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A long day and a nice meal
Hello constant reader. It’s been a long day so I’m going to go concrete. I baked the New Year’s ham a day late and with a bit of a rush job. I was pinched for time on New Year day so sliced off some steaks and pan fried them to speed along dinner.
I had a honey glazed ham which was half the price per pound as ham hocks. The invisible hand is pretty funny sometimes. I did the package directions but had already eaten most of the slices so it wasn’t as sugary which is a good thing. A little goes a long way.
I note the glaze is sugar, brown sugar, and dried honey so I’ll use the rest next time we run out of sugar at least.
For a side I took some pinto beans I’d made for chili and mashed them up with a red pepper and a sweet onion with cumin, ranch seasoning, crushed red pepper, a few drips ghost pepper sauce and after I added the beans I added a pack of taco sauce. I mashed them some and they were pretty good.
I had made cranberry salad yesterday out of a can of the jelled and some smashed blackberries and was pleased the 15 y/o smashed them who always mocks canned cranberries.
I finished it with a simple salad of mixed greens and yellow pepper. For a dressing I did a red wine vinaigrette with red wine, a nice olive oil, apple cider vinegar, apple butter, a shit ton of basil and cilantro, white pepper, and garlic powder. It was excellent.
Mostly though it felt good to be loved and all of us are still giddy about the wonderful new home. Shae said it’s like being in love again where you have to stop and just be in awe about how great life is.
To work hard and come home to someone who loves you and is excited to show you what she arranged during her kick back time it’s pretty special.
Blessed New Years
I was blessed to ring in the new year with my fiance in our new home. We closed Thanksgiving week but it’s her busy time at work and we traveled to Michigan/Ohio for the holidays so we didn’t get to move in in earnest until December 30th.
It was a lot of work with us and the two teenagers but we pulled together nicely and got it done in time to kick back a little and enjoy the new year coming in. It was nice to only have to get out of bed two minutes before the new year for my sparkling juice toast and sweet kiss and I was back in bed before 12:02 when I got a Happy New Year text.
Moving and setting up house in a new relationship brings a lot of changes. One of the things that brought my partner and I together was a commitment to sustainability as part of our values.
Shae was a single mom but still really on it as far as recycling. Her oldest is into cooking and has done a lot of research on nutrition and learning to make healthy food versus ultra processed stuff. Being able to support and build on all that has complemented my long interests in what I would call right living, using moral reasoning to choose the best course of life considering sustainability, justice, and neighborliness.
Writing The Practical Guide this year has sharpened my interests in areas I’ve lagged in like personal health. Having a chapter on lifestyle as an instrument of change means you have to eat and exercise to optimize for health and avoid medical intervention. So I’ve done that to good effect.
With helping my partner through a difficulty, house hunting and then moving, starting a political action committee and completing a manuscript and seeing it through publishing has been a lot. Through it I’ve recycled, minimized my food waste, made real food at home for the family, and all the other right living tasks I could reasonably pull off.
When I’ve had to I’ve grabbed the fast food, skipped the gym, or made some other compromise with my overall values to have a smooth flow of life. You don’t have to mail it every time to get a comparable impact but not stressing over that last 10% that would take effort beyond my abilities.
I elevated for a couple days to get the move done and worked harder than I should. I cut a few corners though to make it a bit easier. My brother John says “Most moral choices are between the right thing and the easy thing.”
I want to work hard for a better world and for my family but I also want to take the time for self care, companionship, kindness, and especially whimsy when it can be found.
What are you doing to be happier, healthier, or more sustainable in 2025? I’ll be blogging everyday through Bloguary. Look for an update on #freeKevinBromwell and as January 6th approaches I’ll be talking about the County Party Initiative for the New American Community. Stay warm constant reader.
‘live it like it might be your last’
Only about 3 hours left here in 2011. I’ve been puttering, listening to some music, hanging out with the dogs. I am having people over tomorrow to usher in the New Year and don’t mind having a quiet night at home. My dad always preached that, not to be going out with all the drunks on the road. I hadn’t been listening to much music but two weeks with a dog and no TV my taste for it came back. Its been a real joy listening to some alt country I didn’t know I had, the Bottle Rockets ‘Songs for Sahm’ a really great album, and Larry Norman’s ‘Something New Under the Son’ which is highly singable and I know it well and “Its today that counts, live it like it might be your last”. Been my watchwords tonight.
Made me change my plans from going to bed early to better deal with a big today tomorrow but not if it might be my last. Better to ring in the New Year with the dogs. Drink some Chai with Baileys and listen to Garcia and Grisman. Its made me realize I’m at peace. I wouldn’t call anyone or try to shake something up, there’s not really thing I have left unsaid. Puttering listening to some familiar tunes putting a little buzz on, in PJs and house shoes, fat and grateful. “If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise, for every bear there ever was…. Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic”.
I have a pork roast thawing on the counter and black eyed peas soaking for my lucky dishes themed dinner party. Cleaned out the garden bed that’s not a raised bed and if its not to windy I will have the fire there. I have a metal container and will get my first hearty guest to help carry the picnic table down to the vegetable garden area. With the bench and my lawn chairs should be fine, I’m not expecting the masses. Unless you come and bring a few friends. (I’ve got enough grub and goodies come on by).
The Amaryllis I got on discount late is blooming right on time. Christmas is overrated. I like a New Years Day gathering because its pretty well over and its the easiest time to show off the Christmas finery at least once. It seems silly to go through the trouble and expense of a tree and such and not have anyone see it. Not that I’m getting all fancy or anything. To much clutter and unfinished projects for that but the tree is still pretty.Monday I’ll break it down perhaps, although with Jeff and Becky coming over the following weekend if its still sucking water may let it go another week.
I do rather like it. I guess plotting the fate of the Christmas Tree isn’t in keeping with living like it might be your last. I do like to think of it with popcorn and cranberries in the back yard for its next phase.
I am seriously considering a run for city council. I read in the paper no one is running yet and its 5 days until intentions need to be made to get on the ballot. I think its only 50 signatures to get on I need to look into it. The newspaper called my Ward “apathetic”. I am offended. I am not apathetic even I haven’t been to a city council meeting or done a lot of lobbying. I considered contacting my current Council member Jason Thornhill about getting a sidewalk on my block. With the treatment center up the street and just generally people walking there’s a lot of foot traffic and speedy cars on a steep hill. But then I learned he wasn’t running for re-election so I thought he wouldn’t really care what I wanted on his way out. But I vote, read the paper every day, talk to my neighbors (I know almost everyone on the block), walk the neighborhoods and keep an eye on things, work in the neighborhood, pick up beer cans, whiskey bottles and such. My neighbors garden, belong to CSAs or shop at the Farmer’s Market like I do. We recycle and say ‘Hi’ to each other. Apathetic my ass.
It would mean being busier. Having other commitments. But I think there’s a stipend and my life is dull enough I could afford an outside project and what an opportunity. Might get a chance to do some good as well. I floated the idea on Facebook and won some offers of help and support. I’ve kind of swore off politics but it was the campaigning, the only telling the parts of the truth that help you, the focus on the political win at the expense of greater questions about Truth and Equity that bugged me. The campaign would be short and if I run unopposed perhaps I can just tell the truth and talk to my neighbors like it is sort of supposed to be. Then it just becomes a question of governance which seems a little less problematic.
My other potential life complicating project is going solar. Kevin has offered me a deal on panels, they are already in my garage and he’s pledged some assistance and a payment plan. Hard to say no even though I don’t use much electricity. It seems like such the right thing to do and very cool. What a 2012 it would be if I could pull those things off, plus a little home improvement a bit more self improvement. Getting closer to the life I would like to live, ‘live it like it might be your last’.
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