Friday links: 11 February, 2022

 Happy Friday! I’m absolutely, 100% definitely looking forward to the weekend. Although I’m not sure how restful this weekend will be, as I have approximately 374823749832478293 things to do, since I’m not getting much of anything done during the week at the moment. *sob* This weekend, I have more mushrooms that need to be chopped and put in the dehydrator, I need to pull out my sewing machine in order to mend a giant hole my husband tore in our sheets this week, I *still* have an hour of volunteer work I need to complete, I need to pick up a new prescription from the pharmacy, I need to knit the square for my friend’s memory blanket, and I have approximately 84237498327932 loads of laundry to wash, dry, and fold.

I’m tired already and need a weekend from my weekend…

 

Here’s what I found interesting online this week!

 

COVID-19 May Hide in Brains and Cause Relapses

And

COVID-19 takes serious toll on heart health—a full year after recovery

Y’all, we’re going to be seeing articles like these for a long time- likely the rest of our lives. As more of the long-term effects of COVID-19 come to light, science and medicine are going to be working overtime to catch up, whether that be developing treatment and therapies, or simply struggling to handle the case load of patients dealing with post-COVID damage. This is why I’m so deeply angry about our schools throwing all COVID mitigations to the wind. I don’t want any of these potential long-term health problems for myself, and I sure as heck don’t want them for my daughter. What are we even doing???

 

‘Complete crisis’ as PFAS discovery upends life and livelihood of young Maine farming family

Oof. Accepting free fertilizer, which ended up being contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (which are linked to, among other things, cancer, kidney malfunction, and low birth weight) ruined the farm and thus the business of this family farm in Maine. Completely devastating, and it makes you wonder how often this happens and we don’t know about- and how often it happens and no one knows about it. We’ve screwed the earth up in so many different ways that I can’t believe that number is zero.

 

Why book banning is back

Excellent article about why we’re seeing more book bans around the US right now. I appreciate that the article gets into the fact that the bans aren’t limited to a single political party, though they are heavily skewed towards one side.

I do think there’s a massive difference between banning a book completely and having a nuanced discussion that leads to substituting a different, more modern book into a curriculum. There are many books from the past that still have great literary merit and still aren’t the best book that we could use to confront certain topics. I adore To Kill a Mockingbird and have read it probably at least six times throughout my life, but I agree that there very well may be better books today that teach about the Black experience in that particular time period in a way that doesn’t center whiteness. Replacing it in school curricula is a conversation worth having, but it needs to be done by educators and professionals with a deep knowledge of the available literature (if you’re not familiar with the amazing, diverse voices that young adult literature boasts these days, this isn’t your playing field), the students they’re serving, and the future those students are going to live in. Parents- and I say this as someone who is now teaching my kid at home- aren’t always the best judge of what their kids need, especially if they’re not 100% tuned in to things like education and publishing. Literature has changed a ton since even I graduated high school, and what school looks like and teaches should be changing right along with it.

(I also loved the Little House on the Prairie novels when I was younger, but I haven’t read them with my daughter. While I do think there’s value in reading things and discussing why they no longer meet today’s standards- and we’ve done that with books like the Julie of the Wolves series- my feelings on the LHotP books are complicated, and there’s a lot I find disappointing in them these days, so I’ve opted out of this series that I definitely had warm fuzzies over when I was young. I’m adult enough to realize that these aren’t the best reads for the person I want my daughter to become.)

 

The hidden load: How ‘thinking of everything’ holds mums back

YUP. It’s exhausting. I’m even more exhausted now that 100% of my daughter’s education, plus 100% of the housework, and 100% of the cooking falls on me. My brain is usually going at 3000mph anyway, trying to think of what’s in the fridge in order to plan out tomorrow’s dinner while remembering where my daughter’s school shirt is (closet? Laundry? Floor?), while thinking of the library books I need to return, when I'm going to be on the other side of town so I can pick up bulk peanut butter, when the last time I talked to my mom was, will it snow tomorrow, how much exercise is my daughter doing, and where to buy her new shoes, and now I’m worried about keeping her up on math, is she learning the right history, when will she be able to have time with her friends again…

Parenting right now sucks. Not the kid part, she’s great. She’s been amazing through all of this, and I’m so, so proud of how well she’s handling these sudden changes and her emotions regarding everything. But the choices and the heaviness of it all? It all just sucks. My brain is exhausted, my body is exhausted, and I’m just so done. As is basically every mom I know right now. We’re worn out. We need help that isn’t coming.

On THAT cheery note…

 

Growing community in vacant Chicago lots

I LOVE this!!!

We have a community garden in my town. My family doesn’t have a plot there, but I adore driving by it (which doesn’t happen often, sadly; we live on the other side of town, and with being at home most of the time and nowhere to go, I don’t often have reason to be over there), seeing people working their plots, which are, in the heart of the summer, lush with greenery. The idea of turning vacant lots into community gardens makes my heart ridiculously happy, and I wish every vacant lot could be used in this way.

 

That’s all I’ve got this week. We’re going to get started on math in a few, and I promised my daughter we’d do art this afternoon, so we’re both looking forward to that. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Be safe, stay safe, and take care of each other. Shalom, friends. :)