When our things own us

The photo below might shock you.  Or it might not.

 This is the view of my sewing room/bill paying room/work area from one corner.  What a mess!  The view from the doorway isn't any better, really.

When we get busy, our homes get messy.  Maybe I shouldn't speak for you; perhaps your home stays spotless.  So I'll just say, the messiness of my own sewing room is like a barometer of my busy-ness; the greater the atmospheric pressure around me, the higher the piles get.  And that seems like such an obvious statement, but why should it be obvious?  Why does it take such an amount of energy and time on our part to tame the things we own?  Why is it a struggle for us to keep our so-called possessions in their places?

Is it, perhaps, because our possessions actually own us?

This is an idea I think about so often that my non-miser husband says it has infected him.  He tells me he worked hard this summer to get rid of piles and piles of books he's unlikely to read, only to head into his office in the basement to find his shelves still eerily full of books -- as though a Sorcerer's Apprentice had accidentally cast a spell that had magic brooms bringing books, not pails of water, into our home.

We live in a strange world of excess.  A world where we pay people to get rid of our trash, and even where we pay people to haul away our not-quite-junk.  A world where adult children whose parents pass away have to worry about how to clean out the family home of all that stuff.  A world where thrift shops get too many donations of goods.  A world where we spend time and money taking care of our things (yes, I'm thinking of staying home while the dishwasher repair guy came).

For me, the hydra's heads (to switch metaphors) seems to be kitchen appliances.  My kitchen gadgets fill up all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies in places both in and out of the kitchen.  Two examples: The cuisinart and the blender live on a high shelf in the kitchen, above the coffee and baking supplies . . .

. . . but the waffle irons and one of my two crock pots hang out (for some reason lost to historical accident) in a dining room cabinet . . .

. . . and there are more shelves down in the basement (near the sorcerer's apprentice, apparently), shelves full of canning equipment and my dehydrator.

So . . . should I get that apple peeler-corer I fell in love with last weekend?  The standard consumer response is to note that I like using it, and it costs less than $30, so why not?  But I look at my cupboards, and all the things that keep coming out of my cupboards to take over my home space, and I also want to ask myself:

• do I want to create space for this machine in my home?
• do I want to take care of this machine, and store it, and clean it?
• will having this in my kitchen or on my shelves make cleaning the rest of my home harder?

Really, I want to know to what extent I'm going to own this machine, and to what extent it's going to own me.

More on this topic tomorrow.

Making the grade

I'm thinking a lot lately about how our things own us.  But since people are more important than things,  I'm going to focus on my students for today instead of thinking about the stuff we own, and the stuff that owns us.

Focusing on my students, in this case, means I'm busy grading my students' exams.   

And grading, and grading, and grading.   Back with more on "things" later.

13.1 miles in the little black dress

I do not have any pictures of my long run last weekend.  Why not?  Because, of course, I was running. Except when the uphills got steep -- at which points I was walking, because when I'm running miles and miles and then more miles, it's against my religion to torture myself just for the sake of one stupid little hill. (Seriously, now, stop yelling "you can do it!" at me.  I don't want to run up that hill; I'll run once I get to the frigging top, thank you!).

The point, though, is that I was NOT carrying a camera with me.

This is not to say that I didn't look darned good.  Because I figure if I'm going to pay $50 to join an event that lasts 2 hours and 7 minutes, it must be a fancy one.  And so I dressed the part.

If I can go dancing in this dress,
I figure I can go running in it.
Check out the hot-pink shoes.  Sweet.

In spite of there being lots and lots of people in this race, this really was the first time I've run alone in more than a year.  I missed having my friends around to yack with. I missed having TL being hyper-peppy about how amazingly strong we are, or hearing about the latest antics of K's insane boss, or having June offer me road-side advice on my upcoming canning projects.

When  I was half the age I am now, I ran twice as far (that is, I did a whole marathon), mostly at the same pace I managed this past weekend.  Then I stopped running for a long time.  It's only in the past few years I've started running again, mostly thanks to my friends TL and K and June.  The dress was a much-needed pep-me-up for the solo miles I covered.

I'm not fast.  I'm in the middle of the pack.  Okay, really, I'm toward the back of the pack.  I'm in the pack, but comfortably toward the rear.  Said another way, I'm not going to win any races.

[Oooh!  Except last year, my husband and I DID come in first and second at this very same race, but that's because we started an hour early with the walkers, although we ended up running anyway.  So we finished 3 minutes ahead of the rest of the real winners of the race.  We confused the heck out of the announcer, who was saying, "It looks like we have the first runners coming in now . . . ?", and you could hear him saying to himself ". . . but it's an old man and a woman!?!".  We reassured the people in the chute: No, no!  We're just the fastest SLOW people!]

Anyway, for people running comfortably in the rear of the race, I can now confidently say that wearing the little black dress is a great way to jazz up a long, long run.  To celebrate while sweating. To make memorable the many miles.  To doll up, while doing distance.

Okay, I know that the little black running dress is totally goofy.  But it was me being goofy -- you don't have to do it, of course.  Still, don't you think this would be fun to try?

Your tax dollars at work (local version).

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about our giant, one-time federal tax credit (thank you, tax payers!), and how we put your money where our mouth is.

J-son's orthodontic work, paid for with our 2011 adoption tax credit,
paid for by your tax dollars (thanks!)

I've also described how your tax dollars (specifically those dollars that go to the military) come into our home because of the fact that my husband is in the National Guard.

[Update:  My husband points out that he himself paid no taxes in 2009 because that was the year he was in Iraq; we're still waiting to hear the official word on whether he'll leave in November to spend a year in Afghanistan. If he does go to Afghanistan, he'll be a tax-deadbeat yet again, and you and I will be the ones footing the bill for all his fancy travel.]

My husband's clothing, food, etc. paid for by the U.S. Miltary,
paid for by your tax dollars (thanks again!)

Today, here's the state/local version of your tax report.  For this to be truly relevant, you have to pretend you live in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, because that's where one of my son hails from, and  the good people of Dauphin County send me a check every month.  They do so because J-son has fairly severe dyslexia and also a zippy case of ADHD.  Those, together with our adopting him at the advanced age of 12 years, combined so that he was classified as "special needs", and so we get a check each month, every month, until the day he turns 18.

Where does that money go?

Some of it clearly goes into J-son's belly.  He's the eating-est kid I've ever seen, as I've mentioned a time or two.  Or maybe three.  And some of it goes into savings that we'll use to launch him into school or the world once he graduates from high school.

But a good portion of that goes to the after-school tutor we decided to hire when we moved J-son in.  There is already an on-site after school program that (in theory) has homework time, but the program is noisy and crowded.  Since both my boys have problems with focus, and since both boys seem to have learning difficulties, we decided that we should hire someone to sit with them in a quiet space (our home) and supervise their homework closely.

N-son needs a quiet space to to his work.

We hired a young woman our family had known for a long time, a gal who was just starting college hoping to study early childhood education, a gal who needed some money.  It was a great fit for all of us.

And after a year, this arrangement turned into an even greater fit, although actually this was because of some trouble and turmoil elsewhere.  While things were going great at our home, things at this gal's home were deteriorating rapidly, so much so that she needed to get away.  For several months, we invited her to live with us, and in May of 2011 she finally got up the nerve to make that change.  Our tutor had become a live-in tutor.  

By the middle of the summer, I was starting to feel like this gal needed someone to "claim" her, so I told her that when people asked how we're related, I would call her my "honorary daughter", unless she objected.  And that is how our family got K-daughter.

Back to the tax side of this:  Even before she moved in, paying K-daughter has led to our own tax complications because of the mounds of paperwork involved, but I've learned to deal with that.   (Having her on-site seems to have not made that horrendous paperwork any more horrendous).  Aside from the paperwork part, though, this seems to be an all-around win.  I have someone at home to be with my boys while they practice drums, do their homework, and take on a few chores.  K-daughter earns some much-appreciated money to help her with her own schooling.  And the boys?  Last year, N-son's teacher told me that he's now reading at grade level, for the first time ever.

Tutoring, college money, and child care.  Your tax dollars at work.    

$138: Swirling around

The weekly grocery average is still $138/week.  Of the $150 we spent on grocery supplies this past week, the heftiest price tag goes to this pile of glass, metal, cardboard, and (sigh) plastic:

I bought 5 dozen canning jars.
(Two dozen were already in use by the time I took this photo).

 I've bought my last set of canning jars for the season.  Or so I say.  The reason for the latest pile of canning jars is the giant pile of apples:  2 bushels for $27 from a local farmer.

1.5 bushels of apples.
(The other half-bushel is hiding in the photo-shy canning jars.)

There were other purchases besides apples and jars:  there are the mushrooms J-son asked for so he can make stroganoff (we're hoping they don't go bad before he can follow through on his promise). There was peanut butter, cereal, and dairy products.   But the apples and the jars, they were the most fun.

Because what's not counted into the totals are all the things I mooched.  Such as, mooching an idea.  Erica at Northwest Edible Life wrote earlier this summer about canning swirly apples, and I fell into apple lust, or at least into swirly apple lust.   I've mooched this idea (although she notes she mooched it from another blogger.  I say we pass the mooching along).

Cutting an apple into thin spirals.

Blanching the apples before canning them.

Next mooch:  my friend June is the one who travels deep into farm and orchard lands here, and she's the one who picked up the apples for me.  ("Are you sure you want two bushels?" she asked.  I have no idea how much a bushel is, but I blustered and said "Yes, of course I'm sure!").  The wagon pictured above holds one-and-a-half bushels.  We're up to our knees in apples.

Next mooch comes in the form of the apple peeler corer itself, which I discovered to my utter joy that my friend June owns.  June is nothing if not a good sharer, and she loaned our family her machine this weekend.  It was even better than I could have hoped.  My kids fell in love.  Swirly apples, fresh off the peeler-corer: they are all the rage.

When we came home from church on Sunday, I announced I was going to start canning apples in earnest.  N-son begged to be allowed to help.  I said yes.  (J-son asked if he could go clean his room -- I kid you not -- and I said yes to that, too).  N-son wielded the peeler-corer nearly solo, to the tune of a dozen quarts and 17 half-pints of apples.

After that, N-son got tired of swirling and he asked for permission to go clean his room.  (Did some alien steal my boys and replace them with pods?  If so, I need to go thank that alien).  I took over and swirled up apples for seven quarts of applesauce (using my yard-sale purchased apple saucer) and one quart of apple juice.  At that point, with another half-bushel of apples to go, the blade bent on the peeler-corer (yoicks).  So I got out my food processor and knife, and I sliced up a bunch of apples to dry.

Yes, I have strainer Lust.
This is the kind I covet.

Two notes on apple equipment: 

1)  I'm going to figure out how to get a new blade for June's peeler corer.  The on-line reviews of her particular machine say this has happened to other people, too, so I'm going to splurge and buy a sturdy beast for myself and my family.  Yes.

2) The apple saucer I bought for cheap at a yard sale -- the kind that's a cone with a wooden pestle -- is gobs and gobs of work, plus I can't seem to get as much of the sauce out of the apples with it as I can with the other strainer (the kind with a crank arm) that I usually borrow (again, from June).  I'm putting my purchase back into circulation; I'm debating buying a machine of my own.  

However, with the apples taken care of, I declare the harvest/preservation season DONE in the Miser Mom household.  Done-done-done. We're finished.  Canning season is over.

Time to stop buying and preserving food, and time to start eating it.  Ahhh!

Do NOT read the book!

My calculus students are getting ready for their first midterm, and for some reason this makes me think of what it's like to take on a life of new frugality.  It's a bit daunting (in the calculus realm) to face that first exam, or (in the frugality realm) to think about "giving up" things you've gotten used to.

As my students study, here is the first and most important piece of advice I give them:

Do NOT read the book!

Whenever I have a student fail a test and come talk to me about it, he always said he studied by reading the book.  But math isn't about reading and understanding what someone else wrote, it's about actually solving problems.  So don't read the book; instead, solve problems.  Do the same problem over and over again, until it's easy for you.  Practice doing the math, not reading the math.

Here's another way to bomb the test.  Do the homework problem; get it wrong; look up the answer in the back of the book; say, "oh, I understand now!", and then move on.  The big mistake comes in that last step -- the moving on to a new problem.  Instead of looking for new problems, grab a sheet of blank paper and start over.  Do that darned problem again (and again) until it's easy to get it right.  Make sure you can do it yourself, not just appreciate how the book or your roommate did it.

And isn't that true of so many things? Watching Michael Jordan won't teach you how to do a lay-up:  doing lay-ups teaches you how to do lay-ups.  Reading about yard sales or bulk purchasing won't save you money; actually trying yard sales or doing a few bulk purchases will save you money.  Well, it ought to save you money eventually. Although you'll probably make a few mistakes at first.  But it's not until you try it that you learn how the system really works for you.

Which leads me to the other piece of advice I try to share with my students (although not this bluntly)

Prepare to fail.

I hope my students won't fail their exam (although I know that some of them will).  But in class and on homework, they're going to make mistakes, and the best students are willing (even eager) to do so. They make stupid guesses, see whether those guesses work, and learn something from what goes wrong.  They do this so easily, they don't think of the wrong guesses as "failing".  But the weak students stare at a blank piece of paper, unwilling to write anything down for fear of writing something incorrect.

And this, this is true for so many parts of life.  I've had so many people tell me they can't make bread; a few say that they tried and it bombed.  I could tell you my own failed-bread stories about orange juice bread (yucko), about the no-yeast failures, about the salt/sugar mix-ups in my own life.  And yet, somehow, I mostly got through this.  Bad bread is a learning experience:  the sugar and salt are now VERY well labeled.  Bt nowadays when my family finds out I'm making bread, there's a minor celebration.  The mistakes were definitely worth the jumping-hugging-praising routine I get to go through now.

One of the joys of being frugal is that mistakes are often not very costly.  This summer, I tried a homemade dishwasher detergent; it left a film on all our plates and glasses.  For that little lesson, I'm out 45¢ worth of borax, washing soda, and salt.  A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of yard-sale pants that I later discovered my son had just barely grown out of:  another 25¢ down the drain.  It's hard to think of those as "failure", but those are the kinds of stories that can keep a novice from even trying frugal strategies.


On paper, I'm teaching my students about the slope of the tangent line, but in reality, what I'm hoping they learn is so much bigger.  I want them to bang their head against new ideas, to play with their own mistakes, to practice doing what they can't yet do.  And I want them to come out the other side, experts on some simple math thing (yes! they can factor a quadratic!), ready to make new and bigger mistakes at higher and higher levels.  

Re-Hash

There are times when being frugal means trying something new.  Learning to can, or switching to a metal razor, or learning to make my own laundry detergent.

But much of the frugal life is appreciating what we already have.  In this case, we already had a giant pile o' pasta leftover from our No Hands dinner.  (Nobody's hands or mouths had touched this pasta -- we made a lot more food than we managed to serve to people).  And we had a favorite recipe:  peanut butter pasta.

It's one of the fastest meals we can put together, and it's delicious.  Here it is, again.

PEANUT BUTTER PASTA:

In a large pot, heat up

• a bit of vegetable oil, 
• a dollop of peanut butter,
• a splash of soy sauce
• garlic and/or ginger are optional.

Toss in some leftover vegetables, if you want.

When the mixture has heated up enough that the peanut butter has melted, get out your pot of leftover pasta . . .

 And then stir it into the sauce.

Continue heating and stirring gently, and then serve.  Total preparation time is about 10 minutes.