SYW: Ideal Me, Responsibility, Going Green, & Art

August 4, 2022 / amoralegria / Leave a comment

Melanie has a new set of questions this week for Share Your World.

QUESTIONS

Do you ever feel more excited about getting the package in the mail, rather than the item that’s in it?
Sometimes. It is fun to shop online because I get the package in the mail and that’s exciting.

What is the difference between your ideal self and your real self? (i.e. what attribute or physical feature would allow you feel the ideal ‘you’?)
It would take many pages to thoroughly answer this question! Physically, I’m okay except I need to lose about 15 lbs. I would be more my “ideal” self if I didn’t have ADHD. My life would have taken a different trajectory if I had had the self-confidence to make decisions and be happy with them. For most of my life, I didn’t know why I was the way I was – low self-esteem, forgetful, lack of consistency, always losing things. I got distracted in class so I didn’t do as well in my classes as I might have. I didn’t get a diagnosis of ADHD until 2007, when it was too late for me to take the most effective meds (because by then, I had a heart problem). But at least I understood myself after that, and I was nicer to myself.

I now am relatively satisfied with my life. I think that happens often to people when they enter their senior years. I am not going to be a famous author and my teaching years are over, so I will never have the chance to be a much better teacher. But being retired, I do a lot of things that I want to do and no one judges me. I have come back to a childhood interest, which is art. I sing in two choirs. I am in two writing groups and 3 reading groups. I write my blog when I feel like it. I travel and look forward to upcoming trips. I have lots of new friends in the senior community where my husband and I live now, and I love the little house (basically a duplex) where we live. I have everything I need and want (well, mostly).

If you found $2,000 on the ground and there were no witnesses, what would you do with it?
I once found $100 on the grass outside a restaurant and carried around that $100 bill for months. I was going to just spend it – after all, there was no way to trace whose it was. But when I talked to my sister, she said whenever she found money, she would give that same amount to a charity. I thought that was a good idea.

Much as I would like to just use the $2000 for a trip, I would probably feel compelled to donate at least part of it (I’m more selfish than my sister!). So maybe I’d use half for my travel fund and give half to a worthy cause.

Are you ever morally obliged to take action? Under what circumstances?
If you witness a crime, you should report it, or if possible, intervene to stop it (without endangering your life). But at least report the crime to the police.

I think I am also morally obligated to do something to help the cause of saving our planet from the effects of human-caused climate change. I don’t do much – just small things, but I will write a letter to the newspaper to counter a denier of human caused climate change. If I ever get a new car, it will be an electric car. (Right now I drive a hybrid – a Toyota Prius, which gets 50 miles to the gallon). I belong to a committee to promote awareness about recycling and doing things to help the planet or our community to become more “green.” I recycle. My husband and I collect Styrofoam from people (which cannot be recycled in most instances) and then take a carload to a company that’s over 40 miles away, to recycle it. It’s the Dart Company, which makes Styrofoam. I tell everyone I know to save the Styrofoam containers they get and give them to us. Dart has four huge bins on the edge of their premises where people come to recycle their Styrofoam. It warms my heart to see that the bins are usually full to overflowing, which means other conscientious people are bringing their Styrofoam there too! There are many small ways that people can become involved – refuse straws & plastic utensils, don’t litter throwaway masks, recycle not just paper and the other materials that one’s community accepts, but also donate old clothes to resale places. Better yet, don’t buy new clothes in the first place (this is a hard one for me!). Compost if you can.

Reduce – Reuse – Recycle – Refuse

GRATITUDE SECTION
Please feel free to share how last week went for you. Bright or not so bright spots?

Not so bright: I wasted too much time playing games on my phone, which is a strain on my eyes and I can barely read a book after that!
Bright: I’m making birthday cards for my friends and have developed a sort of style for these cards. I am hoping to make a couple of sets to sell at a craft and vendor sale at my church. Here’s an example:

SYW: Laughter, Music, Soaring, and Conservation

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

Melanie has some great questions this week for Share Your World!

QUESTIONS

How do you tell if someone has a sense of humor?
If they laugh a lot. I know a woman who has the most unique laugh, and when I hear that laugh across the room, I know it’s her. She laughs often and when I’m with her I try to say funny things so I can hear her laugh!

What sort of music do you prefer?
Prefer: Right now, classical, but my tastes change sometimes. I also like rock, especially the Beatles (I have the Beatles Channel on my XM radio in the car). I like folk, blues, and world music of all types. This month, I’m hearing a lot of Celtic music! As for jazz, I only like certain kinds. I like big band and Dixieland but not “improvisational” jazz which just goes on and on. I get tired of it. But usually I choose classical or certain vocal groups, such as the Angel City Chorale (this group sings just about anything).

Thoughts on gravy or ‘sauce”? Yea or nay?

I like some sauces, especially salsa if it’s mild (my digestive system doesn’t tolerate anything spicy) and has fruit like mango added to it. Gravy is okay, I don’t use it unless the meat is really dry – too many empty calories!

Would you enjoy a hot air balloon ride?

I’m not sure…I have had opportunities to go on them, for an additional cost, during tours when I’m traveling. But my husband is afraid of heights and absolutely would never go on one. So unless I had someone to go with, I probably wouldn’t. I guess I’m neutral.

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GRATITUDE SECTION (As always, optional)

What do you think is widely taken for granted?

The goods and services we enjoy in our society. We never thank anyone for the water that automatically comes out of our faucets when we turn on the tap. We don’t thank anyone for the electricity that powers our lights and electronics. I am reading a fantastic book, Braiding Sweetgrass, in which I found out that many Native American tribes thank everything they use – the animals they kill and use every part of, the trees which provide so much more than just shade, and plants that provide them with food. Saying grace before a meal is a good – but, I fear, dying – custom. It seems the more we have, the more we want and the more we take it all for granted. This is, I’m afraid, is what makes people reluctant to conserve – to reduce, reuse, and recycle – in order to save our precious resources.

CBWC: Plastics

February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 / amoralegria / 3 Comments

The topic of Cee’s Black & White Challenge this week is plastic. So many things are made of plastic these days that one could probably find something plastic in almost any photo taken in human-made situations! Plastic takes up to 500 years to decompose and even then, it is reduced to microscopic pellets that enter the digestive systems of fish, birds, mammals, and eventually, humans. So here are some photos of plastic things, which eventually will be discarded, end up in a landfill somewhere or the ocean and…well, you know.

This is the top of a bottle with a hole for the straw that comes with it. The top without a hole was lost!

I am pretty sure that the dinosaurs on display at the Brookfield Zoo were (at least in part) made of plastic!

My niece turned 50 and this was put on her cake.

Alzheimer’s Awareness at The Moorings. The fitness instructor (she’s under the arch!) blew
up all these purple balloons herself! I’m pretty sure she had a machine.

A plastic container with rolls of licorice inside.

Please, when possible, RECYCLE (look for the numbers 1-5 in the recycling triangle symbol & check your community’s recycling program to find out which numbers they’ll take), REUSE whenever you can, and REDUCE the plastic items you buy or acquire (difficult to do, I know) – one way to do this is bring your own cloth or woven plastic reusable bags to the store when you shop so you don’t use the plastic bags supermarkets tend to put your groceries in.

SYW: The Best & Worst of Our Society and The Holiday Season

December 11, 2021December 11, 2021 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

Melanie’s Share Your World for this first week in December has some interesting questions.

What really turns your stomach? (politicians aside)
Cockroaches. They are the most disgusting species on Earth!

(Although I am in complete agreement with Fandango’s response to this question, I’m not going to write the same thing. I made a comment on his post.)

What would YOU do with the immense amount of ‘garbage’ in the world, if there weren’t dumps or barges (Sorry New York/New Jersey) where it was taken to be processed?
This is a relevant question about an urgent problem worldwide! It’s also a difficult dilemma. They used to ship plastic for recycling to China, but China isn’t accepting it anymore. I have heard that only 15% of recyclables actually get recycled. So is it worth doing it? Yes, because there are innovations happening all the time that might lead to more of it being truly recyclable. And it makes me feel good. Our society is moving inexorably toward a “green” society in spite of delay and resistance, and while a few people might invent something or lead the way, all of us can do our own little part.

Meanwhile, I recycle whatever this city’s recycling service allows. I don’t compost now because I don’t really have a place to do it since we moved to a senior community, although some residents do. I take reusable bags to the supermarket and do not accept those flimsy plastic bags most of them use. (If I forget my bags, I insist they use paper.)
I also take mesh bags for vegetables and fruits and try to stay away from single-use plastics. I cut any discarded plastic rings so animals don’t get caught in them. I could do a lot more, and I’m working on it (and working on my husband to do it too!)

What’s the oddest container you’ve ever gotten a gift in?
I don’t remember if I ever did – I guess it didn’t make a big impression on me if I did. However, a few days ago, I got a large, bulky FedEx envelope (the recyclable kind! 🙂 ) which turned out to contain two duffel bags on wheels and two water bottles from our tour company to use on a safari I booked!

Do people behave differently during Christmas (insert your own holiday or festive season)?
Do they try to be better?
Do you donate something (money, clothes…) to charities?
Do you give something to homeless people?
Some people are more generous during the holiday season – it seems to be a time when we think about giving donations to our favorite charities. One year I actually made three kinds of Christmas cookies – that is not my normal behavior at all!! So I guess that to the first question, I say yes, but with reservation, because the same sh** is still going on in this polarized country.

I do have a few favorite charities, and I send a donation to them at this time of year, but not only at this time of year. But I can’t give to even 1% of the charities that solicit money in my mail every day. So I say a definite “yes” to charity-giving.

I don’t do anything for homeless people currently. I was/am the coordinator at my church to get volunteers to work at our local homeless shelter, but since Covid arrived, those shelters are closed (and with the stimulus money they got, they are putting people up in hotels). People have given me interesting suggestions for giving to people that approach my car when I’m at a stoplight, such as buy a bunch of McDonald’s gift cards to keep in my car or carry with me and give them to homeless people, so I know they will use it for food. I haven’t done this, though!

GRATITUDE SECTION (As always, optional)
This is an allegedly joyful time of year. How do you, personally, FEEL?
Lazy! My husband is Jewish, so during Hanukkah, we light the candles each night and since it was earlier than usual this year, I refrained from any kind of decorating for Christmas until it was over. Well, it’s been over for almost a week and still I haven’t taken my new Christmas tree out of the box, set up my creches, or addressed holiday cards. It’s Saturday so I should probably make some time for some of these things today, but here I am blogging on my computer. But I’ve been so busy lately that blogging is a rare treat!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ONE AND ALL!!

CFFC & Square Up: Stacked or Piled Up

January 27, 2021 / amoralegria / 6 Comments

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic Stacked or Piled Up, so it can also be used for Becky’s Square Up January challenge!

LAPC: The Objects of My Every Day

August 25, 2020 / amoralegria / 7 Comments

P.A. Moed is the host for this week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge: Everyday Objects.

I bought this little metal sculpture of a javelina at a street fair in Tucson, Arizona. Its home is in front of my fireplace. One of my cat’s toys is under her chin right now. (My cat’s favorite toys are balls that she rolls around the house until they get stuck somewhere.)

This is one of my ‘Covid-19 pandemic’ pictures. Our food is delivered to our door every day and often includes either bananas or oranges.

Another ‘Covid-19 pandemic’ picture – we had accumulated several masks and a pair of plastic gloves that had been sitting around forever, so I found a little basket to put the masks in. Now we always know where to find a clean mask!

Two photos of the Styrofoam containers we’ve been collecting, which our meals are delivered in. There are very few places that recycle Styrofoam, and it’s such a waste, so once we found a place that recycles it (actually the company that makes these containers) we started collecting our Styrofoam packaging, and we’ve pooled our collection with other residents here. About once every two months, a couple of people will take a run out to the company with all our recyclables – it’s about 25 miles from here!

I originally took this photo for another photo challenge – maybe favorite snacks?

Another pandemic picture from early in the lockdown – our TV set, mounted on the wall, tuned to our community’s closed caption channel which that day was broadcasting a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

An everyday object – a pencil – in an unusual place: stuck in a display of evergreens.

Here’s a gallery of some things I’ve photographed in the past.

Everyday objects for people in the past, taken at a windmill museum in Holland.

CFFC: Greens

November 3, 2019November 3, 2019 / amoralegria / 2 Comments

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is my favorite color: Green!!

Here’s an essay I wrote years ago about green, in a series about colors. Yes, I know this is a PHOTO challenge but I am going to try to combine the photos and narrative.

Green is the best color because it is the color of nature: plants and trees are green.

Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA

When it rains, everything looks greener than ever.

Above Omaha Beach, Normandy, France the day after a rainstorm

In fact, “green” is the new code word for the environmentally conscious. If you are green, you are committed to recycling and conserving the natural resources of our Earth.

I knew I would find something like this in Copenhagen! In the hotel room, a recycling wastebasket!

Green is a combination of two primary colors, blue and yellow, so it has the coolness of blue and the brightness of yellow.

One of Monet’s most famous water lilies paintings shows how an artist mixes and juxtaposes colors to get the desired effect. Various shades of blue and green with splashes of brighter colors make this painting feel cool, lush and pleasing. This painting hangs at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

There are many hues of green, created by adding more blue for a deeper, darker green or more yellow for a lighter or brighter green.

This special exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam uses multi-media to take us into the world of Vincent Van Gogh.

Green is everywhere. It’s the color of land on a globe because the land looks green from space.
It’s the color of leaves in the summer …

and pine trees all year round. (Both photos taken in northern Wisconsin.)

It’s one of the colors of Christmas!

At Macy’s on State St. in Chicago, Dec. 2018

When I see a stand of evergreens, I smell the aroma associated with them – the sharp smell of pine. Pine candles are green and I love to smell them!

Scene on the Bearskin Bike Trail in northern Wisconsin

Green is the color of many good things to eat: lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas, beans, sweet peppers. These foods are healthy too, so it’s important to eat them every day. Green represents how plants eat: chlorophyll makes leaves green and it is chlorophyll that captures energy from sunlight and converts it into food for the plant. We humans get some of this energy when we eat green foods.

This is a great book! I recommend it to anyone who desires to eat sensibly and environmentally friendly.

Humans can learn a lesson from the plants and capture sunlight for our own energy needs. In a greenhouse, sunlight comes in and keeps plants warm as well as provides energy for them to stay healthy. We too can be “green” by eating healthy foods, consuming renewable energy from the sun, and enjoying the beauties of nature: the brown earth, the green grass and plants, and the multitude of colors of flowers, birds, butterflies and other creatures.

Butterfly garden, Chicago Botanic Garden, July 2018

People who like green will use green for things in their daily life – drive a green car, wear green clothes, or maybe paint a door green!

Passau, Germany

American cemeteries are usually covered in green grass which is kept neatly mowed. Green is often conducive for quiet contemplation.

More than 9,000 men were buried at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. All died during the Battle of Normandy which started on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

French cemeteries are not covered with green grass, but loved ones of the deceased often decorate their graves with flowering plants. This cemetery is at Merville-Franceville-Plage.

Wanderlust & Wonderment

My writing and photo journey of inspiration and discovery

recycling

CBWC: Plastics

CFFC & Square Up: Stacked or Piled Up

LAPC: The Objects of My Every Day