holy shite, im posting something

the agrippa and sulla are taking their yearly summer trip to Poppy and Putzie's house for 2 plus weeks and i am Uberhausfrau-ing it up. yesterday i cleaned out and switched around the pantry and baking implement cabinet. i also washed the dining nook's walls as well as some of the cabinets and the outside of the fridge.

today i met a lady who will be my rabbit poop connection and made a composting barrel. now it is mid-afternoon and too friggin' hot to be outside so i need to find something inside to do. i wanted to rehang the bedroom/laundry room door, but i need to head to the hardware store to buy a chisel to imbed the hinge in the door frame.

i made a video about my compost barrel. this is my first video ive made. please excuse the amateurish nature. i tried to keep the hems, haws and ums to a minimum but i dont think i succeeded. a transcript will be up soon.

yes, i totally need that broken coffee maker

it's that time of year again. the school year is winding down and im itchy for summer to start (or just itching because the humidity, pollen and mold are way up). that means it's college graduation time! the time of year when hordes of late teen/early twenty-somethings with more money than sense realise 9 months worth of college life is not going to fit in the back of mom and dad's sedan, or pick-up truck or the minivan. so it all goes into huge dumpsters.

there are only a few places i allow myself to really splurge. one is the library, the others are thrift town during their super earth day week-long specials and Town Talk, a super cheap deep discount grocer. Truly, it is the grocery store equivalent of diving. my favourite splurge place happens to be private college dumpsters. a good friend and i spent a truly lovely (thank you weather for co-operating) friday night knee-deep "turning your trash gold." among some of the better things we found were:

• a working floor lamp
• those really popular polka dot wellies in friend's size (i have been blessed with an unpopular shoe size so i almost always have to pay full retail for my footwear)
• various appliances that, if they dont work, will be perfect for the little people to take apart
• a huge CD collection - someone must have done college radio
• a neoprene laptop cozy and *crosses fingers* a working cordless laptop mouse
• sheets, blankets, egg crate foam bed pads, etc.
• other random stuff that kids go batshit over like silly string and mardi gras beads
• there would have been more stuff if some jerks hadnt gone through our hard earned separated treasure while we were getting the van

so here's my little ode to and why you should go dumpster diving.

It's fun! - really, it is. besides the joy of finding something really valuable - like a 50dollar modular cube shelf unit - or something you really need - like laundry detergent - you do get to eavesdrop on people's lives. ive discovered college kids really like easy mac, capri suns, and throwing away entire garbage bags of clean, folded clothes. they also lose a lot of shoes as evident by the multitude of single shoes found.

This is the cleanest trash I've ever seen - Yes, you will come across a used condom or two, a jock strap and used paper towels, but this isnt lunch room trash. most of it is, like i said, is whatever crap was left in the dorm room during finals week and could not fit in the car. there will be food and cleaning supply murm on your hands but it's easily remedied by baby wipes and hand sanitiser. hell, you could even wear work gloves if you're that squidged out by touching weird things. sturdy shoes and jeans will keep any goo,and glass, from touching your lower body as you wade through the gold mine.

If they didnt want it, why should I? - some colleges have partnered with aid organisations to get students to donate unwanted things before they head to the dumpster, but there will always be those that are too busy or just want to go home and say Ef' it. here's a short list of common items found in the dumpsters and what you can do with them. Of course, any items in decent shape you find can be donated - like towels, clothes, appliances, housewares, shoes, etc.

• shower caddies - i picked up several of these last year. they usually have crud on them from being used to hold toiletries but a little elbow grease and a trip through the dishwasher and they come out fine. they make great holders for paint and arts supplies, gardening tools, and cleaning supply buckets.
• notebooks, hand outs and worksheets - rip out the used pages and there will probably still be tons of usable sheets of lined paper. one-sided printouts can be flipped over and used as printer or scrap paper, especially if, like me you print out a lot of recipes, coupons or print-outs for the kiddos.
• box tops, soup labels and pull tabs - again, because this garbage is fairly clean, it is easy to get into real trash without getting that dirty. many schools or charitable organisations collect box tops, soup labels or the pull tabs from aluminum cans. they can make an otherwise underwhelming bag worthwhile.
• recyclables in general - recycling cans or shampoo and laundry bottles would be a worthy cause if you reach an already well picked over dumpster.
• food - the trash in the dumpster is likely to be only a week old and not have moldering foodstuffs. it will probably have single serving chips, granola bars, or other shelf stable things. as long as the package is relatively clean and unopened, it's safe in my book.
• shoe boxes and magazine - the boxes are good for storage and the magazines are good for crafts if not for their content.
• textbooks - chances are, if a book is in the dumpster, it have very little resale value. you know, they changed the caption of the picture on page 375 (not like you even got that far)so they need a new addition and that $80 book is now worth a buck o' five. donate it to an adult literacy or prison book program.

Are you sold? I hope so. You've got another week or two before you have to wait another year. Wear solid shoes and pants. Put your hair up and out of your face. Have a backpack with baby wipes and hand sanitizers and large garbage bags. Make sure your keys and other important things are secured - you wanna be looking for good stuff not your keys. wheeled hand carts or wagons are handy if you cant pull the car up next to the dumpster, but they're not necessary.

Now get diving.

Defending Ms. Jackson

This may be a day late and a dollar short, but that's only because it's been rattling around in my head for several weeks. In certain blogs I follow there has been a certain story about a certain woman talking openly and honestly about a certain medical procedure.

And probably the worst commentary - screeds of "dumb murdering bitch should have kept her legs closed" do not count - comes from "with friends like these..." former Planned Parenthood director Mary Ann Sorrentino. She states:

But the right we were fighting so hard for -- which was granted only a
short 37 years ago -- was based on what the Supreme Court called 'privacy.'

We wanted a woman to be able to make personal decisions about their
pregnancies in the privacy of their most intimate circles -- her partner,
family, closest friends, physician and religious advisors, if she so chose. Or,
she could decide as a panel of one and discuss it with no one.

Angie Jackson has the right to choose to take RU-486 and then write
about her cramps, her bleeding, and the eventual expulsion of the products of
conception on the Internet. But many of us who have spent our lives on the front
lines of the abortion debate also have the right to hate the fact that she chose
to do this.

The right to privacy regarding medical conditions and treatment does not mean one has to remain silent or "discuss it with no one," if that is not their choice. I dont think it's particularly helpful or healthy not to discuss something if you think it is important. I've been on the listening end of several things that could be considered, on the lighter side, disgusting/Too Much Information, or more seriously, disturbing, disheartening or uncomfortable. However, I would think the fact those people choose to tell me meant that it was something they needed to say for their own selves AND, just as importantly, they trusted me with their truths. Why is someone who is open and honest about their experiences is worthy of "hate" by seeming allies is repugnant.

I'm reminded of the I had an abortion project and subsequent tee-shirt that was released several years ago. There were conflicting opinions then about the nature of the shirt - was it brave? tacky? aggressive? If anything, it put a real living face and body on the topic. One that would be difficult to ignore or forget. Wasnt that the point?

In an interview Ms. Jackson gave to CNN, she stated she read Imnotsorry.net, one of the more popular abortion story websites, but certainly not the only. I found the abortion page of the experience project - where it appears one can discuss just about any "experience" one has. There's also the forums of afterabortion.com and the "abortioninfo" community on Livejournal. But these are all in the relative anonimity of the internet.

Does anonmity make it easier to tell an abortion story? I would think yes. The written word on a blog or forum is a mostly one-way form of communication. It can be done over a longer period of time with plenty of room for editting and re-writes. There's greater control over the dialogue, either by choosing where/to whom one discloses or disabling comments. One can cathartically purge, or give a more rational "review." Both can be very helpful to the experiencer as well as the reader. Again, that's the point. And that was the point of Ms. Jackson's tweeting and video (And hell a tweet is something like 140 characters, the videos are a few minutes long. this damned post has taken me several days to hammer out.) Why Ms. Sorrentino thinks we should "hate" her for here media choice is beyond me.

Another thing stuck in my craw is this idea that one on the "front lines of the...debate" is somehow more worthy than the person actually living the experience. Wasn't and isn't the whole point of the vast history of sharing abortion stories to humanise abortion that is often relegated to abstract theory and hypotheticals. You can debate until the cows come home, but eventually those words turn into actions for, or mostly against, real living women and their families.

As I come to a close of this very long, and long time coming, post, I have to think of other stories I've experienced -- birth stories, conception stories, videos of births, pictures in the various stages of labour or post-delivery, babies nursing. These are acceptable themes for women's experience-sharing. They may make some segments of the audience uncomfortable or squeamish, but I know of no woman who would want to discuss her birthing who would be shunned or hated for it, with the exception of a snark/humour blog.

Pregnancy, for all the privacy surrounding it - the act that got it started was probably private, the medical care a woman receives is a private matter - is very much out in the public. Truly, have a huge belly is its own message shirt that practically screams "I had sex with my partner/had anonomous sperm shot up in me/had stressful fertility treatment." It's an open topic for discussion either to the joy or annoyance of the woman.

In the majority of abortion cases, the pregnancy doesn't enter the public discussion awareness sphere. However, it is completely false to assume no one wants to hear it, no one should hear it and, without a doubt, it should never be spoken of.

belated friday fill-in

we've all been sick and sulla has been home from school. as always, i have lots of back blogging to do. let's start with the fill-ins

1. Johnny Weir is who??
2. I havent watched any of the 2010 Olympics.
3. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud...im not touchin' that one.
4. Eating chocolate is perfectly acceptable if you get an urge.
5. Having sweet dreams means i probably had some wine the night before. Otherwise i dont recall dreaming or have really bizarre ones.
6. What does it take to get my carrot seeds to sprout? or keep my other seedling alive, for that matter.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching Sneaker, tomorrow my plans include cost-co and Sunday, I want to finally finish the children's book and go to church!

more to come, hopefully.

Friday Fill-ins

ah. writing prompts.

1. Pickles should not contain blue #4
2. We are playing in the snow at home
3. Snow is awesome and reminds me of home
4. It's fun to watch my kids playing in nature.
5. It's 5:16 PM; that means I'm going to be standing by the stove.
6. In Texas, decent winter wear is hard to find.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finish reading "the Children's Book", tomorrow my plans include leaving the house and Sunday, I want to go to church!

im a sucker for bulk

husband and sulla went fishing today so agrippa and i finally went to Costco and got a membership. oh boy. i tend to have horrid buyer's remorse so i had put this off long enough, usually going with a friend who has a membership. like the majority of women in partnered relationships, i do the majority of shopping (there's an actual statistic out there but i cant find it) for the family and, well, the more money you spend, the more likely you are to maybe spend more than you need. anyway. so im in the land of buying way more than you need 'cause, oh my gourd, the cost per unit price is slightly less than you could get at your average grocery store. yes, i do need 152 ziploc bags! shoot, it's a recovering alcoholic going to Oktoberfest "just to hear the music."

So I went in with cash and was very specific about what i was buying. I knew my prices Again, nothing pre-prepared, food basics, etc. I bought raisins, cranberries, pears, lettuce, way more breakfast sausage than i would usually want to buy, but again better per unit price and it had no preservatives. im thinking it should last us for the year. And a soaker hose. Two of them actually. it was a very good price and ive been wanting to get some since last year and they will save money come summer when im watering several times a day.

there was nothing i bought that wasnt purposeful or necessary. i bought pears instead of apples because i didn't like the packaging the apples came in- plastic clamshells i could not recycle vs. plastic bags i could; a large jar of organic almond butter, because agrippa cant have peanut butter at his school for the price of a regular sunflower butter. i walked away from the britta pitcher filters and the electric pencil shapener (both things we do need eventually, but not now) but, still, as i checked out had the "holy crap! i spent how much on food!?" shock and it boiled down to "a fridge full of condiments and no food." i still need to go to the regular grocery store and some stuff i was really hoping they'd have - cocoa powder, non-nestle chocolate chips, regular soymilk - they didnt.

what did i just do? did i start a supersized bulk obsession? will i re-coup my membership fee in actual savings? remorse and guilt are kicking in big time. we use quicken to track our finances and will be looking closely at my spending at this store.

just a little update

"Spring" gardening in DFW starts in january with another push in early february and then one last big one in march. oy. ive been busy and am soooo hoping to make back the money ive already invested. Time to start picking up more horse poop again, me thinks.

I'm crossing my fingers for potatoes, salad greens, spinach and two types of carrots. Next week i start with broccoli and some other stuff i cant think of off the top of my head. I've got seeds sitting on the top of my fridge that im fretting over like a methed out mother hen. And there's still more i need to do!! AAAAHHH! Not enough hours in the day!!! And when I have them, im puttering on the interweb!!

And now that im talking more food stuff, the google ads are finally getting away from binkie and formula adverts. hurray!