Talents, or Lack Thereof

Spent the better part of tonight dealing with the checkbook and bills.   And you know what, I can do it, but I don't like it, and on top of that I am pretty sure I'm not especially good at it.   This is not about how much money we have or don't have.  Even if we had gobs of money I still wouldn't like the process of figuring out the stickier logistics of managing it.  In fact, the thing that  really started to give me the headache was trying to figure out what, in the h-e-double hockey sticks, to do with the small increase we're going to have in our budget.  (Save or pay off debt?  Which debt?  How do I save when the savings account options suck? ARRGHHHHH!!!)  Still, since I pretend to be a responsible adult, I make myself do this stuff anyway, at least to a minor degree.

My mom, on the other hand, is a whiz with this stuff.  Not only in terms of responsibility, but in terms of learning about financing.  She happily reads books about budgeting and finance, will listen to television programs about finances, and could, I'm guessing, if she were feeling comfortable with sharing that information, discuss exactly why she does what she does with her money, including stuff like investments and retirement, you know, the kind of things that would make my head explode. It might not be the most exciting thing in her world, but she's got it under control. 

On the flip side, in a conversation with some of my professors at the U today I was talking about the fact that writing a dissertation, this big scary thing, that so many people seem to detest, has actually started to be fairly enjoyable to me now that I have the time to do it.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.  I like doing research, I don't even hate theory, assuming it actually has to do with what I'm talking about.  And while it's hard work and not "fun", it suits me. 

Having these two experiences in the same day has made me even more certain that we really are born with inherent talents and weaknesses.   Yes, we can overcome some of our weaknesses with education and hard work.  (For example, my willingness to learn to use Quicken and Automatic Bill Pay.)  However, I think there are always going to be things that we love and things that we loathe.   This has lead me to two very important thoughts:

1)  How grateful I am that everyone is different, while I may not know what a mutual fund is, or how to change the spark plugs in my car, someone out there does.

2) I need to be kinder to myself about the things I'm not that great at.  Yes, I need to be responsible and do the right things, but it's okay to hate balancing the checkbook and have an irrational grudge against Suze Orman.  Really, it's okay. I'm a historian and a fiction writer and a good cook and a Sunday School teacher and a fairly good wife and daughter,  I'm even nice to people in traffic.

So really, I am, in fact, allowed to hate balancing the checkbook.  I just still have to do it.

The Conspirator

Tracy and I just finished watching the movie The Conspirator about Mary Surratt who was tried and hung as a conspirator  in the plot to kill President Lincoln.  The movie was fascinating and what I liked most about it was the way it really dug into thorny historical issues while still telling a compelling story.  

A lot of historians (including me occasionally) gripe about historical films, and while I still think it's important to try to be accurate to the issues and events of history, I also think there's something to be said for using a good story to interest people in the events of the past.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure I would have become a historian without things like the Little House books and Young Riders.    I think historians need to look pop culture straight in the eye and acknowledge it's strengths and it's weaknesses. 

A great example of this - On the first day of my graduate level "History as Archaeology" class my professor showed a pivotal scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark,  not as a cautionary tale, but as a way of acknowledging it as the first place many of his students heard about and became interested in the field of archaeology.  He then used it to prompt a discussion about what archaeology is and what archaeology isn't, all while admitting that he too wanted to be Indiana Jones. 

D.C. Quake

I recently tweeted that the thought of cracks in the Washington Monument, however small, is making me a little gloomy.  As anyone who knows me can attest, since Tracy and I lived there for a summer five years ago I have had a real affection for our nation's capital.  I'm really thankful that it wasn't serious, and that everyone is okay, and I'm really hoping the attack of Hurricane Whatever isn't going to make things worse.

Confederate Cosmetics

A few years ago my friend Michaele, who is getting her PhD at William and Mary (I am not jealous, I swear), sent me a wonderfully silly souvenir package from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, including, believe it or not, Monticello Hand Sanitizer.  It was such a ridiculously non-historic souvenir that it became a bit famous, in fact one of my coworkers from the Archives protested that she wanted her own ludicrous historical souvenir, and so when I was in Virginia last summer Michaele helped me locate yet another goodie,  a Jefferson Memorial nail file.

However, recently I received another souvenir from Michaele that I think, once again, takes top honors in the bizarre historic souvenir gift contest -The Authentic Civil War Era Lip Salve (it actually says this on the tube)  Johnny Reb Natural Beeswax Lip Balm in "Mint Julep."  I am not kidding.  It even has a little picture of a soldier in a gray uniform standing in front of the Confederate flag.

Michaele and I have talked in the past about the problem of the glorification of the Confederacy throughout historical monuments in the south, and now I have my own little piece of odd Confederate memorabilia.  And yes, I am using it.  While working on a dissertation about Civil Rights no less.  The world is a very strange place.

Freegle

As if I needed another reason to think libraries are awesome, over the last few months I have been thoroughly enjoying something called Freegle.  The Salt Lake County Library offers this service that allows you three free song downloads a week.  Like, as in you get to keep them, permanently and legally.

Now, not everything is on there, but the selection is pretty impressive.  New Brad Paisley album....check.  Miranda Lambert song I wanted (Only Prettier)...check.  Sara Bareilles (whom Becky Criddle made me aware of and I now love) ... check.   Really, sometimes technology actually is amazing.

Pluots and Other Adventures

Tracy and I decided to try buying our produce from the produce co-op Bountiful Baskets. You order the basket on Monday and pick it up on Saturday, it's a flat fee ($16.50) and you get a laundry basket full of stuff.  The adventurous part is that you never know what that is going to be until you pick it up.  This week was an especially good week with tomatoes, celery, asparagus, red peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, cauliflower, peaches, pluots (see below), cantaloupe, pears  and bananas.

We've been doing it for four weeks now and we've had a lot of fun with it.  I think it's something that we'll keep doing.   Here's the results from our quite successful experiment:

Positive Results

-We are eating more fruits and vegetables, I mean A LOT more.  I've been washing a bowl of the fruit and leaving it on the counter and Tracy's been eating them as snacks
- The baskets are consistently a great deal and the quality has tended to be better than average.
- I'm starting to build up a nice little stock of frozen fruits and veggies in the freezer and preserving them this way (at least for the short term) has been easier than I thought it would be. 
- Variety, we've had white sweet potatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes and mangoes, among others.  Things I wouldn't normally buy but were fun to have.
- Pluots, an apricot-plum hybrid that Tracy has declared might be his favorite fruit
- Melons, they're back baby!  Tracy doesn't like melons and so I wasn't buying them, but now if they come I feel happy to eat them instead of guilty for spending money on something one of us doesn't like.
- Broccoli, we like broccoli salad, a lot.  I made a big batch and it disappeared.


Neutral Results

-Kale, yes I can chop it up and hide it in things, but not our favorite.
-Cauliflower, we don't like it cooked, but it's okay raw.  I've snuck a piece or two into a smoothie and you can't taste it.

Negative Results

-Eggplant, even slathered in garlic and olive oil and grilled we didn't like it.  I think if we get it again I'll have to find someone to donate it too.
-Lettuce, we've received it every week and it's the one thing you can't freeze and therefore the one thing I have had to throw away.

P.S. – Tracy sold another item on Etsy, one of his computer clocks, which means he's sold one of each of the things he's posted – wind chime, mobile, and computer clock.  It's very exciting!