Eating by the Traffic Lights

What the heck is Traffic Light Eating? I asked the same question a few months ago when I came across the concept. It's really quite simple... Green Light foods can be eaten with wild abandon, Amber/Yellow Light foods should be minimized and Red Light foods... well, they should be avoided.

I kind of liked the little comment in the diagram at right: "Just like running red lights in the real world, you may be able to get away with it once in a while, but you wouldn't want to make a habit out of it." So true!

If we break it down a bit more...

Green Light Foods

These are unprocessed plant foods, as close to how nature made them as possible. Whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, fruits, veggies, herbs and spices. Some green light diagrams also include eggs and lean meats in here, which is a bit confusing. Given how damaging animal protein can be to our bodies, I can see why they should be included in the yellow category.

Amber/Yellow Light Foods

These include a lot of processed foods, things like refined grains, burgers, fries, pancakes, hot dogs, pizza, sugary cereals, etc as well as unprocessed meats. This would also include dairy, eggs and meat and fish.

Red Light Foods

Here, we are into a lot of the oh-so-yummy things - soda, chocolate, chips, cookies, etc. and ultra-processed foods.

The thing that I noticed, as I reviewed different images of Traffic Light Foods is... things move around. As noted above... some plans have lean meat as a Green Light food while in others its an Amber Light food. Or burgers can be Amber or Red... Dairy moves around... Oil moves around... which really makes me wonder what Big Industry lobbies are behind these different schemes.

I found an article on The Washington Post that explains why Traffic Light Eating is not so black and white... or red and green. Which just makes me wonder if its a useful concept at all?

The image I've used above is from NutritionFacts.org, operated by Dr. Michael Greger (author of How not to Die and How not to Diet). He advocates eating whole food plant-based as much of the time as possible and dipping into the amber and red foods on occasion, but only if it helps to encourage eating the green light foods.

If sprinkling bacon bits on a salad helps you to eat the salad... then sprinkle away.

On the other hand... we made a choco-zucchini loaf the other day since we are starting to get buried under our super-productive zucchini plants. Flour, sugar, oil, cocoa powder and more than a cup of chocolate chips helped us to eat one cup of shredded zucchini. In this case... I'm not sure that eating all that red light stuff is helpful in promoting the consumption of one cup of zucchini... Greger has also published a short (7 minute) video about how he sees traffic light eating, which makes a lot of sense...

Traffic Light Food Labels

But there is another form of traffic light food... looking at the actual sugar, fat, salt, calorie content of the food. I've seen this more in the UK... not so much in Canada yet... although it is coming! The idea is that current nutrition labels on food are confusing to the general public. Who really has time to figure out what is healthy and not so healthy on a nutrition label... but... add in colours and put a summary on the front of the package and... it becomes much easier to figure out what is healthy and what is not.

So in the label at right... half a package of the product has really high saturated fat, low sugar and is moderate for salt, fat and calories. I would say... not a great food.

But then... who determines what is low, medium or high? I came across this chart from the UK which outlines how much fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt qualifies as low, medium or high.

But... me thinks that this is really only going to be applicable to processed foods... which, in general... are either Amber or Red Light foods to begin with. Sooo... is this helpful or not?

I mean... if I want a Kit-Kat... is a label like the one below really going to stop me? I guess.... maybe... If I have one once a week... That little two-finger Kit-Kat has that much saturated fat? What does a regular Kit-Kat have!!?

And then... we have something like this oh-so-yummy Starbucks Double Chocolate Chunk Brownie - pure decadent deliciousness... Starbucks has nutrition information on their site... but just a bunch of numbers... I know that 9 grams of saturated fat is probably in the red category (judging by the Kit-Kat numbers above)... But what about the rest? How does it fall in the grand traffic-light food labeling scheme? Sigh... As I feared... red light for Fat, Saturated Fat, Sugar and... yellow light for Salt (200mg Sodium = 0.55 grams of Salt). Luckily, I only have one of these a week but still... If I had to barrel past all those red lights every time I ordered one... I might reconsider it.

I decided to play around in Publisher and...created my own Traffic Light food label for a Starbucks brownie... if I saw this every time I ordered one... would I still order one every week?

It's a good question... In the UK, they seem to believe that front of label packaging helps people make healthier food choices... and... this might be the case here too... I'm going to guess that all whole food, plant-based items will get green lights across the board... the question will be... what will meat, dairy, egg and processed food packaging look like? Can't wait to see!

In the News - UK does an About-Face on Regulating Junk Food Advertising

You heard about Boris Johnson, right? Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and staunch opponent of the "nanny" state. This is the same guy who criticized levies on foods high in salt, fat and sugar, stating that he preferred a libertarian non-interventionist approach. Basically... if you choose to eat junk food, then that's your choice, and you get to reap the consequences. Just don't expect the "nanny" state to bail you out. Right... that guy...

Well... since his bout with Covid-19, he's come to realize a few things. He admits now that being obese put him at greater risk of Covid-19 complications, and landed him in the ICU. More and more studies are confirming that obesity, and its associated comorbidities (diabetes, cardiovascular illness, etc) put individuals at a much higher risk of death due to Covid-19. A recent study in the UK concluded that being obese increases your chances of death from Covid-19 by 40%. That's no small deal.

Check out the check-out candy...
Possibly a thing of the past in the UK

In light of his own personal experience, Johnson has made a few changes. He's taken up running and biking and is making a concerted effort to watch what he eats. On a much larger front, he has also launched a government campaign aimed at helping Brits combat the obesity epidemic. I guess Johnson has amended his libertarian views after realizing that it's hard for people to "choose" to eat healthy when they are being bombarded with junk food advertising day and night. As the government campaign says: "It’s hard to make the healthy choice if you don’t know what’s in the food you are eating. That is why we want to make sure that our labeling of products in store and in cafes and coffee shops helps us to make healthier choices."

The campaign has junk food squarely in its sights:

• banning ads for high fat, high salt and high sugar products (HFSS) on TV and online before 9 pm - I presume this is aimed at kids
• mandating calorie labeling in restaurants, cafes and takeaways - the idea being that if you know that your choco mocca americano latte has 600 calories, you will make a better choice (chai tea is my friend)
• ending the promotion of high fat, high sugar and high salt products in-store and online - this sounded quite similar to the first point but... what it really means is limiting the placement of HFSS products in prominent locations intended to encourage purchasing, both online and in physical stores - i.e. no more chocolate bars and junk food at the check-out tills!
  
• ditching Buy One, Get One free promotions on HFSS products
• a national campaign to help people lose weight and eat more healthily after the "wake-up call" of coronavirus
• looking at having hidden "liquid calories" listed on alcoholic drinks
  
• a consultation on whether to stop fast food adverts online altogether
• reviewing traffic light labeling on food and drinks sold in shops
• a consultation on making calorie labeling on alcohol drinks mandatory
• greater incentives for doctors to tackle excess weight, including the use of apps and exercise-on-referral

All of this is super great news. It's just kind of sad that it only came about because the leader of a First World country got sick with Covid-19. The scientific evidence has always been there... and yet... nothing was ever done... until now. On top of that, there is growing scientific evidence that eating animal products is also a huge contributor to obesity and its associated comorbidities. But there's not mention of that... I guess one battle at a time. If the UK can pull this off, it would be amazing... particularly given that 70% of UK males and 60% of UK females are obese. Makes me wonder what it will take to get such fast action from the Canadian government?

Reading Challenge

A few years ago, I started a reading challenge - the goal was to read 100 books in one year. And blog about them... It wasn't just any 100 books as well, I was aiming for books that had changed the world - things like War & Peace, Silent Spring, 1984, Brave New World, etc.

I got through 52 books by June 30 of 2017 and... had to call it quits. Life had gotten way too busy and the book reading was becoming a challenge... well... more of a challenge than I had expected. Actually, it wasn't the reading that was a challenge so much as taking notes on the books and then writing a blog post every single day documenting what I had read and any insights I had gleaned.

Anyhow... on July 1 of this year, I picked up the gauntlet again. What I find is that reading intentional books (not just some novels that I've reread 10 times already) and blogging about them, cross-pollinates my other writing (like this blog)... I've also re-jigged my reading list to include more BIPOC books as well as environmental books. I am relying on the library to a large extent for my reading material sooo... I have to kind of take it as it comes. I just finished Romeo Dallaire's book on the Rwandan Genocide, Shake Hands with the Devil which was an insanely hard slog. And scampered through The Alchemist at the same time.

My goal is to read 50 pages a day and blog about it every day... It's not a ridiculous goal - that's only about an hour of reading a day. Small steps... that's what it's all about...

Meatless Meal Planning

We signed up for a meal delivery service a few weeks ago. This one is called FreshPrep, is based in Vancouver, and offers meals with no animal protein (no meat, fish, eggs or dairy). It's a bit of an experiment and we only get two meals a week but... we are trying to wrap our heads around tofu and... so far, things are going well.

Our first meal was Sweet & Spicy Tofu Stir Fry with Snow Peas, Mushrooms and Sriracha Teriyaki Sauce. We were a bit skittish about this meal since it had (a) tofu with which we have had bad experiences and (b) mushrooms which we both hate with a passion. But... we soldiered on and gave it a try. I cut up the tofu into centimetre chunks and while the recipe called for sliced mushrooms... I seriously diced them into near invisibility. What you can't see or chew won't hurt you! And.... as we gingerly chewed our way around the tofu... the verdict was... YUM!! We actually both loved it. The mushrooms were practically invisible and the tofu texture was palatable. Kind of like well-cooked chicken.

Our second meal with FreshPrep was a Spring Vegetable, Lentil & Quinoa Salad with Sweet & Spicy Cashews. Score two for two! It was seriously yummy as well and introduced us, in a nice way, to fennel. We had tried a fennel lemon salad (a la Jamie Oliver) a few years ago and found it... inedible. But... this version through FreshPrep was very good and we would definitely do it again.

See, that's the thing... you order these meals from the delivery service, figure out if it's yummy or not and then... you recreate it from scratch whenever you want... easy peasy way to try out new recipes and, for us, new ingredients.

We aren't 100% reliant on the meal delivery service... obviously. I've been trolling through the internet looking for good recipes and we had some plant-based recipe books from the library during the Covid-19 lock-down... so we have a good dozen recipes that are our go-to meals at this point...

Last week, when we gave away our stash of frozen meat, our friends asked us... but how do you plan a meal without meat? I get it... without meat at the heart of a meal... how do you figure out what to cook??? Well... we kind of go by what legumes we're in the mood for... or what flavours we are looking for. Do we want to go Mexican today? Or have a curry? Or maybe some sushi. A lot of it depends on how much time we have as well, since we eat our main meal at lunchtime. I don't want to spend most of my weekday mornings cooking... so we do a lot of cooking and freezing on the weekends.

Some of our favourites are:

Pita Tostadas with Butternut Squash, Black Beans and Avocado.

This recipe is super easy and super yummy... the biggest time factor is baking the butternut squash but... you only need about half a squash so we just bake it, mash it all up and then save the remainder for next-time tostadas. If you have mashed frozen butternut then whipping this together is a breeze.

We particularly like the freshness of the lime juice in the beans and the yogurt drizzle. And yes... we found that almond yogurt, while not really edible on its own, makes a good substitute for the drizzle.

A couple of tips... this is insanely messy to eat so we have learned to wrap the rolled-up tostadas in aluminum foil like they do with donairs... way less messy.

Coconut Curry Lentil Stew with Spinach & Currant Salad

We got this recipe from GoodFood last year. It is super yummy and one of our staples. We make it in a double batch and freeze the leftovers. It's relatively easy but one does need a few key ingredients like curry paste - which we buy in a jar (we use Patak's mild curry paste). We also go easy on the coconut milk as it is fairly rich in the bad saturated fats. We sometimes just put a tiny can in instead of the 400 ml can the recipe calls for... and we don't save any for the end. Red lentils are easy to cook with and don't require any soaking beforehand. Plus... we try to get a variety of legumes in our diet so... this ticks the red lentil checkbox! The recipe calls it a stew and serves it as a stand alone but we usually have it with rice or farro or some other grain.

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas with Avocado-Cilantro Cream Sauce

This receipe came out of the Oh She Glows cookbook and is one of our standbys. [I couldn't find the real recipe online but there is a version of it here...]

It's a bit trickier to make because you have to make the enchilada sauce from scratch which takes extra time. We usually get at least two and a half meals out of this recipe so it's good value for time!

We love the avocado-cilantro cream sauce... which is just avocado, cilantro, lime juice whizzed up in the food processor with some salt and garlic powder. Again... the lime juice just adds a bit of vibrancy to everything.

Coconut Chickpea Curry

I found this recipe online and it has become one of our favourite staples. It uses Garam Masala as the main spice blend which you can buy in any store.

Again, we tend to go easy on the coconut milk and the recipe still works. It's super easy and quick as most of these curry recipes are. Just be sure to have a few cans of chickpeas and diced tomatoes.

We like to add chopped up cilantro and peanuts onto the tops of our curries. The cilantro adds a nice little burst of flavour and the peanuts add some nice texture.

Ultimate Lentil Walnut Loaf

Another recipe I pulled offline, also from Oh She Glows. while we didn't eat a lot of meat loaf back in the day... this lentil walnut loaf has become a serious staple in our lives. It freezes really well and defrosts quickly, so it's great for those days when you go "oh shit, forgot to take something out of the freezer". Mind you... it is seriously labour intensive - there is a lot of chopping and measuring involved in this. But... given that one loaf makes four meals (eight slices of loaf)... the time investment is worth it. The recipe says 40 minutes of prep time but that is not accurate... more likely an hour. It goes quicker if you have two sous chefs working away at prepping the ingredients.

https://camillestyles.com/food/pita-tostadas-with-butternut-squash-black-beans-avocado/

Overwhelm is an Inflatable Monster

Whaddya think? Is overwhelm an inflatable monster??

I was looking for an image to go with this blog on overwhelm and as I typed... that was one of the suggestions "Overwhelm is an inflatable monster". I thought... oooh... that's so true!! I'll grab that image! Except... there is no image. And actually, no articles that mention that phrase. Which means... I guess I have to be the one to write it.

Overwhelm... we all know what it is. We keep spinning faster on our hamster wheel of life and getting nowhere. No matter how much we do, or how much we get organized... everything just seems like too much. I know this feeling very well... even small things are just too much, never mind the big things. And it seems like there is always more and more... argh!

It kind of feels like this little clip from I Love Lucy. Those of you old enough might remember this scene... where Lucy and her friend work in a chocolate factory. Things start off nice and slow and they are able to keep up but then... life speeds up and... well... it gets out of hand very quickly...

That's how I tend to view life. I can go along quite happily. Everything is going super smooth, I have lots of energy and gusto and I am able to handle everything that comes my way. But then... it seems like life speeds up and everything starts happening faster and those chocolate balls are getting bigger and falling apart on me and... overwhelm sets in. But... that's not really how life works.

I keep thinking my overwhelm is triggered by things out there... but, really, overwhelm is an inside job. Me being in a state of overwhelm says more about what's going on inside of me... than what's going on out there. In fact, overwhelm is a choice...

On the one hand, we take on too much. No doubt about it... we are trying to keep everybody happy, including ourselves and when we are feeling good, we flip that little conveyor switch and add a few more chocolate balls to our daily life. But it's more than that...

Overwhelm comes from the inside... I came across one blog which suggested that we choose overwhelm to avoid feelings. Huh. Interesting. But it make sense. If I am not expressing my feelings... sadness, anger, fear, disgust, whatever... where are they going to go? Do they just dissipate? No... they build up... inside of me. I think I've "handled" them by shoving them down... but they're still there. And they are niggling at me... and growing bigger by the day. And as they grow bigger, I become less and less able to handle the things that life throws at me.

It's like the unexpressed emotions appear within me... and if I express them, then they come and they go. Kind of a continuous flow. But... if I stem the flow, because I don't want to appear emotional or I don't feel safe expressing them, they start to build up... inside of me... they start to inflate me... hence... overwhelm is an inflatable monster!

Picture it... oh, there's probably a cartoon that shows this too... but I can't remember it right now...

Anyhow - picture a cartoon... me getting slowly inflated (like Harry Potter's uncle-in-law's sister!)... and slowly floating into the air, disconnected from everything that grounds me. Bobbing along, getting bigger and bigger, squeaking... "I can't handle this anymore!"... And I get mad at life, or whoever is in my line of fire and am reactionary and upset. Until finally, there is some emotional release (take your pick) and I deflate like a balloon scooting all over the place. And... I'm back to being myself... able to handle what comes down life's conveyor belt.

Which makes me wonder... could I just skip the inflatable overwhelm bit... by just expressing my emotions when they show up? Rather than thinking I am "handling" them by burying them or avoiding them...

Just some thoughts...

Belated Space Bird Celebration

Yes, that's right, you are reading the words of a Space Bird graduate! On July 1 (Happy Space Bird Day!), I managed to go 500 days without having a hot chocolate. Was it an addiction? Mmmm... possibly. For sure, it was a very, very well-entrenched habit... and not a good one. Never mind the $$ spent on hot chocolate at Starbucks, there was also the impact on my waistline and my arteries and cholesterol levels.

Eleven years ago, more or less, I ditched my Coke habit (that's Coca Cola... not the other stuff). That too was a huge thing... but I managed to do it. And now, 11 years later, I feel nary a flicker of desire when I walk by a vending machine. On the other hand, even though I'm free of hot chocolate, I still feel twinges of desire for a rich and creamy, oh so yummy, Starbucks hot chocolate with whipped cream and mocha drizzle. Mmmm... Sooo... clearly there is still some life in that habit and I have to be vigilant.

For a while, I've been planning a blog post on the distinction between habits and willpower. It takes a lot of oomph to alter a habit and about 30-60 days. But once you are over that hump, and have a new habit in place, it does go more smoothly. Relying on willpower, however, is more problematic, as willpower is a limited resource and, by most afternoons, most of us are extremely depleted in the willpower department.

I'm going to have to do some more research but a few tips on shifting from one habit to another are:

• Awareness - identify the when/where/who of your old habit - me, at Starbucks, with a hot chocolate, happily sipping and working away on some writing in the peaceful white-noise hubbub of a coffee shop.
  
• Identify the Triggers - is it stress or boredom? What is going on in your life? Right now, Covid-19 stress is a big driver in people clinging to old habits. I hesitate to say "bad" habits... maybe it's more that they don't lead to desired outcomes. For myself, going to Starbucks was my "peaceful zen" time... or at least, that's how I saw it. I could get away from all of the clamouring to-do-list tasks and interruptions at home (I'm looking at you, cat!) and just focus on one thing.
• Write it down - make the promise to yourself in writing and look at it every day
• Alter the Environment - change the when/where/who of the old habit. I made it much harder on myself by continuing to go to Starbucks and doing my usual routine. It would have been easier had I gone elsewhere... like Tim Hortons where they have terrible hot chocolate.
• Buddy up - find someone to be accountable to... or someone who also wants to alter an old habit.
  
• Replace the old habit with a new one - instead of ordering a hot chocolate at Starbucks, I would order a chai tea. Again, I made this harder on myself because not only was the hot chocolate a habit, going to Starbucks was a habit. It would have been far better for me to replace my morning Starbucks habit with something else - a hike, a spell in the garden, going to the library.
  
• Reward or Penalty - identify some reward or penalty that can serve as a motivator for altering the old habit. For me, the idea of paying a $5 penalty to my partner every time I had a hot chocolate was a serious motivator and oftentimes, it was the only thing that kept me from ordering a hot chocolate during that first month.

Our brains love to set things up on auto-pilot... disrupting that takes time and attention. But it is doable. I had been trying to quit hot chocolate for several years, so it took me repeated attempts to finally ditch it for good. It also requires vigilance because already... I can see the potential for several other less-than-desirable habits forming... Starbucks double chocolate brownies... chocolate, period! I am working in the direction of indulging in a brownie once a week, after a hike, using money that I have collected whilst hiking (e.g. picking up beer and pop cans on my daily walks). If I have enough money at the end of the week (or Starbucks points) for a brownie, brilliant. If not... too bad. In many ways, this is a perfect merging of several habits:

1. Encourages me to take my daily walks - the more walks I take, the more likely I am to find cans, etc.
2. Encourages me to bring plastic bags and pick up litter - I am still struggling with the hurdle of "what will people think".
3. Rewards me with a brownie at the end of the week. The only hiccup I see with this little holy trinity of habits is... collecting too many cans and getting to the point where I have enough weekly funds for more than one brownie! Still... $3.10 for a brownie, means I need to collect 31 cans in a week... Today I got none sooo...I don't think "too many cans" is going to be a problem...

So... that's where I'm at... mighty Space Bird that I am... and trying to amend old habits and develop new ones... Some of it might seem silly to others, looking in, but... whatever works, baby!

Devolution of a Dispable Cup

As I've been hiking through the forests and parks, I've started noticing garbage on the ground. And picking it up to carry it out to a garbage can. It's obvious that some of the garbage has been there for a while... And with a bit of sleuthing, I have created a photo timeline of "Devolution of a Disposable Cup". A Tim Horton's cup. It's not that I have a bone to pick with Tim Hortons... it's just that those are the cups that I see lying on the ground in parks and forests...

Here's what happens to a disposable cup over time in the forest...

Stage 1

First, a pristine Tim Hortons cup, with or without plastic lid, gets tossed on the ground somewhere. Perhaps the person who tossed it things that it is made from paper and that it will decompose. Not sure what they thought about the lid... The thing is... the inside of the cup is lined with a thin film of plastic...

Stage 2

Here we have a cup after at least one winter, as evidenced by the cones and needles on the cup. There is also new growth over top of the cup, so it has lain outside since at least last fall - let's say 9 months. You can still see the reddish colouring which makes me think it's a Tim Hortons cup...

Stage 3

We then move to this stage - all the colouring is gone. It could be a Tim Hortons cup or... a McDonald's cup or... Starbucks. I'm going to guess at least a year out in the woods.

Stage 4

We now come to this one... most of the outer paper coating is gone, leaving us with a rather odd shaped sleeve. How long did it take to get to this point? A year and a half? Two years?

Stage 5

Until we reach this stage... pure, clean, unadulterated plastic sleeve. When I first found this in the bush, I was a bit perplexed as to what it could be but... then... I picked it up and...

See... it's the bottom of a cup... it's the interior plastic film from a disposable cup...

It is quite sturdy and it took a bit to tear it... but there you have it... plastic sleeve from a disposable cup. How long has that been in the woods? Two years? Three years? How much longer would it have lasted? Decades.

I should also mention, that I have picked up disposable cups somewhere between Stage 1 and Stage 2 and found gnaw marks on them, with chunks missing from the rim. Obviously, some little squirrel or mouse or vole or other critter, liked the taste of milk or sugar or whatever was in the cup and decided to snack on it. Which means that little critter ingested plastic. I wonder how well that went through its intestinal system? Or if it caused a blockage and the little critter died in agony...

Let's be clear. Disposable does not mean Compostable. If it did... it would say that. Really, the word "disposable" is a misnomer... a better choice might be "trashable"...

It might make us aware of the utter insanity of what we are doing. Tim Hortons produces 2 billion trashable cups every single year. That's 2,000,000,000... and let's be clear. They are NOT recyclable. They are NOT compostable. They are lined with plastic. Plastic never goes away... it just takes hundreds of years to degrade into smaller and smaller pieces... which will eventually find their way into streams, lakes, rivers and oceans. Where they will be ingested by phytoplankton and krill and migrate up the food chain... with all the toxins that accompany a petrochemical product... Where we will eventually ingest them in our salmon or tuna... And we wonder why cancer rates are increasing. Please, please... if you love the squirrels... and the birds... and the salmon and oceans and lakes and rivers and forests... and your children or your grandchildren... Just say NO to Trashable cups.

The Great 2020 Meat Give-away

We gave away all of the meat in our freezer yesterday. We had been holding onto it during the height of Covid-19, just in case, you know, the entire society collapsed and we ran out of beans and needed to trade meat for canned tomatoes, or something. But... the meat is getting a bit old in there now (+6 months) soooo... it's time to let it go.

I never thought it would come to this. We have been holding to a whole food plant based eating plan (not a diet) for the last 6 months and... it's been going remarkably well. Far better than I had expected. As a dyed in the wool carnivore... I didn't expect it to be this easy but... it has been. Oh sure, we have our slip-ups... like milk chocolate. Trying to avoid all animal protein products can be a bit of a challenge - and yes, that includes, eggs, dairy and fish. For example, we are currently using up the last mayonnaise jar in our fridge. It seemed a waste to just toss it... and so we use it up. But we won't buy any more egg-based mayonnaise once this jar is done. But we haven't  slipped up elsewhere - no meat, no fish, no cheese, no milk, no yogurt. We're still alive and it seems unlikely we are going to return to the carnivore/omnivore camp soo... it was time to let go of the meat.

We asked a senior couple if they would like to have our meat and they leapt at the opportunity. So yesterday, they cam over with a small cooler... not quite big enough for what we had in the little freezer. Luckily, they were headed straight home after their shopping bonanza so a rubbermaid tote with blankets served as a substitute cooler. What did they leave with?

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 double rack of baby back ribs
• 1 salmon
• 2 fillet of sole
• 10 zip-loc bags with two chicken breasts in each bag
• 6 packages of sausages
• 2 packages of bacon
• 4 burger patties
• 1/2 bag of prawns
• 2 shoulder blade roasts
• 4 pork tenderloin

And, voila, our little freezer was almost empty! Which is a good thing because... it's raspberry season.... and blackberry season isn't far behind. In a good year, we can have quite a haul of frozen berries in our freezer... Not to mention the fall harvest of apples cooked into apple sauce. Oh sure, we could can the apple sauce but sometimes... it's just easier to freeze it.

Soo... win-win situation - our meat went to a good home and we now have freezer space for food items more suited to our plant based palate.

Feeling a bit Frazzled

My desk is starting to look a bit scary - I have piles of paper starting to accumulate, books that need to be read or shelved, and a variety of others odds and ends. My desk cycles through phases, kind of like the moon. I'll let stuff pile up for a few weeks and then do a bit of a cleaning/filing frenzy and get it under control again.

Which of reminds me of my email inbox which is also looking a bit plump at the moment. I currently have 32 emails in my inbox, a number of which need some sort of action on my part. I generally try to aim for Inbox Zero - keeping my email inbox empty, or close to empty... but... that's not the case right now. And, it's getting close to the magic number of 50... which is the number of emails Gmail can display on one screen. After that, older emails will be a whole screen click away... not a good scene. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

On top of that... my nice little schedule of pre-posted blogs has run out. Not sure how that happened but I am now behind the 8-ball with no blogs in the pipeline! And not just this blog, but my other two blogs as well...

All of this contributes to a sense of frazzle... I know that a lot of this is self-imposed frazzle. I'm the one who makes the deadlines for the blogs... I'm the one who ascribes to Inbox Zero and the idea that I should reply to emails within 48 hours... I'm the one who likes a tidy desk where I can find things.

At the same time, however, all of the little unfinished projects, tasks niggle away at me. They all take up energy in my space. And they all seem weirdly insurmountable or fraught with uncertainty. Even the little things... like sending in the form for a toilet rebate to the city. It's been sitting on my desk since February... the plan is to send the form to the city. That's it. All it needs is to be put in an envelope, addressed, stamped and dropped in a community mailbox which is 1.75 minutes away. Easy? Right? Nope... you see... the application says that you need to have a receipt from the dump... landfill... transfer station... stating that the old toilet was disposed of and not resold on Kijiji or something. But... we had a plumber install the toilet and he took the old toilet away to dispose of it. Sooo... can I send in our rebate application without the piece of paper from the dump? The plumber receipt says the toilet was "disposed of"... So is that good enough? Or do I need to follow up with the plumbing (again)... and try to get something more official? Decisions, decisions... and so the rebate application sits on my desk and niggles at me. By the way... I have installed toilets before but this was a basement toilet on a tile floor and... I'm glad we went with a plumber... He was muttering to himself the whole time because the flange bolts were bent and the flange was goofy because the tiles were so thick and.... I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that headache!

And that's just one thing on my desk... Imagine the stuff that goes on in my head with all the other incomplete tasks!! Everything seems mountain-ish... even if it's only molehill-ish... but I keep reminding myself that the title of this blog is all about Small Steps... and so I sit down and stare at an empty screen and just start typing... because every blog start with one word... and every mountain gets conquered with one step.

I've been working on building a shed in the back corner of the yard... Build Shed has been on my horizon for a while but... "Build Shed" has really been a bit too mountain-ish for me. But a week ago, I went back there and just started by setting the foundation blocks for the shed posts... and then figuring out where the retaining wall blocks would go... then buying the blocks and setting them... putting the posts in the foundation blocks.. squaring them up and... on it goes... The shed wasn't built in a day but yesterday the roof panels went on and... darn it if there ain't a shed in the back corner of the yard. And all I did was a few small steps every day... because with each small step, the next step would naturally materialize and that didn't seem like such a big deal and... I'd end up out there for three hours and get a tonne of stuff done.

And I know we're in a pandemic and moods come and go... some days are better than others... some weeks are a complete wash! But... I just need to keep reminding myself to start with one small step...

A Little Library

During the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, all public libraries were closed and that was a serious issue for reading addicts... like me. Luckily, I had several unread books on my bookshelves and managed to weather the worst of the storm. I did cave in May and bought some e-book novels... old favourites that I know I will re-read over and over again.

But the thing is... I completely forgot about our community Little Libraries. An idea first developed in the 1990s in Germany, community libraries have taken off in North America. In Canada, for example, there is some variation of little libraries, lending libraries and/or book exchanges in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg... and many smaller communities!

The idea is quite simple... build a weatherproof bookcase and then stock it with some books. I came across a site which had all sorts of ideas for repurposing different items and converting them into a bookcase/book shelter: mailboxes, microwaves, bar fridges, and old newspaper vending machines (brilliant!).

Community members can come and borrow a book (no fees, no sign-out) and then return that book when they've finished, or place a new book in the Little Library. It works. And it's immensely popular. Not to mention, it has some serious benefits:

• Develop community and pride in community especially if a group of people are involved;
• Bring us closer together as many of us become more isolated through technology;
• Encourage us to walk around the neighbourhood which in turn promotes health and even safety;
• Most importantly they promote literacy and the love of reading and books.

What's not to like about community libraries? Absolutely nothing... they are a win-win-win initiative and my only regret is that we don't have one in our neighbourhood. The Little Libraries website for Nanaimo has an email address to which one can write and request a Little Library... and... I wonder... It would be a Small Step to building some community spirit if we were to host one... Are there any downsides?

Little Library arson victim

Well... a few of the Little Libraries were arson victims... and this is not unique to our community. Community lending libraries and/or book exchanges in Vancouver have also been vandalized in recent years. But... is that any reason not to host one?

It seems, however, that one organization, Little Free Libraries, is creating quite a stir. A librarian in Toronto wrote a critique of the non-profit organization in the Journal of Radical Librarianship. Huh... she has a few bones to pick with that specific organization... not the book exchanges themselves. OK, well that's good to know. Although the librarian did note that the selection in most little libraries is quite pathetic... like Dummies Guide to Windows 2000.

Huh... maybe I should do some research and scope out a few little libraries in our community and see what is actually on the shelves. Although... I guess it's like anything... they need maintenance and someone to pull out the Windows 2000 books... On the other hand, the Vancouver Island Regional Library is a sponsor of our Little Libraries... so it can't be all bad.

We'll see how it shakes out. I've taken one Small Step and sent an email to our local Little Libraries and asked if they are building any during the time of Covid-19... stay tuned for updates...