Joan.of.the.Arch's Pleasant Suffciency Blog

I wonder if I could market my technique to get young kids to do fairly prolonged school projects that require lots of writing and a level of organization that baffles an 8 year old. Or, at least hire myself out specifically for that. Rent-a-science-fair-mentor.
Oo, maybe just Rent-a-Mentor.

I'm declaring another triumph in getting a second grader through all that formalized science fair stuff.

Seriously, though, I'm thinking of advertising that I will tutor/mentor science fair projects. Maybe offer 15 hours over 14 days per project with a guarantee your kid will laugh and learn. My target would be young kids whose schools ought not even be requiring these killjoy projects. (Grumble, grumble.) Spinning gold out of straw. Making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

This latest project started when the child found a black & white illustration in a library discard. It showed a glacier on a mountain. The caption was about ice erosion. The girl guilelessly told me she wanted to make a mountain and glacier. Her arms made large enough swooping motions that I think she had in mind something ski-able. Thank goodness that project could be shrunken to something that would fit into a city backyard. In fact, it fit onto an urban front stoop. "Can ice break rocks?" was the question to be answered by experiment. Forty-one days later, an answer of "sometimes" is graphed, illustrated, photographed, explained, further speculated on, wondered about, and ready to submit to that big science fair judge in the cafetorium.

I'm glad its over, but we found joy in it all along....And my tutoree wants to talk more about "How does ice do it? How does it have the power?" I am jazzed that in the end, she has more questions. The gears of curiosity are turning. Super!

At the various thrift stores, DH and I keep running into an old workmate of DH's. DH has known him about 35 years. The guy has almost always pieced together what seems like dozens of free-lance jobs at a time, plus buying and reselling all sorts of electronics even before the days of home computers, cell phones, Ipads and the like. I know he has had juicy accounts from some big companies, but he has also taken the smallest one-time only jobs. He has speculated in real estate, sometimes successfully, more recently nearly disastrously. His prime mission at Goodwill is probably the same as DH's: find the valuable, quality, old film cameras.

All in all, I think of him as hustler--in a good sense. What energy that takes! I don't know if that is how he prefers to work, or if that is just how things worked out for him. Sometimes he looks really tired, but he never seems to get any older. Now how is that?
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A technician from the power company was here to replace our meter. She said our present one was broken. I imagine that just means the signal by which they remotely read the meter had failed. If it means the meter flat out was not measuring, then I wonder if we get free power from when the last bill till today. I doubt it. Maybe they will give us an estimated bill. I did not ask the tech.
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Son let us know he passed a super-important examination and thus can continue in his doctorate program. His beloved had a job interview, and also got admitted to a competitive PhD program herself....I don't fret much about my son's future in particular, but have enough anxiety for the general future of his generation. You know that rising tide that lifts all boats? Well, when the tide goes out lots of those boats get stranded on the kelpy sand together. DS literally eats kelp (Japanese), so I'll try to add that as a comforting metaphor for how he personally will be okay.
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DH's pension has 7.8% taken out for federal income taxes. (A very small portion is not taxed because it was taxed when contributions to the pension fund were made prior to July, 1988.) That is very close to our effective tax rate last year, however, our earned income may have us needing to write a small check to the IRS. I'm supposing we underestimated. I've started compiling some of the records, so maybe this weekend we'll give it some closer work. Paper work for the very last medical expense has disappeared. I was not home at the time and DH was under the influence of a painkiller, so it probably got thrown away without thought.
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How much does a cat eat? I guess an "average cat"--average size, age activity, health. My brother has been unemployed almost three years now. He's held out (and was not eligible for unemployment) all this time, but now is very, very close to the bottom, as far as I can tell or as he will tell me. He has a cat, and he's having trouble even feeding the cat. I sub'ed to a once a month Amazon delivery of catfood, but I don't know if it is enough, or too much. So, seriously, how much dry catfood might a cat eat per month?

I saw other people mentioning unemployed siblings today. This one has lived with me for as long as 6 moths in the past, twice. I'm afraid he may never find employment again. He's older now, old enough that I fear he could face some discrimination for that. He has had a number of periods of unemployment in his life and I don't imagine that gives potential employers confidence. He's very astute in what he does, though. I guess he is piecing together small jobs, but he is also somewhat geographically isolated and I don't know how he even puts gas in his car for an interview. He rents from an exceptionally sympathetic landlord, who I suspect is forgiving rent in acknowledgement of heavy work done around his rural property. I don't know for sure, though. My brother doesn't tell me how he's surviving and he gives off firm vibes that he doesn't care to discuss it. But I do know he was having trouble feeding the cat.

My DH and I ask ourselves would we be willing to have my bro live with us again. He is quite far away now, but then he was even farther those other two times that he came to stay with us.

I don't know how he stays sane, how he keeps up any determination or hope.

Okay, let me just say it. It is not only his cat he is having trouble feeding. It is himself, as well. I cannot imagine he would accept foodstamps. I think he would rather die. I don't know if he would accept help from a food pantry. I think so, especially if he could do something to "pay" it back to the charity somehow....Yes, I made some Amazon food subscriptions for human food delivery too. I know it isn't the best buy, but it saves him a little gasoline. At least we got to have some pleasant conversation about bread making and yeast collection as a result of this.

My brother doesn't keep in touch much with our Mom. Mom is chronically depressed and she would feel so sad and self-accusatory over my brother's problems. So he just doesn't let her know. When she asks me what I hear from my brother, I have only been mentioning the positive and interesting things. She knows he is unemployed. She just doesn't know how bad it seems to be.
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I bumped into info on a brick house for sale the next block west of me, and oh my gosh, I so want my friend to check it out. It is tiny like mine, but has a big double yard and is clear and ready for gardening. This friend needs more space for gardening. I was able to find recent sales history finding photos online. $50K. Wow. Just a vacant lot I wanted in the area was $60K and much smaller.

This house is for sale with no sign in the yard. Has that become common?
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I retrieved the two bales of wheat straw from the neighbor 9 doors down. They were heavy with internal ice and frozen mud stuck on the undersides. The one was so heavy I could not lift it without possible injury. I had to turn it up on end, turn the wagon up on end, let them fall back down horizontally together. Where there's a will.... It took me half an hour to get them both home. So at $6 a bale, I figured I "earned" $24/hour. I was huffing and puffing at the end, so it was a work-out, too.
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Bought a display board for a science fair project and may not get reimbursed for it as the mother "thinks" she paid the school for one. But the little girl is losing heart on all the busy work of the project (so much writing for a 2nd grader!). I know it will make her happy and energize her if she can start the gluing, taping, cutting, and arranging to make it look good and to give a glimpse toward the end of the project. I also bought her some punch out cardboard letters for a main title over the display. Arranging those will be a refreshing change of pace for her and will give the display instant sparkle.

The trip to buy the board took about 40 minutes since I had to drive to two stores for it. I bought the last one available. Then I stopped at my tutoree's house to pick up part of her project to re-photograph it. The camera the first photos were on got stolen. Then I walked the project back, talked to the Mom, walked back to my place and walked again down to the tutoree's house a third time to drop off the display board in case it would be raining or too windy come homework time, 5p.m. So what was all that-- another 50 minutes? And a nice dose of walking too. Actually there is only a block between us. Ha, there was one more trip to her house for the appointed homework time. So that was four visits to their house today.

I expect I'll put in a further 30 minutes scanning and printing portions of the science fair log to use on the display board --another means of saving the poor kid so much writing. I love science. I love to do science with kids, but I hate science fair. Kids learn to hate science, too, when they are led to believe that the most important science they do is those mandatory annual projects.

So I'm putting in all this extra time trying to keep the assignment from killing all sense of joy and playful exploration.
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Finally bought some plastic snap-cubes for math. The math curriculum assumes that the school sends home a set with the students, which never, ever has been the case. They are a great tool. The school has them but must have trouble actually using them (I can imagine the classroom chaos). They rarely use them. These will supplement all the other counting objects I keep.
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Made a stock-up purchase from Paula Begoun last night. $57 with free shipping for three products plus three free samples. I almost always select free samples of the same thing I'm buying. If you had asked me ten years ago if I would ever spend that much on cosmetics in a whole year, I would have said "no way."

I'd been waiting and waiting for one of this items to go on sale, but it just never did. But with this company, it's kind of like how washing your car makes it finally rain. I'll get my order in a few days, and then within the week the item will finally be on sale.
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Yesterday my sister-in-law and her husband were in town for work and we got to have them over after lunch till past dinner. She is here for work, an unusual job in which she meets medical & pharmacy professionals to talk about her personal experiences with a genetic condition. She carries a cryopack of an injectable rescue medication which costs $8000 per dose. She is supposed to take it with her to an ER, as it is not stocked in many hospitals. Fortunately it is only infrequently needed, but she has to keep it with her at all times.

DH has the condition, too, but at only a tiny, tiny fraction of the seriousness of his sister. She had to give up her previous work for her health. Her new job is with the very pharmaceutical company which makes her med and is a godsend. With a condition like that, I know she and her DH have had lots of expenses--loss of work and several long ICU stints. Thank goodness my DH has had only one episode that required an ER trip, and that was before the rescue med even existed, but he was treated with steroids and epinephrine, always available at the ER and cheap, not to mention covered by our insurance.
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I've had my eye on two bales of wheat straw sitting in a neighbor's front yard since early autumn. They'd sprouted and looked abandoned. So upon seeing the neighbor unloading a van, I asked if there were any chance she'd like to get rid of them. I was welcomed to come pick them up, any time. Whoo-hoo! More free organic matter for mulch. Straw bales were selling singly for $5-6 this year, so I can load them on the red, rusty) wagon and trundle them home being happy not to have put out 10 bucks for them.
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DH got a pay schedule for the semester. First check in mid February, last in late May.
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Took care of one debit card use at Save-a-Lot this afternoon.

We need 7 more uses of our debit cards this month to continue to earn the top interest rate on our EF savings. Took care of one debit card use at Family Dollar this afternoon. Usually we get the required number of uses out of the way by mid-month, but I have forgotten to take the debit card when I go out. We try to use the debit cards only on the tiniest purchases-- for example a $0.45 box of salt, so as to keep the majority of purchases on a rewards CC.
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Yah! Was woken up at 2:50 a.m. by the new, improved civil defense and weather warning sirens. I woke my husband, grabbed my glasses, shoes, garden coat, and yesterday's weather-worthy clothing left slung over the chair. As I put on the glasses I noticed it was calm and not even raining outside. "Probably a mistake," I said to my husband. I stopped at the front door on my way down to the basement. The predicted cold had still not arrived; it was pleasant outside. I heard the tail end of the siren followed by the audible message that there was a tornado warning. This is supposed to mean that a tornado has been spotted. So I stopped to turn an AM radio to full blast so that I might hear it in the basement. The radio was not mentioning any weather warning.

In the basement I clumsily pulled on my layered clothes on top of my already layered pajamas. I got my shoes on my feet. That is one thing my Mom drilled into my head. Always have shoes at the ready for sudden emergencies. If there is a storm, put them on, for gosh sakes. Mom's family has history of fires, floods, and tornadoes, none of which I've had to suffer, but I take her advice seriously.

I looked around, still not quite awake, but accusing myself of laziness for not having in 18 years of home ownership determined what might be the safest spot in the basement in a tornado. Is it against a wall? Is it underneath the main beam, close to the double middle supports, 100 year old 8 x 8 beams? Is it underneath the bathroom? They used to say bathroom plumbing provided strong structure to withstand tornadoes, but I'm skeptical. I don't think I ever really see bathrooms still standing in post tornado photos. Is the better place in the wine cellar which is really a cold room that is partly above ground but maybe sturdier because it is small? Is it under the stairs where I have pushed a sturdy oak library cart, my BIL's oil field tool box, and our camping equipment? Oh yes, well, maybe the camping equipment will survive, I'll be able to drill water wells and privvy holes, and I'll have all of Western thought (as determined sometime in the 1960's) to read up on in that set of Philosophy of the Western World books.

"Just sit down there in the only chair down here. Under the middle beam. Hey, should I cover up with this pile of blankets and towels, fresh from the laundry? If I had kids with me, I'd be burying them in these things, telling them to go to sleep and laying on the thickest padding I could, ready to dive on top of them to anchor them from the sucking vortex." I scared myself.

"This basement is a wreck, but at least I can blame it on the tornado when the rescuers come," I thought. I did not say this to my husband, as he had decided to stay in bed. So I figured I'd have no one to discuss those books with.

"Why have we still not gotten a re-assessment of our house insurance needs? Lazy!"

"Why have I still not bought a no batteries needed radio for the basement? Taking everything for granted!"

"Why did I tary to go to the kitchen for a flashlight? Flashlights need to be already down here." I was waking up to the urge to make a list. My hand felt a crumpled store receipt in the coat pocket. Nothing in the other pocket. No pen with which to write on that receipt, and by the way, no gloves to put on in preparation for the winter cold after the tornado."

"Water bottles in the corner. Okay. Who could get to them should we need them?"

"What will I say to Isaac when he finds that I survived but Dad did not because I did not make him go to the basement?" The last time we had a middle of the night tornado warning when Isaac still lived at home he surprised me how willingly he got out of bed and headed for the basement. Willingness had not been the norm for either my husband or son.

Really? I kept thinking over and over of Joplin, Missouri, a town hit very very hard by a horrendous tornado last year. My thoughts could do them no good. Sometimes I just want thoughts to have material power, but I don't really believe it. I sat in my basement skeptical about any nearby tornado, but wishing I could turn the clock back and save Joplin with my thoughts. "Unchecked, middle of sleep-time ego! Oh what do I do with myself?"

I heard a local voice come on the radio upstairs. Tornado warnings in the counties south of me were canceled. Tornado watches in the counties to the north of me were expired. Storm watches continued to the north where we used to keep our boat on the river and always were stomping our feet at the weather horrors repeatedly aimed at the boat. You'd have thought it was a trailer park, or something.

But no mention of the tornado warning in our city. What? Not canceled, not expired, not still in effect?

So I was right. It was a mistake. I felt sure of it. Well, "five minutes sure of it," which is to say, I decided to sit in the basement and razz my lack of good preparation for five more minutes just in case it was the radio station rather than the weather sirens that were mistaken.

After I felt the time had passed I climbed up stairs and left all my extra clothes in the living room. I went back to bed....

...Only to be awakened a couple hours later by the roaring wind of some sudden upstart of weather. The noise was loud, very loud. I could hear rain hitting our old awnings. Was there a little hail in the rain, too? Couldn't quite tell. "How could it be so windy and yet our bedroom window awning was not shimmying and straining side to side the way it normally does in a storm?....Vertical winds!....Microburst!"

My husband woke up, made some noises, and I think I said to him, "Microburst," as I slipped back to sleep in an instant.

This morning, plastic lawn furniture was in odd places and the patio was whooshed clean, yet an empty styrofoam box left on the patio was still where I'd left it yesterday. The local news is full of talk of why the tornado sirens sounded when there was no known tornado threat, and I'm using my $10 Amazon credit toward a new radio. I'll look for a battery-free flashlight locally.

For a couple years I've been getting magazines that I don't want. Three of them come because friends or family who are subscribers were offered free gift subscriptions to be sent to someone else. The fourth? I don't know why I'm getting it. It is a good magazine (Garden Gate) with no advertising and I subscribed to it in the past. But I did not send in a subscription and they do not bill me. Most of the time, these magazines just hit the recycling bin. What a waste.
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Just read that my city had 29 cases of whooping cough in 2011. I think I recently had the vaccine included with my tetanus shot, which I always keep current, given how much I work with soil + sharp implements. My tutorees are real good at coughing right in my face. I've felt the spittle hit my lip and eyelids before. I get colds from them all the time. So I think I need to keep up on any boosters for communicable diseases. (Another freebie I don't want!) I should call my doctor's office to see if they will confirm the pertussis vaccine and see if there is anything else I should re-up.

We found out last year, though, that our insurance will not pay for our vaccines unless we also see the doctor. So if the cost of the vaccine is more than the cost of a physician visit co-pay, then it does not make financial sense to see the nurse during drop-in hours set aside just for vaccines. Crazy.
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It turns out DH will have two classes to teach this semester, unless there is a last minute cancellation, which does happen. He has authored the courses, but in the last few days I saw him making some updates, which must be done when teaching in a field with constantly changing tools--photography.

He owns the copyright to his courses. However, a couple years ago a part-time professor somewhere phoned him to tell him he was having trouble accessing the course she needed to teach. Her dean(!) had directed her to use my DH's course, because DH had taught it at the school before. It was not accessible because he had taken it off the web during a semester in which he was not teaching it. I think DH let the part-timer use it after all, but I think he ought to license his courses for a fee. I mean, they are essentially books with new editions every 4-8 months. Giving them away all the time tends to devalue the work of other authors as well. (A freebie that is good for one person at a time, but in general not helpful to the larger crowd of authors who need to be paid for their work)
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My phone number is on the no-call list maintained by my state. I never bothered with the national no call list, as my state effectively prosecutes and the state list existed first. I do turn in violators when they identify themselves. I had a call yesterday. I let him yammer about how he had sent out flyers in the neighborhood in December and was working with an insurance company to identify house with storm damage, blah, blah blah. Oh, well, another company to report to the attorney general. I did ask the caller if he knew about the no call list and he said he did, and he had checked it. He kindly suggested that I might want to look at the list to see that my number was not presently on it. Funny, I did just happen to check the list last week when I was reporting yet another caller.

I do thank this guy for outing his construction business as one not to be trusted. Why would I do business with someone who breaks the law to call me and who charmingly, politely lies to tell me my number is not on the no call list??? No word of mouth or Angie's List rating or BBB rating could have convinced me any better. Oh yeah, he did say he had a good reputation with BBB. I looked and I was not satisfied that the complaint against him had been resolved, though the BBB considered it resolved. I found another complaint online that this company just keeps calling and calling some poor guy.

Anyway, the attorney general makes it so easy to report.

Hey, what if one business wanted to ruin the reputation of another by making these calls in the name of their competitor? Do you think that happens?
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It turns out DH will have two classes to teach this semester,unless there is a last minute cancellation, which does happen.

Met a fifth grader for an hour's math tutoring. Sweet kid with a good attitude. He is another who lives on my own street, though literally on the other side of the tracks. That makes three on my street. Can't beat that for convenience.

Wells Fargo finally got the mortgage payments properly applied to principal...12 days after first misapplying it.

It was only in 2011, our 18th year since purchase, that we began making additional payments toward the principal. Now that we see the much more satisfying paydown, DH is feeling eager to slam a lot of money toward it. Actually we could pay it off today, but in our income position, I want a truly hefty, hefty emergency savings. I'm not willing to give up that security for the mortgage interest savings Sometimes it is not clear which action brings the more certain security, but I feel like we're handling things well.

DH wants to not work this summer. That would be good for his health, so that is another reason to keep cash rather than sending it to the mortgage just now.

Good for DH. He went to buy a bell pepper after having used up all that was in the freezer. He paid $0.78 for one pepper, but also saw that chicken in ten pound bags was $0.79/lb, so he bought some. He divvied it up into smaller freezer bags. Later I'll put them into second mylar bags so that no holes get worn through the bags when we rifle through the freezer. There's no reason to wait to do it later; I'm just being lazy.

Hey, that's my tip for the day. Save heavy mylar bags to give freezer items a second protective wrap. I really recommend the re-sealable bags that my sucralose sweetener comes in. I bet some freezer items come in these great bags, too. Maybe frozen biscuits?

I don't understand how the cost per pound of chicken can be so low. I guess they aren't feeding them those bell peppers, or the cost per pound would be more like, $60.

Anyway, I have been wanting a pressure canner for months now. I'd love to put away a big haul of chicken like this into jars for which no freezer space is necessary. I saw one offered on Craigslist for $99 bucks in the summer. Incredible price. I should have gone for it.

Sent an email to Wells Fargo complaining that 1) they did not properly apply our mortgage over-payments, and 2) that they did not send us the $10 Amazon credit for switching to online billing/receipts. Wells Fargo responded with a claim number for the Amazon credit, but say it will take them another day to straighten out the extra payment. I wonder if they are as sloppy with checking and saving accounts--not that I ever intend to take that risk.

Hey, does Aldi's in other areas take debit cards? Some time in the last year they started accepting our credit union debit cards. Now the only cash we need for Aldi's is a quarter for the shopping cart. We keep a quarter in a tiny licorice tin in a cubby hole near some of the car's fuses. It's always there so we don't have to give it any thought.

DH will have one online class to teach this semester. Online for a "studio" class takes a heck of a lot more actual work hours than being there in person. He will still have to drive about 30 miles to the campus for office hours. Seems kind of crazy.

When I am doing something super-frugal, resource conserving to the max, especially if it is something in the kitchen or otherwise domestic, I like to tell DH that his Grandma told me to do it. He knows just what I mean.

I remember seeing her using a spatula to get the tiniest speck out of a pot or serving bowl. When she was finished emptying a jelly jar, you would think it had already been washed. When she made noodles by hand (the only kind of noodles she recognized, I'm pretty sure), there was no flour dust on her apron. There were no stray bits of dough escaping the rolling pin. Every speck became noodle. When the noodles were served at the table, every bit was dispensed. Not one fraction of a noodle was allowed to stick to the pan, uneaten. Of course not. "You want some more? Eat! Eat!" I had the impression that eating had not always been something she could count on, so the assumption was that when you had a meal you ate, and you ate well.

Tonight DH made chicken soup. He pressure cooked the chicken, picked off every bit of meat --Grandma style--, recooked the bones --Grandma style-- to eek out whatever flavor might remain, then put away the larger pieces --Grandma style-- for other meals. He put in carrots, onions, and celery including the leaves --again, grandma style. He ground fennel in the marble mortar to release more flavor from a given amount of seeds. Grandma style, right? A handful of rice went in, but Grandma might have used potato, I think.

When it was time to eat, I knew I was being odd, but I chose to eat with a an old serving spoon recently sent to us from DH's father's estate. It was silver plated, and I think DH's father must have re-silvered some worn spots on it by electrolysis back in the days when one could still find a silver dime to use as a silver source. Well, really my FIL certainly had a waste-not want-not ethic. He would have repaired, not thrown away a worn spoon. He and his siblings lived in an orphanage during the Depression. I remember that as a possible explanation for several of his commendable traits.

I realize now that DH's Grandma would have used that spoon, too. She lived with the family. She was my DH's maternal grandmother. His paternal grandmother had died when her children were small, I think a few years before the Depression, which can help you imagine how her children wound up in an orphanage.

After I'd had my second bowl of soup, sipped sideways off that big spoon, I told DH, "Grandma says you did good."

What else I grow in the garden besides tomatoes mentioned yesterday. These are the edible things.

Strawberries
cantaloupe
watermelon
table grapes
apples
peaches
gooseberries
raspberries

pumpkin
luffa (edible when very small)
delicata squash
teacup squash
butternut squash
acorn squash
Armenian cucumber (gourd)
salad cucumbers
yellow squash
spaghetti squash
pattypan squash
zucchini
A Japanese winter squash whose Name I can't recall


mustard greens
collard greens
beet greens
lambs' quarters
purslane
turnip greens
chard
Malabar Spinach (never again; did not like at all)

cabbages
kohlrabi
Brussels sprouts
broccoli
radishes
salsify
eggplant
artichoke (failure)

various lettuces (favorites red sails & romaine)
bell peppers
various hot chiles (DH's choices)

fennel
dill
lemon thyme
basil
chives
garlic chives
Afghan chives
agastache
lemon balm
garlic
sage

Kabul mint
pineapple mint
chocolate mint
orange mint
celery (poorly)
parsley
edible Perilla
rosemary


sweetcorn
onions (green and bulb)
celery (poorly)
parsley
various green beans (favorite Roma)
field peas/ black-eyed/ crowder /purple-eyed

snow peas
sugarsnap peas
english peas
scarlet runner beans (edible with special treatment)
okra
leeks
finnochio ("bulb fennel")
asparagus peas/ yard-long beans/ Chinese long beans

carrots (poorly)
potatoes (poorly)
beets
turnips
sweet potatoes

soybeans (by accident and then several years in a row as they re-seed!)

That's all I can think of. . I don't grow all of this every year. I don't even plan especially well. I like to try something new every now and then. Have promised to grow bitter gourd and napal cactus this year. I grew napales when I was in my early 20's but did not try eating them.
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DH and I took four small bags to Goodwill. Then looked around inside, but did not buy anything. Boy, are the huge entertainment centers going for little money now that everyone has the less imposing flat TVs. If I were a wood hobbyist, I think I would look to buy some of them up just for the nice wood and hardware. On the other hand, I keep seeing people listing them on Craigslist for 10-15 times what they sell for in Goodwill.
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The BIL of a friend dropped by and gave me 28 empty 2 liter bottles. I had run into him in December at the grocery store and he'd had 16 in his trunk for me that day. Now I need 14 more, for a total of 58. I'm using them to plant peach seeds in compost enriched soil tucked into the ground over winter. If I have good germination, I'll have baby trees for a small orchard, five neighbors, and the guy who is giving me the bottles.
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Another seed catalog arrived today. I need to make plans for the garden, order anything needed, and recycle any non-current catalogs.

Will split with a gardener friend a large roll of concrete reinforcing wire to make new tomato cages this year. I think I'll spend $50 on that. They should last 15-20 years. Will use the Lowe's gift card we got as rewards on one of the credit cards last autumn. They should last 15-20 years. My old ones have held out that long, yet I had found them used, disposed of in the alley behind my street.

Black-eyed peas were $1.50/lb for New Year's. Usually they are about the cheapest legume. However, last time I bought them, I'm pretty sure I paid 99 cents. Fifty percent increase? I wonder where most of these are grown. Maybe in the parts of the country hit by drought this past summer.

Aldi's failed me today. I used to love the marzipan stollen from Germany that they sold in winter. But I resisted it for the last two or three years. Today I bought some and cut it for dessert after supper. Bleh. The quality was just gone.

I'm getting impatient for Wells Fargo to acknowledge the mortgage payment. Normally they post it on the third of the month, but it was not there yesterday. It was an electronic payment, so I know it was received, just not yet posted.

The planned 2% COLA on my husband's pension goes into effect this month. That will be about $70/mo, which feels significant. The inflation index used to determine this pegged inflation at 3.6%. The new (as of Aug 2011) system for determining COLA increases doesn't follow inflation as closely as it used to. Meanwhile employees send 14.5% of gross to the pension system. This system is 65 years old now and seems to be healthy despite the general economy.

I want to create a paper folder for the pension system reports. They are well written and sometimes I need to refresh my understanding. The online site is helpful, too. I recall his pension system explanation book when first employed was also excellent.

I bought six pair of casual, go-with-jeans type wool socks. $17.99 on ebay, PolarXtreme brand--not that I've ever heard of it. Supposed to be 71% merino. I don't know, but they are soft. After I washed them, I could smell just a light touch of lanolin on them. I've never had wool socks before. My feet get so cold that I decided to spring for them.

I think a tax on food here must have expired. Maybe more than one tax. We're now at 5.391%. Maybe I just have not been paying attention since DH does most of the shopping....Non food tax is 8.491%, unless we buy in a special taxing district, which is yet more.

I bought a chain type charm bracelet at an antique mall for $6. It was not antique. It had six pairs of dangling, non-gem stones. This afternoon I got out the needle-nosed pliers and removed the stones. I want them for making earrings instead. I have earwires ready to go and it should take about 15 minutes to have 6 new pairs of earrings. I showed DH the bare charm bracelet and teased him that now it was his job to buy charms for it.

Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Buddah.

That is the line of figurines sitting on top of the window frame I need to clean. The Elvises came from a shop in Branson, MO, one per year as a student of DH's visited annually. DH is not a particular Elvis fan, but had displayed an Elvis painting on black velvet in his school studio. This student enjoyed piling on the kitsch, I guess. Now I wonder if these figurines have any e-Bay value. Probably zilch.

The resin Buddah came directly from China, though I suspect it was an airport purchase. I've seen Buddahs just like it in mall shops that also sell sloppily lacquered chess sets and the back-lit, animated waterfall photos often hung on the walls of cheap take-out Chinese restaurants. I feel embarrassed to display a Buddah which means nothing to me, but may be deeply meaningful to others, even if it is neon red, orange and green. Do we know anyone who would like to have it?

This past year I've tried to work on buying items of quality, items that will last a long time. Forever stuff, if possible. I don't always know how to recognize quality; I admit I can be duped. As an example, when I bought a new mattress a couple years ago, they told me that I would need to keep it spotless in order for the warranty to be valid. So I bought the thin mattress cover they sold. It was $100 which seemed a bad price for what looked to amount to a disposable picnic tablecloth. I ignorantly thought they would sell me a good one, despite what my own eyes told me. (duh!) Directions said to wash and dry it before placing on the mattress for the first time. I followed directions exactly (low temps, gentle cycles) yet the thing melted. I returned it, but only got the store's cooperation when I told them I would involve the credit card company. (Oh, yeah, do I trust they would honor their warranty now if they would not take care of their bad product the very day it was purchased??)

Since I have been through 2 Target mattress covers (they tore while in use) and a third one that did not fit, I decided to really seek out the quality answer. I looked in department stores and was not impressed. Time on the internet taught me about wool mattress pads. They can be felted or like boiled wool. They are breathable, so would be more comfortable than either the cheesy covers I'd been using or no cover at all over my latex mattress. They are supposed to be fairly waterproof and easily to clean. They're made of organically processed wool. I forget if the wool is also from organically raised sheep. One should be a lifetime purchase in my estimation. $214 (minus a discount which they have kept current) for this

http://www.purerest.com/Deluxe-Bedding/Certified-Organic-O-W...

Unfortunately I gave the new, completely comfortable mattress cover a big test shortly after receiving it. I sat down on the corner of the bed with a glass of red wine and --OOPS! I pulled the sheets off, dashing them to the sink to start their rinse. Then I grabbed some tissue and ran back to daub up the wine from the wool cover. I was doubtful, but it all soaked right up into the tissue just delicately laid on top. Abracadabra! There is no trace of wine on the cover!

So, I'm hoping that I have made a forever purchase for the household.

Next on my mind is a sofa that is small yet sturdy and which provides some storage. I want a forever piece. I'm tired of the waste of replacing a large item which should be able to last many years with cleaning, re-upholstering, and maybe spring replacement once every half generation or so. I'm going to be skeptical in shopping, slow to make a decision, and open to making it ourselves, or having someone else make the frame.

I'm thinking of something a bit like this,

http://www.whiteindianhousewife.com/2009/08/a-new-piece-of-f...

but probably not as deep and with some sort of arms and perhaps a back, yet I want to avoid a "daybed" look. Maybe I'd want hidden, lockable wheels on it too. I'm guessing we could make what I want for about the same as the initially nice looking but too big piece-o-junk last two sofas we bought. Not an urgent project. Will be very deliberate this time.

Realizing I had not had a single Christmas cookie, I bought half price fruit kolacky today. It was a party tray for $4.50.

I bought wheat germ to make a Mexican wedding type cookie. When I tell people they are made with a lot of wheat germ, they seem to enjoy the thought that they might be healthy, but they really are naughty cookies. (Shortening , you know.) Last time I bought wheat germ it was rancid, but now there were 4 brands to choose from. I'm hoping that means that more people are buying it these days, so that the turnover is good enough that it doesn't sit on the shelf and get rancid.

Blackberries ($1 for a small tray) and tangerines ($0.50 each) came home, too.

DH picked out 2 bottles of wine for $7 and $6.

K-Mart & Sears are dropping three stores here on the first cut. I won't miss them, however I hope my father spends down his gift card to K-Mart quickly, as 5 stores in his state are on the first cut list. He buys their bentonite clay kitty litter as a soil supplement for his clayless sandy soil.

I bought a new "washing machine" two months ago. Take a peek at this:
http://www.bestdryingrack.com/Hand_washing_clothes.html

That's it, though I bought mine from Lehman's Non-Electric. Yes, you use it like a butter churn! I'd wanted something like this for almost 30 years, if you can believe it. I found out about these laundry plungers when I worked at a shelter for homeless women. There, a woman who had only one arm found it the easiest way to do her laundry. Hers looked more like a toilet plunger and was smaller to fit a kitchen or bathroom sink. But it had vanes in it to direct a gush of water. Once, I saw a laundry plunger in an antique mall. It was made of tin.

I had asked my own mother about laundry plungers as she has stories of how her grandmother had to haul river water, clear it with alum, make her own soap from saved grease and lye, make a fire outdoors, boil a big tub of water, etc. I thought for sure Mom would have seen a laundry plunger. But, no, she never had. Nonetheless I've used tips from my Mom's stories in order to minimize water and detergent use in my hand-washed laundry. Things like-- your rinse water becomes your next wash water.

Now I just need a wringer. Squeezing out some of the water before hanging is where the real work comes in. Anyway, I'm getting in touch with my inner 19th century laundress.

My Christmas present to my mother and to myself was simply to go visit her. She's 84. I'd not seen her in four years even though we are only about 6.5 hours drive away. Other visits had been scheduled, but called off by Mom in her depression. :-( This time I remained a little vague as to exactly when I'd show up and did not call to tell her I was on my way. Sadly, I felt I did not want to talk just before coming lest I give her the opportunity to say, "don't come." She has suffered a lifetime of depression.

The adventure of it was riding a Greyhound bus to get there. I had not taken a bus in years. I scared myself a bit by reading reviews online beforehand. The indignities some have suffered traveling by bus are pretty impressive! It cost $96 from St. Louis to Nashville, and that was with an advance purchase web discount. However, I took up Mom's offer to stay with her in her seniors' building studio apartment. I slept on a pool float air mattress, quite narrow, but suitable enough. Mom's gave me her only blanket (she lives very simply) and my sister brought over a quilt that members of her church had given to other members who'd suffered the Nashville floods. It is gorgeous, by the way.

Apart from the rudeness of the bus driver who was mean to everyone to whom he spoke, the bus ride was just fine, and incredibly quiet, I think due to so many people being plugged into electronic devices. Did you know theses interstate buses have Wifi? My ride turned out to be sort of a "bus-man's holiday," in which one takes a vacation doing the same thing one does for work. I tutor two kids for whom English is a second language. On the bus, there were two kids that I ended up entertaining for 4 hours. At first I could hear the 6 year old jabbering behind me, mostly in what I thought was Spanish, but I could barely pick out a word. After a while it dawned on me that she still had a huge measure of baby pronunciation, plus I think her family was from one of those areas which leave out a lot of the "S"-es. She just didn't have many consonants in her speech.

I ended up playing along with them in English spelling games. Then, I wrote simple sentences on the blank end page in Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire for them to read. The nine year old can spell better, but they seem to read with about the same level of skill and alacrity. Later the kids challenged me with math sums such as 1+2=? and delighted in giving me a string of numerals for me to tell them which number they made, e.g., 8,638,666. They preferred if I would label the numbers as dollars! It was kind of work for me to do this on the bus, but I enjoyed it, too, and sort of wanted to keep in touch once we were all back in STL, but I did not initiate it.

By the way, let me just mention that kids will spontaneously tell quite a bit to a friendly stranger. =:O I imagine that if subtly prodded they might give away endangering info. Find ways to teach your kids to be careful.

I enjoyed my visit with Mom, but I gotta say---I'm inspired to do what I can to stay active. Though one might think her weakness is a combination of her emphysema and general aging, I see how when she moved from a house with garden to a studio apartment her activity level crashed. Just as soon as she moved to the studio, she told me how little walking she did anymore. If she were to get acutely sick now, she has little distance to fall to hit bottom and could easily need nursing care ever after.

In Nashville, I went out with my sister and brother-in-law to a both an Indian buffet and a Thai restaurant. Hey, Indian buffets are as good as Chinese for Christmas day. They were both great and inexpensive. We saw two exhibits at the Frist Center, including the Egyptian exhibit (from the Brooklyn Museum) of objects used in burial and afterlife provisions for people of lesser means than the pharaohs. We went with their friends who had been in Egypt when the revolution of this year broke out. While having tea afterward, I got to hear about that. Interesting. They already had friends in Egypt, especially as this was their second visit, though the first had been almost 20 years ago. Their perception was that Egypt is destined for extreme problems no matter what happens governmentally, in part due to Egypt's quickly increasing population along with the increasing pollution and limited resources.

My husband drove to Nashville to retrieve me, having missed his own family get-together in Texas because of a slightly complicated abscessed tooth surgery and the subsequent need for a pain killer. We took a motel one night before we left, but with accumulated AmEx points it was free in a town north of Nashville. Springfield, TN has some cool old houses and it looks like there is a surprising amount going on there. Had we time, I would liked to have stayed a day.

Oh, we'd like to go to New Orleans in the next few days to see family. Normally, we'd drive. But DH's drive to and from Nashville confirmed our suspicion that he can no longer scrunch up in our small car for more than an hour without knee pain that causes limping. DH is scared to fly and for some unsaid reason doesn't want to rent a bigger car. He looked into Amtrak, but we'd have to go north to Chicago to get to New Orleans. Crazy. Someone advised he just get a prescription for Xanax (sp?) and just get on the darned plane. That seems okay to me, but he resists that idea, too. Ergh. I think the car rental is the best choice.

This is my third attempt to blog here, the first having been in Spring 2005 or '06, I think. Occasionally I have small things I'd like to blog, yet I have few original thoughts, few financial challenges, ideas, or changes to work out. I gobble up what others are writing in their blogs, and find myself always reacting, never creating. Maybe that's not quite fair. After all, there is community built here and I have become a taker, not a sharer. So for what it is worth, I'm going to give this a try.

Now...
This is my third year tutoring a couple siblings who live so near by that I walk to their house 3-5 days a week. Their Mom speaks little English and her accent is very difficult for me. Years ago she was able to read and write English, but now that she is blind, we cannot communicate in that way. I've been amazed in recent years how much people can communicate if willing to use whatever words we do know, a good dose of patience, goodwill, and a lot of drawing or pantomime!

I love working with these two kids. I pretty much despise the work the school sends home and how little they seemed to have done in a whole day of class. I'd love to throw out the whole load of bologna(one of third grader's spelling words this week) and help these lively kids to discover, develop, and follow their own passion as a way of learning. The school sends home tons of homework, yet the students perform so poorly on the normed tests. It just isn't working.

Tonight we worked on a science fair project with the 9 year old. Now this she liked. Anticipation of the experiments energized her to stay focused on the writing that had to precede the *good stuff*. The work was a bit messy, but as she ran from the living room to the kitchen sink there were just currents of happiness floating in the air. I said to her Mom, "N is so excited." Her Mom answered, "She is Joy."

Hand to my heart-- yes, She is Joy. I loved the poetry, the truth of it.