Married and Living Together

I decided I need to do a happy post after that last "I hate the world" post. Next week, Josh and Lou are moving in with us. They'll be inhabiting our guest bedroom, sharing with house duties, etc. And, yes they'll pay rent like real roommates. They're married...we're married. And soon, it'll be like we're all four married. Soooo many people think it's freaky weird that two married couples have decided to share living space. They ask, "Well...I mean...how long will they be there? What will y'all do about groceries? Where will they put their car? Are you sure that's a good idea?" Well, first of all....NUNYA. And secondly, yes, I'm sure it's a brilliant idea. What could be more fun than doing something everything thinks is weird with another married couple who shares your same values and outlook on life? We'll cook and eat together, play music together, budget our limited monies together, build a new deck and play in the yard. And all the while, we'll be giving them a cheap place to live that doesn't tie them down, and they'll be giving us a little safety net while we try to jumpstart our home business. Sounds pretty great to me. But some people are naysayers. Oh well. Poo on them. The video below pretty much sums up how I think our life with Josh and Lou will look like: sheer delight over splitting one $5 sandwich four ways. Yesss!

Why the English are Happier, Despite the Dreary Weather

This post is long overdue, but better late than never, I suppose. Doug and I traveled to Europe in February, thanks mostly to our dear friends Josh & Lou who graciously let us crash at their place in Italy for ten days. We stayed with them in Florence and then traveled on to London for a few days and spent a full day in Oxford, England (my favorite part of the trip, aside from frolicking around with Josh and Lou). In order to get from Florence to London, we had to take a two hour train ride from the heart of Florence to the airport in Pisa. We sat on the train in front of a young British couple and across the aisle from an elderly British couple (the two couples were not traveling together). We all started chatting because we felt relieved to know we were not the only people around who spoke zero Italian. And so my story begins...
The young guy behind us started telling us about his travels around the world and was excited to learn that we were from the United States because he and his girlfriend had never been. He asked all sorts of questions about life in the American South: "Is it really a hickville like in the movies?" And, as the conversation progressed, we began talking about how much time we Americans spend at work, what our healthcare debate is all about, why the rest of the world was glad we elected Obama, and so on. Big issues for a couple of 25-yr-olds on vacation. I tried to be honest without sounding like Debbie Downer....though he did ask me at one point, "how can you live there?" Anywho, I don't want this to be a three hundred year long post, so I'm going to try and sum up the conversation. Here's what he told me:1. He is a nurse in a psychiatric dept. in an English hospital. He gets 8 weeks vacation every year. This is normal for nurses, though most other working people only get 4-5 weeks. Only.
2. It is illegal to advertise for prescription drugs in England.
3. Last year, he took a 6 month sabbatical to travel the world...he did not get paid, of course, but walked right back into his job as if not a day had passed.
4. Working women who become mothers receive 6 months paid time off, and after that can take up to a year at 50% pay.
5. Taxes are high.6. Laws are not as tough on crime as they should be (though you could argue ours are too tough).7. Only psychiatric doctors are legally allowed to prescribe drugs for mental illness...including anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds.

Here's what I told him:
1. If you are unemployed, you are likely to have terrible, if any, health coverage.
2. We (Doug & me) pay $200/month for insurance, but because our policy requires you to pay the premium for a full 365 days before they'll cover anything pregnancy related, if we got pregnant now, we'd owe thousands of dollars. (Everyone's baby-having is already paid for in England)
3. Working women who become pregnant are considered lucky to get 6-8 weeks paid time off.
4. People our age are lucky to get 1-2 weeks vacation time. No one gets 8 weeks...and if they did, people would certainly raise eyebrows and wonder if he/she ever worked.
5. Every other advertisement we see is for prescription drugs, and any doctor can prescribe mental illness meds.6. Americans rarely take vacation, are terribly stressed, overweight, and unhappy, and think that we are the greatest country on earth.
So. Having had a long an in-depth conversation with this young couple (the elderly couple chimed in occasionally: "Seems like Americans are really manipulated by their news networks"), and having had similar conversations during my time in Norway, I have to wonder. What is our problem? We know we're not happy. We know we work too much. But we do nothing about it. My final two cents in my conversation with Darin from England was this: "We Americans just cannot figure out what the hell our values are." And I absolutely believe that. The only thing we can agree on is that money is king in this here nation, and plenty of individuals and corporations have sold us to the devil to make a dollar. Yet we have hardly lifted our heads. Is it because we don't know what we really want besides fancy houses and cars? Is it because our country is so young that we can't get our values in a row? Is it because so many news shows broadcast fear tactics 24/7? Why can't we get it together?

Barbara Kingsolver notes that we live "in a society whose holy trinity is efficiency, productivity, and material acquisition." And we'll go after those things, no matter the cost. We've lost ourselves, our values, our culture. We are but a sad shadow of the people who founded this nation, wrapped in a fancy plastic package and unsure of how to get out.

So much for not sounding like a Debbie Downer. Oh well.

Pretty Food

I gave the blog a face lift, so I wanted to post a nice pretty photo to celebrate. This is a photo of some delicious dried fruit at a market in Florence, Italy. It tastes as yummy as it looks. I think I'll get a food dehydrator and try to make my own. Mmm.

Sowing Seeds

Today I planted my seeds! The weather here is still pretty cool, so I only planted a few things today: tomatoes (supice and brandywine), broccoli, cilantro (slow bolt variety), carrots, onions, and Kentucky Wonder green beans. I'm super excited. In another month or so, when it's significantly warmer out, I'll plant my peppers, squash, eggplant, basil, and cucumber. And then when fall starts, I'll have all new things to plant, like pumpkins and garlic. Mmm. So, my first veggie seeds have been sown and watered. Yay! Now, we wait.


I have a weird feeling that this may be one of the most important projects I ever do...important for me personally. I can't think of any other project that I've dedicated so much time to or researched for so long. And I'm actually going through with it, which means it must really be important to me. Someone once told me that unless something is actually a part of your life, you don't really believe in it. Like, if you talk about how recycling is important but don't actually recycle, you clearly don't value it as much as you say. That piece of wisdom has always stuck with me. And we do recycle, thank you very much. Anywho, I've been on my high horse about food for so long, and now I can realize for myself that it is actually important to me. It's so important to me that I've started a garden of food, even though I've never had much success growing anything because I get lazy and forget to water the plants. But that won't happen this time, I now know....too much is at stake for me. I've worked too hard too long to let this thing slip out from under me. There was something about sticking those tiny seeds into the ground and covering them with the soil I had mixed myself. They're little lives that will give me life, in more ways than just food nutrients. Those plants and I are part of a cycle with each other and the earth. That means something. And I think their growth will give me new confidence to try other new things and perhaps cure me just a little of my fear of failure. I'm not gonna let those little guys down.

Healthcare or whatever...

I don't care to get too deep into the conversation about the healthcare bill, mostly because conversations about the bill are scarcely actually about healthcare. But I would like to say this: we need change.

And, health insurance should not be linked to employment. Period. Employers shouldn't have to help pay premiums. Self-employed and unemployed people shouldn't have to wonder how they'll get good coverage.

And how about this? What if we didn't need so much healthcare all the time?

1. Eat fresh veggies and move around for at least 30 minutes each day.
2. Don't eat processed food.
3. Drink plenty of water and don't have too much soda or juice.
4. Don't eat so much sugar and sodium.
5. Increase your chances of not needing the doctor so much.

Americans spend too much on healthcare and too little on food. We eat cheap calories and pay for it by having all sorts of diet-related health issues. So...while Congress spends a bajillion years trying to figure out a way to make changes in the way we do healthcare, let's all eat and live better, for our health.

Starting the Spring Garden

So I've been researching and talking about starting my own vegetable garden for around 8 months, and now the time has finally come for me to actually do it. This is really exciting and a big deal for me, because I have this crippling fear of failure that sometimes keeps me from trying something totally new. It's not very often that I jump into a project that I know nothing about...especially if it's a big project. I mean, trying a new recipe or going to a party with strangers is no big deal....but for me, deciding to grow my own food is. I went through kind an emotional rollercoaster as it got closer to time for me to build the garden because I was afraid I was going to chicken out and not do it...for fear of it not going well. But, of course that's stupid and I know this, so I buckled down and started it anyway. And, here I am doing it and it feels so good! Yesterday, Doug helped me build the frame for our raised bed veggie garden, and today we added the soil mixture. Here's what we've had to buy so far:

3 cedar planks: $45
landscaping fabric: $10
galvanized nails: $3
soil mixture stuff: $45

So...right around $100 for the materials to build a raised bed. Cedar is naturally rot resistant, so we used it instead of any kind of treated wood, because chemicals from treated wood can seep into your soil. Yuck. Most gardening people in my research suggested using 1/3 existing soil (we have red clay, so we bought topsoil), 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat moss for the perfect mixture. Compost can take weeks or even months to decompose enough to be usable, so we bought some. But, we'll start a pile in the yard to use for next season's garden. Build your frame to whatever size you like (mine's 4 ft. x 8 ft.), place it over some landscaping fabric, and mix your soil in. You're ready to plant! Yay! On to seed ordering.

Where ya from, darlin'?

I've been thinking a lot lately about home and what it's like to really be from a place. Our photography clients ask Doug and me all the time where we're from and I always tell them I was born and raised right here on Mobile Bay. And I've come to realize just how uncommon that is...that a person like me comes back home to put her own roots down in the same place where her parents and grandparents put their roots. It's something I never thought I would do, but knowing a place and feeling connected to a place means more than we know. Anytime I go out to the grocery store or take a walk through our neighborhood (the same neighborhood I lived in for 15 years as a child) I'm surrounded by my own personal history and the history of the people closest to me. It means something to drive by a place and tell a friend, "That's where I used to ride my bike with my friend Anna," or, "That's the treehouse my dad built for me," or "Down there is the railroad my grandfather worked on during the Great Depression." It means something to us...deep down in our soul bellies...to call a place home. Not just a house and the company of those we love, but an actual place. The bay, the beaches, the oak trees....they're the same natural surroundings that inspired by grandparents to paint and encouraged my parents to raise us here. My own children will be the 4th generation of kids to grow up learning to ride a bike along a coastline, swim in the ocean, and throw an anchor from the bow of a boat. We'll get up early and go fishing as a family, like I did with my parents, and we'll be fishing in the same waters, by the same trees. I remember what my town looked like 20 years ago, and my parents tell me how it looked 40 years before that. My dad takes me to the railroad tracks that he walked along to get to school, and he'll be able to show his grandchildren those same tracks. My parents' back-in-my-day stories will have so much more interest and relevance to my children because it all took place right here. I mean, that's pretty amazing, I think. And I think that kind of thing should be more common....people should be more connected to each other, of course (we're desparate for that), but also to the places in which they live. I think it's more important than we realize.