From Digital Junk Food to Mindful Living: A Mid-Year Reflection

O.M.G. The year is half over. As I sit here and write this, on July 1, I have no idea where the year went.

Never-mind June.

To be fair, I was out of town working from June 11-23, soooo there goes half the month but it seems like it was just June 1.

I follow these Hedger Humor cartoons in Facebook and every first of the month is the same... "It's June!" "What!!??"

So, obviously I am not the only one who is appalled at the rapidly accelerating pace of time.

Part of it for me is that I look back and think... what have I actually accomplished in the past month, 6 months, whatever. And it always leaves me feeling... inadequate. Wanting. Like... I should have more to show for this month!

Time is that one precious, non-renewable resource that we all have and we all get to spend in whatever way we choose. But at the end of the day, week, month... I often find that I have spent my time on the equivalent of junk food.... scrolling the news sites, scrolling Facebook, scrolling Instagram... watching cat videos... Under the guise of "relaxing". But this form of "relaxing" always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and a packet full of regrets. Sure, cat videos might make me smile but... seriously... there is so much more to smile about in real life... particularly if you had a real cat... but we won't talk about that. (We are going cat-less after our beloved Minnie passed away in April... we are strong... strong I tell you...)

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling... it leaves me feeling empty, slightly bleh and filled with regret that I have let an hour fritter away. This is not unlike how I feel when I eat junk food... still hungry (give me more), feeling definitely bleh... and filled with regret. 

But scrolling is so easy... it's right there... and just like junk food which has that perfect symphony of salt, sugar and fat... scrolling has just that right amount of addictive interest to keep us coming back and wanting more, more, more... but never feeling satisfied. You know when you open the bag of M&Ms... you can't just have ONE... they are so small, so yummy... and so you just gobble them up, one after the other... not unlike those short, small TikTok videos or Instagram Reels or... whatever... More, more, more!

I know this is probably a dopamine, endorphin, brain chemistry thing... social media is designed to keep us scrolling... the same way junk food is designed to keep us craving more.

And soooo... I find that time just slips away... eaten by my scrolling fingers... Day after day, week after week... month after month. I am sitting here at 6:24 am on a new day, of a new month, at the halfway point of 2024. Could I choose a different format for July? (I know this is getting published in late August so you won't have to wait long for the results of my experiment!).

Could I choose to do something else during those moments when I reach for the phone? Why the heck do I reach for the phone? Most of the time it's because it is easy... it is right there, always in my back pocket, always within reach. There is a reason for that... as an Airbnb host, I need to respond to guests soonest... but that also means temptation is always easily accessible. But perhaps I could have something else close by, my e-book reader, my journal, a pad of paper to write down thoughts. Heck, I could even just close my eyes, take a deep breath and have a mini-meditation.

I know that it is a habit. I know that I want to scratch that itch. And sometimes I find inspiration in my feeds... well... on occasion... ok fine... very rarely. Sigh.

So I am setting my phone's "Wellness" settings thusly:

• Total Daily Screen Time - 2 hours
• News/IG/FB Time - 30 minutes (that's 1 hour less than my normal intake)

And I'm hoping that being more mindful, more aware, more attentive, more present will.... slow down time. Maybe. Not sure.

But perhaps at the end of July, I can look back and not gasp in shock when someone says "It's August!" and wonder... where did the time go??

Socks and Sandals: The Surprisingly Chic Look You Never Knew You Needed

My niece and I have had a long-lasting fashion "discussion" for many years. I get disapproving stares, eye-rolls, giggles and whispered comments of "Weirdo!".

I admit it, I am NOT a fashionista. Or, rather, I tread my own fashion path, quite happily I might add.

What is my fashion crime, in the eyes of my niece (and my partner too)?

Wearing hiking socks with hiking sandals. Or, more basically... socks and sandals.

Yep, I am one of those folks who thinks nothing of wearing socks with sandals... whether it's with shorts or jeans, doesn't matter.

I've always thought of this as a signature West Coast thing. I happily wore socks with sandals all through my university years and beyond.

Although, on reflection, perhaps it started during my geology years. We'd come back to camp after spending the day clambering around mountain ridges and take off our hiking boots and sweaty socks. After a day of living in hiking boots, the skin on my feet was quite soft. I've learned the hard way that you can't just wear sandals after having your feet sweating away in shoes or boots all day. That is the fast track to a blister or sore spot. Solution? Wear fresh socks with the sandals.

Or maybe it started when my sister and I traveled around Europe. On a day that was set to be sunny and warm, you'd want to leave the hostel with your sandals on your feet. But... the mornings were too cool for naked feet in sandals. Soooo... wear socks and sandals! Of course, I'd never take the socks off because... when you wear socks to start the day... your feet get soft and tender and sweaty and wearing plain old sandals... well... same problem as above.

And whether people admit it or not, socks and sandals are infinitely cooler than shoes and sandals, so yes, socks and sandals are a solution to a hot day.

However this trend started... I am a staunch supporter of socks and sandals... mostly. I'm not so sure about the older guys who wear dress sandals and knee high socks. That's not my fashion trend but... hey... to each their own. If that is comfortable, then rock the socks! Maybe knee high socks are compression stockings? We don't know, so why judge?

I have all sorts of reasons for wearing socks and sandals... from cool mornings, to hiking in sandy areas, to adding an extra layer of cushioning to my feet. Let's face it, if you are going to be hiking in sandals, that's a lot of straps rubbing on bare skin... why not just cushion the skin with some socks?

Of course, if you're just strolling 50 feet from the car to the beach, well... then maybe sandals and naked feet make sense. But walking for any distance? Give me socks with my sandals please.

Maybe it's a fashion faux-pas. But I have yet to encounter the Fashion Police. Nor heard of anyone being hauled away for wearing socks and sandals.

Eh, who cares. I'm not a fashionista and will happily trample multiple fashion faux-pas in a single outing. I'm all about functionality and comfort.

Let my niece and partner giggle and roll their eyes... one day... they will experience the bliss of socks and sandals!

N.B. Both images were created by Google's AI image generator - Gemini. With much prompting from me. It was impossible to get it to unroll the pants of the jeans in the second image. Perhaps rolled up cuffs are now derigeur in the fashion world?

Shiny New Bathroom Fan, Dead Air: How I Missed the Easy Fix and Chased the Hard One

I am embarrassed to write this post. It has triggered a whole "How could you be so stupid!?" storm in my head. But... if someone else out there learns from this... then it's worth it. Right? Sigh.

The Problem

We have our two-bedroom basement suite listed on Airbnb. In the last year, ever since we got the suite entry door replaced, it has been a real struggle to keep the humidity below 50%. The original entry door was a bit gappy around the edges, so in the winter it was always cool in the entrance hall. The new entrance door is super snug so now there is virtually no air exchange with the outside world. Snug windows. Snug door. Not a good scenario.

We had some guests stay in October/November who sent the humidity through the roof. They had a lot of showers, they steamed a lot of rice. It was not a good scene with condensation dripping down all the windows. After they checked out, we had our contractor take a look at the place.

Possible Solutions

He suggested maybe getting a humidistat that would force the bathroom fan to come on when the humidity reached a certain level. Or maybe installing an air exchange vent in one of the exterior walls - basically a hole in the wall near the ceiling with a vent to the outside.

Tinkering with the Bathroom Fan

One of the first things I did was to take the cover off of the bathroom fan and check to see if the innards needed cleaning. I had noticed that the bathroom fan sounded really loud, way louder than I remember it being. When you have a dirty bathroom fan, it reduces the efficiency of the air flow. The suite's bathroom fan could barely hold a flimsy 2-ply piece of toilet paper against the grill! The inside of the bathroom is the hamster wheel variety - with a horizontal plastic hamster wheel thingie that spins around and extracts the air. It was... **cough**... quite dirty. I couldn't clean it very well standing on a ladder staring up into the housing so I watched some YouTube videos and figured out how to take the whole blower assembly out. Easy peasy.

Unplug the thing... undo the little screw that holds it in place (very important, otherwise you mutter and curse when nothing budges), then pop the little tabs and... it's out. After shaving a bit of excess drywall away from the opening. Yay!

I gave the hamster wheel a good clean. We had bought the house 10 years ago and... the suite bathroom was installed in 2007-2009 so... the bathroom fan is probably 15 years old. Maybe it was time to replace it? Nah, let's give this one a shot.

I had a peek down the exhaust tube with my smartphone camera and it looked fine. It's one of those flexible plastic tubes, and although it seemed a bit dusty, it wasn't blocked. At least not as far as I could see. I popped the blower assembly back into the housing, plugged it back in and... very little difference. Still noisy as all heck. Still anemic air flow. What the heck?

Maybe the whole thing did need replacing. Given it was in a basement ceiling with drywall all around it... I looked online for a replacement blower assembly that would fit in the same housing. Took a while, but I found a supplier and ordered it.

When the box arrived, I waited until we had a gap between guest bookings and then went downstairs, took out the old one and popped in the new one. Turned it on and... guess what...

Yeah... noisy as heck and weak air flow. Maybe this was just the state of exhaust fans nowadays? Maybe they were supposed to sound like that?

What Goes in Must Come Out

The only other thing I could think of, at this point, was to look at the other end of the exhaust tubing, where it exited the house through a flapper vent. I had noticed that when the bathroom fan was running, the louvers didn't move at all.

Not like the dryer vent which blows it's single flapper wide open. Nope... the louvers on the bathroom vent didn't move at all. Which made sense to me if the bathroom fan was so anemic. Or maybe there was something clogging the louvers?

Weeks went by... **cough**... while I thought to myself... "I have to get the big ladder from the shed and find some wooden blocks to level it (the ground is slopey below the vent) and get an old towel (so it won't scratch the stucco)"... 

Weeks I tell you. And then one day, I decided... screw it!!! Let's just do it!!

Yes, that does rhyme... Screw it. Just Do it... I have improved on Nike's slogan!

Anyhow... I got the ladder out from the shed, found some wooden blocks and an old towel and propped it up against the house. And tried to lift the louvers to look inside. They wouldn't budge. What the heck?

The Light Bulb Moment

They. Were. Painted. Shut.

Yes.

When we had the house painted, the painters decided to paint the vents and they painted the flapper slats.

O.M.G.

I went into the suite and turned on the bathroom fan and went back outside. Guess what the slats were doing? Blowing in the breeze from the bathroom fan. Oh, they needed some trimming of old paint and the top one didn't flap closed when the fan stopped, so it could let bugs in but... it worked.

Oh, and the bathroom fan is much quieter and it can definitely hold a kleenex to the grill, no problemo.

And then I had another thought... the kitchen exhaust fan above the stove vents to the outside. What about that one? That vent is under the deck, between the joists, completely invisible to anyone walking by. Yet, it too had been painted shut. **Face Palm**

No wonder there were humidity issues in the suite. No wonder the bathroom van sounded like a jet taking off. No wonder the smoke alarms kept going off with heavy cooking. Neither the bathroom fan, nor the kitchen van were actually exhausting anything to the outside.

S.H.I.T.

And when did the painters do this? When did they paint the exterior of the house and paint those louverd vents shut? Ready...??

2017.

Yep, seven years ago. Sigh.

The Hurdle - More Mental than Physical

In an ideal world, the bathroom flapper vent would have been easy to reach. Without a ladder. But because it wasn't... I focused on the inside... where I STILL needed a step ladder. But that was easier to get, and easier to set up than the big ladder in the shed. I had a blind spot for the outside end of the bathroom exhaust system. I focused on the actual source of the exhaust - the blower assembly. But... ignored the other side of the equation... that the air had to go somewhere. Being blind to that side of things, was huge.

In chemistry, there is a concept called activation energy. The chemical reaction won't take place without something, usually a catalyst, providing enough energy to get over that initial hump. Oftentimes, that extra push of energy comes from heat.

It's the same in life, a combination of inertia and a lack of activation energy. I had been picking away at the bathroom fan issue for months, trying to figure it out. But the thought of getting out the big ladder and setting... it was just too much. Needed too much oomph. Too much energy. 

Until I lit a fire under my own butt and said "Screw it!!! Just do it!!" This happens to me fairly regularly and what I inevitably find is: 

1. It didn't need as much energy as I imagined. In fact, I probably expended WAY more energy thinking about the thing and not going the thing... or avoiding the thing.
2. It didn't need as much time as I thought. Funny how that works

Both of those live in my head... thoughts that act as brakes, or increase the activation energy required. They turn a mole hill into a mountain. Yes, it does take a bit of energy to get the ladder out and set it up... but not as much as I "imagined" or "thought".

And my "screw it" thought was me turning up the heat and blowing past that hurdle and just moving. Going to the shed, getting the ladder, getting some blocks, setting it up. It took maybe 5 minutes.

One of these days, I will learn this lesson for good. I hope. It's all about small steps.