Same here. I told the doc if there is ever enough reason that I should seriously co insider going off coffee, he could either sedate me for a couple weeks, or zofran and narcotics would have to be involved. He wasn't amused. We also don't talk about it now. Ann, if you live to tell the tale, you should get some sort of prize.

If quilting doesn't at least make you think profanity, you are either a witch or not doing it right! 😆😆😆

I wish you all the best in your insane and clearly demented journey. 😁 Sitting here drinking coffee....🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃

Adorable! You are doing a great job, Ktgrok!! Love it.

That is super cute! I particularly love the space fabric.

That is awful! Thinking good things for Australia. Please boardies, be safe, and check in when you can.

I know!!! My brain is flipping out. Climate Change is a bear!! North of us by only a few miles is Lake Huron/Bay, but northwest of us which is inland, they have red flag warnings for forest and grass fires. 79-85 in a region that this time of the year would normally be happy high five for 50°, and wind gust up to 35 mph in some locations, dry as a bone which is also completely abnormal. Crazy. It makes me worry about drought here even though at the last, we did get enough snow/ice for our county to be downgraded from mild drought or abnormally dry (last year) to normal. I have this scary feeling that I should prep for lack of rain. I need to get my water wicking system figured out for the garden. I have 10, 5 gallon buckets with kids that have holes drilled for the rope/string.

Perfect. And making friends and building relationships takes time, sensitivity, education/skill, and patience.

Amira, thank you. You came up with the word I was struggling to find. Gawking. I do feel like missions/humanitarian tourism is gawking. I think there are a lot of unintended consequences, as you say, like getting an area razed because people who do not understand the situation decide to vocalize an opinion. You are so right though. Every country has its own unique wonderfulness, and seeing it and spending appropriately and conscientiously around the world is a good thing.

I am not one of those people who puts a lot of stock in alternative medicine. But one other thing that I have had work for me for bruising, bad bruises, is comfry tea compresses, warm ones. No idea why. Someone told ds and I to use them after our car accident, and there was a bit of difference in healing rates between the ones that received the comfry treatment, and those that didn't. But again, totally anecdotal. I would be very interested in seeing that studied. I am not well versed in the specifics about honey. What is Manuka and how does it differ from say, my local honey which is heavily influenced by clover and apple blossoms?

Y'all, it is going to be 82° tomorrow. 82. Mid-April. Michigan. My brain can hardly grasp this. At any rate, so can't decide if I should work outside or lay out in a bikini! 😁 I am really hoping that I can cut some dead branches down, and take the axe to some rotted stumps. Mark will be building my additional raised beds, and I need logs and branches to fill the bottom. I have quite a few out there now. However, 7 beds 7 ft long and 2 ft wide is going to require quite a bit since I need to fill them about halfway. I need to take a picture of my little seedlings. I am so proud!

Definitely, duration is the thing. Going for a week or two doesn't foster cultural sensitivity or empathy. A year? Absolutely can be life changing.

But the thing is, it is kind of exploitative. When other nations send us relief aid for hurricanes and what not, they don't need to see it to believe it. Why are Americans so different? There is enough journalism with photos about these things that it is really disturbing that someone has to go into someone else's backyard in order to feel compassion. It really bothers me. I also don't know how to get our culture to be more empathetic.

I don't know about bacteria, but for me, it helps with viral laryngitis. I used to have a horrible bout annually. For more than a decade, every October like clockwork practically, three weeks, no voice, misery. I decided to hark back to an old remedy since my doctors just kept sayng, "Viral. Nothing we can do. Gargle with saltwater." 😠 No one could explain why gargle with saltwater was supposed to work if it wasn't bacterial. But I digress. Lemon tea, lemon vodka, honey. One a day before bed at the first sign of trouble. After a couple of years, I stopped having laryngitis problems. 100% anecdotal, and worth exactly nothing as medical data. But if honey turned out to be the answer to antibiotic resistance, I would not be surprised.

The situation was one of needing help with computerized equipment that needed a lot of updates and repairs that could not be done remotely, and needed some expertise. Specific situation, specific hospital/clinic/outpost...can't say here. He was asked specifically because he is best buddies with one of the doctors. I can't really say more. As for family. I mean, I don't think I am a better or worse person for helping her. It just needed to be done. I was there for her, not "the country". Family members who have engaged in missionary work, a week or two at a time with more of the generic "go have a VBS or go give away trinkets or go build a 10'x12' building" type trips came back excited about helping for about a month, and then life went back to normal, and the only thing heard about ever again was all about the tourism activities. They loved the beach, the mountain hike, the snorkeling, the whatever, crickets on everything else, and they did not become active in anyway with future anything in those countries. Mil? Well, nursing and pediatrics was her thing. Her passion. She had passion before she left, and passion when she got back. She went three times, and always with a group of professionals, and she would have continued going if a certain person had not been elected to the presidency, and shut down their program. Well drilling cousin does not go with any mission group. He funds everything he does - cousin has some serious bucks - and is committed to the country. However, he was committed to it before he ever went. He and his wife adopted a baby of a relative from that country, and he felt it was important that he use his skills in a practical way to help. His actions are not also linked specifically to religion either. My sister taught for one year on an N.A. reservation. It affected her. But she also has HUGE issues, just epic issues, with mission tourism. According to her, it causes more problems than the minimal benefit of it. I have had three nieces and two nephews go on "mission trips", and they were absolutely colossal wastes of money and resources. None of the people had anything to offer. Here is my ultimate thought. I don't think other countries owe Americans a life changing experience in order to motivate them to have compassion for others or promote better policies or give money to genuine causes. It is a bit demeaning or something. I don't know that much thought is given to the perspective of the people putting up with the mission tourists who come.

I should also state that my husband has been to foreign lands to do volunteer IT and electrical engineering work for DWB. He works 12-14 hour days. So we do have personal experience with it. I have personally been to a foreign country, a very poor one, twice to provide personal care for a friend who is a trauma therapist working there, but needed surgery. I took care of her, her children the house, getting the kids to and from school. I most certainly had exposure to local life, and experienced a lot of things - it isn't easy to grocery shop when you do not speak very much of the language - but my purpose in being there was for her and her family, not to pretend I was doing a great thing for the people.

See. same. I know so many that are just proselytizing and teens holding a "Vbs" and they don't even speak the language. But on the other hand, when my mother in law was still working as a pediatric nurse, she went annually to Nicaragua, and did pediatric nursing. One month of vaccines, teaching, administering antibiotics for infections, assisting doctors with treatments, running full on pop up health clinics, and prenatal care as well. That is beneficial because every single person on the team was a professional medical practitioner. I also didn't have a problem when Mark's cousin, a well driller, bought equipment to be kept in Haiti, and goes every three years to dig needed wells in villages without healthy water. Again, does a professional thing and leaves, and all at his own expense. What he doesn't do is run around preaching, and making people pat him on the back for being there or have to convert in order to be helped, and there is so much of that kind of thing attached to missions tourism that I tend to be SUPER skeptical.

I think many countries, in general and though poor, do have some dependence and need for tourism dollars. This goes beyond just the wage/tip of the individual because usually tourists are buying things, using their dollars in country. I am not sure it helps the nation to see a huge dip in tourism. It certainly hurt Egypt, and they have not recovered. But in terms of service trips where Americans go to "help", I think that these are just a type of tourism that makes the tourist feel altruistic, yet is not of benefit. Doctors Without Borders, World Kitchen, and other NGO's that bring professionals with very specific skill sets to do specialized things, are of high value. Joe regular showing up to build a little house or preach or whatever? Hard no. The dollars being used to send " Joe not a professional and his teenage son" or whatever would be far better used to pay local folks to build the house. Tutoring would only be of value IF the person is fluent in the local language AND dialect. Otherwise, interpreters would need to be hired. Better to pay to educate the citizens of the local area to become teachers and tutors, and then provide wages for the work. That has long term value. Someone breezing into town for a week and needing an interpreter, then going back home, does not bring a long term value to the country. Frankly, unless one is going to have a career overseas, there is zero benefit to the country to have anyone come just to "experience" life. I know I would not be thrilled with someone from say, Brazil or wherever, wanting to come stay in my village to experience my life, and then take off patting themselves on the back to help. It would be better if those people spent their dollars to go to the beach, eat out, get a massage, buy some rum or whatever.

That is a thought. Let me see how many containers I have. I was thinking that if I only had room for six, I would just get June bearers, harvest, and that would be that. However, I have a whole corner of the garden shed that I have not cleaned out and I have been saving pots and buckets and what not. I might be able to do more than I was planning.

Oh my goodness! I must have either well fed critters or lazy, stupid ones. To be honest, seeing them in action makes me think "Really stupid"! 😂😂😂

I have more than I need because for a while it was every person in my family's go to gift for me since they knew I hate the whole plans if water bottle thing when we camp, picnic, hike, sail, kayak. Hate it. Now I have about eight. Far too many. I am keeping one good size steel one with a wonderful cap that holds a quart. Mark and I use that on the boat and share. I have two more stainless that I will keep that are only 16 oz each which will be for kayaking. There are three that I will be giving to our two adult sons who love to camp and are starting from scratch building up camp gear. The other two are plastic. Not a fan. But Dd had them made with family photos on them which makes me sentimental and soft, so I can't bear to part with them. They are 16 oz containers, and I have decided to fill them with potting soil and put a petunia in each one, and stick them in my plant window. When I have a water bottle with me around the house, for what reason I do not know, I drink more water than when I just have a cup or glass out. I have no idea what the psychology behind this is.

Popmom, okay so 4- 12" round pots would be just one plant per pot, but for the little 2'x2' square planter, 2 plants or do you think it could handle 3? Anyone know what I can expect, harvest wise from 6 June bearer strawberry plants? Would I get a whole quart? I mean, not exactly cost effective over buying, but it will make me happy to grow them, and happiness is important! 😀

Right there with you. I have bell peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli which have sprouted from seed indoors. San Marzanos? Not a single one. And reading about their snarky, snowflake attitude makes me think I will be buying Amish paste to transplant.

I thwarted the mother rabbit who nests and has a litter here every single year, by doing raised beds. They aren't hard to build. Check Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and local businesses for pallets. We have been gifted pallets just because the owner needed to get rid of them, and purchased them other places for $1.00-2.50 each. Cheap wood. We keep our veggies two feet off the ground which seems to thwart all the regular critters. I fill the bottom of the beds hugelkulture style with sticks, branches, leaves, logs...yard and tree refuse, 12" deep, and then compost and top soil for the other 12". Ground hogs were the bane of my existence until we went to raised beds.

Agreed. She is an absolutely inspiring character. What not to love? Though the show was not one of my favorites, Bailey is one of my favorite t.v. personalities.