Category Archives: NaBloPoMo

>Farm Market Therapy

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>I’ve been feeling really down lately. The weather, keeping me out of the garden. The virus, keeping me under the weather for several days. The never-ending construction, forcing me to the laundromat and covering my bed in a layer of dust. I found myself wondering if our carpenters like tomatoes and zucchini – and then thinking “oh, no, that would mean they’d still be here in August!”
Some women go shopping and call it Retail Therapy. I can do that – if it’s thrift shopping or surfing the garage sales. In general, spending money doesn’t make me happy.
Some people work in the garden – the heavy rain took that option away.

But today was the day with the best therapy of all: the first Farmers’ Market of the summer.

I was so involved in the process that I forgot to take a picture while I was there. Here’s a partial collection of my haul. The strawberries are in a colander in the sink. The cheeses are in the refrigerator. I’d already sliced one loaf of bread (white with flax seed, yum) and put it in the fridge, too. The toast with jelly came from that loaf. Onions, tomatoes (greenhouse style), asparagus, fair trade coffee, bunny food (also in the sink at the picture-taking), and more — it was a good day.

But even more important than the fresh and organic goodies: the change in my mood is dramatic. Why? Let me count the ways.
Seeing the crowd: families, singles, couples, people of all ages. Strollers, wagons, wheelchairs, canes.
Crowds of people caring about buying locally, buying fresh, and buying organic.
Sunshine, aromas from the coffee shops and kettle corn stand.
People smiling and laughing and interacting.
The cheese vendor offering a sample to a sad toddler and getting a smile in return.
The young vendor handing our samples of her kettle corn, and people saying thank you.
Music from buskers and local orchestra students.
My wheeled bag getting more and more full of good foods for my family.
I’m feeling much better. I hope you are, too.

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>Remodeling the old Homestead: the runaway bunny

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>It’s not the State of the Union. It’s not even the State of the State. It’s just the state of my bedroom mid-project. Awaiting installation are two brand new energy efficient major appliances: new LG washer and dryer. They’re waiting — in my bedroom. The shiny cover on the bed is the tarp: clear plastic, it keeps the dust off my sheets. See the chair behind the bed? It’s sitting on a cedar chest, keeping the box fan company. Don’t ask.

Last night a tiny bunny named Krumpet who lives in Amigo’s (dusty but otherwise unscathed) bedroom found her way out the door while the carpenters moved the famous toilet into its permanent home. The tiny and adventurous bunny was nowhere to be found. Trust me; we searched and searched and searched. Finally, I shook the treat jar. We heard a thump in a corner. She came out – and then hid just out of reach under the bed.

Finally, we got her near the door, only to lose her again to the safe place under the bed where neither Chuck nor I could reach her little furry tail. If bunnies could laugh, she would have been pointing and gloating “Ha, ha! You can’t get me!”

We managed to force her to one side and Chuck grabbed her. He held her close, settled her down, and with a sigh of relief we moved her back into Amigo’s room, sans toilet. Oh, the drama!
Why didn’t we just let her roam? Well, there was danger for a small furry adventurous creature. If she had gone into the open ductwork, she could have fallen and been hurt or even killed. There were electric cords out, too – big ones. If she’d chewed on one of those, the damage would have been major – to her and potentially to the house. We kept her in Amigo’s room for her safety.
I’ll be happy when this project is done – for so many reasons.

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>True friendship lasts: The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow

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>The phone rang just as President Obama started speaking. I thought, “Oh, no! I’ll let voice mail catch it.” Then I saw the caller ID in the corner of my TV (technology is handy that way), and I leaped out of my chair.

It was a close friend calling to tell me that another close friend had lost her father to kidney disease. He’d been failing for a while, and they all knew it was coming, but she needed us. All of us, her closest friends.

We became friends through work and school: five teachers in the same elementary school building earning our graduate degrees together. The others in the program nicknamed us the Fab Five. We car pooled together, we exchanged ideas on projects, rehashed the good and the bad from our weekend on Mondays in the teachers’ lounge. And after our final projects were mailed and graded, after the diplomas arrived, even after I moved to a new job in a different school, we remained friends. We still share the good, the bad, the hilarious, and the traumatic. We email each other. We turn up in each other’s dreams. We still get together to drink coffee and shop, but mainly to talk.

I imagine the ten women who call themselves the Girls from Ames are a lot like us.

The Girls from Ames: a story of women & a forty year friendship is true. It reads like a novel with history and flashbacks, but the back stories are based on scrapbooks and diaries, not an author’s imagination. The book is illustrated with a photos from then and now, but more than that, it’s illustrated with the stories of relationships.

The “Girls” became friends when they were young. Eleven individuals, all unique, bonded with each other during their high school years in Ames, Iowa. Their hometown, a Midwestern college town, provided the kind of stability and small-town atmosphere typical of America’s heartland in the 1960s and 1970s. After their high school graduations, they separated to attend colleges in different states. In a pre-Internet age, without the benefit of email or cell phones, these women stayed in touch and shared marriages, divorces, children, family illnesses, even the death of one of the original eleven.

I’ve heard it said that men take a long time to get to talking, while women take a long time to get to companionable silence. This is a book about women, written by a male author, chronicles the uniqueness of friendships that have lasted more than forty years. Jeffrey Zaslow (also co-author of The Last Lecture) earned the trust of the Girls from Ames and learned from their talk and their silences. He pulled together eleven different life stories into one coherent collection, much like the eleven women still pull together for each other. His book is truly their story: the story of friendship, life, and love.

The Girls from Ames has a companion website with pictures, video, discussion, questions, and other women’s stories of friendship.

I’ll be joining the rest of the Fab Five on Monday to support one of our own friendship circle. Blog readers, as you read The Girls from Ames, I hope you will continue to cultivate your own friendships, strengthening and maintaining bonds for life.

Gotham Books provided me with a copy of The Girls from Ames in order to read it and write this review. I received no other compensation for the review.

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>No more cash for caulkers?

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>Regular readers know that we’ve been going through the trials and tribulations of a major home renovation. Part of project is a second floor laundry closet with front-loading, energy efficient machines. I’m excited to get rid of my old washer; it wasn’t draining well, leaving clothes more than damp and causing the electric dryer to overwork and use way too much energy. The new washer will use less water, less detergent, and even help use less dryer energy. The switch from electric to gas dryer ought to make a difference in the long run as well.

Part of our ever-greener lifestyle includes energy savings and the accompanying money savings. The Energy Star rating on the washer (there are no energy star dryers; even the best dryers are energy hogs) qualified us for a federal rebate in the program nicknamed “Cash for Caulkers.” It’s a win-win! Invest in energy efficient appliances, save money on electricity, gas, and water, and even earn a rebate in the process!

Or not.

The rebate paperwork came back to us marked (Sing it, Elvis) Return to Sender: Address Unknown. We tried the web site and found out we’d sent everything to the right place, but the program was out of money. Next we tried Big Box Major Appliance Store; we’d purchased in April, and they were informed and told to stop offering the rebates on the first of May. It was simply our bad luck to miss the window of opportunity. No one was at fault.

It’s disappointing, at the least. Do the right thing, complete the paperwork, and have it tossed back at us without so much as a “Gee, thanks for being energy conscious.”

I believe in the changes happening in our government. I believe in the hope that we can lessen our dependence on petroleum products, ease our need for dangerous drilling. I support the work that’s going on, even as the wheels of bureaucracy squeak slowly around and around before significant change occurs.

Watching a positive program shut down seemingly overnight for lack of funds is discouraging – discouraging to an extreme.

Disclaimer: I know the US Post Office doesn’t really use a stamp that says, “Return to Sender.” However, there’s little enough humor in this situation; I thought I’d at least make this episode a musical.

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>Trying unsuccessfully to avoid a crabby rant

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>I’m trying not to react poorly, get cranky, and crab about things I can’t control. It’s not working.

Yoda, I know, would say “Do or not do; there is no try.” Well, I’d say to Yoda, “Old man, walk a mile in my shoes, you should.”

Yoda didn’t have to deal with a lengthy remodeling project that displaced all of us for days and even weeks (La Petite) from our own bedrooms and beds. Yoda could have used a clean-up of his swamp home, perhaps, but that’s a different story.

Yoda didn’t have to deal with a nasty virus traveling through the family, sending three out of four of us coughing and honking and nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

Yoda would probably use the Force to figure out what is making my kitchen smell odd. I keep cleaning and cleaning and purging and cleaning some more, with limited success. If I don’t find it soon, we’ll be forced to move major appliances – without the Force to help us.

When I considered cooking supper on the grill between storms, I couldn’t reach the charcoal. See the lawnmower? Well, maybe you can’t. The charcoal is back there, on a shelf, behind the boards. Which boards, you ask? Never mind. Tip toe through the mess, I won’t. Cook supper in the oven, I must. On the positive side, I cleaned the grill before I realized this modus operandi would be inaccessible.

I can’t work in the garden, either. Can you see the pitchfork, the rake, the hoe, the shovels? No, neither can I. They’re behind the big sheets of plywood. Move them, I must, if I am to work in the tomatoes. Yoda, master Jedi that he was, could have moved them using the Force. I don’t believe it; and that, of course, is where I fail.

My inner Yoda keeps reminding me, “Daisy, you always say ‘Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can.’ ” while I’m tempted to tell my inner Yoda to go jump on a starship and get out of my galaxy, he reminds me to make something positive out of all this.

So while I cooked a boring and not-very-nutritious meal in the oven, I threw together a rhubarb upside down cake. Enjoy.

I’m at Green Spot-On today, talking a (again) about tomato supports.

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>Tomato, tomahto, and tomato supports

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>The newest dilemma in the new garden area is this: how shall I support the tomatoes? The old cages are no longer suitable. Last time I used them we had a tomato jungle: the plants grew so tall they fell over the sides of the cages, and then the wire cages broke through the stems. They were getting close to six feet tall, and the conical cages were only 48 inches in height.

Last year I planted tomatoes in the wrong place and too close together. They didn’t get enough sun, and they fought each other for space and water and nutrients from the soil. We didn’t get hit with the blight, but it was not a good year for tomatoes.

I’ve ruled out the wire cages. I’m using the old trellises to support the peas. Now what? I did a search (on swagbucks, check the link in the right sidebar), and found several options.

Tomato ladders. There’s a neighbor who uses these, and I like the looks of the product. They’re strong, they’re thick, and they’re coated steel (no vine breakage!). But I’d need ten at least, and at a cost of $50 for a package of three… deep breath.
Tomato towers. This is also expensive. Could we make our own? Do I have time? Does Chuck have time? I found something similar in a local hardware for $5 apiece.
Tomato Spirals. Now these look intriguing. At $35 for a set of five, this is more affordable. I can use the t-shirt tie-ups from last year if I need them.
Here’s a combination of two philosophies: the tomato spiral cage. Again, expensive to purchase outright.

Now the challenge: finding and buying these. I’d much rather buy locally. I’ve checked two hardware stores, a garden specialty store, and two big box stores with garden sections. So far, no luck. At least, no luck that I’d consider affordable. If I spend too much, we’re approaching the $64 Tomato mark, and that’s just not reasonable. I know most of these products would last for years, but I still need to make the initial investment now.

There are two stores left on my list, and then I might give in and order online – or create something entirely different.

Ideas, gardener friends? Suggestions? I’m listening.

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>Good reasons to postpons a rummage sale

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>We had in mind a June sale. Garage sale, tag sale, whatever your region calls it: in our neck of the woods we call it a rummage sale. With La Petite moving home for a while, we have no storage space, and our basement is overloaded. It’s time for another major purge. However… when I brought up to Chuck that this might not be the best time for a sale, he was easily convinced.

10. June is incredibly full. End of school, graduations, graduation parties, and more.
9. Amigo has a week of camp, including a drop-off and pick-up that need to get scheduled.
8. July is not a good month for sales locally. June and August tend to be better.
7. August is the month from you-know-where for Chuck’s work schedule.
6. Our remodeling isn’t done. The house is trashed. Truly appears trashed.
5. I still don’t have a working washer and dryer (see #6). It’s laundromat for the wash, and my old dryer after that.
4. If we wait a year, we’ll have more preparation time next spring – with no remodeling project taking our attention.
3. If we wait a year, La Petite will have a better idea how much she’ll really need of her apartment furniture, dishes, and other collections. We (she) can sell the rest.
2. If we wait a year, Amigo will have a better idea where he’s going with his life and (you guessed it) what he’ll need.
1. I’m tired. I’m simply too exhausted to prepare and staff and clean up a sale.

That’s it! Ten good reasons to wait a year. Now I just hope I can maneuver my way around the crowded basement until it happens!

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>Remodeling the old Homestead: when the trivial becomes overwhelming

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>

Coping has its limits. Sometimes, too much happens and something has to blow. What was the proverbial straw that broke our camel’s back? There are many; you choose.
The dust upstairs was so bad that we couldn’t sleep in our room. Chuck slept on the couch in the den, and I slept on La Petite’s futon, dragged into the living room. Why did we drag it out? Because I snore.

I was feeling under the weather (due to lost sleep perhaps?) with a bad summer cold, achiness, and all-over lousiness. I couldn’t find the Neti Pot because we have two bathrooms’ junk crowded into one vanity and medicine cabinet.
Chuck was feeling ill because of the dust. He took to wearing a surgical mask around the house to limit the amount of dust he inhaled. It did make a difference; he got better.

La Petite, after she finally moved back into her bedroom, couldn’t find anything. She emptied the laundry baskets and suitcases, put all of her clothing in her closet and dresser, and then nothing was where she thought it was.

Amigo tripped on a door and injured his right big toe. I think he caught it on the doorknob or the latch.

Huh? What? He tripped on a door? The doorknob or latch? That doesn’t make sense. Doorknobs and toes?

No, nothing makes sense right now unless you have it in context. All three bunnies live with us. Krumpet lives in Amigo’s room, Buttercup in the living room, and Sadie in the den. The den doesn’t have a door. The entrance is too large for a gate or standard door – at least a standard door in the standard position.

I hear you. “Ah, now it makes sense, Daisy. Why didn’t you start with that picture?” Honestly? I couldn’t find the camera. It was mixed up in the graduation party invitations. Does that make sense? No, don’t answer that.
We will love the results. However, we are so, so ready for this project to be done, done, done! I don’t know how much longer our collective sense of humor will drag us through.

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>Boycott BP – or not?

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>Should I boycott BP on the basis of the massive disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?

It’s harder than it sounds. I’ve had a BP credit card for years – decades, really. It’s a great convenience to travel with a gas card. I know where the BP stations are along my usual routes, including the drive to and from La Petite’s college town. Pay at the pump, use the rest rooms, and then get back on the road quickly and efficiently.

But now that BP is responsible for a terrible environmental disaster, should I cut up this card, cancel the account, and then shop for gas elsewhere? Or not?

I’m leaning toward not. It’s not about convenience; I can use my MasterCard or my Visa at any gas station or pay cash, too. In fact, this decision is less about me and more about impact. Boycotts are all about economic impact: hitting a company in its wallet, where it hurts the most.

If I decide to boycott BP stations in my town and my state, the company itself won’t even feel a blip on its dollar sign radar. The people who would suffer from a boycott would be the franchisees, those who own the local and regional stations and convenience stores. Those local people suffer when the economy worsens. Any resentment I harbor toward BP is not with local station owners. I don’t want them to suffer.

It’s not the locals who caused this massive disaster and let it grow, failing to cap the flow at every turn. It’s not the station owners who found themselves scrambling to find solutions after the fact rather than planning ahead and installing real, functional solutions to their rigs in case of emergencies.

It’s not the locals who failed, who lost my trust.

A personal boycott will not hit the people at the top. They won’t even feel a tickle. In fact, even a nationwide boycott by concerned environmentalists wouldn’t have a significant impact on the decision-makers at BP.

If my goal is to make an impact, I would do better to lower my dependence on oil over all. It’s time to drive less and use fewer petroleum products such as plastics. If I’m planning a long trip, I can offset my fuel use by leaving the car in the garage for several days in advance. I can consider a hybrid or electric vehicle when we replace Chuck’s Saturn or my minivan. I can walk, use a bicycle, or take public transportation. My personal impact will still be small, but the inspiration could spread.

What do you think, readers? How can you lower your petroleum use, cutting your contribution to our society’s oil dependence? How can I?

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