Category Archives: Life

Hey, it’s simply a lifestyle choice

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mega clotheslineI really love utilizing renewable resources. So when I woke up yesterday to a cloudless sky with hopes of temperatures rising into the 50s, I decided to start using the mega clothes line Mike built for me. Although hanging laundry takes planning and weather watching in the Northeast, I love it. It is so gratifying. I am utilizing the sun, not using fossil fuels and bonus – the clothes smell so fresh. It simply makes sense to me.

I have to admit that I have not always felt this way. My father loves to tell this very embarrassing story about me, when I was around 8 years old. But before I disclose this not so flattering story, you must have some background. It was the early 1970s, and although there was a fossil fuel crisis and people could only get gasoline for their cars on odd or even days, and the lines were very long, it was just the beginning of conservation discussions. It seemed like only the fringe people talked about it. I was raised in a very fortunate home, where we enjoyed all the new modern conveniences. My dad loved bringing home the new and best innovations.

Since I knew we were privileged, I thought people who didn’t have these modern conveniences were not as fortunate. I did not understand that it might be a personal choice. At 8 years old, I could not understand why anyone would choose not to use these new fabulous modern conveniences if they had the opportunity.

Every Labor Day weekend my Dad and I would collect money for “Jerry’s Kids,” who suffered from muscular dystrophy. This particular day, my Dad took me to his friend’s house, Myron Cohen who was a comedian from the 50s and 60s. Mr. Cohen generously donated to the cause. On the way back to the car, I noticed that he had clothes hanging in the backyard. (Now here is the embarrassing part that my Dad loves to tell).  I asked my Dad why he was so cheap and didn’t buy a dryer. My Dad used this teachable moment and explained that it was a lifestyle choice and not because he was cheap.

Fast-forward forty years and guess who is making the same lifestyle choice as Myron Cohen – ME. Boy time and experience does wonders for a person.  Although, throwing a load in the dryer is very convenient. I will watch the weather forecast; get up a couple of minutes early and throw a load into the washing machine. While Mathew is eating breakfast, I will hang the laundry out on our fabulous mega-line, enjoy the sounds of the morning and get some fresh air while I start the day. By the time Mathew gets home, it will be dry and he will help me fold the laundry.  This lifestyle agrees with me. Yesterday was so glorious I did two loads.

What types of lifestyle choices do you make? Please share and I will continue to share.

Life in the digital age

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Good old fashion photo album

Good old fashioned photo album

I am a rather organized and conservative person in most aspects of my life, but digital cameras have corrupted me.  I have become a glutton for hording thousands of digital photos. It’s crazy that even after I edit a photo, I have to save the original ~ just in case. In case, of what? I have no clue but I just have to save them all. With old fashioned film, I was very conservative when taking photos and tried to put them in albums before I forgot where and when they were taken. That simply does not happen with digital photos; some come off the camera onto my computer but are rarely printed and they certainly do not find their way into a traditional photo album.

Sure, there are photo albums that can be created online from digital photos but, frankly, I have a very difficult time making them. They simply don’t look good to me. Perhaps it’s the company I use but, frankly, every digital photo I have ever printed looks like a digital photo. I really miss the detail and warmth of photographs made the old fashioned way. The first and last time I made a digital photo album was in 2010. It covered our trip from New York to California and back again, and spanned two years of traveling and exploring. It preserved our wonderful memories, but I hated the way it turned out. And it took countless hours to create. I spent tons of time cropping, editing and setting up each page and yet, it didn’t look that great.

My computer and camera are both full of images, but there isn’t a tangible album to page through and reminisce. The other day, Mathew and I went through the albums I made of his first four years. It was wonderful. He had no desire to look at the digital photo book. See, he doesn’t even care for it and he is of the digital age. I still don’t have a true photographic record of our family’s adventures since 2010. This makes me sad, but not compelled to make another digital album. They say if you don’t like something or a situation, change it. Well, I guess I am simply too lazy. Truth is that the idea of organizing and creating another photo album is too overwhelming to even consider right now.

This past weekend, the time to purge my pictures had come. My computer was operating very slow and sluggishly. Mike believed that all my photos took up too much memory and was too much of a burden for my computer to carry anymore. Since he gave me an external hard-drive several years ago, I decided to finally transfer them. When we started the process, it became very apparent that I had never adequately sorted and organized the bulk of my photos. I had treated the picture folder like a junk closet. You know the kind that if you open the door, there would be an avalanche of random stuff flowing out. I started to reduce and reorganize but it was simply too mind boggling so I decided to move all the photos to the external hard-drive and tackle it another time: like when hell freezes over. Then came the moment when we needed to delete all the photos that had been transferred, but my computer refused to let them go. We tried several different approaches but it felt like it was behaving like me ~ it couldn’t let them go. Finally, we figured it out and everything is now transferred to the external hard-drive and deleted from my computer. Although the external hard-drive is plugged into my computer, it’s not the same. My computer allowed me to retrieve photos two different ways: by folders or dates; which made finding photos easy especially ones that had never been edited and renamed (which probably fed into my lack of organization, since it wasn’t necessary to be organized). The external hard-drive does not have this wonderful feature. So now, I have to scroll through all the numerous unedited photos. Perhaps, it really is time to organize and purge, or not. Time will tell. Regardless, I think my computer is running better since it is no longer burdened with over 7000 pictures. This is a very good thing.

How do you manage your digital photos? I would love and obviously need some suggestions. Please share!