Gardening with the TDE

Hello blogland,

First, a few quick updates:

1) Schedule Updates from the TDE.
This week is the last week of school in my area. That means substitute teaching is over for the summer and I *should* be able to get posts up on Wednesdays. However, we're also going to be gone for much of June and internet availability is unknown for some of it. So, June could still be a bit hit or miss.

2) The dishwasher experiment is not going well. I haven't done any more trials. Its hard enough just keeping on top of the dishes in general with a teeny tiny dishwasher. I'm not giving up quite yet though.

OK, moving on:

It's spring and springtime means gardening. In the past we've done well with container gardening on our balcony. We built some "Earthtainers" a couple years ago and they work really well. They're awesome. Unfortunately, this year they shall sit unused on our north-facing balcony that gets about 30 mins of sun just before dusk. :(

However, you just can't keep the TDE and the ITH from digging in the dirt. We joined forces with some other folks and have planted a 10'x40' plot in the local community garden. It's a quick (5 min) walk from home and has been great so far. Here's a picture of our plot from yesterday.

We've got lots of things growing: corn, cukes, squash, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, broccoli, potatoes, onions, carrots, leafy greens, peas, and herbs. 

We're also growing a lot of tiny little weedy things. Most of our seeds have sprouted now and are large and recognizable enough that I did LOTS of weeding today. Lots and lots and LOTS of weeding. 

I've never really had a problem with weeding. Of course, I've never had to do a whole lot of it. I used to help my parents in their garden and flower beds when I was a kid, but it was never forced upon me. Today I learned that I actually find weeding almost (not quite, but *almost*) enjoyable. It's definitely oddly satisfying to me to yank out the weeds, especially when the whole root comes out.  It's also really satisfying to see how much better things look when I'm done. Overall, it has a lot of positives. I'm outside in the sunshine, I have a task to complete, it's brainless and oddly calming, and I can see immediate positive results of my efforts. The only really bad part is that you have to be all hunched up and bent over for a long time and if you aren't careful you might step on a couple of bean plants. oops!

NOTE: The TDE is now internally brainstorming ideas for some sort of hanging apparatus that allows for weeding while laying on a lounge chair like device. No hunching or stepping on your plants!

Weeding does, however, make me wonder if I have some mild aspects of OCD. I suppose many people do, but we can control it which is the difference between those of us that do and do not suffer from the disorder. But still, I found myself struggling to stop. Oh, gotta get that one.... and that one... and there's one... and one more... wait, one more.... and oh as I'm walking past this part I already "finished" an hour ago I see at least 3 more that need to go. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, being a mildly compulsive weeder isn't really so bad though. 

Anyway, I'll post some updates throughout the summer so you can see our garden grow. There will definitely be some harvest pictures for you to enjoy too. But, pictures of MY harvest will be only mildly interesting to you. You should go plant your own garden so you can experience the pride and joy of having your own harvest. 

So, it's time for everyone to get out there and garden! Growing your own food is super rewarding and I swear it tastes better when you grow it yourself. No excuses, wherever you may live, you can find a way to plant a few things. We had no access to any land, but we managed to grow a lot of veggies in our Earthtainers on our balcony. Now we have no land and no sun, so we found the community garden. Gardening also means spending time out in the sunshine with helps your body produce vitamin D and generally makes you feel better (especially if you have SAD.) Plus, there might be bacteria in the dirt that will make you happier. I know I feel a whole lot better today than I did two days ago. Sunshine + digging in the dirt makes the TDE happy. :) 

Finally, one more garden-related thing I learned this week. I can hoe with both hands, with almost equal skill. Yep, the TDE is an ambidextrous hoer. 

Perspective

You know that old saying about walking a mile in someone else's shoes?

Yeah... so this happened:
I printed out a sheet of paper with 2 half page flyers on it. It needed to be cut in half. I had recently sorted through just about the last of the chaos from our recent move and had found some scissors and placed them in an easily accessible spot. So, I grabbed said scissors and proceeded to cut the page in half.... poorly.

Something just wasn't quite right. This scissors felt fine in my hand but they weren't cutting where I thought they should. Things were way off. It felt like I couldn't see what I was doing because the scissors themselves were blocking my view. The cut line was far from the fold I had made as a guideline, and it was crooked. I then attempted to "clean up" the crookedness of the line to no avail. I felt utterly incompetent at a skill I mastered 25 years ago.  

I commented to the ITH that this was the worst cut job ever and made some comment about how the scissors are weird. And then,

ITH: "Wait, let me see those scissors."
TDE: *retrieves scissors* and *has sudden realization* "Oh, are these your lefty scissors?"
ITH: (joyfully) "You found my scissors! Where were they?"
TDE: "I don't know, I found them in while unpacking. I put them over here."
ITH: "They should live in the middle drawer over there."
TDE: *puts scissors away in said middle drawer*
TDE: "Wait... is that what it's like every time you have you to use right-handed scissors?!"
ITH: "YES!"
TDE: "oh honey, I'm so sorry."
ITH: "Thats why I bought my own lefty scissors."

I found myself with a whole new appreciation of being a lefty in a right-handed world. I think all the right-handed folks out there should find some left-handed scissors and attempt to make one simple straight cut with them. It's probably easier than literally or figuratively walking a mile in someone else's shoes and it'll be (mildly) life-changing. It will certainly give you some perspective.

Things That Make Me Mad

There has been a lot of "noise" on Facebook this past week about "Bring Back Our Girls." I found myself feeling oddly unaffected by the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, I think it's horrible. Perhaps if I were a mother I'd be more enraged. But to me, that is something happening far away from me and doesn't have any direct effect on me or my life or anyone I know personally. This sounds really self-centered I know, but hear me out. Below is a list, in no particular order, of things that make me mad that DO have a direct effect on me, my life, or someone I know personally.

Net neutrality

GMO produce

LGBTQ rights

Women's rights

Public schools and standardized testing

Factory farms and our food supply in general

US health care industry

Nutrition misinformation

The environment as a whole and the "anti-global-warming" nut-jobs

STEM ed, especially for girls, but also for boys

Patent trolls and US Intellectual Property laws

I put this list together quickly and it is definitely missing things.

Even as it is, knowing that I missed a few important things, that is a pretty impressive list of things to be passionate and mad about. Do you know what I'm doing about it? Absolutely nothing. Not a thing.

I've taken no action recently to fight ANY of those things. OK, I shared this video on Facebook, but that doesn't really count. Why haven't I done anything? I have some thoughts on that.

First, here is an article a friend posted recently that gives 8 reasons young people today aren't activists.

I propose a 9th and critical reason that the article missed. There are too many things to be mad about. My anger is spread so thin that I'm not passionate enough about any one thing to be active in the fight against any of them. If you asked me to prioritize that list I don't think I could do it. To me, this is the main reason, and perhaps the only reason, that I am not fighting harder against "the man."

I see this "too much to be mad about" problem as having 2 pieces. 1) There really are more shenanigans going on. 2) Social media and technology make it so we hear about more of it.

I am literally bombarded by requests to fight the injustice. I used to get emails from the HRC every once in a while that included a link to go sign a standard petition online that they would send to my senator. I would take the 5 seconds to click a link and hit submit. Then I started getting emails weekly, then more than weekly, and I started just deleting them without reading them, and then finally I just unsubscribed from the list. Facebook is covered in posts about all of the things on my list and then some. We know about so many "evils" that we don't know which ones to truly be upset about. It's a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" situation except that there really ARE wolves everywhere and my generation has decided that we're safer if we sit quietly and hide rather than running toward the danger.

Sometimes I wonder if it is all a "master plan" by the conservative right to befuddle and win the "fight" against the liberals. I imagine a meeting where someone says "oh! I know! Lets do a whole bunch of horrible things at the same time and then they won't know what to do! They'll be spread so thin that we'll win everything!" Then they brainstormed and came up with Transvaginal Ultrasounds and Common Core and the "fast lane" of the internet, and all sorts of ways to claim that they are not killing bees or warming the planet.

No, I don't really think that happened, but I do wonder how we got to where we are. I think that I like to imagine that room full of people simply because it would give me ONE thing to be mad at. If we could rally and take out that imaginary room of idiots then we could take back our nation and our voices and win the fight against all the things that make us mad.

Instead, I suppose I better start prioritizing.

PS: #ImaginaryRoomOfIdiots should probably be a thing. We could fight it.

Dishwasher Soap Experiment Part 3 - Concerns

So today I was planning to admit defeat on the dishwasher soap experiment. However, while I was explaining my reasons for calling it off and double checking my data, I realized that my repeatability was not as bad as I initially thought. So, I shall plow ahead with the experiment after all. However, it is definitely taking a long time to complete so it will be a while before the results are ready to be revealed.

For today's post, I'll detail the concerns I've hit along the way.

1) Convenience:
As I mentioned in the previous post we have a tiny countertop dishwasher. It became clear very early in the experiment that I'd have to leave a lot of dishes sitting on the counter while I waited to meet all the criteria set in my DOE. This led to 2 issues. First, I started saying to myself "does it really matter how long the peanut butter has been on that spoon?" and I was started to stray from my rules. Second, dishes pilled up. So many dishes. They were taking over the whole kitchen. It's hard enough to keep up with dishes with our tiny dishwasher under normal circumstances. The added constraints of the experiment can quickly create an unacceptable situation.

2) Counting is hard:
I pull a bowl out of the dishwasher and it has some food stuck on it. If it's one or two small spots then it's easy enough to count. But, if its a larger area that didn't get clean it's quite hard to decide how to count that. Is it one big spot or 12 little spots? There's a lot of "creative counting" going on in this experiment. I'm trying to at least be consistent in how I count these areas but it is adding an additional layer of subjectivity to my results.

3) Lighting in important:
I've found that I need to be sure I'm standing in the same spot and have the same lights on when I rate silverware shininess and % dull/dirty. Even with those additional controls this is also more subjective than I had hoped.

So, with those concerns in mind, I shall cautiously re-start my experiment. I apologize for the additional delay I have caused.

Finally, there are a few other unrelated things that I'd like to share. Since this is a shorter post, it's a good one to add random bits to at the end:

1) An interesting graphic that relates to my post last week.
http://themetapicture.com/print-this-measurement-guide/

2) Vi Hart explains net neutrality. 

http://vihart.com/net-neutrality-in-the-us-now-what/

3) Loen Collins #53. Because Tap Dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHc8jd1Dqdc