Rachel Lindsay

We are going to be away in another state this weekend. In a part of the country that hasn't embraced organic yet, and with a beloved relative who is on an extremely limited budget (buys Chinese dollar store foods for her pantry--and now I feel like I should have to put this in CP for mentioning that!).

We have two options when we go for a visit, as I see it:

Menu plan, shop for organic ingredients, and pack massive coolers to bring there

Shop for food an hour away at the nearest Big Box Store that has organics and bring them in on the way there

It takes so much time, either way, and is absolutely a logistical hassle that sucks the joy out of the trip up there. (I suppose there's always, "Don't visit at all" as a third option, but we won't choose that one ever!) What options am I not seeing to make this easier?

Thanks everyone! We will be getting a cat next week--had planned to anyway, so it was nice to see that it may help us with our critter problem. I shake out all sheets and pillows every night before bed now--and will use essential oils and begin a serious decluttering program in the bedrooms.

There are people you can buy books for...and there are people who will immediately shelve your book order as decor, glancing fearfully and guiltily in its general direction every so often.

My sister buys good books for her friends, and then they will ask her to interpret the books to answer their questions instead of using the books to extract the information on their own. What the ???

I have seen this too. The book may as well be a stone to some people--who are plenty smart! Is this a personality thing? A generational thing? I have long wondered why some can and some can't obtain a chain of meaningful information out of a book, even when they are curious about the topic.

p. 135:

Negative emotions can help drive persistence, commitment, and focus. Positive emotions help stimulate cognitive flexibility and the ability to see new kinds of connections.

True, and again verified by my experience!

I am the one in the family with the most negative emotions, and I won't say I am the only one of us with persistence, but I am the one motivated to the bitter end by an inborn sense of duty--that is what gets me doing things I don't really want to do. I do persist and focus more than others, although it would be so much better if I did my focusing with a smile. This drive to complete necessary things that have been started is not shared by others in the family.

My husband is a quiet, cheerful person, experiencing lots of positive emotions every day. And he is known by family and friends as the one who comes up with the unusual ideas and brilliant connections. It's one of his top traits in the Gallup StrengthsFinder thing, notably. I am happy for him, and jealous, too.

At least we're a great team! (How come we don't rule the world, I want to know!)

Carla Burke wrote: I'm curious, though. Are you sure they're brown recluse? Brown recluse are shy, and generally avoid places that are frequently occupied (hence the 'recluse' part of their name), and their bites tend to rot human flesh in chunks up to a pound, in size. Multiple bites in any given season would (even without the rotted flesh and scars) typically leave a person very weakened and sickly. There are, however, several other spiders that are frequently mistaken for brown recluse, because their appearance is very similar - it's part of their defense against predators. Maybe it would help ease your mind - and possibly give some insight as to how to get rid of them - if you could capture one, and confirm it's identity.

Hmmmm. Thank you. We have killed spiders and observed the corpses that seemed to match up with the descriptions/images of brown recluses, and right or wrong I had just assumed these mysterious bites were from the same spiders. Perhaps not--the flesh around the bite does not rot, but it turns dark like a burn for a little more than a week, and there is a pin-sized scab in the center where the fangs must have gone in that oozes for the first couple of days. (Sorry if TMI!) We always treat the bites like burns, and they seem to heal like burns, so maybe not Recluse bites, after all, but I didn't know enough about North American spiders to know--besides black widows and brown recluses--what might bite us in our house.

I was frequently fed--and enjoyed!--Cream of Wheat when I was a child. I started buying an organic version as an adult, once my daughter was born. And then a year or two ago...reading Traditional Meals for the Frugal Family (Shannon Stonger) at the same time as a high-end grocery store nearby mysteriously began carrying it, I gave "Creamy Buckwheat" a try. We LOVE that stuff. And I looked up the nutritional content of buckwheat, and I couldn't be more pleased that this is a regular part of our diet.

If only buckwheat were easier to hull! It grows here very nicely as a cover crop, and we could grow and harvest our own if only I could process it!

Lived in our current home (small 80s ranch-style house) in the woods for nearly 8 years. In that time we have found several brown recluse spiders in almost every room in the house, and my daughter gets bitten in bed every year by a brown recluse while she is sleeping, usually in the Spring, twice last week. (I have been bitten in bed once. Not pleasant to wake up to!)

We are the only people in the neighborhood not visited by Pest Control people, and I know very well why all the neighbors constantly have them out. I do not want to do this. I have to do something effective though! Every year the presence of six- and eight-legged critters in our house increases. Our house seems permeable. I've had a katydid and a praying mantis come in just in the last week. Mostly though, I just really want to stop the nocturnal spider bites. Glue traps in the rooms manage some of these spiders, but not all.

Recommendations?

I mean "really strong"  as in, "I need something to get me going" as some people use coffee for. (Or to keep going just for the last few hours after the day has almost wiped you out.) The tea equivalent of a "stiff drink", if there is one. I ask because lately I have realized I need something like that. I've been doing vitamin C and zinc berry tisanes but there has to be something stronger, right?

John C Daley wrote:can I ask what part of the policy you dislike?

They charged me $3 every time I gave someone a refund.

I had a few students who couldn't figure out how to work the payment button, and so I refunded for those mistakes. And then some people paid me class fees before their first week, which I don't like because I would rather them have that week free to try it out than have to give them a refund after realizing that this class is not for them right now.

(My sister told me this, but I still don't understand how this works:) And apparently there is some kind of scam people can do that I was a victim of where people will randomly use website payment buttons to pay for things wrongly--not sure how though?--and when the decent website owner refunds their money, they get real refund money even though their payment somehow wasn't actually real.

I only found out that I was being charged for all of these transactions when one day I had a negative balance through my payment processor. I contacted the company to find out how that could possibly be?!?!? Charging me for the refunds: that's how.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Rachel Lindsay wrote:For my international students I had used Stripe originally, but I will have to find something else/talk to my bank because the Stripe folks surprised me with a policy I do not like.  

You may want to explore Wise, which offers multiple currency accounts. For people outside the US it is similar to Paypal, you can send them a link they transfer into (in my country they use the 3 most common electronic payments, for example), you can get a debit-type card to use or transfer balance into your bank account. it's a lot like Paypal but without all the headaches, hair pulling and disasters that Paypal has come to embody. And their rates are fab.

Thank you! That sounds very nice indeed. I will look them up!