March 16, 2010
mental health
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I came pretty close to blowing off my lifting this morning. Rather, I started telling myself that I would justs go home and lift with dumbbells “later”. I had opened the gym, was feeling sick of being there, but I had my workout clothes with me.
Now, in Noël’s World, “later” generally doesn’t happen. When I give myself an excuse like this, chances are very good I’m trying to wiggle out of whatever is going on. When I realized what I was doing, I just told myself, “For pity’s sake! Just go lift and shower. You’ll still get home quite early in the morning in time to get your other work done. If you blow it off, you’ll be blowing things off all day in procrastination.”
I try very hard to optimize my life so that it’ll be easier and make more sense to do the productive thing. You know, like packing one’s gym bag the night before, setting up the crock pot to cook dinner and having housework routines. I don’t how much time it saves in the real world, but it does save mental effort and Stuff Gets Done.
The author of The No-S Diet, Reinhard Engels, likens habit to a large and powerful beast that you can domesticate and use the energy to suit your purposes. I think this is true. ‘Course bad habits are as powerful and dumb as the good ones!
How do you replace a bad habit with a good one, or get rid of a bad habit?
March 15, 2010
fitness, mental health
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I have felt just chilled to the bone lately. No, it’s not especially cold outside. In fact, it’s a balmy 40F outside right now. It’s the damp, and I know it.
Damp, raw chill is probably my least favorite weather. Even the swimming pool felt really cold to me before I began my laps today, and they keep that pool pretty warm – usually around 75F. I usually stay pretty warm for several hours after a good workout, but not today.
I’m working snuggled under my slanket today with a rice-filled warmer at my feet and drinking a hot cup of tea. Tea is more warming to me than coffee. I’m not sure why.
I saw an interesting question the other day about swimming. “Will swimming make my shoulders broad?”
Interesting question. The real answer is that yes swimming will most certainly aid in shoulder development. Whether or not you find that desirable is your call. I will point out that you’re not going to look like a member of the East German 1970s women’s swim team without two things A) Steroids and B) Their training schedule. Good luck with that. Me? If I put in three miles of laps in a week, I’m all good.
Which, in this rambling post, brings up another point about steroid use. While not in favor of chemical performance enhancers, meeself, I sometimes think people have a rather unclear idea of how these things work. No-one takes steroids then sits on their butt playing video games and expects to win athletic contests. It’s the drugs and incredibly grueling workouts that do it. It’s not a magic pill (or shot).
And in the interests of even more rambling, I’m noticing I really do respond well to playing video games that feature bright, sunny weather with blue water and sand. I have not wanted to hibernate nearly as badly as I often do on gray, wet days when I spend my coffee break on WuHu Island. I think that surrounding myself with sunny, tropical images is probably a positive thing. I sometimes wonder if Nanny constantly burning things on icky days was a similar thing. I think I get my solar-powered tendencies from her. We might love water, but it’s the combination of water and sun that’s the thing. The only time I’d want to visit the far North or the far South would be sometime around the Summer solstice, I think. I’m hoping for more sunshine than this spring. Last year’s spring and summer were reminiscent of that Bradbury story “All Summer in a Day” and I think another one like it will send me buggy.
And speaking of coffee breaks, mine is over and I need to get back to work.
March 9, 2010
fitness
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I actually used the weight room rather than do body weight stuff today.
For all that I’m in favor of body weight exercises and really think that there are dozens of paths to fitness, I gotta say I like freeweights better. Oh yes, body weight exercises travel well, what with only needing about six feet of floor and no equipment. But having that bar across your shoulders is cool. Well, it’s cool to me.
That’s important. What do you like to do?
I think that in our chasing fitness (or sometimes just waving cheerfully from our chairs and getting on with our blogging), we get too into the perfect workout, or what we thinking we “should” be doing.
If you’ve decided being more active is important to you, finding something that makes you feel good is important. I don’t swim and use free weights because they’re The Ultimate Exercise. I swim and use free weights because that’s what I’ll do. Sure, sure, I can come up with a million reasons why I’m Right to Do What I Do in terms of great exercise and Why People Who Do It Different Are Wrong. But, I have a friend who hates exercise for the sake of exercise. Oh, she’ll paddle twenty miles in a kayak. Show her a mountain and she’ll hike on up it chattering cheerfully all the way. Don’t try to put her in a gym. She’d be miserable. And I’m sure if it were her way, she could come up with a million reasons why she is Right to Do What She Does and Why People Who Do It Differently Are Wrong.
Both of us would be wrong, too.
So, if you’re into being active, what do you like?
March 5, 2010
food
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My son came home from school with four pounds of flour, a bowl scraper and a package of yeast. Apparently King Arthur Flour has this Life Skills Bread Baking program.
So there was this assembly where the kids learned the process of baking bread. Then they were given the flour and some yeast so that they could do a baking of bread — one to keep and one to send in to school to be donated to charity.
Now let me make this clear. I am a King Arthur Flour customer. I was a King Arthur Flour customer many years before I moved to within 10 miles of their factory. Its basic grade flour is better bread flour than many basic grades of national brands.
Still, I couldn’t help but think that the real reason they’re doing this is… <drum roll> to create more bread bakers to sell more flour. I know, DUH!
We are going to do a baking of bread this weekend, and I’ll even use the recipe they gave us. But I’ll be using my Kitchen Aid and my dough hook rather than kneading by hand as they say to.
My son thought the whole, “Teach people to bake bread” thing was very funny. He thought all grownups knew how. I’ve had to explain to him that while my skills do not stack up against a professionally-trained chef, for a layman, I’m a relatively skilled cook, as well as a pretty decent baker.
March 2, 2010
household, rant
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“The guys just don’t feel the same way we do about the house. They don’t have the guilt that eats away at them.” Flylady in an answer to a letter about the Husband’s clutter.
Oh boy…
Here’s the problem. Do you know why men don’t feel guilty if the house looks like shit? It’s because quite often they feel it’s the woman’s job to clean the house. You can’t feel guilty about something you feel isn’t your responsibility!
Now, as it happens, I am the one who takes charge of how the house looks. There are several reasons, and yes, one of the reasons is that I’m the one who cares the most about it and I’ve made some life choices that give me the time. But you know what? If I had something else I was doing that I considered important[1], I would consider that the important thing to do. I will, have and do react incredibly badly to the automatic assumption that having a uterus means that I’m the one who should automagically be in charge of how the house looks. Lack of help cleaning up after dinner would have me quite disinclined to cook another single meal. I haven’t the slightest problem with asking people to pick up after themselves, and consistent refusal to do so is definitely a relationship-killer with me.
But the guilt thing? Friends, that’s some sexist socialization there. Partnerships and equitability are one thing, but you wouldn’t establish a business partnership with the relationship and responsibilities unexamined. Why shoot yourself in the foot with your life partners?
[1] A book deadline, for instance, would mean that instead of me doing the lion’s share of the household chores, we’d be splitting housework up in thirds Or There Would Be Serious Trouble.
March 1, 2010
Uncategorized
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One of the popular things that writers discuss when they decide to Decry The Modern World is how the Internet has made us more isolated and how we don’t have Real Friends.
Really?
How many of you reading this have made a friend on the internet, then travelled more than 500 miles to visit that person? That’s not real?
Then my family growing up wasn’t a real family! We traveled to Minnesota from Virginia for my brother to be a ring bearer in a 1st cousin once removed’s wedding. We went to Georgia to see a great aunt. We regularly traveled an hour or two to see (and often help out) cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so on.
How does this count, yet when I do the same thing to visit friends I’ve met through a computer, there is this idea that these friendships aren’t real friendships? And don’t get me started on the “blood is thicker than water” canard. I am lucky enough that I have blood relations that are indeed close and mutually supportive, but I have blood relations that aren’t, too. It’s about the same range as friendships I’ve made. It’s more to do with the people involved than the accidents of birth.
What? Face to face time?
I was comparing how often I saw people in person before I was connected to the Internet to now. You know what? I interact face to face in a non-business environment about as often as I did. In fact, I tend to see people socially a bit more now.
Why?
The Internet. It offers better opportunity for me to meet people that I actually have something in common with! Sure, I’m cool with helping shovel Mrs. Next Door’s driveway, or driving Senora Across the Street to the grocery store. But I’m unlikely to be talking politics, science or philosophy with ‘em[1]. So in my case, I have considerably more friends, both in simple quantity and in satisfaction levels, from being able to communicate across distance.
I think people that say the Internet makes them socially isolated might be unskilled in their appropriate use of technology. We hear about people texting all through face to face social gatherings. Now, I spent the weekend with some friends of mine who are even geekier than I am. When we went out to dinner, we talked. Phones stayed in purses, and there was no texting going on. We… talked. Just like people did before the Internet.
[1] In Sra. Across the Street’s case, that’s mostly a language issue. Neither her English nor my Spanish is up to that.
February 24, 2010
household
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I’m not a big fan of disposable stuff in general. No, it’s not some tree-hugger thing, though I’m totally fine with things I do being less wasteful or polluting.
It’s a money-saver. I don’t use paper towels. I have cleaning cloths made of old towels. They’re not just cut up old towels, though. You take an old towel, cut it in eighths. Then you sew a zig-zag stitch all around the edges to prevent fraying and sew the long ends together into a loose tube. Depending on how you fold it, this gives you more cleaning surface per cloth, so you don’t go through as many cleaning. I’ve preferred those for years. They last a long time, and you can just toss them in with the regular laundry with no problem. (I don’t use bleach or bleach-based products in cleaning. You would have to handle them with more care in terms of laundry if you did).
But I always associated cloth napkins with formal dinners until I went to visit a friend in Portland a few years ago. In the kitchen, there was a basket of clean, folded napkins in cheerful colors and patterns. I remember seeing it and having to restrain myself from smacking my forehead at the casual sensibleness of cloth napkins. You buy a set once, then you’re all good for napkins for many years. They’re so small that it’s insignificant in terms of extra laundry and for me they wouldn’t really cost any extra to acquire. I mean, I sew. I’ve always got fabric lying around, so it’s not even as if it would have cost anything for me to have some. But if you buy paper ones, you’re buying napkins about once a month or so.
I made a set of sixteen. Since I usually do a load of darks about every two to three days (my napkins are dark burgundy), that’s more than enough. We never really run out.
What really gets me to thinking about it, though, is how often disposable products are pushed. The Swiffer Wet-Jet not only needs those disposable pads (well, okay, I use my cleaning cloths with mine, and just attach them with some old hair ties) and the special bottles of cleaner (and I just have a spray bottle of all purpose cleaner to squirt the floor down well), but then there’s the dispoable dusting rags, toilet wands and what have you. This stuff is silly and wasteful. It’s not even safer in terms of germs. If you’re really concerned, use a disinfectant cleaner, spray the surface and let it air dry. Do you do that? No, of course not. So don’t be silly about germs and disposable cleaning products.
February 22, 2010
household
2 Comments
I think I’m developing a bit of a split personality about having drunk the Flylady Kool-aid.
On the one hand, I really do like the system quite a bit. Between the routines, the decluttering and the missions I get in the email, the house looks nice and runs smoothly. Anyone could walk in right at this second and I would not be embarrassed about how the house looks.
On the other hand, I’m tired of reading testimonials about how a product has changed someone’s life on a site about decluttering. I’m sorry, but “buy more stuff” is seldom a good solution to a clutter problem, especially when clutter and hoarding problems are usually related to problems with shopping too much in the first place!
On the other hand (yes, I know, three hands. When do I ever follow a system without adding my own twist? Get over it) I’m all for people creating successful small businesses. I do have a bit of a squick at the idea that she’s selling stuff to people with clutter problems, but only a small one. I mean, the woman sells cleaning cloths, for heaven’s sake. I might have made my own out of old towels rather than bought some, but it’s a reusable product that’s genuinely useful.
I certainly don’t tell my family Flylady loves us and wants us to have a clean house. (Yes, some of the testimonials posts have mothers saying that they’ve said this to their children. I find that creepy as hell). I don’t don’t follow the system exactly. I am wearing slippers, not shoes. I don’t “bless the house”. I dust and vacuum. I don’t put in 15 minutes of “loving movement”. I work out! I certainly don’t have some picture of a Cheerful Fairy with a fishing rod and tennis shoes shaking her finger at me on some household appliance. I look at my schedule and think, “Yep, I need to empty the dishwasher.”
Certainly if all twee nonsense works, it works. If you need all that to get organized enough to suit yourself, you need it. I sympathize with needing tools. My mother, for instance, does not need a notebook or a schedule to keep the house clean. She just does it. She doesn’t need a battle plan for something as simple and obvious as housekeeping.
And that’s where I get really weirded out. People will write the author of the Flylady site to argue with her about her system.
Why why why?
You don’t wanna wear shoes in the house, don’t. If your life wasn’t changed by buying a feather duster, that’s just fine. If you like spending one day a week cleaning the house from top to bottom rather than using routines, that’s your call. If you don’t want to worry about having a clean house at all, whose damn life is it, anyway?
You don’t need Flylady’s permission.
Though, I am unsubbing from the list because I’ve got what works for me, and I’m not that into reading commercials.
February 17, 2010
rant
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There’s a Facebook group about the appropriate way to spell the contraction of “you all” so prevalent in the South.
The expression is y’all. Not ya’ll.
But there’s more to it than that. It’s also plural.
Yes, yes, I bet some of you Yankees have seen a Southerner appear to address a single person with the expression “y’all”. But, you really didn’t.
Example:
You’re waiting in line to pay your light bill, when someone in front of you is waving a receipt angrily and is saying, “Why did you turn of my lights? I paid y’all last week!”
The individual in question is not addressing the singular person behind the counter, but the entire company as represented by the customer service representative. In this case, the organization is a collective group of people appropriately addressed as “you all” or “y’all.”
If you are alone and are given the farewell, “Y’all come back now, y’hear?” you’re still not being addressed as “y’all” singularly. You’re being addressed as a representative of a group of people (most likely your family) all if whom the speaker is expressing the wish to socialize with again.
February 17, 2010
kids, rant
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I don’t like the expressions “raising children” or even “rearing children”. It implies the end product is children.
If you’re a parent, you’re not aiming for an end product of childhood, but an end product of adulthood. You’re not raising kids, you’re raising grownups!
I’m not trying to imply that children shouldn’t have a childhood, play, be silly, and enjoy life. On the other hand, I think it would do most grownups I know a lot of good to play, be silly and enjoy life, too. I think that particular aspect of life is less a developmental stage and more of a part of the human condition. Hell, I’m in my 40s and I like snowball fights, baking cookies, making up games when playing in the pool, and being absurd as much as I ever did. Doesn’t stop me from mopping the floor when it gets dirty or doing taxes.
What I do think is that we prolong childhood way too far.
I was thinking about it this weekend when I revisited one of my favorite movies, The Lost Boys. The focal characters were mostly between the ages of 16 and 19. Even casting aside the whole idea that they were vampires, so probably even older than that, these characters were what happens when you have people whose bodies are adults, but they’re at loose ends because they’re told that they’re children, powerless and don’t have a useful or productive place in society. All that youthful energy had nowhere to go. Energy that has nowhere to go more often than not goes into destructive channels.
The mother character gave completely mixed messages to her oldest son that got even stronger when you get to see some of the scenes that were cut from the final release. Now, on the whole, I think the character was quite a good mother, but merely acting as a product of our society. On the one hand, she wanted him to look after his younger brother when she couldn’t be there – to be a parent surrogate. That’s an adult role. But then she discouraged him, in some cut scenes, from contributing financially to the family in a time of need. Sure, her reasoning was understandable. She wanted him to continue his education! But what she was really discouraging him from doing was stepping up to the plate as an adult and contributing to the welfare of his loved ones.
Given our social and economic structure, I’m not sure how this problem is going to be solved, but we need to and soon. It’s been going on since the 1950s and we’re going to run ourselves into the ground if we don’t stop it.
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