#domestic engineering

[goldleafer]

[goldleafer]

“Domestic engineer”

I love it

[puutterings]

regular monkey and parrot time

  ...So much for labor. Now for the next most important part of the management problem. Learned my lesson from “Put” Wilson, who used to hang ’round the shop — we never called what he did, work. “Put” or “Putter” — as we called him, because he was always puttering at some light job — got sick one winter, and it seemed as though everything went wrong. Tools out of place, machines breaking down, men growling ’cause everything was out of place — regular monkey and parrot time. To make an honest confession, I’d rather begrudged “Put” the dollar and a quarter I used to pay him in return for a day’s work — till he got sick. Then, ’stead of thinking of him as a mere putterer, I saw him in his true light, a M.M.D. — Master of Mechanical Details, and a good one at that.       Every town has a man that just fits this place, and Colton is no exception. The secret of good shop management is to get such a man as “Put” to taking care of the shop details, while you fix your mind on bigger things. Financing, for instance, as I have written to you, is such a big question that you had better spend your time on that rather than trying to take the kinds out of a refractory machine that needs half a day’s puttering attention...

— ex “Making the Business Pay : Letters from a retired successful plumber and steamfitter to his nephew, still in business, 12),” in Domestic Engineering 45:7 (November 14, 1908) : 177-179 (178) 178 (at hathitrust)  

[mpieracci]

I get enormous satisfaction in the way I setup our trash container on the bathroom. I designed it with a few things in mind:

Trash containers in the home or office perform best without a lid. Nothing should interfere with your ability to throw something away. Operating a lid with your hand or foot is often clumsy, loud, and sometimes take a remarkable amount of effort. If smell from the trash becomes a problem, then take it out frequently or change your purchasing and eating habits.

All trash containers should have a bag or liner. It’s easy to remove all contents at once. And anything that is wet is then trapped and easily removed. Here I’m using the most basic type of plastic bag from the grocery store. People often have a collection of these bags. Reusing them for this purpose is great.

I constructed this container out of something so simple: a paper bag, cut to size for that size of plastic bag, and with the base reinforced with the bit that I cut off. And naturally it matches other aspects of our bathroom (like the foot lifter device for our slightly-too-high toilet).

[fineillsignup]

Me: *burns the shit out of steamed broccoli and fish because I forgot to turn the heat down*

Me: Who wants cereal for dinner?

[mpieracci]

Removing dead leaves and stems from your houseplants is an easy way to enhance their appearance and your own happiness.

[mpieracci]

Kitchen shears, office type scissors made of a heavy steel (and for the left hand), then plant shears. The Apple pocket knife I’ve had since c. 2000.

[mpieracci]

I was determined to enjoy the very last layers of honey stuck inside the glass jar. So I poured my hot oatmeal and began stirring.

Buy real honey, produced in the region where you live. Glass jar, not plastic. It’s worth it.