The Garden Shedde

My husband and I love books. We have a collection of books that would make most people jealous. However, as we were looking through our books a few months ago to give away the surplus, and discovered that we seldom go back and reread a book once we have read it the first time. Though there are exceptions to this, they are rare. After tallying up the amount of books that we were ready to give to the next reader and applying a modest eight dollar per book price, it was astounding at how much we have spent for books over the past five years!

I told my husband then that we needed to change our habit before just buying a book and check and see if it was available at the library first. He agreed and confessed he didn’t even have a library card. The next week he went down and corrected that as well as spent several hours strolling up and down the isles of the main library in our town. Though he didn’t initially check out a book he has since found out that you can look and hold books online for future pickup and I think he has fallen in love with the library as this has become a weekly trek. I am counting the money we save one book at a time!

I was recently thinking about gifts my mother has given me. I have a great mother and she has fortunately given me several wonderful gifts, but one gift that I sometimes overlook just because it is almost so obvious, has really had a profound effect on me is the gift of travel. If someone were to ask me where I got the traveling bug from, it would be a no brainer – my mom. We were exposed to new cultures and new environments early on in life. As a child, I may have not been the most receptive and excited about all the trips, but in retrospect I see how they have influenced my life and taught me so much about the world and those around me.

First hand exposure to new places and people are the best way to learn about them. I believe everyone should have that chance. In a world where so many people can be so close-minded and ignorant, the opportunity to interact with different cultures and people enlightens us. Traveling is a tool we can all use to open up our minds. One day I will have the chance to spread my love of traveling to my children. I can hardly wait!

I recently spent a week with my aunt who is a real conservationist. By that I mean this is a woman who stands on her convictions to leave the planet a better place than when she got here. She and her husband live on a small homestead outside of Austin, TX and, if you have been listening to any weather this year, they have been going through terrible drought conditions. They have even had to ratio their water for bathing and washing dishes and clothes because of a wealthy neighbor who has drilled a water well about 500 feet more than others in the area and he has drained their water source to water his lawn.

Though my aunt could raise Cain with her neighbor she believes this is a good drill for hard times. She washes clothes and dishes by hand, keeps water outside for livestock and other wild creatures in the area, keeps their house a balmy 85 degrees and has a great outlook on life in general. They use the windmill on the property and she laughs about the “new” wind energy since windmills have been used for years to pump water. The last thing she said to me was the younger generation might learn a thing or two if they would just ask some old coots what worked in their day; after all, before modern technology, they still lived well.

In my lifetime I have known several people who have suffered from multiple sclerosis or commonly know as MS. Both of the people I know who have this disease are male; one in his fifties and diagnosed in his early forties and the other a 7 year old I taught how to swim many years ago. What I never knew was that men are less likely to get this disease than women and the most diagnosed group are women between the ages of 20 and 34.

Wikipedia defines MS as “is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune response attacks a person’s central nervous system (brain and spinal cord).Disease onset usually occurs in young adults, and it is more common in females. It has a prevalence that ranges between 2 and 150 per 100,000.”

MS is not curable at this time but can be managed and people with the disease have the same life span as those without. While this is very good news, it’s the quality of life that can be improved on with the right medications, physical therapy and professional and family support systems and living well with this disease is the goal.

In this day and age when the economy is getting hit hard and we are getting hit harder with bills, it just pays to start thinking green. I recently got a notice in the mail that the water department was going to start charging extra if we went over the allotted water limit per household. I guess at that moment, my beautiful green luscious yard was a curse although I had never seen it that way previously. How was I going to stay under my limit when my veggies and grass need its daily watering?

Thank goodness for the internet and searching for ‘green gardening’ because I found a couple things that have worked wonders for me. First I ordered a collapsible rain barrel that could easily be set up to catch runoff from the gutter and be hooked up to the lawn hose – a simple way to recycle water! And why stop with just recycling water when there is so much that I was throwing out from the fridge that could be used in a compost bin. I’m glad to say my yard has been able to stay ‘luscious’ even in these hard times thanks to these products.

I’ve gotta say one of the best highlights of my day is when I get to open my mailbox and see that there is actually something other than a bill or junk mail waiting for me. Whatever the reason is for people not sending ‘snail mail’ anymore, the postcard blows any excuse out of the water. For one, the stamps are cheaper and secondly, you don’t have to write more than ‘hi, enjoy the picture.’ I am one of those people, though, that can somehow write an essay on that 4 by 6 card. It is a gift.

In an age where technology has limited human interaction, it’s just nice to know that someone took a moment during their vacation to send me a snap of what they were enjoying. Maybe it’s because I’m a traveler at heart and these postcards inspire me to book that next flight and maybe because it’s nice to see actual ink hit paper and the tiny flaws that make us human. Advice to the next traveler who might what to spread some mailbox love, before you fly, print all the address labels of those you plan on mailing – this peel and stick will save you tons of time.

Personally, I use Facebook for one thing and one thing only, keep up with family and friends. However, I have been contacted by people who I don’t want to talk to anymore from past lives that I have no interest in anymore and have no idea if I should or should not “friend” them? I thought I was the only person who felt this way until I had a conversation with one of my sons who has the same issue from people from past schools. With this information I took a very unscientific survey and here is what I found from the ten people I asked.

2 – did not respond at all to the question
6 – had issues of being contacted from people who either they did not want to talk to or from people who just wanted access to their “friend” list to contact someone else with no intention of talking to them.
1 – who had no issues
1 – hate Facebook and ignores their account

So from this information, it seems the majority of people would like to have better control of who can “friend” them or at least a “no offense” way of saying “no, I don’t want to be friends with you.”