Moderation in all things

This blog post was inspired by the post by the Chocolate Priestess on August 23, below.  Cerise writes:  

Balance is all.  Moderation in all things.  The Golden Mean.  These are noble goals, but it seems to be so hard for people to achieve them.  Especially in the United States, we prefer to go to extremes.  Moderation is so much better for us, but we’re not very good at it. 

For example, I, like the Chocolate Priestess, try to keep the environment in mind when making purchases and running my household.  This effort often aligns with my natural frugal tendencies.  If I can avoid buying something we don’t need, I will save money.  If I can make do with something we already have, I save more money.  If I have to buy something, maybe I can find it used, which saves me money and keeps things out of the landfill.  But I can’t always follow the most environmentally correct path, especially because my health conditions really cut into the amount of time and energy I have.  For instance, I can’t use an outdoor clothesline because my allergies would go nuts if I slept on pollen-dusted sheets.  So I try to line-dry a lot of things indoors, and never over-dry the other clothes by letting the dryer run longer than necessary.  For me, this compromise is a moderate, realistic plan. 

I have recently seen some households that make different choices.  For example, my parents and in-laws do not recycle.  Not a single thing.  Not paper, not aluminum cans, not even those ubiquitous plastic bags that every store tries to give you.  Nothing.  They laughed at us when we wanted to take some of our “trash” back home to recycle.  They said it was too much trouble.  Is it really any more trouble than taking out the trash? 

Now I will admit that we don’t take the recycling to the recycling center as often as we could, preferring to wait for it to turn into a small mountain in a corner of the garage, but it really isn’t that much trouble to recycle.  Yes, we have to drop off our own recycling, because we live outside of the city limits.  On the other hand, we don’t have to pay anyone else to pick up our recycling.  And I drive by the recycling center several times a week, anyway.  (I wonder if driving to the recycling center would otherwise negate the benefits of recycling?) 

At the other end of the spectrum, I recently visited a friend who is far more environmentally correct than I am.  She is pregnant and has a toddler, and she still finds time to do more than her fair share to save the planet.  Perhaps being a parent provides a special motivation for wanting to keep the planet in good shape for the next generation?  She is getting ready to move and she is packing with reusable storage totes and fabric for padding, rather than buying boxes and packing paper.  She was even talking about feeling guilty for not turning banana peels into chutney because she doesn’t have time.  She laughed and admitted that you can only do so much.   Trust me, dear, you don’t need to feel guilty for not eating your banana peels!  Maybe when your kids are older you can experiment with that recipe.  If you really want to. 

I think what I am trying to say is that moderation in all things extends to self-compassion.  Don’t be too hard on yourself when you can’t do it all.  You don’t have to be perfect.  You don’t have to save the world single-handedly.  Just do the best you can, with what you have, where you are.  Don’t let guilt spoil your enjoyment of life.  Give yourself a pat on the back for what you do accomplish.  Whether we are talking about recycling, cleaning house, working, spending time with your family, volunteering, or making home-cooked meals, high-achieving women tend to feel that what they do is never enough.  They feel they should be doing more.  But being realistic and taking care of yourself, too, will ultimately be the best thing for you.  And that will lead you to be able to do the most for everyone else, too.  

Love, Hate, Deer

Ever have those times when your ideal clangs against your selfishness?

 I do and I try very hard to keep my mind, body, and soul in a balanced state. In our household we try to recycle everything we can, we try to use less energy or at least be more efficient, we employ pest control and yard care that tries to deal with the particular problem not use chemicals in an overkill fashion, and we support causes we believe in that are trying to help our community, our nation, our world, function for centuries to come.

 This pro-environmental outlook is very challenging to me when insects or bugs are involved, I have an immediate reaction likely trigger by an event from my childhood that still haunts me. But let's face it, a lot of don't like bugs or at least don't want them in our homes. Bugs are everywhere. In terms of dominant lifeforms bugs win out over humans by share numbers and ability to adapt to their environment. I don't feel particularly bad if I kill a bug or scream for my husband to come get this thing away from me. I have no problem with insects out there in the wild but in my house, shudder.

 Like it or not we as human beings have a hierarchy of other living creatures we love or hate, eat or pet, are attracted to or repelled by. Deer are normally one of those on-the-border creatures. I come from a family where hunting and eating deer was not uncommon; I recall my parents' stand-alone freezer full of venison after the late fall. Then again there's the movie "Bambi" and the loveliness of deer out in the wild.

 Out in the wild.

There's a trend here in my mind I realize. You (the non-human thing) stay out there and leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. We don't even pay to have the yard sprayed for bugs but I will wear something to repel you from my body.

The town I currently live in has had a deer over population for a few years now. By "over population" I mean that deer are coming into town, wandering around the streets and getting killed, damaging cars, property, and people as they just do their deer thing. Debates at town council meetings and in the newspaper never doubt there is a deer problem but they do question how best to deal with it. I didn't really feel one way or the other, I mean the human children can run into the streets too and the local teens rebelling against nothing can damage property but no one was talking about shooting them or using birth control methods on them... at least not public.

Then I got a rose bush.

Technically my gardener got it for me as she was creating our east garden around our house. Slowly over the years we've lived here we've paid to have the gardens created and the yards treated for weeds and unwanted plants but the guys mow it and I try to maintain the flowers between gardener visits even though I have crazy allergies. All of this gives the home value. Rose bushes if cared for can grow and add value for decades.

Plus my mother tried to have one; my father destroyed it in one of his dick moments. My Daddy is great guy, he really loved my mother but he could be a dick and that rose bush was one of his dick attitudes in action. So I wanted/want the rose bush as a tribute to my mom and because I think it could be very beautiful.

The deer found it. They ate every single bud, they bit into the bush itself, my gardener was worried.

The deer had already destroyed some stargazer lilies she had put in and now they were going for the rose bush.  Note: the photo to the left is what my lilies might have looked like had the deer not found them and destroyed them.  My gardener had to get other flowers for the eastside bed to replace them.

About this time last year I was offered the opportunity to test and review a deer repellent and I jumped on it. It works, it works great, but I have to get the buds as they appear and if we get rain, I have to repeat it.  So now I'm in a personal battle with the deer the entire town has been debating about for a few years.  I saw who I think the rose eater is, check out the photos I took from our house; silly thing wouldn't stay still so I couldn't get better photos.

I'm having mixed emotions about the deer now.  On the one hand, this was their land once upon a time and we invaded.  However that is the way of life on Earth, all living things compete for space, food, water.  I'm not shooting the deer, I'm not trying to poison them, heck they can eat all the plants in the backyard they want, but just leave my rose bush alone.

As I said I said that I try so hard to not have contradictory feelings and ideas but I think in this case, I'm just going to have to accept that I love and hate the deer.

Now if I could just find a way to love that damned skunk that is letting loose outside our air conditioning unit about once a week...

Advice left as comments is very welcomed, folks.