Ombailamos

the penultimate garden

I *was* calling this the "ultimate garden" and then I went and tweaked things again.  But this is pretty close to the finished product.

A view from the southwest corner, above.

 

A view from the northwest corner.  Here you can see the painted tabletop that was the first furniture purchase Mr. P and I made, from an artist on the boardwalk in Venice.  It's just particle board and the leg brackets aren't functional anymore, but I still love the image.

A view more or less down the middle.  The hibiscus, by the way, is now blooming.  :-)

assembling the components

Here is some of the stuff that has gone into the patio redesign.  As you can see, "blue" is playing a big role this summer.  The plates are from World Market's picnic collection, cheap plastic that does not look like cheap plastic and is, chez nous, employed underneath plant containers.

The basket shown above got painted.

The first coat is a denim-colored craft paint.  I love craft paints (liquid acrylics); they do exactly what I want them to do and are infinitely blendable.

 

Second coat is a metallic blue-green craft paint.  Quite satisfied with this treatment, which took about a half hour start to finish.

what IS that?!

That, my friends, is delicious nutritious stock made from a smoked-turkey carcass and herbs.  Why does it look like Jello?  Because it was simmered for over 8 hours, which extracted most of the collagen from the bones.  Collagen is good for you.  And when a collagen-rich stock chills, it gels.

The suspicious-looking layer on top is fat.  Which is also good for you, and which retains incredible amounts of flavor.  The portion that was scooped out of this container formed the base for a vegetable chowder, easy and satisfying.

on taking good advice

As previously noted, I have been re-working the patio garden.  This is more or less an ongoing process, but I do a "big re-org" every spring.

My mother, who is an indefatigable gardener and knows about these things, gave me a few pieces of advice about my arrangements.  I had a pretty good rationale for why I had things set up the way they appeared in the last photo posted here; but having a good rationale for doing Thing A does not necessarily mean that Thing B would not be still better!

And, because despite some evidence to the contrary I am not completely pigheaded, I have been gradually tweaking things to align with the advice received.

The first thing I did was get three matching containers for plants that needed to be repotted anyway.  I have never done this before, but the budget allowed it this year and I found a design that I liked, so it happened. 

The second thing was to find a way to disguise another container that was appropriate for the plant, but just not very nice-looking.  The container was a big red-brick-colored plastic one, and for some reason I thought "basket."  Went to find one at World Market, and did; but it was not the color I wanted ... so I painted it.

The third thing was to devise an arrangement that reduced some of the visual clutter that follows upon having a lot of separate objects that need to be elevated (short version: table legs).

Once the re-potting was done, things got moved around.  And moved around.  And moved around again, because the visual weight of a distribution is not always apparent at first glance if you are not a genius at spatial relationships, and I am not.

There is a considerable reduction in the number of items out there this year.  Last year I think I had seventeen separate plant containers; right now it is twelve, and I'm pretty happy with that. 

I also had some pottery pieces that were not plant containers; they are still out there, and I even added a new one (which could be a plant container, but I'm not using it that way for now) because I liked the color so much and this year's theme is "More Color."

The most recent rearrangement may stick.  It involved further reducing the table-legs inventory.  Or at least, the table legs on the ground.  Photo(s) to follow soon.

Related articles

the current state of affairs

finessing fitness terminology

Here is another great article from Steve at Nerd Fitness:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/04/19/5-fitness-buzzwords/

This kind of feeds into something I wrote last year, about my personal use of light weights to keep ... tone.  Steve hates the word "tone."  And I understand why - it's a very squishy term that doesn't really tell you anything about your fitness or strength level.

Here's what I meant when I used it, then. 

When I used the word "tone" I meant "a baseline level of fitness."

Because I 100% agree with Steve that for a lean, sculpted body, the best thing to do is move a lot of weight - and, of course, clean up your diet.  (You are not going to get lean and sculpted, even if you are lifting Smart cars, if you are gorging on pizza, beer, and ice cream.)

However ... you do need a baseline level of fitness before you start moving a lot of weight.

Let's propose that a 47-year-old office worker (like myself) decides it is time to get serious about getting fit, getting well-defined musculature, losing the belly fat, getting stronger.  Before picking up a heavy weight it is advisable for that person to establish ... tone.  A baseline level of fitness.  By lifting light weights.

Because if that step is skipped, the odds of getting injured get really bad.  In short: a person who is deconditioned or moderately unfit is more likely to get injured by overexertion - by overstressing the body tissues - which happens faster with heavy weights.

Put it another way: the untrained person who picks up a heavy weight is highly likely to blow some kind of gasket.

It could be an abdominal hernia; it could be a ruptured tendon.  It could be torn muscle tissue, or a slipped disk. 

Workout and sports injuries are a common cause of emergency-room visits by younger adults.  (And by "younger" we mean "younger than 60.") 

Here's a 2010 article stating a figure of 10,000 emergency room visits per day for sports and exercise-related injuries.  10,000 PER DAY, people.  I couldn't quickly find a more recent follow-up, but even if the number is only half that (which I doubt) that's still an awful lot of injuries.  http://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2010/october/is-being-a-weekend-warrior-bad-for-your-health

You need to learn how to properly handle weights if you want to lift heavy ones without injuring yourself.  You do that by handling light weights - and consulting a trainer.  You can hurt yourself with a light weight, too, if you do it wrong.

You are not actually a machine.  A machine, like for example a car, is built to operate to its highest tolerances without any training period. 

The human body does not work that way. 

 

Now, in the "ballroom nerdery" category there is another definition for "tone," and that is the mutual force between partners.  One doesn't fall all over one's partner; one keeps tone in the frame and the body. But that is a whole 'nother speech. 

And I do want to add that lifting light weights should be viewed as a preliminary stage or a maintenance practice, and has to be combined with dietary changes to be effective.  Most people, particularly most women, who start out with a higher body fat percentage are not going to burn enough calories (lifting light weights) to get the fat off so they can see the muscle. 

Lifting light weights helps keep me ready to lift heavier ones, but if I want better definition I have to shift those heavy ones - and lay off the ice cream.

a mighty purge

No, I have not started "juicing."  What a waste of good fruit.

What I have done is - essentially - completed the cleanout and reorganization of 30 years' worth of files.  I am middle-aged, and a packrat, and have had plenty of living space for a long time. 

Years  +  space  +  the tendency to hold onto things "just in case"  =       a crapload of paper.

I did a major purge back in 2007.  Another one in 2010.  And now this one. A lot of stuff went in the trash, and probably a larger amount went into the secure shredder bins at the office (I love those things).  A considerable quantity of office-supply type organizational stuff has been separated out for Goodwill.

Categories of Ye Purge:

Writing files.  I've been writing all my life, in a lot of different genres, and have carefully hoarded most of it.  After the 2010 purge I had gotten this stuff down to a portable plastic file box plus a couple of binders.  The writing I've done over the past year helped me get rid of the binders. 

The rest of the material has been sorted into nicely labeled folders which now fit into my secretary desk in the home office.  This collection should be smaller yet by the end of this year, as I finish more projects.

Tax records.  This was a multi-year project because I've been paying taxes for A LONG TIME and the household returns require considerable recordkeeping. That is what using Form 8829 and Schedule C will do for you.  All of the tax records - ours since we started filing jointly, and mine from the beginning of time - are now in matching boxes in a locked storage area.  Still to come: Mr. P's individual returns.

Miscellaneous Financial Archive.  This includes my employment records, auto purchase records, closed investment accounts, and the like.  I had ten years' worth of auto insurance policies for some reason.  Not anymore.  Old medical records?  Gone.  (No, you do not need to keep proof of getting your teeth cleaned.)  I have to hang onto a couple of binders relating to the closed investment accounts for another 5 years, but they are cleaned up to the point that I never have to look at them again.

Stuff relating to USA Dance.  I started our local chapter and have been on several Boards over the years.  When we got started, very little of the organization's material was available online; now all of it is.  I have just two small folders left, with stuff to be scanned and uploaded to our Google Docs.  Before last weekend?  I had about 18 folders plus a binder.  GONE. 

 

A happy result of all of this work is that my secretary desk now contains only current files.  No archives, no "just in case."  Current/ongoing files that were stored elsewhere are now in that desk's file drawers, where they belong.  If I get hit by a bus and Mr. P has to figure out my various statuses, he only needs to look in this one place.

fun with homonyms

I was organizing some files recently, including a box of files relating to writing projects, and came across some notes I had taken a loooong time ago that relate to a Pet Peeve of mine, which is apparently a Pet Peeve of many people ... or so it would seem from the mockery available for review on Failblog.

This Pet Peeve is: the inability of people, when writing, to distinguish between homonyms.

A spell-checker, even if you are sufficiently alert to use it, will generally not tell you that you are using a homonym (i.e. a word that sounds like the word you intend to use but that does not necessarily mean the same thing) because a homonym is, generally speaking, a real word and you may in fact be spelling it correctly.  It's just not the CORRECT word.

Some of the most egregiously common:

• your - you're
• their - they're - there
• its - it's

Those are basic grammar.  The difference between these words and their application ought to be inculcated by age 10 at the latest.  These words appear with monotonous regularity in publications of all types, at all proficiency levels.  However, because there is precious little actual writing required of most schoolchildren, the use of these words is probably not taught with any degree of attention.  A very basic illustration:

"Your" is a possessive.  It means: that thing belongs to you. In use: That is your cell phone.

"You're" is a contraction.  It means: You are.  In use: You're going to the coffee shop.

"Their" is a possessive.  It means: that thing belongs to them.  In use: That is their car.

"They're" is a contraction.  It means: They are.  In use: They're going to the coffee shop.

"There" is a location (actual or metaphorical).  In use: The coffee shop is over there.  (i.e., not here.)

"Its" is a possessive.  It means: that thing belongs to that entity of indeterminate gender, such as a company, such as a coffee shop.  In use: That is its power line. 

"It's" is a contraction.  It means: It is.  In use: It's starting to rain.

 

Those are, as I said, basic and ubiquitous examples of homonyms.  There are other more arcane examples that come up pretty frequently if you read a lot of fiction (as I do).  Here are a few:

"Free reign" instead of "free rein."  The first is gibberish.  The second is what you do when you decide to let a horse gallop freely, and is in fact the phrase the writer is looking for 100% of the time.

"Pouring over" instead of "poring over."  The first is what you do with water over tea leaves, only you would never say it that way.  The second means studying.  Hint: if you want to state that your character is studying, please just write "studying."

"Baited breath" instead of "bated breath."  The first is ... what?  You just ate some fish?  The second is what happens when you are barely breathing, holding your breath, abating your breath, perhaps because you are trying to go undiscovered or are nervously awaiting a verdict.

"Flare" instead of "flair."  The first is what a full-circle skirt does when you spin around.  The second is talent or style, which can be quickly undermined by lack of application to the dictionary.

on sorting myself out

I tell ya, this decluttering thing is pure psychology.  You simply cannot do it without learning a lot about yourself. 

One thing I've learned is that despite my very practical approach to daily life, I have a lot of fantasy-life residue, and some of it is in my way.

Here are the things I am involved with. 

Full-time job.  Includes: a very short commute to a near-perfect job location doing work that I'm good at and that suits me.  This is the best work situation I've ever been in since moving to L.A. 

Marriage. Includes: almost all meal planning, shopping, cooking, and kitchen clean-up; most other housework; almost all social and vacation planning; household bookkeeping and tax returns

Ballroom dancing.  Includes: regular practice with Mr. P; occasional appearances at social dances around town; occasional shows; coaching; competition; costume additions, subtractions, and amendments. 

We still need to decide just how far we want to take this and how much we want to invest in it.  It's going to be part of our lives as long as we can hobble, though, I suspect.

Volunteering (with USA Dance).  Includes: monthly Board meeting; at-least-weekly messages to compose and schedule in Constant Contact; at-least-monthly updates to the chapter website; posts on chapter's Facebook group when I can come up with something; frequent email correspondence to/from other Board members; monitor chapter's gmail in-box and respond to messages as necessary; add new contacts to the CC database; attend chapter dances when possible

Writing.  Includes: this blog; another blog that I am about to shut down; the Unclutterer forum (now abandoned) and its successor; last year's novella project; this year's novel projects; screenplay projects; creating my own content files for Kindle publishing and CreateSpace. 

This is primarily for my own satisfaction, but I have in fact received a small royalty payment from Amazon for the novellas and thesis, and I do in fact have plans to try and sell some work in other venues.

The Etsy store.  Includes: monitoring listings; occasionally making new stuff; taking photographs and updating listings, or creating new ones; processing the occasional sale; keeping records for tax reporting (sales tax and income tax, though this is purely at the hobby level)

The patio garden.  I hold this separate from "housekeeping" as it is not essential to our daily life.  It's a small luxury that adds to our quality of life, though.  Includes: watering and grooming the plants; sweeping; reorganizing; repotting; cleaning and filling the hummingbird feeder

General Organization.  As the household archivist, I have thousands of photos and probably thousands of scrapbook pages.  There is an ongoing effort to digitize everything that's not already electronic (for space-saving and decluttering purposes, but also for ease of use). 

In addition, I maintain the music library and the DVD collection.  Both need to be thinned out.  This is very low priority, but it's still on the list and it still takes a good chunk of time once I sit down to do it. 

 

Okay, here's the takeaway. 

As one might suspect from a recent post, I am looking for something to divest.  It is abundantly clear to me what that something ought to be, in terms of conveying the greatest possible relief ... without taking away something of true value to me, Mr. P, our personal economy, and/or our quality of life. 

And in fact, the end of 2013 - I am essentially decided upon this - will see me divest not one but two things from this list.  I've decided that the Etsy store will have to go. 

I am looking at a different way to sell the things I make: a way that will involve selling in person, only once or twice a year, vs putting things out into the vastness of the Internet and letting them sit there.  The store is the least expensive way to sell my stuff, but it's also not particularly effective. 

And while I am sufficiently introverted to kind of dread an in-person sales venue, I also remember quite clearly the fun I had twenty years ago when I did stuff like that.  It's one thing to ship something off, more or less anonymously, to an online buyer; it's quite another to hand it to a smiling customer across the table.

reading roundup: March 2013

This is so, so pitiful.  :-)

31. The Six Messiahs, by Mark Frost.  See below.

32. Booked to Die, by John Dunning. THE mystery about books.  And still a keeper.

33. Stirring the Embers, by Mary Jo Putney. f.k.a. "The Burning Point," a contemporary romance that is not quite as good as I remembered.  A little too much telling and not enough showing, and for the first time I was aware of excessive adjectival flourishes.

34. Phoenix Falling, by Mary Jo Putney. f.k.a. "The Spiral Path."  You know you are tired when you want something to read but instead of something new, you download a book you've already read five or six times.  This one is really quite good, by the way.

35. Calculated in Death, by J.D. Robb.  (New) In which a corrupt businessman sets off a string of murders.

36. A Bride by Moonlight, by Liz Carlyle. (New) In which a shady lady and a police commissioner solve a mystery and fall in love in 1849.  Very sexy, and a great pair of protagonists.

37. The Lost Recipe for Happiness, by Barbara O'Neal.  In which a damaged chef and a lonely movie director fall in love.  The romance is good - realistic, too - but it's the Aspen, restaurant, haunted milieu that makes the book.  Also a great dog and a very nice teenage character.

 

So, that happened.

Re: Six Messiahs (and its predecessor The List of Seven): Both of these books spend most of their 350+ pages lovingly developing a complex scenario that is then wrapped up with indecent haste. 

The big action sequence at the end of "Messiahs" is great, but the resolution of the central conflict is much too quickly and easily accomplished.  It's the central conflict of BOTH books, and the path taken is both expedient and inconsistent to the characters. 

"Messiahs" also just ... stops.  No wrapping-up of the, not six, but eight or nine interesting characters we've been following.  Bits of this story are really compelling, but this denouement (can't call it a conclusion) really annoyed me! 

It makes me think the author had a contract that said "you can't go over X pages."

triage

That's the state I've been in for the last six weeks. There has been a lot of this going on:

• Does (any piece of) this have to be done right now?
• Does doing it right now guarantee that I won't have to deal with it again in the immediate future?
• Does doing it at all accomplish anything in my big scheme?

As you might imagine, a whole lot of stuff just didn't get done at all.  Other things got pushed to "later."  A few got cursory attention, enough to beat back the attack of Panic.

This is 100%, entirely, indisputably, my own fault.  I overcommit and overschedule.  It's ... a problem. 

It is a problem because the things that I say "yes" to, which are generally fun and/or important and things I want to do, have this tendency to inflate themselves to a point that consumes things that are less fun (though possibly more important) but that I need to do.

It is also a problem because, though it may seem impolitic to say so, nearly all these things that I say "yes" to are things involving other people who do less of the work than I do.  These are things in my personal life, not my business life, and I really have to stop this.  "The work" doesn't just mean what's required for the task at hand.  It's all the background noise, too.  It's the housework and the cat care and the paying bills and the correspondence and the calendar-keeping.

It is entirely possible to be happily married and yet to be good-and-damned sick of being the housekeeper and the financial planner and the secretary.

To me, the clearest and most undeniable indicator that my life balance is off is the March reading list, which when you see it you will think "whose is this?" because there is practically nothing on it.  A month when I don't have time to read is a month that is f**ked up.

On the plus side: we actually made it through our competition weekend with good results - well, acceptable results, given that on the Tuesday prior we thought we might not be able to dance at all.  Bronze medals in Novice Smooth and Championship Rhythm, and a gold medal in Pre-Champ Rhythm.

And we did not have to completely subsist on take-out.