365: no impact week, days two + three

Yesterday's theme was trash.

I'm the sort whose house is incredibly cluttered because I keep thinking: I could probably use this for... I have tons of mailers from etsy purchases that I'm hanging onto, waiting to mail out my own set-of-letterpress-cards-shaped mail. I have handouts from all my classes. I have fabric and yarn and books I need to read and give away. But I think what I need to do is begin to learn how to de-clutter. A messy house is often the source of my anxieties, getting ready for guests, or even just sitting down to getting something done--not possible when every surface has a stack of books, a half-finished knitting project, the holiday gifts in sorted boxes, waiting to be wrapped and tucked away. (Speaking of which, some people are getting holiday gifts in wedding bags this year; I saved mine, of course, and I am desperate to get rid of them.) I don't think I'll ever need to or will buy another gift bag or wrapping paper; after this, I'm going to use other resources for clever wrapping, and I have enough friends and family who don't mind the re-purposing of bags, so we often see the same ones over and over. Fortunately, we have people like Kelly, who introduce adorable bags into the cycle.

This kind of consciousness is exhausting because it's easy to always second-guess yourself. I grew up in comfort, where we didn't scrutinize packaging, and thus, I'm not used to thinking overtly of the layers we protect things in. I think my solution is less to scrutinize the garbage a product creates, and I think I'm mostly thinking food here, as that is the product we most often bring into our home (with books coming at a close second, and they require no packaging), and if I'm eating "better," then I'm automatically eating with less garbage created--TV dinners, highly processed meats, these are the objects I think of when I think of large amounts of garbage, and they're no longer entering my home with my own purchasing.

Of course, with food, I can proudly add that Ryan and I will soon be the new owners of a CompsTumbler, the little back porch sort, and I am also a vermicomposter. We homebrew, we garden, and I truly can say I love making with my hands.

A little follow-up to the shopping post: I found this blog post via Stephanie Congdon Barnes' blog about the ways in which building community becomes a factor in purchasing. It's fitting since yesterday I went into her shop, and I cannot help but love those pine cones. (Can you blame me?)

Today's theme is transportation, which is a bit of a shameful subject for me. I commute an hour to campus.

The story is this, for those who don't know it: Ryan and I had been dating forever. We knew we were going to continue to do so, and we were sick of the long distance relationship. When he had a job in Winona and I got my first teaching job in Lakeville, places two hours apart, we decided to find somewhere halfway and instead of commuting one weekends to one another, commute daily to our jobs. Ironically, a few months after we bought our house at the halfway point, he got a new job in St Paul, which is close to Lakeville, a suburb of the Twin Cities. We've owned our house for four years now, love our community, and both don't particularly feel like leaving. I also don't know what will happen to me when I am done with graduate school--I may teach closer to home, I may try finding a job in the community, I may get lucky enough to simply write at home (yeah right, I hear my husband humming). As I write this, I am on campus and my husband is a few miles away in his cubicle at work; because of our dogs and our schedules, we don't get a lot of opportunity to carpool, so we will both be driving the hour home separately. I have a sneaky feeling Angie, who is doing this challenge as well, can easily brag that she has put no miles on her car these past three days, whereas when I parked my car this morning, I glanced down at the odometer (the trip one, which I started at zero just for this challenge, so I could report in the exact miles at the end of the week) and I was creeping up to 300. That's right, in three days I've put three hundred miles on my car, and I have one more campus day left for the week. Of course, this week is a bit unique in that I had to come up on Sunday for a reading party for the literary magazine I am poetry editor for, but generally speaking, three days a week with an occasional extra (book club, knitting group, poetry collective, literary reading, etc.) thrown in. My car, which is eleven years old, is at nearly 200,000 miles and chugging along (it's a Toyota Camry, in case you are curious, and according to the family-owned mechanics I've taken it in to, they swear it probably has another 100,000 miles left, which is fortunate, because I'm passing it along to a friend in the next few months as my mother is passing along her hand-me-down, a 2003 Toyota Camry). At least the little-impact here is that the cars we drive are driven to their last mile and then some. And the graduate student in me is grateful for the reliability of a car that can do that and can make it fifty plus miles in the dark after class with nothing but corn fields and corn fields and fallow fields and maybe a few cows.

When at home, most of what I need is accessible by foot: the library, the post office, the book shop, the health foods store, and I can say, if it's not stopping on the way to or from campus, I do manage to walk the dozen blocks to downtown, to the Mississippi River. Walking has that added bonus of meditation, I believe, and thus, it's a peaceful act for me to travel by foot to run my errands, my favorite canvas sacks tipped over my shoulder.

364: no impact week, day one

Oh, timing; as I got into the car to drive up to the dislocate reading party, a song called "Recessionista" by the Mood Swings was on The Current. She was singing about buying from flea markets and thrift stores and whatnot, and even though it was economically driven, it did fit into day one of No Impact Week.

So this week I'm joining Angie in a little No Impact experiment, using this guide to scrutinize my habits and consumption.

Today's theme is shopping. This is a tricky one for me, as my priorities have shifted. It's important to me to shop local and support mindful shops, so we've cut out places like Target and Wal-Mart permanently. This has, consequently, cut out a great deal of that impulse shopping that cursed me, particularly when Target was a regular part of my weekly rotation.

However, I've been gearing up for the holidays; this year I've got three nephews to attend to, and a great list of handmade gifts I'd love to tackle. I also have a mild book addiction, and for now, I protest the Kindle and Kindle-like offshoots, though like vegetarianism, I restrict my snobbishness to my own consumption; if Ryan were to embrace the Kindle, and he says he wouldn't use it and thus it is not worth it, then I would, reluctantly, accept it.

Anyone who has been to my home knows there is a slight overload of books. I celebrate the support of authors, I celebrate the support of local and independent bookstores, I celebrate the act of learning. I still use the libraries, mainly for those kinds of escape books that sell intense amounts of books, and for books on CD for my long commute (oh, transportation day, how I dread you). I'm a consumer of books, mainly.

I also enjoy indulging those I love. I've enjoyed shopping at places such as Etsy, Nova Natural, Uncommon Goods, and Imagine Childhood for the wee ones; my shopping for the holidays isn't taking the tone of the frantic Black Friday but instead something more mindful and meaningful. And truthfully? Many of my gifts are by hand this year, but most, truly, are from independent printers and sources that celebrate using sustainable resources (no plastic for me, thanks) and whatnot.

Of course, there are daily bits that could be adjusted. There always are. Here are my only two items of garbage I created today and eco-alternatives I found, which I will track a total for this week as well as the exact number of miles I drive in my car, which will be astronomical in comparison to others:

:: Q-tips: I'm one of those who washes my hair every day, shaves every day, and must follow my morning routine, even if it is truly low-maintenance. One garbage-producing step is cleaning my ears, which, I know, I know, I shouldn't really be doing anyway. I found a post on eco cotton swabs, which remind us that cleaning our ears daily isn't so wise anyway. This blogger's tip was Simply Organic Cotton Buds, which will help my neurosis.
:: Facial Pads: I use cotton pads, but it makes complete sense to find some sort of washable alternative, as one finds with cloth diapers. Here are a few on etsy: crocheted circles + crocheted flowers. There's also these organic towelettes and the bear naked wipes, which benefit polar bear habitat.

363

(Image: Bodies: The Exhibit website)

Tonight Ryan and I met our friend Mike at the Mall of America {shudder} for the Bodies Exhibit, which was incredible. One wanders through the galleries, men built back up after death, skeletons and peeled back muscles, organs exposed, the nervous system carefully laid out on the table, veins filled bright red hovering in display cases and amazingly intricate, and all along, I'm hopping about, wondering where the women are, wanting to peer into the cavity of a woman, see how all the bits line up, those places the doctors poke and prod and declare wonky. It was amazing to peer in and beyond, to learn little facts on the wall, and after, we browsed the bookstore while waiting for a table at a restaurant, and I picked up a few books for the holidays as well as a few for myself: Itty Bitty Toys (look at that giraffe!) and Vintage Knits for Modern Babies because it's time for me to keep moving beyond the square and from the clearance section, Accidental Vegetarian, which may have recipes even Ryan will try. And dinner, always, of course, dinner together in good company.

362: new recipe... friday

I think one of the best things one can do for oneself is to not be strict about challenges: my daily walk can take a few days off, maybe I want to walk quietly without my camera and without the pressure of posting; maybe I have to be back on campus on a Wednesday and cannot try a new recipe on that exact day. But I catch up. I re-embark on photo walks and bring a recipe in on Friday.

I've decided to work hard at cooking more seasonally. I've also decided I want to try a new ingredient as often as possible, and I don't believe I've ever had turnips before.


This week's recipe is Potato, Turnip, and Carrot Gratin with Garlic-Herb Bechamel Sauce
from The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen

Notes:
• It's easiest to warm the milk in the microwave right in its measuring cup.


• Good bread crumbs are made by hand from good bread. Try either a home-style whole wheat or pumpernickel. Make your own bread crumbs by drying out some of your favorite bread, then crumbling it either by hand (in a plastic bag, so it won't go all over the place) or in a food processor with the steel blade (a few spurts).


Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups warmed milk
1 bay leaf
Salt, to taste
Nonstick cooking spray
1/2 pound unpeeled Yukon gold potatoes
1/2 pound turnips
1/2 pound carrots
1 cup minced shallots
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup coarse bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese (Gruyère or Emmenthaler)

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, adding the garlic and thyme when it is melted.

2. Whisk in the flour and keep whisking for a minute or so as it forms a thick paste.

3. Keep whisking as you drizzle in the warmed milk, keeping the mixture moving until there are no lumps.

4. Add the bay leaf and turn the heat way down. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 to 8 minutes, or until smooth and silky. Remove from the heat and remove the bay leaf. Stir in a dash of salt and a few shakes of white pepper, then set aside.


5. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Lightly spray a 2-quart gratin dish with nonstick spray.

6. Cut the potatoes, turnips, and carrots into very thin slices (about 1/8 inch). For the carrots, do this on the diagonal. Spread the cut vegetables (including the shallots) together in the prepared pan to make a single mixed layer. Sprinkle lightly with salt and black pepper.

7. Pour the béchamel sauce from step 4 over the top of the vegetables and cover the pan tightly with foil. Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour, or until the vegetables are fork-tender. Remove the dish from the oven and remove the foil.


8. Heat the broiler. Sprinkle the bread crumbs and then the grated cheese on top of the vegetables. Broil until the cheese is melted and beginning to form a crust. Serve hot.



Here are some changes I made:
- I am no expert at cutting, so my pieces were more like half an inch thick.
- No shallots, but instead green onions.
- I also added broccoli and our tiny brussels sprouts from our garden.
- I didn't measure the vegetables, so we likely had too many, which meant I needed to adjust the cooking time.

Edit to add: Ryan wouldn't even touch it but made himself a frozen pizza instead. Silly boy and his fear of vegetables. I personally put too many potatoes in; I liked the addition of the bits from the garden. It was awfully dry--it seemed to want some sort of sauce, but I'm not sure what. I'll finish the leftovers, though I couldn't promise following this exact recipe again. After all, there are many new ones to try!

361

New recipe Wednesday will actually occur tomorrow; I have had some things in my schedule unexpectedly get jangled, but I ought to be straight enough tomorrow. I have a little recipe my mother-in-law passed along to me on our last trip through town that I've been itching to try.

Instead, I wanted to share a little music today. I have an hour commute, and usually I listen to books on CD, but lately I have felt a little restless and have had the need to get lost in my own mind. My favorite radio station is MPR's the current, and I'm always glad to be introduced to new musicians.

Here are a few songs I just can't get out of my head:











Happy listening!

360

Yesterday I received a phone call from my dad: my grandmother fell while at the doctor's office and broke her hip in three places. From what I've heard, the surgery went well, and she's recovering. I don't know much more--how long rehabilitation will go, just how risky this is for an octogenarian, if she'll have to spend any time in a nursing home, who will take care of her, why I can't just drop everything and go to her.

The especially unfortunate detail is that she was at the doctor's office to see if her veins could handle a shunt that would ease her regular dialysis for end-stage kidney disease. She technically has above 15% kidney function, so she's not dialysis-stage yet, but nearly.

You already know how much she means to me. Keep her in your thoughts, OK? Hope for a quick and smooth recovering and a return home.

359: my first felting project

I glanced at a few coin-purse patterns on the internet and adapted to make one of my own. This isn't meant to be a guide for others felting, but rather, a chronicle of my own journey--my first felting project, which turned out as any first project usually does--a charming failure.

However, if you want a guide, Knitty has a really excellent one!

With a worsted-weight wool, I cast on thirty stitches and worked in stockinette stitch for about six and a half inches. I used size six needles (bamboo are my favorite), which was likely too small for felting, but still, a part of the process and learning experience.

(PS: That clean floor? I would say it was a birthday present, but really, it's because one of our dogs [ah-hem, one guess--why, yes, it was Z] got into something and was sick all. over. the kitchen floor, and I suppose Ryan not making me clean it on my birthday was a kind of gift.)


When I got to where I roughly wanted to stop, I began to decrease using k2tog and p2tog, one on each end to create the flap. I love the way st st rolls--it reminds me of a little gnome hat in this stage.

In retrospect, if I try this particular project again, I'd slow the flap down; when you see the final project, you'll note that the flap is incredibly mealy looking, and I doubt any coins would stay inside this little thing. Perhaps one could consider it a film case (rolls would fit nicely in there) or chapstick / lotion holder.


I matched up the two sides up and sewed. I opted to put purl-side in because other patterns I've seen with mixed wool and acrylic will show the knit side, but this is also the side the lip curls out with, which adds to the lumpen final appearance.


The button is one of those extras you get tied to a new dress shirt, and though I love my button collection, I don't think I'm yet ready to deal with functional buttons on felted objects. But because of the end-product, it wouldn't be difficult to slip something into the project without even opening the meager flap.


Above, with a few washes to go.

I think, with this one, I'll use it as a kind of wrapping for a real gift. I hesitate to throw it out (what a waste!) but it's not worth keeping, so this is my compromise.

I've already cast on to make another attempt, another variation, and the person who receives this lumpen wrapping paper can know that tossing it is OK, and that this person will be the receiver of actually nice felted objects in the not-too-distant future. But this one is still given with love. As wrapping.