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jenettWelcome to our second salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) The first one went swimmingly! People! Talking! About awesome stuff! Feel free to talk about anything: my topic of the day is just to get us started.
Some of the comments in last week's thread got me thinking about the little stuff we do to make dealing with the world easier for us (lifehacks). And then why. Some stuff I do (briefly, on the theory it might encourage conversation)
1) I am very boring about my clothing. (basically, a black skirt and coloured knit top, or a coloured skirt and a black knit top.) Except for special occasion clothing, it is all cotton, it all goes in the wash together, and I basically only have to think about it when I want to. When I want to be fancier, that's what jewelry is for.
2) I do not have glasses in my house. I have pottery mugs. I am less likely to drop them (yay, handles) and if I do, they break into bigger and much less transparent pieces. (I am not as clumsy as I was during the worst of the medical foo, but, y'know. It's still useful.)
3) I have no idea what I did before a smartphone, which for me is less phone, and more "thing that fills at least a dozen other needs, but is only one thing to keep track of, plus more than enough books to keep even *me* occupied for a while, and oh, yeah, occasionally it makes phone calls.")
4) I periodically write up a document called "The care and feeding of Jenetts (or at least this one)" designed to help people navigate spending time with me. I had hoped to have a sample here but a) the week got away from me a bit and there was other stuff that had to take priority and b) some bits of it need to go under access lock. (For those who can see my locked posts, I expect to finish it by the end of the week.)
Anyway, this includes things like methods of communication, privacy notes, basic health stuff, more in-depth health stuff (with a focus on "Here's what you need to know so we can enjoy time together."), things I like as presents, things I'm really bad at doing, foods I eat and don't eat (and a brief "why" so people can figure out which bits really apply in a given setting), and stuff people should know if they want to visit me.
What stuff do you do? I'm especially curious about anything where you do it and other people look at you and blink and then go "Oh, that's an awesome idea!" (I've had that with my mugs, for example.)
(A word on advice: please don't give it in this discussion unless someone asks for it. A bunch of people I know will read this have Complicated Stuff, and I trust that they have found solutions that work for them for reasons that work for them. That said, if you'd like advice, go ahead and ask for it!)
Music in the background: Last week's salon had a lot to say about the topic of music, and it got me thinking about listening to the stuff that connects us to the universe. So, on my playlist for this week's salon are "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys, "All Will Be Well" by Meg Barnhouse, "Brave" by Sarah Bareilles, "Allegria" by Cirque du Soleil and "Give us room to roar" from Ruth Mackenzie's Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden.
A quick reminder
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.
Some of the comments in last week's thread got me thinking about the little stuff we do to make dealing with the world easier for us (lifehacks). And then why. Some stuff I do (briefly, on the theory it might encourage conversation)
1) I am very boring about my clothing. (basically, a black skirt and coloured knit top, or a coloured skirt and a black knit top.) Except for special occasion clothing, it is all cotton, it all goes in the wash together, and I basically only have to think about it when I want to. When I want to be fancier, that's what jewelry is for.
2) I do not have glasses in my house. I have pottery mugs. I am less likely to drop them (yay, handles) and if I do, they break into bigger and much less transparent pieces. (I am not as clumsy as I was during the worst of the medical foo, but, y'know. It's still useful.)
3) I have no idea what I did before a smartphone, which for me is less phone, and more "thing that fills at least a dozen other needs, but is only one thing to keep track of, plus more than enough books to keep even *me* occupied for a while, and oh, yeah, occasionally it makes phone calls.")
4) I periodically write up a document called "The care and feeding of Jenetts (or at least this one)" designed to help people navigate spending time with me. I had hoped to have a sample here but a) the week got away from me a bit and there was other stuff that had to take priority and b) some bits of it need to go under access lock. (For those who can see my locked posts, I expect to finish it by the end of the week.)
Anyway, this includes things like methods of communication, privacy notes, basic health stuff, more in-depth health stuff (with a focus on "Here's what you need to know so we can enjoy time together."), things I like as presents, things I'm really bad at doing, foods I eat and don't eat (and a brief "why" so people can figure out which bits really apply in a given setting), and stuff people should know if they want to visit me.
What stuff do you do? I'm especially curious about anything where you do it and other people look at you and blink and then go "Oh, that's an awesome idea!" (I've had that with my mugs, for example.)
(A word on advice: please don't give it in this discussion unless someone asks for it. A bunch of people I know will read this have Complicated Stuff, and I trust that they have found solutions that work for them for reasons that work for them. That said, if you'd like advice, go ahead and ask for it!)
Music in the background: Last week's salon had a lot to say about the topic of music, and it got me thinking about listening to the stuff that connects us to the universe. So, on my playlist for this week's salon are "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys, "All Will Be Well" by Meg Barnhouse, "Brave" by Sarah Bareilles, "Allegria" by Cirque du Soleil and "Give us room to roar" from Ruth Mackenzie's Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden.
A quick reminder
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.
Tags:
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-12 05:23 pm (UTC)Pressure cookers sort of intrigue me, but I've decided they're probably a bad fit for me for a number of reasons. (And as I've said elsewhere, having something that *forces* me to break up the prep, the eating, and the cleaning is actually hugely useful to me, where something that cuts down on the time between prep and eating actually often isn't. Bodies still weird.)
For people who think that slow cookers are all "can of cream of whatever" soup, there are actually a lot of great very healthy recipes out there - my usual go to is Crockpot365 (and for people for whom that's relevant, she cooks gluten free.)
One of my current standbys is putting frozen veggies in with a tiny bit of butter or oil (and whatever seasoning.) They cook in about 2 hours on high (i.e. if I put them in when I get home from work at 5ish, they're ready around 7 when I want to eat dinner) and I don't have to pay attention to them at all until I'm ready.
(Combos frequent in my home include green beans, a bit of butter, and almonds, cauliflower with a bit of cheese, or asparagus with a bit of goat cheese.)
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-12 08:47 pm (UTC)I should have been more clear about the difference between crock pot and pressure cooker. We love our crock pot for slow cooking soups, stews, broth (certainly no cream of whatever required!). We like the pressure cooker for dealing with a tough cut of meat or beans without a lot of liquid for the nutrients to dissolve into. But interesting to your point about dividing the prep and cooking time, the things we put into the pressure cooker are usually simpler than in the crock pot (chunk of beef, bit of salt and pepper, splash of red wine as liquid). Because we are often at the "it's 5pm what the heck is for dinner?" moment.
I have lots of food hacks. But I'm really interested in whether people have hacks for laundry. It's the one chore that we always seem to struggle to keep up with.
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-12 09:45 pm (UTC)My trick is to have a very small hamper which fills up approximately weekly so I have a prompt to do the laundry. Actually doing the laundry only takes a few minutes now because I load the machine and then I can wander off again.
Do you have the option to do it often or is it a significant inconvenience so that you have to do more laundry less often?
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-12 09:59 pm (UTC)And yeah, I can see how that works well. (Though honestly, a lot of my slow cooker things are not that much more prep than you describe: I do a lot of "take bag of frozen vegetables, apply broth to not quite cover, cook until mush, immersion blend into soup, add a bit of cream and lemon juice and maybe already-shredded-cheese and eat for days" stuff, especially in the winter.)
On the laundry, what
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-14 05:56 pm (UTC)Our problem is the sheer amount of laundry! Two adults and one pre-tween and we seem to make far more laundry than any three people should. Part of it is that my daughter has soccer four (yeah, four) times a week, which means that it's incredibly hard to keep the gear washed between practices. Buying more shorts and shirts would be an obvious answer, but the cost is... well, let's just say I hope this all results in an athletic scholarship to college someday or I'm going to be pretty annoyed.
She also makes tons of towels dirty, as she tends to not hang them up and they get funky... and practically speaking, it's not useful for her to use them for more than a few days anyway.
We tried the whole "kid do your own laundry" routine but the problem is that the laundry is always taking up the washer and drier (and floor and bins and OMG). So it's simpler to just throw hers in with ours rather than maintaining some kind of division. And it's not that the hub doesn't help. His back has improved to the point that he can get stuff in and out of the washer and drier and he's happy to do so, if I prompt him to.
However, we just don't seem to have a rhythm around it and so we're always behind.
Re: Ooooh lifehacks
Date: 2013-06-26 03:00 pm (UTC)I do not separate colors very often. Instead I use those color catcher sheets. (I don't generate large enough loads fast enough to color-sort, and my roomie and I don't share clothes-laundry tasks because our detergent/fabric softener preferences are opposite.) I have one lint-prone, bleed-prone fuzzy bathrobe that gets washed and dried independently.
I own a LaundryPod (like a giant salad spinner with a drain hose) for the large amount of hand-washing I do. It's a goofy device, but having a special thing that only handles my clothes saves me from having to scrub the sink (which usually has a little bit of purple hair dye lurking somewhere).