Adulting – Page 3 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Taking a piece of home when I travel

I was traveling for work this week and have learned over the years that it’s useful to bring an element of home when staying in a hotel room, especially if it’s for more than one night. And while the hotel does allow pets, I doubted my cats would be enamored of flying or being stuck in a hotel room while I’m at a conference all day. I opted for other comforts instead.

Comforts from home: a small light brown teddy bear wearing a red bow; a miniature Wiccan altar with symbols for earth, air, fire, water, man, woman, and cat that fits in an Altoids tin; a lotion bar and its tin.

For my hotel room, I packed a small teddy bear (named Kane) and a travel Wiccan altar. The miniature altar fits in an empty Altoids tin, and includes symbols for earth, air, fire, water, as well as man and woman, with the bonus of a cat. While the layout of the elements is directional, the cat goes wherever it wants. Both of those items are in my checked luggage, while a lotion bar and its tin – screw top, so it’s won’t randomly flip open in my bag – travel in my backpack. Airplanes, convention centers, and hotels all tend to be fairly dry.

In addition to these pictured items, I also have a travel nightlight and mini-humidifier for hotel rooms. I loathe stumbling to an unfamiliar bathroom in the middle of the night and having to turn on a garishly bright overhead light simply because I’m unfamiliar with the layout. The humidifier stayed home this time since the weather was warm; I find it more necessary when the heat is running.

And that’s how I almost make up for having to sleep without my cats.

A bathroom update, driven by necessity

The before shot: the old vanity and a space-hogging, dust-collecting radiator left over from when we had a boiler.

It wasn’t a terrible-looking bathroom, other than the bathtub that picks up color from the pipes and needs refinishing and a radiator that collected dust and anything that dropped down that narrow space between the vanity and the wall. But the sink drain periodically had issues, backing up soon after we cleared it. We hired a plumber, who disassembled the bits under the sink to clear it out with a “router” or drain cleaning machine (not to be confused with the router connected to your modem or the style used for woodcraft) and found that someone else had done that previously and left a broken metal rod in the pipe. Seriously, hearing the plumber exclaim “What the… ?” is never a good sign.

This metal rod was stuck in the pipe behind the bathroom sink, causing drainage issues. (Yes, the bathtub needs refinishing.)

The plumber put in a good effort, but ultimately said that he couldn’t get the rod out. The vanity would need to come out – outside of his scope of work – and in a worst case scenario, the pipe might have to be cut to get it out. I’m relieved to say that the handyman we hired did not have to cut the pipe to get this well-corroded chunk of metal out of the pipe. He did have to remove the vanity, and it seemed like a reasonable time to update that portion of the bathroom.

The fabulous looking bathroom after replacing the vanity & top, medicine cabinet and light, adding a door stop, and painting it dark blue.

The old vanity was 25 inches wide; removing the unused radiator from the floor gave us an additional 4 inches to play with on that side, so we updated to a 30-inch vanity with a 31-inch top. (We were told by multiple people that we could go as wide as 32 inches without interfering with the toilet, but 30 appears to be a standard size). In addition to the vanity, the medicine cabinet is significantly larger than the old one, the light fixture updated, and the walls are a lovely shade of blue. I keep poking my head into the bathroom just to smile at the overall effect of the change.

Let’s talk about sex.

More specifically, let’s talk about how we talk about sex.

I read a fantasy novel recently (shocking, I know) that had some fairly explicit sex scenes between consenting adults. The scenes were well written, except for the male character – who has already acknowledged his promiscuity – periodically referring to his partner as aberrant or amoral because she was interested and actively engaged in their sexual encounters. And every time he did, it wrenched me out of the scene I was reading.

I can break down what bothered me about this into two main categories:

Barring any religious or personal beliefs on the participants’ parts (and there were none at play here) that restrict when they have sex or who they have it with, it is a natural process and should not be viewed as aberrant or amoral.
There’s the inherent sexism of a promiscuous male referring to his partner that way when they were both clearly enjoying themselves. Frankly, the concept that women don’t enjoy sex is outdated and detrimental to the survival of our species.

As a society, we need to accept that there are people who enjoy sex, just as we should understand that there are some people who have no interest in it. There should be no shame in either choice.

A banana crisis

One recent morning, I turned around after washing my breakfast dishes and realized that several of our bananas had partially peeled themselves, falling from where they had hung on the banana stand. A single banana, I could have handled as a snack, but I was looking at four bananas with a stripe of peel removed. I had an early appointment, so I grabbed the entire bunch (including one unpeeled) and shoved them in the fridge. By the time I got home, the collection was down to three open bananas, which is a workable quantity.

Whole wheat French toast topped with caramelized bananas and mulberry compote

As I’ve said before, when life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie. In this case, life handed me a trio of bananas that weren’t overripe yet. Typically I wait for overripe before making banana bread. Instead, I considered banana pancakes or crepes for breakfast the next day, but ultimately decided on French toast topped with caramelized bananas and a mulberry compote.

My berry compotes are super simple: berries, a bit of water (add more as desired during cooking), and a dash of salt. Berries are naturally sweet, so I don’t bother adding sugar. They cook on low, stirred occasionally, while I prepare everything else.

The caramelized bananas are similarly simple: a tablespoon of butter and a banana. Melt the butter, add the sliced bananas, flip once or twice. Turn down the heat when the bananas start looking like they’re going to melt.

French toast has always been a bit of a challenge, finding the right mix between the egg and milk mixture and the absorbency of the bread. I ended up using three eggs for four pieces of wheat bread. I was eyeballing the milk, so I might guess a quarter cup per egg.

And that’s how I resolved my banana crisis.

Exercising indoors in the summer

One of the joys of summer is being outside, whether it’s gardening or visiting the zoo or having a picnic with friends. Some of that is outdoor exercise – in my case, mulching or walking through the neighborhood, which are both easier to do in the summer. So far, this summer has been a little different. First we had a couple warm, dry weeks, where we avoided going outside after the early morning because of the heat. Now we have air quality concerns in Chicagoland because of smoke blowing down from wildfires in Canada: the last three days have had an air quality index over 200 (the annual average is 23). I’m a huge fan of breathing, so I’ve been staying indoors as much as possible.

The remains of my mulch pile sits on the driveway, waiting for that number to drop. My Pokémon Go mileage has dropped, though not all the way to zero because I do have some indoor options that involve the right type of movement for my tracker. Those are options I usually reserve for colder weather: Beat Saber on my Oculus, using the treadmill or elliptical (which help my Pokémon Go mileage), or a Centr.com workout. They’re all valid options year round, but I hate to waste good weather by being indoors.

That said, I know I have to move; I know from experience that sitting all day for work causes my muscles to tighten up, and the pain from that is comparable to the hip pain that sent me for an MRI earlier this year. I need to stick to low impact exercises, which still means doing some kind of exercise. And I know there are many unexplored options online still that would serve me indoors.

Well, that’s not good…

When I was in high school, my father attended the curriculum night every year, meeting my teachers and getting an overview of what I would be studying that year. My last year there, I signed up for the Introduction to Poetry to class. I’ll be honest, I’ve never enjoyed analyzing poetry, but the teacher, Mr. Dan Bowden, only taught that and AP English. Mr. Bowden was a distinctive figure at my school, popping his head into our English class to ask a question, then reciting from whatever Shakespearean play we happened to be reading at the time, or stepping into the auditorium and joining the girls’ gym class for a minute or two as we attempted aerobics. After two years at the school, I knew I wanted to take a class with him before graduating.

My father, as I mentioned before, had a degree in English Language and Literature. It was still a bit of a surprise when he handed me a book of poetry the next morning with a page marked to show to Mr. Bowden. The brief poem was Lord Finchley by Hilaire Belloc, who seems to have been a fascinating character, and reads as such:

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.

Water near the base of our new water softener, a black cylinder next to our blue water tank. And, of course, a cat - Arwen - checking on the situation.

While I am by no means wealthy, I have kept this poem in mind mainly in the last decade as I’ve navigated home improvements and repairs. And so this morning, when I walked into the garage and found water emerging from the newly installed water softener, I immediately rushed to fix it. And by fix it, I mean call the water softener company to repair it… you did just read Lord Finchley, didn’t you?

While there are some projects I’ll handle inside the house, I have a strict rule about not messing with any appliances that integrate with the utilities: water, natural gas, or electricity, and the water softener touches two of those. For now, I have a towel down in case it leaks again – it appears to be related to when it cycles, which is about once a week. The towel is dry enough that Zuko sat on it for a while.

An overdue mulching

I never got around to refreshing my mulch last year; my last mulch delivery was in May 2021 (as mentioned here). It looked great at the time, but mulch gradually decomposes (that’s kind of the point) and needs to be replaced. I had another 8 cubic yards of mulch delivered last weekend and, while I’m definitely making a dent, between my hip issues and air quality concerns (due to wildfires in Canada), I’m having to take it a little slower than last time. Admittedly, I’ve had the mulch for less than a week at this point; this is what it looked like Saturday afternoon, after filling just one bucket:

Sunday morning, I switched to using a wagon to haul mulch to a few spots in the backyard. I could tell I had made a dent on the pile when I headed in for a shower and work on Monday:

8 yards of mulch minus a chunk a couple days after delivery

I’m deliberately not cleaning up the scattered mulch that I missed while shoveling; it gives me an idea of how much progress I’ve made. Of course, so do the results, like our herb garden out front after I finished placing mulch Wednesday morning:

fresh mulch around the star-shaped herb garden

I’m mostly done with the front at this point, leaving some sizable areas in the back and along the edges of the house still to do. All in all, it’s good progress.

A new sofa was needed

Creak went the sofa, again, as I sat down on it. Clink when I leaned against it while sitting on the floor. I had found a metal piece on the floor a while back, and only recently noticed another one on the side table. Sitting down on this old sofa – and it was old, a hand-me-down from family with both a scratchy fabric and pattern that made me wonder which decade it was from – was making me nervous. I placed an order for a new sofa online and moved the old sofa, then removed the cushions.

The wooden frame for our old sofa with some detached metal support pieces. And, of course, a cat.

I don’t know a lot about furniture design, but I’m fairly sure the metal supports aren’t supposed to be curling downwards. The pieces we found on the floor were those round bits at the end, which the supports hooked into.

Pieces of the new sofa waiting to be assembled.

The new sofa required some assembly. Honestly, this was a relief, as I was concerned about getting a sofa into the house; taking the old frame out was challenging enough. The packaging was quite clever: box 1 held the base, with all of the vacuum-packed cushions, the back support pieces, and the legs tucked inside the base itself; box 2 held the essentially armrests. The legs screwed in with simple twisting, and all of the other pieces simply slid together.

The assembled new sofa featuring, of course, a cat.

The sofa was, of course, cat-tested (and approved) immediately. Actually, there was some cat testing during assembly, but I was too busy to get those photos.

Birds hidden in a field of dandelions

We’ve had a decent mix of sun and rain here recently, causing an explosive growth of grass and the plants mixed in, particularly the dandelions. This first photo shows the dandelions and clover in my lawn shortly before the most recent mowing.

Dandelions growing tall in my mix of clover and grass.

This second photo shows similar growth in a friend’s lawn, which was mostly a field of dandelions at that point.

Dandelions growing tall in a friend's yard.

If you’ve never seen a Canada goose, I should inform you that they usually stand between a foot and two feet tall. I was amused when I realized that there were three Canada geese in the nearby field where I took the next photo; I think two of them were sitting down.

Canada geese resting in the tall dandelions in a nearby area.

If you’ve never encountered a Canada goose, this is an appropriate distance – far away – as they’re not friendly and can be quite aggressive at times. I periodically see them on my walks around town, and occasionally have to alter my route because of them.

Game-fying chores

I’ve said it before, nobody likes chores. There may be a specific one you enjoy (hanging laundry on a nice day, for example), but overall, they’re something that just needs to get done. And then there’s the matter of distributing chores evenly among household members. I had looked at chore apps before and hadn’t found one that was customizable enough to suit our chore list and that seemed fun.

That all changed this week, when someone mentioned Chore Wars on a group chat. The basic premise is that each household or party member creates a profile, and the Dungeon Master sets up the “Adventures,” allocating experience points (XP), chances of finding treasure or a wandering monster, as well as setting the relevant stats (standard gaming attributes based on Dungeons & Dragons or similar games). The gold pieces accrued for each chore are between a range of numbers, also customizable. There’s even a quick start for the Adventures that will create a set of common chores pre-loaded with all of that information.

I used the quick start for our initial set of Adventures, removing the irrelevant ones (ironing?) and replacing them with house-specific items like cleaning the litter boxes, taking out the compost, and refilling the bird feeder. And, after finding one the hard way this morning, cleaning up hairballs.

Our adventure has just started, so we’re still figuring out the website and haven’t decided if we’re going to exchange gold for real life rewards. Maybe once we reach a certain number of gold pieces between us, we’ll cash that in for a nice dinner.