Author: sandcastle

“…an intentional poverty to arouse a depth of the spirit that normally lies dormant…But you can’t do that and claim to be minimalist while checking Twitter on your Macbook Pro…or can you?” Julien Smith.

“…about stripping away life’s excess in favor of what’s important, which is different for every person.” The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn.

“…[things you own saying], ‘Appreciate me. Take care of me. Do right by me and I will do right by you. Treat me well and I will be the only one you will ever need.’ ”  a philosophy professor.

“…[a way] to make…day-to-day existence easier. To save money, to save time, to focus on what’s truly important.” Kristin Glenn.

“…not only about white walls and empty spaces. It’s about eliminating the distractions that keep us from fully appreciating life.” Miss Minimalist, Francine Jay.

“…an experimental tour into the nature of attachment… or some would say detachment.”  Minimalist Packrat, Tanja Hoagland

“…There isn’t anything wrong with owning stuff. The problem is when we give too much meaning to the stuff we own without questioning why we own it.” The Minimalists

“…You don’t own things just because you can afford them, and you don’t own more cars, clothes, gadgets or gear than you need for the kind of simple life you desire. You loosen your attachment to things and cut clutter from your home, your brain and your life in general.”  So Much More Life, Gip Plaster

“…the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.” Joshua Becker

“…making room in our lives for the things we enjoy.” Sandcastle, Linda Sand

So here’s some of the things we enjoy in our current apartment:

Dave’s piano with the funny little lamp he bought to light his music. He moves the lamp up onto the piano when playing. He keeps his music collection and his headphones in the cabinet.

Our favorite photos from Dave’s college photography class final. He got an A but that’s not why we’ve kept these.

A thank you gift I received for being there for family in an emergency. I love the colors of this vase.

A picture painted by my mother using all brown tones which her class instructor said would never work. 🙂

Our bathroom scale which weighs exactly the same as the ones at my Weight Watchers meeting and which makes visitors wonder why there is a clock on our bathroom floor.

And the sandcastle our daughter gave us that became the theme for this blog.

Yes, that’s a candle sitting on the kitchen counter behind the sandcastle. It can burn for many hours if (when) we have a power outage here where there are winter storms. Some things need to be useful as well as enjoyable, you know.

TTYL,

Linda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most RVs come with a two- or three-burner cooktop that uses propane for fuel. I don’t need two or three burners since I rarely cook with more than one pot or pan at a time anyway. I make a lot of things in the microwave so mostly use the cooktop for boiling eggs or making one dish meals in a skillet.

And, while I like cooking with gas, I am not fond of the process of buying propane while on the road nor the idea that I need a special detector to protect my life in case my propane system should develop a leak. So I am trying to design my new RV to not need any propane.

Research has shown me that an induction cooktop is the most efficient way of cooking with electricity. If you want to learn more about induction cooking this website is a good place to start: http://theinductionsite.com/proandcon.shtml.

As I often do, I also went to Technomadia’s website, http://www.technomadia.com/kitchen-gadgets-ideal-for-rvs/, to see what they decided to use. Their choice of induction cooktop looked like it would work for me so I bought one.

 

I knew I would not be able to use my existing cookware on this cooktop because it requires the cookware to be magnetic. Besides, if  I took our cookware with me, what would Dave use while I’m gone? So I went shopping for new cookware.

Picture me walking through the store with my magnet in hand trying to stick it to the bottoms of various pieces of cookware.

I went to the store thinking I knew what cookware I would buy after having done so much research on Google. I was wrong. The set I wanted turned out to have pans that were tall but narrow. I couldn’t boil as many eggs as I like to cook at once in their pans. But, the pans I liked couldn’t be purchased individually; only in a set.

A set with way more pieces than I wanted.

So, Dave and I talked about it. He thought some of the pieces I didn’t want would work well for him. I thought I might use the stock pot while in the apartment even though I didn’t want to take it with me in the RV. We thought a bonus pan might make a good gift. And, there’s always Goodwill where someone might be thrilled to find such a good pan if we decide not to keep all of them.

So, I bought them, getting the bonus pan and a gift certificate as extra inducements to buy this set, and we brought them home.

And tried them out. On my new cooktop. Everything works amazingly well. And fast. The combination of this cooktop and these pans heat really, really fast then cook very evenly. It took only four minutes for the water to heat to boil eggs! And I made a mushroom/egg scramble that was big enough to provide three servings so I don’t have to cook every morning. I am very happy with my choices.

Now I just have to decide how many pieces of the cookware I am actually taking with me.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. As my WW meeting leader would say, “40.6 pounds outta here!” I feel like the turtle–slow but steady wins the race.

10,000 steps. That’s how many steps the pros say you should walk each day for maximum health benefits. Now, I may have some OCD characteristics but counting my steps all day is not one of them. What to do; what to do.

For most people the answer is a pedometer. The challenge there is first you measure your stride–how long is your step? My answer–it depends. What is the terrain–smooth or rough, level or hilly? What type of day am I having in relationship to how my body feels? Am I indoors or out? If outdoors, what is the weather like? Can you imagine trying to measure your stride for each of these conditions then remembering to adjust your pedometer for each change? Not happening!

So when I saw this,

http://www.fitbit.com/product, I was tempted. But, it is expensive. So I just stayed tempted.

Then my sleep got worse. Have you ever tried to explain to a doctor how you sleep? How long it takes you to go to sleep? How often you wake up? How many hours you have to spend in bed to get enough actual sleep?

Well, the FitBit can monitor that as well. And make charts and graphs you can print out to take with you to your next doctor’s appointment.

So, we finally decided I should buy one. It’s a pretty cool little gadget and we all know how I like gadgets, right? So, during the day it sits in my pocket and measures my steps without me having to do anything more than put it in my pocket. And at night it slips into a soft wristband and measures my sleep. And whenever I pass near my computer it wirelessly updates the data there. And every few days I put it on the base station when I’ll be sitting at my computer for awhile so it can recharge the battery.

I’ve been wearing it for a week now. My weekly report says I wake up from 10 to 18 times per night.

No wonder I always feel tired!

And those steps? I have a LONG way to go to get to 10,000 per day. That’s about five miles for a person with an average stride, you know. And our apartment, while being much larger than the RV, isn’t really all THAT big. Guess I need to join those who put on their headphones and walk the halls. 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Down another 1.8 pounds this week but that number is somewhat skewed by the fact that I slept too late to eat breakfast before my WW meeting today. What can I say? When I went to bed in the wee hours this morning they were predicting thunderstorms with hail all morning so I didn’t set my alarm. Imagine my surprise to wake up to sunny and clear. So, I rushed off to my meeting to get some badly needed reinforcement. A meeting where the leader quoted from an article saying those who skip breakfast are 450% more likely to be obese! Some days I can’t win for losing.

I was at an event one evening when, during some down time, I decided to check my email. In my in box was an invitation to meet some friends for dinner on the way to the event I was already attending. So, I wrote back with my “too late” reply and watched as the recipients laughed together over my delayed response to their invitation.

See, I’m retired. I don’t feel a need to be instantly available 24/7.

As I taught our daughter many years ago at our dinner table, “Just because the phone is ringing, that doesn’t mean we have to answer it. If it’s important, they will call back”

Do you have alerts turned on? Do you feel compelled to answer every email the instant it arrives in your in box? Why? Who do you think should get to decide how you use the minutes in your day?

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Weight still mostly going down with an occasional uptick.

Yes, I finally started exercising fairly regularly. Most mornings I do a few minutes of calisthenics. Following the Primal Body guidelines, I’m trying to do mostly exercises where my own body weight creates the resistance. Things like push-ups which I have to do against the wall since I can’t kneel on my metal knees to get to/from a standard pushup position.

I want to add pull-ups. But I have no place to do them. OK, let’s clarify that. I have lots of space but no bar. You can buy a bar that fits over a door frame but our door frames go right to the ceiling so there is no “over” available.

I knew from our before moving in tour of this apartment complex that there is a workout room with equipment in it so when Dave decided he’d go check out the equipment I sent my camera with him and this is what he came back with.

     

See any place to do pull-ups there?

Nope, me neither.

Soon it will be warm enough to go looking for a park playground that has pull-up bars, though, right? And since we all know I can’t actually DO a pull-up, I can start then with the preparing your body to do pull ups exercises shown here: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz1rltuLn6c. Wish me luck.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. I’m on the weight roller coaster at the moment–lots of ups and downs. Fortunately, I’m losing more than I’m gaining so the trend is still the right direction but I’d sure like to see another long downward trend.