Pretentiousness

I had a family member ask why I’ve been posting so much, so I thought I’d explain. It’s National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPoMo, and I’m participating. You write a post a day for November.

BTW, I did this walking page on my site the other day since I’ve started walking to work and other places. I am upping my activity level in general with a goal of walking 20 miles a week. I was interested to see how far I would have gotten if I were walking in one direction rather than just around the neighborhood, so I started tracking it. I’ll update it every week or so.

So. Pretentiousness.

A few people told me recently they were impressed the way I’d really cut down on my “carbon footprint” by being vegetarian, living in a small house and not commuting by vehicle. I suppose. Look at me! I’m an environmental hero! Ha.

Although I’ve learned a lot from my brother (who has a degree in environmental management), my response to comments like that is to chuckle uncomfortably. I have no actual intentions toward my carbon footprint. I’m terrible about recycling, I don’t save scraps of unused fabric, I use acrylic yarn, I wear leather shoes, and don’t turn off the water when I’m brushing my teeth.

I don’t care whether anyone else makes the particular choices I’ve made. People ought to make their own choices. Many more people than I expected believe my choices indicate I’m rather militant about certain things or expect me to launch into a tirade or guilt trip about something.  It’s odd, but the first thing 90% of people say to me when they learn I’m vegetarian is, “Don’t expect me to be, I LOOOVE meat” or they deliver some other sort of justification for not being so themselves. I was unprepared for this apparent widespread guilt complex. All I can say is well, that’s nice, but I don’t care.

I don’t eat meat because I think it’s gross in the same way I scream and run out of the room when there’s a giant cockroach. It’s slimy and has tendons and veins. Entrails. Shrimp looks like bugs. Ewwww! Vegetables simply don’t gross me out.

I walk because I like to walk and hate driving. Driving makes me yell and swear. Plus, my job is sedentary so any exercise to counter my love of food is good. Besides, the thought of sacrificing an hour or more of my life every day to commuting makes me angry – I have too much to do!

I live in a small house for practical reasons and expect no one to justify their large homes to me. I am used to small because I’ve lived in lots of small places. In those situations, you either shut up and learn to like it or you end up miserable. Plus it’s nice not to have to clean a lot of stuff.

My point is that I don’t mind being friendly to the planet I live on, but I dislike being stereotyped. Even more than that, I dislike people being put off by me or feeling defensive because they assume I fall into a stereotype. There’s so much weird unnecessary guilt about it!! It’s been a weird position to be in. I like my choices, but I keep saying, “No, that’s not the reason” or facing defensiveness.

In the end I’ll just do whatever I do for my own reasons, like always, but it’s a good lesson to me to never assume I know why people live their lives the way they do.

Kitchen With (Lots of) Stuff

I swear that you can cook in 4′ by 9′ of kitchen. Remember my plan? Here it is.

I do believe NO ONE has ever fit more kitchen stuff into a space this small ever before. Well, perhaps they have, but holy moly, there’s stuff in every square inch of this kitchen. You can’t even see the stuff under the sink. But everything is easily within reach while cooking. I’ve got spices and pans and spoons and bowls and everything. It’s truly excellent. I tried to make it look decent too.

I was cooking black bean tacos here. The main issue with this kitchen is not the space, actually, it’s that TERRIBLE STOVE. The top of it tends to slide around. You know, completely OFF. Which is not optimal when cooking. And three out of four of the burners won’t lie flat enough to cook on, even with water in the pan weighting it down. We’re discussing this with the landlord. A repairman came and took a look and said it looks like I need a new one. I agree.

Anyway, if you think I can’t cook a five-course dinner in here, you’re wrong. I would. Just for the challenge. To see if I could.

Here’s some more pictures. I was having fun taking them. By the way, if you’re reading this via email, you can’t see the slideshow via email, you’ll have to visit my website to see them.

Craft-in-a-Closet

So in my November Schedule I was supposed to talk about my efforts to organize my house on Thursdays. Last week I was rudely interrupted by a potential burgler, but I’m going to make good on my anal-retentive instincts and return to the original schedule.  So another MAJOR hurdle for this place was Where In the World to Put the Craft Supplies. My junk took up 75% of our last spare bedroom, but here, I have no craft room. Ergo: closet.

I was inspired by this Lovely Designs craft closet, this closet office with curtains, another whole ream of small space ideas, some other stuff I probably forgot, and of course some wall-mounted craft stations. (If you didn’t click on those links, you should, because that’s some pretty crazy creative stuff there.)

This, I promise you, will eventually Look Much More Decorative, but right now? I’m really super pleased with the basic construction. It has lighting! It has shelves! I can close the door so the cat doesn’t attack my stuff!  The shelves are drilled into concrete, so I’m pretty sure this will be one of the most stable sewing desks I’ve ever had. It’s also the best lit. My dad installed an outlet for me in the closet when he helped us move.

There’s more craft junk than this, of course. The rest of it I put on shelves with a table underneath. So this is the (somewhat) before. This is one end of my living room.  Jeff had just hammered holes into those concrete walls and we put up the shelves. Those boxes are my craft/art supplies. The door on the left is the closet I just showed you.

So here’s the shelves after un-packing. There’s still tool junk, a dog bed, it’s kinda messier than I like, and there are some cleaning supplies there that I don’t know what to do with (hey, it’s an apartment-in-progress), but this is mostly it. There will be a screen between this stuff and the rest of the living room eventually.

So did anybody spot my owl mascot?