November 2009 roundup

What books did I read this month?

It’s a blur. But some new books did come out that I happened across at the bookstore. I did actually purchase the new Nalini Singh novel, though it was not as good as the previous books in the series. The love story didn’t quite work for me as well; I probably enjoyed the glimpses of previous characters a bit more than the actual storyline. But it did develop the overall series plot enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.

Plus I’m contemplating the acquisition of some new sock-knitting books.

What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?

I kinda discovered the show Bones. I’m not watching it primetime, but I did discover the hulu.com is offering the last five episodes from the current season. And I’ve caught a couple of ongoing marathons. It has been quite good, but I must say it’s been rather disjointed in terms of ongoing storyline.

What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?

Well, Thanxmas happened in November. That was fairly big, because my family tends to laugh a lot when we get together.

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

We always exchange gift list ideas before Xmas season — it makes it easier to ensure that we get exactly what we truly like. One of the things I am most pleased about is a new steel thermos. I use this every week to take my morning coffee in to work with me. And this new one is doing a very good job.

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

Hmm, well I did plenty of gift shopping. But the biggest is that I got my house painted and paid for that.

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

Ongoing concerns with sinus pressure leading to minor headaches. And I had the flu at the beginning of the month — the result of the trip to New York. Minor version, not H1N1, but the fever did last for five days. I went a little stir-crazy there. Plus a leftover cough from that bout of the flu that just won’t quit

What were my accomplishments this month?

House-painting was significant. And even though I didn’t do it, I regard it as an accomplishment to get big things done to my house. The question for that is: what next? I must prioritize.

What were my disappointments this month?

I didn’t get to do the scrapbooking I had hoped for. I really need to focus on that. I want to do that special book for the trip to Europe in September, but I am lacking the pictures from my sister.

Anything else noteworthy to include?

The last day of my Thanxmas visit, I went with Mom to her Senior Center to do an aerobics class. It was a little weird being in there with a lot of older people.

This is a new idea that I would like to try. I may not keep it up. I may try it for a while and then quit, who knows? But it struck me as a good one. The idea came from Katie the Scrapbook Lady.

October 2009 roundup

What books did I read this month?

Keeping up with the books I read is a difficult task, since I read so many. But the one that sticks out is a new author that I have discovered, Laurie R. King, and her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books. I have only read the first one, but I think I will greatly enjoy this series, since it takes the character of Holmes and changes him subtly without being untrue to the canon of Conan Doyle.

What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?

No movies that I went out to see, although I did watch the Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls from netflix. I must say that it was uninspiring. I enjoyed better the dvd of the tv series The Flash from 1990. The sets are so dated, but I still enjoyed the show.

What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?

A friend and I went to the Virginia Fall Fiber Festival the first weekend in October. Sometime I’m going to go to that and just sit and watch the sheepdogs for the entire afternoon. It will entail coming prepared with chair, etc., but it is so fascinating watching the dogs work and compete. (I need to inquire when the experienced dogs compete. I want to watch them and learn what the good dogs do before I bother to watch the young ones.)

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

I sent two birthday cards, one with an itunes gift certificate for a 16th birthday. I think that will be just what he wants.

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

I finally, FINALLY, bought a bike. Of course, now I need all the related items, but that was to be expected.

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

I finally went to the doctor for an antibiotic because I finally decided that I must have a sinus infection. Considering how quickly the symptoms of inflammation went away after the antibiotic hit, I think my conclusion must have been correct. Which will be lesson to me — do NOT WAIT next time you start suffering these symptoms.

What were my accomplishments this month?

Retaught a training session at work that went really well.

What were my disappointments this month?

Can’t think of any.

Anything else noteworthy to include?

Went on a trip to New York State with some friends to help with their home improvement projects.

There are times when I feel stifled and frustrated here at MPOW.

Why?

The obvious – because they employ me, I cannot always voice my disagreement with those in authority over me. They might want to get rid of me, and I’m not ready to go.

Less obvious – although I do disagree with many decisions, my thoughts are not necessarily based on the same information they have. Presumably, they have a wider view than I have of what MPOW is doing and needs, though I do in fact doubt that. Simply keeping up with what they do allow us to see demands way too much time, and I do have a life outside of my job.

Not visible to others – as best I can tell, management here completely ignores us down-in-the-trenches people when making decisions. While I would certainly understand not depending on the ideas of some of the stuck-in-the-mud types here, seems to me that they are not really paying attention to the fact that some people are far more interested in and welcoming to new, innovative ideas. (Age is not necessarily a factor here.) Perhaps it is because they assume that the work we are doing automatically means we are not interested in changing it. To a certain extent, they might be right, but that is at least in part because they haven’t shown me that their new ideas are workable. It looks like they are willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater, instead of truly understanding that some form of the standards that exist will always be needed even as newer social software allows us a great deal of flexibility and user-centered power.

Visible but powerless – too many are retiring and nobody is being hired to replace them. Parts of my work are being devalued by the use of shortcuts. I’ve yet to see any true justification of these decisions other than the desire to increase production numbers without increase in production costs.

What do I like about working here?

I like the actual work I do. My work appeals to my sense of order and satisfies my desire to be of service.

Though too often I have to push for them, I have found opportunities to develop myself professionally. And there are other opportunities that I have yet to pursue that are still in the back of my mind.

I have found common ground with many other colleagues here who do care about the work we do.

Although it has taken a good deal of time to reach this point, I do have opportunities to connect with sister institutions in the outside world. Unfortunately this is not easy here, because this is a very insular world, especially in my division, but I have found ways.

Slow and steady growth as a professional person has occurred.

They pay me well.

When will this change?

There will come a time, I think, when what I have here will change to point that I can no longer endure my frustrations, but that time has not yet come. I hope it won’t for several more years yet.

AKA, rural poverty is not always what it appears

Funny thought, isn’t it? Triggered by some of the comments to this blog post.

Not to get too deeply into them, since that would lead to the assumption that I had read them all. I haven’t, because after a while, comments tend to repeat themselves, and some of the commenters were beginning to annoy me.

But anyway, the thought that I had in response to this had to do with the descriptions of the poverty in Appalachia. Now I don’t want to downplay the observations about poverty and the kind of shame that some of the commenters were describing, because it is perfectly true. That emotion is real and powerful. While I myself did not grow up in that kind of area, I have maternal roots in that area, and relatives who still live there. One of my closest friends comes from those same kinds of roots in Tennessee. I recognize that emotion.

It’s just that I have a counter-experience to offer and a sense of peace that I have achieved.

When going back to visit some of my family, I see a different experience. Partly that goes back to the fact that these relatives have not been limited by their roots, but rather strengthened. Which is why I think that sense of peace is there — by not being limited by those foundations, I have been able to see, both in myself and in my cousins, that those foundations have strengthened rather than weakened us. We are not ashamed of where we come from because we see the family ties that have given us the stability to reach past those areas and then to circle back to them.

Let me give an example: three cousins of the same family who grew up at least part of their youth in Appalachia.

Cousin 1 went into the armed forces and has had great success. He is nearing retirement at a fairly high officer level and will probably retire and find himself some other job in an area close to where he grew up in order to be close to family.

Cousin 2 got a good job with a company that moved her several times. In the process she eventually married and had two children. She and her husband have moved back to that general area where she grew up, and she has specifically stated that she went back there to raise her children in that environment.

Cousin 3 never completely left that area, but has pursued a career in law enforcement, and has had considerable success in the sense of earning well and raising his family where he wants to. He always wanted law enforcement, and never really desired to work in a big city, but instead has definitely preferred the small town atmosphere in which he grew up.

All three of them have experienced sufficient monetary success to not be limited to one area. But the money was always just a tool. What is more important is, I think, the fact that even as they achieved the freedom to leave if they so desired, they chose to stay, or at the very least, hold to their roots. The bonds of family and church and community hold them strongly and give them stability. They do not limit them or cause them to feel despair or shame. This does not mean that they do not recognize the problems: unemployment is a reality in many of those areas, health problems — such as the unhealthy eating and lack of exercise that leads to obesity problems — are very real, and quite a few of the people in those areas did “settle” for an average job that would never pay lots of money. But that does not make these people unsuccessful. It has taken me a while to see this more clearly, but I have begun to recognize that the individuals who do choose to stay in those areas are not always doing so because they are limited by lack of money or opportunity or courage or anything else you might name. They choose to stay because their priorities are different.

I’m not sure if I could have achieved that kind of mental peace if I had stayed in the area where I grew up. I did actually grow up in a suburb, far away from those mountain roots in which my mother grew, but the mental limitations of staying were the same for me. But because I did move away and have grown as I have grown, I begin to recognize that I could willingly move into a rural area and have a good life there. The main reason I don’t is because of the kind of work I do; it is hard to find my kind of work in one of those rural areas. The closest possibility for me would be to find a college town, where you get the opportunity for my kind of specialized work and a small town atmosphere.

I would also add that the internet and the increasingly globalized world in which we live is one of the things that makes this possible as well. Being rural is no longer a reason to be detached from the larger world — and that is more important than many people realize.

Anyway, that’s just some of the counter thoughts that I sometimes have as I read negative comments about the Appalachian area. The hill folk are nowhere near as limited as you might think.

I really don’t deal well with being in limbo, in any way, shape, or form. Once a decision is made, especially an unpleasant one, I’m much happier than in the process of making a decision.

That’s why the year of 2009 is going to have some of those less-than-pleasant memories when I look back on it. A hard decision has been in the works for a while, and still needs to be implemented, which won’t be pleasant either, but at least the first decision is made.

I’m not really going to go into detail here. Too much of it is personal, and really hard to explain without giving an extremely detailed context. Suffice it to say that it is something I have decided to do at least partially out of consideration for my mother’s feelings, and while some might say, in the context, that that is the wrong foundation, my answer is, it is exactly the right reason.
I refuse to be so arrogant that I put myself first on something that is, in at least one very significant way, not that important to me.

What has been interesting and revealing to me about my own character is that I make decisions in a fairly consistent way, especially when they are big decisions. I’ve done this before on money decisions, and I recognize certain patterns of behavior that I really need to take into account as I approach new decisions.

I don’t like being in limbo about a decision, but I also don’t like to make a decision without doing research and thinking things through. The more stressful a decision is, the more intense both these urges are. These are two very important character traits, and sometimes they put me in direct conflict with myself.

I like to wait and do lots of research and thinking about something, even to the point of thinking about it rather obsessively, until I get tired of it. (I never really feel like it is possible to do enough research.) Change can be difficult, and routine anchors me, so I like to turn things over in my mind quite a while before I make the actual change itself. One of the more interesting results is that from the outside it looks like I make decisions quickly. But nothing could be further from the truth, ’cause the truth is that I’ve been thinking about that decision for a very long time. When I actually do it, it quite often means that I had made the decision a long time ago and just decided it was time to implement.

Regarding the unhappy decision I referred to above, the first one is made, but now a second one awaits. The full implementation of the first decision has to wait until I’ve made the second one. Because it was an unpleasant decision (the second decision is not really unpleasant, just difficult, but the emotions that color the first decision are influencing the attitudes toward the second), I’d like to get #2 over with quickly.

Time to go into research mode. Unfortunately I also hate being rushed.

It’s times like this that my crafts are a wonderful refuge. When the tension gets to be too much, the steady repetition of my knitting soothes me, the smooth movement of the spinning wheel calms me, the rhythm of the weaving takes me out of myself, and the productive whirr of the sewing machine or the sewing needle pleases me. I’m very grateful for their power in my life.

It’s funny how sometimes you get lost in the busyness of life and then suddenly realize — I’m not getting what I need. My life in the last month or so has been busy enough that I’m not finding even the minimum amount of time necessary to satisfy my crafting urges. Last night, instead of going to bed as soon as I got home, as I probably should have, I stayed up an extra hour to wind a skein of yarn and chart up one of the designs from Barbara Walker’s first Treasury. I was filled with the hunger to knit something. Today I finally found some time at lunch to start the swatch — blanket, scarf, stole? — and walked away feeling satisfied. I’m not sure why it needed to be knitting; that’s usually my hour for cross stitch. I’m not sure why it needed to be cables, although I have been thinking about them for a while. I just know I walked away feeling that faint sense of satisfaction.

It wasn’t enough. I’m hungry for more.

Tonight I’m going to do some more and maybe some weaving too. I’ve got a warp to finish. And this weekend I really must do some of the cross stitch, if only to make up for the lost hour of stitchery today. And, well, who knows what else? There are things I must get done this weekend, but my main focus this Saturday is going to be some crafting. I really need it.

It was interesting reading this book. The entire idea behind it is what are the elements of success, presumably with the idea of being able to mimic them. As far as I could figure out, the list includes: cultural inheritance, family culture, chance/opportunity, and 10,000 hours of practice. However, he did not really emphasize the individual’s participation in success. It is incredibly important to make the choice to take advantage of your opportunities and the focus to put in those many hours of practice.

I found several ideas about this very provocative, and it definitely leaves me with a great appreciation of the foundation that my parents gave me. Because of them, I had a great education, a strong spiritual foundation, and lots of opportunities, many of which I took advantage of. I also have an attitude of “can-do” in approaching any topic that is clearly a result of the family and cultural legacy that they gave me. And from this book, I can appreciate it all the more.

However, I am still left with several problems. On of the first problems that occurred to me as I read through the concept of 10,000 hours of practice as one of the criteria of success — how to count those 10,000 hours? All three examples that the author gave: Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles, had a concentrated focus of 10,000 hours of practice within a fairly confined time period. My question, however, was: does it have to be that focused a time period? I have a work/life balance that I try to achieve, yet the implication of his anecdotes is that these people so totally focused on their practice that the rest of their life took a back seat. In my life, crafting is obviously important to me, yet it is not something I want to be my source of income. I want it to remain the thing I do for pleasure and not for necessity, which means that I must have a job, which means that I don’t have time to devote those 10,000 hours within that confined space of time. Does that mean I can’t develop the level of expertise that his examplars did? Or can I achieve it over a lengthier amount of time? And what is included in that practice time? Does is have to be just one craft upon which I must focus, or is it possible for me to achieve a modicum of mastery in all of the fiber crafts in which I am interested, so that my field is not just weaving or quilting or knitting, but rather the fiber arts in general? Does it include all the time I spend thinking about those crafts, reading about them, preparing for them, shopping for the tools, evaluating a pattern, or does it focus specifically on the moment when I am doing that one part of the process which is weaving or knitting, etc.? I have my own thoughts, but the author does not even open the question, and that is a lack.

The other problem I had with his approach is that he never even discussed, not even in the intro, a definition of success. Yes, many of the individuals he cited can be considered successful, but only in a specific context. Bill Gates is successful in the computer world, the Beatles were successful in the music world. But are they successful in other contexts? Before you can decide if someone is successful, you must first figure out what successful is, and the author never addresses that question. Yet that is an important premise of his entire work. I don’t want Gates’ type of success. I’m even less interested in the Beatles’ type of success. I want a happy life, balanced between work and play, with constantly deepening spiritual growth and the enjoyable challenge of becoming a master in my vocation as a fiber artist while still enjoying my career as librarian, about which I do care. How do I achieve that according to his definitions?

And then, of course, as I already mentioned, he did not note the importance of the decision made by the individuals to pursue their success. The stories he offers make it clear that there were others in the same locations, with the same background and the same opportunities, yet they did not take advantage of them. The individual’s choices are still very important.

So, while I greatly enjoyed this book — it is well-written — and I found ideas of value in it, I was still frustrated by the underlying assumptions that the author never addresses.

I’ve been part of a trend that I didn’t quite realize I was following until considerably later in the process. The trend? the move to whole grains.

When I moved nine years ago, I grabbed the opportunity to create a new habit. I tend to find the time of a large change the perfect atmosphere to make small changes that I stick to, so I decided that I would begin regularly making my own bread. I had already been baking some, just not consistently. But at the time of the move, I was comfortable enough with it that I decided to try the change to consistently making my own. One step at a time, you now. So I did. I think one loaf of bread was bought while my parents were visiting to help me with the move, but then I was on my own, learning a new job, living (ironically) right behind a grocery store, and buying only flour, never bread.

It pretty much worked. I simply stuck to my guns by telling myself — if you don’t want it badly enough to make it, then you don’t want it badly enough. I think that in the nine years since I’ve moved, I may have bought one loaf of sandwich bread since that first one my Mom bought, but I’m not even sure of that. I do know that the only time store-bought sandwich bread has been in this house has been when she was here. (She brings her own, sometimes. But she likes my bread; after all, she gave me a Kitchen Aid for my birthday after a few years of this. Before that, I was kneading it all by hand.)

Now, this didn’t mean that I never bought any bread at all; for example, I still haven’t learned to make bagels, so if I want them, I buy them. But eventually…

Anyway, as I grew more and more comfortable with this process, to the point that I memorized the recipe, I began to contemplate whole wheat bread. Now, it wasn’t that I hadn’t had the idea of whole wheat from the beginning — one of the bread books I read at the time of my move, and in a way it inspired me to make the change — was Bread Alone. But those recipes were almost too difficult in a way; or at least, that’s how I thought of them. I hadn’t yet made the transition to the proper ingredients or the proper mindset. The mindset that said, I can do it, I just have to find them. And really, the practice of making bread for a while was a good thing before I started to tackle the differences in wheat. Whole wheat flour acts a little differently than white flour.

So, I started slowly. First, I found good flour (King Arthur is my favorite still, although I mostly don’t buy flour from them any more, explain why in a minute). And I started making my rolls and sandwich bread recipes with a blend of wheat and white. Eventually I reached a point where I had about a 50:50 ratio. And it was good.

But then came a bit of a sea change in my thinking. I had been intending all along to move toward more whole grains in my diet for reasons of health, but I hadn’t really intended to do a complete change to whole grains. But somewhere around that time, I discovered a trend through the internet; many people were teaching, for reasons both religious and secular, that, as a society, we really needed to move away from white flour to whole wheat, from processed foods to fresh, local foods, from a convenience culture to one that gathered, preserved, and cooked one’s own food directly and mindfully, as much as possible. So I was suddenly contemplating not just a move toward cooking with whole wheat flour, but an entirely different mindset in my approach to food.

It didn’t happen all at once. In fact, I’d say this has happened over the course of the entire nine years I’ve lived here, and I’m not finished yet. It was more of a step by step process: incorporating more and different vegetables into my diet, eventually getting into the habit of going to the farmer’s market regularly, trying out a CSA farm subscription for vegetables and eggs, disciplining myself not to buy out-of-season fruits and vegetables at the grocery store on a regular basis but more as a treat, getting local meat sources, and dairy sources, too (I’m still working on that one, though I have found local sources), figuring out what I wanted locally and what was a lost cause (I’m not giving up my coffee and spices), and finally, buying a grain mill so I can grind my own extremely fresh flour. (I had to think about that one for a while; it is a commitment, you know.)

Interestingly, one of  my biggest difficulties was finding recipe books. In some ways, it still is. I want good recipes that work toward good taste with regular ingredients, but are committed to using only whole wheat flour. Even the King Arthur Flour Whole Wheat Bread recipe book, which I have and have used enthusiastically, did not make that commitment. They used blends of white and wheat when what I wanted was whole wheat only. Or those wonderful vegetarian cookbooks — required me to buy foods that weren’t available locally, unless I was willing to buy something that was trucked across the continent. Or the preservation cookbooks — required me to use ingredients that I was trying to use less of, like sugar (for example, jam recipes — I just recently discovered one that didn’t require me to use pectin!). But I’m stubborn, and so I keep looking, and experimenting, and eventually finding what I need.

Just last summer, I actually had a weird moment as a result of all these slow changes. I do have some white flour still sitting in my pantry, waiting for me to use it up, and last summer I had a time shortage and a need for some bread. So I made myself a white flour sandwich loaf because I didn’t have time to grind my grain.  Never again! It was, well, it didn’t taste bad, it just didn’t taste. I felt like I was eating air more than food, and I missed the flavor of the whole wheat. (It made me weirdly uncomfortable.) Once the little bit of white flour is gone from my pantry, I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore again.

Now what changes remain? Well, I need to learn more about food preservation. There are plenty more things to can so I don’t have to buy as much in the winter. I’d like to figure out a way to buy a lot of local onions, for example, and preserve them in my storage room so I can have some all winter long, when the farmer’s market doesn’t have them any more. Same with garlic. A root cellar would be nice, but not really a functional solution yet. And I really need to tackle a vegetable garden, so it can fill in some of the gaps of what I buy elsewhere.

But, you know, one step at a time…

Excuse me, I need to go pay my CSA farm bill for the year…

This week I’ve been having an interesting experience with the clear proof that local food is best.
Monday I fixed a dish for my work lunches that week, as is my habit, and so I tossed together a quick hamburger tomato sauce, rather like spaghetti sauce except without the spaghetti, that had ground beef, canned tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and lovely spices and herbs. And it has been good! I’ve been trying to figure out what makes it so lovely, and I finally decided it’s a combination of two things.

1. I used cinnamon for the first time, and
2. the canned tomatoes were canned by me last summer.

Why did these make a difference? Well, the cinnamon is something I had read about before, and finally decided to try it, and it is definitely good. Upon reflection, I may have used a bit too much for the pound of hamburger — I used about one teaspoon — but I’m not really complaining too much. I will definitely be experimenting with cinnamon again in a meat dish. But the big difference is the tomatoes. When I fixed them for canning, I cooked them down a bit with some generic Italian spices, which added considerable to their richness and sweetness. That depth of flavor was greatly enhanced by the spices in this meat sauce this time around, but it would not have been as good if the canned local tomatoes hadn’t been there in the first place.

At least I don’t think so. Clearly I will have to experiment a bit with the rest of my canning to confirm this conclusion — such a hardship!

slicing the tomatoes for canning

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