Life is good, even in mundane times

[roku_kyu]

So, it's another night-before-another-family-and-friends-get-together at my place, and my Best-Beloved and I spent the day rushing around doing grocery shopping, house-cleaning, and the like. After a much-needed one hour break (in the pool), we got back to work.

Comments

[alcathradiel]

Never underestimate the power of the mundane.

I don't know all that much about the campaigning in the States, but I like what I've been hearing about Obama. That's one thing I like about Canada - waaay less conservative in general.

Which isn't to say there aren't conservative people, it just seems like they're far less vocal. They just gave an Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who was a pretty vital person for the pro-choice laws up here, and the conservatives only response was "Well, we'd have preferred to see this award go to someone who really unified Canada, but oh well...".

:( I'm really hoping that hurricane settles down. I hear they're evacuating New Orleans.

[roku_kyu]

Always great to hear from you, Spak!

If only the US conservatives could be half as reasonable as their Canadian counterparts. I got this line from Dee-chan, who gakked it from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

"[Michelle Obama's] got to [prove her Patriotism]: she's a Democrat. She must prove she loves America, as opposed to Republicans, who everyone knows love America - they just hate half the people living in it." ~Jon Stewart

Too true!

In other news, the evacuation of New Orleans is near complete. Even better, Gustav has downgraded at the moment to a Category Three hurricane. Hopefully, it will end up being not such a big deal, and nobody will get hurt.

[alcathradiel]

Yeah, what I heard this morning was that it's settled down and everything is looking okay. Which is good news. Hurricanes suck.

We don't get those, but we certainly get snow. Last winter was a doozy.

This is what my house looked like last January:

[roku_kyu]

That's one impressive picture, Spak-chan! But I'm with you--I'm a winter girl all the way. Summer's humidity makes me too miserable.

And yes, luckily we dodged a bullet with Gustav. Now if only the rest of hurricane season is merciful to our Southern states.

[alcathradiel]

I'm not a winter girl. I'm more of an autumn girl. When it's cool enough that you wear a jacket but warm enough that you don't need a coat, hat, scarf, boots, gloves and shovel to get to the train station. I like the previous items (minus the shovel) as fashion accessories, but actually needing them makes them less fun.

I will cross my fingers. It seems we're always lying in wait for the next thing Nature will throw at us.

[roku_kyu]

Well, we reap what we sow. As global warming increases, the storms around the planet become more violent. I don't do enough to reduce my carbon footprint (I drive a hella long way to work, for one thing), but I do at least a couple of things: (1) recycle and (2) drive a compact economy car

[alcathradiel]

I take the train to school and walk to work, I don't bother with the bus if I can avoid it because I have this fun habit of being cornered by the person who bathes the least and getting to spend an hour in traffic trying not to breathe. I'm willing to pay a premium to ride in comfort, even if I'm surrounded by a bunch of well-dressed business people and the private school kids and I'm dressed like a slob because I'm going to ink class.

Recycling is definitely a good thing to be doing. Reducing the amount of garbage you produce is also good - we've cut back by more than half, by recycling and by buying in bulk as often as possible, which means less packaging going in the trash. My boss also implemented the "no plastic bags" rule, she went out and got us some biodegradable plastic bags (they're made of cornstarch), and encourages people to bring their own and to buy biodegradable doggie clean-up bags. :)

However, as an art student, I probably kill a lot more trees than the average person. We go through a LOT of paper.

[roku_kyu]

(handwaves guiltily) Well, as a hobby writer, I am responsible for conspicuous consumption of trees as well. I have to print out my work to edit it; my brain just refuses to acknowledge errors on the computer screen. Lately, I've tried keeping an error-ridden printout of my work until I think I've caught nearly all the mistakes, and although I do several edits onscreen, i don't print out a chapter again until I'm sure it's error-free.

Then I catch three more mistakes, of course.

[alcathradiel]

I'm pretty terrible at editing things onscreen, too. I just have a habit of glazing over errors, so I usually print it out, edit it, double-check it, then reprint a final.

Recycling the paper afterward helps. I don't do that very often with completed artwork (unless they're ugly... my drawing teacher calls this "Filing it in the blue box"), but scraps are always tossed in. And a lot of the paper I buy is recycled, with the exception of watercolour paper (which is extremely expensive).