Lists within Lists

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Here’s my little to-do list from the last time I posted, which I wrote and then published and then completely forgot about. Let’s return to it, shall we?

How will I rekindle my creative spark?

• Clear all the junk that I store on my piano keyboard and commit to playing it 2/week. — Got the first half done.
• Get out with Blue for at least 15 minutes a day to clear my head, listen to inspiring podcasts/music, or just appreciate the outdoors. — And by “15 minutes a day,” I apparently meant once or twice a week or so.
• Write a blog post at least 1/month (don’t want to overcommit too soon). — Or, how about at least 1/quarter?
• Play more: dance, be silly, do not sweat the small stuff! — Why is this one so hard?
• Get that annoying wolf jigsaw puzzle out again. — Nah … it’s just too weird of a puzzle. Besides, the weather is warming up, so I’ll leave the jigsaws until next winter.
  
• Turn off the damn TV. — I do … every night … after watching much too much streaming stuff.
• Read more good books … or maybe even some poetry. — I have read some poetry and some fun books. I even wrote a poem of sorts.
• Stop playing Killer Sudoku (or whatever the latest downloaded game is). — Failed miserably at this one.

I am the best at creating lists! Shopping lists. Chore lists. Lists of books to read, music to listen to, movies to watch. Work to-do lists. Lists of lists, like this one. The list creation is fun. It’s the easy part. And it makes me feel like I have a purpose and goals.

The problem? Well, I write these lists in random places. In a blog that I check out a few times per year. On the back of an envelope. In one of the many versions of One Note or Evernote or Google Tasks or whatever the latest tool is. On my SuperNote, which is currently completely dead and inaccessible until I charge it again. On my white board. Even in Word docs that I store on my desktop, never to be opened again. So many lists in so many places!

It feels good to get my ideas down and out of my head. But the follow-through is sporadic at best. As I told a friend the other day, “I’m just not good at habits … unless it’s my horrible nail-biting habit.”

Where am I going with this? The AI bot will probably tell me to wrap it up with some kind of action or to-do. Like a to-do list?!? Let’s find out, shall we?

HA! It is yet another list. Hooray!

Actions to improve the content:

• Consider consolidating all your lists into one central location to enhance organization and follow-through.
• Set specific, attainable goals for each item on your list to increase the likelihood of successful implementation.
• Try using digital tools like Trello or Evernote to keep your lists in one accessible place and receive notifications for important tasks.

These aren’t so much actions to improve content as they are actions to improve my follow-through on tasks. Seems the AI Assistant is branching out on her own as a life coach.

Bare Cupboards

I have been struggling with getting words on paper, screen, papyrus, slate boards, you name it. I just don’t want to write. But I really do need to write. I am feeling a severe lack of mojo. I am mojo-less. I’ve been this way probably for the past 7 years. I can directly correlate it to the state of the world. The disrepair of this country. The general malaise that descended over many of us on November 8, 2016, and which only intensified with the onslaught of Covid and everything that has brought with it.

But I need to get out of the dark pit. I need to find my creative spark again, if only to find a little more joy. It’s not like I sit around moping all day, every day. But in my downtime, more often than not, instead of playing the piano, dancing, gardening, writing, creating, I pick up my phone and play a game or doom-scroll or watch never-ending clips from Graham Norton or something else that will make me laugh. (Note: There is not a single thing wrong with watching Graham Norton.)

So here I am, with a little encouragement from my therapist, talking about the bare cupboards of my soul. This blog started back when we used to laugh about how we could pull together miraculously delicious meals from our bare cupboards. It’s time to start laughing about how I can pull together a miraculously delicious me with what’s left on my own shelves.

What do I have on my shelves? I am relatively healthy, with a loving husband and a sometimes-annoying, but very lovable dog. I have an amazing slew of friends to laugh, love, live with. There is a roof over my head, a big yard to play in, and the best pergola ever for backyard BBQs and potato drops. I have a good job at a company that I truly enjoy working with. My immediate family is alive and well and there for me when I need them. I am surrounded by mountains and trails and rivers to get out and play at any time of year. My shelves are, in fact, quite full.

I just need to restock some of the more depleted jars of joy and passion and zest.

************************

I was going to end there, but the WordPress AI told me I’m not done yet. It’s like one of those English professors who tells you a paper would be better if you would just do these few things. They were always right of course, but that didn’t mean I would follow through. Why rewrite a paper if you were already graded on it?

Anyway, I apparently have matured over the years, because I am going to take the following feedback to heart:

The content conveyed a personal struggle with finding creative motivation and the decision to address it through the blog. It reflects a candid and relatable tone (why, thank you), engaging readers to connect with the author’s experiences. To enhance the post, consider incorporating specific examples of how the author plans to rekindle their creative spark, such as setting small achievable goals or seeking inspiration from new sources. Emphasizing these practical steps can provide a valuable takeaway for readers facing similar challenges. Additionally, integrating images or visuals related to the author’s creative endeavors can further enhance the blog’s appeal and resonance.

WordPress AI Assistant

First of all, I am a luddite, and it totally freaks me out that AI generated this feedback so quickly and actually quite accurately. But I will use it as a tool instead of a threat and move on.

How will I rekindle my creative spark?

• Clear all the junk that I store on my piano keyboard and commit to playing it 2/week.
• Get out with Blue for at least 15 minutes a day to clear my head, listen to inspiring podcasts/music, or just appreciate the outdoors.
• Write a blog post at least 1/month (don’t want to overcommit too soon).
• Play more: dance, be silly, do not sweat the small stuff!
• Get that annoying wolf jigsaw puzzle out again.
• Turn off the damn TV.
• Read more good books … or maybe even some poetry.
• Stop playing Killer Sudoku (or whatever the latest downloaded game is).

Who Am I? Where Am I? When Am I?

I can’t remember the last time I blogged, wrote, journaled, what-have-you. I mean, I could look at my list of blogs and figure that out. But the point is, this is fairly foreign to me. I know that the last time I wrote I think I pondered whether anyone really blogs anymore. Who knows.

I actually had to wrack my brain to remember whether I had my blog on WordPress, Blogger, some other place. I think the answer is all three and then some.

Anyway, I am here.

Writing at nearly midnight. On a Wednesday. And I wonder what I have to say. Anything? Not really. But I miss writing. I miss getting words out of my head.

I had thoughts of what I wanted to write about tonight. I actually pulled my personal laptop off the desk onto my lap in bed so I could write. And then I got sucked into the rabbit hole of where the heck is my blog. How do I do this again. What did I ever write about in the past. Can I still do this?

I recently read back through actual hard-copy journals that I still have on my bookshelf. Why do I keep them? I certainly don’t want anyone to ever read them. And yet I can’t bring myself to throw them out. They are like windows into my past lives. Reminders of my high points and low points. Reminders that I can still make myself smile or grimace with my insights or lack thereof. Reminders that I continually use a ridiculous amount of first person in everything I ever write. For someone who thinks they are really not that interesting, it truly is amazing how many times that 9th letter of the alphabet shows up in my writing.

But none of this was really what I sat down to write about.

We had a divine evening with friends tonight after an insanely high-stress month or year or decade or more at home. We have had the occasional break and respite and reprieve, but it’s always to return to home, fraught with angst and anguish and so much self-recrimination (and for once, it really isn’t all about me).

It was heavenly to be with friends, laughing, eating, drinking, trying new things, sharing stories. It lightened our load and we came home truly relaxed.

How do we maintain this light load? I know a perpetual state of balance is impossible to achieve. I mean, who lives truly balanced their entire lives? But how do we keep ourselves on the beam more than on the mat? How do we remember that joy and friendship and laughter are the keys and work and stress and hardship are just what we have to deal with? How do we maintain that even keel even in the roughest of storms?

How the heck do I crop my photo to get rid of the crap I don’t want?

How the heck do I crop the crap out of life to focus on the important stuff?

Do I even know how to write anymore?

• 

I honestly don’t know the last time I wrote anything, whether on a blog, in a journal, on a wall, in the sky. If it isn’t something technical for work, it hasn’t been written–at least not by me. I’m not sure where even to begin. This blog is supposedly all about food in the kitchen, or the lack thereof. Maybe that’s where I’ll start, sort of.

Here we are in the midst of the pandemic that will never end (thank you very much for that, anti-vaxxers). I started a new job–full-time with benefits and meetings and steady paychecks and the whole rigamarole. As my dear old roomie told me, “Aw, you’re finally a grown-up.” And thanks for that, roomie. It’s not like running my own freelance business for the previous 15 years wasn’t real work. Anyway, I digress, as usual.

As I was saying. I started a new job … just 10 days after the shutdown back in March 2019. So, really, after over a decade of working from home, it really wasn’t anything new. The difference was that now I had meeting after meeting after meeting and I actually was at my desk for 8+ hours a day. Oh, and there was a global pandemic, so there is that.

With all that came less movement and more eating — not to mention the rapidly encroaching perimenopause changes to my mind, body, and all around life. The lack of movement and the increased intake of food were a result not only of the job but also of the general anxiety-inducing effects of a global pandemic, the Trump-Biden election season, and the insanity of Trump’s fanatic followers.

The upshot (downshot?) of all of that is that I am officially in the worst shape of my life–mentally, physically, spiritually. You name it, I am in a slump. And don’t even ask about the alcohol consumption over the past 18 months.

Perhaps all of this is why I haven’t been writing. I have no motivation, and everything I do write comes off as snivel-ly whininess. But hell, this blog is pretty much just for me. I mean, does anyone even blog anymore?

This week, however, with the coming of my favorite season and the final disappearance of the 100+ degree days and never-ending smoke-filled skies, I am finally finding motivation. I am eating better, drinking more water, and even moving a bit. And surprise surprise, I’m also writing again. Nothing profound. But at least it’s “words on paper,” for whatever that’s worth.

The point of all this? I don’t think there is one. But it feels good to be getting stuff out of my head and to be writing something other than instructions on how to submit a request or create a knowledge article.

Oh, and about that food. I have nothing to say about that, except tonight’s menu will include cut-up veggies and hummus, beet/cuke/tinned fish Mediterranean salad, and so homemade broth. And in place of my glass of wine, I will try to appease that craving with a ginger kombucha mocktail. So there.

Time to Eat

First off, I want to say that we made a Cauliflower and Tomato Coconut Curry a couple nights ago, and we are still enjoying the fruits of our labor. Thank you to A Couple Cooks for sharing that one. [On a side note, I don’t know Sonja and Alex, but I love them. I love their food, I love their photo, I covet their kitchen, I want to emulate their healthy lifestyle. Huge blog crush!]

Anyway, I don’t often follow recipes exactly–not because I’m all into experimenting or anything; it’s usually because I don’t have all the ingredients and tend to just make do. Often it works, but just as often the results are very meh! But I pretty much followed this recipe, except for substituting red quinoa for the rice. Great the first night and even better today. And there’s plenty more for at least a couple more meals. I have a feeling that as those flavors continue to meld, it’s just going to get better.

But tonight we decided to take a break from the curry and move toward northern Africa. And this time I took a recipe and totally changed it up. The original recipe actually sounds delicious as is, but … (1) I don’t have a full chicken; I just have drumsticks. (2) I didn’t want to take the time to simmer and then roast said chicken; I need to get in a meal so that we can digest our food somewhat before heading out for a late workout at the Y. (Who are we, and what have we done with our real selves?) and (3) I didn’t have all the ingredients anyway.

So, take one Chicken Tagine with Herbs and Harissa Olives, courtesy of Food and Wine, and turn it into chicken thighs marinated in mint tea with ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, onion salt, pepper, and parsley. Add a side of roasted new and sweet potatoes tossed with chopped onion and garlic and a bunch of herbs and spices: cilantro, parsley, coriander, ginger, salt, pepper, saffron (yes, I had saffron but I didn’t have butter or olives … go figure).

We cheated and microwaved the potatoes first (we have a schedule, people!) and then threw it all together into the oven. While Mr. J grilled the chicken, I threw together a spinach, cuke, pear, goat cheese salad with another delicious discovery from A Couple Cooks: 2 T stone ground mustard + 2 T honey + 2 T white wine vinegar + 2 T olive oil.

Easy peasy. And I’m happy to say that except for overdoing it a bit with the saffron and roasting the potatoes just a little too long, it was all absolutely delicious. It would have been great with that off-dry viognier chilling in our fridge, but alas, the Y beckons.

Stupid healthy lifestyle!*

 

* I kid.

Motivation

Fortitude • the strength or firmness of mind that enables a person to encounter danger with coolness and courage or to bear pain or adversity without murmuring, depression, or despondency / resolute endurance / grit, backbone, pluck, guts

Over the years, I’ve learned that I can be incredibly motivated, but apparently only in short bursts. It’s like that slow twitch versus fast twitch thing about muscles. I have the type of motivation that comes in quick little bursts and lasts for a day or two or sometimes even a week or so. But then I get distracted by something new or different, and my attention and motivation go off in a completely new direction.

What seems to be a newer trend for me, though perhaps it’s something I’ve been doing for years, is the New Year, New Me motivation. I’ve never been a New Year’s Resolution type of person, but like many people, I find that the new year is a time to evaluate who I am, where I am, what I am doing, and how I am living. This is the second winter in a row when I have been all motivated to discover my life’s purpose and challenge myself to do all sorts of self-discovery.

Last year I took part in a writing therapy group that I found super helpful. As a result, I joined a local writer’s guild and even went to a meeting. Then we started traveling and work got crazy and I totally let it all slide. Of course, I’m still a dues-paying member of that guild.

At the end of the year it was Live Your Legend that got me all amped up and excited. I did the blog writing challenge and enjoyed it. But then the holidays came along and work got crazy and I again totally let it all slide.

And, here it is … February. The time for resolutions or motivations or intentions to fade away, in typical resolution fashion. But my word this year is fortitude.  So it’s time to stick with this motivation and keep it moving on throughout the year.

Hauling Myself Back on Track

I fell off the writing-regularly wagon … and how! The holidays, family, work, and on and on. But these are all lame excuses, because there certainly were days when I sat around and stared at the tube or colored (really) or just flipped through the various phone apps that suck up so many minutes of my days.

But I am back, even if I’m not necessarily in the best frame of mind to write. I’ve been hit with what I am self-diagnosing as a post-holidaze funk. My cupboards, mental and physical, are bare. So, in usual fashion, I am scrounging around to find something nutritious to feed my soul.

As part of that search, I’ve gotten back into exercise after much too long away. But it hasn’t been an immediate, soul-improving event. Yesterday’s dog walk turned into an exercise of patience, as we stopped every few steps to remind her who is in charge (me?!) and that pulling on the leash is not acceptable. Yes, it’s true that we got in 5 miles of walking, but it took nearly two hours.

And this morning’s attempt at making this delicious-looking Dutch Pancake failed miserably, as our light, fluffy concoction came out as thin and flat and solid as an old shoe sole. So appetizing. Apparently egg nog and milk are not interchangeable.

And yet I continue to strive to find the upbeat and positive. I have food in my cupboards, I spent two hours in the sunshine, I came home to a man I love with a dog I (usually) adore. I am able to walk, see, hear, feel, smell, taste, touch, love, share. My life is truly good, and I am thankful for it everyday.

But I’m still allowed to be grumpy. So, there.

Eating In

Scene: Our bed
Players: The Lovely Couple
Time: 8:30 a.m., 10/28/2015
The Mood: Utter and Complete Laziness

Mr. J (while reading Flipboard): Where should we go for breakfast?
Me (snoozing): Mmmmmmm??
Mr. J: Or should we eat at home?
Me: How many eggs do we have? Or maybe just cereal and a smoothie?
Mr. J: On a Saturday?!
Me: Well, we do have kale in the garden. And maybe there are still some egg whites.

(30 minutes later)

Mr. J has motivated while I debate staying under the flannel sheets all day. My internal dialogue is soon interrupted by the siren aroma of coffee and the clanging and banging of dishes in the kitchen. I am slowly lured up and at ’em.

By the time I finally make it downstairs, Mr. J has chopped up freshish peppers from the garden, ’shrooms from the fridge, those last two pieces of bacon I never did use for those Brussels sprouts, and some onion and garlic. I scramble together the last two eggs, the rest of the egg whites, and some milk, while Mr. J fries up all that goodness in an olive oil/coconut oil mix.

I venture to the garden to dump the compost material and return after harvesting some kale and arugula to be tossed into the mix. We let it all cook down a bit and then in go the eggs with a little turmeric and salt and pepper for taste. Turn down the heat and let it all cook up frittata style while I research what the hell to do with all those pounds of peppers we’ve had explode in the garden the past few weeks.

Turn on the broiler. Once the sides are a little brown and the top is almost set, sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top and throw it in the oven.

Broil it up … but don’t forget about it! We don’t want to burn down the kitchen. Check on it soon after to see the top turning to a beautiful golden crustiness. Ready to go.

Serve it up with a perfectly ripe avocado and a little Amarula in the coffee. The perfect pre-World Rugby Cup breakfast.

Encroaching Hangriness

Scene: Living Room Couch
Players: The Lovely Couple
Time: 5:30 p.m., 10/20/2015
The Mood: Encroaching Hangriness

Me (while playing Solitaire on my phone): We really need to go grocery shopping.

Mr. J (while watching Isle of Man racing videos on his phone): It’s silly to go now. You’ll just get swamped by the post-work crowds.

Me: But I’m starving and we have nothing to eat!

{15 minutes later}

I finally get up off the couch and try to scrounge up whatever I can find from the fridge. I’ll deal with grocery shopping another day. Fiddle-dee-dee.

Leftover rice salad? One egg? Frozen solid chicken thighs? No. No. No.

Dig a little deeper. Oh wait—we have some bacon! Oops, only two pieces. If I were single, it’d be perfect, but it’s not nearly enough for two starving adults.

Wait, what’s that in the back of the crisper? A package of Aidells Andouille sausage, leftover from Sunday’s overly salty gumbo. (Sidenote: The Food & Wine recipe for the gumbo was probably delicious, but I made the fatal error of using “Better Than Bouillon” in place of fish broth. Sooooo very salty!)

Oh, and look at all these veggies. Cauliflower, carrots, garlic, red onion, mushrooms.

Are mushrooms really considered a veg? Whatever, in they go!

Mr. J gets in on the action and “discovers” eggplant and banana pepper, which have been sitting in big silver bowls on our counter so long, after being harvested from our garden, that I don’t even see them anymore.

Mr. J: Should we throw in some Brussels sprouts?

Me: Nah, this is plenty. [If I can get that bacon to make it until tomorrow night, I will fry it up with those sprouts for a tasty side dish … perhaps for those frozen chicken thighs … which I should probably take out to start defrosting now.]

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a pan with parchment for easier clean-up and spray it with coconut oil. Chop up all the veggies … and the ’shrooms. Toss them with some olive oil, fleur de sel (imported by moi from France, mais oui), throw on some Creole seasoning (also leftover from gumbo night), and throw it in the oven.

Let it roast while I play with the dog, clean up the dog poop, admire the canna lilies, scrub my hands three times over (just in case), do some dishes.

When it starts smelling good, check it all out. Sizzling and getting golden.

Time to sear up those sausages!

Serve it all with the last bits of leftover rice salad, some Mr. Mustard (sent as a Christmas gift every year from Mom), and a bit of our own local winery’s (Cinder’s) Laissez-Faire white.

Another day of grocery shopping successfully averted!

p.s. Next up is to learn to be a better photographer, as there is nothing more unappetizing than bad food photos. So for now, I’m using related but unrelated images that at least look pretty.

I Say I Want a Revolution

As my last post indicated, there is so much I want to do in this world for this world. But the one that I keep coming back to is the food. I love food. I love cooking. I love sharing food with those I love. All this from the girl who 15 years ago easily burned toast and didn’t know how to fry an egg. I’ve come a long way, cookie!

Even then, when I often confused the word stove for the word oven (oh, wait, I still have to think of “stovetop stuffing” to remember that the stove is on top) and didn’t know a pot from a pan, I would watch endless cooking shows on PBS. In part because I loved watching people create good food, but mostly because I didn’t have cable, and when I came home from work or lounged away on a weekend, that’s all PBS had to offer.

So what about food do I want to revolutionize?

Nothing, really. Food is great. It doesn’t need a revolution. But our mind-sets toward food need some tweaking. I know we are all crunched for time. I know it’s a struggle just to get everything done in a day that needs getting done. But what if we looked at food preparation and cooking from a new angle.

It doesn’t have to be a chore. It is not a task for just one person in a family to do to nourish all the others. What if we treated it like settling in to watch a family movie or sitting around a board game? What if it was another opportunity to be with family and friends? I don’t have kids of my own, but I watch my good friends letting their kids get their hands dirty to help with pancakes in the morning or getting the bread ready for grilled cheese sandwiches at night. We can teach them from a young age the joy of cooking for themselves and for others.

And it doesn’t have to be a big fancy dinner each night. Even if it’s just boxed mac and cheese, why not roast up some cauliflower in olive oil and toss it in? Once roasted, that bitter flavor disappears, and if it’s broken up into pieces and coated with cheese sauce, no one will be the wiser that they are ingesting a healthy (well, not quite as healthy as it was) veggie.

But what plagues me is how do I achieve this revolution? I’m not a nutritionist. I’m not a chef. I’m not even a consistently great cook. There are hundreds of great food blogs out there already. Will I just be another one thrown into the mix?

Well, I don’t know. For now, I’m just going to do some blog posts about recipes I’ve thrown together when I thought I didn’t have time or didn’t have a thing to eat or just didn’t feel like cooking … only to find that it doesn’t take much time, I often do have enough to eat and, just as with exercise, once I start cooking, I totally get into the process and enjoy it.

OK, so I’ll blog about it. But who’s going to read it? Well, that’s the next, big, scary step, isn’t it? I’ll have to let people know what I’m doing. I’ll have to share my blog with total strangers, as well as family and friends. And then I’ll have to see what happens next.

It’s not a job. It’s not a money maker. But it’s a passion!