Why Not ... Make a Resolution or Two?

Well, I'm not off to the best of starts: it's late, and I'm a bit tired and grumpy (I actually stayed awake until midnight last night to welcome 2013 in). Still, finally I'm taking a little time to sit down at my laptop and do what I wanted to do all day: write down my year's plans.

My theme (so far, at least) is Why Not?

That's as in:

• why not ... do it
• why not ... use it
• why not ... try it
• even why not (gasp!) ... spend it

In the past I've postponed too much, put things aside for later too much, worried too much, sacrificed too much. Now it's time to perhaps not be quite as cautious, to perhaps live a little bit more, use the things I have, do what I want to do - just enjoy life as it is in the moment instead of always waiting for another day.

There are a few other things too, broken down roughly into the following categories:

Physical

• Get a checkup. It's been quite a few years now and though I think I'm fairly healthy, it would be good to make sure I stay that way.
• Also keep up with Pilates class (at least in winter) and do other exercises too - anything from Wii to skiing to biking; my cardiovascular system could use the challenge.

Intellectual

• Write SOMETHING daily - whether a lengthy blog or a tiny haiku or even an email.
• Read more and read less. Not as contradictory as it sounds. I want to read more of the things I truly enjoy - books - and less of the stuff that fills time and may even be interesting, but ultimately isn't as enriching - things like articles on Zite, magazines, and internet browsing results.
• Use my iPad less. Yes, that's right, less. I'm getting too addicted to acquiring apps and I'm not really enjoying and using what I have. I'll check key sites for bargains, but try to get rid of the fluff and focus on my two main joys of the iPad: photography and writing. Rarely anything more.

Social

I am not a very social person. I'm sociable - I love chatting with people on walks, for example - but also fiercely cherish my privacy. However, I think I'm a tad too private - or at least I don't make much effort to be any less private. So I want to keep in touch with others a bit better.

• My goals here are to check my email every weekday, to catch up with the people I've neglected electronically, and to do at least a little posting on Facebook and Flickr.

Spiritual/Emotional

• Here I want to continue the daily readings as I've been doing for over a year already. They're very worthwhile and are gradually helping me to become a happier person.
• I also want to really focus on being positive, hopeful, and optimistic (quite the challenge for me). On my trip I finally felt what it's like to have good things happen and really started to believe that God actually wants me to be happy and to have good things happening in my life. I need to be open to that and to turn away from worries and fears and grudges and petty concerns. It's time to believe I'm meant to have a good life, full of blessings and abundance.

So those are my 2013 objectives. Hopefully, if I keep my mind on them it will be a very good year indeed. I'm certain it can be. After all ... why not?

This Time Next Week ...

This time next week I will not be here. This time next week I will be in Cancun, Mexico!!!!!!!!!! Yes, it does merit ten exclamation marks. It will be the first time EVER that I fly. It will be the first time ever I go somewhere warm in winter. It will be the first time ever I swim in warm water. Am I excited? Just a tad!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many things I'm looking forward to I don't even know where to begin. First off is floating down a lazy river in an inner tube. There is all that food. There are places to walk, snorkelling in a coral reef, swimming in a variety of pools, evening shows, seeing little lizards, hanging out in a balcony hammock - virtually every single thing will be new to me. I can barely sleep thinking about it all!

Of course I do have a week to live through first. There's still plenty of basement cleaning. There's packing (yes!). Plus housecleaning, on the down side.

There's that flight too. I'm not sure how I feel about flying. The rational part of me knows it's safer than driving. There's another part of me, though, that would be happier staying on terra firma. Not having wings, I would have been contented to pass my life without ever having flown. Millions of people do it every day without a thought ... but I'm sure I'll have quite a few thoughts when I'm on board. And probably not all of them will be good ones.

I also wonder how I'll fill my days with no dogs to walk, no chores to do, no dinners to prepare. I don't imagine it will take too long to get used to that, though. What might take a little longer is having no Internet. My beloved Pearl will be staying safely at home. It's been a long time since I've gone even a couple of days - let alone a week - sans connection to the wider world. I think it could be really good for me, though, maybe bring me back a little closer to who I really am. Anyway, I'll find everything out starting in just six and a half days. YES !!!!!!!!!!

A "B" Week

This is a "B" week for me. That's B as in Basement, or Bad, or Both. First off, I'm not on vacation yet, which is definitely a disappointment. Even though we were supposed to be visiting Andrew and Marian in Ontario starting tomorrow, we're staying right here at home since they messed up Dan's holiday schedule and only have him starting next week. On the Bright side, however, it allows me to work downstairs at a more leisurely pace.

And I am actually making some Breakthroughs towards the Betterment of that area. I'm getting rid of a fair amount (not to worry though; there will still be too much left). My things are getting more or less organized - at least in a way that makes some sense to me. I don't feel quite so overwhelmed anymore. It's even transferring over to other areas: I've also done a spot of tidying in the hall closet and my library games closet (well, alright, that was so I could bring a few more things up into it). And our linen closet - a crowded mess that has annoyed me for ages - is actually able to fit things in without a fight. It feels pretty good to be orderly, sort of freeing. We still have far too much ... but it does show me that I'm Blessed to have what I need - and more.

Of course, it's also rather a Burden. I take responsibility for almost all the books, games, cd's etc., but most of the other stuff is inherited and that's difficult to deal with. It's memories of people I loved and how do you get rid of those things without feeling guilty? I really won't use my mom's silverware, for example, but it meant so much to her. She collected it for years from the time she was a little girl, getting pieces for every birthday and Christmas. Do I just let that go to strangers? On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to go to someone who would appreciate it and use it? I would love to give things to the people I love and care about, but there aren't that many of them and, as Dan points out, most people today don't really use or want it either.

There are things even my mom never used like Irish table linens with the original labels on that must be at least sixty years old. It seems utterly ridiculous to keep toting these things around and having to find storage spots for them, yet to get rid of them just feels wrong, disloyal somehow. I know they're not my mom and certainly won't bring her back (and I'm sure she wouldn't even want me feeling unhappy and burdened by them), but having them makes me feel a little bit closer to her in a Bittersweet sort of way. Ditto for old letters, photographs etc. I rarely even look at them because it makes me really sad, but to just toss them is unthinkable.

Anyway, I'll do what I can with reasonably little mental duress, and what I honestly can't deal with I'll just hang onto for a little bit longer. After all, that's one of the Benefits of having a very Big Basement:)

Musing on The Dust Bowl

I've been musing a lot about "The Dust Bowl" episodes I saw. They were just so incredibly fascinating ... and so unspeakably sad. Nobody asked for it - not even the farmers who caused it with their willful over-cultivation of the land. They certainly weren't as aware of conservation techniques as we are today - and obviously we're still abusing the land with excessive irrigation. Then you could say it was a result of both greed and ignorance. Today you would have to say it's greed alone.

The Dust Bowl hurt everybody, but I felt especially sorry for the children. They had to see and endure things children shouldn't. Always there were food issues, money issues; they saw their parents stressed, sometimes broken. Some people never did get over losing their livestock or land - were simply never the same people for the rest of their lives. One girl's mother just left. Another's had a nervous breakdown. Fathers had to leave to find work and the older children left behind had to shoulder the burdens. The children had to suffer through the stinging dust storms, struggling to breathe sometimes - some would sport homemade "gas masks" of goggles and handkerchiefs.

Then there were the little indignities that could wear heavily on a child. One woman talked about how her clothes were made from sugar and flour sacks: sugar for panties because the sacks were printed with little flowers, flour for dresses because those sacks had larger flowers. It was also tough seeing your friends move away; you never knew if someone might be gone by the end of the week.

And yet, like everything, there were bright spots too. One man spoke so fondly of the exquisite skies he remembered between the storms - brilliant blue with lovely puffy white clouds. There was the kinship of family and friends too. More or less everybody was in the same boat; there was certainly a lot of understanding and compassion and maybe a greater sense of community than many of us know today.

Still, the Dust Bowl is not a time I would like to have personally experienced. There was just too much hardship and suffering. I don't think I could have handled it graciously. One couple who farmed in Northern Texas estimated they had ten really good crops ... in eighty plus years! Pretty poor odds. (However the wife, Caroline Henderson, made some income writing about her experiences as a journalist for The Atlantic so, ironically, they were probably considerably better off than the people she wrote about.)

And talk about a shafted generation: straight from years of struggles and poverty as children to heading off to war (or watching brothers and sweethearts do so) as young adults. If anybody has a right to be bitter over their lot, it is the children of the Dust Bowl. But, while the people interviewed all had difficult memories, they also had a real stoicism and genuine appreciation for the good times that you have to admire. I can't imagine anyone wanting to relive those days, though. And it's utterly impossible for me to fathom why people are risking it all over again.

The Dust Bowl

[Part 1: November 18]

WOW. I knew the Dust Bowl of the 1930's was no picnic - particularly in the southern United States. But I really had no conception of just how very awful it was until tonight. Tonight I watched the first part of Ken Burns' "The Dust Bowl" on PBS. Entitled "The Great Plow Up", this episode explored the history of the region and the origins of what is one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the entire world! It was already an area prone to dryness (there were significant droughts in the 1890's) but the first part of the 20th century was uncharacteristically moist. That, combined with generous land grant programs, led unprecedented numbers of people to settle there. And because wheat prices were unusually high during the years of the First World War, that's what they concentrated on. To do that, they plowed under countless acres of native grasses ... the native grasses that had been holding the soil down and keeping the moisture in. Essentially, man's greed caused the catastrophe - and not over a period of centuries or millennia but less than fifty years. Talk about a lesson for today.

And of course people paid for it - an extraordinarily high price. There were the relentless storms themselves to endure. Dust miles high that blew everywhere. They could obliterate the sun at midday and hit any time of the year. (I was surprised when I learned the first storm arrived in January; I was also surprised to know that the storms were accompanied by high static electricity.) It was a perpetual battle to keep homes clean, to keep a small kitchen garden alive (forget about fields of crops), to be able to breathe! Animals died. People died. There was a "dust pneumonia" that was particularly cruel to small children and damaged other people's lungs for life. Beyond that, there were plagues of jackrabbits (tomorrow night we'll see the grasshoppers that came in later years) that had to be culled. (Farmers had wiped out the rabbits' natural predator, the coyote - another poor ecological decision in retrospect.) People had to kill off their own livestock too. Many couldn't pay their debts and lost their homes and land. Some committed suicide.

[Part 2: November 19]

And we haven't learned a thing, it seems! In fact, the region seems poised for a whole other Dust Bowl era in twenty years or so.

But first a little more about tonight's episode. It looked at the late 1930's and early 40's. Some people simply couldn't hold on any more. They had no way to feed their families, no places to live even (one family ended up in a rented chicken coop - the only place they could afford; another family searched their whole house and couldn't find a single dime to buy a loaf of bread). And so they left for the Promised Land of California. To an extent they found happiness: more to eat and fresher weather. But they were hardly welcomed; in fact they were looked down on, taunted and bullied. At one point the state even set up border check points, arresting "vagrants" who tried to enter without at least fifty dollars. Many ended up in pretty squalid conditions in tent cities of migrants, following the harvests from town to town.

Back in the Dust Bowl, many of those who stayed had to turn to relief - a bitter pill for a highly independent people, but the sole means of survival for their families in many cases. Eventually government work programs were put into place that allowed people to maintain their self-respect, feed their families, and do valuable work like building new highways, bridges and dams. Although there were some who felt the region wasn't worth saving - or capable of being saved - President Roosevelt, to his immense credit, never gave up on the area or its people. He brought in advisors who looked at farming practices and were able to start implementing changes that gradually allowed the land to return to a healthier state. They did terraced farming, following the natural contours of the land. They used plows that went deeper instead of shredding the topsoil. They reintroduced native grasses and planted some 217 million trees as windbreaks. The government also bought up large swaths of land and returned it to grassland. In some cases they even paid farmers not to plant crops. And though there were still many dust storms, things did begin to get better.

Which brings us to the next folly, the one that proves we've learned virtually nothing from even recent history. In the fifties, they started irrigating the land by piping up water from the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground reservoir left over from North America's last ice age. Of course it meant they could grow practically anything and also raise pork and cattle. But it's being used up. Fast. The reservoir averages 100 feet deep and it's already well over half gone. One of the interviewees on the show estimated there are about twenty years left. And that's it. That's the end of their water ... even their drinking water! When you see shots of those massive sprinklers spraying water in every direction it looks deceptively elegant - but it's really hideously obscene. They're sacrificing their future, their children's and grandchildren's future. Of course there could be another Dust Bowl, in fact there could easily be a Sahara-like desert in the middle of the continent if nothing changes. And given the way people seem to forget the past and focus blindly on short-term gain, it seems more, rather than less likely. I could very well live to see a "Dirty Thirties" of my own - and that's about the saddest thing of all about the whole documentary: it could happen all over again, and humans would have caused it ... all over again.

The Tyranny of Technology

Alexander McCall Smith's philosopher cum detective, Isabel Dalhousie, was musing about the responsibilities technology engenders in "The Right Attitude to Rain" (the volume I'm currently reading). Initially, it was email that piqued her interest, and how it lends a sense of urgency to the communication process. People come to expect almost instantaneous replies and think you're somehow lax or remiss if they don't get them.

I hate the presumption, by the way, that you're sitting around all day at the computer - or have your cellphone or tablet on alert - just waiting for someone's email so you can reply to it immediately. I don't want to be anybody's slave. Often I won't check my mail for a few days. If it's really that urgent, call me. In fact, if phones had been invented after email I'll bet everybody would have thought email was such an antiquated way to communicate! (Of course I'm talking about personal communications here; obviously if you have to use it for work you'd better do so ... although I'm not the only one to think it's wrong the way some employers expect you to be on call 24/7. There used to be a little thing called work/life balance and a separation between those two worlds that's getting more and more rare.)

Anyway, Isabel felt such an attitude towards email was bordering on tyranny, that "advances in technology were greeted with great enthusiasm and applause, then the tyranny emerged" (p. 31). She cites cars as another example, how they destroy the landscape, communities, the very air we breathe. But then she goes on to also see the bright side, how they can take you into different landscapes and make journeys that would have been arduous week-long ordeals into comfortable little day jaunts. "It was an exciting tyranny, then, one which we liked."

And I believe she's right; the good does outweigh the bad in most technological advances (although certainly not all - weapons come to mind here). Technology can also unite people, improve lives - save lives in the case of medical breakthroughs. What creates the tyranny is just the sheer, overwhelming amount of stuff we have to deal with. Every new device you bring into your life means new responsibilities and new drains on your time. Cars have to be maintained regularly and email has to be checked regularly. It is enough to make you want to escape to simpler, less stressful times.

However, for better or worse, here we are. The best thing we can do, I think, is be thoughtful technology users. That means choosing only those things that will enhance our lives and then controlling them too - everything from setting a sensible budget for that new car or cellphone to limiting your television viewing/web surfing time. And of course only checking your email at reasonable intervals!

Just Testing (Blogger App)

Well, I needed to write a post anyway, and I had absolutely no ideas yet today ... so here I am, posting away on the new Blogger app as my day's work. Normally my workflow is to write in Nebulous Notes (I'm hoping to move on to the Phraseology/Terminology combo if I treat myself to those two apps for Christmas). Then I copy/paste into Blogsy and do any last minute tweaking: bold/italics/underline plus inserting any images (which, annoyingly have to first be uploaded into Picasa - about my only complaint with Blogsy, actually).

So now I'm testing out Blogger. It certainly had no trouble connecting to my blog and this posting window is pretty straightforward: you just add your title and then type away. Options for adding pictures and labels are down below. You can even take a photo with your camera and have it inserted, which is pretty cool. I'll be adding a Pippi photo as part of the test process too and seeing how easy and flexible it is. What I haven't discovered yet are any formatting features. I would assume they're available somewhere, but it certainly isn't somewhere obvious. And, though I didn't really expect it, a word-count feature would have been awfully nice too.

Well, I've attached a photo (one I worked on today using another new app: Pixlr Express+, and the new-ish app Color Strokes). I have absolutely no idea where it will end up being positioned in the final product, but it should be there somewhere.

And I guess that's my big complaint with the app so far: there doesn't seem to be much control, it's too simplistic. It's nice to be easy and user-friendly, but you have to have the power too and I just don't see that yet. If I discover some hidden benefits, I'll definitely pass them on. Until then, my opinion is that this is a mediocre app at best and certainly can't replace Blogsy - with or without another writing app first. If I don't find improvements, it won't be spending very much time on my iPad.

Musing on Minimalism

I found an interesting new blog today: becomingminimalist.com - particularly relevant given my current basement tidying project. (I'm making some progress, by the way; I condensed two and a half boxes of books down to one shelf yesterday ... albeit a very packed shelf. Still, I was proud of myself. I'm getting rid of a lot of boxes too. Chances are that if the products they contained haven't broken/needed to be returned by now, I won't need them ever. Certainly not for packing, since I don't envision moving for a long, long time - if ever!)

So on this site it was interesting to read about just how minimalist some people get, and also about the benefits of the process. A sense of freedom seems to be a big one. There's so much less to worry about, to organize and maintain, to buy in the first place. There definitely are different degrees of it, though, and different priorities. If traveling is key, you may want to live with practically nothing - both to save up money and to not have stuff you have to either store or tote around with you. But minimalism isn't about totally denying yourself either. If your passion is photography, for example, you'll want to buy a decent camera and a computer for editing. For an avid reader like me, then, minimalism may be 1000 books instead of 3000.

Of course space is a big concern. If you're a single person living in a 500 square foot apartment, you obviously don't need - and simply can't have - the same amount of stuff as if you're a family in a four-bedroom home. I suppose it's not being very minimalist, but I do think storage space has its virtues too (and especially so in a four-season climate). My fans and folding lawn chairs go down for the winter; heaters and humidifiers come up, for example. Definitely more economical than buying new each season. And of course we genuinely need four seasons worth of clothing too (although I know I have far too much of that as well - tackling my cupboard can be a winter project). So long as it doesn't approach hoarding proportions, it also pays to stock up on supplies like paper towels when they go on sale.

In the end, I guess, minimalism is what you make it. As a homebody who truly loves and uses and derives great pleasure from her possessions, I'm going to have more than a globetrotter. That's not to say I don't need to downsize, though, because I definitely do - if only so I don't have to keep wasting time shuffling stuff around and going through it over and over. I liked the idea on the site of "de-owning" ... or, even better, "releasing" your old possessions so that someone else can use them. (I have a strong aversion to throwing things out completely unless they're absolutely unusable.)

No matter what, though, I sense I will still have more than enough left. And I think I'm just an acquisitive kind of person - sort of like a squirrel or a crow. I could probably be living in a cave and still have all sorts of collections: rocks, feathers, shells etc. I even do it on my iPad, collecting thousands of apps, and on my computer, downloading all kinds of books. (Fortunately digital clutter doesn't take up much space or cost anything other than a backup hard drive or two, but it still does consume my time, which is precious too.) I don't need to deny who I am completely - just keep it under control. I'll never really be a minimalist, I think, but I can still work on becoming a better minimaliser.

Rick Mercer: National Treasure

Like Peter Gzowski or Stuart McLean, Rick Mercer is another of Canada's (and CBC's) National Treasures. I just finished watching his show, "The Rick Mercer Report" (now in its tenth season), and it was as fabulous as always. This week he had a stint with the National Ballet of Canada and participated in a student lumberjack competition in Lindsay. And his rant was spot on about another of the Conservative government's dubious decisions: slashing the budget for veterans' affairs. He didn't mince words - as usual - saying that to Steven Harper et al. "lest we forget" is meaningless as, clearly, they have forgotten.

I love his show. I love that he tirelessly travels from one end of the country to the other, participating in every sort of quintessential Canadian activity ... as well as quite a few new and obscure ones too. He has walked the CN Tower (outside!), tagged hibernating bears, tracked moose, played Paralympic basketball, followed whales, gone zip-lining, mountain biking, race car driving and so much more. Some of the things he does must be huge fun, but others? Not so much. He's pretty brave to do everything he does, actually.

He's brave to deliver his weekly rants too, because I'm sure he gets some flak from them. But he dares to expose things that might otherwise slip under people's radar. Last week, for example, he talked about a secret trade agreement Harper made with the Chinese - while in Russia. (An agreement that had never been debated or voted on in parliament, by the way.) He's ranted about sneaky omnibus bills that try to hide a whole bunch of things inside them, and so much more. So much, in fact, that he has a new book out now: "A Nation Worth Ranting About" (I'm on the library waiting list for the ebook and am really looking forward to a fun yet insightful read.)

And Rick Mercer is also a co-founder of the "Spread the Net" charitable organization. It raises money to buy bed nets to prevent malaria in the developing world. $10 buys a net and potentially saves a life. To date over half a million nets have been purchased. Rick encourages schools to fundraise with his annual challenge. The winning schools get to appear on his show.

All in all, Rick's a pretty cool guy with a really great show. Here's hoping his "Rick Mercer Report" is around for at least a decade more.

Basement Blues

On the bright side, we're having a friend move in for awhile. On the downside, we have to empty out our mother-in-law suite. We've got a month to do it ... and it could easily take that long because IT IS NOT FUN.

Talk about a way to ruin an afternoon. It was a lovely day - as un November-like as you can get, but the hour or two spent down there was absolutely horrible. We have SO. MUCH. STUFF!!! I know I don't need all - or most, or even hardly any - of it, but it's so hard to go through and sort and deal with. What if I get rid of something valuable? Or something I'll need in a month or two (or even a year or two)? Or a family treasure? It's paralyzing and also incredibly stressful and painful too. Old family things make me sad. Looking at other things is like looking at dead dreams. All is see is plenty of past and absolutely no future.

And now I have a whole month of misery to look forward to. A little every day. (Plus probably plenty of disagreements and a few tears too.) I know stuff has to be gone through. I know I should do a really thorough cull and keep only those things I truly treasure and want to cherish forever. I know things that are useful but unused could go to better homes where they will probably do a lot more good. Still, letting go (of virtually anything) is incredibly difficult for me. It's like letting go of my life and all I hoped it would be ... but isn't and never will be.

Instant depression, here I come:(