The Mind-Blowing Power of Einstein Time

Time... sigh.... there's either too much of it or never enough of it. Kind of like Goldlilocks and the Three Bears - bed was too hard, too soft and... but wait, she found a "just right" bed. Why can't we find a "just right" relationship with time?

I did a blog post about this a few months ago... errr... well, almost a year ago... I shared my relationship with time (there's never enough of it), my friend Violet's relationship (la-dee-dah, I have all the time in the world) and my other friend Leo (just the right amount of time).

I admitted to being perplexed by our different relationships to time and really wanted to know how I could shift more to the middle (Leo's zone). I came across a quote from a guy named Gay Hendricks, who wrote a book called The Big Leap. In the book, he talked about Einstein Time...

“You are time, you are where time comes from... and... since you are the producer of time, you can make as much of it as you need.” (from The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks)

I promptly put the book on my to-read list (via the library) and had to wait several months (eight of them) to get my hands on a copy of the book. By the time it came, I'd forgotten why I wanted to read it but... when I got to the Einstein Time chapter, it all clicked into place.

So, here's the gist of it... in a Newtonian world, there are two ends of the time spectrum... Time Cops (always making sure everyone is on time... ahem... this would be me) and Time Slackers (never on time... that would be my friend Violet). But... relating to time from the Newtonian view - that it's in limited supply and we are at the mercy of it - is not the only way to relate to time.

Einstein gave an example about how sitting on a hot stove for an hour can seem like an eternity. While spending an hour with your beloved can go  by in a flash. Ergo... time is relative. Hendricks takes it a step further and say it's not just time, but also space. Sitting on the stove, we aren't present to the space we are in, we are trying to escape that space and therefore time will slow down. But, when we fully inhabit the space we are in and accept it for what it is, time speeds up.

If we always walk around saying things like: I don't have enough time. I don't have time for this. There isn't enough time. Where does the time go? etc etc... we are creating our own perception of time... that there is a lack of it.

Soooo... the idea is to shift from Newtonian Time to Einstein Time... first step is to stop complaining about time and the lack thereof.

Let's say I have 30 minutes before I have to leave for an appointment. My old conversation would have been, "That's not enough time to start anything" and I'd fritter away the time. My new conversation is, "That's plenty of time to start something" and I just get started. I try to occupy that space completely, not worry that I am going to be late (setting an alarm helps with that), and just work on whatever it is that I want to work on.

And... believe it or not... it actually works. The hands on the clock (or the numbers on the digital clock) don't seem to move as fast and I'm shocked at how much I can get done in 30 minutes... or 10 minutes. Just because I allow myself to be in the moment and not worry about the time.

I had sort of thought before that I was at one end of Relationship with Time spectrum (Time Cop) and my friend Violet was at the other (Time Slacker) with my buddy Leo in the middle but... turns out Leo is not even playing in the same Newtonian time spectrum at all... he just works in Einstein Time. Mind blowing.... And I'm finding that that as I release my death-hold grip on time... it flows better and I'm in a better flow with it.

If anyone wants to read Hendricks' chapter on Einstein Time, I've posted it here, as a public link in Dropbox - it will open as a pdf. For those who are more visual or auditory, here's a five minute video by a guy named Tom Adams who gives a brief synopsis of Einstein Time...

Compostable Foam Packaging - The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

We ordered a food box from The Very Good Butchers. We've been eyeing their products (all plant-based meats) for a while now and finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.

They are a local company (Victoria, BC) who started out selling their products at local farmer's markets, but then demand exploded and... they are now a "thing". They even appeared on Dragon's Den and had the Dragon's vying for their business. You don't see that everyday...

Anyhow... our box arrived... and... it has their trademark picture of a little deceased bean on one side of it. Poor little bean... butchered by these callous men with their knives and hatchets. Sigh... better than a butchered lamb, pig, cow or chicken, I say... but that's just me...

I was a little concerned about the packaging of this box. The contents are apparently packed frozen and then the whole thing is shipped via Purolator. Knowing how fast my frozen berries can thaw if I dally at other shops after getting the groceries... I was a bit concerned about how they planned to keep every thing cold during transport.

I know from our dalliance with GoodFood that there are some strange gel cold packs in white plastic that are used to keep things cold. The gel is apparently flushable down the toilet once it's thawed. I still haven't figured out what that's made out of but... I'll trust the reassurance that it is actually flushable. But... cold packs are only useful if the container is insulated. GoodFood used a bunch of waffle cardboard with a silver reflective liner to keep their boxes cold. Fresh Prep actually sends their stuff in reusable insulated carry-bags (kind of like a soft cat carrier, but without the windows).

I was intrigued to learn what The Very Good Butchers would be using and... was a bit surprised at what I found...

Eh? foam packaging in green plastic? What the heck?? I mean, it worked... with three gel freezer packs, everything was nice and frosty cold but... still... foam packaging!?

Except... as I felt the foam stuff, it didn't feel right. It felt kind of crispy and didn't have the right texture for your typical poly-whatever petroleum-based foam packaging. Which, by the way, is not accepted at recycling depots. I should know, I've tried... polystyrene (styrofoam) is accepted... but none of this other poly-packaging material.

Sooo... I emailed the Good Butchers... sorry, The Very Good Butchers... and asked them about the green plastic foam stuff. They replied within the hour and directed me to the Green Cell Foam site. Qu'est-ce que c'est??

Compostable foam padding? What the heck? Dissolvable in water?? What is this sorcery???!!

But it's true... I cut open the green plastic which is apparently recyclable. I'm not entirely happy that there is still plastic in this mix but after researching the foam stuff, I know why a plastic layer is required.

You see that little skinny piece of foam on top of that pile... well, I held it under the faucet and it dissolved into nothingness. I can see how... if the cold packs get any condensation on them... the whole foam packaging could just dissolve within the box if it wasn't protected by something waterproof.

We are going to put these pieces into our compost bin. Apparently it will dissolve within six months, depending on the moisture content of the compost. In our wet climate, I think they'll be gone within a few weeks.

What are they made of? Well the Green Cell Foam site has a gazillion pictures of corn so... yep, it's made from cornstarch. I'm not sure how they do it (trademark secret likely) but... it's a big leap forward from using petroleum based products which can't be recycled and will still be in our landfills 500 years from now (and beyond). This green cell foam has apparently been around for a few years, and I have to say I'm a bit surprised that I've not come across it before. It's cool though and The Very Good Butchers get a green check-mark from me for using this stuff....

The Very Good Bean Butchers

Bean Butchers? Yep, they're a thing. Butchering poor harmless little beans, all so that we can eat something that looks like meat, tastes like meat but... ain't meat. Even though it's butchered. What a cool idea... and apparently a wildly popular and growing trend.

For a while now, I've been aware The Very Good Butchers. They are expert bean butchers and created various meat-free alternatives using beans, organic veggies and vital wheat gluten (a.k.a. seitan). They are a relatively local company (120 km away in Victoria) which is always nice. Go local!

I know that technically this is a variation of processed food but... it also seems like their ingredient lists are fairly clean. There aren't any weird preservatives and... well... I've been wanting to try them for a while. Our local health food store carries some of their items, mostly sausages, but the VGB site has a few other intriguing products: taco stuffers, BBQ Jackfruit (say what??), Ribz, burgers and even Stuffed Beast (also comes unstuffed).

Big Butcher Box
top row - Pepperoni, BBQ Jackfruit, Ribz
middle row - Taco Stuffers, Smokin' Burgers, Burgers
bottom row - Very British Bangers, Smokin' Bangers

I was poking around their website in mid December and many of their items were sold out, including the Stuffed Beast. The Beast gets rave reviews even from meat-eaters sooo... one of these days we may give that a try. But for now... we decided to dip our toe into the water and try one of their Butcher Boxes... For $112 (including courier shipping)... we get:

• 2 packs of Very Good Burgers
• 1 pack of Smokin' Burgers
• 1 pack of Smokin' Bangers
• 1 pack of Very British Bangers
• 2 packs of Taco Stuff'er
• 1 pack of BBQ Jackfruit 
• 2 packs of Ribz
• 2 packs of Pepperoni
  

The burgers and sausages are obvious... but what does one do with the taco stuffers? And the Jackfruit stuff? Fear not... The Very Good Butchers have some recipe ideas on their website as well. Nice.

We used to get a butcher box (real meat) from Twin Rivers Meats via the local Hospice Society (a fundraiser for them) soooo... this is not all that different in quantity or variety. And it will give me some more stuff to track in the freezer app! It's not like we are going to be having these things every day... maybe once a week... just to see how it goes. It's all a grand experiment

Although... if they ever get bought out by Big Food... we'll be taking our business elsewhere. There's a difference between supporting a small artisan business where you know you are getting quality vs being at the mercy of Big Food and their tendency to value profits over quality. I read that The Very Good Butchers went public on the Canadian Stock Exchange this past year. This might be explained by The Very Good Butchers making an appearance on the Dragon's Den two years ago! They0 had five Dragons vying for a slice of their business. Fascinating... Time will tell if quality still trumps share-holder profits.

Real Books or E-Books?

A few months ago, I cashed in some Aeroplan miles for $100 worth of Chapters gift cards. Ooohhh... books! If you've read some of my earlier blogs, you know that I'm a big fan of books. At the same time, I'm a big fan of lightening the load of stuff that surrounds me. Which means I'm a bit torn.

I love being able to hold a book in my hands, be able to flip back and forth through it, look at the table of contents or even read the ending. But... I've given away so many books over the years, it seems a bit of a waste to buy more physical books, knowing that they will likely just end up in the donation pile in a few months or years. That seems like a waste of money to me since books are NOT cheap. I could try selling them afterwards but, honestly, most books are not worth very much on the secondhand market. Ever go to a garage sale? Paperbacks are $0.50 and hardcovers are $2.00. Eesh...

My other option was to buy some e-books. They are cheaper than real books but not as tangible. I find it more challenging to navigate through them, and can't just flip back easily to find that page where I had read something. Yes, I can make notations and stuff but... it's a bit more of a hassle... and I've never been a "write-in-books" type of person, not even e-books!

Then I began to wonder... should I even buy books? Be they real books or e-books? After all, there is the library which has all sorts of books available for free. What was I thinking getting gift cards for Chapters? I could buy something else... maybe some journals? But I have journals coming out of my ears (bought for cheap at a garage sale), so that's not an option. Fluffy blankets? Decor? No and no... we don't really need anything like that.

After much back and forth... I finally decided on e-books. They are much lighter than real books! Easier to pack around too. And, if my eyes are tired, I can make the print bigger. (See... I don't need glasses!) And if it's getting dark, I can just turn up the back-lighting on my Kindle. Alas my Kobo doesn't have that feature but... there's always something to read on either e-book reader.

And... if I'm sitting in the Superstore parking lot, waiting 45 minutes for my online shopping order to be brought out, I can whip out my smartphone and continue reading whatever book I have on the go. Or start another book. Or whatever. It's just sooo convenient. So, e-books it is... but which ones?

I have had my eye on some fairly hefty books for a while (e.g. Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, both by Cal Newport). I've toyed with the idea of getting them from the library but I'm going to need more than three weeks to absorb them.

Sooo... after a bit of deliberation, I ordered the two books by Cal Newport and then a few decluttering/organizing books (I'm a bit of a junkie), including Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki. While I listened to his audio book, I really wanted to spend some more time with the book and sink into it... or rather, let it sink into me. I also got a book on simple living called You Can Buy Happiness and it's Cheap by Tammy Strobel (of Rowdy Kittens fame). I've been wanting to read that one fora while too. The last two books in the image above were ones that I bought last year and aren't part of the latest purchase.

What about you? Are you an ebook convert or a real book holdout? Or do you have a foot in both worlds?

Tuning into my Yammering Silent To-Do List

 Do you have a silent to-do list? Have you even heard of one? I hadn't until I read Fumio Sasaki's book, Good-bye Things. Here's the gist of it in a nutshell. The silent to-do list is all of those things that are NOT on your to-do list but that still impinge on your consciousness as you walk by them. The item itself is silent... but the voice in your head is not!

• The bookshelf that needs dusting - "Shoot, gotta dust that. What if guests come over (well... not during Covid obviously) and think I'm a complete house slob!"
• The little tchotchke sitting on the counter that needs a glue job - "Right, gotta look for the Crazy Glue. I don't think we have Crazy Glue. Gotta remember to buy Crazy Glue." 
• The frayed tea towel - "Gotta fix that or toss that. But we don't have a sewing machine. But it's still a useful towel except for that fraying hem."
• The books that haven't been read - "No time... but one day! Just not today. It's too thick for today. Maybe I should let it go? No, I paid good money for that book. Maybe I'll read it tomorrow."
• The messy desk that needs organizing - "Not right now... maybe tomorrow."
• The email in the Inbox that needs a reply - "Ooohhh... still don't know what to say, will wait till inspiration strikes..."
• Those family tree documents that need to get processed and entered into the tree - "One of these days... when I have time..."
  
• And on and on it goes.

I don't know about you, but I have dozens... maybe hundreds of these little silent to-do list items pinging off me over single day. And that's on top of everything that's on my regular to-do list, the big items. And, I have to say, all that pinging, and the continual batting away of things in my head, is exhausting... and overwhelming.

Now, Sasaki says the solution is... wait for it... less things. Which makes sense. Less things means less pinging and less activity in my head. If the bookshelf didn't have so many tchotchkes on it, it would be easier to dust. If we didn't have that little tchotchke in the first place, it wouldn't need repair! Although... one still needs tea towels... and books... and documents. But there are obviously work-arounds to all of those things. Do we really need to save every document and receipt? Can they be tossed or just scanned and then tossed? And books... oh books are a whole other thing... requiring a whole separate blog post.

Suffice to say, Sasaki's little piece has opened my eyes to the things that are looking at me with pleading, mournful, regretful eyes. The things that I need to take care of... and what I'm beginning to realize is that... some of those things... I don't want to be responsible for them anymore. They weigh me down and I've only got so much energy and enthusiasm for care-taking. I am not, after all, a museum curator!

Here's an example... we have a whole slew of vases that my partner loves to fill up with various flowers from the garden. Some of those vases are ones that I picked up on travels and, unfortunately, one of those got broken. I had had it for 20 years and I was sad and angry that it got broken. But, I worked through that fairly quickly by acknowledging my emotions. After all, it's only a vase. It's only stuff. But I'm one of those people who has a fairly strong emotional attachment to some of that stuff (MY stuff). Some of my stuff contains memories and there are so many emotions attached to those memories. I don't want to lose the stuff because I'm afraid that I will lose the memory that goes with it.

After the broken vase episode, I went through the vase cupboard and pulled out some of my favourite ones and put them on the bookshelf in my office. "There! Now they won't get used and won't get broken." They've been sitting there for months now, cluttering up the bookshelf (that needs dusting) and mutely staring at me every time I look at them. Because, really, they are vases and their purpose is to hold flowers, not to clutter up a bookshelf, even if they are safe there. Sigh... So I put them back into the vase cupboard. Que sera sera. Nothing lasts forever and it's much lighter on the bookshelf now without those little vases nagging at me. Now, there's just some unread books... nagging at me...

I know that David Allen's Getting Things Done method suggests taking a stack of papers (recycled of course - and maybe cut into eights) and writing down every loose end, every incomplete task, every thing that needs doing on a separate piece of paper. You then take each piece of paper and decide on the next actionable step (small step) for that particular to-do item and then enter it into your to-do list or task manager or whatever. It's a fairly time intensive process and I've only ever done it once, but I hang onto bits and pieces of the system. I think, now that I know about the silent to-do list, I would likely have 100s of items on those little pieces of paper. A tad overwhelming but... if the yammering silent items actually got captured and processed onto a to-do list... maybe they wouldn't yammer so much. Or my mind wouldn't yammer so much.

And perhaps the real question isn't... when/how am I going to get this thing done... but rather, does this thing even really need to get done?

Does this massive book really need to get read? Or can I just let it go? But I might read it someday! Really?? Ya think? Well... maybe not. But I paid good money for it! So that's a good reason to keep it hogging space on the bookshelf and taking up space in your yammering mind? Sigh... maybe not. Perhaps I could sell them on Kijiji or Ebay? Oh, for Pete's sake! Think about it... do you really want to put that much effort into a book that might get you $10? Sigh... maybe not...

I don't think I'm quite ready to follow in Sasaki's footsteps, at least not to the extremes that he went to... but, I am moving in the direction of letting more things go. It can be done. If only to quite the yammering in my head!

Surrounded by Stuff

The stuff in my office got to me in mid-December. Everywhere I looked, there was just stuff and more stuff. I had had enough and started a decluttering purge.

I do this every once in a while when the decluttering bug bites me. Or when the stuff just seems like too much. Or when I watch a bit of a Hoarding: Buried Alive episode. Or after reading a book like Fumio Sasaki's book, Goodbye Things.

Lest you think I am a slob or a hoarder, I am not. I come from a long line of super-organized Germans who, while they might keep old jars and bits of string (because... you never know!), keep them in super-organized fashion. Our house was always neat and tidy growing up, even in the closets and cupboards. Everything had a home and we all knew where things went.

Now, this is not a problem when you live in a 2000 sq ft house, and we had a lot of space for stuff when I was growing up. There was a whole massive side of one cupboard totally devoted to gift wrapping - paper, bows, ribbons, tags, stuffing. It was all there. Super handy, super efficient and super organized. If you have the space...

Today, my partner and I live in the upper half of a typical BC box house and we have about 1000 sq ft (maybe a bit less cause that's the outside measurements and doesn't include the square footage devoted to walls and what-not). We have three bedrooms, one a half baths, a living room and a kitchen/dining room. Oh, and three lovely closets in the hallway. It's a nice little house but, honestly, I've lived in apartments that are about the same size. So, it's not like we have a tonne of space. I've added extra shelves in all the closets because there is always so much wasted space up top. And we use all of that space with a vengeance.

But... it's a lot of stuff. Still. Even after moving from an 1800 sq ft condo in Calgary when we came here. We did a lot of downsizing over the years, even here on the Island. Letting go of furniture and stuff. Do we really need all this stuff? What is it all anyways?

And so I go on a little scan through my closet and cupboards in my office and... quickly realize that a lot of it has sentimental value. Little stones that I've picked up along the way. Vases that look sooo cute. Tchotchkes from here and there. Trip souvenirs. Childhood books. A little vase from my grandmother, a gift from a friend. A crystal bowl from my other grandmother. Every item seems to have a memory and an emotion and a person attached to it. I can't let them go!

But, when I sit down with my partner and go through her things, I could easily let go of all of her stuff. Of course I could, I don't have the emotions and memories attached to those objects. They are just things to me and I have no attachment to them.

When I come back to my things, I sit in front of them with a perplexed frown. Why? Why do these objects hold so much attachment? And I realize... with a bit of a gulp... that I really am not all that different from those folk on the hoarding shows. I want to hang onto all of these things because of the emotions that they bring up. Whether it's joy or security or nostalgia. Or even fear. If I let go of this thing... I might need it one day! Better keep it. No matter that I haven't needed it in the lasts ten years. Nope... as soon as I let it go, Murphy's Law kicks in and I'll be needing it.

Like this. My old pair of headphones that I use at the computer were getting pretty ratty. The padding on the ear covers was deteriorating and the plastic was flaking onto the side of my face every time I put them on. So I bought a new pair. Beautiful new headphones. But then I looked at the old pair and thought... They still work just fine. Maybe I should keep them just in case something goes wrong with the new pair? So I did... for months. Crazy, no? But I happy to report that those headphones are now in the electronics recycling container, ready to go to the depot. Although... I still have an old, stained mouse pad in the cupboard... and a spare mouse... just in case the current ones die. Sigh...

And so it went... all through the latter half of December. Some things went to the thrift store. Somethings went into recycling, others into the shredder and still others got scanned first. A bunch of things got listed on Kijiji. If they sell, great. If not, off to the thrift store they go. And some things got set aside for my niece and sister... but only after checking with them first! Some things (like cute rocks and driftwood pieces) went out into the yard to decorate the fairy garden. And... a few things ended up in the garbage, but not too much.

I feel lighter, as if I can breathe and move.

Our ultimate goal, once everything settles down again (if it ever does), is to travel more. Maybe sell the house and become digital nomads. Not sure yet... but if that is our goal... all of this stuff is a big barrier to that goal. We went on a one year sabbatical a few years ago, sold the condo and put everything into storage. It was a pricey hassle, let me tell you. Not planning on doing that the second time around.

I'd rather do the decluttering slowly over time, not in one big fell swoop at the end. And, sometimes, I take pictures of the things I am releasing back into the world. Just in case I want to look at them again. You never know... and digital pictures don't take up any physical space... right?

Don't even get me started on digital decluttering. Ugh!!

Credits - desk image from Lisa Fotios from Pexels

Why New Year's Resolutions Fail and What to do Instead

Right then, hands up all of you... er... us... who have made New Year's resolutions. OK, great... now, hands up for those of us who have fallen flat on our faces by the end of January? Yup... me too. It's inevitable in a way. The New Year rolls around, all fresh and bright and shiny and we think... THIS is the year! And we make a long list of everything that we are going to change this year: lose weight, exercise more, learn to play that dusty guitar in the corner, become fluent in Spanish, start an Emergency Fund, etc. We make these resolutions and resolve to do them, come flood or high water!

Truth is, that shiny new year is weighed down by a sack of expectations before it's even one day old. No wonder that we fail... and yet next year... we try again. I do believe someone had a quote which defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

The thing is, our amazing brain likes to streamline a lot of its work. It doesn't like to have to make decisions on what to do for all sorts of little micro actions, particularly if they are repeated time after time.

For example, driving a car. When we're first learning to drive a car, it's a huge brain drain. Every little action is new and different and we need to pay attention and think things through. But... drive a car for a few decades and these routines just run in the background without a lot of conscious thought. It's how we can get from home to the grocery store and realize we daydreamed the entire way! Of course, if something out of the ordinary happens, the brain kicks in again and we hopefully avoid the deer running across the street.

This brain routine thing can be a good thing... or a bad thing. Sometime when we were kids (or maybe when I was a kid), we'd sit in front of the TV and have a little snack before bed. Repeat that enough times and... now, as an adult, I sit in front of TV and I want a little snack. In some ways, we're no better off than poor Pavlov's dog. Ring the bell and salivate. Turn on the TV and salivate. So these brain routines aren't necessarily good for us... they're just the brain's way of making it's job a lot easier. "Oh yeah, TV's on... time for a snack!"

So, along comes the New Year and we think... right then... enough of that snacking in front of the TV. I am NOT going to snack. It works for maybe a few days or a week and then I've had a crappy day with the Zoom call or whatever and... it's snack time in front of the TV. And... well... once I've snacked one day in front of the TV, it's no biggie to just snack again the next day... and maybe the next day. I can always restart this no snacking thing on February 1. Yeah. Right.

There's a few of things going on here. First is that the brain loves routine... and once a routine has been programmed, it can kick in again days, weeks or months later. Sooo... that one snack night in mid-January ends up continuing for weeks. Second is that nature (and our brain) abhors a vacuum. It doesn't work to just take something away. Or to say "No" to something. Our brains are like... "Wait, what?" and it gets all twitchy because it keeps wanting to run the TV=Snack Time routine. Which explains why we often cave and eat the whole box of Merci chocolates in one go. I should know. sigh. Third is that we have a limited amount of decision-making capacity. So if, as we sit in front of the TV, our brain keeps saying "TV=Snack" and we keep making the decision to say "No"... eventually our "No's" are going to be worn down by the brain's never-ending attempt to run it's little routine.

But... there is help. Our brain programs can be rewritten but it's likely going to take small steps. Instead of relying on willpower and decision-making capacity, which is limited, we set up new habits. Like I said, our brain loves routines and habits are just routines. But habits don't just burst out of our brains fully formed in all their lovely glory. Nope... remember... small steps.

I'm a morning person. I like to get up early and it seems like a perfect time to go for a quick walk, just to get the blood flowing. In the summer, when it's light out and the sun is shining, this is not too challenging. In the winter, when it's dark and the rain is pouring down... good luck with that. If I lie in bed and have think and make a decision about whether or not I am going to go for my walk today... the walk will lose every time.

So, I started small. I'll just get dressed in my walk clothes. And once that's done... I'll go put on my walking shoes and coat. And then I'll just walk to the end of the driveway. Usually, once I'm out there, I'll go farther of course, "Cause, I'm already out here and it's not so bad." After weeks and months of this, it's now second nature... habit... for me to get up in the morning, get dressed and all kitted up in my rain gear and go out for a walk. I don't to have to think about it... it's just what I do in the mornings. It's a full-fledged habit. But... it took a while to get there.

I've also tried to make it a bit more "fun" by downloading audio books from the library and listening to a book as I'm trudging up the Beast Hill with the rain dripping down my face. It distracts me from that little internal voice that still yammers at me... "Do we really want to go up the Beast today? It's going to be sooo hard! And we're going to find out what a winter slug we have become!" But I can't listen to the audio book AND listen to that voice... otherwise I'll miss what's going on the in the book... so I just focus on the book and my brain/body work together to get me walking up the hill. It's when I start to think about it that things can go sideways and I end up just doing a quick walk around the block. The thing is... afterwards, I never regret going out in the pouring rain and slogging up the Beast. I feel good about myself!

Sooo... did I do New Year's Resolutions this year? Kind of. I set some goals for myself, ambitious goals I think, but I've also got a plan of small steps to get there. I'm tying them together with other well-formed habits, a practice called habit-stacking. After lunch, for example, I'm going to sit down at my computer and open a project file I've been working on (well... actually, I've not been working on it... but I want to be working on it!). I plan to work on it for a minimum of 15 minutes. And then we'll see where it goes from there. One of my biggest hurdles is getting started on things but even I can do something for 15 minutes. Odds are, once I'm into it, I'll work on it for a lot longer but... small steps...

As for the TV=Snacking routine/habit... I could do something else and not watch TV (what a thought). Do a puzzle. Genealogy data entry. Read a book. Play a virtual game of Skip-Bo with my Mom. The possibilities are endless. And once the cue (TV) is out of the picture... then the entire routine collapses. As long as I don't start snacking while doing the puzzle.

If I'm dead-set on watching TV, I could have a bowl of fruit on the coffee table, ready to be snacked on. Better than a whole box of chocolates. Speaking of which... I try not to keep chocolates in the house. Cause if they're here... I'll eat them. But it's not a complete vacuum... because I know that if the chocolate munchies strike, I can always walk down to the corner store and buy them. Strangely enough, however, that little bit of extra effort is enough of a kinetic barrier to stop the chocolate craving in its tracks.

There's a tonne of info out there on how to form habits. I recently read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, which I highly recommend. Another book by Charle Duhigg, The Power of Habit, is also excellent. Maybe in the future, instead of making New Year's resolutions... we'll commit to forming some new habits for the New Year. And they all start with small steps.

What's in Your Freezer?

Have you ever lost anything in your freezer? Of course you have. We all have. Most freezers are bottomless black holes, particularly chest freezers. "Oops... forgot we had that roast... now it's totally freezer-burnt!" It always annoys me when we have to toss food away...

Fridge freezers aren't much better, be they the traditional top-mount ones or the pull-out drawer ones. Our fridge freezer is on the bottom of the fridge but consists of two doors, one for each side. There are three pull-out racks on each side which, you might think, would make it much easier to organize things but... such is not the case. It just means it's easier to lose something and then have to hunt through six different racks trying to find the elusive item.

Oh sure, it starts out as organized... we have a plan for what food will go into what rack but... over time, a rack will be too full, so we put something into a place where it does not belong and...very quickly... we lose track of what is in the freezer. Sigh.

And our chest freezer, which is tiny (5 cubic feet) can still lose things. Particularly if they cycle down to the bottom... you have to haul everything out in order to figure out what might be in the frosty pit. It's not the most efficient system in the world. And... ***cough***... sometimes we are too lazy to label bags or containers. "We'll remember that this is pea soup, right?" Nope... turns out apple sauce and pea soup can look remarkably similar through blurry, frosty plastic containers.

For a while, we had a laminated sheet of paper where we would try to keep track of what we had in the freezers and how much. That was when our fridge freezer was just the regular top-mount one. Two freezers... easy... nope. It worked for a while and then we'd get behind and... it all fell apart. Now, with a fridge freezer that has, essentially, 6 compartments, a two-sided piece of paper isn't going to work.

So I started snooping around for a freezer app. Surely someone must have come up with such an idea. Turns out that they have... many different options.

I took a look and downloaded an app called Items in my Freezer... it looked pretty simple.

I was able to add different freezer areas - so Chest Freezer - basket, Chest Freezer - shelf, Chest Freezer - bottom, etc. And then each pull-out rack in our fridge freezer got it's own section as well. I then did a freezer inventory coupled with some reorganizing and entered it all into the app. Voila! Instant freezer inventory. And it is relatively easy to update it as we consume things or add things. The only hiccup is that it doesn't allow us to sort by categories. So if my partner asks if we have any more baked beans, I have to scan the various freezer lists to see where baked beans show up (some are upstairs for easy use and some are in the chest freezer). It's annoying. But it's also free... and yet... annoying.

So I have been snooping around some more looking for an app that would allow us to categorize things and sort better. It would also be nice if the app were shareable so my partner could have it as well.

And I came across an called Frizor (it's by French developers - hence some of the quaint spelling mistakes).

It has ads or you can buy a subscription which costs €1/month (about $1.50/month) or €7/month (about $11/year). It has categories (veggies, meat, fish, starters, desserts, individual dishes, etc) and you can sort by all sorts of things, freezing date, categories, alphabetical or expiration date. I just downloaded it and am going to have to go and do another freezer inventory but... I think it has potential and it might be worth the cost. We'll try it for a while with the annoying ads and then see how it goes. It might be worth the annual cost (breaks down to $1/month) just in limiting the amount of stuff that gets wasted. Although... since we've gone meatless, there is much less of that!

I'm going to give it a try for a few weeks and will report back on how it goes...

How do you keep track of your freezer stuff?  Heck, do you even keep track of your freezer stuff?