12.25.20
Random Thoughts Xmas Eve Day 2020
Thurs 12/24
“Keep a diary or journal. Record your reflections on your life experience in a journal. You will find this simple practice to be invaluable in your quest for wisdom.”
Warren G. Bennis 1925-2014
Wednesday 26 January 2005
I downloaded this application last night from the Treepad website. Someone on the planet took the time to create a tiny word processor in the Treepad file format. S(he) uploaded it to the site and the app is free. It can be used to document just about anything you want to track by date.
I’m going to use this app for tracking food consumption, exercise, and any other random thoughts that enter my mind. I will also use this space to capture notes on my progress towards my goals.
It is also a good space to write. Just write.
I started keeping a journal 15 years ago. Bennis was brilliant and 100% correct in saying keeping a journal is invaluable in your quest for wisdom. I don’t feel I’m wise enough yet so I keep writing. Most of what I’ve written will never be read by anyone other than me. And for some strange reason that bothered me. When I started a blog I was troubled by sharing my most intimate thoughts online. As the years have passed I’ve begun sharing more online. I came to the realization that if I only help one person through sharing my life experiences it’s worth it. Even if that help is merely my One Rotisserie Chicken, 50 Meals – #3 Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole recipe.
This morning I did the Old Person Hour at the grocery store. Not exactly the best time to do your grocery shopping because there were a lot of empty spots on the shelves and restocking had just started. It was hard to tell which items were unavailable due to hoarding. Still managed to get everything I had on my list except fresh cilantro, a specific brand of tortilla chips and canned green chilies. The lack of chilies is a hoarding thing but no tortilla chips is a restocking issue. Trust me on this.
I must have stood in front of a neatly stacked tower of light beer for at least five minutes. Before me was a new offering from a major brewery, low carb, low calories (probably tasteless too). At this very moment I realized my fat jeans were feeling kind of loose and baggy. I didn’t buy any beer. The holidays are hard enough for those of us struggling with our weight. I ate three cookies yesterday! So for the rest of this holiday season beer stays on the Don’t Have It in the House List.
Losing weight is hard. Keeping the weight off is harder. Remember not to get too high nor too low. Make the The 90% Solution your strategy. I’m probably around 60/40 now but always strive to do better. Which reminds me, I should work on my book today.
Happy Thanksgiving – 2020
Look, I know 2020 has been an awful year. But no matter how bad things seem to be always remember the good in the world. Find at least one thing to be thankful for and let that one thing be your reminder to find other things you are thankful for. And if this doesn’t work imagine you are three years old running in between tall trees, well dressed for the occasion in a stylish coat, a really cool mask, Minnie tucked under your arm. Then there she is right in front of you. Dad! Pick this one!
The Apology Post – 11.01.20
Before we go any further I am guilty as charged. I’m spending a lot of time with https://lifeunderwriter.net/ and even more time at my Day Job so the posts here have been somewhat sparse. I promise to be better. A lot of time has also been devoted to my Pandemic Weight Loss Program. I started the year at 192 pounds. This morning the scale was 176.2 pounds. A lot of folks have been on the Pandemic Weight Gain Plan. And for faithful readers who want to know more about my weight plan you’ll just have to buy the book (if and when I ever finish writing it). But for now, here’s the latest I’ve stumbled upon in the plant based diet craze.
CONCLUSIONS: Young adults who increased plant-centered diet quality had a lower diabetes risk and gained less weight by middle adulthood.
A Shift Toward a Plant-Centered Diet From Young to Middle Adulthood and Subsequent Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Weight Gain: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study — Diabetes Care 2020 Nov; 43(11): 2796-2803. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc20-1005
Small study (n=206) but still interesting.
CONCLUSIONS: Replacement of red and processed meat with cheese, yogurt, nuts, or cereals was associated with a lower rate of type 2 diabetes. Substituting red and processed meat by other protein sources may contribute to the prevention of incident type 2 diabetes in European populations.
Replacement of Red and Processed Meat With Other Food Sources of Protein and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in European Populations: The EPIC-InterAct Study — https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/43/11/2660?rss=1
Another interesting study but with serious limitations as the authors themselves point out:
A limitation of the current study is that the food substitutions were inferred based on a statistical model that compared individuals with different average intakes while no one actively changed their diet.
Well, I’ve actively changed my diet the past several months. I know increased exercise did not contribute to my weight loss (I have some physical limitations and actually cancelled my gym membership due to the virus). Hopefully I’ll find the time to review and document the changes that generated the loss.
Tiny Taste Tester and Tiny Taste Tester (in training) -10.17.20
Pandemic Baby is seven months old.
And the original Tiny Taste Tester is now three.
Tiny Humans Update – 10.06.20
TOMC – 09.11.20
Well, it happened today. I was headed back home from picking up pizza. At the stoplight near the Edmond Wine Shop I glanced at my odometer. Cosmic Karma.
It’s gonna be hard selling this one.
Happy Father’s Day 2020 – Pandemic Version
Father’s Day 2020 – Pandemic Version
Dad died nearly 24 years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long. When I started writing this I honestly believed the words would come pouring out, the memories would be sharp and events that happened so long ago would feel as if they happened yesterday. Well, guess what? I’ve been stumbling over my words, all of my memories are somewhat foggy at this point, and few events stand out as worthwhile things to write about. When you write as much as I do not having anything to write about (especially on Father’s Day) is odd. But the more I think about this I remember the thing I want to write about. I want to tell you about Dad’s Old Car.
“I had this habit for a long time, I used to get in my car and I would drive back through my old neighborhood, a little town I grew up in. And I would always drive past the little houses I used to live in…and I got so I would do it really regularly, for years. And I eventually got to wonderin’, what the hell am I doin? And so, I went to see a psychiatrist (laughter), this is true!…and, I sat down and I said, ‘you know, doc, for years I’ve been getting in my car, and I drive back to my town and I pass my houses late at night and, you know, what am I doing?’ And he said, ‘I want YOU to tell me what you think you’re doing.’ So I go ‘that’s what I’m paying YOU for.’ So he says, ‘well, what you’re doing’ he says ‘is that something bad happened, and, you know, you’re going back, you know, thinkin’ that you can make it right again. Something went wrong and you keep going back to see if you can fix it, and somehow make it right.’ and I sat there and I said, ‘that IS what I’m doing.’ And he said, ‘well you can’t’.”
Bruce Springsteen
Dad’s Old Car was a Chevy Bel Air. It was a turquoise and brown Chevrolet Bel Air, the brown being the various rusted out spots scattered where rust happens to an older car. The car was bought used. Dad never bought new cars probably because he couldn’t afford new cars. As much as I think fondly of that car now, as a kid I could hardly hide my embarrassment for the fact our family had to drive a beater. I was angry too. When I got my driver’s license the car insurance premium soared to an unaffordable level for a family of six having trouble making ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck. Dad asked me to surrender my license which I agreed to. When the insurance company got proof from the motor vehicle agency I no longer had a license, they lowered the premium back down.
One day when I wasn’t being lectured or yelled at or yelling back I asked Dad why he never bought new cars.
“A car gets you from point A to point B. That’s it. You can spend as much as you want or as little as you want. They all do the same thing.”
“Now the neighbors come from near and far
As we pull up in our brand new used car
I wish he’d just hit the gas and let out a cry
and tell ’em all they can kiss our asses goodbye”Used Cars – Springsteen
It’s funny the things you think about, the memories that come alive on certain days. And while we’re on the topic of Dad’s Old Car here’s an update on TOMC (The Old Man Car). TOMC hit 70,000 miles last year. On Father’s Day 2020 this is where the odometer sits:
Thanks for the life advice Dad. Happy Father’s Day.
Love in the Time of Ourselves: Reflections From a Memoir Teacher — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog
By Joelle Fraser The other morning, like tens of thousands of parents, I woke to a message: our children would not be returning to school after spring break. It almost felt like old news. The threat of change had been in the air itself, as real and invisible as the virus that caused it…
As a reader of others’ memories, I have little advice for mothers, for parents, just this: you will be remembered in ways you cannot imagine. Whole books could be written about how much you mattered, and how deeply you were loved
via Love in the Time of Ourselves: Reflections From a Memoir Teacher — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog
Read this entire wonderful piece of writing.
My next post will be about food. Promise.
Memories Hidden From View
The past is merely fragmented memories woven into a story that changes according to how you tell it. You can alter the impact your past has on you by changing your story about it…You live in whatever story you tell yourself.
Jarl Forsman and Steve Sekhon – Bite Size Happiness: Volume 1
Taking time off from work is both a blessing and a curse. I’ve taken long weekends where by the final day I am ready to head back to the office and get back to work. This compulsive urge of needing to work has been with me my entire life. My parents’ generation of immigrants, my ethnic heritage, my upbringing all contributed to my strong work ethic. I was quite surprised when recently all of this changed. It’s not that I’ve lost my work ethic or anything like that. I still work hard but I’ve also found other things to do with my time. One of the projects on this extended weekend was to de-clutter and the target was my collection of saved recipes. Like any other household item the strategy was brutally simple: keep or toss. It didn’t take long to determine that most of the recipes I’d been keeping for possible future meals would be tossed. Here’s some of the things that you learn about yourself while de-cluttering your recipe collection:
- I had saved recipes and old newspaper clippings since 1976.
- I never used any of those recipes.
- I’ve known for a long time that what I cook and eat currently is a lot different than what I used to cook and eat. Most of the saved recipes are dishes that I would not cook now.
- An entire folder of pork and lamb recipes got tossed. I eat pork on rare occasions and can’t even remember the last time I had lamb.
- Groupings of old newspaper articles eventually became cookbooks for their authors. I have these same recipes in the cookbooks from the same authors in my cookbook collection. Why did I keep the old clippings?
- Thinning out the cookbook collection is next on the de-clutter list.
I was literally tossing out everything until I found this:
At first I didn’t recognize what I was holding in my hand. It took a few minutes to realize I was holding an old recipe that was written in my Father’s handwriting. After this discovery the pace of my purge slowed. I didn’t want to accidentally discard a cherished memory.
Memories hidden from view that were here with me waiting to be uncovered and woven back into my story. Have I ever mentioned my Father was one hell of a cook?
garyskitchen.net 