This past year I have been fortunate enough to write for several publications including Farmers’ Almanac online. My work there led to an invite to write for the 2011 print edition; American and Canadian editions. And now, as of Monday, my article will be on newsstands everywhere.

The article, 5 Gardening Trends for 2011 and Beyond, is three pages of advice, trends, and tips for the upcoming year in the garden. I can hardly remember what I wrote, to be honest, but I am sure that one day soon I’ll make myself sit down to reread my thoughts.

Published every year since 1818, the Farmers’ Almanac is the go-to source for inspirational and useful tips. Time tested and generation approved, each edition of the Farmers’ Almanac is a compendium of knowledge on weather, gardening, cooking, remedies, managing your household, preserving the earth and more.

And to celebrate the publishing I am going to be giving away a copy of the American edition. To be eligible you need only:

• Comment on this blog post
• Post about my entry on your own blog (and provide me a link)
• Promote this contest on Twitter (and hashtag it with #farmersalmanac
• Post a status update on Facebook (and tag me)
• Send me a personal email including your social security number, bank account number, and PIN

I think it is okay to not always see eye-to-eye. This holds true for relationships with spouses, parents, friends, children, etc. Such behavior doesn’t make one party right and one party wrong. It just makes both parties different from the other. But why? Why are we different? Is there a point? I can think of a number of colloquialisms and adages that speak to variety being “the spice of life” and such but the truth to this timeless riddle is that no one truly knows. Perhaps the closest answer comes from the Arabic word taaruf – to live together. We all have strengths and weaknesses that when combined create a dynamic and strong fabric.

Lately I have been quite busy. My job is demanding and challenging. I am traveling quite a bit. Gardening season is running full speed. I am speaking more now than I ever have addressing groups on Eco-Conscious Living and ‘Going Green.’ I am writing on a regular basis for several blogs and print magazines. And I am still booking photo shoots. Granted I am not doing all of this each and every day but it still pulls me away from the leisure I sometimes wish I had. I often find myself asking if I am making enough time for Pan or if I am making enough time or God in my life. I feel like I am but when I am in their presence I find myself just not seeing eye to eye with either. It all causes a feeling of disconnect and even loneliness at times.

Mind you, I am not complaining. I am just rather throwing my thoughts out there in a fishing attempt to see if anyone can see things from my eye level right now.

We have all heard the recent reports. About 6.6 million U.S. households in 2009 had at least three generations of family members, an increase of 30 percent since 2000, according to census figures. When “multigenerational” is more broadly defined to include at least two adult generations, a record 49 million, or one in six people, live in such households, according to a study recently released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

Pan and I moved “back home” in December 2008 for a number of reasons. I had had it with living in the big apple and longed for a simpler life. I had also recently closed a business enterprise after mounting debt and an uncertain future got the better of my team. Pan and I were preparing to get married and knew we wanted to be further south in the area we both grew up in.

Our options were few as I had no job, she only had seasonal employment, we had no worldly possessions to speak of and the economy wasn’t allowing for really any loans to help us get back on our feet. Thankfully my folks were only two years into their new home – a 3200 square foot, custom built home in rural, middle Georgia. They welcomed us with open arms and before long we had assimilated into our own semi-private part of the house.

I found a job. Pan found a little rest from the uncertainty of our previous lives. My folks enjoyed having us around. Pan took up shop in the kitchen creating amazing meals for the whole family. I made myself available to help my dad around the yard and farm area. Things were working out well for all involved.

By mid-winter though the reality started setting in. Pan and I had moved back home and began to feel like we were mooching at times. We just didn’t have a lot and most of our income went to paying down debt. We often expressed our sense of disappointment and fear to each other. She wanted to be closer to the water. Having grown up minutes from the Atlantic she felt landlocked and shell-shocked. I was working almost 60 hours a week and felt sorry for myself and like I was unable to provide for my wife. The heartache had begun to set in. “Lord,” we would pray, “show us our path. Give us some guidance. It isn’t easy and we just don’t know where we fit in.” At time the notion of being under someone else’s roof would overwhelm us and we would bicker with each other. But other problems were starting to surface.

Two couples. One house. While we had our privacy it seemed we were never alone and for newlyweds…well, that can be tough. My folks are so respecting of our privacy and our schedules but being their kid there are time when I don’t want to help my Dad. There are time when my mother does nag me. I am sure there are times when we don’t want to share our business with my folks and we don’t care what they think about a situation. But that is par for the course and right now we are putting on someone else’s green.

I am not complaining. I am not even regretful for our current position. In fact, 95% of the time I am happy living together as we do and I look forward to adding a 3rd generation to the mix. But it is not easy. I guess no one ever said it is. There are headaches. There are heartaches. There are times when we are put in the middle or we unfairly ask them to sit in the middle of our junk. But when I look around at others I think how unique this season in life is; this place God has put us. Each morning I get to share a cup of coffee with my folks, chatting about the day to come and each night I get to lay beside my wife with the promise of a new tomorrow.

So what do you think about multi-generational living? Could you do it? Do you do it? Would you like to try it? Let me hear from you!

I posted my first blog entry on November 28, 2004. That was almost six years ago. Granted it was on a site that is no longer active and I have taken a couple of month long hiatus’ I can honestly say I have been consistently blogging in some capacity for at least five years. That is a lot of random one-sided conversation, if you ask me. In that time I have blogged for three companies, four non-profits, one magazine, four newspapers and countless contributions. That is not even counting the over 400 posts made to anotherkindofdrew.com. It is because of this dedication and because of the tone I take in my blog as well as the content that has led me to my most recent opportunity.

About three months ago I was contacted by GRIT magazine (after some emails and recommendations of other writers) to blog on grit.com. WOW! What a community of wonderful people. They are all ages, sizes and shapes and come from all different walks of life from extremely rural to suburban to downright urban.

And so it is with great pleasure that because of the popularity my writing (through anotherkindofdrew.com) on GRIT.com, I can announce that this blog and even an image of mine was featured in the March/April issue of GRIT magazine currently on newsstands. If you haven’t gotten a copy it is available at most newsstands across the country. Published by Ogden Publications it is a staple in small farm/hobby farm reading.

So again, thank you for reading my blog, commenting on my blog and supporting all my various projects.

I detest almost all Christian films. They lack budget. They lack quality actors (we can thank Kirk Cameron and that ‘other’ Baldwin brother for that). They lack depth. They just lack.

Christian films today conjure up thoughts of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ or that abominable Left Behind series. Neither a great premise for the new Denzel Washington movie Book of Eli.

But the new movie doesn’t fit the standard mold and until about an hour into the film I was not even sure it was the Christian movie so many “cool pastors” had been Tweeting and blogging about. In fact, this incredibly entertaining, ultra-violent, post-Apocalyptic story of a lone wanderer named Eli (Denzel Washington) setting about headed “west,” defending the mysterious book in his possession at all costs is one of the boldest and most random faith-based films to ever come out of a major studio.

Eli is carrying a copy of the last KJV Bible on the planet (we figure this out since it has a large, golden cross on the front), since all other religious texts—including Torahs and Korans—were rounded up and destroyed 30 years prior to the “great flash.” Eli believes he’s heard the voice of God telling him to bring the Bible to an unspecified place in the West, but a ruthless ne’er-do-well named Carnegie (played by the always bewildering yet charming Gary Oldman) knows that if he gets his hands on the precious book, he can distort its teachings and have total control over the minds and spirits of the people who live in his empire of revived, Old West-style towns (please hold all Pat Robertson jokes until the end).

With Eli joined by Samara (a bit out of her element Mila Kunis), a Carnegie servant, the race is on between the duo and the tyrant’s small army of thugs who, with their questionable hygiene, maintain final control over mankind’s destiny. And that means Washington – in true Hollywood style – will slice, dice, sever or shoot anyone who gets in his way. Oh, and did I add shoot with a bow and arrow? Yeah, he does that too!

I don’t want to say this is going to be a Sunday School favorite or the next hot sermon series making its rounds on the mega-church circuit as Oldman and his boys spew the F*bomb rather literally and the violence is reminiscent of something out of Tarantino’s catalogue. But to its redemption (pun entirely intended) the movie also features a few prize moments in which Eli reads the Bible privately while praying or recites particularly vivid Scriptures.

The Book of Eli clearly credits the Bible as the one book above all that can change the world. And of this there is left no doubt. Oldman is bad. Washington is good.

So thank you Hollywood. Thank you for The Book of Eli, a film that delivers on hardcore action while still delivering a poignant message.

I would like to write a book entitled, “The Day Tuna Fish Ruined My Salad”.

It would be a short book, yes, but it would be from the heart and would serve as a warning to others.

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This morning I made my bed. Exciting, huh? I also straightened the drawer that holds my boxers. Weird, huh? Oh, and I made sure that I had all of ID’s in my wallet and a biz card in my pants pocket. I guess to some people that isn’t odd. What is odd though is that I do these things everyday.

I hadn’t really thought about it until I read this post

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by Ms. Serendipity. Then I started working through my daily schedule and habits.

I do these things in case I die during the day. My mother would be proud of a freshly made bed. Shows my cleanliness and attention to detail. My hospital could be paid for with my Blue Cross Blue Shield card and VISA (found in my wallet). My wife could be notified of my passing by the contact details readily available on my biz card. How morbid, huh?

You mean  you don’t have any daily habits that have become so do to some deep-seeded morbidity? Come on…’fess up!

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Yesterday I drove to Griffin, Georgia to take the substitute teacher training course. It was only about five hours long and I figured it to be a rather painless exercise in discipline and keeping my extremities awake even under duress and fatigue. The instructor was mildly entertaining and the class was filled with the typical lineup of teacher hopefuls, ex-teacher know-it-alls, jaded older people, the unemployed, and the “I’m just here to get a paycheck” people. We covered a variety of tips including classroom management, SPONGE exercises, learning styles, and disciplinary actions. However, it was the following message we were encouraged to take away and remember as we were guaranteed it would become our mantra.

“Survive The Day”

Isn’t that comforting? Of all the things they wanted us to remember and apply as substitute teachers survival was the most emphasized.Vantage Point movie

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It has been nearly nine months since I first became aware of an opportunity to co-author (collaborative authoring, I call it) a book now titled Age of Conversation 2. After reading the ideas behind the book I immediately knew what I wanted to write about. So, with a little research and some well invested time at a little cafe in Paris and then an abandoned farmhouse in Mississippi I decided on a chapter about the fall of the proper business plan and its brick-and-mortar counterpart and the subsequent rise of the virtual marketplace.

I was joined in this huge endeavor by Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler

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Age of Conversation 2 is now available for purchase at lulu.com/ageofconversation in downloadable format ($9.99), Hardback ($29.99), and Softback ($16.95). Keep in mind our goal is to not just write a book but to raise over $15k for Variety.

You can also learn more about the project and the authors at the AOC2 blog.

I just want to thank all of you, (my two or three blog readers) for supporting me in my writing goals and in this endeavor. If you purchase a copy, please let me know so I can publicly thank you (or have you photocopy my chapter for me. hahahaha).

I am not unmindful that some of you have come to this blog having gone through great trials and tribulations yesterday. Some of you have come fresh from narrow minds about the state of economics in America. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for financial freedom left you battered by the storms of inflation and staggered by the winds of fluctuating percentage rates. You have been the veterans of creative banking. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the pits of Lehman, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Bank of America dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident’” that Lehman and Merrill-Lynch do not see all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood and know they can pay the bill and even leave a tip.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of financial freedom and corporate justice.

I have a dream that my neighbors’ four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the debt they owe but what they have managed to do with the money lent them. 

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, d

own on Wall Street, with its vicious foreclosures, with its CEOs and Financial Secretary’s having their lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there on Wall Street little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the simplicity of the dollar shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I stay in New York with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be fiscally free one day.

And this will be the day – this will be the day when all of Bank of America will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.