The Technology Cross I Bear

I have no idea what I am doing in blogland.  I just wing it.  I read things, I look at how people do things, I copy them and I have this magical blog.  It keeps me entertained.  It also keeps a record of things that I forget (except for those pictures of last year's goregous amaryllis that I can't find!).

And recently, it has been pretending that since January 1, I have posted nothing.  INdeed, I have posted almost every day since then.

Something is amiss with my feed.  And this is where it all falls apart for me.  I fall right into the abyss of ignorance once I utter the word 'feed' because I really don't know how it all works.

I followed the feedburner directions, I copied, I pasted, I clicked, I checked, I authorized.  And all was well.  I had subscribers.  They got my updates in their google reader.

And then it all stopped. 

I tried looking for ways to figure out what might have gone wrong and was steered down a path that had so much html, I sat down and tried to find myself a techie.  But k-ster was busy, and a-ster was busy, so I got busy pretending I am a techie.

And I think I might have failed.  Because I think many of you still think I fell off the blog on January 1, never to be heard from again.  I even put myself in my own blogroll and I can't get back up to the top. 

This is when I hate technology.  When I get to the point where I think I know it all and things are going so smoothly and then it all goes kaput.  And it's no longer as simple as 'well, did you turn it ON?' 

Now I have to have a phD in html to make it all work. 

Damn. 

This Is Only A Test

I don't know how many of you out there only read me because you subscribed to my feeds, but I think I'm having a feed issue.

I haven't seen much of you regulars lately and my sister recently asked me why I haven't been posting.  But I have been!

When I leave comments on other people's blogs, it says that my last post was Deep Thoughts but that was 8 days ago! 

I've been posting, I swear!

Can someone help me figure out how I can figure out what happened?

My Long Lost Sister

My sister a-ster was a techie long before I was and started a blog and an etsy before me too.

Then I jumped on the bandwagon and it wasn't cool anymore, or something, so she stopped.

And then she moved.

And then she had a baby.

And then she came back to the blogosphere!

So I added her back into my blogroll so we can keep track of her latest inventions.


Go see her crafty brilliance!  She has made some cute clothes for l-ster already.  And she's planning to participate regularly in Project Run and Play.

You better add her to your blogroll if you are at all crafty or like to stand in awe of those who are.

The Pool Boy

K-ster is secretly a fish and when we're in the doldrums of winter, he starts to moan and groan about how he can't go swimming and why can't we have a pool and if only he could go swimming, all would be well.

We called Sea World, but they don't need anymore aquatic animals this winter.

For the past few winters, he's had a pool membership at a local hotel chain that charges up the butt for a winter pool membership and then has restricted hours.  I don't care about swimming, so I haven't paid much attention.

This year, I went to an auction and got a pool membership for a different hotel and thought he'd like it.  I didn't know the pool is smaller in this one and it's like 2 miles further away.

I tried to sell it for what I paid on craigslist, but no one cared.

So, we sucked it up and went today and activated the membership.  This one actually allows to people on the same card, so I can actually go. 

Nothing screams POOL to me more than resin chairs and tables, umbrellas opened up inside and fake plants.

And I assume this is some sort of indoor pool clientele secret that weren't privy to, but apparently you go to the pool on a Sunday afternoon to hang out.  You bring coolers, wine, books, children.  And you think and act like you are at the beach.

It sure isn't Richmere but it will have to do.

Feel Good Friday

So it was exceptionally cold for a day or two this week, but that didn't stop me from thinking like a farmer.  UPS is my enabler.

I've seen heat mats that you use to start your seedlings and I always thought they were for mambsy pambsy gardeners who can't start seeds the natural way.  Sadly, I too cannot start seeds in an unheated greenhouse in January, even though I can get the actual plants (the hardy types) to grow.

So, I bought myself a Germination Station.  You might be surprised to learn that it is simply a plastic mat with heating coils in it that sits under a little plastic greenhouse.  In my greenhouse.  Gee how clever. 

I theorize that during the daylight, it gets warm enough to encourage the seeds to start growing, but because it gets so cold at night, they freeze. 

Enter my brilliant idea to plug the Germination Station into a timer so that when the sun goes down, the heat comes on. 

I worried I might melt the whole place down, but it's not hot, not by any means.  It's supposed to be 10-20 degrees above the room temperature.  So when it's 10 degrees out, it might be a whopping 30 degrees on that little heat mat.

I have no major results so far, but I'm willing to believe my greenhouse in a greenhouse trick is going to work as we get into early spring.

As I was looking online for a Germination Station, I also realized I needed to get some of those peat pellets to start my seedlings.  Except I want them to be 100% free of anything that will start my seedlings with a boost of nutrients or fertilizers.  And I don't care if they are peat.  Since "they" have decided that peat bogs aren't a renewable fast enough, peat is now considered a terrible thing to use.  I don't know how much I believe that, but I do see that most peat pellets I find have something added to them for growing.
 

Last year, I used some coconut husk ones that people claimed were terrible but I found them to be 100% excellent.  Except for big seeds like beans and squash, I start every seed in a little pellet and I find that it really works.  But I lost track of how many I used last year.

So I bought 301 and this year.  Why 301?  Because I had to buy one more so I was over the minimum amount to get free seeds!  I know that sounds like a ridiculous number of pellets, but I don't think it is.  Remember, I start every seed this way and I try to plant successively all summer and into the fall, so something is always starting.

 

I usually buy my seeds from an actual store here, but for some reason, I thought I'd give these free seeds a whirl.  There isn't a lot of variety for organic seeds here.  These packets say they are organic and they are some new types that intrigue me.

Some pumpkin mix, an heirloom mix of tomatoes (where the hell am I going to grow MORE tomatoes???), some long cucumbers that are "armenian" and some giant Swiss chard.  I grow chard well, so this giant kind intrigues me. It will  be one of the first seeds I try when I start my new batch of seedlings in the germination station.

The greenhouse is really just laughing at me.  It and the Germination Station are just sitting back, having a grand old laugh at my foolishness.  This is New England.  We have cold winters here.  If you're not going to heat a greenhouse, you can't grow anything.

We'll see.

Inside, I have my amaryllis collection.   The one you see on the right is full of huge leaves, but no flower.  This was the one I had last year that was so spectacular that I didn't put pictures up.  (??)  It was gorgeous with red blooms, all 4 at once.  I let it die off like it said, and then I put it out in the greenhouse for the summer.

In November, I planted it again, gave it water and it shot up instantly.  But sadly, no bloom.  I didn't fertilize because I don't do that, so now I am left to wonder if it will ever bloom again.
 

This is the new one I got for Christmas this year. I was excited about the color. I had no idea it would bloom so quickly or remain so short! It's like 8 inches tall!

 

Here is an experiment gone wrong.  My sister a-ster knows I love these jars from IKEA, so she got me another one and thought it would be fun to put in some paperwhite bulbs that she got last year.  She never let them grow last year and thought maybe we could toss them in here and make them grow.

Sadly, they are doing nothing but stinking up the joint because the water is starting to smell bad.  I will give it a few more days and then it's sayonara because I can't stand the smell anymore!

One Hot Pussy

It's my own fault.  I bring these things upon myself.

The 8th grade students that were formerly making my life miserable have mysteriously turned over a new leaf and they are currently almost entertaining me.  I just have to stay one step ahead of the biggest mouth in the room and everything is fine.

We are currently working on the most bizarre unit I have:  the body.  There isn't a chapter in my book for this, so I have to wing it.  And it seems that the more bizarre we get with aches and pains, the more they learn the words.

Because in French, to say that something hurts is more difficult than in English.  Ironic, because if I am hurting in France, the last thing I want to do is the mental gymnastics to make it come out right.  If my leg hurts, I can't say "my leg hurts" because it would mean that my leg is detached from my body and flogging me.  I must say "I have bad in the leg".  Which brings no end of hysterics when I try to teach this unit.

Along with explaining your pain comes the explanation that you are hot, cold, tired, wrong, thirsty, etc.  All requiring the verb to have, rather than to be.  So, I can't say " I am hot", I must say "I have hot".

It's all very ridiculous to try to convince 14 year olds that this really is what you must say and if you say it the wrong way, you will be not only wrong, but in some cases, you will be offensive to someone.

Because, if you say "I am hot", rather than "I have hot", well, then you are saying that you are sexually hot for the person you are talking to.  And of course, I never explain that piece or I'd never get the right answer, ever.

Today, someone decided that Justin Bieber was hot.  She does anything she can to incorporate him into her work.  So she wrote "Justin Bieber has hot" a correct phrase, grammatically, but not correct for what she meant.  That sentence just says he is dying from the heat, not that he is HOT.  This generated lots of giggles.  From the boys, mostly.

Despite my trying to explain that you can't use the phrase that way, they still try to.  Year after year.  I've seen it all.

And I should know better than to make my own worksheets for practice.  A long time ago, I used to do a lot of stuff where they had to translate, but these days, this is frowned upon because it's not really a legitimate way to use the language.  And I completely agree.

But, since knocking a kid down the stairs to ask him how his leg feels is frowned upon, sometimes I dig up my old stand bys to make them practice a little.

And on that sheet, along with "we are hungry" and "the girls are tired"  there is a sentence that says "the cat is hot".  And for some reason , I always have to clarify that the poor feline doesn't like the heat, not that it's a HOT cat.  We aren't talking about Kitty Softporn Softpaws here.

And as I was explaining, I heard the biggest mouth in class say "that is one HOT -----" and I knew exactly what was going to come next.

Because I was thinking that if someone said that it would be really funny.

Because after 45 minutes with those nasty 14 year olds, I am a 14 year old.

Boys In the Gym

Most of my gym experience has been at a women's gym.  It all started when my sister a-ster was home from college one year and we joined for 3 months or something like that.  My intention was that I would work out until I could run well and I'd probably extend my membership for a while after she went back to school.

Well, many years and fitness certifications later, I still teach and work out at that same gym.

I've taught at a couple of co-ed gyms and I didn't see a big difference.  It was strange to have men in my classes and I had to stop myself from saying "ladies" and "girls" all the time.  And telling everyone to "grab your balls and lay on your backs" had to stop.  Otherwise, it wasn't too different.

I have always stayed at the women's gym and probably would stay even if I didn't teach.

And it all comes down to smell.

Because one time, I worked at a co-ed gym that was mostly a boxing gym.  And it STUNK to high heavens.  Like sweaty mats (or sweaty Matts, I guess!)  It just always smelled soggy.  And DIS.GUS.TING.

And I think I've mentioned my smell issues.

At my gym, no matter how sweaty the ladies get, it never seems to smell sweaty.  Sorry boys, all one of you that read my blog, but I really think the sweat smells different.

Or maybe there were always just 2 of us working hard at the ladies gym, so nothing smelled.

Until now.  Now we have 2 men who are trainers.  At a women's gym.

Some of the ladies dont' like it.  And I am sure some left at the scandalousness of men in a women's gym.

But they teach specialty classes so that you would know who was teaching when you signed up.  And there are women trainers if you want a woman to train you.

I don't really care if men work at a women's gym.

I think it's fascinating to watch what happens.  Women who are going to their specialty classes or who are using them as trainers are suddenly becoming fit.  They are not afraid to get sweaty in front of these guys.  In fact, they seem to LOVE it.  They are doing crazy things that they won't do when women tell them to do them.

I took a group training class today that is usually led by a woman trainer.  And the girls gripe and whine and fuss the wholedamntime.

Bring in a boy and suddenly it's quiet, people are working so hard you can practically hear their bodies burning off the calories, they are sweating and all the while just about asking MORE PLEASE!

They tease, they cajole, they practically demand MORE PLEASE.

After that class, the other trainer came in with a woman for a one on one.  I see these all the time because the training room is the same room as the spinning room, so when a spinning class is going on, there is often personal training going on and everyone just manages to get along.  When I teach on Fridays, there is often someone being trained by one of these men and since the instructor's bike faces them and no one else can see them, I can't help watching to see what goes on.

The guys  also teach boxing and all my boss had to do was bring in the pink gloves and suddenly, they are lining up to box with these boys.  And you have to pay a lot more to do so.  And they do!

It is amazing how much harder these women will work for a man.  I'm sure they would deny it 100% and claim they work just as hard for anyone.  But it seems to me that they love every second of this one on one time with the boys.

And if it means women are getting fitter  because of it, I'm all for it.

Just please don't let those boys sweat on my mat!