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farewell, central mn

farewell, central mn

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when we moved from austin when i was 14 years old, i thought i would never live in one spot as long as i had lived there.
but, last year, i officially lived in the st cloud area for 14 years. now, i have lived here longer than in austin, just at the time i am returning to southeastern minnesota. part of me is happy to be moving on to another phase of life, but part of me is sad to leave central minnesota behind.

so, for the last time today, i cruised D, went to granite city for the last time in a while, and signed the closing papers. goodbye, central mn.
goodbye crossroads center, one of the best malls i’ve encountered, and certainly better than apache mall in rochester (not that i spend a lot of time in malls…)
goodbye grandma, who lives in st cloud. i will miss you 🙁
goodbye st cloud superman. i really hope there is a rochester equivalent.
goodbye coborn’s. may your monopoly hold true.
goodbye ciatti’s and your tiramisu. i’m betting there’s a good italian restaurant down there, but we’ll see.
goodbye scary east side. i won’t really miss you.
goodbye merrill. can’t say i’ll miss the job much, but i WILL miss the people.
goodbye scsu. you can’t spell sucks without scsu. (altho, …. it does have the only accredited comm program in mn outside the U…)
goodbye killer perkins. many a good time was had inside your walls. at the same time, it’s goodbye to a younger life forever gone ;(
goodbye town of U-turns. i won’t miss you.
goodbye date nights of dinner and a movie. here’s hoping rochester has more of a night life.
goodbye avon, albany, holdingford. you were the land of my ancestors. now i’m off the land of my other side’s ancestors.
goodbye st. ben’s and st. john’s. i WILL miss you. you were what brought me here and have remained steadfast.
goodbye st. joe. you are a good little town. my running route was awesome, your bike trail is good, your farmers’ market awesome. not to mention kay’s kitchen, the meat market, and yes, even the newsleader.
goodbye 250, 18th Ave SE. you’ve been a good little house. may you continue to be so for these new people.

wolf hunt

wolf hunt

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lots of news on the MN wolf hunt lately. i wanted to know more.
the first regulated wolf hunt in minnesota just closed the northeast angle’s window due to its quota being reached. the northwest part of the state can still hunt, and from nov. 24-jan.  31, the second season opens to hunting and trapping. there was a lottery of 600 licenses throughout the state – heard on the radio that the majority of those were applied for by people living in the northern half of the state, with very few southerly type wanting to hunt wolves.
there’s been kind of a brouhaha about this in the state, as the wolf population was waning pretty badly mid-1900s. so much so that they were put on the endangered species list in the last half. they were removed from the list just this past january, after quite a long legal battle.
and since it took so long to get wolves off the list, state congress, which had wanted to start a hunt LAST year, shoved a hunt through legislation, and the DNR had to cut down its time for public input and assessment on the matter. which public opponents of the hunt sued over.
during the last 10 years, the wolf population has remained pretty steady at about 3000, and “The fact they remained at that number for so long indicates there maybe isn’t any room for anymore growth.” but the DNR has said that as long as the population remains at or above 1600, they’re good. anything below that and they will seek to start increasing numbers.
hunters are saying they’ve seen declining deer populations, but the DNR says that probably just isn’t true. the deer population in MN in around 1 million, and wolves take down maybe 6000 of them. wolves don’t eat as much as people think they do.
there is a general fear among those who live next to wilderness areas up in northern MN – pet dogs have been killed (mostly because they’re seen as competition) by wolves, and they are getting a little bold as far as how close they’ll come to civilization (walking down a street). but as far as i could see, there haven’t been human attacks or livestock attacks.
as you can tell from my pretty objective statements so far, i’m neither pro nor con on the wolf hunt. although, hunting for wolves is mostly for sport or for their skins, and also to protect livestock. it’s one thing to hunt for food and survival, but for sport is not the best reason to be hunting an animal, even a predator.
sources:
http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/20048463/mn-wolf-hunt-effects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_21997021/minnesota-wolf-hunt-closed-northeast
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/10/10/environment/court-rejects-bid-to-block-wolf-hunt/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_hunting
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/90249567.html

guest topic 2

guest topic 2

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well, megan was on a roll with her blogging ideas! and she’s feeling especially guilty about her environmental footprint, i guess, because her second question was, what’s better? cloth or disposable diapers?
searchsearchsearch.

THIS

is better than anything i could write on the subject. it’s informative, weighs pros and cons, explains the numbers, even extolls the virtues of second-hand baby goods. really, read it. yes. i’ll wait.
…
what it comes down to is, as long as your laundrying is as efficient as possible (line-drying, efficient washer, etc.), cloth is the way to go. i would go even further and say that even if your ways of doing laundry isn’t that efficient, you’re still keeping stuff out of landfills. landfills aren’t good. the one thing to keep in mind, though, is that it is time consuming and won’t be easy.
_______________
on another topic, i have my uhaul reserved for friday pickup, nate and i are signing papers on friday at 1:30, our stuff is in boxes, we’ve done what we can do, and as soon as we’re packed on friday, we will be leaving st. joe for the last time.
🙁 but 🙂
a farewell post to come.

guest topic

guest topic

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megan wanted to know what effects having kids has on the environment. i told her that i thought i read somewhere that you could have the worst car ever, fly everywhere, etc. etc., and you still wouldn’t have a worse carbon footprint than having a kid. i don’t know how TRUE that is, so i decided to do some research.
(first, i would like you to know that, unlike some political candidates, i think fixing the environment is a top priority. in fact, it’s MY top priority. like hank green said, what good is universal health care if there’s not an earth to live on? [if i could find the video, i would post it, but i cannot find it.])
ok, so i google “carbon footprint and having children” and HOLY CRAP 1 million results.
wading into the fray, what i find most plausible is a study done by statisticians at oregon state university. from my quick read through of the press release, i gleaned some interesting points:
“…the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.”
and
“When an individual produces a child – and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future – the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.”
in the US, a child adds about 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the carbon footprint of a parent, which is 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for an average person (i’m guessing sans child). other countries will have less of an impact since the US is all about consumption – a child born in china will have 1/5th the impact as a child here. (this may change in the future, as china and india are upping their CO2 outputs.)
to top it off, the stats peeps mentioned that this research is relevant to other environmental concerns, such as shortages of potable freshwater consumption.
greeeeeaaaatt.
i don’t know what to tell you parents and parents-to-be. obvs we wouldn’t be here without reproduction, but with 7 billion people on the planet, and populations doing nothing but rising, the probability of the human race dying out is pretty slim.
i go back and forth – on one hand, there are studies like this. environmentally, it would be better to not have kids right now. but then there’s the old “your ancestors were strong enough, smart enough, and attractive enough to get to this point in the universe, and you’re going to choose not to perpetuate your genes?” argument. which makes me feel horrible and like a bad member of humanity.
thoughts?

getting ready

getting ready

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the claim:
make your own ornaments! source and then also source
the test:
well, i started out trying one thing and ended up doing another when the first didn’t work, and i made a combination. whatevs.
since neither of these really had directions, i went to crafts direct and kind of guessed as to what i needed to make these ornaments (first sign that things weren’t going to work?).

scrapbooking paper, ribbon, rustic jingle bells, hemp cord and glitter glue. (fyi – in no way, shape, or form do i associate with scrapbookers. just standing the aisle gives me the willies *shiver*)

i actually wanted to glue the pieces of paper onto ball ornaments, spread with glitter, and be done a la my first source. i tore up the paper, and since the edges were white and the rest antiqued, i had to soak them in tea to get the whole pieces of paper yellowed


after the paper dried, i tried out glueing it to a ball ornament. DID NOT WORK. i gave up and went another route.
you can see the failball in the upper left.

i glued the scraps to some cardstock i had leftover from merrill and once it was pasted on, i painted sparkly glue over the whole thing.
after that was dry, i grabbed my cookie cutters i had just purchased (for cookies – not this project) and traced them onto the paper and exacto-knifed them out.
put a couple jingle bells on the hemp and made a pretty bow, and ta da! ornament.

the verdict:
my original plan didn’t work out. i’m thinking it’s because they actually used newsprint versus scrapbooking paper, which is heavier. and my improvised secondary plan wasn’t really the same as the source, but it worked out. a lot of work. 3 out of 5 stars, mostly because it was just ok. cute, but not quite what i was going for.

swimmingly

swimmingly

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i am in the middle of a pinterest project right now. nate asked me what i was doing while i was doing it – i said, “arts and crafts!” ah, “arts and craps” he said. i’m hoping they don’t turn out to be arts and craps.
anyhow, here’s a pic of what i ate for supper. i used the grill for the last time at 250 18th Ave SE tonight. *sigh*
mmm. i made those cheesy rolls again *drool*
on a serious note, i am wondering about “oppressed” christians in this country. are christians really oppressed and ridiculed? is it easier to be an “out” christian or an “out” atheist in the US? when we call america a pagan country, is that really a bad thing?
personally, i think it’s easier to be an outted christian than an outted atheist in general (regionally, this might vary). but to be a TRUE christian in this country, not just a CINO and you’re just going through the motions and not caring, there might be some level of oppression. i think a lot of so-called christians are really just people who go to church and believe that because that’s what they’ve done their entire lives. true christians and true atheists are at two ends of a very large spectrum, neither of which i would like to encounter in a religious debate. for me, talking with a devoted atheist is just as tiring as talking with a devoted christian.
and really, i would rather live in a pagan country than a christian country – to call the US a christian country rings a little too close to a theocracy for comfort for me. the separation of church and state should be just that – separation. you can bring your religious background into political and governmental decisions, but that means that the next person shouldn’t have to adhere to your religious background in their politicization; the US is known for autonomy, and freedom of religion is one way to put that forward.
quite frankly, i’m tired of hearing about both sides – christian and atheist. can’t we just live our life we have to the fullest without bugging others and be happy? can’t we all just get along?

back on schedule

back on schedule

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a week or so ago, i had a dream that i only remember because of how awful it made me feel.
i slept through christmas eve.

clearly, christmas eve is a raucous time in the wallace household.

ugh! it was only a dream, but it made me feel really bad for sleeping through such an important time as christmas eve! one interpretation is this:
2. Missing an important event because you are late {or in my case, asleep}. 
This can indicate regret over a missed opportunity, inability to make a connection, or desire to pull oneself together. In Dream Power: How to Use Your Night Dreams to Change Your Life, Cynthia Richmond suggests asking questions of dreams in order to understand what this common symbol means to you. For example: What are you missing? Who is disappointed by the missed event? Is it only you or are there others involved?
Via http://www.divinecaroline.com/22201/53010-seven-common-dreams-mean#ixzz2BmuEhPC9 
well, i certainly have a desire to pull myself together; i’m in three places these days and it’s starting to wear on me. needless to say, i took it as a sign that i needed to start christmas shopping.
i am normally done shopping by the end of october – well, mostly done anyway. i at least normally have an amazon shopping cart full and a list of what else to get. this year, i had no idea what i  was getting anyone until today. today was my mom’s and my annual christmas shopping trip [and maybe last one? 🙁 ], and i bought presents for my grandma, aunt rae, and something for liz and jane. i came home and finished up on amazon. tomorrow i’ll go to another place and pick up some stocking stuff for my mom, and i’ve got 3 more things (2 of which are big things), and i’m DONE.
you don’t know what a relief that is.
(in other news, all three kitties, nate, and i are all in st. joe! nate’s done working at walmart in st cloud, and we MOVE next weekend. this is happening way too fast…)

a lesson in obviousness

a lesson in obviousness

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the claim:
you too can have buttery soft skin! source
the test:
mix equal parts olive oil, brown sugar and raw oatmeal, then scrub your skin in circular motions. rinse off and your skin will feel like butter! ok. i used some scottish oatmeal i had – i figured they didn’t mean quaker quickoats.

the site says to mix a cup of each, but that’s a lot! so i did half a cup each, and it was pretty good.

bad picture. ugh. so. off the tub i go. scrub scrub scrub. make a mess.
and time to wash off! now, the promise is BUTTERY SKIN. to which i say, of COURSE it’s going to be buttery; you just swabbed yourself down with a half cup of olive oil! the directions say nothing about washing off with soap, but since i have a predilection toward oily skin to begin with, i scrubbed down with soap, and i’m still feeling the oil.
if a person had really dry skin, this would be an awesome once-a-week regime, although a spendy one. but, once you think about it, scrubs in the store aren’t cheap either.
the verdict:
4 out of 5 stars. does what it says. it could get spendy.