A Second Look--January 24, 2013

We had no snow this week, but the temperatures were appropriate for January with the thermometer reading in the single digits. Add wind to this, and it was quite cold outside. Nevertheless, I didn't see much difference in the yard. If something was going to die in the cold, it was already gone. And if something was going to be evergreen, it stayed green.

I am continuing to find bone fragments in the yard. (Maybe if I collected them all, I could eventually build an interesting creature.) This week, I found a leg bone, among several large black feathers. The first story I made up was that a fox and a big bird had an encounter and the bird won. However, when I saw a chicken leg bone later from a piece of chicken that Ward was eating, I had second thoughts. The bones were of a similar size and weight. Maybe, it was the bird (I vote for crow because we have so many around) that had the unfortunate demise. Definitely, there's not enough evidence with my limited knowledge to really know what happened.

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

Moss

 

Rhododendron bud waiting out the winter.

This squirrel and cardinal are scavenging for seeds that have dropped below the feeder.

This is a newly broken branch from a sweet gum tree.

Azalea bud also waiting out winter.

Wasp nest that fell down from the eave above.

Several large black feathers were found near this bone. Notice that this group of feathers still has the quills attached to each other.

Left-Bone found in yard near feathers.                   Right--Rotisserie chicken leg bone

Making Change

or My Two Cents

Long ago and far, far away in another time and place, people knew how to give you change. You gave them money (bills and coins) to pay for something and they gave you back change in a very organized and easy to hold way. That doesn't happen today. Today, you get change in a disorganized, easy to drop way.

Used to be that there weren't cash registers that automatically calculated the change that was due back and the clerk had to actually count it out. They started with the amount that was due and counted the rest into your hand starting with the smallest domination until they reached the amount that you gave them. What you ended up with was an assurance that you were getting the right amount back and a tidy pile of coins in your hand with any bills on top of them. It was easy to grip the coins while you were putting any bills away. It all made perfect sense.

Today, the amount of change that is do back is calculated by the register and the clerk puts the whole pile in your hand at once with bills on the bottom and coins on the top. If you stop to count it, others in line behind you get annoyed that you're holding things up, and then you're lucky if the coins don't slide off the bills before you get them put away.

I don't know why we've gone to new this method, when the other way was so easy and so much more user friendly. I long for yesteryear.

Clara Barton House

Ward exploring around the Clara Barton House. Notice both the American and Red Cross Flags.

 

Ward and I recently visited the Clara Barton House in Glen Echo, Maryland. The weather was sunny, but breezy for our outing and while Ward found this invigorating, I found it cold. However, as we were walking outside around the grounds before the house tour, we found some peonies blooming and a lone purple blossom on a vine . The find of those flowers made the cold wind worth it for me. The house tour was free because this site is part of the National Park Service. We had a very good tour guide and learned a lot during our hour long tour.

A welcome sign of spring outside the house.

I have tried several times to summarize what we learned about Clara Barton. However, she was too complex of a person to do justice with on this blog. I'll just tell you a few of things that I found interesting.

--In 1881, Clara Barton started the American Red Cross after gaining fame by taking supplies to the front lines during the Civil War. 

--Clara was the one that first established the Red Cross as an organization that brought relief to areas during times of natural disaster. Before this, it was only focused on soldiers.

--Clara thrived under dangerous and risky situations. War zones invigorated her and she did some of her best work there.She also liked being in charge and didn't deal well with criticism or transition.

--Clara had to be very determined because she lived during a time that women were not allowed much responsibility. For example, she was not welcomed by the military to take supplies to the soldiers on the battlefields during the Civil War. She had to do a lot of lobbying to be able to do it, and Senator Henry Wilson, chairman of the Military Affairs committee, finally gave her permission.

--When she was in her 80's, some said she was too old to sit all day to do the work that needed to be done to run the Red Cross. To prove them wrong, she cut the back off of her chair to show that not only could she sit for long periods, she could do it with no chair back.

--The house we toured was modeled after warehouses that were built for the aftermath of the Jonestown flood.

--The house ceilings were lined with muslin instead of plaster—the same material used for bandages.

--It was good to get and do something different for a change.

Enough Already

I love to save money. I hate to waste. I would rather reuse something than recycle it. I relate to the saying, “Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Do without.” But sometimes, I think I carry it too far. 

Case in point. I have a yellow clothes basket that has had a long life in my house. In the beginning, it worked well. Then it developed a split on the top rim. However, if I remembered to carry it carefully, I didn't get pinched and the split was only a minor problem. As time went on, that split lengthened and I had to handle the basket carefully so that it wouldn't tear any more. At this point the the fix-anything duct tape came out to repair it. That worked for a few months until the tape came off and left its sticky residue. In the meantime, the other side started splitting, and now it was easy to get pinched unless you were VERY careful how you handled the basket. Also, it developed tears on the sides below the top. I tried weaving a shoestring through it to hold it together, but that didn't work. I used the basket like this for a while until I got tired of being pinched by torn plastic.  

I've been thinking a lot about why I put up with that annoying basket for so long. In the beginning, it may have been about thriftiness, but that doesn't explain why I let it go as far as it did. Maybe it was from being raised by Depression Era parents or maybe it was from just plain simple inertia, but I think the basket represents a need for change in my life. I need to be proactive about changing the negative things in my life into positive ones. If I can do that, I think the quality of my life can change in a very positive way.

I'm going to start with simple things and hope I can build on those successes to then work on bigger issues. A few things that I can fix today are getting rid of the pinching clothes basket and the can opener that has never worked well. I can clean out the plastic-ware cabinet so I won't be annoyed by the containers that fall out every time I open it. I won't answer the phone if I don't want to talk and I'll turn off the news when they start talking about the same negative thing over and over. And the list goes on.

It all seems so simple. Why didn't I do it sooner?

Thankful Sunday--January 20, 2013

Annie is thankful for this sunbeam and so am I.

After many cold and rainy days, the sun is out again--a very welcome sight.