Gracious southern living

It is no secret that I am a firm believer in the importance of efficiency. I am a great advocate of the notion that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and my life tends to reflect that philosophy. I try to streamline my habits, and those of the general household, for a maximum of usefulness and a minimum of waste.

Of late, I have begun to observe this passionate efficiency teetering on the brink of barbarism. ('Why bother getting out another clean bowl? Jane won't mind eating her breakfast out of my bowl, and that will waste fewer molecules of granola.' 'Oh, here's another clean corner of the tissue. Good thing I didn't throw it away last nose wipe!')

In the Little House books, we read about a time when people were concerned more with survival than with frills. They raised their own food, they made their own furniture, they invented their own fun. Yet, in the midst of all the (what we would consider) privations and hardships, they prized beauty. In the winter Ma went to the extra trouble of grating, boiling, and squeezing out carrot pulp to colour the butter, because the butter was paler then and not so pretty, and 'Ma liked all the things on her table to be pretty.' In a time when Monday was wash day and just doing the laundry took a whole day, Ma still made the time to brighten her home with an extra touch.

While living without an operable dishwasher for several weeks has indeed brought home to me the monstrous reality of what a bother an extra dish or two in the sink can be, I must remember that this time is only an exception to the rule, and that usually, my mechanised servants are at my beck and call to smoothly whisk away the occasional extra inconvenience that civilised living imposes on us.

Recently I read a description of setting a pretty breakfast table, involving glass jars, plated butter, and milk from a glass pitcher. While the pictures looked lovely and I admired the creativity it took to transform an otherwise humdrum affair into a special treat, my immediate reaction was: 1) extra dishes to wash out; 2) wasted molecules of milk from pouring into additional containers. What a short-sighted response. If our ultimate goal were to muddle along through life conserving as much energy, money, and molecules as possible, we wouldn't be nearly so happy at the end of it with all the extra time and money we managed to save.

It is partly a horror of falling into the dark ages (where, arguably, trenchers were a very efficient way of not having dirty dishes to wash at the end of the meal), and partly a reading of blogs and books that show a true appreciation for beauty, that has motivated me to strive for excellence in our home, and place beauty and graciousness on a par with efficiency for the time being.

There has to be a balance, of course. I'm no Martha Stewart, and I simply can't justify spending three hours on a finishing touch when there's dinner to be gotten. On the other hand, how much more water would it waste over the course of a year to wash out an extra dish or two a day? Could it even be measured, like the long-term effects of habitually turning off light bulbs? And even if it could, and I figured out that one extra serving dish a day ended up costing, say, $3 a year extra, wouldn't it be worth it for the pleasure it would bring us every day?

That's my new perspective, and also my new project for this fall: I'm going to explore the appropriate balance between efficiency and beauty, and incorporate a hearty dose of graciousness into our lives. Maybe as soon as we get the dishwasher replaced.

Laziness and labour-saving devices

There's a telling contrast between worldviews in Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods. Laura's Pa jubilantly recounts to Ma the efficiency of the new threshing machine, which he took the initiative to hire out and bring to the farms in the area: 'It threshed as much wheat in a morning as Henry and I could have threshed in a week, and the straw's cleaner and the wheat better than we could have done using winnows.' Pa is all for progress and efficiency.

Almanzo's Father, on the other hand, disdains those modern farmers who employ new-fangled contraptions: 'All it saves is time, son, and what are you going to do with time on those long, winter evenings? Sit by the fire and twiddle your thumbs?'

In the spirit of scientific research, I think I have determined exactly the right formula to measure whether an invention is an efficient, time-saving device, or a silly, lazy shortcut: whether or not I would do it.

For instance, I use microwaves, washing machines, and dishwashers. Those are clearly marvels of modern invention, and well worth the investment. Doing all the tasks manually that these machines accomplish for me would require far more time, effort, and materials than I am willing to put forth, and besides, these machines use far less energy than it would take to do it the long way. It's definitely a cost-effective solution.

On the other hand, there are things like pre-cooked bacon, no-rub contact solution, and detergent balls.

I have the unique opportunity to review such an impractical and wasteful system as the contact solution because it came free in last month's Walgreen's rebate. And, while it worked nicely and saved maybe a few seconds of my life every night, I must reiterate again and again that the only reason it worked for me was because it was free. Otherwise, I would never have tried it.

The premise is that instead of pouring contact solution into your palm and rubbing the lenses for five seconds, you pop the lenses into the special upright case, fill the bottle to the fill line, and soak the lenses overnight, where an intense solution that includes hydrogen peroxide cleans the lenses for you. If your time is so valuable that you can't spare five seconds to clean your lenses like the rest of us peasants do, then this product might be for you. On the other hand, you spend about that long fitting the lenses into the special case, filling the bottle, and screwing it together, so I guess this really only works for those people that, for some reason, really hate washing their contacts. But you still have to stick your finger in your eye.

The 4-oz bottle lasted me less than a week, so for $6.99/bottle, that comes to over a dollar a day, just to get out of washing your contact lenses. This strikes me as a very expensive way to get out of doing work.

Then there are the laundry balls, which I haven't actually tried yet, but which I can't help feeling must fall far short of their touted ability to help you keep up with the wash. I can't speak for the majority of the desperate housewives out there, but as for me and my house, the thing that prevents us from keeping up with the laundry better comes in the putting-away department, not in the loading-the-washing-machine stage. How many times have you found yourself thinking, 'I really must run a load of laundry today!' and then followed up that thought with, 'Oh, but that would entail measuring and pouring a capful of detergent! Oh me, the very thought is exhausting! Perhaps I can put it off for another day'? No, nor I. How lazy would you have to be to be daunted by the prospect of measuring and pouring laundry detergent??

Modesty and strange men

A long time ago, when I was thickly steeped in Institute teaching, I heard the testimony of one prominent lady, in which she shared how she had arrived at her conviction regarding pants.

Apparently her husband wanted her to wear only skirts, but she resisted as much as she could, wearing skirts when out and about but wearing pants at home because she thought they were so much more comfortable, practical, etc.

One day she was wearing jeans and had to run a quick errand. Rather than bother changing, she decided to run out just this once. While at the dry cleaner, she noticed a man staring at her such that it made her feel uncomfortable. Then he asked her, 'Are those new blue jeans?'

'No,' she answered, feeling embarrassed. 'They're just some old ones I was wearing.'

This strange man then remarked, 'I wish my jeans looked as good after a few wearings and washings!'

This conversation made her feel so uncomfortable that she instantly repented of wearing pants and decided to completely obey her husband in the area of modesty henceforth. Now, at the time I heard this testimony, I accepted it as proof positive that Pants Were Evil, but it has now been many years since I dismissed that little story as mere propaganda. Surely such a conversation must be contrived for the sole purpose of brainwashing gullible young girls into impressionable tastes in clothing. After all, no one could be that lame.

Well. Fast-forward a few years, by which time I have gradually formed some new opinions about clothing, among which the daring notion that knees may not necessarily be immodest, backed up by my husband's approval, of course.

We were looking over some pictures last week, and I was internally whining at how good I looked five months out from Jane v. how I look now seven months out from Ella. The looking good was probably due in part to the pretty little skirt* I was wearing in the picture, not actually too short to wear, but just a tad too close to the line to remain in general circulation. I decided to pull it out of the closet and give it another try.

And then, of course, I had to run out for gas. And this is where history gets ironic.

I was standing at the pump, filling the tank of Michael's truck, because he had just told me it was empty and if I was going out at all could I please take the truck and fill it before the next time he needed to drive it, when the guy standing at the next pump over asked me, 'Is that your truck?'

What a stupid question. With the price of gas what it is, is it likely I'd be filling up anyone else's tank? Of course not. This guy was seriously weird and needed to be repelled with utmost magnitude. I replied, 'No, it's my husband's truck.'

But that didn't stop him. He went into some rigamarole about a friend of his who had the identical truck to mine, but got into an accident with it and was so rattled that he decided to get the same kind of truck as this guy (the one who was telling me all this) because it is so much bigger and safer. During which this guy was pointing out the bigness of his personal truck so that I could admire its largeness and consequent safety.

Yes, well, I'd personally rather take my chances with the road hazards and settle for the better gas mileage, but that's neither here nor there. I don't go about accosting strange people at gas stations and chiding them for their gas consumption and safety choices, either as an environmental/public service crusade OR as a social outlet.

So I came home and told Michael about it, who did not tell me that the skirt was inappropriate for public viewing, but laughed and told me that the guy's attempt at witty conversation was no more clumsy than might be expected. In fact, guys can apparently be incredibly lame when attempting to strike up conversation with an object of passing fancy.

I guess New-Blue-Jean-Dry-Cleaner Weirdo wasn't necessarily a fabrication after all.

*

Solved mysteries

- Finally I discovered where socks and other small oddments disappear to in the wash. This had puzzled me for some time, as I knew I wasn't leaving them in the washer or the dryer, and I knew they did not drop down behind. When I pulled a sheet out of the closet recently, a sock shook out of the corner. Aha! Of course, while fitted sheets remain the prime abductors of small odds and ends, they are by no means the only offenders. I remember now that once, as we were walking through an airport, Michael pulled off his sweater and a small unmentionable fell to the floor. How it hitchhiked all the way to the airport without his knowledge I will never know. But at least now I know to shake out every item thoroughly before putting it away.

- I also figured out why cars tend to creep forward when stopped at a light, a phenomenon which has highly annoyed me for some time. Either they creep up behind me, making me nervous of a collision, or they creep away in front of me, leaving an ever-widening gap that makes it look as if I stopped too short and potentially irritating the cars behind me. I couldn't figure out why people would do this, as they aren't liable to cross the light any sooner and it simply wastes gas to gun the engine. But my brush with the rental car after our last accident cleared this one up for me. This car was an automatic, and I found that when you lift your foot ever so lightly off the brake, the car creeps forward because the engine idles with a slight forward motion. Of course you don't switch an automatic to neutral when you're stopped at a light. So that's why it keeps happening: almost everybody else out there is driving an automatic now.

There and back again

We have returned from yet another whirlwind weekend trip, and we're glad to have no more travel plans until Christmas. It was great fun to see family and friends again, and the driving went pretty well, considering, but it's no picnic to be cooped up in a car for 10 hours straight. The girls were absolute troopers and bore their constraints bravely. But we're glad to be home.