In addition to making the grapefruit marmalade (it's all made, just not packed or processed yet) I am spending a good part of the day taking down Christmas decorations. We bought several of those green and red bins so hopefully I can get rid of the down-at-heel copier paper boxes and really organize everything. If all goes well, next Thanksgiving we won't be spend nearly as much time finding holiday stuff because it'll all be in color coded bins and all packed together. We'll see.


The act of packing leads me to consider anew the amount of stuff I have. I'm pretty good about letting things go - I'm not really a packrat or anything, but there always seems to be some level of clutter that's hard to eliminate. Sure, some people advocate selling all your excess stuff on Ebay, but there's always the temptation that you'll turn around and buy someone else's stuff. We live in too rural of an area to have an effective yard sale (although we had great luck with them in Philadelphia) and I'm not sure I'd have the time to spend on one anyway. I'm even wary of mass donation to Goodwill and the like since I took some maternity clothes over to a location near my grandmother's apartment and saw the back room so crammed that it would take years for my stuff to reach the selling floor (in fact, the attendant told me that most donations are donated in turn from Goodwill to other groups or destroyed for their scrap value and that the volunteers had the first pass on anything that was kept). I ended up taking the clothes to the nearest womens' shelter. (At least I think I did - shelters are secretive places by design and necessity. The woman who returned my call was unwilling or unable to confirm that the clothes were going anywhere but the trunk of her car.)


So when I heard about the Freecycle movement my ears pricked right up. You mean I can just give all my stuff away to anyone who needs or wants it? I don't have to mess with listing, selling, or even throwing away things that still have a useful life but are no longer appropriate for mine? Awesome!


Charlottesville does not yet have an official Freecycle group and, in keeping with my nitpicky attitude toward stuff and it's disposal, I have a few issues with the concept. At the moment at least, it seems that Freecycle groups are organized solely through Yahoo groups. I understand the convenience of doing so, but the system seems also to leave out a significant part of the population who would find participation in this type of alternative economy useful and/or necessary for reasons beyond cleaning out the garage. I'm not sure what the answer is - or if I should just be patient while the movement matures and becomes larger and, hopefully, more inclusive. In the meantime, I'm definitely going to keep my eye on it.

Post Title

→

Post URL

→

https://beat-hairstyles.blogspot.com/2004/01/in-addition-to-making-grapefruit.html

Visit Trend Wallpapers And Desktop Background for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

We've returned from our trip and I am suffering all the usual disruptions that come from being simultaneously glad to be home, in mourning for the end of vacation and overwhelmed at the amount of laundry that seems to have developed along the way. The boy is tucked into bed after exhibiting a level of overstimulation not often seen in one so young and we've gone through the mail enjoying the arrival of the gardening catalogs. It's official: Christmas is over and spring is on the way.


The trip back to Philadelphia, although certainly fun, was disrupting in ways other than purely logistical. Professionally the week led to some promising leads for additional work when I'm ready to start again after the baby is born, a period I have not yet let myself think about. Although disorienting, this is a good thing. From a personal perspective, the results were mixed. We discovered that two friends have decided to end their marriage (I never realized that one could experience grief when friends separate), a family member is on financial thin ice after an unexpected illness and the costs associated with required treatments coupled with an unconscionable raise in her rent (perpetrated by another relative, no less), a second family member is orchestrating what can only be described as a willful dismanteling of her family through emotional and mental abuse of her adult children, and another couple we love is facing the closure of their workplace just after they committed to taking on the live in care of their aging parents. I am confused and saddened about all of these developments and am trying desparately to remember that I have no power to fix these situations so I must just try to be supportive and offer whatever assistance I can and be as sensitive as possible.


So all of this has left me somewhat discombobulated. Because I am a world-class worrier and our current orange alert has me already incredibly jumpy and jerky (the entire time my sister-in-law was out picking up a pizza, I was convinced that she was in mortal danger), I was ill prepared to absorb and process all of the woe we found among our nearest and dearest. I can only hope that the concentration of so much sadness into the end of one year means that this new year will be free and clear for all. Fingers crossed and knock wood.


This weekend I will try to exorcise some of my nervous energy by making a batch of grapefruit marmalade. I have some grapefruits given to me during November's Florida trip and the only other required ingredients are sugar and water. My grapefruits are of the pink variety, so I bet the finished product turns out really pretty. Don't we all need some more pretty in our lives?

Post Title

→

Post URL

→

https://beat-hairstyles.blogspot.com/2004/01/weve-returned-from-our-trip-and-i-am.html

Visit Trend Wallpapers And Desktop Background for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection