Book club

This month, my book club* read The Guinea Pig Diaries by A. J. Jacobs. Jacobs, who is known for his immersion journalism, does a series of life experiments and reports about them in this book. They range from outsourcing his life to India (they're making a movie out of it) to radical honesty to living by George Washington's 110 laws of civility. The book has been on the best seller list and even the critics liked it.

Here are what some "real people" (my club) thought about it.

• Everyone thought it was an easy, enjoyable read.
• Some thought that it was evident that the author's day job (writer and editor at Esquire magazine) was writing for men. Others did not get that impression.
• Some were pleased that the book was not as gimmicky as they thought it was going to be, but that Jacobs also thought about how he was changed by the experiments.
• We liked the fact that Jacobs did a coda at the end of each chapter to discuss what resulted from that particular experiment in the months following it.
• Everyone thought his wife was a saint for putting up with him. He doesn't tell her ahead of time what goofy (my word) thing he is trying to do.
• We thought that the experiments provided interesting jumping-off points for discussions. 
• Two of our jumping-off points were whether or not we have standards today for what is considered good or great things in culture, and whether or not the message of "be happy with yourself" is hindering people in a quest to better themselves.
• We also discussed how they award ribbons at the local fair, but we were a bit off topic at that point 

*A brief background of the club members. We are all women, but we vary in ages and political and religious beliefs. Some members are married and some are not. Some have children and some do not. Some have grandchildren.  Some are working full time, some are working part time, and others are retired. And the important thing is that we all enjoy discussing the books we read which if you are going to believe TV sitcoms, doesn't always happen.
 

This bowl used to be a lot fuller.

Disclaimer: This is my interpretation of what we discussed. Other members may have different ideas because they didn't get up as often as I did to get more M&Ms.

Food Waste Friday, September 16, 2011

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money.  

Calamity 

Sometime in the last week, our chest freezer failed unbeknownst to us-- that is until the smell finally got strong enough to send us searching to find the very stinky, gross mess. Ward and Theodore, heroically, did most of the clean up of the many pounds of rotten meat and various other decaying things. They were on the front line because I had to go to work and Wally couldn't stomach the whole thing. He promptly volunteered to mow the grass.

Needless to say, much food went to waste. I don't have an inventory or really even want to know how much food went bad. It's sort of the "bury your head in the sand" ostrich response.

Until next time, when I hope for a boring post of maybe a tomato that got lost in the veggie drawer.

A Second Look--September 14, 2011

September is National Mushroom Month, so I'm focusing on mushrooms and other fungi this week in the Second Look around the yard. It's curious that in one area, where there were several white mushrooms, all of them were knocked over. I'm not sure how that happened, but in earlier days, I would have suspected Wally and Theodore. Also, I know essentially nothing about fungi, so I welcome any help in identifying things.

Here's what I found.

One of the white mushrooms that was knocked over. I've heard that squirrels and deer like mushrooms.

I don't know if these are little mushrooms are somehow related to the moss they're in.

Little fungi growing on mulch.

Orange, wavy fungus on stump.

White-edged fungus on rotting stump

Tan, flat-topped mushrooms

White fungus on rotting stump

Cluster of orange mushrooms

Hat Tip: A Place to Reside

We went to the Fair!

The Fair

Neighbors and friends

Ribbons and prizes

Chickens and goats 

Rain and mud

Hay rides and tractor pulls

Hot dogs and fried chicken

Pumpkins and tomatoes

Fun and excitement for all!

Food Waste Friday, September 9, 2011

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 


Here it goes for this week.
Playing with my food (waste) again.

We're barely managing to keep ahead of our everyday food waste, but we are--almost. This week's waste consisted of another peanut butter sandwich that got lost in my desk at work. Gotta pay more attention to this.

Also, I decided it was time to get rid of some old jelly beans and gum drops that we've had for months. As you will notice, there are only black jelly beans and yellow and purple gum drops. Guess which flavors we don't like? Once again, I'm guilty of hanging onto food that is good, but no one has any intention of eating.  Gotta get over this.

Peanut butter and black jelly beans. I wonder how this combination would taste if they were fresh (and if you liked black jelly beans.)