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I am a latecomer to blood donation . I regret this. I have always wanted to be a person who donated blood. The 4th grade teacher I idolized, Mr. Dunkley, took us on a fieldtrip to the hospital and donated blood before our eyes. He was so noble! so brave! I wanted to be like him. Later, in high school, Hawkeye Pierce and the gang, my M*A*S*H friends, were always ready to lie down and pull up their sleeves when someone needed them–and someone often did.
Well, I don’t live in a war zone, but the Red Cross tells me that every 2 seconds in the United States someone needs blood. I can donate as often as every 56 days, but my blood’s shelf life is only 42 days. In fact, last year a study suggested that patients who are transfused with blood older than 28 days are more likely to suffer infections. So, the fresher the blood, the better. That means the more donors the better. The difficult part is that donors are hard to get. Less than 38% of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood. Of those eligible, most don’t donate. There are a lot of us who are squeamish and afraid of needles!
But if you are someone who can donate, consider the cancer patients, the new mothers, the car accident victims, etc., who may need your blood. Some day you could be the one who needs blood or your mom, sister or daughter, your dad, your brother, your boss, or your best friend. Or several of you. One thing is almost certain: if you can donate regularly, you will help people. The need for transfusions is rising 6% every year, and the number of donations isn’t rising that fast. We hope for artificial blood, but it’s still a hope for the future. Today what’s true is that if you can donate blood, YOU ARE NEEDED. If you can’t donate, you can help by volunteering, organizing a blood drive, or my personal favorite: babysitting for someone who wants to donate! (The donation process takes almost an hour start to finish and no one wants to take small children to a blood donation center).
I like the idea of often using this blog as a gratitude journal. But I don’t always feel sunny. January, for example doesn’t seem to have much to recommend it. Weather = bad. Anticipation = none. Children = back in school. Pdad = back to work. My goals for the vacation = unmet. I really like the days we had off of work and school, I just wish there could be more of them. And now, as so often, it seems like there is so much to do. I wonder how I can possibly get it all done. I’m not sure which strategy to choose: first get the house clean, then make returns? First make returns, then get the house clean? First do errands (carwash, preschool signup, grocery shopping), then clean house? Meanwhile, outside of this routine, where do I find time to work on the new things, the things I wanted to do better or spend more time on this year? If I get all or even a lot of these things done as I so much want to do, will it mean that I am messing up on something else? That when Kate and Duncan asked me to read to them, I said “later?”
At Church today, we were counseled to make and honor New Year’s Resolutions. I think of New Year’s as a secular holiday and of New Year’s Resolutions as a therefore secular practice. However, I guess there is no reason it has to be that way. Making resolutions is a practice full of hope. Hope than one can change and that things can be different. Hope can transform a slog into something else. It is January. I am desperate for that hope.
It is tricky to set resolutions realistically–high enough to be worth doing, but reasonable enough to be possible to accomplish. I find that when I consider all the possible resolutions I could resolve–fix dinner every night, fix dinners that include vegetables, stay current with the laundry, file all paper and keep it filed, learn windows 7, learn word 2007, be in bed no later than 11:00, read with Duncan every day, make time to play with the kids every day, read several books, exercise, be loving, stop criticizing, donate blood every 56 days, help my neighbor improve her English, read the scriptures every day, blog every day–it is discouraging. It is discouraging because if I am honest with myself I know I can’t accomplish all of those things. If I resolve all of those things, I will fail. But I do want to resolve them, because these are things I really need to do and really want to do.
How do I select between such worthwhile resolutions? Suddenly, making resolutions doesn’t seem secular at all. I can’t possibly sincerely participate in this resolution ritual without prayer. I can’t accomplish my resolutions alone. I can’t even decide what to resolve. Despite my misgivings about January, I am grateful. I have a father to to turn to, to ask for counsel, to pray to. I can put my anxieties in his hands and follow his paths.
Self-Deceived
I was craving something healthy. I’d spent the past few days silently snitching bits of birthday chocolate all day long. I can easily go a few days on cold cereal, yogurt, and chocolate, but then I wake up: What am I doing to my body?! Today was one of those waking days. So, despite it already being 6 p.m., and despite an evening of single-parenting ahead of me (attn ax-murderers: Pdad’s flight should land within the hour) I decided I HAD to make real food or perish.
It went surprisingly well. Duncan played sweetly with Kate. (Do you hear the choir of angels singing? I hope so, because it was a miracle). Amelia worked on her homework. I cooked. I made bistro salad–the number one best way to consume lettuce. It was past kid bedtime before we all finally sat down at the table. They hadn’t killed each other and I’d managed to keep them from spoiling their dinner or having hypoglycemic meltdowns with some carefully timed snacks. It was a good moment.
I said the blessing on the food. With great sincerity, I thanked Heavenly Father that we could sit down together and eat “real,” “healthy” food. I finished the blessing and picked up my fork. Amelia looked at me quizzically: “Why did you say that about healthy food in the prayer? Is Boursin cheese healthy?”
She got me!
For the uninitiated: Bistro Salad is mesclun mix coated generously with a thyme-mustard vinaigrette–plenty of oil, topped by bacon and eggs, and with a side of Boursin toasts. Healthy? On balance, probably not. Delicious: Oh yeah!
Question: If one only enjoys vegetables prepared in artery-clogging ways, is it still better to eat vegetables than not to eat vegetables?
I started writing this in reply to Julie’s comment [the 500th comment on this blog and by a new reader to boot! Hooray!] on the Shinguards Go Inside the Sock post and realized I wanted to put it up here as a separate post.
Julie, I think you make a really good point about how important it is to help your child celebrate who he is and what he is good at. All children need that. Actually, we all need that. In pushing one’s children to “fit in” so that they can find greater happiness, it is possible to accidentally send the message that not fitting in is truly terrible. This is a shame. I don’t need or want cookie cutter kids (and I’m not likely to have any). While I want them to feel comfortable socially if possible, I also want to teach them that they don’t have to be like everyone else to be wonderful. This is important for them to know because a) they aren’t like everybody else and b) they are wonderful. It doesn’t mean that those other kids aren’t wonderful as well, but clichéd or not, we are all wonderful in our own way.
I hope my children can learn to appreciate other’s talents and gifts without feeling that they are worth less because they didn’t get those particular talents and gifts. I also hope they will grow to feel mightily thankful for the gifts they have received, while keeping the perspective that being better at x doesn’t make you better, it just makes you better at x. I hope each of my children can find areas in which they are able to work hard and excel, because the discipline of applying oneself and learning the rules of any practice–whether it be soccer or swimming, storytelling or spelling bees, crocheting or kayaking–and then seeing improvement and ultimately success, is powerful rest-of-your-life preparation. We all like to feel that there is something we’re good at. We all want to know that if we work hard we can accomplish great things. This knowledge gives us courage and strength. It also gives us a secure position from which we are better able to appreciate other’s accomplishments and abilities.
Most of my traffic is not from search engines. But Google Analytics shows that I have had 93 visits on the basis of 53 keywords. Woo-hoo! I am sure it is obvious that I am still a little overeager about the whole blogging thing-(despite my inconsistent posting habits)—vague daydreams of thousands of subscribers and all that (thank you, you loyal 19, my inaugural readers). I am sure all blogging empires begin with a small subscriber base and a tiny trickle of search engine visitors (or maybe not).
Anyway, today I want to pretend to be like one of the grand bloggers, like Rocks in My Dryer, by responding to the searches that have landed random strangers on my blog. So here it is: my first edition of Google questions and answers (answers not guaranteed):
GARDENING
1. When to prune garlic?
I don’t know. I haven’t grown it. But I would think it would be like growing onions. Why do you need to prune it anyway?
2. My gaura plant looks dead.
Mine too. I’ve been meaning to do a post just on this. I’m beginning to suspect that my pink gaura (appleblossom grass) were not as cold hardy as I’d hoped.
3. Mint varieties for sale.
Limitless.
4. Mint that tolerates full sun
Don’t they all? Or most of them? Mint is a sunlover. You shouldn’t have any problems.
5. Is Catmint and Hummingbird Mint the same?
No. Catmint is Nepeta and Hummingbird Mint is a type of Agastache. They are related, because they are both members of the Lamiaceae (mint) family, which is why they both have fragrant leaves. My catmint is the “Walker’s Low” cultivar. It is shorter than the hummingbird mint (Agastache) and it gets going in the spring while the hummingbird mint is still asleep–it blooms in late summer. Catmint is a gorgeous purpley blue, where the hummingbird mint is dark hot pink. I have seen Walker’s Low Catmint recommended as a companion plant for agastache (of which Hummingbird Mint is one type).
6. Ava Hummingbird mint seeds.
Do not exist. Ava is only available from High Country Gardens and it is cutting propagated.
MISCELLANEA
7. Who am I to be brilliant?/ Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
8. What to say to someone when they win a spelling bee
There are numerous possibilities, but I think all good answers probably start with “Congratulations!” Other ideas: You did great! What poise under pressure. You must have really studied. Did you know all of those words, or did you have to guess on some of them? How did you study? What kind of books do you like to read? You really had me on pins and needles, I could barely stand the suspense. I was rooting for you.
9. What household products can I use in my Spotbot?
There are only two I can vouch for with certainty: a) hot water (works great for almost everything) and then b) the expensive proprietary Bissell products designed for compact cleaners. c) Wait! Pdad informs me that he has had good success through spraying the carpet with Spotshot (a product not made by Bissell and not designed for use with the Spotbot) and then using the Spotbot filled with warm water on that same spot.
I would be leery of using any other chemical or cleaner, especially one that might foam up too much. I used my Spotbot on a friend’s carpet once, and she’d already sprayed something on it. The machine was soon overwhelmed by lather. I was afraid the motor would burn out and the foam made it much harder to use.
10. How much money are hummingbirds?
Wow, can you buy them? How would you keep them? A small cage seems inhumane.
11. Licorice gelato recipe
I have been searching the earth for this for the past fifteen years. My ice cream/gelato cookbook collection is in two digits and I have seen only a couple of possible recipes. Nothing like the ebony nirvana taste sensation of my memories. My pledge: Someday I will visit Austria and eat it again.
12. hp dv5t trackpad, i like pmom 
I like Pdad. A man who designs search queries just to send surprise messages via google analytics is a man indeed.
I’ve had my comeuppance. Will it help? I don’t know. I’ve had comeuppances before.
But $350 and 150 minutes (with two year old in full action at the dealership) is a lot to pay for losing your key. If trauma and sacrifice can etch the memory, this should do it.
I know what I have to do now: always put the key in the same place. Can I do it? I’m a bit frightened because always returning the key to the same spot was my plan before. You know, when I lost the keys. And when I lost them again. And again. I feel like my plan needs more detail somehow. But what detail is there other than “return key to spot”?
I have been remembering two friends recently. They aren’t deceased—both are my age, and as far as I know, alive and well. However because we haven’t connected electronically—neither has joined Facebook, become a blogger, or visited here that I’m aware—on a day to day basis apart from the biennial or worse Christmas letter reunions—it is as though they are gone.
It is much easier to find a parking spot at the fitness center in March than in January.*
*I do not make this observation from the vantage of the smug self-righteous exerciser. My children could, but I can’t. On the other hand, do you think chasing Kate might count as an aerobic workout? How about weightlifting? Do I get credit for that?
It is sobering to return to my blog after so many months and to see that the last time I posted it was in gratitude for making progress and getting better. I offered a specific example of one way in which I thought I had made good progress: I was not yelling nearly as much as when Amelia was younger.
Well, today I was a yeller. Ouch. I am the Mommy. I need to have more control.
It is also sobering that more than six months ago I was trying to get into an early to bed early to rise sort of habit. I have not been doing well at that. In fact, there might be a connection there to the yelling. I need to get more sleep and I need to do it by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. Since it is 11:14 already, I guess this means my new blogging career will have to wait until tomorrow
Friday night: 12:55
Saturday night: 12:08 (before the falling back)
Sunday night: 11:06 (and I don’t think that accounts for falling back–boy I really need to change these clocks!)
Monday: before 10 pm
Tuesday: 11 p.m.
Wednesday: 12:05 a.m. (Oh, no I see a disturbing trend!)
Thursday: 11:30 p.m. (babysteps!!?!!)