Things Worth Remembering The three habits that lead to success are: Patience, Application, and Vision.
It is always better to be underestimated.
There are three things that are better than riches: Health, Freedom, and Honor.
Think swiftly, speak softly, act wisely.
All from: The Book of Celtic Wisdom
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“My lord, I’ve reached the main power generators. The shield will be down in moments, you may start your landing.” – General Veers, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
Padawan Learner is still asleep. It’s almost 9 a.m. and we’re supposed to be starting lessons in…seven minutes…, but he is still asleep. I’m a big fan of sleep. With the demands of his growing body, a late night watching Mythbusters (funniest episode ever last night?), and the basic sleep-deprived state of most adults and teens, I’m letting him sleep it in this morning.
He slept through his alarm, which rarely happens. He didn’t move when I opened up his blinds. And he barely flinched when I climbed up his loft ladder to see if he had a fever. His wake-up shield appears to be in full force yet. So I’m letting him sleep his fill. Sometimes, you just need to let them sleep.
I need about 9 hours of sleep a night. Dad Windu, needs but rarely gets, about 8 hours of sleep a night (“But -insert sport here- was on…”). Padawan Learner generally needs about 10-11 hours a night. Those growing teenage bodies! How much sleep do you need (need, not just get) to feel great and function fully?
Oh, I hear him moving about now. Time to get the day going. Have a great one, everybody!
“I can feel your anger. It gives you focus. It makes you stronger.” – Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
I heard a couple in line behind at the grocery store the other day complaining about the high cost of food. I turned around, ready to feel sorry for them in this tight economy, and saw what was sitting on the conveyor belt. Junk food (e.g., chips and cookies). Highly processed, convenience items (e.g., taco meal kit and pre-sliced chicken strips). Liquid sugar (e.g., soda and “orange drink”). That made me mad. They weren’t buying food so much as pre-purchasing a few bags of garbage for trash day. And then… I was sad, because I realized that they probably didn’t know any better than to grab things that are supposedly “easy” or “fast” for dinner, or how to make a healthy and yummy meal out of real ingredients, and how to really stretch every penny out of each food dollar. I hope their frustration leads them to look past the world of convenience and toward homemade foods.
Cooking is a lost art these days. I know. I wasn’t taught how to cook and was completely overwhelmed in college and my early married years. It wasn’t until I started to think about what we were eating, what we were spending, what our bodies needed, and how our food was grown, that I started to change my food buying ways. It is a skill and it needs to be learned. (And yes, I do occasionally grab the nearly worthless, might as well eat the cardboard box it came in, taco meal “kit” or pick up a 12 pack of soda when company comes over.) While reading a dollar stretcher email (love those) earlier today, I stumbled upon this and wished I could have handed it to that couple behind me a few days ago.
Inflation Fighter
10 Things You Can Stop Buying at the Grocery Store
by Carol Charron
Live less expensively, eat healthier, and be more environmentally responsible
1. Packaged Meat – What’s so great about buying a chicken whole? It’s like getting Thanksgiving dinner any day of the year. You have this easy to cook, beautiful chicken and it becomes a Sunday dinner on baseball night with a simple rub of oil, a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Who can’t pull a chicken out of the fridge and do that? You can even prepare it the night before and have your teenager put it in the oven at 3pm the next day. With the leftover bones and loose meat, do what Grandma used to do. Put them in a stock pot or slow cooker and make soup.
As for the other cuts of meat, the bigger the quantity, the better the price. If you can’t afford to buy beef by the whole or half side, find a sibling or a neighbor that will go in for half with you. No more living at the whim of market prices. You will save money and have a freezer full year-round. You can even inquire at the local 4-H fair for an animal you can buy after prize time. This is going to be a shock to you city folk, but that’s where they go after the show. The piggy goes to market!
2. Juice – It’s healthier to eat your fruit whole. You get necessary fiber from the skins and the flesh. Stop paying for packaging and do it right. If you need to drink something, squeeze it from whole fruit one glass a time.
3. Microwave Popcorn – I had no idea how far removed we had become from the real thing until I recalled memories of my dad shaking the old pot on the stove to make real popcorn to my kids. I thought it would be fun to share that experience with them. When I made it, my kids loved it so much they won’t let me buy the microwave stuff anymore. I now have a jar of kernels that I keep next to the stove near my bottle of oil. Yeah, it has real butter/margarine and real honest-to-goodness salt, but I control how much. It’s a lot cheaper than the packaged stuff, and the taste will drive you wild. You’ll wonder how we ever became converts to packaged microwave popcorn. You won’t miss it.
4. Vegetables – You should be buying them locally at the Farmer’s Market to support your local farmers and local economy. We are simply slaves to our grocery store habit. When you grow it yourself, you can use everything. Recycle cuttings to make soups, and what you have left over you can compost, supporting next year’s garden. If you don’t have land, make a potted garden.
5. Cookies – The sky is as limited as your pantry and your Betty Crocker(r) Cookbook. Make them from scratch. Your kids will like your cookies better than the packaged cookies.
6. Spray Cleaners – You could pay $3 or $4 for that spray cleaner. That said, check the prices on vinegar, ammonia and bleach (not to be combined with each other, of course) at your local dollar store. Most of the time, when you buy a spray cleaner, you are getting the same ingredients in better packaging. Save your spray bottle, and when it’s empty, you can clean it and refill it with these money savers.
7. Bottled Water – By now, you have heard how awful all that packaging is for the environment. Here’s another case of paying for convenience. Buy some portable bottles and save a bundle by doing it yourself.
8. Herbs – Most of us only use four or five herbs in our kitchen. From seed, you can have herbs fresh and ready to cut in just a few weeks. My basil plant is thriving.
9. Bread – Like the chicken in the oven, throwing four or five ingredients into a bread machine is the easiest thing in the world. Do it at night before you go to bed and wake up to fresh bread the next morning. You can even make use of the dough-only function to make a pizza.
10. Trash Bags – If you buy fewer packaged foods, you will have less trash. If you compost your fruit and vegetable stems and peels, you will have even less trash. If you recycle your cartons, milk jugs and egg cartons, you will have less trash.
We’ve been sold a lot of imaging and branding through advertising that has convinced us that we need to buy this brand, that bag, this carton. What we really need to do is live less expensively, eat healthier, and be more
environmentally responsible.
Take the Next Step:
It’s a win-win-win situation! You can be friendlier to your waste, wallet and earth all at the same time. Start with the list above. Is there something here that you’re willing to stop buying? Give it a try. You’ll love the rewards.
Healthy wishes to you all.
“Padawan! Your skills have never been in question. It is your maturity. I’ve argued this before…” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Ah, how easy it is to blame someone’s maturity level for their lack of progress on a project, especially if they’re still a kid. I found myself doing just that this week.
Padawan Learner needs to make a timeline of the history we’ve covered from the Ancients to the beginning of the European Renaissance, and with appropriate space for the highlights (and disgraces) of world history to the present day. I noticed that he’s beginning to muddle up some dates and events, so a timeline seems – to me – like the best solution for sorting them all out. He has yet to even think about how he’s going to do that, let alone how he’s going to get it done before September. I have offered to help, but he has “other things to do right now, but thanks.” Therefore, ”that’s a YP not an MP”* so I’m keeping out of it.
I, traditionally the planner and plotter in the family, think that I would have begun in June doing a little bit each day and not having to rush through it at the end. I am also not actually having to make a timeline, so it is very easy for me to say that. It is also very easy for me to ignore the fact that I have been known, on occasion, to finish reading my very excellent book, call up a friend or continue knitting that very adorable whatever, rather than get an early start on a labor market survey that is due very, very soon and which I really don’t want to do – even though I know I must do it and that it will be very helpful once completed.
Sometimes it’s not so much a matter of maturity, but rather a matter of priorities. Sometimes, it’s both. But in the end, if the timeline gets done on time for us to use it come fall, that’s all that really matters so I’m going to keep my mouth shut about the how. Really, I am. I will, too. Stop saying that. OK, I’m going to try really, really hard to keep it to myself – even though it’s eating a hole inside my gut.
*This is a old saying of our Sunday Morning Doughnut Buddies: That’s a your problem not a my problem.
“Why do I sense we’ve picked up another pathetic life-form?” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
After Padawan Learner left for lunch and a movie with his grandma today, I biked over to the super-mega-regional-chain grocery store to pick up the things I needed for the week’s recipes. Although I’ve got a boatload of veggies in the fridge, many of which I’ve never cooked with before, I still needed to buy some staples that I’d run out of and some things to round out the recipes.
After locking up my bike, I headed into the store and grabbed one of those half-carts that I love so much. Throwing my helmet into the top basket, I headed back to the can return area with a few beer bottles and my (cat sitter) niece’s 2 liter soda bottles. After dropping them off, I began cruising the store.
After a few aisles, the following conversation took place:
A kindly older woman looked at my helmet and asked in a very concerned voice, “Honey, did you ride your bike here?” (I really, honestly do love it when older people call me Honey. It’s so cute.)
Smiling my best and friendliest, biking is for everyone smile, I replied, “Yes, ma’am I did.”
“Well, you’re going to need to put some of that back then,” pointing into my mini-cart, “because there isn’t any way you’re going to get it all home on your bike.”
“Oh, it’ll be alright. I’ve got baskets on the back of my bike to carry stuff in.”
“Still, there just no way,” she said, shaking her head at silly ol’ me.
A few aisles over, another woman said roughly the same thing. Tsk, tsk, tsk-ing, as she looked at my growing pile. And another woman in the dairy section said the same thing, with agreement from a man who looked over to see what the situation was.
Getting into the checkout lane, the cashier began ringing up my order and I asked her to please bag my stuff in the bags I’d brought (one of which is an insulated bag so my Dove dark chocolate butter doesn’t melt). For the record, doing this appears to drive cashiers batty.
Pulling my helmet out of the way as I unloaded the mini-cart, the cashier did a double take, stopped scanning, and said, “Girrl, did you ride your bike here?”
“Yes, I did. It’s only a couple of miles from my house and my bike has baskets on the back for the groceries.” I was getting into a groove saying that.
“Well, you ain’t gonna be riding your bike home today. You’ve got too much stuff for doing that.”
“It’ll be OK. I’ll rearrange the bags a little once I’m outside. I’m sure it’ll all fit.”
“Um huh.” And with that, she dismissed me as a hopeless case and continued scanning my groceries.
“Seriously, I’ve got an extra backpack for the stuff that I can’t get into the baskets.”
At this point, the people behind me in line, including the guy from earlier who I’m pretty sure followed me into the checkout lane just to see the show, began to voice their agreement with the cashier. “Uh uh.” “No way.” “Girrl, you’re plum crazy to think all that’s gonna fit.”
Well, by this point I was determined to get home with all my groceries in just two bags and a backpack, on my bike, if it meant that I’d end up eating half my groceries out in the parking lot! “Oh, I just love the taste of peanut oil on a warm summer day!” I am a determined woman. Perhaps also a bit pigheaded, but certainly determined.
“I have got to see this!” a voice behind me said and wouldn’t you know it, a little group of people followed me out to my bike and watched me pack all my stuff up - in two bags and a backpack, thankyouverymuch. While I was shifting things around, they asked me a few questions about my bike and why I ride it to the grocery store. “Don’t you have a car?” (Yes, but I’m not driving it this summer. I like to ride my bike whenever I can.) “Do you think that gas is just too expensive now?” (Not really, I’ve lived other places where gas is much more expensive. I like the exercise.) ”Did you have to get a special kind of bike?” (No, it’s a normal, everyday bike. The style is called a hybrid.) ”Did your bike come with those baskets?” (No, I bought them online but you can order them from the bike shops around here. They’re around $25, less than a tank of gas.) “What if it’s too hot or raining outside to ride?” (I take the bus, wear a rain jacket or get a little damp.)
As I rode away, my little group actually cheered me on for being able to get everything packed away. I even heard the guy say, “Screw $4 a gallon gas. I’m getting a bike!” My first convert.
Here’s the bags packed:
And the bags unloaded:
What was included in the bags:
- four bags chocolate pieces (ostensibly for Dad Windu)
- peanut oil
- 2 bottles olive oil
- bag cashews
- pound butter
- package tofu (don’t tell Dad Windu)
- large container yogurt
- 3 small containers yogurt
- parchment paper
- bread
- shampoo
- 2 boxes cereal
- canned artichoke hearts
- soy sauce
- large onion
- 2 heads garlic
- 3 boxes of chicken broth
- 2 large cans whole tomatoes
- bag of onions
PS – I completely stole the idea of pictures and a list from aLex over at Hank and Me. I hope she will forgive me.
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