bits

 It's been three years since I started using Duolingo every day on my PC profile.  I did mostly Japanese today on there, and did Welsh and French on my phone profile (only what.. 6 months there?).  Doing well with the budget - had two months of good data to sort through and did some of that last night, while holding my elderly little cat in my lap because it was raining and she was cold.  Mark and I had been reading a news article about what other people's average costs for housing, electricity, groceries etc are - and wow, most of the country is so high no wonder everyone else is as worried about the economy.  

Our 'household costs' are really low compared to the people posting in that article, and even so, we were having trouble paying our bills each month and it was getting worse and worse - but that was with only a part-time job for one person (As many hours as they would give me, which sometimes wasn't much, other times was nearly full-time... but lately, the full-timers were working every hour they could get and all the part-timers were getting very few hours), and now I have a full time job AND a part-time job (but less hours on the part-time than before, because of the full-time schedule).  With me now working two jobs  we're finally getting it back in order.  I have no idea how anyone else is making ends meet at these rates, and with rent going absolutely insane that I see in people's Facebook posts, in the newspaper etc etc....  Our insurance went up five times this year, by leaps and bounds, house and auto, but mostly house.  The electric is now about 150% what it was last year, and that is still with levelized billing - it is just more expensive.  The insurance and the electric are the two things I can't fill out what to expect to have to pay until they arrive, because they keep going up.  We are very conservative on our groceries, buy generic and the best deal we can for quantities and cook at home almost 100% of the time and even so our average grocery bill for the month is notably more now than last year - it is almost 125% from a price I had written down a year or so ago.  Being a spreadsheet and numbers geek, even sporadically, gives some insights.  AND I KNOW that the amount of food, quantities etc. we were buying overall when I had captured that 'before' price was actually more than what we are getting for this price now - so, higher prices, less quality/quantity at the same time.  So, yea.. I know exactly why everyone has voted on the economy this presidential election. 

Work is moving to 12 hour shifts, 7 day factory operation - which they didn't want to do, but the upper bosses out of state say it is necessary.  It doesn't affect my schedule, being in the office - but I can feel the mood change.  People have kids, and other schedules in the house to worry about meeting up with to get things done, etc.  Even with expansion and raises coming, hopefully - if every thing keeps going well - 12 hour shifts of a hot, physical job is a hard thing to do when you had been previously doing 8.  And a lot of people don't have ways to get their kids to school or back home etc, a few of them don't even have their own car but share rides with family and other workers.

Just working six days a week at two jobs myself, even though one of them isn't as phsyical, does get to be wearing me down some.  I am up so early every morning whether I really want to be or not, even on Sundays - and have a hard time getting to bed at a decent hour at the same time unless I do languages and then crash immediately after dinner.  And I am bringing my lunches and they are not always exactly healthy, but I'm working on that - canned soup or ramen noodles, instant oatmeal, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bowls of hot tea and thermos of coffee etc.  I am still doing the post office delivery route on Saturday - not doing the Sunday packages but letting the other part-timers split that and taking that one day off every week.  The physical nature of the office job is entirely different, walking some, sweeping, cleaning things - but also a lot of sitting in a chair typing and answering phone, copying, scanning etc.  It is a different thing on the body.  I finally got down on my yoga mat again tonight after putting it off for a while.  I can feel I haven't been moving these muscles the same way as the postal route did - and that I've been sitting more, and that I've been driving different vehicles again.  I got through the routine and cracked out my lower back, but I need to get flexibility back.

Our Daphne dog is 13 or 14 years old?  Even last year she was quite spry and running around the yard with Charlotte.  But she isn't doing well now - she is showing her age, arthritis every morning hard to get up to her feet and she can't get as much air to bark and howl as she had before.  The other dogs are worried about her, but she still seems happy enough to get a treat here and there and to sit in the sun when it's warm.  Today it was raining though, so she sat in front of the propane heater and wasn't quite as happy about that.

Got the laundry out.  Time to get myself some more sleep now that I've done that yoga routine, and hope I didn't overdo it and wake up too early hurting somewhere.

Pay attention

I've written bits and pieces of this one over the past few years.

I feel it's for those 'spoonies', those who only have so much energy, those going through hard times and troubles

I bring it up and look at it.

It don't always take my own advice, but I look at it.

It isn't finished - I'm still slogging away on many things, including this.

It helps a little.

Pay Attention

Pay attention, not just the bills

The bills just keep coming, but not always our attention

That is fleeting and the more stressed we get, the less of it we have

Because it isn’t getting any easier any quicker.

And because it seems foolish to expect it to.

We get up and go when they ask, when they ask… if we can...

And we get up and be ready to go when we can, if we can….

And sometimes when we can’t, we do it anyway…. As far as we can.

And when we can't .. we decide how and when we can, and how to get there.

Worrying before the paycheck hits won’t help much, if at all.

Worrying others about the problems won’t help at all.

Listening to the others and trying to pay attention is the best we can do.

Because listening is hard, yet it is what we have.

Pay attention, because it's what we have, when we have it.

Complaining doesn’t help unless you do something different for the future because of it.

Yet we are unsure what to change for the future – and even when we know, it’s touch and go...

Guessing won’t help. Guessing Never Helps.

Wishing you didn’t have to guess won’t help.

Staring at the calendar and counting the days won’t help much.

Adding up everything and knowing what your number to hit won’t help much, but some.

Writing down every item's expected cost and budgeting won't help always, but some -- you never know the future and what will change.

Understanding that nothing is exact when it comes to the future will help most.

Knowing that the future keeps going … and going, will help depending on your attitude.

Your attitude, this attitude, is what helps most often.

It's hard to keep your attitude optimistic, sometimes you can't, but you can try. 

Optimistic pessimism seems to be how we operate, but we operate.

Looking at all the due dates won’t help much.

Being sad about birthdays and Christmas won’t help much at all.

Thinking about what you will have to say about things, won’t help much.

Counting all your change won’t help much, maybe enough for a gallon more of gas.

Putting the gas in your vehicle to do the day’s work and doing it will help for later.

Going straight to work and straight home every day usually helps, but we do that anyway.

Not heading out into town without a good reason helps, but we do that anyway.

Knit the sock, cook the rice, boil the eggs, can the tomatoes, mend the tear or weed the garden when you can, you'll appreciate it later.  Do the little things that need doing, when you can.  When you can't later, the future 'you' will appreciate the 'you' now, that is doing this.

Learn the French, the Spanish or whatever your little heart desires, you'll appreciate it later.

Later isn’t going to wait until later, but you still have to wait for later.

Charging your phone will help, do it.

Doing your laundry or the dishes will help, do it.

Cooking your dinner and eating it will help, do it.

Using up leftovers and food before it spoils will help, do that.

Feeding the animals will help, remember it.

Washing and filling the water bowls will help, remember it.

Emptying the trash will help, remember it.

Sweeping the floors will help, remember it.

Putting the clothes and things away from the clutter will help, remember it.

Checking the mail and knowing where it is helps, remember it.

Reading the library book that is due will help some, tuck a blanket around yourself.

Being warm and having coffee or tea will help some, tuck a blanket around yourself.

Listening to some music or watching a television show when the day is done will help some.

Tucking a blanket around yourself when the night is long and cold will help some.

Holding a hand, or a paw, and being in the moment will help some.

Because the moment is what we have, when we have it.

Sleep will help at times, and at other times, it won’t.

A long hot shower will help at times, and at other times, it won’t.

Pay attention, it’s what we have, when we have it.

Knowing it isn’t all crashing down right now will help, pay attention.

Being grateful you made it until December right now will help a lot, pay attention.

Remembering there is still January to come, and this will all happen again, will help a lot,

Pay attention, not just the bills.

Pay attention.

to think on...as we face the 'global economy'... is there a domestic economy anymore?

Is there, in the majority of United States households, such a thing as domestic economy anymore? How much of anything truly necessary for the running of the household is made by members of the household? Would they, if pressed, know how to make any of the products or raw materials of those items from the world around them?

From the most simple idea of crafts in making something practical for the house - like a quilt or a scarf etc... to the more complex ideas of raising food, keeping chickens. There were many productive farm activities that were once necessary functions of the household like making soap, vinegar, storing, grinding and using grains and other materials.... If money had no value, what could a family make that WAS of value? Could they make enough to trade for the things they truly needed to live in health and relative comfort?

There was a time when towns did not form around an area unless there were adequate resources, water, salt, wood, lime - something brought them there and kept them there because it was an important place with important resources. Now, cities pop up and grow and thrive on other factors, but if supply chains were not as easily procured of necessary items - the town would become a shell, unable to support such population. Other places would thrive as much as they have before, if the people remembered what brought settlement there in the first place.

Not that I am saying we need to go back to the time of the Old West, or even pre-colonization. But, it would be nice to know some of these things - to have them in our mental reference and to pass them on to the children as real and useful activities to learn. If such things are lost, and the entire 'developed' world becomes about how much currency one has to buy the things of life... can we, would we, lose the knowledge even about what our basic needs for a civilization are? Can we truly call that developed?

These are things that have been rattling in my brain - nixtamalziation of dent corn which makes hominy. This is easier to grind without modern equipment and also (surprisingly) breaks out the niacin from the inside of the structure which allows it to be digested. Without niacin, the corn is missing a major component of what it takes to keep a human being healthy. Other grains and what they provide, what they cannot, the history behind each of them... Beans also need to be mixed in the diet alongside the corn to create complete amino acid proteins, but some (particularily kidney beans) can be toxic if not soaked AND boiled the appropriate time periods to leach out the toxins naturally present in the dried form. Squash provides the vitamin A and vitamin C to keep populations healthy through the winter. 'Three sisters' planting where these three plants grow together taking up different tiers of the same growing space, each using different materials in the ground. Turnips and rutabagas and other root crops also providing vitamin C and folate for months in storage - looking ugly and awful on the outside and providing a sweet rich flesh on the inside, that once cooked, can provide much needed nutrients in the dead of winter.

And not just dietary, but there are other "natural chemistry" activities people did for thousands of years - leaching salt out of the groundwater and marshes in various ways far from any ocean source, leaching tannins out of wood and acorns to create turpentines, laquers, leather tanning and more. Using wood ashes to make soap and also to make the hominy corn... Making various vinegars out of apples and other items, for cleaning, preserving and also numerous other chemicals, waxes, oils, fibers... that used to be part of a working farm economy.

And all of these thoughts from growing and holding some beans and corn.... wondering - civilizations rose and fell around these essential things. What is 'essential' is rarely simple, but always necessary.

For the reader: What do you make? Do you know how to obtain essential nutrients, chemicals and materials without a checkbook or a credit card? Not everyone will know how to do every thing or process... but we must retain what we can of the knowledge. Some day, it may be necessary again. And, thoughts on pressing oil, collecting plant waxes, grinding corn... it is all very interesting to me. I think I have a bit of a natural chemist breaking out, growing right alongside the botanist.

time cost benefit game and quality in handmade

with Esme sick (although she seems better again than yesterday and fell asleep in my lap a few minutes ago) I am getting ranty.... don't worry, the pictures and projects will continue at a later date. I've been thinking a lot about what I want to make, and why, and how for the coming winter...

read this article by Somer The true cost of handmade. Loved the article, and the comments that followed. And it is true - handmade costs more simply in the time factor, the knowledge, the doing it over again and again after you have figured it out the first time. It is the love and the cost factor of what else you could be doing - if your goal is to make money at it. Many people can't afford to buy those things - but it doesn't make the product any less worthy. It just makes that particular microeconomy (handmade high end) a little slower until other people can afford to buy more of what they see and want over what they need and are doing without. And many window shoppers will just want to see your item so they can make it themselves... I am often guilty of that myself, but never to the artist's face. Nothing made in 'inspiration' will ever be the same as the item you made originally. If someone does not want to pay the price for that item - it is 'ok'.. they don't have to. There are stores that sell mass-produced items - and those items are far less expensive in cash wise, but far less rich to begin with in many other ways.

Now, I want to say something about that, as well. I do really enjoy making what I can for our household. It is nice to look around (like yesterday's post) and count up the items in use that are handmade. Mark and I count the materials for these things, when bought, as an investment, just as we count Esme's books and my sewing patterns as investments for the future. The one thing I don't count for my own 'goods' is my time, but am often told that I should. I see that I am gaining two (and a half) large benefits by making the item myself...

1.) The Time Cost Benefit Game: I do not have to spend time finding an item that is what I want, at what I will pay for it, that fits and does it's job. I don't 'like' shopping finished goods.... it's not fun for me. For many people it is. When I carefully select materials and a project, a lot of the game is now 'my job' - to make it fit, to make it do what it is supposed to, to keep the materials cost within that window of what I would pay.

When there is something that I really need to purchase - like shoes, that game of 'where can I find what I want, that will last 'x' amount of time, and do I have the time today to look for it? becomes a chore and a hassle. I have to decide when time is running thin do I want to keep looking in this store or go home and play with Esme? Do I have the luxury of waiting to find what I want or do I have to settle for this object in front of me? I hate that game. It gets even worse when there are dressing rooms involved. Add a toddler into that game and I don't want to play at ALL. I'm glad I don't have to for most things. Now all of that sounds like I'm very 'picky' and even finicky... well, when I have to buy something to fill a need like toddler shoes, yes- I am picky. Now when Esme receives a pair of shoes for Christmas and they fit, it is a whole different ideal. It removes the time issue entirely, all of the social choice of 'time at home' or 'time at store' There is the warm fuzzy thought that someone else put their time into the choice, even if the item is secondhand. I do like perusing secondhand stores, book sales and flea markets with Esme by my side, finding little treasures and sometimes even materials to remake into other things. When we are doing this as an activity it is 'fun'.. but it is not something I seek to do by myself. Maybe that is the nomad in me... I will have to return to that part of the paradox later...

2.) Workmanship and Quality: I can pick good quality materials, and not settle for what is already made. I can take extra time to reinforce things. If it comes down to it, I can repair a seam or a button when it comes off and even put the buttons in a place that is more ergodynamic. I can arrange this pattern so that the dress lasts a year, although it might be on my third try. I can and do make several versions of the same item, time and materials willing, to solve problems of fit, design, etc.... When the shirt from the store gets a hole in it at three months old and starts ripping at the seams at four months old... there is no reproach for that except replacing it. And to decide to take it to the bench and make it myself, make it better or... play the game above. I really wonder where the idea of quality is going - but I understand that I am part of the problem as well, because I will not often pay for high quality. Few of the 'high quality' items I have ever paid highly for have delivered on their promise (except for that one sweater in high school... ) For this point I will add that is the reason I usually buy my clothes secondhand or on clearance. If the secondhand item has existed several years of someone else and ended in this condition - it is probably of decent quality. If it is on clearance, the investment has been reduced.

2.5) Enjoyment of Accomplishing the Task: I can only count this as half because it is half joy and half worry. I worry that I spend too much on the materials, or that it will not work as well as I want, or that I really needed to make this two weeks ago and am just now getting to it.... But the joy really makes it worth continuing.

So, yes I do really respect other people's patterns and crafts and art -- but I'm not a good supporter of that art economy. If I could do more barter and trade (like the early days at Etsy, before the CPSIA for lead-testing included handmade toys that never had lead to begin with etc. came out) I would be more interested in buying other art again. Right now I can afford to browse the patterns and buy one when I really need it or feel it is too good to pass up etc... And I will buy fabric and yarn when something really strikes me and I have the spare money to add to my stash... but mostly it is about making what is needed and wanted in our lives, getting ideas and/or playing the Time/Cost game to go find what we cannot make. I am really glad there are places like Etsy and Ebay to go peruse for these supplies and ideas, and that other artists are able to take the time and love and materials to produce complicated things for sale there.

Make do and mend...

Make do and mend book on Amazon. This book really is the epitomy of what I was taught as a child - and what I still do as an adult. It is a reprint of what was distributed in WWII to families to help them through the hard times. I'm sure I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never the whole thing. I read through what Google Reader would let me and was amazed at the quality of the writing, illustrations, and examples. It is a shame that fewer people have these skills now, especially as this nation is beginning to need them more and more. I am thinking, if we cannot make more money in this economy, how to do with less and stretch those things we do buy and those things we already have into more enjoyment and more meaning. And it also makes me think of how I grew up, and what I would like to pass on to Esme.

I remember a time when I was Esme's age, maybe just a little older, four and a half or so? My cousin and I were outside and fighting over something the way that young children do. My grandfather called us over to a pile of wooden bits - he gave us some nails and a hammer and we each made a toy. Mine was an airplane - really just blocks of wood nailed together to LOOK like an airplane. The boards that made it up were yellow and blue and for some reason I was insisting on naming it Cindy. My grandfather, I am sure, was rolling his eyes and I know my grandma hid a laugh. This instilled great morals that things of value do not have to come from a store and can cost next to nothing yet bring hours of enjoyment. And, the enjoyment is as much in the making as it is in the use of the object. That has stuck with me all of these years.

About the Economy

Sometimes I get a little clueless to world news, but Mark pointed this one out to me. There are food riots going on in West Asia and the Middle East. Food prices everywhere have been rising, the economy is in high fluctuation and I've seen 'unrest' headlines, but none specifically calling them 'food riots' until he directed me to a few articles. It makes me want to till our garden and plant lots of corn for the coming season. That won't help anyone else... but you haven't seen Mark eat sweet corn. He could probably eat an entire field in a few days unchecked. Good for us it freezes well.


Those articles are interesting reads.
From rice in Peru to miso in Japan, food prices are rising
How Food Shortages Provoke Economic Nationalism

How have the rising prices of food and resources in general affected you? Have you noticed things being made more cheaply and/or less quantity for the same or even greater prices?

Other observations:

• Cheap plastic things are being made even cheaper. Some of them SMELL awful, as if the plastic was uncured or made differently. Some of the baby things that are sold I wouldn't let Esme get near her mouth because they still have a very strong 'fresh plastic' smell days after opening them. We are having a harder time finding suitable replacements for some of these things. I'm more apt to make something for her, or buy a vintage, handmade or more expensive item just because I know it will last longer and probably has better materials/workmanship in it.


• For the past few years there has been a boom of babies born to everyone we know. Maybe we've been a bit more sensitive though, expecting ourselves. This could explain some of the belt-tightening across the economy as more people have to stretch the same dollar further to support their growing families.


• We had a very hard time giving away large puppies. It seemed people didn't want to commit as easily to feeding a large dog as they used to. Everyone was asking why we didn't have little dogs like chihuahuas or yorkies.


• With the housing market crashing, how many people are going from owning their own home to renting again? That will affect the country economically, politically (not my land, why should I care what law gets passed about it) and socially (less neighborhoods, how many of you know your neighbors anymore?).

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A Good thing this economy shift might bring about: More Americans turning to home industry, or at least learning how to do important things for themselves again. Americans used to actually PRODUCE and MANUFACTURE things right here in the United States. Somehow we fell out of that in the past few decades and saw an increase in the 'service industry.' I predict there will be further downfall in the service industry reducing some but if it results in more things being made in the USA again it could be better for us all long-term. Before, it was cheaper to produce overseas and import to the US. That has changed with higher fuel and freight prices and the fact that the cheaper merchandise has been diminishing in overall quality as well.

Also: I saw this line in an article the other day. 'The 37 year old will tighten her belt by dyeing her own hair, making meals at home and bathing her own dog.' OH MY. Uh, if you don't already do those things for yourself then you DO have a lot of belt-tightening to happen in this economy. And then some.