Well, it is hard to believe that we are halfway through the first month of 2009 already.  It, like every year before it, will be a quick one I think.  Of course I have been doing a lot of traveling already this month and that certainly does make it speed by. That also explains my lack of posts lately.  I started the month in our nations capitol and in the middle of the month I visited my parents in the Southwest.  All of this time off and travel has given me a lot of time to think about what I want to do with EcoZebra and where I want to take it in 2009.

I have been blogging now for just about two years, but what you see as EcoZebra today started as a real estate blog on Active Rain and didn’t go where it is now until summer of last year.  You see, I want to talk about so much more than real estate and I could only do that by no longer being a real estate blog.

In 2009 I have a lot of plans for the Zebra.

As you know, if you read the blog, I am a stay at home/work from home dad.  Something that started last May.  So I am going to take the blog in that direction a little more.  We are doing everything as organically as possible for our little man, from the paint on the walls to making most of his food ourselves.  So I am going to share much more along those lines.  We’ll cover the trials and tribulations along with the products we find along the way.

I garden organically as well and you are going to see more on that as I have joined a local gardening group and have some trials and tribulations with my own little urban farm that I want to share. One exciting thing is that I may be inheriting some chickens from neighbors who are moving and I haven’t raised chickens since I was a child.  This is going to be fun!

Home improvement is always a big thing when you live a 100 year old house, so I will continue talking about all the things we do to green our existing home and the products that we use to do it. That along with my love for modern architecture will keep me posting on the interesting things we see all over the web and at sites like Jetson Green.  That means that I will keep the consolidation of interesting things coming.  Something that has been pretty much our focus since the beginning, but will now just be one of the many things we post on.  I am a Realtor as well, so I will post on Real Estate occasionally.  At least when it applies to the world or green.

Press passes are also something I discovered this last year.  My blog qualifies me for press passes to trade shows and events.   I am going to use this to cover upcoming products from green retailers or retailers going green.  It is a great way to spread first hand news on products coming to or already on the market!  The first show this year was supposed to be CES, but a family issue kept me from attending after all, so the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market will be the first show I cover this year.

We will have new writers in 2009!  I have signed on two contributors at this point and would like to add more, so watch out for posts from them.  If you are reading this and you want to write for us, please feel free to contact me and let me know.   At this point, your writing would be for free, but eventually I will be working out a payment plan for writers and those who come first will get some sort of profit sharing plan.  We just don’t have much of income at this point and barely cover our hosting expense right now.  However, I expect that to change with what we are doing next.

Opening an online store! The EcoZebra Store is in development right now, but will be opening soon.  Products will include everything from cleaning supplies to groceries, toys to gardening tools and more.  All organic, natural, sustainable and educational.  Revenue from the store will be used to pay for this blog, keep my kid out of daycare and pay our writers.  In the meantime, please use the Amazon link in the right sidebar.  I call it the keep the blog going, the writers paid and the kid out of daycare fund.

So that’s it.  2009 and the Zebra in a nutshell.  I am excited about making this a wonderful year!