Archive for June, 2006
June 30th, 2006 - Made to Break
Commentary on new book Made to Break at Grist leads me to another book to read! I’m still working on Garbage Land however.
Even with such books in front of my face, I’m having difficultly lately being frugal. Just this week, for example, our college bookstore had a 90% off sale. I bought a shirt for my sister (that was okay–she adores getting mail and it was only $4 including postage), 3 shorts for Eric (not completely necessary although very useful, so a toss up), and a completely unnessecary pair of lounge pants for me. I do have only one pair for winter (I used them for PJs), but I’ve survived for two years with just one pair. I could survive longer. Argh. Sure, they, too, were less than $2. But still. I did NOT need them. And although cute, they aren’t the colors I’m trying to buy all my clothes in. What was I thinking!
I think part of it is that we have the $20000+ home repairs (lead based paint) looming over us. In comparison, everything else is cheap. Yet at the same time, I tell myself that we need to spend less in order to start paying off the HELOC we’re going to need. It’s kind of overwhelming to think about this amount of money…..We got our first bid last night, for window replacement. Nearly $15000 to replace the 15 windows. Another $4000 to redo the front porch windows and doorway. We’re thinking maybe we WILL do some of the work ourselves.
June 30th, 2006 - What was I thinking?
I wisened up and will NOT be planting blueberries. They require an awful lot of care (need the right acidity soil, watering daily for the first year or two, pruning, etc etc etc). What was I thinking? I don’t like putting that much work into something. I’d never keep up with it.
So….now I’m looking at other berries to plant! I still want more fruits in the yard. I’m particularly interested in things native to WI or the upper midwest (which blueberries are, by the way). Unfortunately, I’m running into a lot that grow far to large to put in the front yard (I don’t want my garden shaded). The Juneberry (aka serviceberry) is intriguing–it’s a lot like a blueberry taste/look-wise) but it can grow 6-25 feet depending on the variety! It’s more tree-like than bush-like. But there is a nice area in the back of the yard that might work for something like that. If it gets enough sun. I’d rip out the gooseberry then (I hate gooseberries, I’ve discovered). We could also replace our shrubbery/arbor vitae hedge with fruits. That’s probably farther in the future….. I’m definitely going to plant some cranberries in the yard. They are definitely a WI fruit! (We’re the largest producer of cranberries in the US. Maybe the world.)
I think I need to hire a landscape designer to assist with this. I have great difficulty picturing what things might look like with trees and bushes and such. We’d like some fruit trees (probably apples) in the front yard, too. So definitely have to figure the placement out before I plant any bushes that need full sun. Now, where does one find a good landscape designer who will focus on fruits, native plants, and sustainability?
June 29th, 2006 - Americans’ circle of close friends shrinking - Yahoo! News
I thought it was just me, but it’s not: Americans’ circle of close friends shrinking. I wish it were just me, because I agree that I don’t think it’s a good idea for society. But at the same time, it’s nice to know it’s not *me* it’s everyone else as well. (For the insanely curious, the only person I’d name is my husband, and then my Mom.)
June 29th, 2006 - Incentives work!
As promised, I bought my latest incentive for keeping up with my summer goals: microfiber cleaning cloths. I used my original post about these to get back to them, but I linked to the wrong items! I do not need the flannel cleaning cloths I linked to before. I maintained 5 out of 6 goals 4 of out the 5 weeks in June. Unfortunately, the third week–the one in which I had three days of candidate interviews and a sick day–I didn’t keep up and completed only 4 goals. I hoped to make up for it the following week, but that was the week after being sick, so I barely completed my goals for that week, much less doing more.
I’m not quite sure about next month: There are no exercise classes next week. Hopefully, Amy and I will meet for a private Trail Mix walk on Wednesday, however. I hope to attend 4 (instead of just 2) exercise classes this week, so they could count for next week’s goals.
What will my next incentive be? … Okay, I lied. I hadn’t actually completed the purchase when I made this post. I decided to add my next incentive to the order: Microfiber Sh-Wipes (3 pack). It saves me $3 in shipping. I will hand the items over to Eric to hold till the end of the month (assuming I complete my goals of course). “Sh-Wipes” because they go with the Sh-Mop. I bought a Sh-Mop years ago; it’s the best mop I’ve ever used. It has terry-clothish head covers which you wet in the sink. You do NOT dip them in and out of a dirty bucket of water. I like my Sh-Mop, but to be honest, I don’t like mopping and my Sh-Mop covers are pretty dirty even after washing because our floors are usually so dirty when they finally get mopped. I hope that shiny new covers will help. Plus, they will be easier to ring out and can be used dry instead of wet. I really like microfiber products anyway.
As I write this–I already placed the order and I’m not cancelling it–I’m realizing I just bought MORE STUFF. But these will honestly be used and I’ve been thinking about buying them since the products were first offered up to a year ago. I may be able to get rid of my dust Sh-mop, between the new covers and the Dyson I may not dust mop anymore!
June 28th, 2006 - Already off the garden committment
I wrote yesterday or Monday that I would work on 2 beds/aisles each day to keep them weeded. I’ve already ruined that committment: Last night I finished the whole garden!!! I went out, not enthusiastically, to do my daily chore. Then I decided to attack the lettuce/carrot/onion bed that is in such bad shape. That way, it wouldn’t loom over me all day today. My neighbor Dave came over to chat. I kept weeding, we kept chatting, and I had only a bit of the final bed/asile to do when he left! It took about an hour to do half the garden. (This included the nearly weed-free tomato and potato beds, however.) So I’m done for the week, weeding-wise at least.
It wasn’t yet bedtime, so I decided to go work on weeding the hosta. I cleared out the whole bed. Completely. Including the hosta.
I’ve never liked our hosta. Last summer, however, I decided that I’d keep them around. But this spring, I noticed that everyone else’s hosta are thriving compared to mine. I’ve seen some in the neighborhood with platter-sized leaves! Mine are more like the size of an infants forearm. Seriously! One bed of hostas was removed for the new garden. The root structure in that bed was horrid, absolutely horrid. It was a thick tangle that could barely be forked, with little dirt. The roots aren’t decompsing much either! (I placed them behind the beans as mulch.) I guessed the situtation was the same on the other side of the fence. I wonder if this is the reason they are so puny. So, anyway, time to rip them out and plan something new! (Plus, we still have the tiller we borrowed from Sean, so I can use it on this area before we return it so we don’t have to borrow it again.)
I’m almost certain this will become a blueberry patch (2 or 3 bushes) with lingonberries below. And, well, since 2 isn’t very many, why not do the same on the other side of the gate? There’s more hosta there, mostly buried beneath the rhubarb. I’d already decided to buy new rhubarb next spring–mine really isn’t very sweet and I’d rather have something else. So, perhaps tonight, I’ll be ripping out those plants as well. I do have to move one flower–the Siberian Iris I planted last year probably can’t stay. Well, it could fit where it is (right next to the gate), but I’m afraid we’d accidently chew it up with the tiller. It’s looking quite healthy this summer, so I think it will do okay being moved. I’ve wanted the front yard to be fruits and flowers, and now we’re truly working on it!
I wonder how much blueberry bushes cost?
June 28th, 2006 - A few tips for the Eat Local Challenge
A few tips for the May 2006 Eat Local Challenge is relevant to my One Local Summer participation. Also, the originator of the this challenge, based on my own post wondering about it as well as another participant’s comments said that the point is to start noticing local foods not being totally hyper-committed! Woohoo! This is a sort of challenge I can get into. And, becuase it’s not strict, I actually feel *more* challenged. If there were lots of rules, you get bogged down in them. If the rules are loose, you feel like challenging yourself more: Balsamic vinegar is *okay* so let’s see if I can find something locally made instead to replace it? Whereas if I was told I could NOT use the vinegar, I probably would just do without and not look any further.
June 27th, 2006 - One Local Summer challenge update
I updated the weekend post to link to the eat local challenge (One Local Summer). I also went and read the challenges directions. Technically, the vinegar wasn’t included, but I’m okay with that since I didn’t use salt, pepper, or herbs which are okay. I normally do not use salad dressing anyway, so a bit of vinegar was just for variety. Maybe in today’s salad, I won’t use it. I also had the same salad last night for dinner–I took a picture it looked so pretty! But of course my camera is at home and I’m not.
What I must debate now is just how much is “local”? Is my own homemade bread local? Or is it not local since the ingredients that go into it aren’t local? But what if you bought a loaf of bread at a store that was made locally? It’s ingredients aren’t local either. I know the folks doing long-term eat local challenges are strict on this matter–limiting those outside of wheat areas from most breads. But if I don’t include homemade foods, I’m limited to a strictly vegetable and fruit meal. And dairy, since my milk & cheese does come from around here. (And, actually, I could eat the meat we buy from Cattleanna. If I had any meat around.) Not that a meal of just fruits, veggies, milk, and cheese isn’t a nice meal. I just really like breads!
I was also thinking about how these challenges are usually to get you to eat unprocessed foods, but depending on where you live, you can eat a lot of locally produced processed foods. For example, I’m within 30 miles of Kaukauna–home of processed cheese spreads! If you live in Battle Creek, MI, you can eat a lot of Kellog’s cereals. (The difference, however, is that the cheese comes from WI cows while the cereals may or may not come from MI grains.)
June 26th, 2006 - Getting back to cleaning routines
I’ve had a lot of trouble this year keeping up with cleaning routines. I’m going to try hard this summer to get them back into shape. I’ve started this week by
* cleaning the French doors and tv/computer screens over the weekend. With the dogs, cats, and baby, this needs to be a weekly chore around here
* vacuuming this morning (ditto, but twice weekly!)
* weeding 2 beds + aisles each day
The latter is the hardest since it’s a brand new routine. But if I do that much each day, the garden will be done in a week (I have 10 beds with 8 aisles + center) and will not be overwhelming. The problem is that the lettuce/carrot/onion bed is the hardest to weed since the veggies are all so small. So it keeps getting put at the end of the week, and in three weeks, I’ve done it only once and not very thoroughly. And I can do this much weeding in about 20 minutes, which can be done before work or after dinner. It also keeps me in touch with the garden, knowing how things are growing (or not).
I think maybe I should make a goal and a plan, just like with the exercise/work things. But I’m afraid of having too many goals for the summer, so I think this will be an informal one. When fall rolls around, if I haven’t gotten back into the swing of cleaning, I’ll set some firm goals then.
June 26th, 2006 - Weekend update
My garden is looking quite lovely now. I hope that it does produce, not just turn green! (I do have some tomatoes already growing on one plant, so there will be that at least.) I had to thin my corn. I hate thinning because you think while doing it “I’m destroying half my crop!” I know that by thinning I’m more likely to have a larger crop on what remains, but that doesn’t make it any easier! (I keep thinking about taking some pix to put up, but I haven’t even gotten the 3-month-old pix of Maggie off the camera….)
The previous weekend, I bought some annuals to put in the bulb garden (since the tulips and allium have all faded long ago). Due to being sick, I didn’t get them planted for the week. But that garden is all cleaned up and looking pretty. I got lucky and the annuals were all on sale, too! It was 75% off, I think–$6 for a flat of 48 plants (although by Sat, 2 or 3 were dead). I got marigolds and impatiens primarily, as they are both pretty and edible. Also got some colorful plants for the corners–the two varieties are Dragons Blood and Wizard something. That goes so nicely with my Dragon’s Blood carrots and Dragon Tongue beans!
Speaking of edible flowers, one of the blogs I read linked to an eat local challenge–the challenge is to eat one or two local meals a week. My first one was Saturday. My neighbors gave me a bag of lettuce (mine is just barely getting tall enough to eat–and it would take it all for one salad) to which I added broccoli from the farmer’s market and flowers from the yard. I topped it with some cheese from Denmark. Denmark, Wisconsin that is! Without thinking, I tried balsamic vinegar as a dressing, but the challenge does allow for some seasonings such as salt and pepper, so I believe my vinegar was okay. It was so yummy I was going to have it Sunday but I wasn’t hungry for dinner so it’s on the menu for tonight. (Sunday, I had local cherries, however. I saw them at the market and asked the woman, “Where are those from?” “A tree in my yard” was her response. I had to have some! They are tart, but taste good paired with a banana.)
One thing I love about summer is that I actually get my 5+ fruits and veggies a day with hardly trying. It’s such a change from winter!
Hit a $1/bag church sale Saturday afternoon. Returned with some clothes for Maggie and for me, a dress-up dress for Maggie that she’s already worn twice, two ceramic jars for dried veggies/fruit, kitchen toys for her kitchen that I cleaned earlier in the day (but which still needs one minor fix so isn’t out yet), and a back massager. I was delighted in the take for only $2!
June 26th, 2006 - Maggie the Gardener - the GAME
Maggie’s got her own computer game: Maggie the Gardener. Their Google news alerts found a post from last fall when Maggie was on my back while we dug potatoes. They thought it was a review of their game, but turned out to be about my daughter. My blog found their post which linked to my old post (now I’m glad I turned on trackbacking!!!!). (By the way, Maggie helped me with the potatoes again the other day when I needed to hill up this year’s crop. Funny–the only times I’ve taken her to the garden like that has been for potatoes!) The game’s only $7, so I should probably try it out. Maybe this weekend after Michael shows up. He’d get a kick out of it, too.
June 22nd, 2006 - After I get the worms going, it’s time for solar cooking!
I’ve run across a few references to solar cooking lately, and it’s something I’ve always found interesting. I’m surprised we never tried it back in SD (or maybe we did? Michael does it ring any bells for you? It sounds just like the sort of thing we would have done.). So, for when I get to it,Jennifer’s solar cooking page has some good articles and information. (And a recommended cookbook.)
June 21st, 2006 - In sickness…
Last Thursday, Maggie got the stomach flu. I picked it up overnight Saturday morning and Eric was sick by Saturday morning. Luckily Maggie was still out of it and mostly just wanted to snuggle in our arms. We barely had the energy to get her out of bed, downstairs, in the high chair, etc. It was a pretty horrible day. I’m still not back to 100% and took the last two days off work. I still haven’t eaten a full meal, and my tummy protests after everything I eat (not getting sick, it just feels queasy).
We’ve all lost weight, of course. This isn’t good for Maggie–she’s back to under 21#, and still isn’t eating much. She’s so skinny her skorts would fall off if she wasn’t wearing a diaper! Eric and I like our weight loss, but admit it’s unlikely it will stay off. Unless I continue to be non-hungry which wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Unfortunately, everything around the house has been neglected for nearly a week now. Including the new flowers I bought Friday…they remain in their little containers. :( I need to get some bills paid and reciepts entered in Quicken tonight as well.
And, of course, catch up at work. Due to the search and screen interviews, I was only in the office one day last week so it’s like I’ve been gone for 1.5 weeks. Thank goodness it’s summertime!
June 15th, 2006 - Back from the Land
This for some reason won’t display at the end of the previous post, so here it is separately.
Back from the Land by Eleanor Agnew is an excellent study of people who went to the land…and in general came back from it! Eleanor and her then husband went to the land in the 70s as well, and this follows their story. Along with her story of leaving the land (her husband remained, they got divorced, he remarriedm and still lives there). She also read all the other back to the land books along with unpublished memoirs plus personally interviewed such folks. It sounds like it could be really academic, but it’s not; it’s very personal (with pictures, too!). One of the things I remember most deals with financial issues. First, most of those who made it, including the famous Nearings, had some other source of income that helped them. In the case of the Nearings, they didn’t tell anyone that they were assisted by an inheritance. (There’s some evidence that they relied on it but it’s never mentioned in their books which make it sound like they were self-sufficient. Also, don’t forget, they had a lot of volunteers helping out!) Relatedly, almost no one could be self-sufficient strictly from the land. Almost everyone eventually had to get a job to pay for things, even things that were necessary to get sustinence from the land (such as tractors, gas, seed, parts for the car, etc.). As Agnew points out when she and her husband both had off-land jobs, they had quit working office jobs that used their education in order to go back to the land and now they were working dead-end minimum wage jobs that exhausted them in order to pay for their land which they now had little time to work or enjoy. She really wondered what they were thinking. I’ve noticed that most land stories are about people who ended up being writers, which (if successful) is a way to bring in income while still being able to live on the land. Of course, we probably don’t get to see books by non-writers so the stories are a bit self-selecting. Frugal for Life’s review.
June 15th, 2006 - What I’ve been reading
Lately, I’ve read a string of back to the land books, plus a few others related to living below your means and/or following your dreams.
Home is the Sailor by Robin Lee Graham picks up where Dove ended. Dove is the story of a 16-21 year old boy’s trip around the world in a sailboat. Certainly involved frugal living, but I read that book for it’s adventure! Home is about his family’s (he met his wife halfway through the trip and they had a baby shortly after he got back) homesteading in Montana. As a book I’ll review later points out about other successful homesteaders, Robin did have some alternative income–not only did Dove get published but it was also made into a movie. Yes, they had lean times while waiting for some of those checks, but they were able to get by better having them come in! I definitely enjoyed this book. It’s also about their conversion to Christianity, which gets a bit heavy at times–something Robin pionts out to the reader in the end–he realized how strong they’d come across to friends and family as well!
The Butterfly Hunter by Chris Ballard is subtitled “Adventures of people who found their true calling way off the beaten path.” Eric discovered this book for us; the author is a Sport’s Illustrated staff writer. Some of those profiled live lean lives in order to follow their hearts desire. At least one (The Skywalker, also known, legally, as Spiderman) is making millions from it. One man is someone we’ve all heard, but probably never heard of: The man who does the vast majority of movie and tv show trailers! I’ve heard of him before, so I actually try to figure out if he’s voicing trailers I see (now that I use Tivo, I rarely see any anymore anyway). It was neat to read his whole story of how he got there. In fact, I loved all of the stories. I think it is wonderful to follow your heart’s desire and have a true calling. (I’m just wondering if everyone has a calling or if most of us just don’t have one so can’t find it to pursue anyway.)
Homestead by Jane Kirkpatrick [Sorry Jeanne–I had the wrong first name! No wonder we couldn’t find her books in the library catalogs.] is a wonderful story of homesteading in the 80s. A bit later than the typical back-to-the-land stories of the 70s. On the other hand, Jane and Jerry are still living on their 160 acres in the middle of nowhere Oregon. They are 7 miles from the nearest paved road and 20-something from the nearest town. For the first years, they were 3 miles or so from the nearest phone. Then they were told it would cost about $20000 to get phone lines to them! See, it really is the middle of nowhere! Jane is also much less enthusiastic than typical writers about this new home. She throws herself into it, but has lots of regrets. This book is much more honest about the problems and scariness of homesteading. But in the end, they do make it. (It helps that Jane becomes not just a writer, but an award winning writer. I loved this book so much I can’t wait to find her novels to read.) The Kirkpatricks also didn’t start off intending to live without electricity. water, etc. They were more realistic, I think, than many of the 70s landers. If you get this one, look for the most recent edition. The book never comes right out and says this is a second edition, but she talks about writing and publishing the same book by about 2/3rds of the way through. This is obviously expanded from the original. Frugal for Life recommended this book (and told me about the last book I reveiw in this post at the same time). [Note: If you use Bloglines, they now have the ability to search the feeds to which you subscribe. I adore this as I usually forget by the time I review a book who told me about it!]
Shackleton’s Stowaway by Victoria McKernan covers a part of history that fascinates me: exploration of Antarctica. This time, instead of a book about/by the leader or scientists on the voyage, this is the story of one of the able seaman on Shackleton’s ill-fated voyage. Perce Blackborrow actually stowed away when the Endurance sailed from Beunos Aires; 18, he was the youngest member of the voyage. Talk about living frugally! (If you aren’t familiar with the story, the Endurance was caught by pack ice in one of the worst Antarctic winters, and continued to be stuck through the following summer. Well, by that time, the boat had sunk and they were in small boats. The entire story is quite amazing and lasts about 2 years. The most amazing thing is that NO ONE died. Not even Perce, who is immobile the last 4 months on Elephant Island nor another man who suffers a heart attack at the beginning of those 4 months.)
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine has been making the rounds in the blogosphere so I had to read it, too. It’s my least favorite of the books I’ve read recently. It was hard for me to connect with Levine as her lifestyle, even when “not shopping” is pretty far from mine. Some people complain about her somewhat lengthy political statements (which are germaine to what she’s doing) but I happen to agree with her, so they didn’t bother me. On the other hand, I didn’t connect much with wondering whether QTips were necessary items (no, they aren’t. Use a bit of TP or tissue instead, deal with it) or wine (uh, no, and you shouldn’t have allowed yourselves to stock up on it before the year started either). Oh, and food was okay, and they allowed themselves a good deal of gourmet food as well. I do wish she’d tracked spending during this time. She does note that she paid off a credit card debt during the first few months due to not shopping, but little beyond that is covered. Overall, there are good parts to get you thinking about what really is necessary and whether you could live for a year with spending very little. Here are some other reviews/comments from blogs I read: Boston Gal’s Open Wallet (which describes the book in more detail), Seattle Simplicity, and Frugal for Life’s review.
June 14th, 2006 - Making money on Saturday
Every couple months, I work as a test supervisor or proctor for our testing center, for the ACT or a series of teacher ed exams. It’s some nice extra spending money. This weekend, I also made money during my lunch break between exams. I took a walk around the block to get fresh air (10 hours cooped up with exams is pretty boring and draining!) and found a sheet of 1- Hollywood video free rental coupons! That’s nearly $40 just laying on the sidewalk. We rarely go to the theatre anymore and rent a lot of movies.
WOOHOO!
(The only problem is that we’ve gotten spoiled with some free rental coupons at Blockbuster. BB is farther away, so we’d never used it before. Now that we have, we love their 1-week rentals. It’s been hard to remember to return the HV ones in only 3 days.)
June 8th, 2006 - Chores and kids
Part of my childrearing philosophy is that chores are good for kids. I think it’s part of living a frugal life as well! (It’s a LOT cheaper for parents and kids to do chores than to pay someone else. It also keeps your house cleaner and reduces wear and tear on belongings.) I also believe in starting early.
Maggie’s 19 months old and she already has two chores!
A) Each night, she picks up her dirty clothes and takes them to the hamper in the bathroom. This started a couple weeks ago. She’d seen me taking her clothes to the hamper, and one day I dropped something and she picked it right up. Ever since, I purposefully drop her clothes on the floor as we take them off (so she can reach them) and tell her to pick them up and take them to the hamper when we’ve got her diaper off. She’s also started picking up her prior-day washcloth in the bathroom and putting it in, too. [I know, I know. This will stop as soon as she turns 13. But I can hope to make a lasting impression by starting early!]
B) She helps move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. She also hands clothes to me to fold. This is done much less often because we usually load the washer after she goes to bed (better for the temp of the house to run the drier at night) and I fold in the morning before work. But she loves helping me when she’s around! She also closes the washer and drier doors when we are done.
In both cases, it takes a lot longer for the chore to get done with her help. But she’s learning to help around the house. And at this age, it’s all fun and games. What better way to get a kid to help than when they think it’s hilariously fun! You should see Maggie at bedtime. She doesn’t even need to be told to pick up her clothes, she just does it and then races as fast as she can move her little naked butt into the bathroom! And when I tried to get her to put her darker clothes in the darks hamper instead of the lights, ooh did she get mad at me for trying to change the chore as well as that I was trying to help her with it! (For now, since she doesn’t know colors or get that there are two hampers, I just sort afterwards. Mostly, her summer clothes are lights anyway!)
We’re working on getting her to take things from MomMom to Dad or to bring things to us. But she’s not very good at that. It works only when we take her with us and even then only if she feels like carrying the item. But we’re working on it! She doesn’t have a very good conception of the names of very many objects (at least, we don’t think so) so that makes it more difficult as well.
June 2nd, 2006 - Lead
We were heartened again yesterday that we did not buy the house. On the 22nd, Maggie’s lead levels were tested (a typical test, especially for a youngster living in a 106 year old house). They were high enough to prescribe her iron drops and a required visit from the city health nurse. The heartening thing is that if we had bought the house, we probably would have been required to IMMEDIATELY repaint every single room in the house as well as the outside. We NEVER could have afforded that.
See, if your child has slightly elevated levels–which in Oshkosh is over 10 (I forget the label)–you get a visit and must abate the lead. And the level at which a child gets medication is 25. I just wish we’d known what would happen after 10, because we would have a) saved towards abatement and b) probably have done some already. We didn’t know we’d be getting a visit that required a written plan and a limited time period.
And it turns our far more than we’d figured has lead: the inside front porch, the outside front porch, the garage, the hall woodwork, the hallway doors, all but one windowwell, and the outsides of the basement windows. This also means none of these areas have been painted in like 30 years!
We have to wait to get the official letter from the nurse which will include info on local companies that can do the abatement. Then we get to find out just how expensive this will be. ::sigh:: I’m hoping it’s not unbearable. At least we’ll get the woodwork stripped or painted now. We’ll have to decide whether to replace or strip the doors up there. They are nice doors, but if it’s too expensive…. If we do repaint them, we’ll probably go with bright colors. We’ve oft dreamed of something like one each blue, red, green, and yellow. Sure wish the hall was a color now (we’d planned yellow but went with basic cream when planning to sell).
We also need to try to get Maggie to eat more vitamin C in her diet. Unfortunately, she’s not a big fan of oranges and it’s not season yet for green peppers. But, I have dried oranges and I will try to add them in small amounts to other foods. And the iron drops may be all that’s necessary. She’s probably iron-deficient since she’s a vegetarian so her only iron comes from her nutritional yeast. (I’m kind of wishing we’d gotten the iron drops a year ago. We might have avoided this scenario. But I really didn’t know that iron helped get rid of lead. Nor did I know the requirements we would be forced to comply with suddenly. We get info when buying a house about lead based paints and such. But I don’t recall any city-specific info nor “If your child has a level over X, you absolutely MUST comply with requirements Z or you will be in dee trouble.” Like I said before, we probably would have started in on fixing the suspected areas long ago had we known.)
We’re also now wondering if Jedi has lead poisoning. If the baby does, why not the pets as well?
June 2nd, 2006 - Summer goals
Maintain weight below 150 (dropping by 1# per month)
Attend at least 2 exercise classes per week
Attend at least one TrailMix per week
Create 10 new FAQs for D2L
Complete successful search for WS Director
Remove one item from office per week
These are not the only things I plan to do this summer, of course! There are just things that would last the whole summer and are quantifiable. For example, I’ll also be attending a conference and preparing a presentation or two. But that’s a one-time thing. I’ll be working with a faculty member on adding extensive D2L enhancements to his course. But that’s not quantifiable. I’ll work on the garden–and on that I can only hope that I won’t need more than 5-15 minutes a day for weeding/general upkeep and that there will be plenty to harvest at the end of summer requiring more time.
I’ve already kept up with everything this week, except the exercise classes–I forgot the first one Tuesday morning and the second was cancelled, so there was only one to attend. I did create the first FAQ, and only because it was on my list and I wanted to be able to mark it down. So these lists DO help me! I’ve removed three things from the office–a book to be sent to Goodwill with stuff from the house and two old disks backing up my dissertation documents and presentations (turns out it was already on my harddrive. and it’s 6 years old so who really cares anyway?). Woohoo!
My first incentive will be able to be purchased at the end of June if I have maintained 5 out of 6 goals in 4 out of 5 weeks. (I counted this as the first week of June.)
June 1st, 2006 - In the garden
In no particular order, I have planted
- Cherokee Trail of Tears beans
- True Lemon cucumber (yellow striped white round cukes)
- lettuce mix of Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet, Reine des Glaces
- Rosemary, thyme, Greek oregano, Sweet Genovese basil, cilantro
- Thumbelina carrots (about 1′ long, regular width)*
- annual cut flower mix*
- green bunching onions**
- wildflower mix*
- Dragon’s Tongue bean (purple striped pods)
- Amish snap peas
- Dragon carrot
- Nimba squash (Polish zucchini)
- Yugoslavian Finger Fruit (no picture on the package, but I think these are something like pattypan summer squash but orangier and pointier–finger like instead of just rounded)
- Moon and Stars watermelon (very dark green with yellow “star” spots and usually one larger “moon.” These look really, really cool.)
- Cornfield pumpkin (planted with the corn!)
- Pride of Wisconsin melon (I figured this was a shoo-in to grow in NE WI)
- Golden Bantam Improved corn
- 2″ Strawberry popcorn (to be planted in the back)
All seeds from Seed Saver’s Exchange except * which are leftovers from last year or old packs given me by Mom and ** which is organic Burpee seed from Menards (I needed oninos and had forgotten to purchase them from SSE). All the SSEs are organic and most of them are heirloom.
I haven’t written down the pepper and tomato varieties.
June 1st, 2006 - Tulip garden
As long as I’m posting pictures, how about the bulb garden I keep talking about? The first is because I think the tulips looked prettiest in that one. The second is because it shows a nice picture of the front of our house, just in case you all were curious. I know I love seeing others’ photos so I’m trying to share back!
