Rubbish Rescue (and Repair) | A few recent projects

Three quick peeks into my avocation as a Rubbish Rescue Artist:

1.  On trash-night, some neighbors put out cheaply made furniture that was -- not surprisingly -- falling apart.  Even though it was cheaply made, it wasn't particularly bad looking, and so I swooped in to do some rescuing.

There was a bed frame, which I brought into the basement and then disassembled, unscrewing stuff with my much-beloved cordless drill and removing sharp nails with pliers and hammer.  I do love taking things apart!  In this case, what remains is a couple of potentially useful planks of wood and the always-weclome hardware -- screws, nuts, and bolts --, plus four boards that are probably not useful unless I can figure out how to remove the weird metal screw/bolts embedded in them.  

Most of what was left of the bed.

2. The same curbside heap had an under-bed rolling drawer thing (a trundle?), which I initially rescued only because I wanted the wheels.  But I quickly realized that the only thing wrong with it was that a panel had popped out of its groove.  A quick gentle tapping with a mallet popped the panel back in, and then I used the screws rescued from the first project to attach a piece of scrap wood to the brace bar for a little bit of extra support, to discourage further popping. 

The underside of the trundle;
the white bar is scrap wood that I attached
to the existing bar, for a bit more support. 

So now the under-the-bed trundle is under a bed.  And it has awesome wheels.  We're thinking it'd be a good place to store extra blankets.

For both of the above projects, I'm trying to be careful to avoid being a packrat, but it seems like we definitely have space for these and that if I don't need this trundle or the wood slats, I can either (a) send them into the world in a more useful form than when they came into my house or (b) send pieces of them to the landfill after all, where they were headed anyway.  No harm, no foul.

3.  This next quick repair wasn't a curbside trash-pick, but it's a save just the same: when I was untangling aprons fresh out of the dryer at our soup kitchen, there was one apron whose strap had come detached.  It's a matter of moments to fix it with a sewing machine, so I brought the apron home to reattach it.  I love these easy fixes!

Thanksgiving update

 Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  I've been grateful lately for the things I can take for granted -- for late November showing up, and my tickler spitting out the "how to shop/cook for the big dinner" list that guides me thought massive meal preparation, and for the family sending greetings and even (if they're close enough) sending themselves my way.  

And what a lovely family!

Sizzling kicked off the greetings for the day.

Kinderling, David, and my grandkids are just so good at
taking photos to keep track of all the changes as they grow.

Nelson shared the cheery news that things are going well at his work; his boss sometimes cooks for him, which sounds like a lovely community-building ritual.  He and I have been trading phone calls and texts about organizing our living spaces; he's the most like me in appreciating the power of checklists and labels on shelves, and so it's a bunch of fun to strategize with him on smoothing out wrinkles and also making a good life run even more smoothly.

As for the family in my neck of the woods, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursdays to accommodate many schedules.  Both Jason and Inkling worked Friday morning, but made it over in the afternoon (yay!).  We had a sizable crew over for dinner -- family, friends, students.  

And after dinner, Prewash went diligently to work on keeping grease and chunky food particles out of the dishwasher.  

She tells us that Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday of the year. 

Speaking of Jason, he's working on getting more tattoos.  He didn't show us the latest addition in person, but he did share this photo of his most recent ink.

My little boy has grown and flown; that's what this says.

Gosling sent some amazing photos of constructing Beef Wellington; I'd share those but apparently I'm just too squeamish about photos of cow meat.  So I'll substitute in stunt doubles. 

A bunch of new cow beanbags, to restock the Little Farm Library.
You can pretend this is Gosling saying,
"Colin and I are attempting a beef Wellington"

A cow card that joined the Cow Library this morning.
or
"Watson enjoying a beef marrow bone from the butcher
... if it's his last Thanksgiving ... he should get all the fun!
The other pups got them too." 

This leads me to share the hard news that Gosling's beloved dog Watson, who has survived so much, is facing new (or returning) challenges:

but the cancer he had, in most dogs, comes back in his lungs, and despite my hope and prayer it would never happen for him, it has. He also may have a touch of pneumonia, this is a little less clear.

I'm sad for Watson (and his humans), but I'm truly grateful that he has such a caring and loving owner watching over him; he's a bit of a Bionic Dog, who's been put back together over and over by Gosling, and if he's got to go through hard times again, he's in exactly the right place to do so.  

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be thankful for the ordinary things.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous. 

My grocery date (awww)

Back in the days of whirlwind romance -- back when everything about me-and-him was revelation, exploration,  hope of confirmation -- I didn't realize how much I ought to look forward to a future in which I'd have grocery store dates.  And yet, here I am; here we are, and I just melt a bit with happiness that I say "I'm going to do a Miller's Run" today, and he responds, "When? I can go with you".  

I have friends who are in uncomfortable marriages, so I am well aware of the gift this is, that I like to be with my spouse and he with me.  I refuse to let hedonic adaptation rob me of the ordinary joy of spending time with someone who loves me.

Miller's is the name of an Amish-run store that sells locally grown, organic produce. I go there only 3 or 4 times a year, but when I do, I stock up on a bunch of dry goods, enough to tide me over to the next trip.  After a few such trips, because I am a card carrying member of the List Lovers Club, I of course made a Miller's shopping guide, which includes a roster of items to buy, how much I bought of each on previous trips, how much the trip cost, and how long the process of shopping and putting stuff away took.   It's lovely to be able to refer to this quickly (20 pounds of oats was a bit much, so this trip I decided to buy "just" 15 pounds).

I knew it was time to go to Miller's again because the basement canisters were getting emptied out.  I keep my flour and oats in 5-gallon buckets that were repurposed (and cleaned well!) from kitty litter containers.  When the containers are empty, I store them upside down so I can tell at a glance how much I still have left. 

Lots of full jars, but the black and yellow buckets
are almost all upside down, so they're all empty
except for a bit of oats in the top left bucket.

I store nuts, trail mix, dried fruit, and beans in glass or metal canisters.  Those were running low, too.

More upside-down containers that need refilling.

The drive to the store and back, plus shopping in the middle, takes an hour an a half.  I buy a lot at once: 50 pounds of flour, 15 or so pounds of nuts, a similar amount of cheese, etc.  The store sits along one of my husband's bicycle routes, and we often banter about what it'd be like to throw the food into a bike trailer and haul it home -- there are a lot of hills that would make it a really hard trip! 

On this last trip, we calculated that we got 130 pounds of food.

It usually takes me another hour to put everything away.  That includes making a bunch of large batches of trail mix, and also cutting up and wrapping cheese that we can store in the freezer.   This store has some yummy cheese (again: local, organic) at incredibly reasonable prices -- for example, muenster for less than $4/pound and swiss for not much more than that, so it totally makes sense to stock up.  

Putting stuff away is definitely something I do solo.  My guy loves being in the same car with me and walking around a store with me, but when it comes to organizing, he gives me lots of space and heads out on his bike; we each do what we do best!

Me being me, I have to add that a side benefit of this form of bulk shopping is that the trash output is minimal.  When I was done packing stuff up and putting it away in my own containers, what was left of the store-based packaging was two large paper flour bags and a small roll of food-grade plastic bags that I reuse for other food storage as needed.  We'll recycle the flour bags along with our newspaper, so nothing goes (for now) in the landfill-bound trash; the plastic bags will go there someday, but not before they do further duty.  (The plastic around the cheese isn't pictured; that'll go in the trash eventually too, but it's currently wrapping cheese in the freezer).  

Two large paper flour bags and a
small roll of food-grade plastic bags
that I will reuse for other food storage as needed.

I'm figuring, based on past experience, that this shopping trip will keep me stocked in dry goods until March.  I've got a stash of trail mix that I can take on my upcoming train trip across the country; I'll have food in the basement all through the season of winter storms.  I don't do this kind of bulk shopping because of believing I'm some kind of a "prepper"; I do it because I dislike shopping and want to go to stores infrequently, even if they're fun Amish stores with horses tied up outside.  Still, the side effect of being prepared for snow emergencies (or even global pandemics!) is a welcome one.  

And better yet that I get to share all this joy with family and friends who I love and who love me.  Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

Golden days update

 Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  There is gold all around us -- golden sunshine, good-as-gold friendships, and even gold growing on the trees.  The maple tree that I'd seen with leaves that looked gilt around the edges has gone full-on sparkly.

So cheery!

Even the cherry tree outside my bedroom window has gotten in on the action.

I got to spend an afternoon with my middle grandkid -- Bchild -- who loved walking Prewash through the park, where we realized that the dog matches the leaves.

She's wearing my jacket, with the sleeves rolled
WAYYYY up.  It almost fits her, right?

I'm very much enjoying running with my running buddies in the mornings.  Last week, I had to miss a Saturday run because of a math conference.  The most regular runner in our little group did the four miles by herself in the morning, and then had her baby in the afternoon.  Wowsers!  This week, she didn't show up for the run, so the rest of us managed to get in our miles without her.  We did not have a baby in the afternoon, though.  

Welcome to the world, little one!

A different kind of running -- running out -- is happening in the Little Farm Library.  Last week's cow book is now gone, as were a few more of the cow bean bags I'd made, so the barn was empty this morning. 

I've restocked it with the last two of the 47 cow bean bags I'd made; I guess I have to get cracking on making some more!

This week saw the four-year anniversary of Kinderling and David.   Different family members celebrated the occasion in different ways.  

Kinderling:  Thanks everyone!!! We celebrated by being child free and playing a few rounds of laser tag and ending at a rooftop restaurant for a fun dessert:)

Me: Laser tag anniversary! I love it! Ofsnough and I celebrated your anniversary by going grocery shopping (Amish Natural Food Store) together, and getting 130 pounds of stuff that will go in the basement.

Nelson:  I celebrated your anniversary by raking and dumping leaves at work today

Sizzling:  Did everyone hear Nelson said "AT WORK" though?? His 2nd day!

Kinderling:  Yay, Nelson!!!! where are you working?!

Nelson: Im working for a local tree leave snow removal service

OfSnough:  Nelson works for the BRANCH office....

Nelson: 

So, for Nelson, it looks like gold is growing on the trees in yet another sense.   And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

11-11 update

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville -- so full, so rich, in fact, that my November 11 family letter got stuck in between a math meeting and a long hike, and I'm only now pulling it out and sending it on its way.  It's too bad this update is late, too, because I so love the numerical alliteration of the date "11/11", that I had prepared some fun-one-pun (or maybe, "time for a rhyme") titles for my updates.  In the better-late-than-never mode, I share these updates with you now!

(Actually, this photo I didn't rhyme:  "salute from a galoot"?  "I met a Vet"?  This is OfSnough, dressed for honor guard duty, assisting in local memorial services of other veterans.  He looks spiffy, and I am proud that he continues serving our community this way).

Run in the Sun:  

For all that is problematic about the clocks changing twice a year, I love that all of a sudden, I'm running in daylight again.  I know this happens at the expense of my husband's late-afternoon bike rides, which are now plunged into darkness, and I do feel bad for him (really, I do!), but I also appreciate having the early morning streets visible as I head out to run with my friends.  

Note that I vote!

I don't have a photo of me voting,
so I'll use Gosling as a stunt double.

I like that, on election days, I can swing by my polling place right after I serve breakfast at the nearby soup kitchen.  Also, Inkling worked as usual at the polls.  

A lovely quill (ball point) pen that Inking 
shares with voters at her polling station.

"I had a very early morning -- it's election day! . . . This was just after 6am"

Now look! Cow book!

Three views of the same book. 
Also: bracelet, mini cow greeting card, and plastic cow figurine.

The Little Farm Library had a lovely new addition.  It's a cloth-covered foam book, perfectly suitable for chewing by small children.  (Question:  Why is a toy cow like a key ring?  Answer (from any toddler):  Because they both go in your mouth!)

I think it's adorable that my little library has a book -- and that it's a cow book.  How suitable!

Meeting and Greeting

I took a bunch of students last Saturday to the local math meetings, where (but of course) a good time was had by all.  By the time I got home, I admit I was too zonked to send this out.  The next day, one of my good friends organized a hike for about two dozen women through a local nature preserve.  It was a fabulous day for a hike. 

Overlooking the river below. 

Me and my buddy: our shadows.

Picture, Figure, and Diagram don't have good rhymes

But actually, these are how I'm really spending my days.  I've been on a roll making diagrams for a project that an engineer and I have been banging our heads against for almost four years now.  All of a sudden, the log jam that's been blocking us seems to have burst, and the ideas are just whooshing forth!  (Wait; do "log jam" and "diagram" rhyme? Hmmm).  At any rate, sometimes working on a paper is a bit of torture, and sometimes it's as addictive as video games or a good book.  This past week has been the latter for me: I sit down in the morning to pull together a few pictures, and the next thing I know it's 5 pm and I need to start packing up so I can head home to see my husband and dog.  

A diagram I made:  What's really sucking up all my days.

And that's the (late, but still great) news you can use from our family, which continues to be healthy and wealthy.  Hope that's true for you, too!

apple prep, and habit layering

This post is kind-of about canning applesauce, but it's really about how amazing it is to learn, practice, and then (almost) take for granted those new skills.   I described this to some friends as "layering habits" -- we can make pretty big changes in our lives by making small changes, adapting to those, then making more changes, adapting to those, etc.  (Actually, on reflection, maybe this is more about layering skills or routines than habits . . . ??? . . . eh, I'll stick with my original term for now).

Here's the most recent "habit layer".  For a couple of years now, my running buddy has picked up apples from a local farmer for me.  She does this while she's already in the car (she's a pediatric therapist, so her job involves a lot of driving around to visit kids), and she picks up apples when she's driving by this particular farmer anyway.  So, score for inexpensive, locally grown food and for efficient use of both our time, not to mention using our social capital well.  The new layer this year:  I gave her sturdy shopping bags to throw in her car, so I didn't get a new pair of giant plastic bags.  Bonus: the shopping bags were easier for her to carry than the "disposable" plastic bags would have been!

my apples in giant reusable shopping bags 
(bags courtesy of my step-daughters, who shop)

It's not like having two fewer plastic bags in the world is a huge environmental win; but that's kind of my point.  Going even more trash-less than before is not hard to do, because I've already got the underlying friend-gets-apples-from-farmer structure in place.  

This whole layering-habits concept struck me rather forcibly the other day as I was in the midst of canning all these apples.  One moment I was chopping up apples, feeling that comfortable groove of a familiar routine, and the next moment I looked around and realized that the "familiar routine" had been a completely alien experience for me two decades ago.  How did I get from there to here?  

Just look at all the stuff on the table where I was chopping apples: it's a collage of how much I'd experimented and adapted over the years.  For example, the cutting board and knife in the picture below seem pretty self-explanatory, but I'd tried all sorts of methods for chopping apples, including an incredibly amusing peeler/corer machine that makes apple swirls (almost like an apple slinky).  

My apple prep area, with many prep-py things all around

Also on the table:  

• the scraps get shunted off to a flat sheet, which collects them until the sheet's full, at which point I pick up the sheet and funnel the scraps into a big glass jar, which I use for creating vinegar. 
• a bunch of instant pot liners, because I've found that steaming the apple slices for 1 minute works really well for prepping them, and instant pots don't need babysitting or stirring like apples on the stove do.  
• boxes of jars, and boxes of lids, and a coat-hanger full of rings, ready to be put to use.  

Speaking of instant pots, for Applesauce Day I set up three of them in various different places in the house.  (If they're all together, they'll trip a circuit breaker).  I don't use the stove itself for canning anymore!  I do use the oven for keeping extra jars warm and for (bonus!) simultaneously keeping the jars out of the way, off of precious counter space.

The instant pot steams the apples;
a tray of jars is ready go into the 200-degree oven 

And here's another of my new best friends: the electric water bath canner.  It holds only 7 quarts---4 fewer than my former stove-top canner, but it makes up for its smaller size by being super, super easy to use.  

The electric water bath canner sits next to the sink,
where our coffee pot and water kettle normally go.

And another of my favorite tricks I've picked up and folded into the routine: using a trunk on wheels as a makeshift cart to ferry the processed jars from the kitchen to the table where they'll sit and cool.

Finished jars enjoying their choo-choo ride
to the large table in our living room

All this canning seemed to take a long time . . . but when I got to the end, I realized it's less than 10 minutes per quart of applesauce.  That's a decent time investment, I figure -- especially when, in the depths of winter, a friend gets into a rough spot and I can bring over a quart of applesauce I made myself.  That's priceless.   Figuring out that last little bit -- that a jar of applesauce is a welcome and much-appreciated way to connect with others -- is probably the loveliest layer of these habit/routines/traditions that I've built up.  

Tech things I've recently discovered

My paper punch is adjustable

I have owned my three-hole paper punch for, I dunno, at least a quarter century.   I recently started using a very old (translation: scrounged) small-ish 3-ring notebook for planning purposes, where the rings are 7 inches apart.  I like it so much that I actually started searching for a new paper-punch that would match the book, so I could make my own pages more easily.  

My standard 3-hole paper punch,
which I use for standard 8.5"x11" paper.

But then some of my friends in our Registrar's office told me that their punch was adjustable, so on a whim, I checked mine, and behold!, the punches are adjustable on mine, too! A simple flathead screwdriver allows me to loosen or tighten them in a new position. How about that!  No need to buy/scrounge something new.

There are even marks (very faint, but readable under strong light)
that help to line the punches up in the right place. 

My old sewing machine has a button-hole attachment

About a year or so ago, I bought a fancy new sewing machine that does fancy stitches (letters! words! ivy!)  It's actually more finicky than the machine I got maybe 40 years ago, so mostly I still use the old machine anyway.  At any rate, one day I decided to use my new machine's fancy button-hole attachment, but the attachment didn't fit up properly . . . and then I realized it was actually the attachment for my old machine, an attachment I hadn't even realized I'd had!  Too cool.

Command K to add links

When I was associate dean-ing, I spent a LOT of time creating memos or documents that had links to other documents or memos.   When I learned that command-K was a shortcut to create a hyperlink for some text in a document (just like command-C is a shortcut for copying, or command-I is a shortcut for italics), it was a moment of great happiness and awe for me.  Adding links this way still makes me smile.  Sometimes, if you do something the "hard" way for a long time and then discover a cute timesaver, you appreciate the newfound technique all the more.  

My Cuisinart blades have alignment icons

To set up my food processor, I choose a blade that I want to use, put it on a handle that has a tube at one end, and then I put the tube onto a stick on the base.  (I'm sure there are more technical terms than "tube" or "stick").  The stick on the base isn't circular; it's more like a moon just past half-full.  

The top of stick (shaft?) on the base is half-moon shaped.

For pretty much all the time I've owned this (again, decades), I've just spun the tube around a bunch of times on the stick until the tube and stick would finally align and slip into place.  So I was gobsmacked when I realized, just last year, that each blade has a half-moon-ish symbol in the middle that helps align the blade/handle with the stick right away.  Admittedly, the symbol is very faint, but how the heck did I not see this for decade upon decade?!?  

Look: do you see that faint half-moon shape?  

Car fuel gauges have an arrow/triangle

. . .  to show which side the fuel tank is on.  Now you tell me.

Update, October into November

 Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  We very happily celebrated Halloween in various ways this week.  Check us out!  

• OfSnough time-traveled back to his childhood (Kongo!) with his sister (a bear??); 
• Kinderling and family did theme dressing ("somehow, we tied it together. One more year of coordinating!! . . . Bchild wanted to be a police officer, so David is the robber and Achild is wondering woman and I'm poison ivy. Cchild is my ivy plant loooool "); 
• Inking took the day off of work to be ready as Ursula for her 535 (really! she counted) trick-or-treaters;
• Gosling's dogs were the best dressed on the block ("The dogs will add their bit, a fly, a lion,'and a superhero");
• Prewash rocked her cow costume; I offered kids pencils for themselves and cheerios to feed the dog, and so people and beasts alike had fun.

What about me?  I dressed as a cow, naturally, and loaned my second cow costume to a friend who was glad to accompany her animal-costumed son in thematic style. 

I don't know if/what Gosling dressed as, but I do know that the Covid Fairy has come to the end of her visit.  

"Negative!"

Nelson is doing well; he's involved in a new job-training program, similar to one he'd been involved in here in Enoughsville.  He's very much looking forward to the basketball season starting up again, too.  And per Nelson's request I'll share two pics from the "Little Farm Library", which has been active this week.

So many cows taken, all that's left is a leaf and 
a small sheet of halloween stickers.

Contributions arrive: a cow bracelet, one of the beanbags I made,
and a cow that arrived with a note saying
"[heart] I finally made it home -- moo moo! -- just love me [heart]"

I've loved all the different places that my research is taking me this week.  In addition to the two projects I'm doing with my two research students and an engineering-related project I'm working on with another colleague, I'm also doing loads and loads of reading to understand the background for a book I'm working on.  That last takes me in a bunch of wild directions: right now, for example, I'm reading a book on Indian film, which takes me into fascinating non-math detours of history and religion and colonialism, as well into the tidbits of geometry that I'll actually get to use as threads to weave a more colorful and rich tapestry for my own work.  

I also love how different parts of my life swirl into others.  I've always resisted the metaphor of "balancing" personal and professional, and instead tried to sustain a kind of integration.  Saturday, I went into the office to meet with a pair of former students.  We talked about math for a while, but when I said I had to go home to work on canning applesauce for the second time this fall, they had so many questions about what that meant and how that happened, that I invited them to come over and help -- and they enthusiastically accepted. So I had two former students and also OfSnough's former-army-buddy-turned-monk, Cliff, helping me chop apples, and canning went soooo  quickly and smoothly; I have 18 more quarts of applesauce put up (really, down, because they're in the basement).  I love that blurring of boundaries, I have to say.  Also, when Cliff teased me for being a bit like Tom Sawyer getting his friend to pay him for the privilege of doing his chores, I readily accepted the charge!

Different uniforms. 
(OfSnough is dressed to participate in our city's Honor Guard,
which presents flags to family members at funerals of veterans).

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.