To Occupy my Time – Page 247

17 ways to live happily…weight

Maintain your weight.

I’m not the most successful with this item, but I know that maintaining your weight is a very good way to save money. First, you aren’t eating more than you need, so your food bills might be a little less. Secondly, your heath will benefit. Even overweight people are better off maintaining their weight rather than getting caught in the yo-yo cycle where they gain and lose large amounts of weight. Thirdly, when you maintain your weight you can wear your clothing until you wear it out.

Shorpy. Why I love it and why you should love it, too.

I can thank Shawn Levy, the Oregonian movie critic, for introducing me to Shorpy. It’s a website where Dave cleans up old photos in the public domain and posts them. Why do you care? Because old photos are awesome and full of fun detail you can spend hours examining. Take a look at these two:

Clackers, 1920

Office Xmas Party 1925

The Kodachromes are particularly fabulous:

Young America: 1959

But the best part about this site is the reader comments. “What is that object back there on the wall?” someone will ask. Then, some knowledgeable antique dealer will pipe up that the object is a westinghouse wind up clock with hidden flask or whatever. In fact, I enjoy the comments so much that when I go to the site, I bypass the posted pictures and head straight for “recent comments” where I click through and see what people have been chattering about. Often times when streetscapes from the past are published someone will take the time to find the same location on Google’s Street View. Sometimes someone else will pipe up that they live right around the corner.

The only thing I don’t like about the site is that things aren’t very searchable and Dave can be a bit cantankerous, but aside from those two things Shorpy has provided me with hours of delight.

I rock the bike commute challenge.

Every September, the BTA sponsors the Bike Commute Challenge. Last year my workplace participated, to my delight. We have three (of a total full-time staff of nine) employees who are pretty regular bike commuters. My goal was to not miss a day.

I was successful. Here are my stats:

21 trips

100% commute rate

184.0 miles

9016 Calories Burned

CO2 Saved (lbs) 180

I’d like to point out that of the three bike commuters, I live the farthest away. So doubly good job me.

My goal for the rest of the year: Bike to and from work on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Letters written in September

I wrote to “No one” a lot this month–getting adjusted to school. Sara, my faithful correspondent started school and ran out of time for real letters, but kept my mailbox full of postcards. That was fun.

1 September. Debra Gwartney (wrote a column about Kung Fu Panda)
2 September. Sara
3 September. Sara
4 September. Postcard Deborah
5 September. Postcard Sara
6 September. Sara
**Letter back Jan
**2 Postcards Sara
7 September. No one
8 September. Sara
** Letter Back Sara
**4 postcards Sara
9 September. Sara
10 September. Mom–postcard
11 September. Sara
12 September. Sara
13 September. No one
14 September. No one
15 September. Sara
**Letter back Sara
16 September. Sara
17 September. No one
18 September. Jenna
19 September. LEX Dorothy
20 September. No one
**Letter back LEX Diane (food)
21 September. No one
22 September. LEX Diane (movies)
** Postcard Sara
23 September. No one
24 September. Jan
25 September. Sara
** Letter back LEX Gerry
** 2 postcards, Sara
26 September. Leath!
27 September. Jan
28 September. Sara
29 September. Sara
30 September. Mom, Kelly

17 ways to live happily…clothing.

Avoid new clothes.
Clothes cost a lot of money. And really, how many times do you wear that item before you are done with it? I don’t really like to spend very much money on clothing, but I also don’t like cheaply constructed clothing. The solution: your local thrift or consignment store. By doing all your shopping at either of those two places you will save a bundle. It may not be the latest, latest fashion, but really, do you keep up with fashion that much? I thought not. You just want clean, presentable, comfortable clothes that don’t scream 1976. My exceptions: underwear, bras and shoes

A poem.

Laundry
George Bilgere
from The Good Kiss
The University of Akron Press, 2002.

My mother stands in this black
And white arrangement of shadows
In the sunny backyard of her marriage,
Struggling to pin the white ghosts
Of her family on the line.
I watch from my blanket on the grass
As my mother’s blouses lift and billow,
Bursting with the day.
My father’s white work shirts
Wave their empty sleeves at me,
And my own little shirts and pants
Flap and exult like flags
In the immaculate light.

It is mid-century, and the future lies
Just beyond the white borders
Of this snapshot; soon that wind
Will get the better of her
And her marriage.
Soon the future I live in will break
Through those borders and make
A photograph of her-but

For now the shirts and blouses
Are joyous with her in the yard
As she stands with a wooden clothespin
In her mouth, struggling to keep
The bed sheets from blowing away.

This was the featured poem in The Writer’s Almanac, which is a happy part of my day. It could be a happy part of your day too; if you subscribe, they will send it by email every day. Anyway, one of the reasons I enjoy hanging laundry out to dry is that I feel a connection to the millions upon billions of women who have been hanging laundry to dry both in the past and today. I don’t get that so much with the dryer.

Letters

From the Writers Almanac 9/19/08

“It was on this day in 1846 that the poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning eloped to Italy. In January of 1845, Robert Browning sent a letter to Elizabeth Barrett. He had just read her book Poems (1844) and he said: “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett. … I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart — and I love you too.” They started writing letters, and they met four months later. Barrett was 40 years old, an invalid; her father didn’t let her leave the house, and she only saw a few people outside her immediate family. Browning was 34, worldly, and athletic. They fell in love. Between Browning’s first letter and their elopement, they exchanged 574 letters. Barrett’s father didn’t believe that any of his children should get married, so after a secret wedding a week earlier, the couple fled to Italy and lived happily there.”

Yet another reason that writing letters is a good way to spend your time–romantic elopement with a worldly and athletic man.

17 ways to live happily…

Live on the dull edge of technology.

Do you need to be a complete Luddite to live happily on your salary? Nope. But if you resist buying each gizmo and gadget when it comes on the market, you will save yourself a lot of money. Better yet, make friends with someone who is always on the cutting edge of technology, and gives you their castoffs. Flat screen TV? HD DVD? Don’t buy one right now. Wait a few years to see if that technology is still going strong. When I was in elementary school scooters became really popular. Both my brother and I really wanted one but our parents told us to wait a year or two because they thought it was a fad. We were sure that scooters were here to say, but it turned out that no one even rode a scooter a year or so later.

17 ways to live happily…Library!

Love your library.

It really amazes me that people buy books. There is a lovely institution in nearly every town where they will just let you take home your books (and DVDs and CDs and magazine and sometimes tools) for free. I read a lot, and take a lot of books out of the library, and what I most love is that I don’t have to read any book I check out because I didn’t buy any of them. I can grab something that looks promising and give it back if my interest wanes after 50 pages. When I do buy books, they have a different vibe. I must read the entire thing because my hard-earned money was used to obtain it.

I also find I am often paralyzed in the video rental store. Should I spend $4.00 on this movie or that. The library has rescued me from this dilemma. I just reserve the movies I want to see and when they arrive, the library lets me know. Voila! Instant free entertainment. Check out all the things your library will give you for free.

(Boise Readers will note the shout-out to the Boise Public Library! where I spent many happy hours.)

O!

I think that the expression used throughout 19th century literature should be brought back.

As in: O! The joy! Or: O! The Humanity! Or: O! I do wish Pandora Radio would stop playing so much Bob Seger!

I was pretty happy when the Lewis & Clark commemorative nickles came out.

Ocean in view! O! The joy!

Although the Miss Peller in me wished they would have kept the original spelling of “ociean”

picture from the US Mint.