In Defense Of Plastic Grocery Bags

What. This is supposed to be a Sustainable Tuesday post and I’m trying to defend a single-use plastic? Yep, nobody ever said I couldn’t so I am.

With most of my family being in New York state, I’ve managed to hear that recently New York has made using plastic grocery bags a fineable offense.

Most Tuesdays I volunteer at a food pantry and grocery bags are one of the most important things that can be donated. If you’re just an ordinary person there are two things that can be donated in a helpful quantity. Time and grocery bags. Food is also acceptable, but most people don’t have much extra.

The food pantry gets these “single-use” bags and we re-use them. Shocker I know. They are super useful for bagging up loose vegetables, fruits, and yogurts.

Sarcasm aside, we bring home some bags of food and re-use them again. As trash bags. And maybe then they get recycled. I don’t know. I’m not going to talk about that.

I’m going to talk about what plastic should be a finable offense. Unreusable plastic bags, like what lettuce comes in. Or any number of foods that come in little bags that can’t be reused.

Why is NY banning a product that gets re-used and recycled, when there is hiding inside that a much worse product?

He’s Making Diamonds: Blog Tour; An Interview

Truthfully I should have written this up ages ago and put it on scheduled, but I haven’t been feeling like doing anything on my blog. I think about posting then I think “no, not right now” I’m really close to my two hundredth post and I don’t know what I want to do about it. So enough bad excuses. Alright so you may have noticed the

Here is my interview with Hailey Hudson

 

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

I’m 21 years old, I live in an apartment in Atlanta with my cat, and I’m a full-time freelance writer and content marketer. I enjoy participating in dance and theatre in my spare time as I’m able, and I live with multiple chronic illnesses. 

Representation in superhero movies. What would you like to see?

I think all movies and books could benefit from increased (respectful and accurate) representation of chronic illnesses and other disabilities. 

Well, I need to get to writing.

Do you have an aspect of your health that you find fun/amusing to share with people? If so can you tell me about it?

Unfortunately, my health issues are not very amusing!

I’m really sorry to hear that. I try to find some amusing detail in everything.

What Bible passage has inspired you recently?

Recently I have been inspired by the words of Jesus in John chapter 11, “Your sickness will not end in death.” Over the course of the last several months as I have been getting sicker, the Lord has been revealing the purpose behind the pain to me and it is so beautiful.

Alright, so you may have noticed the slight oddness of the questions. It’s because there was a mix up and these questions were more tailored to someone else’s response to the first question.

I hope you enjoyed.  And Hailey, if you read this, about the last question, I’ve finally figured out how better to word it without stumbling all over myself. In your mind what is the most important thing for me to remember about your illness and what should I pray most for?

Esther

A Bookish Endeavour

As I mentioned in my End of the Year post I’ve started a YouTube channel. It’s a bookish channel.

I feel weird in some ways when I talk about books on here, because this isn’t a book blog. But so often I find that I want to talk about books, so I’ve come up with a solution.

I’ve only had it for a couple of months and I’d been struggling a bit to post to it. That being said I’ve gotten fairly good at the rhythm recently, so expect at least one video a week.

Right now there is a fairly good representation of what I will be posting, but I admit there will be some ideas that are still in the works.

I am planning on/working on more relevant content I promise. If you don’t know what I mean go actually look at my YouTube channel.

I know the name of my channel is Wanda Gambling. I chose that name because that is the name of a book character who is an actor. I do plan on doing a video about the name at some point.

Feel free to leave me suggestions about books. If you’re an author and you don’t care if an absolute nobody talks about your book feel free to get in touch.

Sustainable Tuesday: Hanging Desk

I admit, most people won’t be able to make a desk like mine. I used what I had and spent no money. Someday, my desk will have to come down, but we hope to move, so that matters little.

Things I had before I started.

1. Pallet Boards.
2. Pallet Nails and a Container of Nails.
3. Twine
4. Two Bunk Beds about 2.5 feet apart.

Using these I was able to make an awesome desk.

Realistically I shouldn’t say that I had pallet boards. I had left one pallet only three quarters apart.

Step 1. Making the Top

It super simple. I found boards of a similar thickness and ordered them on the top side. A couple of nails each and I had a lovely top.

Step 2. The Shelf

One of a desks most important parts is the storage. Yes, having a smooth top is great, but having a place to put things nearby, is the best.

So I flipped the desk over and added a couple of boards to the bottom of the pallet. Due to the forklift slots I had to get a bit creative and used a short section of board to hold them in place.

Step 3. Making it fit

Then I had a desk that was just too large to fit into my only space so I had to cut it smaller. Sadly I only had a hand saw so this took a good amount of time.

Step 4. Preparing to hang

Part A. Drilling the holes.

Very Simple I found the drill and placed some holes.

Part B. Braiding the twine.

I didn’t trust the twine to be strong enough by itself so I found three strands and braided them together. Fun Fact I did most of the braiding while I went on a three mile walk.

Step 5.

Hang it up. This was a tiny bit difficult, but I was able to balance the desk on a couple of boxes and thread the twine through the loops.

And TADA! I have a desk.

 

Silk: Online

My dearest and only younger brother is great. Though he disagrees with me as to what is a computer game he knows my tastes and therefor gave me a delightful recommendation.

I am at the moment considering using this website/app to make a bunch of graphics for my blog. Should I?

Oh, wait, I nearly forgot, you want me to tell you where to find it. It’s Here. http://weavesilk.com/

I will say that it is easier to use with a touch screen. But my computer has one so that doesn’t impact me much.

It’s also super easy to use. I have it always up on my internet browser and my two darling little nephews both know how to use it. They both like my computer but this is one part of it that they argue over.

What else is there to say? It’s fun. It is really easy. Best of all it takes no skill to make cool looking art. Gorgeous prints.

Check it out. It shouldn’t take long, then you can tell me how much fun it is.

I’ve used all sorts of lines to make pictures. From straight to words. Letting go at random to trying controlled curves.

Assumptions Collab With Zielle

My acquaintance Zielle is starting a new blog that shows how she has changed over the years. I agreed to help her share it around and we decided to do a collab so here it is.

Sorry it’s so late, but Collabs take lots of time.

As Zielle is super busy with all of the things she is doing so I was the one who came up with this idea. Both of us wrote a paragraph or two about ourselves then we had a list of details that the other had to make assumptions about.

Hi there! My name is Zielle.

I have been homeschooled all my life, but next year I will be heading off to public school for my last two years of schooling. I have been playing the piano my whole life as a hobby. My sister is amazing at piano, and I used to love watching her play… it entertained me. My favourite genres to write are fantasy and contemporary fiction, although I am still dabbling in genres and figuring which one I like the best. I’m a daughter of the King, and one comfort I get is knowing that He has a great plan for my life. I enjoy singing, acting, hanging out with friends (even though I can be quite shy), and babysitting my nieces and nephews.

Favourite well known fiction book

“Little Women”

Why did I come up with this idea

Favourite well known non fiction (Bible excluded)

“Anne Frank”

It is so hard

Favourite modern piece of music

“I Surrender” Hillsong

I don’t know much of that

Favourite classical piece of music

Mozart’s Sonata in C

How much thought is to much

Dream future

Help others until she has children, then focus on homeschooling them for the first several years of schooling.

Dream vacation

A week long camping trip with all of her friends and family in the campground

Dream book to write

A contemporary fantasy about a homeschooling family. They would always seek to glorify God, but it wouldn’t be like the Cooper Kids or Jonathan Park.

Favorite religious holiday

The Resurrection.

Favorite non-religious holiday

The Fourth of July

Favorite Bible verse

Jeremiah 29:11

Well there you have my list of assumptions about her. As we were squeezed for time we didn’t talk about how she was to correct my assumptions so I’m asking her now to do it in the comments.

I’m looking forward to reading Write in the Dark.

Esther

Sustainable Tuesday; Bed-End Shelf

I meant to post about this last week, but life was crazy so it’s coming this week instead. My blog may die again next week, but I’ll see what I’m able to schedule and or do.

I took apart a couple of pallets and the primary reason I wanted them was so that I would be able to make myself a shelf. I have books in four places that are dedicated to my books and scattered throughout I don’t know how many more. I had no more room so I made the fourth and it’s lovely.

As I sleep in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed I knew that I didn’t have to make the most structurally sound piece of furniture because I could tie it to the end posts and support it that way. You may be able to tell where it’s tied up in the above picture.

I also only nailed the shelf support to the sides with a couple of nails. I may decide to go around that section with some dark thread so that it is less prone to shifting. But it is sturdy enough to hold up all my books and even my occaisional kicks so…

One problem of having it there is it doesn’t photograph well. That end of my bed is in a rather dark corner of a dim room. Please not that these are only about a quarter of my read books.