Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Earth Day ramblings

In the midst of all the bad news right now, I find comfort in the fact that all over the Earth, air pollution and carbon emissions are the lowest they've been in decades. To see stunning side by side photographs of the skyline of major cities around the world pre- and during the Covid 19 pandemic check out this link. If only people could learn from this and modify their behavior upon the return to "normal" life! I don't have much faith in that, though. People never do seem to learn, do they?

Our state Governor McMaster announced today that schools will be closed for the remainder of the school year. I'm not surprised, and it's the right decision to make. I expected to feel sad about it, but I've already felt that way in the last few weeks and have mostly gotten over it. Hopefully things will be safer in late July when teachers and staff are set to go back and begin a new school year. If someone had told me at the beginning of the year that I wouldn't work for over 4 months, I wouldn't have been able to imagine why (short of getting fired or something). I'm thankful to still have my regular salary coming to me. I'm also thrilled to say that our Superintendent pushed a vote through the school board to give every single employee in our district a $1000 bonus at the end of this month! That was a nice surprise and will certainly come in handy! Gregg isn't working much at all and we're still waiting on our $2400 stimulus payment to come through.

A few more odds and ends to finish off this post.

I went to the grocery store last night on one of my infrequent trips, and since I've started wearing a mask, I thought I ought to take a selfie of it for the archives:


While shopping a few minutes later, I saw toilet paper for the first time in 6 weeks!!! Score!


The only reason I found toilet paper was I hit the timing perfectly: a truck had just arrived and it was getting put out when I walked past the aisle. I'm sure the small shipment of it that they got was sold out within 20 minutes!

The week after Easter, I had a leftover ham bone with a lot of meat left on it. I decided to make ham and vegetable soup in the crock pot for freezing in meal sized portions.



I felt like I deserved a damn Housewife of the Year award when the last of that deliciousness was sealed away in Tupperware and frozen. My husband was thrilled with me for being so frugal--not only did I use the leftover hambone, but I had a half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables taking up space in the freezer and several cans of plum tomatoes sitting in the back of the pantry, too, so no additional money had to be spent. Now we have three nice suppers in the freezer made entirely of leftovers! I've been doing so much cooking from scratch lately that all the quick, convenience, and junk food on offer at the grocery store yesterday didn't look appealing at all. Homemade is so much better, and cheaper, and in a lot of cases it's probably healthier too (although granted I've gone through quite a bit of real butter lately).

We're hoping to learn to live with less waste than we have in the past after the danger from this virus is over, more frugally, and with less excess. I truly want to make this time mean something in my life going forward and I'd like to do better in a lot of ways. More about this later.

And one last thing that I should mention, as it's Earth Day plus all over the world the skies are clearer than usual: tonight the Lyrid meteor shower peaks! The best viewing is always predawn, but even if you don't get up early, all night long you're real likely to see shooting stars if you'll only look. Think of all the wishes you can make!

Have a good night, my friends.

19 comments:

  1. Ooh look, a face mask, some bog roll and a stew.

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    1. The three most iconic images of this whole pandemic!

      The parrot was at home masturbating on his favorite toy. Aren't you glad you asked?

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  2. How can a thousand dollar bonus for school workers be justified when so many Americans have lost their jobs and are in dire straits? It doesn't seem right to me. Please paint a mouth on your mask - it looks weird without a mouth.

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    1. There was money leftover in the budget and a lot of expenses went down due to not having thousands of students and staff using the buildings. Many teachers and staff have spouses who have lost income....I'm one of them. The money is there, and everyone got the bonus.....from the most tenured teachers to the newest janitors and bus drivers. As our school district is one of the largest employers in the area, it was for the good of the community. Our schools have also been feeding the whole community 3 meals a day...you can drive up and get as many meals as you need, no questions asked. So I have no problem with the bonus.

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    2. I sort of get it now Jennifer. Thanks for the explanation.

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  3. I made a loaf of oatmeal molasses bread today; so damn good with real butter! we are eating more home cooked meals too.

    our $2400 was direct deposited in our savings account and that is where it will stay unless we have an emergency. we are still getting paid while working from home. does the IRS have your bank info?

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  4. Seems like you are in a decent head-space as we used to say. I'm glad of that if it's true. But if you're like me, you go up and down without seeming reason or warning. Still, the good moments are precious. I wonder if a lot of people will realize that they don't really need or want pre-packaged foods? Or will everyone just go back to eating as they usually do? Whatever, your soup looks amazing. And nice mask!
    I'm sure that the bonus check helped your state of mind a little bit. Relieved at least some stress. And who doesn't need that right now?
    Take care, sweet woman. Be safe.

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  5. It's good to get used to eating real food again; it is so much better tasting than ready made, and so much less expensive, and so much better for you. And butter is far better than any butter substitute out there, and you know what? It tastes like butter.
    I'm glad your school district is helping financially. The worst worry in bad times is lack of money.

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  6. I too hope some of the good changes made by people will continue on in future, being less wasteful, driving less, etc. Hey, I scored some toilet paper too, funny how happy it made me.

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  7. Just when you really want a clear sky, we had cloud! So, no meteor shower for us. It's strange how 'frugality' has suddenly become so popular; I hope it lasts.

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  8. You are learning to make lemonade out of pandemic lemons! Of course there is nothing good about this pandemic but you are forming some money saving and healthy habits and that is great. I love how you can make a pot of homemade soup and then stretch it out for several meals. I do that a lot. Your soup looks great and it's especially nice it's from things you already had in the kitchen.

    Congratulations on the toliet paper score! So far I have only found it once since this all started and it was limit one. It's a good thing I had some extra packs when this started or we would have been in trouble a long time ago. I have to buy groceries tomorrow - maybe I'll get lucky and find some.

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  9. I love Bonnie's comment about making lemonade out of pandemic lemons, and she is so right!
    And you are doing very well, and I admire your resolve to have something meaningful and good for your life coming out of this.
    Homecooking is nice; I wish I could be bothered more, but usually I try to get a cheese sandwich on my plate as quickly as possible to make my lunch break last as long as possible, sitting in my lovely yellow armchair and reading before it's back to work and hours of conference calls.
    I am not sure whether the meteor showers would have been visible in my part of the globe - anyway, I was fast asleep shortly after 11:00 pm :-)
    Your masked selfie has made me think I could post my masked portrait, too, sporting a fabric mask hand-sewn by my Mum's friend.

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  10. Can't believe you've had problems finding toilet paper for so long. That shortage lasted a day here. Now we have too much! (But, no not 8 dozen rolls too many... just well-stocked.) Classy mask. That's something we still can't easily find. We did get masks and they're good quality and even machine washable. But haven't been able to get the cup-shaped ones like yours.

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  11. Bravo on the frugal cooking! I love making dinners out of leftovers. It's kind of a fun challenge. I know what you mean about the work situation -- I'd be very surprised if we come back from our lockdown before this coming fall.

    I'm also surprised you're still having trouble getting toilet paper. I mean, how much toilet paper can people possibly hoard? And WHY? Our shortages seem to be pretty much over here. (Thank goodness.)

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  14. I am just catching up on my blog reading. That soup looks so good, and I know you feel accomplished by not wasting anything and also scoring some toilet paper. I too, have found myself to be more frugal, and less willing to jump in the car to run to the grocery store. I simply make do with what I have until it is an absolute necessity that I go to the store. Great that you got the bonus from school. Stay safe and healthy. PS: Your plants that you shared in your previous post are absolutely beautiful!

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  15. Earth Day !
    My Daughter was born on this day before it was Earth Day. She is very frugal, vegetarian, volunteers at farm, loves the chickens, has her own garden and all around nice person to the Earth.
    Your soup sound wonderful.
    parsnip

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