About me and green living
...and how and why I wrote this website

Picture:Me and one of my favourite trees

Hi and welcome to Greenfootsteps!

A little about me: my name is Rona and I'm from East Anglia in Britain, where I live with my partner and two (fairly) grown-up children. I have been interested in environmental and health issues all my life.

Lately I have become much more aware of how these two things are inter-linked: good care of the earth and our local environments affects our own health in lots of ways.

The "why I built this website" also has to do with my perception of the global warming crisis;  Climate change, in my view, is probably the single biggest threat to our continued existence on this planet. The economic "system" as yet does very little, if anything, to deter big business from gobbling up resources at an ever faster rate and leaving most of the mess for others to suffer and repair.

I cannot do much about the numerous pressures on our climate, or the current economic system, but if I can help a few people to live a more sustainable lifestyle, then I will have contributed in a small way to building a more sustainable future for ourselves. We can all choose how we spend our money and our time, at least to some extent. I hope that this website offers readers a few useful pointers in the quest for a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

The main focus of the website is on green living in as much as it can help your health and save you money, too.

If you are mainly interested in how I came to buid this site please scroll down the page or just click here to go straight to the story. You can read about how this kind of site works for people (and even how your own site could work for you).

Why Greenfootsteps?

Healthy living is greener living

I have built this web site with two main aims in view:

The first is to help publicise easy tips and techniques which can bring healthy living within the reach of more people.

I always believe that without good health we are fairly powerless in the world. Yes, there are some amazing people who manage against the odds, battling poor health for years, and who still manage to contribute to society and enjoy life.

But for most of us, being healthy is the first step on the road to happiness and wealth, the first step on the way to being and doing what we want in life. Having good health and plenty of energy also makes it easier for us contribute something to our society and culture, which helps us to find true meaning in life.

Good health is a currency which is easily spent as we work hard to achieve other ends!

As a health professional (I am a qualified homoeopath) I wanted to do something to help people to integrate good health patterns into their lives in an eco-friendly way. Organic eating and lowering our toxic load from chemicals are two themes that feature strongly on the site, therefore.

The best things in life are free -

 - but they do need time!

The second aim of my website is to provide people with eco-friendly consumer choices which actually save money.

(There are also some which don't save money, of course, but they do help towards a healthy lifestyle.)

I believe that we often compromise our health and happiness because we are sold products and lifestyle choices which line other people's pockets but don't really benefit us. We are not only missing out on the best things in life - the free things - we're wasting money too, money we have had to work hard for.

The more I look into alternative and green lifestyles, the more I find that there are lots of ways of caring for ourselves in simple, ecologically sound ways - ways which are usually much less expensive too.

If we can save money by using more eco-friendly methods in our day-today living maybe we can work a little less hard and have more free time for all the best things in life.

In my own life I am trying to become more environmentally aware in my consumer and lifestyle choices. I believe we all have a vested interest in looking after our environment but I don't really believe in bullying or guilt-tripping people into being greener.

It's more like a personal journey that can be entertaining and fun - so I hope that the website reflects this sense of enjoyment. Going green shouldn't be grim! 

Research, trial and error -

Well, hopefully not too much error!

I try out most of the tips that I find and promote on the site - and I recommend them to friends and family to try too, so that I have some different reactions and viewpoints to draw upon.

I also research information quite carefully and use a wide variety of reputable sources, such as the Soil Association in Britain, the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and others. I believe that my information is very trustworthy.

However, if you believe that any piece of information on the site is incomplete, incorrect or misleading please contact me and share your concern.

There is a contact form link on the nav bar and one at the bottom of this page, too.

Trying to keep it simple - a green KISS!

Remember the old adage: "Keep It Simple, Stupid!"?

There is a third reason for the web site which is also important to me. I think that some environmentalist and "green" sites are quite hard to find your way around - at least for casual readers.

Some of the issues are also immensely controversial, so it isn't surprising that the web sites get huge and complex. There is so much detail, so many issues that it is hard to get a simple overview of the problems facing us.

Many of the excellent new sites which are springing up are what I call "magazine" sites. There is great topical info but finding an potted survey of the issues can be hard.

On this site I try to give a straightforward, broad overview of many of the issues. The risk is that I will go to far that way and err on the side of being simplistic. I try not to do that, of course, but it is always a risk with complex, fast-changing situations.

Of course, I'm not for a moment attempting to replace what the large environmental sites do. Rather I'm trying to complement their activities with a simple, straightforward, boiled-down-to-essence sort of approach, particularly on green issues, such as climate change. This kind of approach is naturally rather limited - but I hope a few people will find it helps them find their feet in what can be a confusing landscape.

Of course I use many of the excellent large websites (such as Friends of the Earth, WWF, Greenpeace, etc) as sources of information. I also add links to some of their pages where I think that you, the reader, will be interested in further details.

I hope to be able to provide concise and accurate information about the different issues, making it easy for people to make lifestyle choices without having first to do a doctorate in earth sciences!

***

My personal aims in building Greenfootsteps

A little bit more about me:

I have been gardening and growing vegetables using organic methods for years now. I can't claim to be the most successful gardener around!

Like most gardeners, I have successes and failures but there is nearly always something good to eat in the garden and in the summer months we often don't need to buy much by way of vegetables for weeks on end.

I've been interested in nature and wildlife for as long as I can remember and I love to watch birds and go to our more remote coasts and mountains to camp. Wild spaces are very important to me and I am passionate about preserving these spaces for future generations, preferably unscathed by human activities. I'm a longtime member of the RSPB though I'm not active in any groups at the moment.

Downshifting

My personal aim in building this website is to be able to downshift a little, to live in a less rushed but more eco-friendly way. As I am mainly working on the site and running my organic garden I am able to spend less money and experience less stress than if I were running to work and back every day.

Eventually I plan to travel, in a slow and relatively sustainable way and maybe help with some of the excellent conservation projects which are springing up in response to the environmental problems we all face.

I'm also involved with local initiatives to create more orchards and help preserve the ones we have. We now have a lovely new orchard of 19 fruit trees and a number of fruit bushes which should start to bear crops sometime soon. 

Picture above: my orchard.
Here is the story of how I came to build this site.

Get rich quick anyone?

A few years ago I spent a couple of months trawling the internet for a reasonable way of building a website. I found hundreds of get-rich-quick schemes, lots of sites inviting you to buy into a turnkey site to sell products which was the same as seven hundred other sites sold to other hopeful business newbies.

There were also website hosts offering bargain bucket prices too, but none of them offered serious support for the inexperienced web builder. And, if you wanted anything other than the basic service, you'd have to stump up more cash!

In the end I kept coming back to one company which stood out for its cool, measured approach to web building. Unlike most hosts they did not offer all sorts of snazzy lures to get me to sign up.

Rather, they described a simple, step by step approach to building a web site and a profitable business.

And they gave examples of successful websites using their system, one run by a fifteen year old girl even.

That outfit was Site Build It!

I have been using their web hosting and their myriad of other services - all included in the price - since I began the site. I can honestly say they have been absolutely great.

I don't consider myself to be very "techie" - I'm not quite a technophobe either but the zillions of things that you need to know in dealing with computers and the internet can be daunting.

I've found their on-line help and the Users Forums amazingly helpful and the software is all smoothly integrated so that setting up web pages and changing them is a breeze. Anyone can do this - you don't need a high level of education at all - just common sense and the ability to work at it.

Sponsored links

Get rich quick it is not!

But you can build an extremely successful and profitable website. As I said, there is real work involved but anybody who takes it seriously can develop a good online income over time.

If you would like to take a look for yourself at what Site Build It! offer just follow one or more of these links:

How to build a successful web site if you have a passion or hobby you want to share

A quick tour of Site Build It! 

How Site Build It works for people - the proof 

Or have a look at one or two of these videos. (These videos were made by people who have used Site Build It! to create successful web sites and to fulfill their dreams of independence.

Here's one made by a horse-loving lady who has emigrated to Spain to pursue her dreams:

Here's one made by a webmaster who failed with other systems before finding SBI! - be warned, it's quite humorous!

Comments or questions?

If you have any comments about the site or questions please fill in contact form. (I never, ever give out anyone's email to any third parties, so you are completely safe from junk mail or spam as a result of filling in this form.) 

Also, if you want to ask anything about Solo Build It! I will try to help, or point you in the right direction at least. You can also find out more by clicking this link: Question Sitesell

Thank you for visiting my web site. I hope you find some useful ideas for green living which suit you. Please come back soon!

*****

About me: TOP of page 

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