Sometimes I start waking up while still dreaming. I lie in bed finishing the dream while half awake. I found this morning’s dream amazing enough to decide to share it with you.
A boy was given a homeschooling assignment to use three inactive verbs–was, is, are–in sentences. Here’s what he wrote:
The cupcakes
Mother was in the kitchen.
Steve is in the kitchen.
The cupcakes are not on the counter.
I want to write more about the dream but the dream itself seems to be saying that’s enough.
Dave’s mother taught all her kids to cook, clean, sew, do laundry, etc. so they could be independent in their daily needs.
My Dad taught us kids to be frugal so we could live independently without needing a lot of money.
My Mom taught us all people are equal so we neither looked up to nor down on people who were not like us so we had the freedom to befriend anyone.
I was raised in the Methodist religion because they don’t have a creed. You are allowed to believe what makes sense to you.
We taught our daughter it was OK to be different. She did not have to go along with the crowd. She was free to be her own self.
Dave did work he enjoyed and did it so well he got paid good money which allows us the freedom to make many choices about how we live now.
I never voted in a primary election because I refused to align myself with one particular party. I prefer the freedom of being able to vote for the person I think would best do the job.
Many people misunderstand what minimalism is all about.
It’s not about getting rid of what you enjoy.
If looking through those old photo albums brings you joy, keep them.
If those trophies you won way back when still bring you joy, keep them.
If the misshapen objects your children made when young bring you joy, keep them.
Minimalism is about getting rid of the things that don’t bring you joy so you are better able to appreciate the ones that do.
Quit displaying things you don’t like so you can bring the ones you do like out into the open.
Quit digging through clothes you don’t like so you can more easily find the ones you do.
Quit collecting recipes you will never make and focus on the ones you already know you like.
Quit collecting apps just because someone else liked them.
Quit spending time taking care of things you don’t like so you have more time to enjoy your life.
Minimalism is about deciding how you’d really like to spend your time and energy then getting rid of the obstacles to doing that.
That’s all.
There is no magic number of things you should own. Nor is there a magic list of things you should own. Nor a list of activities in which you should participate. Only you can decide what makes you happy.
What obstacles are keeping you from getting there and what can you do about them?
Actually, it’s not new food at all. In fact, it is as old as most native peoples treated their food for preservation purposes. Ok, it has a newer twist to it.
I’m talking about dried food. In this case, freeze-dried food.
A blog friend and I were commiserating with one another about healthful food not being easy food. We neither one like to cook but we have each discovered that what we eat affects our health.
When I set out in my van last fall I had stocked up on freeze-dried entrees. I only had to heat water, stir it into the food, and wait ten minutes. Easy, right?
But not healthful. When I showed the stats to a nutritionist at Structure House she was unhappy about the amount of sodium in those entrees. And I was unhappy with the amount of grains in them.
I don’t know how many of you have read the book Wheatbelly but I know my midriff bulge is wheat because it went away when I stopped eating grains and came back when I started eating them again.
So, I was looking online at beprepared.com where I buy my freeze-dried entrees when it occurred to me I didn’t have to buy whole entrees. I could buy meats, vegetables, and fruits individually. With the bonus that the fruits and vegetables had nothing on their ingredients list except that fruit or vegetable. Yes, the meats have salt but not as much as the entrees have. And some of the meats have grains and/or sweeteners so I still have to pay attention to their ingredients. I’m looking at you Italian Meatballs.
Each can of food lists a serving size and how to rehydrate that particular food.
So if I want a meal of one meat, two vegetables, and a fruit I have to have four different containers to rehydrate them, right?
Not so fast there. We were looking for easy, right?
So, who says I have to rehydrate them at all?
After all, something else I was looking for was snack type foods that would satisfy my desire for lots of crunchy pieces.
So here’s last night’s dinner: Italian chicken, peas, zucchini, and pineapple.
Chicken dinner
Scooped out of four different cans into a 9″ pie plate and eaten without rehydrating. Eaten with my hands like popcorn. Lots of hand to mouth motion. Easy. Healthful. About 300 calories.
Now, I just have to figure out how to add some fat to those foods so the fat soluble vitamins in the vegetables don’t go to waste.
Be aware when eating freeze-dried foods right from the container, though, that you need to drink lots of water. The guidelines for drinking eight 8-oz glasses of water per day originally said you get most of that from the food you eat. But not in this case.
I spent all evening drinking more than usual. Then made a couple extra middle of the night trips. So I should probably eat and drink these “new” foods earlier in the day, right?
In a few minutes I think I’ll have roast beef, sweet potatoes, green beans, and peaches. Sound good?
