I knew it!

I heard about this study on NPR (I think it was) the other day. Had to find it online . . .

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/66840.php

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2007/5384.html

So now you can tell your family that gardening is necessary for your mental health and show them the article . . .

Ahhhhh.. Science is finally catching up to what gardener's have always known: the more gardening we do, the better we feel. That was always 'scientific' enough for me. I guess one of the benefits of growing older is seeing how science is justifying things that people have 'known' in other ways for hundreds of years. I remember after I had my son, I swore up and down that he had left some of his 'y' chromosome in my body. Somehow, I never felt like I had reclaimed my body the way I did after having my daughter. People laughed at me. Then several years later, scientists 'discovered' that pieces of the y chromosome continued to exist in the blood of some mothers who had given birth to sons. Was I vindicated or what??? Lots of money could have been saved had they just asked me first! LOL! Likewise, we now understand the mechanism by which sunshine keeps us feeling good, and how the lack of it makes us susceptible to many things besides depression, such as autoimmune disorders.

I like the way they describe the bacteria as 'friendly'. They have no idea the truth they speak!!

So...I guess that fact that I have nearly always played in the dirt gloveless has been to my benefit, then? Maybe the dirt under the fingernails should be left rather than dug out Or maybe, just MAYBE, we could develop a transdermal dirt patch, much like the nicotine patch or hormone patch, one could wear for mental health!

I have always taught my kids, nieces, and all in my family we need to eat dirt to stay healthy. That is what garden does. Bacteria, trace minerals, and joy just getting your fingers dirty and chewing your fingernails.
Pixy an easy way to know if he left any Y's is to ask yourself if you are smarter. HHeee HHeeee.

MEN!!! :) Too bad I didn't get any of the "MATH" part of that chromosome.

So this is absolute permission to sleep in our gardening clothes, without brushing out our hair, and keeping our wellies on in the house! More smudges please! Hooray!

(Sofer - I'm getting less and less convinced that you are as smart as Pixy thinks you are).

And thanks katie for finding this! Really brightened my day - now, if I can just get my patients out to the dirt.....

This message was edited Feb 14, 2008 4:56 AM

My neighbor has a disease called scleraderma. It is disease that hardens your organs. Can affect any or them, all including your skin. They harden. This is not a nice thing to have. And guess what? One of the ways you get it is to have male children. Some of the cells are left behind and are not good for you. She says her two sons fight over who gave it to her. Good news is she has gone into remission.

So sorry to hear that. Didn't the Bob Sagett's sister die from that? There was a TV movie made from it. I didn't know about the male children component, though.

So glad she's in remission.

OOh, that's awful! I'm so sorry for her and for her boys as well.
Laurie, Soferdig IS really smart. But it's not because he's a guy. We all know that. He's also a TERRIBLE tease!

I think Andrew's y chromosome left me with a way to understand him. That's probably a good thing, after all! but my hair color did change, too. And not for the better!

Wish I could get my clients gardening more. I do advise some of them to use dirt therapy as a way to feel better. Now I'll just copy this article and take it to the office with me. When they look at me like I'm crazy, I'll whip it out!

I've guessed that bit about sofer - both the tease and the smart stuff. And actually I do very much like having him around, he has a good design eye, as well as knows how stuff works, and is generous with his compliments. But like any good element - I like to tie his shoelaces together once in awhile, after all I was Queen until I abdicated - too much like work! All that stamping and approving. (His wife does seem to have brought him up nicely though).

Oh yes, she has done an admirable job, except that he still sneaks and puts photos of her bum on DG for the world to admire. Probably a small price to pay, though.
Tying his shoelaces together, hmm. Interesting thought. You are more 'fairie' than I realized!

Being a humble man I always have a downward glance of submission. This would allow me to see the tied shoe laces. That would never work. My wife IS an angel and we had a wonderful dinner by candle-light at a restaurant overlooking Flathead lake. It was 10 years ago that I proposed to her. We are both celebrating that day. We also think alike we bought each other 4 valentines cards, 2 were the same card.
Every time you photograph your wife's bum and comment how beautiful it is, she will always be happy. This one we took last night on our way out to dinner. I had to pinch her somewhere to get the good smile. Tee Hee.

What an adorable couple! And looking so incredibly happy! Wow...does the heart good. Thanks, Sofer (won't ask any details about the pinch!)

Awwww, what a great looking couple! She's a beauty with that smile! Hope you had a wonderful valentine's day. My dh and I have done the same thing with cards. One year for Christmas we bought each other new wedding rings without even knowing it. And the rings were exactly the same!

That's so great...I'm a little green (in an envy sort of a way). I've been with my DH for 14 years and am still trying to ingrain into his head that I don't like pickles and onions on my hamburgers! *sigh*

Hey, there's still time!

Very nice photo sofer, cuties.

Great pic Sofer! Glad that you too got to enjoy a romantic evening with your lovely lady!

Hi Outta you are not alone. I still can't get mine to pick his oatmeal bowls up off the floor and plates after letting the dogs clean them.. Maybe this is why I don't like his mom she raised a heathen. Had the manners dateing go married and out the door they went. I think they have good manners or get divorced a few times before they get it. Or don't get it at all.

Just leave the dishes and tell him they are his dishes and he should clean them. And most importantly NEVER pick up one again.

Your Mom I would love and you wife scored. I have a Dad that vacuums and cooks plus worked. All men I dated could cook I figured they liked to eat more than most women then they could cook. I was wrong. I will leave the plates on the floor from now on. I have left the garbage before and it has sat in the kitchen for over a week. Rembember he is home all winter like me. I'm about ready to send him off landscaping till next christmas. This seems to work also.

Okay, Heidi - we need a daily dish count so we can all share in the experience when he gets to the point at which it's too much for him. This is an interesting experiment.

I only have 5 plates so I'm in trouble

Apparently Soferdig is correct about how to 'train' a male spousal unit. I reference this article which was on Yahoo news today:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/109614?g=1

I have many years of experience helping wives train their husbands, not ever having had to train mine myself. The mistake you are making is to EVER pick the dish up off the floor. You have to go way longer than a week to leave the trash, too. What I hear most often is that the woman cannot stand the mess after a short time, so she ends up picking up/cleaning it/searching for his laundry, whatever, and so she ends up doing it. The concept I use is that of being either above or below 'the radar'. For some people, men and women both, it takes a certain level of 'mess' before they even notice it. If his 'radar' is set way higher than yours, it's going to take a bigger mess or a longer wait, or no clean dishes at all left before he might notice and do something about it.
One of the most successful interventions in this area came with a couple with a large back yard which was completely un-useable by their child because it was overgrown with blackberry bushes. It had never been landscaped. Neither man nor woman was a gardener, but the husband insisted that he would get the back 40 cleared. It continued to never happen because this guy may be good at what he does, but what he doesn't do is yard work of any kind. She continued to be resentful and nag him, which never works well, and he continued to resent her nagging and refuse to lift a shovel, etc. So the way I saw it, the wife had three choices: do it herself, leave it alone to continue to grow, or hire it out. I recommended she hire it out and leave the DH out of the loop because he clearly did not want to deal with it. Each time she talked to him about hiring someone, he promised to do it himself and then it never happened.. They had plenty of money. Worked like a charm! A team came in and it cost them plenty. DH has been an avid yard worker ever since, with no nagging from the wife unit!! Success! marital bliss returns!

So Heidi, stockpile paper plates so that when the kitchen floor is covered with dog dishes and you cannot find a clean dish in the house, you can just whip out the paper plates.

Remember: the best way to reinforce a behavior is to reward that behavior intermittantly, and randomly.

Oh no, just reference my above post. If you really have only 5 dishes and they are not going to make enough of an impact if you leave them on the floor, just go to paper dishes altogether and then compost them! think of the water and waste water treatment you will save!

Katie~
Thank you so much for that link!
I just read it. It is so right on.
I was a live in caregiver for my Aunt for 4 years, I also have fibromyalgia. During this time there were several other stressful event in my life to include breast cancer. A year after my surgeries I decide to garden (spring 2006). My Aunt was going to hire someone (I hated yard work, I also have exzema & seasonal allergies) I couldn't let her pay someone to do something I should be doing. I jumped in, feet hands.......I learned to love it. I would be outside in the dirt all day. From March until Sept that year I lost 50 lbs, got in great shape and felt wonderful. Yes, my back & shoulders hurt, my hands hurt but mentally I felt wonderful.
Funny thing about hating to do yard work...I grew up playing in the forests, digging in the dirt.
We live in Tillamook Oregon now with a huge yard needing HUGE TLC.
Having the Tillamook Air Museum in the back yard makes me hope to find buried treasures;o) It's a WWII Blimp Hanger......amazing and a must see!!! The largest free standing wooden structure in the world.

Hi somermoone. So good to have you on the list. My folks live in Corvallis, my brother and nephew in Philomath, my niece and her fiance in Redmond and Bend. My sister-in-law is from Tillamook and her family still lives there. Their name is Hansard.

You know, we took my then 95-year-old dad up McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose and other planes of the type he trained in and flew during wartime. I haven't been to the Tillamook Air Museum, though. It looks as enormous as it must be. I'm putting that on my list of must-sees.

You know, when I think of what I have to do in the yard as "what I have to do in the yard" it's not nearly as motivating as just getting our there and going where the spirit moves me. I've always felt that physical labor is the key to every kind of health, just have to do it and not think about it. Being focused on the reward of planting helps me to do that.

Your experience is such a great example. All those stressers in your life (I'm so sorry about the fibromyalgia - I know how debilitating it is) are no match for what 1,000s of years of evolutionary history have adapted you for, eh? Thanks for sharing!!

And thanks for posting. We need to hear more about what's going on in Tillamook and in your yard in particular.

Oh Heidi ~ I feel some of you pain, I really do. My DH is a slob, but at least cooks and does clean up after himself (though usually the next day). He said to me the other day "It's good that we're the same." I said, "Huh? Whadd'ya mean?" He says, "You know, cluttered...kinda messy." I said to him, " Um...sweetie...I've just learned to stop fighting it. If you weren't here, it wouldn't be messy!" (Probably the WRONG thing to say, but what the heck?). He, however, is a mostly WONDERFUL guy and I really don't have anything to complain about. I do have one little thing that I like to say, though, and that is ~

"All men are animals, but some make good pets!"

I wonder if there's a Dog Whisperer equivalent for human males (sorry Sofer...nothing personal, really. I don't even KNOW you!)

Pixy ~ Thanks for the advice! It's kinda how I've handled my DH as well, though I usually just go out and do it myself. Tends to get him off his rear and away from the computer (that's why I've been doing a few things AMA for these past few weeks!). At any rate...all suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!

Somer ~ Howdy. Congratulations on making it through all the debilitating health problems and coming out on the other side! As a BC survivor, are you at all involved in the Danskin Women's Triathlon? I was in Tillamook with the family one time as a small child and did the cheese factory tour. Kinda cool, but my favorite part was the ice cream cone at the end. I grew up in southern Cal, near the MCAS Tustin Airbase, also filled with zeppelin hangars. There have been several movies filmed in the hangars, and the Goodyear blimp parks there on occasion. Quite amazing structures, they!

Outta - you have me laughing so hard . . .

Although I must say that I was impressed with your husbands potager boxes - he did get right on that.

Indeedy...he does have his FINE points, which is why I put up with the less-than-desirable traits ~ PLUS ~ he has proven to be somewhat trainable over the years! There's hope for all of us (them?)!

Men, like nature, likes disorder. Only when our rib turned into a desire did the garden of eden get pathways, housing, words of definition like: work, garbage, dirty, lazy .....
You venitians must remember this and be flexable. Just don't get walked on being the only giver. (Spoken from a codepedent male in recovery) Make boundaries and stick to them.

An evolved man. A true wonder.

Martians!! Ya can't live with 'em, ya can't live without 'em. For those most part, we like having you guys around.

So, what you appear to be saying is that we have to make men 'want' what we want?
It could happen.

Sure, and think it was their idea. Sort of like cats. Wait . . . men . . . like cats?

It's more like they want what we can offer if we chose.

So they need to make us think it's our idea? Uh oh . . . who's really in charge here?

You have missed the point completely. You have to relax about what needs vs has to be done and learn to enjoy dissaray. Relax and practice a weekend where you do absolutely nothing to clean and relish in the moment. Turn on the tube and sit and drink a beer and fall asleep on the couch and get up and go to bed. Don't make the bed don't pick up anything. Just goof off and learn to love it. Then your DH will help with the Sunday evening clean up. He will look at you with a smile and have desire again. Or not. LOL