When it´s really hot
-ballpoint pens spit ink
-the printer´s ink goes dry
-and my brain goes into slug mode.
So, no lengthy post from me before the weekend, either. Diet is going on well, even though I tend to retain some water when it´s that hot, but that bodes well for a whoosh in the not-so-distant future. Exercise is still nonexistant (I´m not risking ending up in a molten puddle on the tarmac), but I have stuck to about 1200 calories a day, so this should about even out the laziness. They promised a drop in temperature for the weekend, and then I´ll get my lazy bum off the couch again for morning walks.
On a different note, let´s pray for the people in the way of hurricane Irene. They sure can use it.
Wish y´all a cool and unharmed weekend.
Julia
2011/08/26
2011/08/23
I´m melting
...and so are the pounds (I hope). I´m sitting at my computer with an electric fan at my feet to keep from dissolving in a puddle. I know, people from, say, Nevada would scoff at this but 34 degrees centigrade at 60 percent humidity is enough to make me wish for a big glass of something cool.
The weekend was, at least where good intentions were concerned, a success. I maintained, which is more than I could say about most of the other weekends this year, and I am determined to get the weight even lower down. The heatwave we are having right now helps there because I´m just not hungry.
The down side is that it also keeps me from attacking the bigger projects I have for my flat. Getting a stroke because of overexerting myself would not do it at all.
And on the exercise side, the only time I can do anything there is very early. Well, I never said I was built for the tropics...
I had a small NSV this morning when I went through my closet for something airy to wear to work. I mentioned the factory outlet shop I used to frequent before, and on one of the last visits they had a four-piece mix-and-match linen ensemble where the jacket and vest fit me okay, but the pants and shorts were way too tight. I took them along anyway because I liked the style, but had never been able to wear them. Today, I decided to finally try them on and- they fit! Except for the trousers being way too long, but now I can see what needs to be taken off the length. Maybe I´ll take out my sewing machine tonight and shorten them. Unless I melt down first, that is.
And now I´m off for something cool and my balcony.
Julia
The weekend was, at least where good intentions were concerned, a success. I maintained, which is more than I could say about most of the other weekends this year, and I am determined to get the weight even lower down. The heatwave we are having right now helps there because I´m just not hungry.
The down side is that it also keeps me from attacking the bigger projects I have for my flat. Getting a stroke because of overexerting myself would not do it at all.
And on the exercise side, the only time I can do anything there is very early. Well, I never said I was built for the tropics...
I had a small NSV this morning when I went through my closet for something airy to wear to work. I mentioned the factory outlet shop I used to frequent before, and on one of the last visits they had a four-piece mix-and-match linen ensemble where the jacket and vest fit me okay, but the pants and shorts were way too tight. I took them along anyway because I liked the style, but had never been able to wear them. Today, I decided to finally try them on and- they fit! Except for the trousers being way too long, but now I can see what needs to be taken off the length. Maybe I´ll take out my sewing machine tonight and shorten them. Unless I melt down first, that is.
And now I´m off for something cool and my balcony.
Julia
2011/08/22
Recipe monday: Zucchini wasps
Low-carb and kiddy-proof dinner for two (or more, if the zucchino is big enough)
1 bi-i-ig zucchino, cut lenghtwise and hollowed out, but with the skin still on to keep everything together,
put a thin coating of olive oil all over its surface and set it on an ovenproof dish.
Into the hollow comes a mix of ground beef, onions (cubed), concentrated tomato puree, pepper, salt and lots of oregano. Top it off with a generous sprinkling of grated cheese. 30 to 45 minutes in the oven, at the temperature you´d use for pizza, and dinner is ready. (I don´t do temperature conversion, but I use 180 degrees centigrade)
Why I call these wasps? I cut a thin stripe of the skin off the bottom of the hollowed-out zucchini to keep them from toppling over, and I cut narrow stripes from it and put them on top of the filling before I put the cheese on. The end result looks like a big wasp without wings, so, with a bit of creative decorating... :).
Enjoy!
Julia
1 bi-i-ig zucchino, cut lenghtwise and hollowed out, but with the skin still on to keep everything together,
put a thin coating of olive oil all over its surface and set it on an ovenproof dish.
Into the hollow comes a mix of ground beef, onions (cubed), concentrated tomato puree, pepper, salt and lots of oregano. Top it off with a generous sprinkling of grated cheese. 30 to 45 minutes in the oven, at the temperature you´d use for pizza, and dinner is ready. (I don´t do temperature conversion, but I use 180 degrees centigrade)
Why I call these wasps? I cut a thin stripe of the skin off the bottom of the hollowed-out zucchini to keep them from toppling over, and I cut narrow stripes from it and put them on top of the filling before I put the cheese on. The end result looks like a big wasp without wings, so, with a bit of creative decorating... :).
Enjoy!
Julia
2011/08/19
Hopes for the weekend
There it is again- the weekend. Just as this is a planet where everybody is forced to spend 1/7 of their lives on Mondays, it´s also a planet that has, at least hereabouts, 2/7 of the total time occupied by weekends. While that seems to be, mathematically, obvious it´s also a big source of frustration to me these last weeks when looking at my weight graphs.
During the week from Monday thru Friday, my weight usually goes down fairly steadily. What does me in every time is the weekend. I haven´t managed lately to keep my weight at least stationary over the weekend, thus ending up regaining and then losing the same four pounds (or worse) over and over again.
So what are my intentions for this weekend?
-go easy on anything with carbs in it (if possible, avoid it altogether)
-halve the portions of anything else
-keep away from nuts
So, no bread for breakfast, and no more than one tablespoon full of anything rice, pasta or potato.
They used to have a kind of pasta that was made from soy protein instead of grains at the health food shop. Perhaps I should go look for that again. The downside is that it is rather pricey, but then again, if I get by this plateau, the expense would be worth it.
I´ll see what the weekend brings...
Julia
During the week from Monday thru Friday, my weight usually goes down fairly steadily. What does me in every time is the weekend. I haven´t managed lately to keep my weight at least stationary over the weekend, thus ending up regaining and then losing the same four pounds (or worse) over and over again.
So what are my intentions for this weekend?
-go easy on anything with carbs in it (if possible, avoid it altogether)
-halve the portions of anything else
-keep away from nuts
So, no bread for breakfast, and no more than one tablespoon full of anything rice, pasta or potato.
They used to have a kind of pasta that was made from soy protein instead of grains at the health food shop. Perhaps I should go look for that again. The downside is that it is rather pricey, but then again, if I get by this plateau, the expense would be worth it.
I´ll see what the weekend brings...
Julia
2011/08/18
My laundry´s online
That´s what I can reply whenever somebody enquires about those still-humid items I pull out of my washing machine. It is, of course, a bit tongue-in-cheeky, but the core of it is that we don´t use an electric clothes dryer. Instead, I have a folding wire contraption I can set up for towels, pantys and such, and everything that would go on a hanger for storage will go on the same hanger, and a mobile clothes rack, for drying, too.
I used to have a combined washer/dryer that was, for one, prohibitively expensive to buy in the first place, and when I used the dryer function I found out quickly that it had two settings: "boil" and "fry", meaning that either the clothes were still sogging wet when they came out, or the heat did severe damage to everything inside that had just a trace of synthetic in it. Either way, the only thing I could put in there to dry was towels and bedsheets. So, I started to line-dry my laundry the good old-fashioned way.
When the old washer/dryer finally expired, I had to decide what to replace it with, as there´s only room for one machine in our bath-and-laundry room. I opted for a washer-only model, preferring to spend a bit more on that to spending the same amount on a so-so washer/dryer.
I have never regretted the decision. Of course, I still look at driers sometimes in the shops when I am window-shopping. But since they are required to put the amount of electricity used for a dryer cycle on the machines, just the thought of what it would do to my electricity bill to use one stops me rather fast.
And there´s another, even more compelling reason.
Everybody who owns a dryer knows about dryer lint. That´s the fluffy batch of dust you can remove from the lint screen after each use. It´s also the amount of fabric rubbed off your clothes in one drying cycle.
At my parents´ place we had an electric dryer for towels (they were doctors and needed plenty of them at their office). These terrycloth towels were used once, then washed and dried. Every about five years, they needed to be replaced because the washing and drying had taken off the "terry" and left just the "cloth", so to say, rendering them unusable.
Now if a dryer can eat up thick terrycloth fabric like that, of course it won´t be any kinder to whatever else you put in there.Synthetic fabrics may not rub off as much in the dryer, but the heat weakens the fiber, making them more prone to tearing. I always wince when I see someone who takes care not to use too hot a setting for laundering the items and then dumps them into the dryer as if the dryer heat were less harmful than washer heat.
My clothes have never even seen the inside of a dryer, and they take a lot longer to wear down than those towels of my parents´.
But what happens if I need something to dry fast? In wintertime, I put it on or in front of a radiator, and in summer I set a big electric fan in front of the clothes rack. The moving air will dry things as fast as a dryer, at a fraction of energy costs, and with no damage to the garments. And the fan is something I have anyway, instead of air condition.
Oh, and the shirts and blouses require less ironing, too.
The initial investment of a clothes rack and waterproof hangers has been recouped long ago, just in terms of electricity bills being lower.
Nowadays, I wouldn´t take an electric dryer for a gift, because the follow-up cost is just too big. Even if I had room for it in my bathroom.
Julia
I used to have a combined washer/dryer that was, for one, prohibitively expensive to buy in the first place, and when I used the dryer function I found out quickly that it had two settings: "boil" and "fry", meaning that either the clothes were still sogging wet when they came out, or the heat did severe damage to everything inside that had just a trace of synthetic in it. Either way, the only thing I could put in there to dry was towels and bedsheets. So, I started to line-dry my laundry the good old-fashioned way.
When the old washer/dryer finally expired, I had to decide what to replace it with, as there´s only room for one machine in our bath-and-laundry room. I opted for a washer-only model, preferring to spend a bit more on that to spending the same amount on a so-so washer/dryer.
I have never regretted the decision. Of course, I still look at driers sometimes in the shops when I am window-shopping. But since they are required to put the amount of electricity used for a dryer cycle on the machines, just the thought of what it would do to my electricity bill to use one stops me rather fast.
And there´s another, even more compelling reason.
Everybody who owns a dryer knows about dryer lint. That´s the fluffy batch of dust you can remove from the lint screen after each use. It´s also the amount of fabric rubbed off your clothes in one drying cycle.
At my parents´ place we had an electric dryer for towels (they were doctors and needed plenty of them at their office). These terrycloth towels were used once, then washed and dried. Every about five years, they needed to be replaced because the washing and drying had taken off the "terry" and left just the "cloth", so to say, rendering them unusable.
Now if a dryer can eat up thick terrycloth fabric like that, of course it won´t be any kinder to whatever else you put in there.Synthetic fabrics may not rub off as much in the dryer, but the heat weakens the fiber, making them more prone to tearing. I always wince when I see someone who takes care not to use too hot a setting for laundering the items and then dumps them into the dryer as if the dryer heat were less harmful than washer heat.
My clothes have never even seen the inside of a dryer, and they take a lot longer to wear down than those towels of my parents´.
But what happens if I need something to dry fast? In wintertime, I put it on or in front of a radiator, and in summer I set a big electric fan in front of the clothes rack. The moving air will dry things as fast as a dryer, at a fraction of energy costs, and with no damage to the garments. And the fan is something I have anyway, instead of air condition.
Oh, and the shirts and blouses require less ironing, too.
The initial investment of a clothes rack and waterproof hangers has been recouped long ago, just in terms of electricity bills being lower.
Nowadays, I wouldn´t take an electric dryer for a gift, because the follow-up cost is just too big. Even if I had room for it in my bathroom.
Julia
2011/08/16
Freezing my bottom off
No, I have not moved to the land of the kiwis who right now have plenty of that white stuff you get in winter.
But I have a NSV to celebrate, and it has to do with my trusty freezer.
You see, I have always loved curry dishes. The warm yellow goodness of chicken and ananas, coated with generous amounts of sauce, mixed with mounds of rice... I usually ended up stuffing myself to the point of bursting at the seams. The fact that ananas comes mostly in big cans and chicken breast filets are sold in packs of four meant having to use up all of the packages if I didn´t want to have part of it spoil in the fridge before I got around to using it up.So, there was always plenty of curry to overeat on. I had stopped making curry dishes because I deemed it too risky for me.
Yesterday, I prepared a chicken and curry dish for dinner, in the usual amounts.
And then I went on to serve it, in bowls half the size of the ones I usually take for curry dishes. With just two tablespoons of cooked rice for each bowl, and two soup ladles of the curry on top.
Guess what- both DH and I found that to be enough!
And the remaining rice and curry went into two portion-sized microwaveable containers and into the freezer, for DH to brown-bag it to work.
So, what used to be one dinner will now be one dinner for two plus two lunches for DH, thanks to being able to use the freezer.
And I have, this morning, not had to face any damages on the scales the way I was used to after having had curry.
For me, that is what it means to freeze my bottom off.
If I eat just small portions and freeze the leftovers in single portions, I will most likely be able to condense my rear end some more, and I won´t have to pay for it by not being able to eat my favourite dishes any more. The only thing it takes is the willpower to put any surplus into the freezer instead of into my mouth.
Julia
But I have a NSV to celebrate, and it has to do with my trusty freezer.
You see, I have always loved curry dishes. The warm yellow goodness of chicken and ananas, coated with generous amounts of sauce, mixed with mounds of rice... I usually ended up stuffing myself to the point of bursting at the seams. The fact that ananas comes mostly in big cans and chicken breast filets are sold in packs of four meant having to use up all of the packages if I didn´t want to have part of it spoil in the fridge before I got around to using it up.So, there was always plenty of curry to overeat on. I had stopped making curry dishes because I deemed it too risky for me.
Yesterday, I prepared a chicken and curry dish for dinner, in the usual amounts.
And then I went on to serve it, in bowls half the size of the ones I usually take for curry dishes. With just two tablespoons of cooked rice for each bowl, and two soup ladles of the curry on top.
Guess what- both DH and I found that to be enough!
And the remaining rice and curry went into two portion-sized microwaveable containers and into the freezer, for DH to brown-bag it to work.
So, what used to be one dinner will now be one dinner for two plus two lunches for DH, thanks to being able to use the freezer.
And I have, this morning, not had to face any damages on the scales the way I was used to after having had curry.
For me, that is what it means to freeze my bottom off.
If I eat just small portions and freeze the leftovers in single portions, I will most likely be able to condense my rear end some more, and I won´t have to pay for it by not being able to eat my favourite dishes any more. The only thing it takes is the willpower to put any surplus into the freezer instead of into my mouth.
Julia
2011/08/12
Greetings from the cat´s cradle
..at least that´s what my workplace has been these last days. Add to that the continuous shifts in atmospheric pressure that have been giving me a whacking headache most of the time, and you have the reason why I haven´t been posting too much these days. Thank God it´s Friday.
I´m going to catch up on some badly needed zzzzzs, go back to eating healthily after having eaten mainly prefab meals for a week and hope that the weight that has brought on will also disappear.
See you next week, hopefully somewhat less hurriedly.
Julia
I´m going to catch up on some badly needed zzzzzs, go back to eating healthily after having eaten mainly prefab meals for a week and hope that the weight that has brought on will also disappear.
See you next week, hopefully somewhat less hurriedly.
Julia
2011/08/10
Mirroring reflections
Yesterday, I went shopping during lunch break. I had to stand in line at the cash register for some time, and they have a mirrored wall right opposite it. I have, for a long time, avoided looking in that direction so I would not have to face myself.
Yesterday, I looked. What I saw was an average-looking woman, perhaps even looking somewhat younger than the number in my passport, wearing jeans, a leather jacket and a pair of boots with a little heel.
What I did not see was The Blob I had been avoiding to look at. I did not look grotesquely fat any more, but average.
And that means yes, I look better because I lost those almost forty pounds. I feel better, too.
I have lost almost forty pounds. And I can lose forty more, even if it takes longer than with the first forty.
I needed that reminder, I really did.
Never ever ever give up.
Julia
Yesterday, I looked. What I saw was an average-looking woman, perhaps even looking somewhat younger than the number in my passport, wearing jeans, a leather jacket and a pair of boots with a little heel.
What I did not see was The Blob I had been avoiding to look at. I did not look grotesquely fat any more, but average.
And that means yes, I look better because I lost those almost forty pounds. I feel better, too.
I have lost almost forty pounds. And I can lose forty more, even if it takes longer than with the first forty.
I needed that reminder, I really did.
Never ever ever give up.
Julia
2011/08/08
Recipe Monday: Organic ramen spice
Ramen... it´s the old standard standby if all you have is a water cooker and a bowl to prepare a quick lunch at work.
For me, it meant getting a headache most of the time I ate the stuff. Until one day, I had the misfortune of spilling some of the ramen broth on a white blouse, leaving an ugly reddish splotch that proved resistant to each and every method of spot removal I tried on it.
So that was what I had been putting inside my body? Just what the heck was inside those little bags labelled "spice mix"? Apart an unhealthy dose of monosodium glutamate?
So, I decided to find out if there would be a healthier way of seasoning my lunch noodles.
It turned out there was.
I took plain chinese mie noodles to start with, you can of course use the noodles from a ramen pack minus the spice.
Then I bought myself a cheap electric coffee grinder that is, now, used exclusively for grinding spices.(Don´t use your regular coffee mill for this unless you want to have your coffee taste of spices).
And used it for grinding up a mixture of dried chili flakes, laurel leaves (use sparingly), curry powder, and powdered onions, plus a good amount of a dried mixture of leeks, carrots, parsley, and celery that is sold hereabouts under the name of "soup herbs". The resulting powder I mixed in with a portion of organic dried beef broth concentrate ( chicken will do, too, or vegetable broth for the non-carnivores out there).
I put the mix into an airtight container, which I took along to the office with the plain noodles.One teaspoonful of it will spice up a bowl of ramen noodles as well as the mixes furnished by manufacturers, without the side effects of artificial aromas or monosodium glutamate. You can, of course, tweak the spices to suit your personal taste. And, the mixture also is great for spicing up a pot of vegetable soup.
Try and enjoy!
Julia
For me, it meant getting a headache most of the time I ate the stuff. Until one day, I had the misfortune of spilling some of the ramen broth on a white blouse, leaving an ugly reddish splotch that proved resistant to each and every method of spot removal I tried on it.
So that was what I had been putting inside my body? Just what the heck was inside those little bags labelled "spice mix"? Apart an unhealthy dose of monosodium glutamate?
So, I decided to find out if there would be a healthier way of seasoning my lunch noodles.
It turned out there was.
I took plain chinese mie noodles to start with, you can of course use the noodles from a ramen pack minus the spice.
Then I bought myself a cheap electric coffee grinder that is, now, used exclusively for grinding spices.(Don´t use your regular coffee mill for this unless you want to have your coffee taste of spices).
And used it for grinding up a mixture of dried chili flakes, laurel leaves (use sparingly), curry powder, and powdered onions, plus a good amount of a dried mixture of leeks, carrots, parsley, and celery that is sold hereabouts under the name of "soup herbs". The resulting powder I mixed in with a portion of organic dried beef broth concentrate ( chicken will do, too, or vegetable broth for the non-carnivores out there).
I put the mix into an airtight container, which I took along to the office with the plain noodles.One teaspoonful of it will spice up a bowl of ramen noodles as well as the mixes furnished by manufacturers, without the side effects of artificial aromas or monosodium glutamate. You can, of course, tweak the spices to suit your personal taste. And, the mixture also is great for spicing up a pot of vegetable soup.
Try and enjoy!
Julia
Grrrl on a swing
The last month has brought no change at all with my weight, or rather, my weight range. The weight pendulum ist swinging back and forth in an amplitude of roundabout six pounds between highest and lowest points, meaning that every time I hope that I get closer to breaking the downwards barrier, I find myself face to face with sudden regains which bring me back to where I started from.
It doesn´t help that we have to visit DMiL at least once a month, which always means too little sleep and too many carbs on that weekend, both of which seem to bring my weight back up further than just the calorie count of what I ate would make me expect.
It seems to get ever more difficult to shed those gains again. As if something were draining my body´s ability to recondense itself.
The problem I have with that is that every time I see such a regain on the scale, I keep remembering the sneers of my relatives, as in "you´ll NEVER get rid of that weight, you fat, worthless SLOB". I heard that a couple of times too often, and the scars it left on my self-esteem are not healing as well as I would wish. Nor is the impulse disappearing to do what I used to do back then, namely, stuff my face until I didn´t feel the hurt as badly any more.
The difference is that I recognize the impulse now, and most of the time, manage to not act on it. But that takes strength, too. As does the eternal vigilance I´m forced to when I see that even a single day´s slipup, even a single day when I don´t watch every bite I eat, means facing a four-pound gain the next morning and that it takes, by now, four to five days of strict dieting to get that off again.
Before anybody asks- I did not even eat four pounds extra of anything on that day, so the gain must be mostly water, that much I know.
I´m going to do an experiment with myself as a guinea pig this week. Namely, I´ll try to consume a lot more water than I did during the last weeks. If it´s water retention that makes my weight fluctuate so much, perhaps flushing out whatever substances inside my body make it hold on to too much water might help.
At least it will give me the illusion of doing something that makes me more likely to succeed. Before I throw in the towel for good and retire to the vicinity of the fridge.
Julia
It doesn´t help that we have to visit DMiL at least once a month, which always means too little sleep and too many carbs on that weekend, both of which seem to bring my weight back up further than just the calorie count of what I ate would make me expect.
It seems to get ever more difficult to shed those gains again. As if something were draining my body´s ability to recondense itself.
The problem I have with that is that every time I see such a regain on the scale, I keep remembering the sneers of my relatives, as in "you´ll NEVER get rid of that weight, you fat, worthless SLOB". I heard that a couple of times too often, and the scars it left on my self-esteem are not healing as well as I would wish. Nor is the impulse disappearing to do what I used to do back then, namely, stuff my face until I didn´t feel the hurt as badly any more.
The difference is that I recognize the impulse now, and most of the time, manage to not act on it. But that takes strength, too. As does the eternal vigilance I´m forced to when I see that even a single day´s slipup, even a single day when I don´t watch every bite I eat, means facing a four-pound gain the next morning and that it takes, by now, four to five days of strict dieting to get that off again.
Before anybody asks- I did not even eat four pounds extra of anything on that day, so the gain must be mostly water, that much I know.
I´m going to do an experiment with myself as a guinea pig this week. Namely, I´ll try to consume a lot more water than I did during the last weeks. If it´s water retention that makes my weight fluctuate so much, perhaps flushing out whatever substances inside my body make it hold on to too much water might help.
At least it will give me the illusion of doing something that makes me more likely to succeed. Before I throw in the towel for good and retire to the vicinity of the fridge.
Julia
2011/08/04
Learned reflexes
Just how much of what we buy do we really need?
I have, in the last months, had occasion to ponder that more than once.
As I am working smack in the middle of town, going out during lunch break means walking right through the busiest shopping streets hereabouts.
Of course, I don´t walk past there with my eyes closed, so, I cannot help but notice the shops and their decorated windows. And if it´s raining and I still want to stretch my legs a bit, I enter the bigger shops and do some walking around in there.
I usually do not even bring my wallet along any more for those walks, and that made me realize something that I would, in olden days, not have noticed.
Namely, how often I see something that seems to say "buy me".
In the old days, I would not have thought twice about it. If it said "buy me" and I had the cash on me to buy it- or the credit cards- I bought it.
There was hardly a day going by when I did not carry home some plastic bag filled with something bought on that day, starting out with things like scented soaps, or perfumes, or makeup, to aromatized loose teas, or music cds, or decorations. I ended up with a full drawer of makeup that spoiled faster than I could use it up, several shelves full of cds I don´t have time to listen to, and more tchotchkes and bric-a-brac than I could ever put on display in my household.
I also ended up renting a bigger apartment to put the stuff in.
The bigger apartment part did come in handy when DH moved in with me, so I´m not complaining there, but still the continuous influx of mostly small items without a corresponding amount leaving the flat again made me reach a point where it was virtually impossible to keep the place tidy, simply because most of the items did not have a place to put them away.
Fast forward to now.
Several years of continuous decluttering have, by now, reduced the amount of stuff to the point where everything can, theoretically, be put away somewhere.
I still have some cupboards that require ingenious stacking methods to put everything in, and some drawers that are a bit hard to close, but hey- I never said I was perfect, did I? And our cellar compartment still houses several plastic boxes of china and kitchen utensils I´m not yet ready to toss.
But apart that, I have whittled my possessions down to a point where they have become manageable again.
It was hard work to get there, and I do not want to go back to where I was. So, I have installed an ironclad rule. No item may enter our flat of which we cannot in advance tell where it will live.
The second rule is no shopping for recreational purposes. I can, of course, look all I want. But I must not buy.
That is where I suddenly realized how often I had the impulse to buy something. Having no cash or cards on me meant not being able to follow that impulse. So, I left the shop without the item.
The interesting thing was that I rarely even felt the need to go back to that shop to get the item at a later point.
Imagine that- the very things that I would, before, have dragged home without a second thought to clutter up my flat are now not even interesting enough to come back for them. Or, on having time to think about them, I remember I already have such an item and do not need a duplicate. So, no new teapot if I already have five of them ( for different sorts of tea ;) )and no new coffee mug, however funny, either unless I am ready to toss one of those I already own.
And no freebies either.
The desire to acquire is something that sometimes makes it difficult to resist new stuff knocking at your door.
Case in point, several years ago my parents had to dismantle the household of a very dear cousin after her death. Now, this cousin had, all her life, liked to invite people over, and she had owned several twelve-settings sets of expensive china, crystal glasses and cutlery for the purpose.
My father offered me one of the china sets. I did hesitate at first, because I genuinely liked the former owner and it was part of her inheritance, after all. But then, I don´t do invitations, and the beautiful china would, for us, have become just another white elephant to store and care for, a source of guilt because I don´t do the society life my parents had brought me up for.
So, I declined. But I declined with a heavy heart. I also declined most of her kitchen utensils that my father tried to give me, apart one pot, one small ladle and an ingenious twist-off-cap opener I had always coveted.
These things I have in my kitchen, I love them, use them often, and they remind me of Cousin Mary every time I use them.
And the others things have, instead of saddling me with the problem of how to store them, gone on to a better life with another relative who will actually use them regularly.
So, it´s not about saving money. That is just a side effect. It is about defending our precious space from the influx of stuff that mindlessly acquiring things creates, and about consciously deciding what we want in our lives.
Because in the end, it´s not the one who dies with the most toys who wins, but the one who got to play the most. And the number of items one has acquired over a lifetime may just end up as a measure of the amount of work dumped on the people who will have to dismantle one´s household someday.
Think about that for a moment.
Someday you will die. Life has been found to have a 100 percent lethal outcome in laboratory mice, and the findings are applicable to humans, too.
And then somebody will have to go through your belongings.
Think of that somebody.
Did you just catch yourself pitying him? Or even think "serves him right"?
And now think about how much of your own life you spend on your belongings. Acquisition, storage, care.
Count the time you have to work for your stuff, the time you have to take care of it, once acquired.
Don´t forget to think about what else you could have done with that time, with that money. Think about places you could afford to see, experiences and memories you could have.
For people who have children, there´s also the intention of leaving something good for them. But demographics have changed, just as the quality of merchandise has changed.
In the olden days, things were made to last for several generations, handed down from father to son or mother to daughter. I, too, have some items that did once belong to my great-grandmother.
But today, most things do not even come with a one-lifetime warranty. Mass-produced goods are not supposed to outlive their owners. And- which is in and of itself a good thing- people get to live a lot longer than they used to.
And that means that, if parents live to be eighty or ninety years, their children will have to build a complete household from scratch without relying on any heirlooms coming their way.
So, without any bad intention, they will in all probability not have any use for most of the things they find in their late parents´ homes, just because they had to acquire what they needed to live long ago.
Thus, acquiring things in the hope of passing them down to offspring someday does, in most cases, not make any sense.
For those of us who do not have any offspring, the question never even comes up.
So what do you want to do? Live your life, which means having experiences and building memories, or spend it on stuff?
To me, that is not a question. But I know that those acquisition reflexes die hard, and I must always be on guard against stuff taking over more of my life than I care to miss.
Julia
I have, in the last months, had occasion to ponder that more than once.
As I am working smack in the middle of town, going out during lunch break means walking right through the busiest shopping streets hereabouts.
Of course, I don´t walk past there with my eyes closed, so, I cannot help but notice the shops and their decorated windows. And if it´s raining and I still want to stretch my legs a bit, I enter the bigger shops and do some walking around in there.
I usually do not even bring my wallet along any more for those walks, and that made me realize something that I would, in olden days, not have noticed.
Namely, how often I see something that seems to say "buy me".
In the old days, I would not have thought twice about it. If it said "buy me" and I had the cash on me to buy it- or the credit cards- I bought it.
There was hardly a day going by when I did not carry home some plastic bag filled with something bought on that day, starting out with things like scented soaps, or perfumes, or makeup, to aromatized loose teas, or music cds, or decorations. I ended up with a full drawer of makeup that spoiled faster than I could use it up, several shelves full of cds I don´t have time to listen to, and more tchotchkes and bric-a-brac than I could ever put on display in my household.
I also ended up renting a bigger apartment to put the stuff in.
The bigger apartment part did come in handy when DH moved in with me, so I´m not complaining there, but still the continuous influx of mostly small items without a corresponding amount leaving the flat again made me reach a point where it was virtually impossible to keep the place tidy, simply because most of the items did not have a place to put them away.
Fast forward to now.
Several years of continuous decluttering have, by now, reduced the amount of stuff to the point where everything can, theoretically, be put away somewhere.
I still have some cupboards that require ingenious stacking methods to put everything in, and some drawers that are a bit hard to close, but hey- I never said I was perfect, did I? And our cellar compartment still houses several plastic boxes of china and kitchen utensils I´m not yet ready to toss.
But apart that, I have whittled my possessions down to a point where they have become manageable again.
It was hard work to get there, and I do not want to go back to where I was. So, I have installed an ironclad rule. No item may enter our flat of which we cannot in advance tell where it will live.
The second rule is no shopping for recreational purposes. I can, of course, look all I want. But I must not buy.
That is where I suddenly realized how often I had the impulse to buy something. Having no cash or cards on me meant not being able to follow that impulse. So, I left the shop without the item.
The interesting thing was that I rarely even felt the need to go back to that shop to get the item at a later point.
Imagine that- the very things that I would, before, have dragged home without a second thought to clutter up my flat are now not even interesting enough to come back for them. Or, on having time to think about them, I remember I already have such an item and do not need a duplicate. So, no new teapot if I already have five of them ( for different sorts of tea ;) )and no new coffee mug, however funny, either unless I am ready to toss one of those I already own.
And no freebies either.
The desire to acquire is something that sometimes makes it difficult to resist new stuff knocking at your door.
Case in point, several years ago my parents had to dismantle the household of a very dear cousin after her death. Now, this cousin had, all her life, liked to invite people over, and she had owned several twelve-settings sets of expensive china, crystal glasses and cutlery for the purpose.
My father offered me one of the china sets. I did hesitate at first, because I genuinely liked the former owner and it was part of her inheritance, after all. But then, I don´t do invitations, and the beautiful china would, for us, have become just another white elephant to store and care for, a source of guilt because I don´t do the society life my parents had brought me up for.
So, I declined. But I declined with a heavy heart. I also declined most of her kitchen utensils that my father tried to give me, apart one pot, one small ladle and an ingenious twist-off-cap opener I had always coveted.
These things I have in my kitchen, I love them, use them often, and they remind me of Cousin Mary every time I use them.
And the others things have, instead of saddling me with the problem of how to store them, gone on to a better life with another relative who will actually use them regularly.
So, it´s not about saving money. That is just a side effect. It is about defending our precious space from the influx of stuff that mindlessly acquiring things creates, and about consciously deciding what we want in our lives.
Because in the end, it´s not the one who dies with the most toys who wins, but the one who got to play the most. And the number of items one has acquired over a lifetime may just end up as a measure of the amount of work dumped on the people who will have to dismantle one´s household someday.
Think about that for a moment.
Someday you will die. Life has been found to have a 100 percent lethal outcome in laboratory mice, and the findings are applicable to humans, too.
And then somebody will have to go through your belongings.
Think of that somebody.
Did you just catch yourself pitying him? Or even think "serves him right"?
And now think about how much of your own life you spend on your belongings. Acquisition, storage, care.
Count the time you have to work for your stuff, the time you have to take care of it, once acquired.
Don´t forget to think about what else you could have done with that time, with that money. Think about places you could afford to see, experiences and memories you could have.
For people who have children, there´s also the intention of leaving something good for them. But demographics have changed, just as the quality of merchandise has changed.
In the olden days, things were made to last for several generations, handed down from father to son or mother to daughter. I, too, have some items that did once belong to my great-grandmother.
But today, most things do not even come with a one-lifetime warranty. Mass-produced goods are not supposed to outlive their owners. And- which is in and of itself a good thing- people get to live a lot longer than they used to.
And that means that, if parents live to be eighty or ninety years, their children will have to build a complete household from scratch without relying on any heirlooms coming their way.
So, without any bad intention, they will in all probability not have any use for most of the things they find in their late parents´ homes, just because they had to acquire what they needed to live long ago.
Thus, acquiring things in the hope of passing them down to offspring someday does, in most cases, not make any sense.
For those of us who do not have any offspring, the question never even comes up.
So what do you want to do? Live your life, which means having experiences and building memories, or spend it on stuff?
To me, that is not a question. But I know that those acquisition reflexes die hard, and I must always be on guard against stuff taking over more of my life than I care to miss.
Julia
2011/08/02
Biting the bullet
I have, in the last months, experienced weight fluctuations the like of which I hadn´t seen in a long while. Differences of up to four pounds from one day to the next, all other things like circumstances of weigh-in being equal. So, it is quite possibly my body´s water regulation playing tricks on me, as I am not -I swear- overeating enough to warrant such gains. What´s more, they sometimes drop off me again in equally giant jumps. Without having had any, er, syptoms of accelerated excretion, that is.
So, I have to content myself with maintaining right now, it seems.
The nasty weather we had also kept me from my morning walks for several days already, as I didn´t want to catch a case of the summer flu.
Now, I don´t know if last year was exceptionally lucky for losing weight and everything else, but this year it seems someone put the hex on it. I know whining doesn´t help, but still...I´d be glad if things were to pick up at last.
Julia
So, I have to content myself with maintaining right now, it seems.
The nasty weather we had also kept me from my morning walks for several days already, as I didn´t want to catch a case of the summer flu.
Now, I don´t know if last year was exceptionally lucky for losing weight and everything else, but this year it seems someone put the hex on it. I know whining doesn´t help, but still...I´d be glad if things were to pick up at last.
Julia
2011/08/01
Still stuck
The total change of my weight in July was...zilch. Zero. Nix. Rien. Nada.
I´m right back where I started from at the beginning of the month. .
And that in spite of being very, very good with what I ate.
Perhaps a maintain, technically, is also a success. But I´d rather succeed at losing.
The weekend brought none of the optimistically expected tidying, decluttering or rearranging. Rather, I had a long date with a steam iron (can you tell I hate ironing?) and a warehouse shopping expedition that has filled up our pantry and freezer again.
Do you know that feeling of rowing as hard as you can just to avoid sliding back? That´s what I feel now, and the rainy and way- too-cold-for-August weather we are having adds to it. I´d curl up under the covers and sleep if I could, but that wouldn´t change anything, really.
So, I have to keep hanging on.
It´s just so hard not to get discouraged sometimes.
Julia
I´m right back where I started from at the beginning of the month. .
And that in spite of being very, very good with what I ate.
Perhaps a maintain, technically, is also a success. But I´d rather succeed at losing.
The weekend brought none of the optimistically expected tidying, decluttering or rearranging. Rather, I had a long date with a steam iron (can you tell I hate ironing?) and a warehouse shopping expedition that has filled up our pantry and freezer again.
Do you know that feeling of rowing as hard as you can just to avoid sliding back? That´s what I feel now, and the rainy and way- too-cold-for-August weather we are having adds to it. I´d curl up under the covers and sleep if I could, but that wouldn´t change anything, really.
So, I have to keep hanging on.
It´s just so hard not to get discouraged sometimes.
Julia
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