Bloomberg article about clothes donations

One last thing about clothes dumping before going to bed: Bloomberg has a recent opinion piece on the ramifications of no longer being able to donate clothes.

Article about clothes dumping

Was talking about this a week or so ago in reference to not being able to donate clothes and other household items bc of Covid-19; all of the thrift stores are closed. And this is the result: Clothes dumping - this is going to become a hygenic disaster if thrift outlets don’t take action - for crying out loud, some of the larger operations (looking at you, Goodwill) could set out a dumpster for people to dump their stupid clothes for the time being.

 

Stasher Bag

See, this is why I will never be a successful Internet Influencer for environmental products - the new wonderful “Pure Platinum Silicone” Stasher bag, ostensibly to be used for storing and cooking food; I am using it for my herbal smoke pouch. Got this at CVS for 10 dollars, and they had two larger sizes that were more expensive. I thought it was a bit prohibitive price-wise, but check it out: this bag is an accidentally environmental product to play with and consider adding to your kitchen storage options. You can boil in this pouch, put it in the dang oven for pete’s sake, microwave it or use it as storage in the fridge or freezer. And it’s dishwasher safe. As long as you are careful to not puncture it, these pouches would be a super way to cut down on packaging. Link to the website.

Composting article

Wendell Berry is the old guy on the edge of your consciousness who says, “would it kill you to make a little compost pile with some egg shells and carrot tops, huh?!”

A nice lady at NYT is super-excited to tell you about her compost!

Crayon lipstick, Uber, and Sustainable Cat Herding

Note, I wrote this about three years ago to talk about my breakfown and eventual resignation from my job at a library. I’ve edited it because, even at that time - this was probably in 2016 maybe? - I was still not taking ownership of my own crash and burn at this position. I’m finally, finally coming out of this hopelessness I’ve felt for years after quitting - hopelessness in not believing I could learn from this and do better next time; in my mind, there was no ‘next time’ for me because I had lost the courage to persevere. I’m still struggling but, for some reason, since the Covid-19 quarantine went into effect I’ve been more optimistic about my future prospects:

Here in my little eco-bubble ("Alachua County: a blue dot in a big, red sea), things are pretty nice (trying not to use "chill"), however; three years since my nervous breakdown I am feeling stronger and (hopefully) wiser, attaining a deeper understanding of how things went all to hell.

I own my part in the demise of my library career, and as for how I was treated by people I had worked with for 10 years, I forgive all of them.  There is no reason to hold onto anger or the notion of revenge, no matter how insignificant. It's the nature of the beast in a high-stress, high-profile position (yes, believe it or not, I had discovered the most stressful library job [which, to many in and out of the profession, will recognize that this is a contradiction in terms]). I am reminded of the phrase, "Forgive but never forget," and there's evidence that not forgiving is okay (I know because someone on the Internet said it).

I'm moving a lot more slowly these days - some of this is from finally realizing how crazy my life was at the library, and taking time now for home and hearth.  I'm glad to be home more right now; I'm 51 years old and, frankly, I'm kind of semi-retired at this point. I work part-time at a survey center (more and more I realize how many times surveys have intersected with my life, and so maybe there's something to that). Also, I messed up my right leg and am hobbling around in a boot.

Having crawled out of the trainwreck that was my life and career, I'm back to square one in a sense. I am leaning more towards trying to get back into school and finishing my masters degree in library science. I really, really, miss working in a library and understand that even while librarianship is my path, my fervor is tempered by the new awareness of my ability to juggle many tasks does not mean I should juggle at all.  Physical evidence is knowing that slowing down has improved my health.

Unsalted Butter for baking

I know there are probably a kajillion cooking sites and channels that tell people to use unsalted butter in baking to reduce the overall amount of sodium. I know this, okay?! Can’t I just make the observation - okay, two observations - about butter?

The first is, if you do use salted butter in a recipe that calls for salt, just omit the salt because the butter already has 90g of sodium per tablespoon for goodness sake, so why would you add more salt on top of that?

Is that too naive or facil? I thought it was rather astute as I used my last stick of salted butter to make cookies today.

The other observation about butter is that Land O’ Lakes brand finally stopped using the Indian maiden on its packaging. I’m not going to call it iconic, the image has always been an affront to indigenous peoples, and its about time they stopped using a charicature of an American
Indian.

At least they didn’t promote this little bit of cringe from the 70’s:

I

Happy Friday!