It was projector time!  We had all been ushered into our elementary school auditorium and were “shushed” as the grainy film began to click-clack away in the dark.  It stopped midway, but there was always that one kid who could get it to work again, much to the relief of that teacher who was slightly and secretly afraid of technology.  Touting the merits of being “consumers,” the man’s dramatic movie theater voice attempted to extol the dubious virtues of rapacious “utilization” of the earth’s natural resources.  I suppose I remember this film in particular because I recall truly disagreeing with what we were being taught.  The first Earth Day began in the ’70’s, and it seemed like the message was switching concerning stewardship of Mother Earth.  I remember “paper drives” where all us kids would bring in our parent’s neatly stacked daily newspapers we’d saved up for the month to try and fill the giant truck that came to school for recycling.  I think the class who collected the most won a pizza party!  But now we were on the verge of the 1980’s and it was all about consumption.  Fast forward to today where we still have consumerism but we also know the vital merits of conservation.  Recycling has evolved into “reduce; reuse; repurpose.”  I try to live by those words, and guide my little family into doing the same.  This beautiful opal (my birthstone) pictured above was “repurposed” from a ring into a necklace very easily.  I had never owned an opal primarily because I was always given to understand they could easily break.  So proud of the ring my sweet husband bought me two Christmases ago, I always leery of wearing it.  Mama used to say she had her best ideas in the middle of the night.  Awhile back (in that nebulous place between sleeping and waking) an idea came to me.  What if I took my precious opal to the jewelers and had them hang it on a chain instead?!  Now I can wear my opal without being as worried.  The Japanese designer Issey Miyake once said, “The purpose – where I start – is the idea of use.  It is not recycling, it’s reuse.”  When something is “repurposed” it is given new life or perhaps a new intention.  The older I get, the more I think about ways I can become better, more useful; “repurposed.”