Personal Goals Update

(pic is of brussells sprouts...halved and seared in a bit of olive oil with some crisped turkey bacon tossed in...yum!)

It's been a while since I did the Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Do Without update. Here's how things are stacking up these days:

Use It Up:

1. Trying to use up fridge contents before they migrate to the hidden recesses and languish there too long. In order to keep the process simple, I'm buying fewer groceries at a time since we have our larger staple quantities already in the pantry. I'm also making a decisive effort to include more greens and eat them before buying anything else. The brussels sprouts are on sale right now and are really cheap. We have those and some cabbage to use up before cycling through and buying more fresh produce.

Do better? I need to use up the remaining frozen turkeys we bought last winter.

2. Some of the leftovers now go to the dog...(now that we have one, yay!) I don't really utilize my beef fat (tallow) after I separate the roasting pan juices, but now I can store it in the fridge and melt a spoonful at a time for including in his kibble, along with some of the other leftovers. His coat needs conditioning.

3. I've been pulling a lot of our frozen soups out of the freezer for quick meals, and freezing the roasting juices from any meats we cook once I separate the fat. The roasting juices are the best soup starters I've found yet.

4. Our moringa and cranberry hibiscus branches need harvesting. The moringa leaves have to be individually picked off and either cooked fresh like spinach or dried and powdered to use in cooking. They are nutritional superfoods according to what we've read up on them. I'm interested in experimenting with the cranberry hibiscus leaves, which are good raw in salads with a tart lemony flavor. I want to try them dolmas-style as a substitute for grape leaves to see if it will hold up and if the flavor is good that way. I also want to see if the tenderer ones can be processed till fine with a bit of olive oil to make a pesto, and then take it a step further and see if it might be a nice addition to an olive tapenade...the color, the burgundy/magenta, would surely be beautiful.

Wear It Out:

1. The lawnmower - aye-yi-yi! It's embarrassing to admit just how long our lawn went unmowed since late June. I was sick all that time until recently with sinus that graduated into bronchitis/flu/ruptured eardrums/blahblahblah, and Jack was called on to work a challenging work schedule. What with everything falling a beat behind paired with bouts of pouring rainstorms, let's just say we became children of the jungle. Well, the jungle had to be hacked away at and our small lawnmower has been a trouper, but it's no match for thigh-high bermuda. Jack checked into renting a more powerful one and the cheapest rental was $85 a day...no way. So my hero has been wrestling lawnmower and stalk for days now, chawing away at the wall of green. He's nearly won, but we've had to keep replacing lawnmower parts. A more powerful one is on the wish list, but let's see...we keep holding out hope that moving to the place we hope would allow animals to be the yardcare specialists...we're tired of mowing what would be some gorgeous fodder! So for the time, the lawnmower stays.

2. Most of my pants have bit the dust, but I am able to still use two of them. The ones with repatched holes are being saved for patches. I'm embarrassed to say that all my everyday shirts were stained, shapeless, and looking very worn, so for very little I bought two chambray shirts in the least likely of places...the men's department...for $5.00 each. I love chambray for its durability and comfort. I'm not typically a "wear men's clothing" sort of gal, but truly there is no difference in the look between these shirts and the women's. I bought each in a shade that matched my two remaining pairs of pants and voila...fresh and crisp. So I sort of did a "wear it out"...with the pants, and bought the shirts frugally with the pants in mind to complete two "new" outfits. The other shirts and pants...WORN OUT. I have to figure out whether to save some of the fabric or what to do. Some of them are so far gone I'd hate to donate them to anything. Rag bin might be their fate :)

Make It Do:

1. Reorganizing closets, spare bedroom, garage, etc, little by little. I'm repurposing containers from one area to use in another. Am using a small woven throw rug (after a good cleaning) as a runner for my kitchen table. Grouping things together until it's decided whether to reuse or give away. The big Comet goldfish is still in a too-small tank, and prices being what they are for larger tank setups (even on craigslist...I don't seem to hit the good ones in time), I'll craigslist the fish for 50 cents and go get two very small ones for less than that to repopulate mine.

2. Exercise -- it's hot. Hot, hot, hot. The heat does a number on me, and since I work in intense heat on my work nights, it is draining. HOWEVER, this is one of those Make It Do scenarios...I'm trying to get it to work with me instead of against. I'm eating less and I've lost some weight slowly. Now that we have our wonderful dog (yay!!), an hour before sundown is the perfect time to go for long walks. No excuses...I used to belong to a gym back in the day...one with an indoor pool, ahhhhh :) But I have a perfectly beautiful scenic set of roads that I'm no longer afraid to explore by myself (because we have the dog, yay again!) and I want to step up the fitness and weight loss. I want to see bigger results this year! I'm down 24 pounds since last year, and each pound was a killer to get off. But I have a very long road ahead. No excuses = "make it do"...no matter what, there is something I can be doing.

Do Without:

1. Well, we do this so much, it doesnt feel like doing without :) It just seems like "ok, it's just not the right time for it." I've put off ordering some supplements that would benefit us because we're paying off a lot of bills just now and I want to see where the totals fall here soon, so we know exactly where we stand.

2. In the bad side of this one, for way too long I was NOT utilizing my health insurance and really put off some doc visits for various reasons. I needed to get caught up with my maintenance meds and get labs checked as well as get current with those "female exams" etc. Those are being caught up on. It's just not sensible to delay it further as long as I do have insurance. There are things we shouldn't do without if we have a choice. With that said, though, I have been altering my eating and growing some herbs to help me with my blood sugars, and have asked the doc to remove me from a couple of meds if the numbers come back within a decent range. My thyroid used to be very borderline normal/abnormal but after taking the meds for about three years, my usually very thick hair began thinning noticeably (to me, at least). I took myself off it. We'll see what the counts look like but it's one of the things I hope to not have to use again.

I guess that's it for now!

We are so happy to have the dog. This was a planned-for thing, and yes, the set up comes with expenses. They were planned for after having nixed considerable debt recently (yay, God!). I don't know where on here he fits, but he does fit. He is now my constant shadow and alerts me to anything unusual going on outside, especially when Jack's elsewhere. The peace of mind and companionship that brings me is beyond words. The motivation to get outside and go for walks is now a joy instead of a chore.

And that's where I'm headed now. It doesn't seem like "exercise" since Kaleb is sooo happy tooling around down the paths and through the bushes...fun!

I hope your weekend is great...if you get time off from work and/or get to be with family or friends, enjoy! I go now to walk my four legged furball and see his silly happy grin :)

Health, Purity, and When Does the Maturity Kick In?

I've been feeling overall worse the past few months, and it's my own fault.

Last year during Jack's mom's hospice stays, I succumbed to frequenting the Diet Coke machines for those really cold "good burn" cans of Diet Coke, even though truth be told I'm not crazy about the flavor. But the cold and the burn was soooo good in the middle of all that parade of pureed food (Mima's), hospital smells, and sacks of cold take-out food.

I didn't do so well getting off that little treat once things settled back down and I was back home. It manifested in liters of root beer, Vernor's ginger ale, and more root beer, though we kept the kombucha going and always drink a lot of water. But I really didn't need that many "treats," and they eased their way into my grocery cart a lot more than they should have. (My own fault)

I also tried to get us off breads and empty starches so much, and have done so-so at that. I'm pretty happy most of our breads have been those I've made, but cheap sandwich bread has sneaked back in more and more.

And then recently, I just felt BAD..probably fighting off the creeping crud everyone in town seems to have to a greater degree than we have. I noticed my emotions hitting a bit harder than usual, cravings I don't usually have making their appearance, and my work schedule at night creating an unnatural cycle for my sleeping...which also impacted my eating.

I'm not a Diet person...never will be. But I do believe in objectively meditating on (not in the eastern sense per se) the habits I have from time to time, to examine just where I stand. In short, in the past few months I've begun to feel very unhealthy.

Some things are long term projects and some are short term. Short term, I can make some very important steps to return to better health:
1. Completely avoid aspartame and any other synthetic sweetener, in anything (meaning the diet drinks...I don't use artificial sweetners in anything else) I actually like most drinks unsweet, and if I need a sweet fix, I can use a tad of Xylitol (natural)
2. I've overloaded the proportion of my eating with red meats and taste substitutes. It's hard to be honest about this, but flavorings are chock full of preservatives and I've eaten stuff with those flavor enhancers all up in them. We've also been eating a lot of red meat. For myself, I need it now and then but to beef up (ha, pun!) more on my dark greens for those B vitamin fixes.
3. I've overloaded my body with large portion sizes. This also happened gradually...I'm not a snacker, so it mostly happens at mealtime...which is why I've not gained weight. But I feel like my system is overloaded. It needs some lightness.
4. I've made poor "fast food" choices when it comes to eating at work. I've actually bought and eaten pure old Seven-11 junk food, and last week ate Ramen noodles (yes with those awful preservative-flavor packets) nearly every night...no matter how bad they made me feel!! I was hormonal then, so I won't beat myself up about it, but the solution lies in never buying the stuff in the first place...I know better and know how it makes me feel, but ignored my better wisdom I know not why. Rebellion maybe? Well, it didn't end up making my world better. Better to have one or two fantastic pieces of real chocolate next time than carb-o-gazillion empty starches. Ugh!
5. Dramatically ramp down the fungus-loving foods...processed sugars, and much of the bread. I'll have to always watch the quantity of things like bread since I just like them so much. I have a hunch what with my diabetes and all,the anti-fungal connection is something I need to pay much more attention to, and make the very simple and satisfying substitutions that make my body unfriendly to a proliferation of things like candida, and other "fungus stuff"...meaning all the foods that feed disease rather than defending against it.
6. Ramp UP the probiotics...mature kombucha will be our main thing for this. We love it but have drunk less of it because I havent made as much of it as I was...but that's changing now.
7. Yerba buena. We're going to use it daily in our tea...it just has so many benefits and does so well in the climate, we need to use it! and it's delicious.


Thankfully, our modest pantry and freezer stock of staples has been a lifesaver..it really makes those trips to the store so much less expensive and it just doesn't take much to eat right...except eating right!! :)

I don't spend time beating myself up, and I've been thinking of what my body seems to be crying out for. I was delighted today on payday to be able to get a few things from the health food store to that end...

1. Women's Hormone-supportive herbal tea blend. I think that will ease a lot of the triggers I'm feeling as far as cravings
2. An affordable 10-day Stress Cleansing kit (herbs to address stress and cortisol, gentle cleansing herbs to get my system reset from the overload of yuck
3. Acai berry capsules -- for support, wide range of benefits, and I want to try it to see how it does with my body as I cleanse

I'm going to do a gentle cleanse, drink the hormone-support tea each day, and take the acai berry for additional support, while eating only small meals that are fish or lean chicken, dark greens and salads, water with lemon, plain water, or kombucha. I think that may help me to get back on my feet and understand how to fine tune my health a bit.

It's time for the mature part of me to put some constructive limits on the throw-all-care-to-the-wind part of me. Ultimately, I need to lose all my weight and see if I can ditch this diabetes once and for all. THAT would put a lot of things right in my world :)

I'm very aware of the purity of foods, too, and this is a longer term target area...namely GMO foods. It's said that 70% of foods are full of GMOs and are unlabeled to that effect. That makes me furious, frankly. So I'm becoming aware of the foods most often genetically modified (not meaning hybrids but meaning DNA tampering by the likes of Monsanto)....these are corn, soy, sugar, and canola...and I'm not sure what else yet. But soy and corn (think HFCS and other sweeteners) are in SO many foods...for instance, try buying a salad dressing that doesn't have soy or canola in it...nearly impossible. And think of what your food ATE...meaning cows, chickens, etc...was their primary diet corn, soy, things with hormones/chemicals/pesticides? They are what they eat...and we are what we eat when we eat them.

The other purity issue is preservatives. Since we're not buying much in the way of processed foods ( yeah, I know...Ramen noodles, in the trash you go!), this is not as much an issue, but it's still sneaky. To purchase a package of chicken breasts, you have to read the fine print...what was injected into them? Ah, a solution....?? (what sort of a solution, blehh) Was it packaged in plastic? Sprayed with something to preserve its color, freshness, keep from spoiling? Chemicals.

We have not been able to eliminate chemicals entirely...yet. We don't buy solely organic. I don't care what anyone says, we can't afford it. Yet. We're working towards that. First, to simplify our spoiled tastes and our habit of instant gratification, and our habit of overeating. This week's shopping trip brought home a couple small cabbages, some lettuces, celery, some grape tomatoes, one small pack asparagus, a pack of chicken breasts, 9 lemons, and a lot of clean drinking water (we have sulfur stinky water here).

That'll do us well...we have beans, turkey, staples like basmati rice & such, a couple calabazas and that Musquee Aux Provence we haven't cut into yet, along with the last quantity cooking I did a couple days ago (spaghetti sauce w/lots of herbs & a bit of rigatoni) to round things out.

I'm VERY happy to be working from a pantry-based list rather than a store-based one! I'm also really happy about fasting from heavy meals and going to salads and a lot of water and support herbs to get back on track.

Vitamin D? It's time to get outside and soak up some sun puttering among the seedlings! And then get some more much-needed sleep....ah, gotta love shabbat and that "enforced" day of rest, wooo! :)

Hope you have a lovely night and weekend!

Shabbat shalom from our family to yours :)

One of Those Landmark Numbers...

down, baby, down!!

(No, I'm not sharing the actual number, but it's one of my landmarks!)

I crossed the boundary of one of those BIG psychological numbers. Got on the scale and am down 2 more lbs...19 total in 2008 so far, wooo!

Have not investigated the posssibility of a broken scale, but HAVE given serious thought to bronzing the thing and giving it its own space on the mantel!

(Again, my little happy place of insensibility. We actually have no mantel...)

:::::::: dancing the happy dance ::::::::::::

I go now to work and to ponder the great mysteries of life. Such as how to lose weight while hormonal, puffy, and having consumed two helpings of home fries earlier this morning....heh heh

I take back all the bad words I've said to my scale in the past. For now...

;-)

Doing Not Thinking Challenge

This challenge originated with Kathie at Two Frog Home, and it's been so neat watching the progress of all the participants!

OK, this one didn't go like I thought, due to my inconsistency. I could have done better. But there have been results! :)

But here's where I am compared to where I was before the challenge...

Weight loss:

I have no idea how much I've lost since the challenge because I forgot my starting number ;-)

And there is NO way that starting number was getting published (ha!)

But I will say this -- at the beginning of this year I weighed 17 lbs or so more than I do right now. As of this morning I'd lost another pound...can we say Yay??? And that's with retaining water and being hormonal the past few days. We've cut out some bread and rice and all pasta as a result of my hubby being told by his doctor to lay off them or else. But we still eat pretty much what we want, just better food since much more of it is slow food cooked here at the casa. I have SO much more to lose. But a journey of a thousand miles...blahblahblah and all that.

Well, Yay!!!

Consistently doing what it takes to locate and acquire our homestead property:

Yes. This has been happening. Evvv. Errr. Yyy. Week. Shall report details when I am able to have good news. It's too much of a roller coaster to give the blow-by-blow and I get too wrapped up in it emotionally, but rolling along it is :)

Saving up loose change for Kiva.org lending program to boost self-sufficiency of individuals in poverty:

This went well. I had a dry spell there for a long time where I was not working outside the home, and so had no cash that I was using other than the tightly-budgeted grocery amount. I cooked at home, so we seldom ate out, and this proved to me how much money we lose the more we rely on eating elsewhere in addition to the actual cost...the change really adds up!

I have at least $20 in change I've collected, though, even then. It may be even more. I hope to apply it before the end of this month and get the ball rolling using whatever coinage is the final count.

Though it's a very small amount, these are micro loans, which makes them easy to give out when a few people pool their resources, and makes them low risk. The nice thing about it is that when the borrower pays it back to Kiva.org, I can just reapply the amount to someone else listed on their site in need of a micro loan. These loans help buy a family goat, or cow, or seeds, or fabric for handmade goods, etc...something less regulated in many areas of the world and able to meet the needs of a family as well as having something for them to sell and make a business from.

The nice thing about having a change jar we've been putting coins into is seeing how it does add up, whether quickly or slowly. Now we can be deliberate with what we use the change for...either more Kiva money or some other modest goal.

I've been bad about not reporting consistently on my DNTC progress. But this is the summary of what the results have been.

Any results are better than none :) So....Yayyyy...some good things got done!

Thank you Kathie for facilitating this!

Doing Not Thinking Challenge

Better late than never!!

I'm a tardy latecomer, but I'm taking on Kathie's Doing Not Thinking challenge. For some background on what led to this challenge, you'll enjoy this earlier post she wrote. Not just thought-provoking, but action-inspiring!

Whether it's mental list-making, day-dreaming of all the things I know I want to do (which leapfrogs to so many other things I want to do, most of which I've dreamed but never just DONE), or getting sucked into the vortex of busy-ness it takes to maintain this crazy thing called My Life, I need to be more deliberate, more organized, and more focused on actually getting past those stopping-points and actually DOING some of those goals...and some of the neglected things like my housework (cough cough!)

Doing my housework more consistently needs to be a daily habit, so it's not going on the list. I want it to be done before the "extras" because it's important to my whole household. I've done quite a bit of digging out during my hiatus, but have more to go to get it deep-cleaned.

Same thing goes for my relationship with my husband and the time spent with him and with my daughter. In that area, I'm simpy shutting off the computer. Shutting. It. Off.

I'll be blogging less frequently, but deliberately making the most of the time with my family. Writing is important to me, and Jack really wants me to continue posting here, and I agree. But I don't want backwards priorities...I waited so long for him, and when he came into my life I knew I wanted to make each moment count, at least as much as possible (I fall really short quite often). I just don't have the time to do everything, so if you don't see me visiting around my favorite blogs (yours!!) please don't take it personally! There will be times when I'll be able to indulge, when I'm less crazed ;-)

Anyway, I do have room for a challenge! Here are the things I'm challenging myself to accomplish by the December deadline Kathie posted:

Short term goal…save my change from any monetary transaction and put it in a jar…at the deadline, any money I have will be used to do a micro-loan (cycling back and being reinvested in the same thing when paid back) for Kiva.org…to help individuals acquire animals or goods for handmade/homegrown/home-raised products to support themselves.

Longer goal…2 of them
1. Lose 10 lbs by the deadline
2. Keep doing what we can weekly toward finding our homestead…no matter what...the legwork, research, homework, phone-calling, being cheerful despite changes of direction. No wallowing in discouragement allowed! I want to compare the progress then to where we are now...

That's it for me...it's not too late to join the challenge, if you find you'd enjoy pushing past the thinking stage and get right down to the doing part of one or two goals you've had on the burner. To see what some other folks are doing, or to jump in yourself, you can check out the post here.

Come December, it'll be fun comparing notes :)