Good morning! It’s a rainy Friday here, and the temperatures are a little on the cool side (and the cat is currently mashing his head into my typing fingers!). Today might be an inside day, but that’s okay, I have a ton of things to do inside. The book I’m reading on minimalism is really making me want to go through all my things (my goodness, this is hard to type, he’s just completely smooshing his whole chin into my right hand!).
Has anyone noticed that the news is just 100% bad
these days? Even more so than usual. My sister-in-law and I were discussing
this yesterday. I can’t have any kind of news on in the car when I’m driving my
daughter around, and scrolling through Twitter is just one awful link and
horrible story after another. It’s been hard trying to even find a single story
that isn’t a tough read. It’s one of those times when hakarat hatov (noticing the good) is a
little tricky, and it applies solely to life around us and not out in the world,
I guess.
Here's what I found interesting online this week!
‘The
Golden Age of Thrifting is Over’
Have you noticed this? I definitely have. At thrift
stores of all varieties, the quality of the products have gone down, while the
prices, even before the pandemic, have gone up, up, up. The lack of quality can
be attributed to the rise of fast fashion, where clothing (stupidly) isn’t
meant to last, and often falls apart after a few washes. Thrift shoppers, including
myself, have noticed this and are struggling.
I’m actively trying to downsize my wardrobe; reading
up on minimalism has made me recognize that I truly do have enough – too much,
actually! - and I don’t need something
new to boost my mood or give me a different look (it won’t make me a different
person!). I have a fancy dress for special occasions, I have everyday clothes, I have what I need to
dress comfortably for each season. But for other shoppers who need to update
their wardrobe due to weight loss/gain or a new job or whatever? It’s tough out
there. Clothing isn’t made to last anymore, and the more quality pieces are
often sold online.
An
Unexpected Effect of the Pandemic: Children Behaving “Younger” Than Their Chronological
Age
This is not the first article I’ve seen that talks
about this, and I’ve definitely noticed this in my daughter. It’s not
surprising, but it’s definitely hard to see. She and I are having a LOT of
talks about proper behavior in public (don’t crawl under the table at the
counselor’s; if no one else is speaking in that loud of a voice, you shouldn’t
either, etc), because her time in public around other people is still so limited,
so she’s not getting much social practice in there.
As a parent, it’s really, REALLY hard to know what to
do here. You see all these other kids out and about, unmasked and living as
though our country isn’t losing 400 people per day to COVID and hordes of
people haven’t been disabled by long COVID, and then you read articles about the
uptick in diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes in kids after having COVID (my father is
a Type 1, so we worry about a possible genetic link here), and you think, “What
do I do? What if this trip to the park results in her needing insulin the rest
of her life?” There are zero easy answers here, and I know a lot of parents are
struggling the way I am. Which brings me to…
Many
try to return to normal from COVID, but disabled people face a different
reality
This pandemic has shined a glaring spotlight on how little
our society values the disabled. Indoor mask mandates meant that the disabled
and high-risk could go about their lives with a measure of safety. Once those
mandates were dropped…high-risk folks are basically stuck in their homes,
unable to participate in anything, feeling forgotten and left behind.
Public health shouldn’t be a personal choice. It’s
illegal to, say, put fecal matter in a source of public water, like a water
tower. You’re not allowed to scatter the content of your cat’s litterbox in a
public place. But it’s okay to exhale COVID in the grocery store, upping the
risk for not only everyone in that store, but everyone those people will come
in contact with. Because Jim Bob refused to wear a mask (because his freedoms!!11!11!!),
cashier Maggie’s aunt Linda caught COVID at Maggie’s daughter’s first birthday
and now has long COVID. How is this where we’re at? How does this qualify as
sustainable in any way? What on earth are we doing???
Anyway, look out for the disabled people in your life.
They’re not okay right now.
And that’s it for this week! I have, I believe, five
book reviews to catch up on this weekend. We may go to my sister-in-law’s house
at some point so the kids can play, but that’s not 100% set in stone, so we’ll
see. My flowers out front died in one of the many heat waves we’ve had, so I’d
like to pull out their remains and plant some kale seeds in the pots; it
shouldn’t take too long, but I keep putting it off. But at least it’s on the list
to get done, right???
Wishing you all a peaceful weekend. Stay safe out
there. Shalom, friends. : )
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