Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 1 - Prepping the car

It's Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, when Catholics (and others) make sacrifice, prayer and almsgiving priorities as we journey to the high holy holiday of Easter.  One thing I've decided to give up is plastic! See my previous post about giving up plastic for Lent.

My first basic steps in reducing our plastic use has to do with prepping my car:

1)  Keep car stocked with reusable shopping bags.  I just plan to leave a bag of bags in the trunk.  I then have to remember to bring them into the store when I shop.  I've noticed I'll remember when I am shopping for food, but I usually don't even think about it when shopping at other types of stores.  The other hard thing to remember is to put the bags back in the trunk after I'm done unloading groceries or whatever else.  So it is a (fairly) new three step habit to get into:  a) put bags in trunk b) remember to take into stores with me 3) remember to put bags back in trunk!

By the way, I got a free bag from these folks.  What a neat community project!

(NB:  Even better!  I've discovered 2 bags I have fold up small enough to comfortably fit in my purse.  Even in my effort to remember bags since last Friday, I actually forgot at one point, but then realized I'd put one in my purse!  Ta da!  Man these little habits are truly hard for me.  Is there something wrong with me????)

2)  I need to remember to keep a water bottle with me.  I am out a lot and need to drink lots of water.  So it should be a regular thing to be taking a newly filled water bottle into the car and then remembering to bring it into the house and wash it, to make it ready for next day's use.  I also need to keep an extra empty water bottle or two in the car just in case any other passengers get thirsty.  I need a place to stow these.  We have about a million cup holders in our mini-van, so this really isn't a problem.  We should learn to fill these when we find a tap we can use or just fill them at fast food places at the soda machine.

I've got the purple one.

We have various water bottles we've collected over the years.  Many are indeed made out of plastic.  I have one expensive one that I bought from Whole Foods several years ago.  It is great EXCEPT I find it hard to get the cap back on quickly.  It is a screw on cap and I have to fight with it a bit to make it twist on evenly.  The plastic water bottles are lighter weight and better for taking on hikes or camping.  We've had a couple of stainless steel water bottles, but I have to admit I do not like the taste of water that has been left in a stainless steel water bottle for a while.  And the bottoms of both bottles got kind of banged up and crushed and one started leaking and the other is so uneven at the bottom it doesn't stand up well on its own.

3)  Coffee travel mugs - I need to bring my coffee or tea with me if I want coffee while I'm out.  I actually do this about 50% of the time anyway, but I need to make it 100%.  Again, an extra travel mug or two is helpful when passengers want a hot drink too.  I've never done this but I hear you can ask Starbucks to fill your travel mug for you, or at places like Panera where the coffee is out already in thermoses.  I would imagine the only problem is making sure you get the right amount of coffee, so that you aren't paying for a small or tall, but then pouring venti or grande into your mug!  I may have to figure out how many ounces are in a travel mug.  We have collected a variety of mugs over the years.  We have a couple that have lost their caps.  I hear you can order new ones!  That's a good idea!

Even though most of water bottles and travel mugs we have now are made of plastic, I plan to intentionally use them for a long period of time and be conscientious about always having them available or just going without a drink!  (Odds are, I am not going to perish from dehydration or lack of caffeine before I can get back to my own home!).  As I need to replace them, I will try to be more conscientious about the plastic.

Just doing these simple things:  avoiding plastic bags, avoiding take out cups, straws and disposable plastic lids is a huge step in the right direction in reducing plastic pollution.  Everybody needs to try to get into these habits!

40 Days of Slaying the Plastic Dragon

This is a plastic bag monster! From the movie Bag It.

I am trying to give up single use disposable plastic for Lent. This might sound silly and overly specific but I recently saw the movie Bag It and it reignited my desire to reduce my consumption of plastic.  A few years ago I read Plastic; A Toxic Love Story which really scared me about plastic.  At the time I got very gung ho and tried to reduce, but I was weak and soon fell away, even to the point where I forgot to bring my own bags with me to the grocery store and would wind up getting bags there.   At Trader Joe's you can at least get paper bags (that's all they have, I believe) but at Giant, my nearest grocery store, if you go through the automatic check out line all they've got is plastic bags.

Anyhoo.  I saw this movie at a new ministry starting up between my parish and another nearby one, called Care for Our Common Home, inspired by Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si.  And as Lent was coming up, I said we should give up plastic!

So I'm trying.  It is an on going process.  It takes a lot of conscientious buying and problem solving.  The first step is to just realize just how much freaking plastic we use every day.  It's horribly wasteful.  Plastic is made from fossil fuels, for crying out loud!  Those are limited resources!  Not to mention the whole geopolitical turmoil going on around oil, etc.  So why are we using a plastic bag that comes from a resource that is irreplaceable, took billions of years to form, gets made into a thin plastic bag that you use to bring home some items from the store and then gets chucked away.  People do try to recycle them, but it turns out they really aren't very recyclable.  You can only recycle down, as they say and the plastic will never go away.  It will just break down into tiny plastic bits.  And it is horrible for the environment.  We have vast amounts of garbage caught in the gyres in the oceans.  It washes up on beaches and it affecting our sea life - to the point that when you eat fish you may be eating plastic!  You gotta see the movie Bag It which is a funny, well done but eye opening documentary on the problem with plastic.

To me, getting rid of single use plastic is an issue we all can come together on.  In fact, there is evidence (probably much disputed, as is anything these days) that plastic with its endocrine disrupters interrupts sexual development, especially in men.  It actually causes men to be more feminine.  It could be our current gender confusion may, in part, be based on pollution!  There are also chemicals used in the processing of plastic that can leech into our foods and some studies say causes things like ADD and autism.  These studies make me pause, but I admit there is a lot of debate and junk science out there on these issues, so I don't know for sure about this, but the pollution and waste and reckless use of limited fossil fuels is a certainty and we should act in response to this.  We pro-lifers should think of the world we are leaving those children we are saving from abortion.

So the first step for me since Lent is coming up is to give up eating out/take out.  We had already decided to do this anyway.  Every time we eat out we at least get a plastic cup for soda or iced tea or water.  Or if the cup isn't plastic itself, the lid and the straw are.  Often the container is plastic.  For instance I like those chicken wraps at Chick Fil A -they come in plastic containers!  Since I am in the car so much, driving hither and yon, it is easy to forget to plan ahead and bring food to eat while we are out or to prepare food at home ahead of time so that when we get home, there's something to eat right away while we are famished!  It is much easier to just swing into a drive through or stop and pick something convenient up.  Of course, that food is usually junk and is bad for us anyway!  I think we'll be much healthier after 40 Days!

Anyway, my plan is to blog every day about my adventures in plastic dragon slaying.

Getting Ready for Lent

I am weird in that I always look forward to Lent.  It might actually be my most meaningful time of the liturgical year.  This is probably because my great weaknesses are my lack of discipline and my tendency to be too soft.  Lent gives me a backbone, raps me on my knuckles, makes me sit up and focus on the truly important things.  Well, it makes me try to focus at least, can't say I am very consistent, even in Lent.

The word that keeps coming to mind when I think of Lent this year is 'reparations.'  I feel called to think in those terms.  The state of the world and the division of our country, calls me to do want to do deep penitential things.  If I could I'd sit on a corner somewhere, in sackcloth and ashes, plucking the hairs of my beard (well, I do that already being post menopausal!) and crying out: Have mercy on me, O Lord, a sinner!

Everyone is planning to give up various things here.  Sweets, eating out, spending so much time on the internet.

I also think we need to have a more structured prayer life going on. At least I do.  So upping prayer time is also important.

I am not sure how approach the almsgiving thing.  Still have to think that through.  The Rice Bowl CRS does never seems to really work for us.  We've got affluenza.  We can just dump change from around the house in the bowl and it is no sacrifice on our part (though of course, CRS appreciates it no matter what).   I know if we don't eat out, we'll probably save money but since I've never kept a budget about it, I have no idea how much money we'd save. I just don't keep track.  I must think about this some more before next Wednesday.

Here's a quote from something I read this morning:

"A man who shuns all self-denial offers to God a cheap religion."

And another:

Lent makes some people feel uncomfortable.  It is good that it should do so.  A comfortable religion is not the highest homage to God.  Our Lord was not very comfortable while on earth.  His true followers must not mind a little voluntary discomfort on the road of life.

Things are looking up for S

I was worried about S back in January.  The community college cancelled not one but two of his three classes he signed up for.  Not enough people signed up for Music Theory II on Saturdays.  S wanted to take that instead of continuing with the same prof he took during the week last semester.  He couldn't stand the guy who he said didn't actually teach anything, liked to joke in a crass and belittling way that fairly mortified S.  S got an A in the course but he taught himself everything.  He's already absolutely fascinated with all things having to do with music theory, so the class is just sort of a formal acknowledgement of his study of the subject.  The other class that got cancelled was his flute lessons.  S is self-taught on flute and has decided that is the instrument he will try to get into music schools with.  He's very intense about studying it.  The flute teacher however is pregnant with twins and couldn't teach the whole semester nor apparently was she allowed to get a sub according to her contract.  So anyway, we went to a local music store with a great reputation and found an excellent flute teacher there.  S really likes her.  She is correcting all his bad habits he developed.  She's also helping with sight reading.

Anyway, S did not have enough to do as the result of these cancellations.  He was looking for a job but wasn't very motivated and after a few strikes out, he seemed to give up entirely.  Then we decided maybe he could fill his time doing good volunteer work, so we began a hunt for that but that petered out too.  I was worried because S's depression often becomes painful around this time of year.   NOt having enough to do seemed fatal.   However, he's been on the thyroid meds and they are helping I think.  It is subtle but things aren't as bad as they have been the last couple of winters.  He is really excited about going to the Berklee 5 Week program this summer and I think being able to look forward to that is buoying him up too.

But the funny thing is that the community college accidentally didn't cancel S's applied music class. Instead somehow he got switched to clarinet instead of flute.  So we got a call last Friday from the head of the music department asking why S was not showing up for his clarinet lessons.  Well, to make a long story short we explained that S was focusing on flute and didn't want to take clarinet (actually he'd love to learn clarinet; he fools around enough on his father's!) because he was afraid he'd mess up his form and technique on flute.  So he wound up taking percussion instead.  He went to his first lesson yesterday and came home so happy.  He loved the teacher and he is truly excited about studying percussion.  He's always been fascinated by it anyway, it just wasn't his main fascination.

So good things going right now for him:

Looking forward to Berklee 5 week this summer
Looking forward to visiting his brother up in Boston over spring break
Liking his flute teacher
Having a goal of getting ready for auditions by December
Enjoying his English class at the community college - this teacher is great! Not like last semester.  Sean really loves to write and he's discovered he is good at it.
Excited about learning percussion formally

So his schedule now is like this:
Mondays - percussion
Prep for English class (and maybe Gov't)
Workout with trainer

Tuesdays
Prep for Gov't class
Gov't class
Do homework for English class (due on line on Tues evening)

Wednesdays
Driving lessons
Work out with trainer

Thursdays
Usually writing essay for English class
English class 4 - 5:15

Fridays
Free (we usually go to Mass at noon)

Saturdays
Flute
work out with trainer

Of course he also does Latin and Religion with me and B.  And he's practicing flute consistently, plus he spends lots of time fooling around on the piano, penny whistle, recorder, harmonica and ocarina,  watching music videos, listening to music, playing with Dylan, skyping with Will and other people, etc.

So things are going well right now for him.  Praise God!

Little Sins Mean A Lot - Book 5

Little Sins Mean A Lot by Elizabeth Scalia (editor of Aleteia.org an on line Catholic magazine I highly recommend) is a meditative journey through all those little faults that derail us every single day:  procrastination, phoning life in instead of being mindful, rushing to judgment, gossiping, inflicting our bad moods on others, getting stuck in a vicious cycle of self-recrimination, etc.   Each chapter addresses one little sin, talks about its significance, analyzes it in a nuanced and honest way, then concludes with quotes from saints and other wise people, and finally with a suggested prayer.

I would recommend this book as a morning meditation to use during Lent.  I read it more as just a book to be read from cover to cover, but I probably didn't do it justice that way.  It really needs to be read more systematically and as a deliberate help to prayer.

Scalia (no relation to the other famous Scalia) wrote a wonderful book I read a while ago, called Strange Gods which affected my thinking about God and modern life very deeply.  This book didn't have quite as much impact on me, but it definitely prodded me to think more about the sins I grapple with every day and long to overcome.  This is a good guide on how to do this, in both a practical and spiritual way.

Two thumbs up for this intelligent, honest, provocative (in a good way!) exploration of every day imperfections!

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Simon the Coldheart - Book 4

This read fulfills my Middle Ages requirement in my blackout bingo reading challenge.  The square just says Middle Ages.  It didn't specify that it had to be written in the Middle Ages or that it had to be nonfiction about the Middle Ages, so I decided to use this as an excuse to read a Georgette Heyer novel that has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for a few years now.

Georgette Heyer is known for her 'Regency Romances' which are set at a much later date than this one.  Simon is a lord during the time of Henry V and his faithful vassal.  Simon starts out as an unacknowledged bastard son of a powerful lord, whose name is Malvallet (Simon has called himself Beauvallet instead).  When Simon was 14 and his mother had passed away, he deliberately goes to his father's greatest rival, Lord Fulk to work for him.  Fulk takes an immediately liking to the cheeky, cocksure, but calm and self-possessed Simon.  Simon soon ingratiates himself into Fulk's family and household.  Simon is strong, made for soldiering, smart, confident and unfailingly honest.  He's a man's man.  Even though they tease him that he is coldhearted because he is so blunt and pragmatic, and because he has no time for women, everyone comes to love him.  He grows, fights battles, wins the admiration of King Henry, gets his own land which he cleverly takes charge of.  All that is the first half of the book and I liked it the best.

The second half of the book gets into the romance.  I don't think Heyer pulled this off as well as she does for her many other books.  Simon is helping Henry V in his campaign in Normandy (this is after Agincourt) and must take the town of Belremy, the province of Lady Margaret, known as the Amazon for her fearlessness.  Simon has met his match.  There are many exciting turns of events and well, guess what happens at the end?

I thought that Margaret's character was not nearly as developed as Simon's.  I actually kind of liked her maid Jeanne better than her.  And the final love scene went on way too long.

But it was an enjoyable read, written in a style reminiscent of a Medieval saga, with an occasional reference to Shakespeare thrown in.  I am glad that I finally read this book.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Plans for Next Year

Next year, S will be graduated from homeschool high school and fully enrolled at the community college.  His goal is to audition for Berklee in December 2017.  If he gets in, that means he wouldn't start until the next fall.  We want him to get transferrable courses out of the way, to reduce costs of attending.  You can't transfer music classes but you can transfer everything else.  He's already got Composition I and II under his belt (or will have this spring).  Lately he's gotten more interested in Astronomy so he says he wants to take that at the CC.  He also loves to write, so he might take another English or Communications course.  He might want to get a college math out of the way too.  And he'll probably try to take Music Theory II, which won't transfer but will help him both with the audition and creating a transcript that shows he is very interested in music.

Of course, if he doesn't get in, he can continue with the CC classes and try again at Berklee the next time local auditions come around.  Either way, he'll be in school working towards something.  Also, now he is taking private flute lessons, but he might switch to taking them at the CC and also trying to get into an ensemble there again.

So I will be down to one homeschooler!  Fortunately she loves homeschooling and is a very self-directed person.

Plans for B - 11th grade

I wanted to teach an Ancient History and Literature course at our local co-op.  However, the odds are that that won't fly.  So if it doesn't:

Ancient history - with me watching first half of the Great Courses History of Western Civ.  I always want some kind of product other than just watching a lecture so we'll build a time line.  And I hope to supplement with some field trips.

Literature - B does not want to take the lit courses offered at the co-op either.  So I think she might take a lit/writing course from Homeschool Connections.  So far she's taken Public Speaking, Mythology and currently the Drama and the Human Spirit.  She loves Kevin O'Brien the teacher, so I bet she'd want to take another course offered by him.  If that doesn't work, something else they offer.

Math - Algebra II with her current tutor, hopefully.

Science - B does not want to take chemistry at the co-op either, but she is really excited about studying Environmental Science.  So Homeschool Connections has a recorded 1 semester class that she could follow.  I also found something called The Habitable Planet at Annenberg Learner which looks like it could work too.  She would have to do some hands on things too and maybe we could work a field trip or two in as well, for this course.  She's excited about designing her own thing.

Language - I told B she didn't have to study Latin anymore after this year.  So for language, she is thinking of doing a sign language course.  Gallaudet has an online course which looks good.

Religion/philosophy - I think we'll read Aristotle for Everybody for philosophy and continue in our Theology and Science text (which I hope to start in a month or so).

But B is very social and she needs to attend the co-op just to see her friends there.  So probably she'll take the SAT prep class which is offered one semester and a personal finance class offer the next semester.  For social stuff, she'll also have AHG, youth group and just hanging with friends.

She'll be working on her driver's license (yikes, my baby!).  I am going to require that she attend some kind of dance class for PE.  She had swing dance with the homeschool group and lots of dance when she was in The Music Man last year, but this year she really hasn't done anything.  She needs regular PE and dance is the thing she likes best.

She will continue on with voice and her voice teacher really wants her to join a choir.  Our 10:00 Sunday choir is really good, so I think she needs to start with them this coming fall.  I know they practice on Wednesday evenings.

And then she is probably going to want to be involved in the local community theater again, as she has been for the last few years.  I know they have 42nd Street this summer and she hopes to get into that.  They are also planning to put on Man of La Mancha in the fall.  That could be fun!  But B might decide to just volunteer to do make up or stuff back stage instead of being in the actual show.

So video/self design - science, history, religion/philosophy

On line - Sign Language, literature/writing

Tutor - math

Co-op - SAT prep and personal finance (hopefully this will be offered)

Voice, dance, musical theater, driver's ed, choir, youth group, AHG