So, well, and Sowell

Minnesota's mask mandate began Saturday, by governor's fiat, but is being challenged by Republicans with a lawsuit. Also, it appears to directly contradict Minnesota law which bans masks and other disguises--unless the "medical treatment" exemption in the law is read as including infection prevention.

Cases and deaths are embarrassingly far below model predictions; deaths have not yet reached the level predicted for the end of May.

One of the Republican legislators remarked that the mandate should be at least be paired with further opening up the state.

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We've been getting cucumbers. tomatoes, peppers, and a few peas out of the garden.

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A few Thomas Sowell quotes, from Race and Culture:
 

Throughout history, one of the great sources of cultural achievement, both for groups and for nations and even civilizations, has been a borrowing of cultural features from others who happened to be more advanced in given fields at a given time....Exaggerated group "identity" makes copying others akin to treason.

If all differences between the earnings, occupations, and employment rates of different groups are simply defined as "discrimination," then it is circular reasoning to say that discrimination causes these differences, and compounded meaninglessness to quantify these "effects" of discrimination.

Government may use its power to forbid, coerce, confiscate, punish, or expel.  Goals achievable by these means are well within the effective control of government.  Goals which depend upon the creativity, skills, thrift, work habits, organizational abilities, and technological knowledge in the population at large are much less within the power of incumbent officials to achieve within a politically relevant time period.

Easel to frame

My husband decided to let one of his easels go. It was missing a part or two, and wasn't very sturdy.

I salvaged the bolts and wing nuts from it, and decided to save the wood from the legs.

One of the children had asked for a small frame for their artwork, so I used some of the wood for that. Last year we bought a very nice old Craftsman miter box from a friend trying to dispose of a dead relative's estate, and I wanted to get better at using it.

This miter box has a guide for the saw that lets you suspend the saw above the work while you fiddle with things. I figured out the release for the angle adjustment, and after that had no trouble cutting accurately.

Assembling the pieces was a bit of a challenge, though. My husband has some right-angle clamps that I thought would help, but I couldn't find them. I had trouble finding the nails, too, thanks to certain children who have been working on projects of their own. The nails are also from some old guy's estate.

I ended up nailing the pieces together freehand, which was not fun, but it came out well enough. It could use a coat of paint.

Musical chairs

Recent months have been hard on our mixed collection of dining room chairs.  My favorites are the vintage chairs with welded metal frames, which are mostly monkey-proof. One needs its vinyl seat repaired, after getting new vinyl in 2016, and the others soon will need repair, too.  Of the wooden chairs, one has a cracked back, another has a cracked back and a broken back post/stile, and yet another had also had a broken back for a long time, but it was such a chintzy chair to begin with that I just wound rope around it and kept using it. Now its joints are beginning to loosen up.

So I've begun to "shop the house" for replacement chairs. One of the wooden chairs traded places with a chair in my bedroom. There are two so-so chairs in the basement that I might bring upstairs. There is also the enire back from a free-at-the-side-of-the-road oak chair, which perhaps could replace the back on the super-chintzy chair.

For buying chairs, my first place to look at around here would be the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which sometimes prices things very low.

Finished...maybe

I finished the blouse, but discovered a new way to make the collar come out goofy. A look at my pattern drawing textbook helped me to draw up a better collar pattern, but in my haste somewhere along the way, it ended up a couple of inches too long...and I decided to deal with that by putting in a couple of tucks to see how it would turn out, instead of just seam-ripping it out and starting over.

I placed the tucks at the shoulder seams, which made squarish corners in the collar. That in itself came out tolerably well, but the collar height is too high, and visually there is just way too much of it.

For that reason, I am going to take it off and start over.

The interfacing worked out fairly well, although I need to plan out more carefully where it should go, and where it shouldn’t.

A handy tool

Somewhere along the way, we inherited a long-handled weeding fork. I am finding it useful these days not only for weeding without bending, but also for clearing the little round cottonwood pods out of the spaces between the deck boards.  Two more things that I can do while carrying the baby!

Onward

Sewing progress:  I sewed the buttonholes, which went well, aside from making the two edges too close together, which made them harder to cut open. Then I went on and sewed the shoulder seams, the side seams, and the hem, and got the sleeves ready to put in.

Garden and yard:  My husband has been bringing home some cucumbers and pea pods from his garden plot. This year I finally have coneflowers/echinacea growing out front, after several years of unsuccessful attempts. The flax seeds did not come up at all.

Other:   I’ve reactivated my to-do list, and have been knocking off a number of little tasks.

Baby steps

I made some progress on sewing the blouse:  I did the hems and underarm seams on the sleeves, and also I laid out and sewed on the buttons, and got everything ready to sew the buttonholes—including looking up the instructions in my reference book again.

The rest of the week was super-hot, and/or over-scheduled, but I did weed the cracks in the driveway, and sweep the front sidewalk. I’m at the stage of recovery where I’m sorting my activities into the ones I can do with a baby in a sling, and the ones I can’t. It turns out that I can push our reel mower one-handed, and mow the yard a little at a time, if needed.

Book review: Rework

I’ve been reading a library book called Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson. They are founders of a software company, 37signals, and in 2010 published this business book for entrepreneurs.

It is a fast read, consisting of a large number of pithy mini-chapters. They back up many of their points with examples of successful businesses that use those principles, giving an interesting look at how those companies operate.

I noticed that much of their contrarian business advice would translate well to the home environment, so I went back through it with that in mind and ended up with a couple of pages of notes.

Most of the ideas in the book were things that I am already doing:  keeping things simple and flexible and mindful, creatively using and re-using what you have, doing quick prototypes and testing, taking adequate time for rest and recreation, doing things just “good enough” to reach the goal, doing work that is meaningful, looking beyond current fads, and so on.

What is helpful for me now is the idea of using big markers to sketch out ideas, to prevent being pulled down into the details too soon. Also, their assertion that in business you will learn more from successes than from failures.

Some quotes from the book:  “Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior.”  “The environment has a lot more to do with great work than most people realize.”  “Inspiration is perishable.”

The book’s copyright page is at the end; I found that unhelpful as I was trying to find the year of publication.

Overall, I found the book worth reading.

Ready to sew

I had a little time, and pulled out some fabric from a sheet and a homemade pattern, and cut out pieces for a blouse.

The pattern is drawn from a thrift store blouse that I had, which was probably home-sewn, since it had no tag. It fit me well, and I eventually wore it out. This will be the fifth blouse that I have made from the pattern.  I’ve gotten better at sewing buttonholes, but still am working on getting the collars to turn out well.

While I was looking for the pattern, I found some interfacing that I had forgotten about; that will probably help.

The other things I’ve been doing lately are mending, and slowly catching up on yard work.

So far Minnesota is not seeing an explosion of coronavirus cases, from the protests or from any other form of opening back up. There have been smaller protests every weekend so far.