starting 11:42 a.m.
jake was feeling poorly this morning, like, really bad. his throat was apparently killing him, and he seemed to be about to hack up a lung. that meant that each time he coughed, he cried out in pain because of his throat. *sigh* so i gave him a day home sick. which means that i'm home as well! however, as it tends to happen when one stays home from normal activities, he started to feel better. i think this is in part because of the lemon/cloves/ginger/honey infusion i made him, in part because he had warm, slippery oatmeal for breakfast, and in part because it's often the case that when you're ill you feel absolutely worst as soon as you wake up. regardless, he's only allowed to lie around today and drink tea and eat soup, no matter how much he whines. thankfully for me, we have a stash of disney movies that he's watching while lying on the couch. he's been through mary poppins and dumbo so far this morning. he'd really love to go out and play, but when you're home sick in my house, you stay prone and drink strong infusions! it's the rules. staying home is not a thing to be taken lightly.
i'm also making him some veggie soup for lunch: water, better-than-boullion (veggie), carrots, potato, onion, pasta, zucchini. i'm looking forward to it even if he's not ;)
which puts me to mind of that old story "stone soup" where the whole village gets together to have some of this miraculous soup made of a stone, and they each bring one vegetable to add to the pot and they are amazed at the wonderful soup that comes out of it.
in other news, i think i may have discovered the thing that is making the fridge reek. there were some now-almost-liquid green onions in a ziplock bag in the drawer. fingers crossed that that's what it was!!! figuring out which of the many veggies in the fridge is giving off that rotting smell is rough work when the fridge is almost always full. maybe i'll give it a bit of a cleaning today before we head to the csa pickup.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
the persistence of green!
starting 11:35 a.m.
i'm forever amazed at the persistence of green growing things. there are sci-fi future tales of broken down cities, and they're usually described as being forlorn and desolate places. i don't think that would happen. i think they'd end up covered in green!
think about how much time and effort people can put into "managing" their property to keep out the green things. they scrape out the cracks in the sidewalk and their driveways and other paved areas (if they don't drown them in chemicals instead).
have you seen ivy take over a house? it'll cover a building in its entirety, including windows and doors. i've seen the same thing beginning to happen to the sound-break walls at the sides of the highway.
have you seen a road in disuse? the cracks that form in the asphalt start to grow green things, which in turn make the cracks bigger and bigger green things start to grow!
i ride the elevated number 7 train everyday through queens, and looking out at the rooftops, i could imagine them turning green. there's one that already looks like marshland. it collects standing water (poorly designed or maintained drainage there), and there must be enough "dirt" there to support the fairly lush marsh grass that's growing on it. no one set out to turn that one into a green roof (though i really admire people who do have planned green roofs... like the silvercup building in lic), and the green is just taking over. i can imagine how easy it would be to turn so many of the flat roofs in the city into growing-places. just a bit of dirt... many plants aren't really that picky. there's generally something that will grow in whatever conditions are available. it's people who try to keep things from becoming green.
i feel rather hopeful about it. if the world ends, it'll just return to its green self :)
i'm forever amazed at the persistence of green growing things. there are sci-fi future tales of broken down cities, and they're usually described as being forlorn and desolate places. i don't think that would happen. i think they'd end up covered in green!
think about how much time and effort people can put into "managing" their property to keep out the green things. they scrape out the cracks in the sidewalk and their driveways and other paved areas (if they don't drown them in chemicals instead).
have you seen ivy take over a house? it'll cover a building in its entirety, including windows and doors. i've seen the same thing beginning to happen to the sound-break walls at the sides of the highway.
have you seen a road in disuse? the cracks that form in the asphalt start to grow green things, which in turn make the cracks bigger and bigger green things start to grow!
i ride the elevated number 7 train everyday through queens, and looking out at the rooftops, i could imagine them turning green. there's one that already looks like marshland. it collects standing water (poorly designed or maintained drainage there), and there must be enough "dirt" there to support the fairly lush marsh grass that's growing on it. no one set out to turn that one into a green roof (though i really admire people who do have planned green roofs... like the silvercup building in lic), and the green is just taking over. i can imagine how easy it would be to turn so many of the flat roofs in the city into growing-places. just a bit of dirt... many plants aren't really that picky. there's generally something that will grow in whatever conditions are available. it's people who try to keep things from becoming green.
i feel rather hopeful about it. if the world ends, it'll just return to its green self :)
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
thinking blogger!
a sincere thank you to bryan for naming me in his list of "thinking blogger awards". it's flattering to be considered someone who makes others pause and think. now, i'm supposed to nominate five more blogs that make me pause and think. i've been watching the thinking blogger awards go around the blogs i read regularly, and many of the ones that inspire me have been nominated already (casaubon's book; simple living: simplify and reduce; my fair share; mustard seed journal; walk slowly, live wildly; little blog in the big woods). i'm going to list a few that i haven't seen nominated yet, but please know that if i could list them all, i would.
1. back into the groove
2. bornfamous
3. exploring not-so-big living
4. hoppes homestead
again, thank you very much, bryan, and thank you to all you bloggers out there who are thinking and inspiring with your posts!
riding in the rain
this morning i debated taking my bike to the train station. it was sprinkling when it was time for me to leave the house. the paper called for a "light shower" in the morning, and i didn't want to be late coming home to get jake, so i decided to brave it. i thought of miranda biking to the farmer's market in the rain and pushed off down the hill.
the further i went, the harder the rain fell. by the time i got near the train station, i was thoroughly soaked. i don't mind being rained on, but i can't show up to work wet to the skin! so, after biking a mile in the rain, i turned around and biked back home in the rain. [note to self: bike brakes don't work so well when they're wet.]
i got home, changed out of my dripping clothes and into dry ones, donned my galoshes, and looked out at the torrential downpour that the rain had become. *sigh* i didn't want to wait for the bus in that. i was already late for work. so... i whined to erin. (what else could i do? ;) )
by the time i was done whining, she had offered to drive me to the train station. by this time, though, the rain had let up almost completely. the only thing stopping me was that i'd have to walk past rose, the homeless lady who lives on our street (and tends to yell at me in a language i don't understand as i pass her - she's intimidating). erin promised to yell at rose if she came at me yelling. luckily, no one had to yell, and i made it onto the bus and in to work only an hour late. whew!
my hair is nice and soft now. one benefit to being rained on ;)
the further i went, the harder the rain fell. by the time i got near the train station, i was thoroughly soaked. i don't mind being rained on, but i can't show up to work wet to the skin! so, after biking a mile in the rain, i turned around and biked back home in the rain. [note to self: bike brakes don't work so well when they're wet.]
i got home, changed out of my dripping clothes and into dry ones, donned my galoshes, and looked out at the torrential downpour that the rain had become. *sigh* i didn't want to wait for the bus in that. i was already late for work. so... i whined to erin. (what else could i do? ;) )
by the time i was done whining, she had offered to drive me to the train station. by this time, though, the rain had let up almost completely. the only thing stopping me was that i'd have to walk past rose, the homeless lady who lives on our street (and tends to yell at me in a language i don't understand as i pass her - she's intimidating). erin promised to yell at rose if she came at me yelling. luckily, no one had to yell, and i made it onto the bus and in to work only an hour late. whew!
my hair is nice and soft now. one benefit to being rained on ;)
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
sister envy and body image
my sister called last night to talk about our impending camping trip with the family (so excited about that, by the way). she's chatty, which is kind of nice because i have trouble carrying a conversation. we got to talking about our gardens. hers is 11 long rows (it takes her an hour to weed one row). she has not only tomatoes, zucchini and peppers, but also radishes, carrots, corn, beets, onions, canteloupe, watermelon... the list goes on. (and that list doesn't include her herbs on the porch.) and all of these things she grew from seed. *sigh* cue inferiority complex.
i was already feeling a bit down about how well my garden isn't doing, and now i hear that my sister (to whom i've generally felt inferior much of my life) has this gigantic fruitful garden going on. i feel sad. but my garden is better than no garden. and erin says my sister isn't better than me. she says my sister is just more like my dad than i am.
as for body image...
for a while i was proud to be losing weight and getting to a "normal" weight range, but now i'm self-conscious about my body and its... skinniness, i guess. i don't want comments on how good i look, but i don't want comments on how bad i look, either. it's going to take some thinking on my part.
i was already feeling a bit down about how well my garden isn't doing, and now i hear that my sister (to whom i've generally felt inferior much of my life) has this gigantic fruitful garden going on. i feel sad. but my garden is better than no garden. and erin says my sister isn't better than me. she says my sister is just more like my dad than i am.
as for body image...
for a while i was proud to be losing weight and getting to a "normal" weight range, but now i'm self-conscious about my body and its... skinniness, i guess. i don't want comments on how good i look, but i don't want comments on how bad i look, either. it's going to take some thinking on my part.
Monday, July 16, 2007
compromise
erin and i sat down and had a chat last night about why we've been eating out so often lately and what we could do about it. we decided that we pretty much went from eating meat two or three times per day to maybe once a week, and that was too drastic of a change for us. we're not ready to be that vegetarian yet.
our compromise is that we're going to have "sustainable" (organic/local) meat each night as a step in the right direction because in the past we were getting all our meat at the grocery store based on price.
i feel a bit better about food now. a little bit.
our compromise is that we're going to have "sustainable" (organic/local) meat each night as a step in the right direction because in the past we were getting all our meat at the grocery store based on price.
i feel a bit better about food now. a little bit.
Friday, July 13, 2007
more nyc water statistics
nyc annual consumption in 2006 was the lowest since at least 1979: 1068.7 million gallons per DAY in 2006 compared to 1512.4 million gallons per day in 1979.
nyc per person consumption in 2006 was 133.5 gallons per day compared to 189.0 gallons per day in 1979.
the highest per capita consumption year in this span of time was 1988 with 208.3 gallons per person per day, though the total nyc consumption was 1483.9 million gallons per day. population must have hiccuped down that year.
interesting stuff on the dep website. including a record of various droughts and how long they lasted and what the reservoir level percentages were at the time.
also interesting is the list of restrictions that apply near and during a drought.
nyc per person consumption in 2006 was 133.5 gallons per day compared to 189.0 gallons per day in 1979.
the highest per capita consumption year in this span of time was 1988 with 208.3 gallons per person per day, though the total nyc consumption was 1483.9 million gallons per day. population must have hiccuped down that year.
interesting stuff on the dep website. including a record of various droughts and how long they lasted and what the reservoir level percentages were at the time.
also interesting is the list of restrictions that apply near and during a drought.
water levels for reservoirs serving nyc
New York City
Water Supply System Reservoirs
July 12, 2007
Total Storage (% of Capacity)
Current: 89.3
Normal: 94.0
Consumption (billion gallons)
7/12/07 1.19
Average Precipitation (inches)
Actual Historical
May: 1.64 4.30
June: 2.89 3.93
July: 1.57 4.15
* to date
note that average precipitation is several inches down this year from historical averages, and that the total reservoir capacity is down 5% from the norm for this time of year. click title for source.
snapshot this morning
jake says, "we should make a list of chores to do tomorrow." (he's big on doing chores)
i say, "erin had one she wanted to do."
erin says, "yeah, the 27 thing fling!" [a-la flylady's 27 fling boogie]
jake says, "no, not a game!"
we laugh. erin starts in with, "for every job that must be done/ there is an element of fun/ find the fun and snap!/ the job's a game!/ then every task we undertake/ becomes a piece of cake/ la la/ la la/ la la la la la la....!"
jake and i join in as i'm wheeling my bike out the door, "just a spoonful of sugar/ helps the medicine go down..." and it trails after me as i head down the hill
:)
i say, "erin had one she wanted to do."
erin says, "yeah, the 27 thing fling!" [a-la flylady's 27 fling boogie]
jake says, "no, not a game!"
we laugh. erin starts in with, "for every job that must be done/ there is an element of fun/ find the fun and snap!/ the job's a game!/ then every task we undertake/ becomes a piece of cake/ la la/ la la/ la la la la la la....!"
jake and i join in as i'm wheeling my bike out the door, "just a spoonful of sugar/ helps the medicine go down..." and it trails after me as i head down the hill
:)
Monday, July 09, 2007
community-building?
starting 12:43
one of the main themes that cycle around reduction and peak oil and the return to simpler living is the idea of rebuilding a sense of community where we live. i agree that this is important, but i find myself ill-suited to this endeavor.
the online groups do offer something of a sense of community. at least we do learn that there are others out there (more than 250 on our list now!) who have similar interests and are taking similar actions. i appreciate that, but i wonder how many of us (myself included) are way more comfortable when confronted with words on a screen than with our own neighbors.
our block is pretty neighborly, as they go. there are three or four families with young children (under 10) who all enjoy playing together on summer evenings. jake has been somewhat of an "in" with these families, but that doesn't stop me from being terribly anxious whenever i walk him across the street to his friends' house, or go to call him in for the night. i worry about what these people think of me. i am afraid of their opinions and that they might not like me... plus, what do i say to someone with whom i think the only link we have is our young ones and where we live? what's the "proper" way to socialize with people i barely know but whose children are my child's playmates? there are a lot of unknowns in the potential relationship between myself and these other parents. do they mind if i let my son go play with their kids on their property while i am at home making dinner? i mean, i remember a time when i was young where we all played out on the sidewalks and in different kids' yards and no parents were around at all (they were doing their own grown-up things that we didn't care about, though always available if someone needed an adult). i feel like times have changed, though, and i have this uneasy voice in the back of my head that says that i should be omnipresent wherever jake is, especially if me not being present means that some other adult is "the authority" over wherever he's playing. but then when do i make dinner???
it's hard. being friendly doesn't come naturally to me, at least not beyond saying hello. i think that's probably the core of our issue with not having the kind of community these days that would be supportive of living completely locally; we've lost the skillset that involves acting neighborly and knowing what the "rules" for that would be.
one of the main themes that cycle around reduction and peak oil and the return to simpler living is the idea of rebuilding a sense of community where we live. i agree that this is important, but i find myself ill-suited to this endeavor.
the online groups do offer something of a sense of community. at least we do learn that there are others out there (more than 250 on our list now!) who have similar interests and are taking similar actions. i appreciate that, but i wonder how many of us (myself included) are way more comfortable when confronted with words on a screen than with our own neighbors.
our block is pretty neighborly, as they go. there are three or four families with young children (under 10) who all enjoy playing together on summer evenings. jake has been somewhat of an "in" with these families, but that doesn't stop me from being terribly anxious whenever i walk him across the street to his friends' house, or go to call him in for the night. i worry about what these people think of me. i am afraid of their opinions and that they might not like me... plus, what do i say to someone with whom i think the only link we have is our young ones and where we live? what's the "proper" way to socialize with people i barely know but whose children are my child's playmates? there are a lot of unknowns in the potential relationship between myself and these other parents. do they mind if i let my son go play with their kids on their property while i am at home making dinner? i mean, i remember a time when i was young where we all played out on the sidewalks and in different kids' yards and no parents were around at all (they were doing their own grown-up things that we didn't care about, though always available if someone needed an adult). i feel like times have changed, though, and i have this uneasy voice in the back of my head that says that i should be omnipresent wherever jake is, especially if me not being present means that some other adult is "the authority" over wherever he's playing. but then when do i make dinner???
it's hard. being friendly doesn't come naturally to me, at least not beyond saying hello. i think that's probably the core of our issue with not having the kind of community these days that would be supportive of living completely locally; we've lost the skillset that involves acting neighborly and knowing what the "rules" for that would be.
Friday, July 06, 2007
on rebelling
i'm finding it daunting to look at a bare screen for fifteen minutes when i don't feel i've been thinking about or doing anything that i want to share on my blog. sorry for the delay in posts. i find it annoying when someone i read regularly takes a hiatus and leaves me with nothing new to see! not that i blame the author; i don't.
anyway, after a month of the project, i think i may have reached a point where i rebel against what i should be doing and gorge on what i should definitely NOT be doing. for instance:
tuesday night erin and i went out to see a movie. dinner consisted of a medium popcorn, medium diet pepsi, whoppers, twizzlers, and peanut m&m's. ahem.
wednesday morning we had pancakes for breakfast (not too bad for the environment, but sugar on top of white flour wreaks havoc on my body), went out to play, came home and ordered pizza. then we had more m&m's at the beginning of the fireworks (which we watched both on tv and out our front window since the neighbors were setting off quite a display themselves).
yesterday i was mostly back on track. i picked up the csa share and made a good, local dinner for the fam. today i chose not to eff with my diet and only ate what i brought to work with me.
on the 90% list, pat linked to linked to her "anyway" theory (and also to sharon's article about pat's "anyway" theory), and the idea that choosing "the right thing" to do as though i were choosing between stealing and paying is helping me through today. it's putting my rebel back to sleep... for now. knowing me, though, it'll wake back up in a week or two (maybe less), and i'll see what i can find then to serve as a lullaby.
anyway, after a month of the project, i think i may have reached a point where i rebel against what i should be doing and gorge on what i should definitely NOT be doing. for instance:
tuesday night erin and i went out to see a movie. dinner consisted of a medium popcorn, medium diet pepsi, whoppers, twizzlers, and peanut m&m's. ahem.
wednesday morning we had pancakes for breakfast (not too bad for the environment, but sugar on top of white flour wreaks havoc on my body), went out to play, came home and ordered pizza. then we had more m&m's at the beginning of the fireworks (which we watched both on tv and out our front window since the neighbors were setting off quite a display themselves).
yesterday i was mostly back on track. i picked up the csa share and made a good, local dinner for the fam. today i chose not to eff with my diet and only ate what i brought to work with me.
on the 90% list, pat linked to linked to her "anyway" theory (and also to sharon's article about pat's "anyway" theory), and the idea that choosing "the right thing" to do as though i were choosing between stealing and paying is helping me through today. it's putting my rebel back to sleep... for now. knowing me, though, it'll wake back up in a week or two (maybe less), and i'll see what i can find then to serve as a lullaby.
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