Is your home a no-shoes zone?

  

This seems to be a never-ending debate in many homes.

 Is it really necessary to ask people to step out of their shoes before stepping inside?

 “Kick off your shoes, and stay awhile” might be a popular greeting (at least, in the olden days, so to speak). But does it really matter?

 Sure, shoes can leave scuff marks on fancy flooring. They can drop dust and dirt into carpeting and rugs. And don’t even get us started about what happens when people put their feet on the couch, coffee table, or other furniture.

 But is the argument purely aesthetic, or are their health and safety reasons to request people to enter shoeless?

 How many germs might someone pick up, simply walking through various places before coming to visit? 

• a busy street
• a carnival or county fair
• a commercial kitchen
• a factory
• a farm field or barn
• a grocery store
• a hospital
• a lawn with recent fertilization or weed killer application
• a locker room at the gym
• a parking lot
• a port-a-potty
• a public restroom in a shop, restaurant, or gas station
• a scientific laboratory
• a sports stadium
• an automotive repair shop

 Are you gagging yet? Imagine the many contaminants one might pick up in such spots. Would you sit down and perhaps even eat on any of those floors? But what if those germs were tracked into your home? And what if you have a crawling baby or toddler?

Not to be a Goody Two-Shoes, about this, but I think the no-shoes idea has merit.

 Some folks keep shoe or boot trays just inside their doors, along with big baskets of booties, slippers, or even shower caps. That way, guests can remove their shoes and put on comfy coverings, if they wish.

 Of course, the no-shoes rule pretty much goes out the window, if certain people step outside in stockinged feet. (I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes …)

 And what about bare feet in the summer?

 It’s hard to police the no-shoes rule. But we try as best as we can.

 Then we’ll always find those who firmly believe the rules do not apply to them. For instance, we’ve had a few extended family members that insisted their shoes were clean and refused to remove them. That’s when everyone else looks at us, just waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.

 

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Image/s: Adapted from public domain image

 

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Beware of unwelcome bonus at Little Free Library boxes

 

Without reservation, I enjoy visiting Little Free Library boxes in and around my own hometown. I even peek into them sometimes when I am traveling. I love the idea of passing a book I’ve read along for someone else to enjoy, and it’s fun to pick out another one to dig into.

 You're probably familiar with these. They are little take-a-book, share-a-book stations that can be found in neighborhoods, village downtowns, school entries, and plenty of other spots. 

 Santa, are you listening? I’d be pleased to set up such a station outside my own home, so neighbors and friends could swap books easily. This one is really neat, with an appealing design and plenty of room inside. There's also a smaller one that resembles an old English photo booth, although I'd probably fill that in an instant with all the books I could pass along. And there's a handy compact double-decker version, although it looks a bit like an outhouse to me. (Hey, if you've even been to camp, you know.)

 Having said all that, I cannot forget three incidents that pestered me about poking into Little Free Library boxes in the past few years.

 

MITE-y annoying surprise.

 First, it was the book bugs. I grabbed a paperback mystery a while ago and headed home with it. I settled into a chair on my patio, enjoying a mild summer evening, and cracked open the new (passed-along) book. Almost immediately, I literally felt my skin crawling, as tiny mites escaped from between the pages. (I've heard of bookworms, but this was something altogether different.)

 

Getting ANTsy about a new read.

 On another occasion, I placed a trio of paperbacks into another Little Free Library box in our town. Delighted to find a fairly new title I’d been hoping to read, I pulled a book out of the box and began flipping through the pages. That’s when I noticed dozens of tiny ants crawling all over the inside of the book.

 

WASP up with that?

 More recently, I visited still another Little Free Library near my home. Clearing out my own bookshelf, I went and piled a few volumes inside the book box. I noticed the contents seemed to be randomly tossed into there, so I began straightening up the proffered collection. 

Suddenly, I felt a painfully sharp sting on one hand. That’s when I noticed a cloud of wasps, swarming out of their nest, which was situated up under the rafters of the house-shaped book box. I reported this to the village hall, located across the street from it, and the staff there promised to alert the Boy Scout troop that managed that Little Free Library. Later, I noticed a handwritten note on the front of the box, indicating its interior had been wasp-sprayed. A few were still zipping around inside and outside of it.

 

I won't give up on Little Free Libraries.

 I am still visiting such book swapping sites these days, but I have learned to look closely before digging around for books to read. And I examine those quite carefully, especially the ones that appear to be well worn or water-damaged. If I really want such a book, I place it in a zippered plastic bag and freeze it for a day or two, hoping to do away with any mold or creepy crawlies.

 Book mites and ants and wasps, oh my!

 I guess it takes a bit more effort to host a Little Free Library than simply setting up the box and filling it with books to share. 

 

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Image/s: Wasp nest – public domain photo, Others - LAN personal photo/s

 

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Foods of many hues banish midwinter blues

 

COLORFUL - for the 2021 Holiday Photography Challenge (See sidebar for full list.).

 

Winter doesn’t officially begin for another week or two, but it sure feels like the coldest, darkest time of the year is already upon us. The gloomiest days tempt us to hunker down at home and carb up with comfort foods.

 Resisting that urge, I’m off to a holiday gathering. And I’m taking a veritable vegetable rainbow along with me. Check it out: broccoli, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, orange peppers, cucumbers, carrots, and fresh parsley. (Sure, I didn't pick 'em out of my home garden this time. I grabbed these from the produce department. Hey, it's December in the Upper Midwest!)

 “A colorful plate is a healthy plate,” I heard a wise woman say (many times). And she was right. When we eat meals containing plenty of hues, we’re usually hitting multiple nutritional food groups and ingesting various vitamins at the same time.

 So take that, Ole Winter. We’re slugging back with colorful consumption and cordial community.

 Image/s: Personal photo/s. All rights reserved.

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Maskmaker, Maskmaker - 1,000+ masks made

How have you spent the “safer-at-home,” “shut-in,” “corona-quarantine,” or otherwise named stay-at-home season during the period of heightened global COVID-19 health concern?

I’ve been making mask after mask after mask. So far, my personal mask-sewing endeavor has produced 1,000+ masks. Recipients have included emergency responders, medical professionals, nursing home staffs and residents, high-risk populations (mostly locally), colleagues, book group members, family, friends, and various professionals (such as the postal carrier, hairstylist, FedEx drivers, and coworkers).

Where did I find the fabrics and supplies?  I went through hundreds of yards of personal fabric. OK, I may have been something of a hoarder over the years. I’m still an avid sewer, it started early in my life. My grandmother and mother both sewed, so I learned from the best. And I put myself through graduate school by working in a fabric store, where I handily applied my employee discount to plenty of yardages of pretty textiles.

Sewing my way through my fabric stash, I even cut up some cotton sheets, a few sets of cotton curtains, and some fancy leftover cotton decorator fabric from our past residence. Hey, it doesn’t match this house, so why not use it?

Fabric designs vary with my supplies.

Once my own fabric collection dwindled, turning into fabric masks, I was blessed by a few donations from friends. One pal, who recently retired from a nursing home career, even passed along several of her own scrubs, which I cut up and sewed into cloth masks for community needs.

What styles of masks have I made? I started with a mask pattern offered by Froedtert Hospital / The Medical College of Wisconsin. This tie-style mask is easily sterilized and holds up to countless washings. Eventually, I began making the Deaconness Hospital style of mask, which as ties affixed to each side. Both the Froedtert and Deaconness masks featured horizontal pleats (see below). By special request, I also made several cloth masks with elastic ear loops, although these do not usually last through hundreds of washings. But for basic non-professional everyday use, they fit the bill fine.

Two different mask styles with pleats & ties.

Where did my masks go? Many of the masks I made went directly to charitable organizations. I gave boxes and bags filled with freshly sewn masks to a local grassroots group that was collecting and distributing them locally. We even stood in a parking lot one rainy spring day to hand out fabric masks for adults and kids to families lined up in the cars for our city’s free school lunch program. (Because schools were closed for the last few months of the academic year, such practices have arisen all over town to meet many families’ nutritional needs.)

Eventually, I began placing a big basket of home-sewn fabric masks by my front door, so folks could stop by and pick out their favorites. A few people left something to help with material costs, keeping me sewing. Some left a yard or so of fabric. A couple left spools of thread.

Will people continue to wear masks out and about? Folks are debating the wearing of masks, but many businesses still require masks for entry to their premises. Even those who don’t feel they are fully on-board with the whole mask thing are finding the need to obtain masks for access to several spots in their communities (perhaps even their workplaces). As long as folks continue to request sewn masks, I will try to keep making them, and I have a small inventory ready to go now.  (Need a cloth mask, or even a small quantity of them? Email me for info. Masks are $10 shipped - Continental US only. Solely PayPal. Fabric designs vary, as these fly out quickly after I finish them.)

Overall, though, I have certainly scaled back in the past couple of weeks. During the heat of the closed-in crisis, I was sewing 50-60 masks daily, with two sewing machines loaded and at-the-ready. That’s a little tough to sustain, as my professional and personal responsibilities are returning to a normal level these days.

After all of this mask-making, I guess I’m qualified to drink from this fun mug from CafePress. (Full disclosure: OK, I created this imprint and wrote the poem. It also comes on tees, tops, caps, cups, magnets, and more. And I get a small commission from any orders.) Anyway, I just ordered it, and I hope it arrives soon.

Image/s:

Personal photos – all rights reserved

Product promo photo – fair use

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