Earth Day - Why I'm not turning off the lights

Earth Day is a great idea. It's a reminder that the small things we can do as individuals can make a big impact when those small efforts are done collectively by a large group or portion of the population.

I consider this a sort of Hallmark Holiday. For example, I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day 💔. I do not need a day of the year to tell my wife that I love her and just how much. It's a lot of pressure from within and societal pressure. Not just for the giver, but also for the receiver: was your ring / flowers / chocolates / other display as big as the other person's?

Before I go wildly off into that tangent, the point is that I prefer to rely on what I do on a day-to-day basis. I tell my wife that she's hot regularly 😍 and I do things to reduce my impact on the environment on a daily basis.

Here are some pictures of things that we do to be more sustainable.

Instant Pot and 2-cup mason jars with chickpeas.
I don't know why I put the cooking liquid in the shot.

 This is my Instant Pot. While we aren't big "one-pot-meals" kind of people, I do love the results I get when I make beans from dried. Why make them from dried?
Price: Organic bulk beans at whole foods range $1.99 - 3.49 per pound. Each pound yields approximately 6 cups of beans. You get 2 cups of beans per can at the store, and organics can run $2-$4 per can.
Using Dry: I read the back of a can of powder laundry detergent recently. It talked about the effects of transporting water. First, it reduces the number of units that can be transported because of the volume of water that the container includes. Second, you're burning fossil fuels to transport water.
Cans: Now I don't throw away all of those cans! When it's not COVID-19 time, I reuse the paper bags from the bulk section to purchase the next bulk thing, like beans and oats.
Oh, and I NEVER EVER use plastic bags to hold my produce. I'm going to wash it and for a lot of it, cook it.

I buy as much as I can in bulk: beans, oats, spices, oils. Yes - it's nice to have the space to store the large bags and bottles. If you don't have the space for it all, then this isn't a solution for you.
Throwing things away that have the potential to be reused hurts me.
Every time.

My bulk drawer.
The jar with the bronze top was marinated artichoke hearts from Costco.
Now, it stores our quinoa. Bought in bulk from Costco.

Bottles of oil, hot sauces, vinegars.
Okay, so I don't make and bottle my own hot sauce.
Or make my own vinegar.

Spices - I make my own seasonings from raw spices, such as SPG.
Not pictured: mortar and pestle, mostly for crushing peppercorns because grinding any more than 1/2 tsp of pepper is a chore. And if you're not using freshly ground seeds, you're not really cooking.

Parsley, mint, and what I think is an orchid that I've managed to keep alive.
Soon I'll add basil and cilantro.
Perhaps I'll eventually make my own CBD oil?

 Growing my own herbs.
Buying parsley and cilantro week after week is a bit ridiculous. $2 or so each every week or so. It doesn't break that bank, but it's stupid. And, after getting this awesome south-facing picture window with a nice ledge, I can fit some plants.

Now, we're not transporting produce from all over the place - specifically produce that I can easily grow, unlike the rest of the things that I can't possibly grow, like lettuces, berries, etc. (Well, some of it I could grow, but a lot of that becomes impractical with a 25x150' lot in Chicago.)

Towels drawer.
I probably should have put my cleanest-looking ones on top.
And perhaps make the drawer look nice and neat. I guess I'm keeping it real.

Using towels instead of paper towels.
Washcloths, too. You know, keep a stash in the bathroom for when you've got that not-so-fresh feeling! A lot better than throwing those wet-wipes down the toilet that claim to be safe for the system.
If you have access to Costco, you can get a pack of cotton terry towels and a pack of the yellow microfiber towels. They'll last years. I think we go through a Costco case of paper towels every year or so.

Left: Hand soap with Dr. Bronner's Castile Peppermint
Right: All Purpose Spray with Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds

Making hand and dish soap from concentrates. I like Dr. Bronner products, but you can find what you like. We've been using them for quite a while with success.
Hand soap: 2/3 water : 1/3 Dr Bronner's Castile Soap (Costco only sells the peppermint, but Whole Foods has more varieties.) Works well in both regular and foaming dispensers.

My cleaning supplies

Dry Laundry Detergent: for the water transport reason I mentioned in the dry beans section.
Window wash? Use 1:1 vinegar and water.
Bleach for the bathroom? 16oz water : 1 Tbls bleach.
Sal Suds All Purpose spray: 32oz water : 1 Tbls Sal Suds

Laundry drying rack hung in the laundry room.
I think it was like $25 from Container Store.
Hanging a linen towel that didn't come completely dry in the dryer.

While we're in the laundry room, let's hang some of our laundry.
First, your athletic and most athleisure wear should almost exclusively be hung to dry. When you put it in the dryer, you're baking in leftover oils and other stuff that inevitably didn't get washed out in the laundry, which leads to premature stinking. You're also ruining the synthetic fibers that don't do well in heat and will inevitably lost their elasticity over time and much faster in the dryer.

Hanging your clothes will make them last longer and keep their shape. You'll find out which items prefer the dryer (end up like cardboard on the line) and the ones that prefer being hung to dry (come out soft.) Most of our t-shirts are so much nicer to wear after being hung.
One clue to what should just be hung - if it's soft and semi dry out of the washer, just hang it up.
Jeans, sweaters - duh.
I even hang stuff that's done washing if the dryer is still going. Yeah, I'm a little nuts.

Also, during the winter, we're fighting to keep our houses humidified. While this isn't the definitive answer, better to use the dry air to dry and the moisture to contribute even a minuscule amount to the humidity of the house.

Composting is something that I'm not entirely sure I've got the hang of, but we do have a garbage can with holes drilled that I throw things into. However, I've found that I can just chop up a lot of what's left over and just throw it in the grass.

Cuisinart Burr Grinder
Veken Stainless Steel French Press
Miroco Electic Kettle

Take coffee, for example. I do grind whole beans with a burr grinder (yes - electric. I have a manual, but it was just taking too long every morning.) We use an electric kettle (more energy efficient than using the stove.) After I'm done pouring the finished product, I put some water in the press, swish the grounds, and toss it into the grass. I also water my plants with it - grounds are great for soil. (I'm sure someone much smarter with gardening will be able to tell us what plants like the grounds and which don't.)

The best part - the coffee is so much better.
The other best part - nothing goes in the garbage.
(Side note on the kettle - I use it to boil water for pasta and the like, as it's much faster and more energy efficient than the stove.)

But, yes, I take leftover stems, peels, and ends, chop them up, and toss them into the grass out back. The birds get to it or it decomposes. I'll run it over with the mower once the grass grows and it'll be healthier for it. Healthier than throwing it in the garbage and sending it to the dump.

Yes, we use LED lights throughout the house. Yes, we turn them off when we leave the room.
I run the dishwasher at night when the electric company has an overage of electricity that it needs to output.

I also drive a 2009 Honda Pilot. At around 15-18 MPG combined, it's not the greenest vehicle out there. Sometimes I even drive to the grocery store that's 2 blocks away because I don't want to go to the store extra times in the week and can't carry everything home (especially now in the COVID-19 days.)

We can't all do everything without moving away from urban society and away from populated areas. Gone are any towns in America that function without energy, water, and waste infrastructure of some kind (outside a handful of religious-based areas.)

What we can do is the little things that, collectively, can minimize our impact.

Reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle.

News Flash: Sleep is good!

I have to admit it - I funtion better on a full night of sleep.

I have to admit a second thing - I function better with coffee.

Putting those two things together, plus some planning, results in actually feel motivated to get things done.

A full night of sleep beats short sleep plus coffee.

Some days, though, are simply fueled by coffee.

Yes, Master of the Obvious! Welcome to this realization that everyone else knew!

I hear you, O wise crowd, the party that has been raging to which I am late (albeit fashionably.)

What am I doing with this magical formula?

• Not getting sucked into the void that could be caused by sheltering-in-place.
• Monitoring the kids' daily school schedules.
• The kitchen has never been cleaner on a regular basis.
• The laundry is always done.
• My corners of disarray are shrinking.
• I am getting better at NHL 20, though painfully slowly.
• I am getting better at crossword puzzles.
• I have learned backgammon.
• Reading some books that have been collecting dust. Currently, working on Harvard Classics, specifically, Philip Sidney's, "Poesy," (pronounced: PO-eh-see.)
• Some baking. Made chocolate chip cookies. Wife has been asking for scones for a week or so. Perhaps I will finally fulfill that request, even though she's the only one who really likes scones in the house.

That's about it. Perhaps I'll post some pics. Why not?!

Is your neck of the woods under shelter-in-place?
What are you doing to keep from going nuts?

Combating COVID-19 requires a plan

March 20, 2020

COVID-19, the current strain of coronavirus that has the world on high alert, has many of us thinking about our own futures.

Schools have been closed for as long as two weeks as of now. I live in Chicago and Chicago Public Schools have been closed since this Tuesday, 3/17/20. Chicago originally began with a two week closure, but have already extended the closure to April 20, 2020.

Bars and restaurants are closed to dine-in customers.

Public gatherings have been banned, which means no concerts, no conferences, no flying.

All of those jobs have, within a matter of a couple of weeks, vanished.

There will be winners in this game of economics. Medical supplies and virtual conferencing are the two that I can think of right now. But that is few and far between compared with the number of industries that are shut down.

The United States government has just proposed a package to support people and businesses. I see all of the people that they're trying to help - tax breaks for businesses with less than 500 employees and cash for middle-to-low income households are just two of the measures.

First, is there a plan for how this will be made up? Anyone can pull out their credit card, but fiscally responsible people have a plan for repayment, even when it's an emergency and they're spending beyond their immediate means.

There has to be a plan.

Colleges and Universities have closed their campuses. However, medical institutions are going to need more staff sooner than later, and forget doctors - we're talking nurses, nurse aids, lab techs, phlebotomists, and more.

There has to be a plan.

It is being reported the the Trump Administration did a run through on the government's preparedness for a pandemic last year which showed that the country was not prepared to deal with the situation we're facing. Here's a terrific article by the New York Times about the lack of response by the current administration to a pandemic test scenario that was failed.

There was no plan.

Here's what I think we need to do:

Despite school and other institutional closures, emergency training needs to be done for new medical staff in areas listed above: nurses, techs, aids, etc. In other words, the people who are hands-on in patient care and who can actually read tests. A single doctor with excellent delegation skills can do a lot with a well-trained support staff and system.

Distribution of supplies needs to be centralized by leading logistics companies. We're talking about air, rail, and ground. We're talking about warehousing, manufacturing, and sourcing. In other words, vertical and horizontal integration. Does anybody do that better than Wal-Mart and Amazon? Combine that with companies like XPO, UPS, and DHL.

Technological infrastucture to support workforce and supply chains? Who better than Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ziprecruiter?

Manufacturing like Ford, GM, Tesla, and 3M.

In this age of social networking, data analytics, and technological advances, there is no reason that these massive "too big to fail" companies, in this time of extreme need, can't work together in an effort that resembles a war-time retooling.

In short, we're all in this together for the next 18 months. Hopefully we won't solely rely on tax breaks, but instead on planning and execution in a cooperative way (as opposed to centralized) in order to achieve the desired result: the slowing of the COVID-19 outbreak until our eventual ability to actually treat and prevent it.

Conveying and Understanding Instructions

Written on 3/10/2020. My, how times have changed (now that this is being written on 3/20/20, just a week into school closings due to COVID-19,) but I believe the idea is universal.

I have been a substitute teacher for about a month. It has been a terrific way to reenter the workforce for me, as it encompasses both my education and experience prior to being a homemaker as well as that of the last 13 years as a homemaker, parent, and youth sports coach.

Today, however, I did not get as much accomplished in the teacher’s plans as I had hoped. Perhaps the teacher, as I do in my practice plans, plan for more than we have time for and then scrap things that we simply can’t get to and put them in future plans.

Failure #1: I didn’t follow my morning routine once I had the lesson plan in hand. 

Traffic was particularly bad despite leaving as early as possible (have to get the kids up and going before I can leave the house.) Still - the moment I have the instructions in hand, I need to get out another piece of paper and start transcribing. I may as well call it translating. Instead, I simply read the instructions and hoped to remember. Ha! Fail.

Failure #2: I didn't rewrite the instructions in outline form. 

Rewriting instructions provides two main benefits to me. First, I can scan the items much easier if they are written in separate lines. When written in paragraph form, I have a hard time seeing the second or third sentence before moving on to the next paragraph. By creating an outline, I force myself to separate out each sentence and pull out the main ideas.

The second part – and perhaps more important – is that I remember what I write. For example, when I cook, I take recipes from a cookbook or online and then rewrite them on a piece of scrap paper. First, I don’t want to get my cookbook nor laptop/smartphone dirty with spatter. Second, I’ll notice details and nuances more closely, such as the doneness that should be achieved which can differ from the time given.

Rewriting the lesson plans enables me to see the objectives and nuances much more clearly and recall them in order with much greater accuracy.

Today, by failing to follow what makes me successful

1. I read the wrong books at the wrong times
2. didn’t do two lessons
3. felt guilty about perhaps setting the teacher back a day 

Perhaps she gave me more than what could realistically be accomplished, but I don’t know because I didn’t follow the one thing that makes me follow instructions successfully.