About Us

Live and Learn New Mexico! is a blog that celebrates and honors all the great things about our beautiful state.

We also look at the bad stuff -- crime, homelessness -- and look for practical, kind solutions, calling on community to pull together to effect positive change. 

We encourage active participation in the blog and what it highlights. Feel free to comment, kindly, if you have ideas to share. 

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Popular posts from this blog

Changing our diet to save the planet

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We walked out of Walmart today with our groceries packed in paper bags, bags like the ones grocery stores used back in the day, no handles or ties. I'm old. I remember them well.  My son complained a little at the inconvenience, and I said, "Maybe they actually care more about saving the planet than they do about making your life more convenient in the short term." Good for Walmart, I thought, whatever their motives. And that led me to think, what would happen if businesses simply quit selling meat and started selling plant based foods? What if they did the right thing despite inconveniencing their customers?  I've been wondering this for a while. When Carl's Jr. came out with the Beyond burger, I was encouraged; all they had to do, in my opinion, is go vegan across the board. Who cares if customers don't like it as well as dead cows? Who cares if it helps save the planet?  Look, you don't have to like it as well as meat but you can...
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The Los Alamos Factor

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I have an organizational meeting for the XQ Super School Challenge in Los Alamos this coming Tuesday, and I have knots in my stomach. Why am I even bothering with Los Alamos when my program is a statewide one and I don't have to have anything to do with that community if it makes me so uncomfortable? I grew up there and many years after graduation returned to live there for 13 years but that isn't the reason. I think it's because I see so much potential for the town. I started having ideas about how students could be better served there when I was running the GED program at UNM-Los Alamos. It is a mean-spirited community, though, very arrogant, very judge-y. If I didn't know that there are students and parents who suffer deeply because of the emphasis placed on succeeding in school, I think I could leave it behind. It is a town that makes everything a competition, even our kids' learning. It is also a town that makes the parents feel that they are the ones ...
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Doggie play days

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Kahlua is about six years old now. I love her -- she's the smartest dog I've ever known, and she loves her doggie life. But she didn't always have it so good. For the first year or so of her life, she lived in the abandoned mobile home on the property next to mine. Her owners asked my son to take care of her when they abruptly moved out a few years ago. Danny would go to the mobile home each day and feed her and let her run around outside.  Honestly, the dog irritated the hell out of me but still, I couldn't stand watching it happen. I told Danny to bring her over. Even though she quite gleefully killed my chickens in a matter of days, I knew quickly that she was a soulmate. She's been with me since, reminding me every day just how beautiful life is. Because she greets every day with doggie gratitude and celebrates it in her Kahlua way...open hearted... positive...funny.  She is the inspiration for my doggie play yard. I want to help other less fortunate...
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