Messing about with empathy
Happy puzzle day.
I enjoy assembling jigsaw puzzles, but I never know what to do with them when I’m done. Do I hang them in a frame or break them apart and put the pieces back in the box? Neither seems very satisfying.
What is satisfying is watching puzzles being made at the factory. The design of the pieces is not random but carefully designed.
Check out this Britannica video to see how jigsaws puzzles are manufactured. It isn’t a puzzle, but it is fascinating to watch.
I enjoyed all the snow photos that my friends shared on Facebook. There were even some from Arizona.
I was supposed to have snow too. Perhaps snow is green in Chehalis, Washington, because this is what my front yard looks like.
I thought a day with snow would be fun, and we usually get at least one good dusting this time of year. Maybe I’ll dream of a white February.
I love to organize both my stuff and other people’s (with their permission, of course.) I have two cardinal rules. Touch items once, and cardboard is not a storage container. (A third rule is that the floor is not for storage, but that is for another post.)
Touch items once should be obvious. If you pick an item up, decide what to do with it at that moment. Please don’t set it back down on the pile. Make a decision. If you do this, the clutter will disappear quickly. Waffling does not get the job done.
When I say cardboard, I mostly mean cardboard boxes. Bankers boxes can be okay, and other cardboard items, like magazine holders or accordion folders, are acceptable, too. But cardboard boxes (like from Amazon) are not made for long-term storage and often are random sizes, making them hard to store, hard to open, and generally ugly.
I had four cardboard accordion files where I stored my paperwork from previous years. Even though they were under my acceptable list of cardboard items, these folders were very thick and beginning to fall apart after twenty years of use.
Thanks to all the decluttering I’ve been doing, I had four empty plastic accordion folders. I didn’t’ think I needed them, so I set them aside for Hubby to use for his law paperwork.
While watching a decluttering video, I saw someone using a plastic accordion folder, and a lightbulb went off in my head. I switched the four cardboard folders for the plastic ones, and boy was that helpful. The plastic ones take up half the space on my shelf and look much better.
I will repeat my second rule. Don’t use cardboard for storage. Use cardboard boxes for donating all the stuff you’re decluttering, but find appropriate containers for items you want to keep. I assume these objects matter to you, so you should store them with care. It might just save you space also.
I love cookbooks. I rarely cook out of them, but I love to read them. The best ones have color photos of the food and interesting tidbits among the recipes. If it has dishes I would actually make, even better.
I decluttered my cookbooks, so I only have about three left that I read often. In fact, I moved them out of the kitchen and onto my regular bookshelf because I don’t often use them for cooking. However, I love to check out cookbooks from the library.
I just finished one that had everything I love in a cookbook. It had color pictures of the food, it had trivia and photographs among the recipes, and it even had recipes that I want to try. I give it five stars.
The book is The Official John Wayne 5-Ingredient Homestyle Cookbook (published August 2020). Hubby and I watch John Wayne movies all the time, so I thought this would be a fun read. I learned a lot about the movies he made and enjoyed the photos of various co-stars with the Duke.
What I enjoyed most was how down-to-Earth the recipes were. I found ten or eleven that I want to try and they all require ingredients I have in my pantry this moment. That doesn’t happen very often.
If you like quick, easy recipes, check out this cookbook. If you like John Wayne movies, check out this cookbook. If, like me, you read cookbooks for fun, check out The Official John Wayne 5-Ingredient Homestyle Cookbook. It’s a hit, partner.
Decluttering and saving money go hand in hand. While watching decluttering and minimalism YouTube videos, I learned about the no-buy list. Some people buy nothing for a specific period, and others have a list of things they won’t purchase.
I decided to try this by choosing ten items I won’t buy between January and July. This list was easier to make than I thought. Because I’ve been decluttering for a while, I know what I have a lot of. For example, I have more T-shirts than fit in my drawer, so I decided I wouldn’t buy anymore, no matter how awesome they were.
Using what I have in the house instead of buying exactly what I need has made me more creative. When I do a cross-stitch project, I use the DMC thread I already have that is close to the actual color instead of buying more. It’s a lot of fun.
I’m not depriving myself of anything. I can put books on my birthday list or eat a treat that someone else gives me. All I’m doing is avoiding the book or candy aisle when I go to Walmart and enjoying all the books and treats I have at home already.
I still send out a lot of birthday cards, too. I just make them myself instead of buying them from Walmart. That is what’s great about this challenge. It’s not about deprivation. It’s about innovation.
I’m surprised at how much I enjoy NOT buying things. It goes along with my decluttering goals. What is the point of getting rid of stuff if I replace it with more stuff?
I encourage you to make your own list. It can be as long or short as you want and can have anything on it. See if it improves your bank account and your home like it has mine.
I’m trying to remove the legs off a non-standard-looking table, and I’m having no success. It looks like I need an Allen wrench, but every one I try is either too small or too big. I’ll eventually get the legs off, but it makes me curious about fasteners.
Why are there so many types of screws? Flathead, Philip’s head, star, Allen. There are probably some I’ve never heard of. Why do we need all these different ones?
It turns out there are dozens of screw head types; many of them are specific to an occupation. Still, why are there so many?
One reason is cost. Flathead screws are cheap to make, so they are common. Other types cost more so are used for special jobs.
Another reason is torque. Flathead screws work well with a handheld screwdriver, but Philip’s head is better if you want to use an electric drill. However, both of these types tend to slip and strip, so the torque has to be low. Thus other screw heads are used when higher torque is needed.
I guess these are good reasons, but I wish the table I’m trying to remove the legs from had standard screws. They didn’t have to be expensive or use high torque. Good thing I like a challenge.
Happy National Pie Day.
I’m not fond of pie (I like it okay, but I prefer cake.) However, I’m very fond of pie filling. In the process of decluttering my pantry, I found several small jars of lemon and cherry filling. I thought it might be fun to get some tart shells and make a treat.
I couldn’t find any premade tart shells at Walmart, so I figured that the jars would just sit around awhile. Then yesterday, I talked to a friend about my tart plans, and she gave me some premade tartlet shells. They were perfect for what I wanted to do, but I was not too fond of the shells when I ate them.
However, the lemon pie filling was delicious. That gave me an idea. Maybe I didn’t need any crust to eat the filling.
I decided to make it special instead of gluttonous. When decluttering some storage bins, I had come across a small teacup that belonged to my grandma. I filled it with lemon filling and then found a tiny silver spoon that came from another grandmother.
As I enjoyed the tiny bites of tart lemon filling, I wondered why I had never thought to do this before. I got to enjoy everything I like about pie without the added calories of unwanted crust. Happy National Pie Day, indeed!
I’m rereading The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. This middle-grade adventure series is one of the best written. I find inspiration in every book.
This time, I found two quotes from book 7, Erak’s Ransom, that really spoke to me as I make big changes in my life. This is one of my favorite books in the series because they travel to a foreign land, so everything is new and dangerous. Very entertaining.
I posted these two quotes on my bulletin board. Perhaps they speak to you too. The first one is from Ranger Gilan, and the second one is from the titular Ranger’s Apprentice, Will, the main character of the books.
Of course, you’ll make mistakes. Just don’t make any of them twice. If you do mess things up, don’t try to hide it. Don’t try to rationalize it. Recognize it and admit it and learn from it. We never stop learning, none of us.
Ranger Gilan
If you wait till you think you are ready, you’ll wait all your life.
Will – The Ranger’s Aprentice
I want to add one more quote that is fundamental to the success of the King’s Rangers. It is profound and makes the characters in the book influential.
Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you don’t get it wrong.
I am arachnophobic.
All my life, spiders, both large and small, have terrified me. I don’t want to be afraid of spiders, so I have tried to overcome my fear. Nothing has ever worked.
Even though I am afraid of them, I find spiders fascinating, especially jumping spiders. In the last few years, their cuteness has overcome my fears, and I even follow them on Facebook. And that is where I learned this fun fact.
The Himalayan jumping spider can live at 22,000 feet. No other animal lives higher. That’s amazing.
These spiders are only 4 mm long (1/5 inch), so I have no idea how scientists even found them. But like all jumping spiders, the Himalayan one is cute. Check out this 2-minute video to see them in action.
There was a time when all this would have terrified me. I’m glad I can see the facts through the fear. Life’s a lot more fun that way.
Happy Cheese Lover’s Day!
I like cheese. I usually eat it as part of a dish, like grated cheddar on my tacos or steamed cauliflower, but sometimes I’ll enjoy a few cubes of cheese if it’s awesome like Gouda. However, I wouldn’t say I’m a lover of cheese.
My hubby is obsessed with cheese. If you want to give him the perfect present, buy him cheese. My parents do this for Christmas, and he loves to try unusual cheeses that I can’t buy at Walmart.
Cheese.com calls itself “The World’s Greatest Cheese Resource.” They describe 1833 different kinds of cheese. I didn’t know it was possible to have that many cheeses. A fun challenge for a cheese lover would be to try them all.
The lists are broken down by country, type, texture, and color. The colors surprised me. How many of these colors have you seen in cheese?
What a list! Green cheese?! Red cheese?! Who knew? I’m curious how pale white is different than white, which seems pale to me already.
Why not try an unusual cheese today? I don’t know if you’ll find a pink and white one at a normal grocery store, but they might have something unique. Just make sure the green isn’t mold.