I found myself singing the little children's ditty from Dora the Explorer called "Backpack! Backpack!" yesterday as I packed for THREE events. I leave today (Sunday) for a four day work session in the Long Beach area, and laid out the clothes for next weekends jaunt to Oklahoma City and Dallas for a wedding and NASCAR race. We return on Monday evening and then finish packing up for our move to Sumner slated for Friday the 7th.
Our house deal is supposed to close on Monday, then hopefully the "team" will be painting some of the more hideous walls, getting the new house cleaned up, and carpets shampooed next week while I'm gone. The "team" consists of James, my Dad (who is moving with us), and my sister and hopefully Mandy and Daniel. They've all proffered their assistance to help. I have no expectations (I don't think).
The month of November promises to be a full month. Of course, the holidays are just around the corner too. I hope I survive.
Sunday
Pack, Pack, Pack
A Penny Saved???
With our current economy tanking, I got to thinking about a more frugal life-style. It got me reminiscing about my growing-up years.
I grew up in a family with five other siblings and had parents who continually took in the down-and-out. Sometimes it was relatives, but more often than not it was young adults trying to find their way out of drug addiction in the 60's. Even with a very large house, we all shared bedrooms, and sometimes converted other rooms into living quarters. My parents had big hearts and couldn't bear to see people lost and without the help they needed. As a result, our house was always very full and vibrant, though not always in a good way. I remember the awful sound of retching and moaning as different kids went through withdrawals. I also remember my mom finding drugs and booting some of them out of the house because they refused to stay clean.
One of the consequences of this lifestyle was the need for constant penny-pinching. They had to feed this houseful of people, clothe us six kids and themselves, and send us all off Christian school, thereby keeping us out of the awful public school system. Mom had it down; she could pinch a penny until it squirted out two!
Here's some of my favorites:
Lentils - they can be used in place of meat with the same protein! We had lentil tacos, lentil stew, lentil chili, and even lentils mixed with beef to make the meatloaf stretch farther. I learned to like lentils.
Duck bread - our nearby grocery store sold gigantic 3 or 4 foot tall bags of stale bread. Mom found that there may be pieces still salvageable for sandwiches! Turns out that if you microwave them with just the right settings, and with a glass of water, they can actually get soft again. Be careful though. You have to eat it fast or it will harden right back up. Sandwich croutons.
Quilt Coats - mom found a local garment manufacturer that sold snippets of parka-type fabric (the kind with warm backing attached) and lugged home a couple of boxes full of the stuff in a variety of colors: purple, pink, white, navy blue, baby blue, black, and red. Being the good seamstress that she was, she proceeded to build me a coat made up of pink, purple and white squares with a trendy belt too! I was in 7th grade. Unfortunately I didn't grow much from 7th to 8th grade and the coat lasted two seasons. needless to say, I wore sweaters a lot in Junior High.
Frankenstein Garments - most kids with siblings have suffered through hand-me-downs. Ours had a special twist. Instead of just handing down garments that fit the younger child, my mom actually added extra fabric pieces here and there to lengthen, widen, or augment in some fashion so they were sure to fit one of us. So what had maybe been an OK garment ended up only having a semblance of its original style or shape.
Root Beer - this is one money-saving activity that we all loved. We made home-made root beer every summer using a stash of saved pop bottles and a weird bottle capping contraption. We loved adding in the extract, stirring it up, adding the yeast, and then waiting a couple of weeks for it to set. The results were usually fantastic and provided us with pop for weeks.
I'll think of more as time goes on. Do you have any stories?
Friday
Thursday
Bizarre News
Here's the bizarre of the week:
3 Year old chosen as a goddess - girls lose goddess status at puberty and rarely marry, suffering a life of hardship post-goddess status, yet her family is honored that she is chosen!
Naked man swims in moat - I would guess that sake was involved.
The bra bandit - you'd think it was a guy!
Monkey Butler - whoever thought this up was clearly trying to escape minimum wage laws.
Tuesday
Global Warming?
I think scientists forgot the Pacific Northwest when some declared the controversial "Global Warming". Case in point: Boise, Idaho, October 10th. It snowed. According to the Boise newspaper Idaho Statesman, It snowed earlier than any other year since 1898! I also recalled one of my own journal entries from earlier this year where I said: It's March 28th and snowing outside. It's snowed off and on for the last two days. So much for Global Warming. The globe around me doesn't feel too warm to me!
While I'm trying to be a good world-citizen by not being wasteful by recycling, using low-energy bulbs, driving less, and the like, I am still doubtful about the whole warming thing. I distinctly remember the ecologists cry in the 70's about how the world was cooling an we were all doomed. I wasn't sure I was recalling correctly (as I was a teenager) so I researched and found an article from 1975 in Newsweek that confirms I did not imagine it. The author, Peter Grim, finishes of the article by saying, "They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
I'm glad politicians are slow to move on things like this. I can't imagine the consequences had world leaders actually carried out what was suggested in Grim's article.
Cool, then warm, and now maybe cool again? Yes! The Nature Journal states that a team of German scientists are rising up to say we are entering another cycle where certain zones will begin cooling!
I'll stick to re-usable grocery bags, renewable resources and energy star appliances, thank you! But please don't divert any rivers or re-freeze the polar ice caps to try to change the climate!
BREAKING NEWS AS OF 10/15:
Coldest spell in California since the 1800's in Mendocino County
Pendleton Oregon faces cold snap that breaks record of 118 years!
And one more: Alaska Glaciers grew this last year