Organizing and Finding Things

[livingdeb]

It's all very fine to read about cool small houses, but after a while I sometimes look at my own house and think it needs to be cooler.

Yesterday I did two loads of laundry and two loads of dishes. Then I cleaned up my stuff around the part of the house where we just throw stuff when we come in the door. (No, it is not shaped like a basketball hoop.) I found library books and a check (for $50) among other things. I also cleaned out my backpack.

Most things went in the recycle bin or trash can. I also finally put away the "gifts" I got when I got my new air conditioner and furnace. Financial items got filed. And I added about three more inches to a stack of paper in the office that needs to be dealt with.

Today I wasn't quite ready in time to go play ultimate. So I decided to work in my "garden." I watered my flower box. I dug out all the plants between two plants where it's difficult to get the mower and transplanted some wildflowers that are bound to get mowed into that area. I don't think they're going to survive, though. I pulled out johnson grass and beggar's lice from next to the driveway and from the rose garden. I slapped at a lot of flies that looked like house flies but were biting me. I may have accidentally hurt some earthworms.

And I found my old glasses. On the ground in the rose garden. I like to hang them in the neck of my shirt, but when I bend over (say, to pull weeds), they sometimes fall out. In this case, they fell into the soft plant life, making not a sound. Stupid gardening.

I returned the library books. Then I went grocery shopping (where I forgot to get more sour cream) and remembered to bring shopping bags. I keep getting these fabric over-the-shoulder bags from conferences, so I put all but one into the other one and brought that to the store. It worked fairly well. It's hard to keep fabric bags open while loading them, but the sacker managed. And he stuffed everything into one bag, which I like. I really hate when they put only one or two things into a bag, especially when the thing already has a better handle than the bag does.

Then I cooked some taco meat with another recipe that will not be a keeper. I did two loads of laundry and a last load of dishes.

Then I went out to eat with R and two people I sort of know from ballroom dancing: C and S. C and I shared the macaroni and cheese at Z Tejas, and S and R shared a shrimp appetizer (in addition to their regular dishes). I also had chips and queso and cornbread and butter for a fully yellow meal. I still haven't found my ideal Z Tejas meal (except that it should have an apple muffin).

I might have learned more about those two today than the total amount I already knew. I still like them--that's good.

And now I've written. Who knows what other thrills await me today.

Comments

bag pet peeve

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

I too hate when the baggers put one or two items in a bag. I almost always bring my own bags, and at Whole Foods, Sun Harvest, and Wheatsville, the staff are happy to use non-disposable (cloth) bags or reuse plastic bags (or a combination of the two). But at HEB, the staff just seem dumbfounded by the notion of reusing plastic bags, and by cloth bags in general. Recently I had one remark, disapprovingly, that the bags I'd brought looked as if they were really old; they weren't, and I concluded that she said that because they were wrinkled, as a large number had been stuffed into another bag for storage. They always seem to take a very long time to bag if I use the cloth bags, and I understand that they have no incentive to use them, and that it does require extra effort, because the bags don't, as you point out, support themselves as the brand-spanking-new plastic ones on their little dispensers do. (Customer satisfaction could fall under the rubrik of incentive, as could personal or corporate endorsement of environmentally conscious practices, but I don't see HEB being supportive of such resource-sparing activities.) So unless I do it myself or kind of micromanage the bagging process, they'll end up using the cloth bags very uninventively and then start one-item-bagging to finish up the job. And that I find quite upsetting.

Re: bag pet peeve

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

On this trip, I just opened it and put some boxes in to hold it half open. I think opening their eyes to the possibilities is a good idea, but I agree that there could be days when you're just not in the mood.

It has occurred to me to make cloth bags (from old clothes that I don't want to get rid of) in the shape of the plastic bags so that they will fit on the little racks.