Wednesday, May 7, 2014

NOT EVERYTHING is better with bacon!

Oh what a sad thought, that not everything could be improved with bacon.  For a while, I was improving everything with bacon.  Chocolate was wonderfully better if it was on bacon (and wasn't bacon SO much better with the chocolate all over it!??)  Pasta is better with bacon (national dish of italy... pasta carbonnara), and so is salad.  And nearly every sandwich is improved with the addition of bacon.

But... I figured there was an end to this wonderfulness somewhere.  And I found it.

Grilled cheese is NOT better with bacon.  Neither is a quesadilla.  Yes, I know that many people are making exactly that type of combination as a current popular dish.  But it doesn't work.  Fat on fat on fat... just one too many.  Butter or mayo or grease to fry the thing combined with cheese AND bacon... it's just too much.  There's plenty of salt already in each of these dishes, with the cheese, so the salt pellet that a bite of bacon delivers is just excessive.  Every once in a while, you just want to satisfy that part of your mouth that says, "I need salt and fat and creamy bacony crispness... I need mayo and butter and bacon and cheese all in the same dish... let me have that heart attack on a plate, please!"  But three bites into it, all your needs for fatty, bacony, creamy, salty crispness is satisfied, and all that's left is 9/10 of a sandwich that you just hate to waste, but every bite makes you feel more & more sluggish, starts to sit like a lump in your stomach, and makes you need a nap, fast.     

It's odd that something that sounds just SO RIGHT (heck, there's a reason lots of people put it on the menus,,, it DOES SOUND good, before you've tried it once or twice), but is just so wrong. 

Not a lot different than many things in life.  It's a matter of balance.  And in these over-fatted, oversalted, overly savory dishes... they're out of balance. 

If a 2 week vacation is good, a 2 year vacation might be better, right?  No... wrong.  There's something fun about forgetting your responsibilities for a while, particularly if you've planned for the expense and have got it all fit into your life... the time away from family, the money from your savings, the research you've done into the location ... these things are what makes it possible for you to free your mind and delve into the time off.  And getting back to work is drudgery, for sure.  Facing the stack of mail that was saved for you in your absence, doing the laundry and cooking for yourself again, having ot make your own bed rather than rely upon hotel staff...

But just because you (and I, and most everyone we know) complains about the drudgery of getting back to work, does NOT mean that work is something we might want to avoid in life.  Work makes us feel good about ourselves, self-sufficient, special.  We are accomplished and talented when we're at work.  Or (even if we feel like our career is in the toilet and we're only sticking around for the paycheck) at least we are responsible members of society when the fruits of our labor makes it possible to pay our own rent and keep food on our own tables. 

I'm at this stage in life where, for about the past decade and for about another decade, the people who are my friends are going through the launching of their children into the world.  We're either kicking them out of the nest as soon as high school is over, or we're attending college graduations and then having to make decisions about whether to welcome them back for a while, and for how long if we do... In the process, it seems that my generation has done our kids' generation a disservice.  About half of the kids who are graduating*, are doing so with the attitude that work is something to be avoided, minimized.  That employers should be thankful that they are willing to show up for work, that paid vacation time is an inalienable right.  They are surprised when failing to show up for work because they're taking it easy for the day, might get them fired. 

They have been trained by us that the grindstone, the drudgery, the AWFULNESS of WORK, is worth avoiding, is beneath them.  When WE graduated college, our parents were commenting that we were trying to get THINGS that THEY would have had to save and wait for... that we were using too much credit to accumulate stuff, that we were being impatient and expecting a higher lifestyle than our stage of life would suggest.  Eventually we "got it".  But in the process, we have lost something that our own parents' generation had.  We took those first steps towards expecting others to take care of us.  We demanded health benefits for everyone, and minimum wages that would support a family of 4.  We insisted on the right for women to "choose", whether to work or stay home, whether to become a parent or not.  And we did not even envision the need to become a one-car family if we could only AFFORD one car on one salary... no, we expected two cars and we insisted on GETTING THEM.  WE convinced lenders to come up wtih creative financing deals so that we could accomplish this, stretching payments out to 7 years on cars we knew were going to become a problem to maintain after only 5 years, routinely rolling over upside down car loans into a new car loan whenever we wanted to get a new one, and even choosing to get long term leases on our vehicles, an option previously only appropriate for busineses that could write off the lease costs as costs of doing business. 

WE are the generation that decided that zero down payments and high loan -to-value ratios were appropriate for home loans, because WE decided that the previous generation's ethic of requiring WORK and SAVING for a home should not be as difficult as it was. 

And our choice to turn work into a lower priority, a drudgery... something to be avoided... it has started to seep into the next generation.  But with a deeper problem... the current generation graduating high school and college have not witnessed their parents making it through hardship by working harder.  Our generation has just made it through our most recent hardship, by declaring bankruptcy, allowing foreclosures, and looking for part time work (that we complain about loudly as not being able to sustain us).  We have injected the kids with a big dose of "work is bad" pill, and now that they're graduating college and thinking... as their first post-college experience... that a trip to Europe is in order... a necessary relief from the long, hard, difficult studying days of college... and they'll think of work IF and WHEN they NEED to. 

Yep, if they're boomeranguing back into our houses, if we've got SO MANY kids returning home rather than working, that we have a new term for it (boomerang kids)... it's our own darned fault.

Now... how does one convince a young adult that it's time to get a J-O-B?  A kid who complained about working 10 WHOLE HOURS a week during summers in college??? 

Don't ask me.  Best I can do is NOT open the doors for the boomerang.  NOT offer to liquidate my retirement account to finance their latest desire to have a new car, or a trip to Europe, or ... whatever.  Good luck kids.  Your parents have not done you any favors by letting you think that life can be all bacon and no salad.  It's too bad.

Because a BLT is a WHOLE lot better with L & T! 

*  This is just from casual observation, I can't cite a scientific study about this right now, though I know some have been done about the attitudes of the current 20-somethings... if I get a good source to cite, I will give a more scientifically supported statistic here.


Monday, May 5, 2014

OMG the WHINING!!!

Since when did we become a nation of whimps?  As parents, we fear the whining of our children.  Even the slightest expression of discomfort by a child brings it's parents into compliance with nearly anything they want.

And once you establish a baseline of inappropriate behavior, the child uses that as a new base from which to negotiate more inappropriate behavior.  Every step in the wrong direction just brings more opportunities for whining to get even more.

That is the job of the young ones... to test our limits.  And whining is the hallmark of a limit being tested.  I don't WANT to go to bed yet.  I don't WANT to eat my peas. I didn't WANT a hot dog, I wanted a HAM-BURGER!!!  WHAAAAAAA!

Next thing you know, Mom is turned into a short order cook, making sure every kid gets their own whims addressed.  Suzy won't eat rice and Johnny won't eat pasta.  So we make two of everything, every night... one with a side dish of pasta, the other with a side dish or rice.  WHEEE!!!

Failing to set limits and enforce them, even with all the whining going on, only sets the stage for more difficult moments later on.  I have a friend who is struggling right now with her daughter's need to purchase a new car.  A few days ago, her old car was totalled.  This is the second car that this child has totalled, and Daddy believes that of course his 22 year old baby girl has not been at fault for ANY of the problems she's had.  THey're taking the insurance money and looking for a brand new car.  A BRAND NEW car.  Not a USED car, like what Mom & Dad always buy, and what Mom & Dad and big brother drive.. no... a BRAND NEW car... because baby girl has been researching cars and found one that she likes and of course it happens to be a NEW car model and why would anyone get an OLD car when they CAN get new...

Baby girl doesn't have a real job yet... just an internship that's scheduled to start in a week or so... but never mind, Daddy will co-sign.  Because after all, if he doesn't, she will be disappointed.  And we have not been teaching our children (now young adults) to withstand the crushing disappointment of having to accept a car that is not what we might have hoped to get.  If he changes his mind now, she might have to re-research the whole thing, go shopping for a USED car (one that she can afford without a loan and a co-signer)...

It's all so sad, poor kid.  Did all this work to find the PERFECT car for herself, and without her parent's help, she might be denied the opportunity to HAVE that car.  Mind you, Mom & Dad do not drive new cars.  They are NOT the "new car buying" types.

Somewhere along the line, this Daddy stopped wanting to endure baby girl's whining.  I'm sure he figures he's finished with the hard part of parenting and it's time to enjoy the kid as she sails into adulthood, finds love, gets married, finds job fulfillment, has babies, and starts to visit on holidays and beg for Mom to PLEASE do everything the way it was done when she was little... because all that stuff that she fussed & whined about back then, is suddenly precious to her now.

But she's not there yet.  None of them are.  Parenting doesn't really stop, ever... does it?  Hopefully, someday, I will train my kids how to gracefully accept aging, how to manage the long term planning and thriving... how to continue to be a lifelong learner, long after the job requirement for continuing education has ended.

Unfortunately, too many people today are letting the kids' whining change their minds about stuff... about requiring the kids to study... about requiring the kids to entertain themselves without the use of electronics... about requiring the kids to eat WHATEVER Mom puts on the table.

Today, on Fox News Network, there was an interview of an educator, about Common Core.  Suddenly, I understand.  It's about having common requirements for what kids should know.  It's not about "teaching to the test"... but unfortunately, that's what a lot of teachers and school systems have turned it into.  They teach to the test, not to the information.  They're not as much about teaching the kids how to think, as they are about teaching them to memorize a lot of standard information.  I suppose this is an improvement over the dumbing down of education where 1 plus 1 didn't ALWAYS equal 2... or rather answering things OTHER than two didn't necessarily mean that the kid was going to fail the test.  If he could come up with an explanation of how he GOT to the other answer, he could get partial credit.  At least Common Core, in theory, SHOULD do away with that nonsense.

SO, what does this have to do with my Whining rant?  Well... the educator being interviewed pointed out that the biggest complaints about Common Core was that parents were upset that the children were whining, having difficulty with the concepts, upset about their homework.  And this educator pointed out that this is the job of a parent, to make the kids DO the homework, to help them learn the hard concepts, and not to let the kid's whining stop them from that goal.

BRILLIANT!

Why didn't I think of that?

OK... so here's what I think.  There's a saying, "if you look good while you're exercising, you are not exercising hard enough"... I think maybe we should apply this principle to parenting and whining... "if your kids are not whining, you're not parenting properly"... hmmm... maybe it'll work.  

 


Sunday, January 12, 2014

The world's best organizing secret

No exaggeration.  This past few weeks I have been going through my closets, as I have done for about a decade, and realized that this helpful hint needs to be shared with as many people as possible!

Every year, at the beginning of the year (or whenever you choose to designate as your cleaning day... spring cleaning?  Birthday cleaning?  for me... it's a New year's resolution cleaning...), turn around all of your hangers.  Instead of putting them onto the rod from the front, as you're used to, turn them so that you have to hook them over the rod from behind.  Put all of your things from shelves onto a bottom or top shelf.  Cram them in if you have to.  And put all of the things from your drawers into as few drawers as you can manage.

Every time you need something, get it out.  When you wash it, put it back away in it's proper place. 

By the end of the year, the things you WEAR will be in their proper place.  The things you haven't cared enough about to bother to wear within the past year will still be on backwards hangars, on the bottom (or top) shelf that's hard to reach, or crammed into the bottom drawer. 

Purge those things.  Either give them away, or toss them, or sell them at a yard sale.  For things you can't envision parting with (a favorite old silk blouse), it's ok to keep them if you are a seamstress who wants to use it for a quilt, but take it out of your closet and put it into your quilting project stash.  Be very picky about what you are willing to add to your stash. 

There will be a few exceptions to this rule... the formal dress that you did not have a chance to wear because you didn't go to any formal events this year... the interview suit that, likewise, did not see any interviews.  But more often, the reason you did not wear something is that you saw a little stain on it, or the collar doesn't stand up nicely any more, or there is a problem with the hem and you don't like it enough to fix it.  Or maybe it's no longer your size and you're hoping to get back into it someday.  (for those, understand that the day you can fit into skinny clothes again, you will prefer a newer, more updated wardrobe choice than the old skinny clothes that are the style of a decade ago.)

You will have to say "goodbye" to socks without mates undergarments that have holes in them, and pants that lost their shape.  But recognize that if you have not worn these things in a full year, you will most likely never wear them.  Let them monopolize valuable real estate in someone ELSE's closet!  You can use the space in your closet to see the remaining clothing more clearly, organize yourself and ... well, fill it up. 

I mean, if you threw away your formerly favorite white sweater because it had a stain on it and you couldn't wear it for the past year, but you really love having a white sweater and consider it as a staple in your closet, you now have space to bring in a new, WEAR-able white sweater! 

And honestly, you will never know how great it feels to drive to the Salvation Army with a trunkload of stuff that used to clutter up your closet, until you've done it once. After that, you'll be hooked.