Kroger: Learning 4

Today I felt like I'd spent too much time cooped up inside at home, so I decided to walk to the library and post office (have I mentioned lately how much I love being able to walk downtown from our home? because I do. That is my absolute favorite thing about Bloomington and a major factor in not moving to a nice apartment, because the ones we can afford aren't as close to downtown as our trailer is. but I digress). Anyway, I passed by Kroger as I walked down the B-Line and learned that it was finally open again! I say finally as if this Kroger being closed for a few weeks has greatly inconvenienced me, when really there are three other Krogers also in Bloomington within an easy ten minute drive. I just got spoiled having a Kroger right down the street.

So I stopped in and looked around. The construction isn't done yet, but we're allowed inside again. The store is a little bit bigger and the layout has been changed to be more like the modern stores. What struck me most though, is how pretty the store is now! The walls are all painted pretty colors and have graphics and modern signs. The outside of the store also got a paint job, covering up the old graffiti on the wall. Of course, there are already a couple new graffiti tags up. I generally disapprove of such, but this one made me laugh and I thought it was rather clever.

Also saw this cute little bunny nibbling on sidewalk grass by the courthouse.

UnPlugging: Learning 3

Many of my friends are able to honestly say that they do not check facebook very often - maybe just a couple times a week. I admire that and must admit that I check facebook constantly every day. It is my go to website on my computer. If my computer is next to me and I have nothing else to check online, I check facebook, even if I just checked it 5 minutes ago. No lie, I have been on facebook, realized there was nothing new to see, and then typed facebook.com into my address bar while I was still on my newsfeed in the first place!

So when I came across an article on unplugging at one of my favorite blogs, A Practical Wedding, I was intrigued.* I did give up facebook for Lent one year in college, which was an interesting experience. I have a hard time giving up facebook altogether now, because even though a lot of what is on there is nonsense, I do legitimately communicate with family and share pictures through it. So it's not all bad, but the amount of time I am on facebook is definitely bad. I don't like the fact that I waste hours on the internet mindlessly, but it's a hard habit to break. I learned that I am far from the only one who feels this way, and that while there are wondrous things the internet can do, unplugging can do wondrous things for you as well. 

Alexander Nazaryan described his Internet usage in a way I can definitely relate to: “I don’t want to call it addiction, to trivialize the suffering of alcoholics and compulsive gamblers. It is more like reliance, a psychological craving that will only be satisfied by the calming swipes of my finger across the smooth, shimmering screen of a device." Yes, my current websurfing is mostly out of boredom as I'm on vacation, but when I am checking facebook every 5 minutes after school despite having a ridiculously long and super stressful to do list? That is exactly why (although he described it in a much lovelier way than I could). 

So what's a person to do? I can't, at this point, bring myself to entirely give up the internet and ipad games every weekend altogether, the way Meg is doing over at APW. However, I am trying to be more intentional about taking time away from the computer. We gave up internet and cell phones during our cruise for 10 days out of necessity and that was wonderful. When we went back home for a very short weekend trip yesterday I left my ipad at home and didn't worry about checking facebook in between seeing friends and family. I'm taking time out to read books instead of mindlessly read my facebook feed (for some reason this is much easier to do on summer vacation than during the school year). I'm trying to actually cook some of the new recipes I'm finding online instead of just admiring them on pinterest. And when I feel like I just need some sort of 'noise', I put pandora radio on my ipad instead of playing a game or searching for a video on youtube and go do some organizing project or something productive around the house. I still spend a lot of time online and usually check facebook just under a gazillion times a day, but I'm learning, slowly, to try to make my internet time a little more intentional and a little less mindless. 

* [Sidebar: You may be asking yourself, why does Sarah still read this wedding blog when she got married 2.5 years ago? or, why does a wedding blog have a fascinating article about unplugging? I'll tell you why. This blog is not just about making favors no one cares about and giving you frighteningly unrealistic budget templates *cough*like theknot.com*cough*. This blog, while it does talk a lot about sensible and practical wedding planning advice, is also about marriage, life, and starting a business. They even talk about divorce. It is also written by a fabulously sassy, independent, smart, witty feminist and is one of the only places on the internet where I can click on the comments and actually get a thoughtful, caring, considerate, smart conversation with various viewpoints and advice. Okay, end sidebar.] 

House Flies: Learning 2

Since my earlier post was what I learned yesterday, I thought I'd post again with what I learned today. The past couple days we have noticed a housefly buzzzing around our home (I was going to correct that extra z, but then decided I liked it). It's only one, so at first it wasn't super annoying, it just buzzed angrily around the windows while I sat on the couch. But recently, it has become more fond of us and keeps landing on us and following us around the house. This morning Phyl left for work at 6:30 and I went back to sleep (yay summer and going back to sleep!) but it was made more challenging by the fact that the fly suddenly appeared and kept buzzing around my head. I'd sleepily swat at it, it would leave for a minute, come back, repeat. I covered my head with the sheet but even then I could hear the buzzing. Mr. Fly is still buzzing around (he was waiting for me on the bathroom mirror, and then he kept landing on our legs this afternoon) so I decided to research house flies to learn more about him. Here are some things I learned:

1. House flies can carry diseases. Like leprosy. I hope Mr. Fly doesn't turn me into a leper.

2. House flies have tiny hairs called tarsi on the end of their legs that work like taste buds. So when Mr. Fly keeps landing on us, what he is really doing is tasting us. This is slightly disconcerting.

3. House flies can only ingest liquid food because they can't chew. If they want to eat solid food like a grain of sugar, they regurgitate saliva and digestive juices to dissolve their potential meal. Apparently this is the real reason you don't want flies to land on your food while you're eating, because if they decide they also like your meal, you may end up with regurgitated fly juice on your food. Ew.

4. House flies can live up to 3 months, but their average life span is 3 weeks. So Mr. Fly will be leaving us by September at the latest. Hopefully we will swat him long before then.

5. House flies are not entirely useless creatures. They break down decomposing materials in the ecosystem and provide protein to birds and lizards that eat them. Some scientists also think larvae can be used to make cancer medicine, and apparently there are housefly farms in China for this purpose.

6. Some ancient civilizations had fly gods that they made sacrifices to in order to keep houseflies out of their homes and temples.

Apologies and Learning 1

Ok people. I think we have all learned that I still cannot be trusted to regularly update any sort of blog or journal device. I have not given up on the project 365 photo idea even though my track record isn't great (although not as abysmal as my blog would lead you to believe - check facebook, I'm slowly uploading pictures there). However, I think we can agree that at this point, project 365 entries are not the best idea, namely because I have a ridiculous amount to catch up on. SO, I am switching focus to Lee's blogging challenge about learning.

Last night I learned that if you replace half the flour in a chocolate chip cookie recipe with cake mix and add a bunch of sprinkles, you get SUPER delicious cake batter flavored chocolate chip cookies. These are seriously delicious. Dangerously so. I've had 6 already today for breakfast. I also learned that if you are following a recipe for oven baked fries and it tells you to coat the baking sheet with oil, make sure you use a sheet with RAISED edges. Otherwise the oil will drip onto the bottom of the oven and make your eyes sting with smoke. Heh.

You can find the recipe here. You really should go make them. Like right now. I ate two more while uploading the photo and linking the blog. They're that good.

Day 48

The two personal days I took off for the choir concert were timed well, because right before we left I found out Grandma had been diagnosed with lung cancer and given a couple months to live. So after the concert we drove to Findlay and spent most of Saturday with Grandma Grandpa and AJ, who had flown in to take care of them. Grandma and Grandpa were both in good spirits and very much themselves, just much more easily exhausted and not very hungry, so that was nice to see.

Now I find myself in a weird mood the past couple days. Part of it is changes happening at school that are still very unknown, which is always off putting. Part of it is being overly invested in some of my tricky kids, given they showed up in my dreams Thursday night and I couldn't sleep. Part of it is the excitement of the school year drawing to an end but not quite believing its here and still having lots to do. And part of it is knowing in the back of my mind that in the midst of all of this end of school year excitement I could get the phone call about Grandma any day now and spend the last days of school at a funeral instead. While she is remaining in good spirits, she is deteriorating pretty rapidly. The last update from AJ a few days ago gave her 1-4 weeks. 

Day 47

A month ago I took 2 personal days to go back to Goshen for the weekend and sing at their high school concert - it was the first time we'd done an alumni event like that. It was also the very first time I'd been able to even go to a concert since I graduated practically, so I was excited. It was a lot of fun, and we had over a dozen alums there. I knew it was going to be a fun time, but it was even better than I expected. It was such a nice feeling to be on stage again and singing with all those familiar faces. Afterward a bunch of us went to IHOP just like old times. Summer brought her darling baby with her to dinner (so did Caroline), so it was fun to meet their cute kids. Garth is having a staring contest with Summer's baby above.

Day 41 - 46

Okay, again, sorry for the once a month post. Here are a bunch of pictures, to give you a quick overview of the end of March and beginning of April.

 

March 20 - one of my student's soap sculptures after studying Indiana Limestone for Artful Learning.

 

March 27 - I assembled this strandbeest sculpture for our Artful Learning unit despite entirely Japanese directions!

 March 29 - walking home after seeing Next to Normal

 April 6 - lovely day for the first Farmers Market

April 7 - cat I saw on the walk home from school

April 9 - walk downtown for Hartzell's, my favorite ice cream shop in Bloomington.