Tag Archives: Simple living

Need More Time? Make Decisions Less Often

I mentioned in my recent blog post, Wake Up, Write (Right), that my goal was to write first thing in the morning. I have been doing a fair job of forming that habit. However, in order to enhance my chance of success- I need to make a few more changes.

Morning is a very busy time that requires me to make a lot of decisions: What to eat for breakfast; what to wear; what do I need to accomplish today; what to bring for lunch and so on. It can be challenging to focus on writing when there is a whole day to prepare for as well. How can I get the peaceful, productive writing time that I need every day?

I believe the answer may be to make as many of those other decisions in advance, as possible. If I prepare all my lunches for the week on the weekend before, then I can just grab and go each day. I can do the same thing with my clothes. If I plan and assemble all five five outfits needed in advance, including jewelry and accessories, I’m saved from making all the tiny choices involved in getting dressed each day.

Paring down decisions, thereby saving time and energy, has been practiced by many successful people including Albert Einstein and former President Obama. They both simplified their daily decisions by each buying several of the same suits. So, all they had to do was put them on; no thought required. The late Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, was also famous for his daily uniform compromised of jeans, a black turtleneck and sneakers. These gentlemen were aware that humans have a limited capacity to make good decisions over time. So, they eliminated having to make certain choices like what to wear. Thus they were able to fend off decision fatigue longer.

Decision fatigue, quite simply, is one’s diminishing power to keep making good decisions, the more decisions you have to make. Have you ever watched the TV show Say Yes to the Dress? There was an episode where a man surprised his girlfriend with a proposal and then dropped her off at Kleinfeld’s Bridal right after to buy her wedding dress. The woman was so overwhelmed with the enormity of having decided to get engaged, there was no way she was going to pick out a wedding dress the same day. She probably had trouble picking what to have for dinner that night. Forget fatigue, she was decision exhausted!

My hope is that by prepping my week properly in advance and eliminating as many of the daily decisions as possible, I can wake up and write with abandon every single day. We shall see…

Have You Got Hygge in Your Home?

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Not that long ago, after many years of thinking I knew my ancestry, I discovered that my father actually has a rather substantial amount of Scandinavian blood coursing through his veins. So, it stands to reason, my siblings and I do too. Perhaps, this is why I took to the concept of Hygge like a cod to water.

Hygge (pronounced hue-ga) is a danish word with no direct english translation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it means:

A quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture.)

I can get down with being cozy especially this time of year. I am a Spring-Summer kind of gal. Winter makes me want to hibernate! Since I can’t actually sleep all season, the next best thing is having little comforts to keep me warm and cozy inside when it’s cold outside. Here are some of my Hygge-ly tips:

1. LIGHTING can make a big difference in creating a warm and nurturing atmosphere. I like the soft orange glow from this Himalayan salt lamp my sister gave me for Christmas. Candles can also provide beautiful soft light.

2. SCENTS provide a mood-lifting experience. I like blending different essential oils in a diffuser. This candle-powered one is great because it has the added benefit of lovely candlelight.

3. A WARM TREAT can be just the right balm for a weary soul on a chilly day. No further explanation needed!

4. CUDDLY FRIENDS are great any time of year but they are definitely more inclined to snuggle up in the winter.

5. DREAMING of Spring can help too. Winter is a great time to plan what you would like to do in the balmier days to come. Gardeners start planning months before the ground is warm enough to work.

Have you got any Hygge-like rituals to help get you through the winter? Please share them by leaving a comment.

Want to Save Money, Lose weight and Be Healthier? Eat Cabbage!

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Until recently, whenever I thought about cabbage I would remember the unwelcome smell that permeated the hallway of my grandmother’s building in Far Rockaway, NY. It would make my nose wrinkle and I couldn’t wait to get into her apartment which always seemed to smell like fresh baked dinner rolls or something equally delicious.

So, I quite surprised myself when I picked up a head of cabbage at the farmer’s market. I did it for two reasons: 1. I know how nutritious it is. 2. It was only $2. WIN, WIN!

I pondered what to do with it on the way home. Then I surprised myself again by slapping the steering wheel and declaring out loud, “I am going to make sauerkraut!” I have no idea where the thought came from since I never made it before and quite frankly… I never even really thought about sauerkraut being comprised of cabbage. The same goes for coleslaw (which I also decided to make.)

How hard could it be? It turns out, not hard at all. It became clear after some quick research that sauerkraut is merely cabbage+salt+time. I chopped the cabbage as thin as I could by hand, threw in a few tablespoons of kosher salt and began to massage it. I found myself wondering how many of my German ancestors must have done the very thing I was doing at that moment. It felt so natural working the salt into the cabbage until the juices flowed out. After about 10 minutes, I decided I created enough of a brine to jar it up. You want there to be enough liquid to fully submerge the kraut. I used an onion* half to weigh it down in the jar. After that, I topped the jar with a coffee filter and rubber band. I found this set-up very effective for keeping the oxygen out while allowing the carbon dioxide to escape. Then I set the jar in a dark cabinet in the basement, the only place that might come close to maintaining the ideal temperature range of 65 to 75 degrees.

How does this make sauerkraut? The short answer is that cabbage naturally carries bacteria like lactobacilli which helps kick off lactic acid fermentation. The salt preserves the cabbage to keep it from rotting while fermentation takes place. There is a lot of debate about the proper amount of time to allow sauerkraut to ferment, anywhere from three days to six months. I found the most consensus that around three weeks is enough time. The idea is to allow the sauerkraut to ferment long enough to produce a goodly amount of probiotic bacteria. Then after that it’s just about taste.

However, if you are like me and you can’t wait that long or if the average temp is above 75 degrees then two weeks is long enough. Also, keep in mind, the sauerkraut will continue to ferment in the fridge. It will just happen much more slowly below 65 degrees.

BBQ beans on toast with tomato, olives, homemade kraut and a pickle… what more could you ask for?

I have to tell you that homemade sauerkraut is DELICIOUS! It is so much better than store-bought. I am not sure I could eat the canned stuff ever again. Give it a try if you like sauerkraut. You have nothing to lose. I paid two dollars for a head of cabbage at the farmer’s market. (I noticed they are $1.29 at the supermarket.) That one head netted me 16 ounces of sauerkraut and eight cups of coleslaw. I call that VERY budget-friendly!

I will get more into the nutritional and weight loss benefits of cabbage in my next post, as well as share the coleslaw recipe I concocted.

Many Blessings,

Cynthia

*I got the onion as a weight idea from the Dr Axe website: https://draxe.com/recipe/sauerkraut-recipe/

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Repair or Replace: Are You a Lamp-Saver?

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What do you do when something breaks in your home? Fix it, forget it or replace it?

Recently, I was in my parents’ garage when I spied their bedside table lamp languishing in a corner. I remembered about a year or so ago that it stopped working. My father said he would fix it. Somehow, it migrated from the bedroom to the basement and eventually ended up in the garage a.k.a. “The land of forgotten best intentions.”

I picked up the glass shaded touch lamp and wondered how it would fair out in the outdoor storage area for long. Other than a coat of dust and a slightly bent finial, it seemed fine. It seemed too nice to eke out the rest of its existence, forgotten in the garage. I remembered Mom saying she liked it better than the replacement they picked up. I had no idea what was wrong with it or how to fix it but I seem to have a knack for figuring things out (My superhero name would probably be The Researcher. Sexy, no?)

A few quick google searches revealed that the little lamp was probably ailing from a dimmer switch that went bad. Apparently power surges are the main nemesis of touch lamps. The part was about $8 at Home Depot. (I wonder how much the new lamp was.) I picked it up and attempted to install it myself but was thwarted by the plastic caps on the end of the wires. Little suckers wouldn’t come off! So, I turned the project over to Dad and within an hour he restored it to working order.

The whole thing got me thinking about how people seem to have stopped repairing things like that. It’s just so easy to go out and pick up a new one, relatively cheaply. I wonder how many of us really even think twice about fixing anything that originally cost under a $100. We then start accumulating all of these broken items in garages, sheds and basements because we feel guilty, knowing they can be fixed and should be, but it just doesn’t happen. Eventually, we run out of room and these items either get moved to a storage facility or thrown out. If they get thrown out, they sit in landfills, taking many, many years to decompose or are incinerated, releasing toxins into the environment.

We don’t like to think about our waste or what it is doing to the planet. I get it. I am busy too. Sometimes, it seems like if I have to stop and consider the implications of everything I throw away, my head might explode. I forgot to bring a fork to work with my lunch the other day and ended up using a plastic one. It happens. I wasn’t about to eat chili mac with my hands. However… maybe when something like a lamp or something similar breaks, knowing it’s not a big, expensive repair, it’s worth considering the time and effort to save it. When you do, you are saving money, space, the environment and possibly giving a repairman much needed work if the job is outside your abilities. That’s a pretty great return on investment!

Are you a Lamp-Saver? I would love to hear about your home repair triumphs. Please share them in the comments section.