out as rubbish doesn’t ever really go away.

8.            keep your household refuse nontoxic – Chemicals tossed in the garbage find their way into streams, rivers, and eventually the sea.

9.            drive a fuel-efficient car, join a car pool, or use public transit – Tailpipe emissions are a major source of ocean pollution.

10.          join in a coastal cleanup or wetlands cleanup – Protect the shoreline while getting some healthy outdoor exercise.

And, Okay, 11 and 12 -because it was hard for me to choose-  Protect our waters from invasive organisms (exotic critters) and volunteer for a marine mammal stranding team.

Admittedly, it was very hard to choose a top-10 list, but this will give you an idea.  This book is great for folks who don’t have much knowledge about how what we do affects the ocean.  For those of you that do have a good idea, the book also helps clarify why these things are detrimental and helps point you in the right direction as to how you can get involved.

 

My New Lined Pocket Journals!

Mini journals are my latest obsession.  There's just something so great about a little item you can fit in your pocket while you're on the go.  Sometimes, I get strange and wonderful (and random) ideas while I'm traveling about during the day.  It's nice to be able to whip one of these babies out of my pocket and start brainstorming!  It helps clear the head.

After my Bethany Beach, DE, girls' craft weekend, I stopped at a craft store in Annapolis, MD, to purchase some scrapbooking supplies (another obsession of mine as of late).  I found a wonderful selection of quilting quarters, which are the perfect size for me to purchase for bookmaking:  not too large, not too small.  Sometimes a full yard of cloth is just too much for me to have at one time for bookmaking.

I also ran across some awesome little iron on decorations that inspired me.  One was a little red bird, one was a sparkly blue fish, and one was a sheet of floral curly q's.  After I made my purchases, I came home, brainstormed, and was finally (today) able to finish three new books that are just perfect for your pocket and cute enough to make you smile!

Here's the red bird:

 
http://www.etsy.com/listing/68800250/red-bird-and-flowers-pocket-notebook

Here's the fishy:

 
http://www.etsy.com/listing/68908327/fish-swimming-through-seaweed-pocket

Here are the floral curly q's:

 
http://www.etsy.com/listing/68995148/floral-curly-qs-pocket-journal

Here's A Budda (or two) for YOU!

I love me some budda. 

Here are some beauties from Thailand (yes, another Thailand picuture!) I just ran across in old photos from my Thai trip.  They brought such a smile to my face I had to share...

HERE:

 

Marine Protected Areas

This is perhaps the issue that is nearest and dearest to my heart - conserving parts of the marine environment because they are unique and special places with diverse and beautiful wildlife.  A Marine Protected Area, or MPA, is exactly what it sounds like - a place in the marine environment that is protected.  The key here is protected from what? ...and how?  This depends on the type of MPA it is, what country (or state) it's in, or if it's on the high seas.

Many MPAs in the United States are state protected areas, Marine Sanctuaries, or Wildlife Refuges.  States protect those MPAs in their own waters, Marine Sanctuaries are managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Wildlife Refuges are managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service.  Confused? Exhausted? I am.  Not only are a lot of MPAs managed by different entities, the unique features and wildlife inside them can be afforded differing protections as well.  Some MPAs function to protect coral reefs, some act as no fishing zones to protect fish, some were created to protect migrating humback whales at certain times of the year...the list could go on and on...

That's why there's a program within the U.S. government to centralize and inventory all marine protecte areas so they may work together to conserve species and sacred environmental places.  You can visit their webpage at http://www.mpa.gov/.

I had the opportunity to help MarViva (http://www.marviva.net/) create a model marine protected area for Costa Rica.  Since then, I've run across friends that are working on similar issues around the world.  My friend, Arlo Hemphill, is working to create MPAs on the high seas (international waters) for floating patches of sargassum seaweed. 

If you want to help protect your beloved marine environment and the critters in it, start by volunteering at an MPA near you.  You can help lead tours, help keep it clean, help educate others about the harmful anthropogenic effects that could be 
lending to its demise, or just get others out there to enjoy it!  Do a little internet searching to find an MPA near you in your country or state!