WHAT A MESS! The weather’s getting nicer, but there’s too many repair and clean-up chores. What to do?!!! Help yourself and someone else’s family by hiring a day-worker from a local day-worker center (e.g., St. Vincent de Paul). Find one on Yelp or Google or even an old-fashioned phone book Pay is usually $10-$15 an hour, and the center sends you people who are qualified to do the job you need done. When not out on a job, these people spend their time in training, improving their English, and gaining skills that make them better workers for you while building a brighter future for themselves and their families. So, what’s there to lose, except for that broken fence, or that peeling paint, or the hopelessness that these willing workers have felt in the past?
Tag Archive for family
Fair Game
Sunday is EARTH DAY. It’s a day to celebrate our Earthly home and give some thought to how we can protect it. This kid shows that it can actually be child’s -play:
What a fun day! I didn’t want to go to a stupid old Earth Day Fair. Then Mom told me the game we’d play. I’d pick something there and bring it home to do. So could Shari and Mom and Dad. Shari’s project is dumb. She keeps turning off the light when I’m on the pot too long. I thought the black hose Dad and I set up to heat our pool was really stupid, but it works. Mom put out a birdhouse and feeder but had to move them over ‘cuz of the bird poop. I didn’t know we had that many birds in our neighborhood! My Earth Day thing’s best of all. I put a bunch of worms in a barrel in our backyard and watch them turn stuff into dirt. What’s really fun is the family rule that all of us have to help all the others with their project. That means I get to chase Shari around with a bunch of worms and not get into too much trouble. You oughta try this game. It’s fun!
Health Alert!
Keep the flu out of your home. Not worried? You should be. The CDC says that all states except Hawaii are suffering widespread flu, and the season will continue for at least a couple more months.
This morning, Morning Express on HLN (Headline News) had an expert who offered specific measures we can take BEFORE the flu invades our homes and families. They’re worth repeating here. (Parentheses are my additions.)
- Everyone should wash hands often (use any soap and scrub for 30 seconds–temperature of water doesn’t matter).
- Clean hard surfaces, including all handles (and doorknobs) with an anti-viral cleaning agent (commercial, or, to be eco-friendly, hot water and vinegar or Simple Green).
- Dry hands on paper towels instead of on a community towel. (Minimize the harm to the ecology by buying paper towels made of recycled materials).
- Clean toys, hand-held games, remotes–any solid thing the family touches. (Use that anti-viral cleaning agent.)
- Use a humidifier. Flu germs hate warm, humidified air.
- Gargle green tea.
My main chore today is to flu-proof my home. Please do the same, dear readers.
Be well.
A New Christmas Tradition
Start a new Christmas tradition. Each family member writes down a gift, placing the paper in a special stocking or wrapped box with a slot on top. The gift should be for someone outside your family—a neighbor, another family, acquaintance, person you’ve heard about. And the gift must be of time, not money or goods, a gift of self, not charity. Examples: monthly visits to a nursing home for a year; driving a person to medical appointments until he’s well; helping an adult or child learn English or to read or write; changing the attitude of a prejudiced friend. (I can give you more ideas–let me know.)
Christmas morning, as a family, open and read these “gifts” and agree to help each other follow through on them. This is the kind of gift-giving that is in the true Christmas spirit, ones that make a real difference to the people who receive our gifts as well as to our own hearts.
Have a very merry Christmas!
Advice from an Old President
Today’s Thursday Thought quote reminds all of us–citizens, legislators, world leaders, family members–of what really matters.
“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.” — Bill Clinton
Personal Note: Anniversary
Today would have been my 36th wedding anniversary. The years were filled with “for better” and “for worse,” “sickness” and “health.” We shared bringing new life into this world and seeing cherished loved ones move onto the next. We had some fierce disagreements and did a lot of forgiving–of each other and of ourselves. We enjoyed adventures together and, as we aged, commiserated with the fact that, more and more often, our bodies laughed at us and asked us, “You think you’re going to do WHAT?!” We comforted each other over the estrangement of a friend or relative, then rejoiced with each other over reconciliation with them.
We helped each other adapt to severe changes in our lives, cried mutual tears of joy at our son’s wedding, exchanged laughter and knowing looks when hearing a young person’s exact, well laid-out plans for the future, and had our hearts melt at a wagging tail, four paws, and big brown eyes that say, “I’d love you even if you were to beat me.” We worked as a team through hardship, tragedy, heartbreak, and financial difficulties and came out closer as a result.
The “worse” and “sickness” we vowed to get through was not fun or easy, but we got through it because we had one other. Besides, we always focused on the “better” and the “health,” letting the other simply fade away. That’s called Living Life.
We didn’t have another 35 years together here on Earth, not even an additional four months. He has moved on, leaving me with memories and family who carry on his love for me.
I miss you, Frank, but thank you for the years we did have. And for the memories that sustain me.
The Family Budget as a Weapon
Here, in the middle of the year, many of us are reviewing our family budget to make sure we’re okay until January. This is a good time to take a close look, to see if our spending habits reflect what we say we believe. For example, I believe in human dignity, so shouldn’t I stop buying at that huge discount chain that has been in the news often for mistreating and intimidating their non-documented immigrant employees? I respect how hard local farmers work, so why not buy at farmers’ markets and through co-ops? I may have to pay a little more. But I can save money (and the environment) by walking or car-pooling sometimes. Or by exchanging one night out a month for a family-centered game-night in. I need to make my priorities clear to myself and to the stores and corporations I buy from. They notice how we spend our money. That makes our family budget a potential weapon of mass instruction!
“How Much is that Doggie in the Window?”
When I saw this cartoon on Facebook, I had to pass it on. Something to think about when we’re adding a pet to our family.
https://www.facebook.com/682329048475716/videos/1585615671480378/
A Great Way to Celebrate Earth Day
Here’s something your family can do:
Honor Earth Day, Give Trees for Wildlife
Earth Day is almost here. Get hands-on to help wildlife—while showing politicians you care about addressing climate change—by giving to plant a native tree.
Or better yet, five trees. Or ten!
One of the most direct ways to improve our environment and help struggling species is to plant native trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide—one of the key contributors to climate change—and other pollutant particulates, then store the carbon and release pure oxygen into the atmosphere. And they do this for decades, long after we’re gone.
Trees also lower air temperatures, help conserve energy, and provide wildlife with needed cover, nesting, and food.
Your donation today does even more than put native trees into the ground. Part of your gift will help us fight back against attempts to rollback climate and environmental programs that protect wildlife—and people—from pollution and severe weather events like drought and damaging storms from rising temperatures.
Give $10 to plant a tree, help the climate, and leave a conservation legacy for wildlife.
Our goal this year is to plant 50,000 trees while sending a strong message to the President and Congress that Americans do care about the environment—and that together, we will do our part to improve our communities and wildlife habitats.
Alternatives 33 Years Ago and Today
Why is the news media (and late-night TV hosts) making so much of Kellyanne Conway’s term “alternative facts”? The poor lady just misspoke, didn’t she?
Doesn’t matter. She represents the President, as does the press secretary, who is official spokesperson for him. He doesn’t need people using terms that have this kind of connotation.
Which is, as many people are noting, awfully close to “newspeak,” seen in George Orwell’s book 1984. That term is defined in the Oxford Dictionaries as language that is “designed and controlled by the state in order to suppress free thought, individualism, and happiness.” It is language that totalitarian dictators use in the book to control the masses. Both that term and “alternative facts” twist the facts so that non-facts (we won’t call them “lies”) are touted as facts and then often blindly accepted.
President Trump has enough problems with unfortunate word-choice in his tweets. The people who most closely represent him (outside of his family) are adding to the problem. If he isn’t careful, people will start perceiving him as a self-centered, ego-maniacal, totalitarian dictator rather leader of a free, democratic nation.
Yes, words DO matter.
Meanwhile, copies of 1984 are flying off the shelves of bookstores.