January Snowstorm

My weekend started on Thursday night.  Here in central Virginia they were forecasting 24 to 30 inches by Saturday afternoon and I LOVE snow, so I was happy and ready!  Work was cancelled for Friday and I settled in with T to enjoy the prospect of a long snowy weekend together. 

On Friday I walked on the treadmill, hit my 10,000 steps by 1 pm and spent the rest of the day watching the snow come down, cooking, and talking on the phone.  I called my folks and was able to talk on the phone with two of my three sisters.  I also made dinner and two kinds of soup.  See the list below.

I also kept an eye on the birdfeeders and made sure they were well-stocked and the snow was cleared off so the birds could get to the food.  I want my chickadees and finches to live through the winter!  Not to mention the (possibly) eight new pairs of cardinals that have been making an appearance at the feeders since the snow started that morning.  I'd love to encourage them to move closer in the spring, or at least visit daily.  T was busy in his metal shop in the basement when he wasn't outside plowing snow with his tractor, but we took some time to watch an episode of Jessica Jones and a couple episodes of our newest discovery, Battle Creek while I made dinner and T relaxed after a busy day.

Saturday was more of the same (treadmill, cooking, talking on the phone, birdfeeder duty) with some writing, planning, and organizing thrown in.  And unfortunately, some dawdling in the form of Facebook, podcasts, and researching possible online/android journaling apps. (Like I need more places to write!)  In retrospect, I should have made a specific plan to writing first, and dawdle later.  But I got a little writing in.

T got outside and plowed the looong driveway out to the street, so we can get out and go to work on Monday.  Yay?

Today (Sunday) the sun came out and it was a beautiful day, but temps stayed well below freezing.  I talked on the phone to my third sister and my folks again, did not walk on the treadmill, did some more cooking, and never even managed to walk down the driveway to the street, as I had intended.  We finished up the last couple episodes of Jessica Jones and are eagerly awaiting the second season.  And of course, there was football. 

Cooking Up a Storm

December and January have been crazy.  My work really goes crazy in those months, so I've been pulling from my freezer store of single-serving and multiple-serving soups and casseroles.  And we've traveled several weekends and I've puled frozen entrees for that purpose and the freezer-cupboard is starting to look pretty bare.

So it's time to do some major cooking.  I don't love cooking, but I don't mind much if I have it all well organized and don't let myself dawdle away too much time.  Here's what I was able to pump out this weekend.  Some of this has been/will get eaten for lunches (or breakfast) this weekend or this week.  Whatever's left after a couple days will get divided into individual servings and frozen. 

Friday

• Laure's Blackbean Soup (triple recipe)
• 10 Minute Pizza Soup from Mel Joulwan's fabulous Well Fed blog (triple recipe)
• a salad and flank steam with rosemary and mushrooms for dinner

Saturday

• a spicy hummus recipe I've loved since forever.  I only had one can of chickpeas so I could only make one recipe
• for dinner, a salad, biscuits, and Chicken Pot Pie Soup from Skinnytaste, another favorite recipe source

Sunday

• Skinny Baked Mozzarella Sticks and Quick Marinara Sauce pulled from the freezer as a football-watching snack.  Both recipes were also from Skinnytaste.
• Joy's White Turkey Chili - I wanted to make a double or triple recipe, but when I hit the stores on Thursday evening (pre-storm) they only had one 20-oz package left.  So one recipe it is.
• my bi-weekly double recipe of Crustless Smoked Salmon Quiche.  T loves this and eats it for breakfast most days.

So I got a lot done, but somehow not nearly enough.  And a long three-day weekend, but as always, not nearly long enough.

Two Ways to Avoid Food Waste

 Food waste happens. The other day my friend was lamenting her inability to keep food from being wasted at her house. She asked me what I do to try to avoid it. As we talked, I realized there are a lot of different kinds of food waste.

First there’s the food that you buy specifically as an ingredient for a meal, that you then never actually prepare. Then there’s the food you buy, prepare a meal, and eat the meal, but there are leftovers that never get eaten. There’s the food you buy for general consumption—milk, apples, bread—-that isn’t ever consumed. There’s food you buy to have on hand—beans, ketchup, diced tomatoes—that has a long shelf life, but you buy too much, or you buy something you just never use, and eventually, it expires. Then there’s the leftover take-out food no one ever finishes. And then there’s the junk food or dessert that isn’t eaten. (Actually, I think that one’s a myth.)

I do actually have a couple systems in place for avoiding food waste. However, they don’t always work since they depend on me to make them happen. And they don’t work for all kinds of food waste. And let’s face it, sometimes we buy, make, or otherwise obtain food that we just don’t like or won’t eat. That food is pretty much destined to be thrown out. Waste happens.

Nevertheless, we have to try. Here are my two systems.

How to Avoid Wasting Meals that are Prepared, But Not Completely Eaten

At my house, we intentionally make extra servings of each meal to use for lunches or for dinner later in the week. When I put the food away, I label the container with freezer tape and a sharpie, including what it is, and the date, and most importantly the day of the week. So the brisket we had on Tuesday would be labeled, “Brisket T 10/13.”

Sidenote: To make the system work you have to distinguish between the Tuesday and Thursday and between Saturday and Sunday. I have an abbreviation system for the days of the week that I’ve used since college. Maybe you have a similar one. For me, Sunday is abbreviated as “N” and Thursday as “H.” So my abbreviations for the days of the week, in order starting with Sunday would run like this: NMTWHFS.

The second part of this system is a laminated card I made that I keep on the refrigerator and consult every couple days. Basically, it tells me what food in my refrigerator has just hit five days old. I assume if the food is five days old, it should be eaten, frozen, or thrown out.

This helps me keep my refrigerator from turning into a food graveyard, but it does mean that I throw food away regularly. Frankly, throwing food away regularly really motivates me to avoid throwing food away, which can almost always be done by just eating or freezing the food.

I also carefully label food that’s going into the freezer, and try to keep a running inventory of what’s in the freezer. Since we have a large chest freezer in addition to what’s in the refrigerator’s freezer, I keep the inventory by category (frozen single-serving lunch entrees, frozen casseroles, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, frozen meat, frozen bread, other (like nuts, flax seeds, coconut flakes, etc.)

How to Avoid Wasting Food That’s Purchased for General Consumption

At my house we eat lots of produce, milk and almond milk, creamer, yogurt, and eggs. So I buy a good deal of these items for us to eat throughout the week, but not for any specific meal. So if I buy too much of something, it can go to waste. Recently I set out to figure out how much of these items we eat in a week.

I identified the specific items I wanted to track: avocados, romaine, cauliflower, lemons, peppers, spaghetti squash, eggs, creamer, almond milk, skim milk, and yogurt. Then I made myself a little chart where I recorded how much of each item we started the week with, how much was purchased during the week, and what we had at the end of the week. I put in a column to calculate what we use, and how much we need to buy for the next week. Finally, I made myself a column, “Need per Week,” which after several weeks of tracking, I was able to fill in.

Now before I go to the grocery store, I check these items to see what we have left, and refer to my “Need per Week” column to figure what I should buy at the store. If one or both of us is going to be out of town, or for some other reason, will be consuming less (or more) of the items, I can adjust. Every so often, something changes and I add an item to the list or drop another item off the list. Then I might need to do a couple weeks of tracking to see how much we use of that item before I can go back to just referencing my updated “Need Per Week” column.

To Avoid Wasting Leftover Cooking Ingredients Like Chicken Broth or Lemon Juice

I can’t really speak to this exactly, because I haven’t done it yet, but I have a system in mind I’ve been meaning to institute. I’ve read about using ice cube trays to freeze small amounts of leftover items like chicken broth, lemon juice, tomato sauce, coconut milk, or whatever else might otherwise be wasted. After it’s frozen, you’re supposed to empty the pieces out into a freezer bag and store in the freezer. I really need to do this.

My Goals for ROW80--A Round of Words in 80 Days!

I’m fairly new to writing.

I’ve always been a writer wanna-be, but I’ve been getting more serious about writing and I’m trying to establish a writing habit and some goals. I have a short ebook that’s completely planned and mostly drafted and I have dreams of writing some fiction. I’ve been writing semi-frequently and really want to find a way to make that more consistent.


"fast fingers," by Katie Krueger is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

A major reason why I started this blog was to join up with ROW80—A Round of Words in 80 Days. Hello ROW80 members! I’m looking forward to reading your blogs and getting to know you.

The idea of a writer’s community really appeals to me and ROW80 sounds just right. Not too much pressure, but a prompt to set some goals and try to meet them, and some people expecting me to report in every few days. I’m excited about the chance to get to know other people who write, and I know setting specific, measurable goals along with some accountability will be really good for me. 

My Writing Goals
My writing goals for between now and the end of September are:

Find a writing community. Yay! One down already.

Write at least 5 days a week OR 9 hours a week. For now, as long as I’m writing five or more days a week, it’s okay even if it’s just for five minutes at a time. So far, once I sit down and get started, it’s been easy and fun to keep going, but sometimes the universe doesn’t cooperate and I have to stop sooner than I’d like. Eventually, I’ll probably want to be more regimented, but for now, I just want to see myself getting started most every day. If I don’t manage to write five days in a week, but somehow manage to hit 9 hours in a week (which is a lot for me), then all is forgiven. For now.

Finish the first draft and re-write of my non-fiction ebook. Back in June I thought I’d finished the first draft and started in with the re-write. But it turns out the first draft wasn’t near finished. Sigh. There were paragraphs and entire sections that needed to be added. So I’m moving through the book, re-writing what was written, and filling in the missing pieces with first draft writing. Which leaves me mostly through my first draft and partly through my 2nd draft.

"just write it," by alienation licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

I can be such a dawdler, futzing and perfecting and never wrapping things up. I could write and re-write, and fine-tune until the end of time. Knowing myself, I already know I need to push myself to move on with it already (whatever "it" might be). I really think this goal is do-able by the end of September. Maybe even the end of August. 

Post to my new blog twice a week. Short and sweet. Remember the 80/20 rule and keep moving. I want to spend most of my writing time working on the book.

Find a way to incorporate writing with some gentle activity. I can’t go overboard in the exercise department, but it would be great to get into an exercise routine that will boost my creativity. Exercise that helps my writing won’t feel as much like time stolen from my writing.

So those are my plans. I’m still trying to learn what’s realistic, but this is what I'm shooting for.

Things I'm (Still) Trying to Get Done

For the past three years I’ve had the same three major goals in life. I’ve been very clear about them, and I’ve focused on them, thought about them, researched and googled them, planned, schemed, and plotted. And I’ve made some headway toward accomplishing them. But these goals are some tough suckers. 


 "Knox Goals Notebook," by Jamie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Briefly here they are:

Write.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I have dreams of writing for a living, but that is so far away that it really is just a dream right now. Over the past year, I’ve been writing more and more frequently, and several hours a week, at times. But it’s not steady and predictable like I’d like it to be. I want to be able to count on pounding out a minimum of thirty minutes a day or a minimum word count—maybe one thousand words. It hardly matters what the minimums are at this point, I’d just like to know there will be a minimum. I’d like to count on myself to write at least five days a week, but I’m not there yet. There are still too many things that keep me from writing. For several weeks in May I wrote regularly and for a good period of time every week. Then June hit, and things went crazy at work, as things do in June, and I didn’t write a word for five weeks. Now things are less crazy at work and I’m back at it, which is something. But I don’t want those breaks to happen. I’d like to find a corner of my life where I know I’ll write every single day for at least twenty or thirty concentrated minutes, even when things are crazy. But I’m not there yet.

Improve my back health.

I don’t plan to dwell on this. No one wants to hear about someone else’s aches and pains, especially if there’s no miracle solution attached, which (spoiler alert) there isn’t. I’ve posted previously about my back, what’s wrong with it, what I’m doing about it, what I think is helping, blah, blah, blah. Here, I just want to acknowledge that it’s a constant focus in my life, and it needs to be, but I don’t plan to talk about it much.

Lose weight and get fit.

Not being able to exercise with abandon (see previous paragraph) makes this goal a lot harder. As far as meals go, we’re pretty low-carb at my house, but for me that’s an all or nothing situation. I waver from being sweetener- grain-, and alcohol-free, to swimming in junk food that I refrain from sharing with my husband, because he would not thank me. So I’ll be trying out another Whole30—the land of no sugar, no grains, no alcohol, no legumes, no dairy—hopefully very soon.

I can’t believe I just said that like I meant it.

The Boring Post About My Back Pain

I’ve had back pain since May 2010. It came to me in the midst of a fit and active lifestyle. I was doing vigorous strength/cardio interval workouts two mornings a week, running three days a week, practicing martial arts, and in the best shape of my life. I was getting up at 4:20 am and getting to the gym by the stroke of 5 (well sometimes) and working out with a great group of girls who were lots of fun and supportively competitive. But that all came to an end.

The Cause
Apparently I have back pain because of decades of poor posture and incorrect movement, although no one ever told me I had poor posture and I had always tried to stand, sit, and move as correctly as I knew how. Over the course of a year and a half I received excellent care from two different physical therapists and got lots of rest, but this only helped to a limited degree. I tried to return partially to the fit and active lifestyle I had previously loved, but within a few months I was done. Again. No strength workouts, absolutely no running. My back said so, and it meant business. Things got more and more painful, and after a while I couldn’t find a comfortable position. Sitting, standing, walking, laying down—everything hurt too much. Sleeping was difficult. In December 2013, I got an MRI and found out I had three herniated discs in my lower back, two of which were pressing on nerves. 


“Back,” by Lucas Cobb is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The Solution?
The doctor suggested pain management and if that didn’t work, maybe surgery. I went to my pain management appointment and got steroid injections. But I didn’t like the idea of pain management. I didn’t want to settle for managing my pain; I wanted to be pain-free. I wasn’t wiling to just sit down, give up, and let someone manage my pain. And inexplicably, my first (and only) steroid injection led to the most painful episode with my back I’d had to date. And it lasted for more than a month, even with three-times-daily dose of muscle relaxants.

Taking Matters Into My Own Hands.
I decided I wasn’t ready for pain management or surgery. I started to do some reading instead. One book, Fixing You: Back Pain, by Rick Olderman was really helpful. It said things my physical therapists had also said. That repeated incorrect movement and/or poor posture over time can damage tissues and joints, and cause muscle imbalances. Over time, that damage can lead to pain. Treating the pain, or treating the damaged tissues and joints, may alleviate the symptoms for a time. But you won’t really have permanently solved the problem if you don’t address and change the ongoing cause: incorrect movement and poor posture.

What’s Been Working for Me, Kinda
It turns out, the solution, for me, at least right now, is consistently moving correctly. This is not an easy task—so much of how we move is subconscious and ingrained. My neural pathways were first made decades ago and forging new ones that are deep enough to keep me on track—even when I’m not thinking about it, even when I’m reacting suddenly and moving quickly—that’s quite a task. But ‘m working at it. WIth the help of truly excellent physical therapists, as well as on my own, and now with thoroughly trained pilates instructors, I’ve been working to correct my posture and movements.

This has led to less pain, and now, often, no pain. Although it all comes flooding back if I engage in activity with any impact at all. So still no running for me. Biking and hiking are okay as long as I don’t do too much uphill work. Swimming is good. Light weights are okay, but not overhead. No lower body strength work. So I’m absolutely not back to where I’d like to be. But. Y’know.

This Is My Life
I’ve had some progress and that makes me happy. I can run up the stairs of my home freely and without pain. Last week I stepped in a hole unexpectedly, and my previously-ever-so-sensitive-back reacted like a normal person’s back. It wasn’t happy, but I’m not feeling it today and I certainly won’t still be feeling it in two weeks. Yes I’m constantly having setbacks. I’m hoping someday I’ll be able to exercise like a normal person. But right now, I’m just grateful to go to sleep every night without pain.

This Post is Late. But It's About Living in the Moment and Making the Most of Today. So That's Okay, Right?

I'm a Dawdler.  I've always been a Dawdler.  I wish I could say it wasn't true, but there it is. 

I've never moved quickly, although sometimes I try to give the impression of moving quickly.  Deep down, though, I'm dragging my feet, daydreaming, considering, re-thinking, perfecting, reviewing, revising, analyzing, debating, doing more research, considering all the options.  Why don't I make a decision and move forward?  Because there's so much to do and see right here, where I am.  But I'll certainly give the suggestion some serious thought.



© Jodi L Hutchison | Dreamstime Stock Photos

But really, I agree.  This way that I am, this dawdling, is a problem.  I'm expect the way I approach life has something good about it.  No doubt someone out would benefit from doing more of what I do.  But for me, this is the tragedy of my life.  Time is not endlessly available.  It's precious, it's scarce and vital.  All this lolling around, this luxuriating in the passing of time, it's criminal.  Annie Dillard said, "Spend the afternoon.  You can't take it with you." 

That's what I want to do.  That's what I mean to do, every day.  But I don't, I don't do it.  It doesn't happen.  It feels like something that's beyond me.  Like I can't do it.  But I can learn to, can't I?  I must learn.  I intend to learn.

That's what this blog is about.  Making a decision every day, every minute, to spend this moment in a particular way, or on a particular project.  To spend it out, and use it up, not just let it tick past.  Because it will be gone anyway and I want to make the most of it; I don't want to waste any of it.