talking about consumers today

Sometimes I get really miffed at how the people who write commercials try to portray us. With so many commercials for say household products or cleaning products in particular, we as a people are made to look like we never clean, are lazy & want everything to be disposable. Wow … is this really what we have become? Not me. And not a lot of people I know.

I am so tired of seeing one commercial after another trying to sell us, as consumers, some new fangled disposable or otherwise wasteful product.

Not long ago I saw a commercial for a popular brand of paper plates. They touted how strong they were, even better than before. They now will hold up to even the messiest of dishes you serve. How they would save you so much time after dinner (or other meals) by being able to just throw them away. No dishes to do! You can spend more time with your family. The average family … how many of them truly spend time together after dinner these days? Or after any meal? Why not clean up together? Teach your children how to clean up after themselves. Teach them that it’s not such a weird thing to know how to do dishes, or wipe a counter, or put away leftover food. Teach them not to be wasteful.

Is it really that hard to do a few dishes after a meal? Or if you have one, to load a dishwasher? I’m not one who loves to clean or wash dishes. But I am also not one to just be a part of the use & toss society we have created. It really doesn’t take long to either load a dishwasher or wash up those few dishes from any given meal.

So then … there is the trash. One company shows how strong their kitchen garbage bags are by stuffing them full, pushing the limits of the plastic the bags are made of. Then, a young child has the duty of taking this full bag to the trash can. It’s great to know the bag can handle being dragged, rolled & otherwise mildly abused on its journey to the trash can. We are shown the trash can in the garage … it has another bag in it! So we’re throwing a bag full of kitchen garbage into another bag lining the trash can? Huh? So, come trash day we’re tossing out a big bag full of smaller bags. Lovely. Not to mention how they are all better & stronger bags too.

All of it just frustrates me sometimes. Don’t create so much garbage to begin with & you won’t have a need for such a strong bag! Hmmm… maybe try using real plates instead of paper ones?

I also laugh at the commercials for paper towels. Well, actually I laughed at the commercial for the Sham-Wow chamois even more. The guy says something stupid like “you already spend $20 a month on paper towels …” Who in their right mind throws away that many paper towels in one month?? I know he’s trying to make a point on how much money you can save, but geez. All people hear tho, is save money. At any rate, hubby & I ended up buying a set of them recently. And they work great so far. I don’t really use them in place of paper towels, but I also don’t really use many paper towels to begin with. We use rags & towels for most everything most people use paper towels for. I will wipe grease away with a paper towel tho, if I’m like wiping out a pot or pan. Why did we have to become such a disposable society?

I could get into product packaging too. And single serving everything. Oh the waste!

behind, as always

Well, I was doing good about keeping track of my days. Here it is now almost a week since I wrote last. Oh well right? It just seems some days I don’t have anything of interest to write about. Or, I just forget to stop to jot things down.

Even now, I’ll be interrupted. The daughter has asked for a ride to work tonight. So, I’m here for a few, then I’ll take her, then back here. Once she’s at work, I’ll sit here while listening to 2 of today’s soaps. Yes, I laugh too. I can’t believe I still find myself caught up in the drama of their lives. I love it. It’s an old habit that I most likely won’t break for a long time.

Ok, back home for the evening. I think the daughter is tiring of the trek to & from work. She needs to get her bike tire fixed. But even then, with her hand right now, she can’t ride it. She has said that she enjoys the job, just not the hours & the getting there & home part. I certainly don’t mind taking her, but picking her up is another story. Sorry. I’m not up at 6am. I tried going to bed earlier & getting up earlier, but it’s not working.

So on Saturday morning the hubby tried to help me get the place a little picked up, by vacuuming for me. Right. The dang vacuum we have likes to clog. A lot. That morning was no different. Not only did he have to fight with it a couple times, but he stubbed his thumb real good & busted a blood vessel. Lovely. The living room & part of the hall got vacuumed. That’s it. I think the vacuum is on it’s way out as soon as we can afford to replace it.

Saturday afternoon we tried to have a get together of the group from the mall. Only 2 ladies were able to make it. Plus me & the daughter. It was nice, but we were all kind of disappointed. Both ladies brought one of their girls so that made it seem like more, kind of. It was short, since it started later than planned. But, we made the effort. So that was cool.

Sunday afternoon the daughter & I went in search of some sunshine. Sound silly? I imagine it does. Living in a valley, it’s not impossible tho. We’ve had this inversion hanging around here well over a week now. It’s a system with stagnant air. No movement so the clouds hang around. Well, we figured we’d try going higher to see if we could get above the clouds. We headed up to Mission Ridge, the local ski resort. It’s just across the river & 12 miles up into the canyon. The base area up there is at about 4200 feet or so. The top of the mountain is 4500. I think that’s how it goes.

OMG it was beautiful!! The sun was shining & it felt like heaven. Warm heaven. Blue skies as far as the mountains let us see. There were so many people & families up there too. Wow. I could see why tho, it was a bright place above a dreary valley. We stopped up at the lodge wandered around & took a few pictures while enjoying the big beautiful sun in the sky. We then stopped at the first place that had a pull off to take some more view shots. It’s a spot we’ve stopped at many times in the past. I could have stood there for a long time. Just taking it all in. It was just so gorgeous. So perfect. Even in those brief moments we were there, I felt so connected to the Earth.

And back down we drove. In the place between the warm sun & dreary bottom was an equally breath taking place. The place where frost formed. On every living thing. Not snow, but just frost. I had wanted to get some pictures, but with the cold, my battery was dying fast. I love how pine trees especially, look when they are heavy with snow. It’s beautiful. But this coat of frost. Wow . . . it was breath taking to me. To see that Mother Nature had every detail of her creations outlined in frost took my breath away. The hubby is at a higher elevation where he works so he has gotten to see some of it every day as well. This is another side of the inversion. It keeps the cold air here. And the cold is below freezing so the frost stays. I’ll have to get some pix of it before it’s gone.

Our short trip up into the canyon, above the clouds was just what I needed. I felt so light & joyful the rest of the day. It was exactly what was missing from my life over the past week or more. I think I’ll make another trip up in the next day or so. Perhaps with a fresh & full battery in my camera. Perhaps with just my eyes. I haven’t decided yet.

what a dreary day outside

I see I missed a few days. Not much tho. Not much exciting happened either. Last night tho, we went to Joy’s for the group meeting. It was nice. We caught up a bit then got into talking about 2012. The topic provided for much conversation as there are many views on what may happen when the time comes. I put out feelers for the group I want to get going & some seemed interested so that’s cool. I think it’ll be a lot of fun to learn in a group environment.

So hubby got his paycheck that covered his time off. Yuck! I have no idea exactly how we’ll make it until the next check, but somehow we always do.

I mentioned my daughter getting us a gym membership for Christmas. Well, it was purchased before she went on nights. Since then we’ve tried to figure out how we can go together. It’s just not working out. We talked about her seeing if she could get her money back & we’d put it towards home gym stuff instead. She is not one to confront people, so that went nowhere too. She knows that I would love to go to a gym, but hey, I’ll be flexible & do whatever. So the latest mention was for me to see if one of a couple friends would wanna go with me. I had 2 people to choose from. Amy & Cindy. I approached Cindy first because she deals with depression & my thought was maybe something positive like this would help her. And she wants to lose some weight too. She has said yes, so we’ll see if it works out. If something falls thru, I’ll be asking Amy. I was really torn in who to choose. I want to spend more time with Amy. I am really enjoying our friendship. But, I also want to spend more time with Cindy. I miss our friendship as we don’t see each other as much. So, I guess choosing Cindy was the right choice. Especially if we get to move forward with the combining of our households with Amy.

*insert break for breakfast, then some out & about time with the hubby.

Hubby is now over at Joe’s for a bit. I’m just kinda here. Sitting around with one of those ‘eh’ moods. I hate those. I should be doing several things, but don’t feel like doing any of them. I think part of it is the gloomy day outside today. And it could also be the fact I’ve been off my pills for some time now.

Our herb order came the other day, but I have not sat & made more pills yet. I think that is because it seems to be such a daunting task since I’m all out. I’ll have to just make some every 2 weeks or maybe even every week so it’s not so big of a task.

I changed our sheets. Oh yay. I stood looking at the bedroom for a bit. It’s messy because things get piled in there. And I was looking at moving things around again too. Mainly to get the bed off the shared wall with the daughter’s room. That way, if the bed . . . ‘ahem’ . . . moves, it wont be hitting her wall. I opted to just leave things alone for the moment tho, since several things don’t belong in there & I should get those moved to a better place before tackling moving everything.

Well, guess I can see what I can find to occupy my time in front of this thing for a while.

Monday again already?

Wow… I’m really slacking. I don’t even know what to write or where to start. I just figured it’s about time I write a little something.

**And just after I wrote that, the man came home. I had figured I had at least 20 minutes before he got home. Was nice to see him a few minutes early. So now we’ve showered & had dinner. Wrestling is on the TV. He’s relaxing with an iced coffee & watching it. I’m back here where I can just glance over & catch a bit here & there. Another 40 minutes & he’ll be off to bed.

I’ve had a fairly busy day today. I spent well over an hour this morning vacuuming. No, our place is not that big. We have one of those bagless vacs. Well, apparently I’ve neglected the floors a bit too long. I had to stop & empty the cup numerous times. I’d see how full the cup was, empty it and go vacuum over the area again. I went over the living area 4 times, the entry way 3 times, the hallway twice, and our bedroom & bath area 2+ times. Teach me to let the vacuuming go. I swept the kitchen too & stuck the rugs in the wash. I spent some time going thru our rather large closet in the bedroom too. I packed up some winter stuff. I pulled out & rearranged boxes to make more room. Even added a couple things to the yardsale box. So now I have a place to store some more packed boxes. I don’t have any more packed yet, but at least now I have a place to put them when I do. I like that.

As for the past week that I haven’t written about … I don’t know what to say. Guess I’ll leave it alone for now. Even market politics suck.

Last week Office Depot had a sale on their color copies. .29 instead of .49 each sheet. Add .06 for each sheet of card stock & I was on my way to get some book marks printed. I also had a coupon for 15% off my print order. Well, I made 30 book marks. I got 20 of each one printed. They came out fabulous. I am happy with them for sure. I didn’t get them cut & laminated in time for the market on Saturday tho. I did make a sneak peak folder thing so people could see what was coming. Cute & clever idea… but only a couple people stopped to look. No matter. The fact anyone looked made me happy. I’ll be working on cutting them apart & laminating them this week. I hope to at least have a few ready for Saturday.