A couple of months ago I was walking out of my local Safeway. It was very sunny and a little windy. Putting my groceries in my car I walked around to the drivers door and looked down at the empty space next to mine. There was a squished light blue soda can laying there looking almost the picturesque in its loneliness. Just a week before Rick had written a post for our blog PostKarma about a lesson on littering given to him by a high school teacher.
Ordinarily I would not have picked up the can. I have issues with other peoples germs. On that soda can there would be the drinker’s germs, the “squisher’s” germs and many more. But since reading that post I realized that even though I don’t litter myself, by walking by a piece of litter is just as bad a throwing it there.
So I picked it up and put it on the floor of my car and drove home. I forgot it there for a couple more weeks. One day when I was waiting in the car for Rick I decided to take this picture to remind me to pick up the trash and keep it from blowing all over the world.
Vacuums can be worse than public toilets!
I’m serious. I was watching the afternoon news and they were talking about germs in the home. Now I’m not one of those people whom have antibacterial soaps in each room. I don’t use bleach to clean everything – vinegar does a good job and won’t kill me. I do however take bacteria’s such as e.coli and salmonella seriously. Those could cause a lot of trouble for a normal healthy person – imagine what it could do to an immuno-compromised person such as Rick. I do what I can to keep it healthy and safe around here by cleaning our bathroom once a week being very careful around the toilet. I vacuum to clean up pet hair. Borax is used for pets stains and flea prevention.
Though I think the news can be a little fear inducing I still watch it daily. You can learn a lot. Today on channel 5 they showed a segment with a tidy family with three young children. The lab techs found a ton of germs including the above mentioned bacteria that can cause intestinal disturbances and some that can even lead to pneumonia.
Instead of freaking out about this and throwing away my vacuum cleaner I’m going to tip it over, cut out all the hair and spray it down with vinegar. I do have chlorine free bleach that I may use. Then I’ll spray the carpets down and continue to count down until we can get a house where I can tear up the carpet and have wood or bamboo floors only. I’m thinking that cleaning the vacuum may become a weekly chore.
So lets think about it – how do all these horrible bacteria get into our homes. We aren’t dirty people. The people’s home on TV looked impeccably clean. On occasion the dog has an accident if she isn’t feeling well. We walk in the apartment and usually take off our shoes. They sit on a rug by the door, but we step on the tile floor before we step on the rug and we step on the tiles with out shoes all the time. Yuck. I am also a total putz so I’m always dropping food on the kitchen floor. I clean the kitchen floor but how clean does everything get? Do the germs ever die? Or is it a pointless battle that must be fought anyway? Or are all those nasty germs just helping to build our immune systems. It has been shown that using chemicals to kill too many germs will harm us rather than help us by not allowing our immune systems to come into contact with the less dangerous bacteria. What does a girl do?
My answer for now is using borax and vinegar. Though as a quick cautionary realize that borax is harmful to people, should not be ingested, so use gloves and don’t inhale.
Autumn is going to end very soon. We have crossed over into November which is when all our flooding and winter rain storms start. We had a beautiful October. The leaves where gorgeous and the air was crisp. Now most of the leaves are being blown off the trees and will soon turn a dark brown and be swept or blown away and leave the world bare and black and brown with grey skies.
So I’m resisting by posting pretty pictures I’ve taken while lunching with Rick in his office parking lot. Though I’m not a fan of living in the suburban city, with an imaginary camera lens in my eye I see simple beauty that only the city has to offer. I’ll make an effort to enjoy it while we are still here.
Everyone loves breakfast. The kid in me loves to have it for dinner. Usually it’s yogurt and bacon, eggs and toast. This time I put a different spin on it. You’ll need eggs, bacon, chicken thigh, lettuce, grated parmesan, avocados,and salad dressing.
• Scramble the eggs, use seasonings coriander, salt, red pepper, basil and oregano. Add a little water, as it evaporates it seems to make the eggs lighter and fluffier. Instead of using Pam use organic butter.
• Frye the bacon slowly to desired crispness.
• I made baked chicken thighs the night before so I just warmed up the two left over. It is of course organic and free range so it has the best flavor and I’m supporting being kind to your food and the environment.
• Cut up an avocado, place in a bowl for when the salad is ready to be adorn.
• Organic romaine lettuce is the most nutritious and best tasting in my opinion. Tear into bite size pieces. Add the avocado. Sprinkle with grated parmesan and your favorite healthy salad dressing. One of mine is Annie’s Naturals Tuscany Italian Dressing. It is gluten and soy free and vegan. They have other great dressing.
• Use sea salt for chicken and eggs.
This dinner is high in protein which is important for me because I am very picky and don’t eat a lot of meat. But this appeals to the kid in me while still being nutritious. The romaine and avocado provide lots of vitamins. Enjoy with a glass of distilled water, or organic sparking cider.
I’m a lover of antiques, fun vintage things that you can’t find in every store across the US. Last Christmas Rick and I got an awesome print try from his mom. It’s gorgeous and rustic and unique. You can’t walk into a Pier 1 and buy one off the shelf. Not that Pier 1 doesn’t have it’s place.
We have a couple large print trays like this one and a smaller one. This is the only that is currently hung up though. I’m a bit slow on “nesting”, making an apartment home. Along with my new desire to organize our odds and ends and totes a plenty I’m slowly figuring out where I want the décor to hang.
As far as where to find a piece like this I’d say your local thrift shop may have one or you can check out Etsy or Ebay. I’ve seen them on Ebay before. Happy hunting!
I hate to be the one to bring this up. It is after all not yet Thanksgiving. However, with the economy in the crapper many of us may want to try to spread out our Holiday shopping over a couple of months rather than one month.
Rick and I always try to get a head start because when December rolls around we don’t always have a ton of money to blow. We started shopping in the spring for Christmas. Each time we go to Target together, we peruse the sale items looking for the fun item to make someone laugh or something useful that didn’t get completely bought out. We also love to go to the Antique Mall in Shoreline and try Goodwill on occasion. There are other options to consider though.
Earlier this year I discovered something called Etsy. It’s great! It’s a lot like Amazon or Ebay except there is no bidding and everything has to be handmade or vintage. I bought a reusable grocery bag on Etsy a few months ago and it has been a life saver. I window shop at Etsy now and again looking for something unique.
I decided to look under the vintage category to see what was listed. Some of the things weren’t overly exciting, some of them were great though. So far I’ve bought one thing for Rick for Christmas. I can’t post about it right now because, though he says he doesn’t read my blog, I don’t want to risk him reading it on a whim and spoiling the surprise. You’ll just have to look back after Christmas for my awesome Etsy gifts.
So a plug for Etsy: if you are gifting handmade items and you don’t want to make them yourself or don’t have the talent, or you want to find something vintage that no one else has think online and support these artists and craftsmen and craftswomen. Support the little men and women instead of your local Wal-Mart!
The other part of autumn around here is rain. I used to hate rain. It’s wet and most of the time it’s cold. But it can do lovely things to the world. It makes everything green and shiny. And it plays lovely tricks on your eyes.
Some of the trees are so beautiful around here. I’ve been so busy that I really haven’t taken the time to walk down the streets strewn with red and yellow and oranges leaves. Yesterday hoping to get a moment, I put my camera in my purse and tried to pay attention and find little snapshots of beauty. I was partly successful, though I didn’t get the perfect fall shot.
I took a couple others that I thought showed the little beauty that us Pacific Coasters may not notice on a daily basis. The first one was taken on the way to Rick’s office. It’s gorgeous in fall. It’s also raining and looking through a blurry window in the car or at home is what is true for me. It is beautiful, all the colors blur together like a watercolor painting.
With Rick going back to school to finish his degree he’s been more unavailable to just hang out and watch TV or a movie with me. I’ve had to come up with things to do to keep me busy. I moved my blog and am experimenting with wordpress. I’ve looked around our apartment to find new projects. I’m organizing. Requested to be added to the local freecycle group. I’m buzzing around with ideas like a bumblebee.
I’m also helping Rick out a bit. A couple of the classes he is taking require a lot of reading, English 101 and Photoshop. I offered to help out with English at the beginning of the quarter. In high school English, literature, art and music were my things. That’s what I reveled in. Any chance I get to further any talents I have, I take it. Though by reading my posts I’m sure that you have found many mistakes. I love writing. However, I have a problem with seeing my own errors. I usually don’t. I’m a speed-reader so my eyes just skim over what I’ve written, even what I read in a book. However, when I get in correction mode I’m a veritable English and grammar nazi.
I took on Rick’s English reading and relay the information that I read to him. I have become the cliff notes of On Writing Well. Have a question about word usage? If I don’t know what exactly was referenced in the book I’ll find it and help to apply it.
I’m tooting my own horn, I know. Hopefully, I don’t come off as arrogant. I certainly don’t mean to appear that way. But I am very good at reading. It’s my first love, above anything else. I love the act of reading. I even enjoy reading those pointless Reader’s Digest stories. I just love it! Find a good novel and its poetry in prose, dancing of letters and spaces, just perfect. Now, Rick knows this. He finally asked me to help him with his Photoshop class. He told me today that half of the reason it takes him so long to do a lesson is because of all the reading. The lessons are 18-24 pages long. (It’s not that bad, the pages aren’t completely filled with text, and there are pictures.) I asked if reading the lessons to him would help speed things up. Of course, he said, it would be awesome.
I sped through the words, reading aloud and showing him pictures when needed. We got a 24-page lesson done in 45 minutes. He said that if he had read it himself it could have taken 2 hours. Poor baby. I had no idea. So now I’m doing what I’m good at, reading, and he’s doing what he’s good at, handling the steps read and everything else computer related. We make a damned good team. We are Missy and Rick the Conquerors of Home Work!
