Freedom + discipline = being an adult

tu: Lo shee fun is the Malaysian dish that inspired last week's post, and was good enough that Kathy requested it again this week / f: corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty's / sa: I can't share my grandmother's recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice or I'd have to kill you, but here's a pretty good internet recipe, 

We had a busy weekend so I'm just barely getting to this post now on Tuesday. I also had to scramble to come up with a menu for this week but the blog is keeping me accountable.

Besides choosing to post here as a method of staying on top of meal planning, I've been using Trello, which Slai had suggested to me in a comment five months ago. I've come around to using it almost two months ago, when I mentioned The Menu-Planning Reboot of 2017, and I'm loving it. I really wanted to make sure my new system was sticking before I wrote about it here.

Honestly, it's been great to have a menu plan. I mean, the worse thing that can happen is, like:

Lisa to self: Really, we're going to eat __________ again today?
Self: Well, do you have any better ideas?
Lisa: Uhhh...
Self: That's what I thought.

So, the way I'm starting to see it, menu planning is just one part of #adulting. One more place where freedom and discipline do a good little dance.

If you're curious for the nitty gritty (nerdy dirty?) on how I use Trello, read on.

I only have two lists on my menu board: a list for this week's meals, and then a list for previous meals.

When I start planning for the next week, I archive the items from this week into previous, so they automatically get pushed to the bottom.

When I'm planning the current week I get ideas from our past favorites. Here's this week's menu.

I only use Trello for the initial pull, and then when I put it up on the kitchen chalkboard, I think about the best order for the week. 

I only spend a few minutes doing this, so it's relatively painless. Like I said, once it's decided, I can either go along with it and be grateful to my grown-a** self that I did this, or I can be like, "Oh, let's have _____ instead" and then run with that new idea. It's no biggie.

Also, one last CRITICAL step to this whole system working is that I then write up the shopping list and my lovely David helps me with all the shopping. SO WONDERFUL. <3

Let me know, as always, if you have any other menu planning tips, meal ideas, questions or anything you need help with!

P.S. Slai, we need this in our life, right??

P.P.S. Happy Pi Day!

Be the boss of myself

The other day I received a thoughtful gift, but because of my new life philosophy of not keeping things unless I love them, even (or especially) if they were free or gifted.

It was a super thoughtful gift, something that's useful for a particular thing I actually really enjoy, but I didn't want to own this object; it only served a few purposes, and I didn't particularly care for the aesthetic.

The item was about $36 and Amazon was going to charge me $6 for the return shipping if I used the UPS label they provide. It sucked to see that deduction, so I dilly-dallied for a moment, considering the pay-my-own-shipping route, or figuring out another way to off-load this gift in an "economical" way. After letting myself analyze for about one to two minutes, I cut myself off and told myself that I needed to "be the boss of myself." 

As part of this new season of my life, I'm trying to act the way I want to feel. Sitting in front of the screen, I said to myself, "In this moment, I'm going to act like my time is worth $100/hr." I didn't want to spend any more of my precious time debating how to minimize the $6 loss of returning it. If I spent even two minutes on the thinking, and my time is worth $100/hr, that was $3.33 right there. If I spent even two more minutes debating, I would have exceeded the perceived $6 loss I was trying to avoid.

And this was for a gift that I didn't spend any money buying in the first place. I felt so grown up being able to:

1) Receive the gift with gratitude.

2) Decide quickly to return it because I didn't want/need it.

3) Let myself do my analyzing thing. I can't help myself.

4) Stop myself from doing my analyzing thing for too long. .

5) Move on with life.

Ultimately I chose to value my life more than money. 

One of the paradoxes of adulthood is the concept of being the boss of yourself, which necessarily means you are both the boss and the one being bossed around. 

Is this hard or is this easy?

When you're the boss of yourself you can do handstands at home. #leanagainst

Prompts for the Studious, or, A shameless call for comments:

1) What are your thoughts on the concept of waiting for permission?

2) What do you want right now in life that you are waiting for permission for?
3) What are some paradoxes you're pondering?
4) Anything else that stuck out to you?
5) Can you tell that I used to be a Bible study leader for a campus ministry?

More from me:

• Being your own best friend
• Being your own therapist

02. Tangled

For the longest time I've wanted to do an anecdotal study of people who aren't on Facebook, but how would I reach Those People? How would I even call out to them?

I've never used Facebook for an extended period of time. I was required to finally get an account for campus ministry during my senior year of college in 2006. I think I hardly ever used it after that but didn't actually shut it down until after I had a smart phone for my job at which point it was too easy to scroll-scroll-scroll and it was "pointless" and I was barely connecting with people enough in real life so I didn't need more nonsense. (I found this old post where I deactivated, lol. And oops, I re-used the title recently.) Then I reactivated for the Known workshop last month but I've been able to not get sucked in. I think I need to first reply to the people who tried to message me before deactivating again. It's just not the place for me.

HOWEVER, I found Instagram a couple months ago and I was like, woah. It kind of scared me how hard I fell for it. (And I am so skeptical when I fall for something. 6.)

I still have yet to post anything to it. I feel so pressured by the medium, which is the message, yes? Maybe that's why I still love blogs; I can do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g I want here.

***

The picture above is a back-of-the-figurative-napkin calculation to figure out whether the Ziploc Storage Bag Variety Pack (currently on sale at Costco) is a good deal or not. I thought that maybe since I don't always need "Freezer" thickness, it might be more value. However, my quick and dirty calculations proved that even if the bags within were "Freezer" quality and purchased at the bulk (and on coupon) price at Costco, you would still be paying a premium for the "snack" sized bags in the variety pack, which are, as you know, smaller than the sandwich bags. Cute, but more expensive for less material. So just in case you ever wanted to know: it is cheaper (per unit) to just get the single-type (albeit all Freezer thickness) Ziploc bags at Costco.

(This is seriously what a nerd needs to do during precious naptime. I could have used that time for writing and have something way more profound to say now. But I did something that was me, and without over-thinking, I spent some time thinking. Yup.)

***

When I told my dad on the phone the other day that I have been meditating on the idea of not overthinking things and instead just DOING, he reflected back to me in his calm, logical manner, "So, you've been thinking a lot about not thinking?"

***

If you've ever been to my house and it's been clean it's because Kathy is a wizard. A cleaning goddess if you will. She has a magical talent whereby she can effortlessly clean a place. If she's feeling silly she'll say "bippity boppity boo" after she's done. The Tangled song "When will my life begin?" is her anthem.

I'd always asked her how she cleans with such ease. One time she just laughed and said, "I don't feel anything, I just do it. I'm numb." She probably didn't think much of it at the time but I latched onto that thought and meditated (there I go again) on that concept.

So often when I'm facing a task (e.g., cleaning the kitchen) I think way too much about the most efficient way to do it, instead of just diving in. And it takes way more time to try to process the process than to just do the process.

So a couple times since that conversation I've tried to "numb" myself and not think the thoughts or feel the feelings. I just do. (However, for this to work you have to numb yourself to the extent that you block out this thought: that by the time you're done cleaning there will be another mess.)

It's been awesome.

Call us overachievers

I apologize for the hiatus. We've been really busy over here, having early Thanksgivings both in California and here at home in Seattle.

You could call us overachievers.

This year we experimented with having Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night. I once overheard a co-worker say that his family did it that way. It seemed brilliant to me - get all the hard work done on a day everyone is working anyway, and then enjoy all of Thursday off, when everyone is home from work and school.

So we tried it this year. Knowing that I would have an almost 11-month old on my hands (and under my feet), I started preparing almost a week in advance.

A new rug I couldn't resist getting to spruce up the place for the holiday. My father-in-law called it Theo's magic carpet.

So last week my friend Karen came over for dinner* and we hashed out menu plans and decorations. I told her that I'm not into the "newfangled stuff" - I love brussels sprouts (not being sarcastic), but in my opinion they do not belong on a Thanksgiving table.

We agreed on a classic menu of turkey, gravy (two boats, just being realistic here), mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, peas, and rolls.

Sketching out which serving dishes I plan to use helps ensure I'm not stressing about it at the last minute.

Karen offered to bring appetizers (spanakopita (!) and eggrolls) as well as Connie's Corn Casserole, which turned out to be the most amazing thing we had ever had. At the table, Kenny dubbed it "corn butter."

"Corn butter" on the bottom right. David generously offered for it to be placed next to him.

With everyone at work/school and a baby who doesn't nap very much anymore, I knew I needed to plan ahead as much as a could, down to the details.

David and I broke down the cleaning and set-up tasks and spread them out over the days before The Dinner. When we finished an item we got to move the post-it note to the back. (Ah!)

This was by no means the complete list.

And I didn't stop there. I also made an Excel spreadsheet. Yes, you heard that right.

I totally nerded out and it was awesome.

Planning ahead allowed me to develop shortcuts that made the day of so easy. Here are the things I would do again next year in a heartbeat, whether or not Thanksgiving was on Wednesday or Thursday or in the middle of November:

• prepare all the vegetables for the stuffing the day before. When I cooked the stuffing, it was like a cooking show as I dumped already chopped veggies into the pan. (BTW, Mom, everyone loved your stuffing recipe.)
• start the stock for gravy and stuffing in a crockpot the night before. David also set the turkey in the roasting pan and in the fridge the night before so all I had to do was pull it out.
• make the mashed potatoes a couple hours before dinner and keep them warm in a crockpot. (Karen lent me hers so I had two to work with.)

Also, next year I'm definitely asking my sister-in-law to bring dessert again. She made the most amazing pumpkin cheesecake ever!

Diana thought she made a mistake and put "too much" sugar in the crust, but we just proclaimed that PAULA DEEN MADE A MISTAKE when writing the recipe and didn't include the amount Diana used.

We had a lovely dinner with way too much laughter. I asked Kenny to serve the mashed potatoes. He kept trying to give people HUGE portions. By the end of the meal, we were calling Kenny a "potato pusher." Karen caught David "trying to go horizontal" after the meal. We ended the evening with drawing names for our gift exchange and sharing what we were thankful for. (Kenny was - you guessed it - thankful for potatoes.)

I called my parents this morning. They were on the road driving somewhere for breakfast, and because my mom and I had hosted our Thanksgiving there two weeks ago, my dad named us the two most relaxed moms on Thanksgiving day.

Karen said it best when she said that having our dinner last night was like "getting our homework done before it's even Saturday."

I'm looking forward to this day lounging with family and eating leftovers. On the menu so far is turkey pho for lunch (!!!) and turkey enchiladas for dinner (!!!!).

My mom got these cute animal placecard holders on a missions trip to Africa.

So I heartily commend to you having Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday nights. 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

_______________________________________

* We had a true Dave Ramsey dinner, beans and rice and torn-in-half napkins. Actually, truth be told, Karen tore off and used the "less used" portion (her words, not mine) of a paper towel David brought back from the hospital cafeteria. I tried not to feel too embarrassed, but in actuality I have to love the shared frugality Karen and I have.