Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

For the sake of this post, let's begin with defining terms. Resolution:  a firm decision to do or not to do something.  Rule:   a principle that operates within a particular sphere of knowledge, describing or prescribing what is possible or allowable.   Goal:  the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result Guideline:  a general rule, principle, piece of advice, recommendation Short and sweet: I believe that life, in its many variations of messiness, is far too complex to be amenable to resolutions, therefore, not a fan.  One can certainly have the best of intentions (a thing intended; an aim or a plan) every day, yet life, as we know it, has its own intentions that occasionally intersect with our plans and as frequently roils up to capsize them with the force of a tsunami. Resolutions, I think, get in the way of our goals because, really, what in life is absolutely, positively, 100% set in stone--which, in m...

Saturday morning, at Pilates of all places, we got into a bit of a heated discussion (as heated as you can get while working on the Reformers) about the basic nature of people.  Our wonderful instructor had to intervene to keep us moving along and I still came away feeling a bit disquieted. Here’s what happened. Let me preface by saying I was excited when I walked into the studio because some Pilates Peeps who I hadn't seen in a couple months were there.  They’re at least 20 if not 30+ years younger than me.  They tell great stories about life in general, their work and travel lives.  I enjoy that richness during Reformer routines. Anyhow, one of my Pilates friends told about exercising at another studio where the women were being bitchy to each other.  Which led to everyone sans moi agreeing that people just are not nice. I don’t believe that. I think that people’s basic human nature is to be nice. They disagreed. We got into a tiny row, then...

I love telling stories, and this is one of my personal favorites.  It's about my dad and the Fake Christmas tree. My dad, Joseph Walter Parys, Sr., died on November 29, 2005.  While many believe their father was one of a kind, I know this to be true about my dad.  He was a Classic.  Like a classic car, one that is displayed because so few were originally produced.  He was a preserved classic car, not restored, because there is nothing quite like the off-the-line, new car smell that remains for years beyond.  That was my dad. I have fond memories, a la A Christmas Story , of going to pick out the Christmas tree at a local tree lot.  My mom would bring down the boxes of fragile ornaments stored in the hall closet. Because the tree was prominently displayed in the front window, furniture re-arrangement was required.  All of this caused me and my sisters and brother to dance around with excitement,  driving both parents into a mix of craz...

Today, as befitting the holiday, social media spills over with everything grateful.  Family.  Friends.  Good food and drink.  God's blessings in abundance.  For this once, I am glad to use the hashtaged #metoo. In what might feel like a switch from the norm, after some consideration I have decided that I am grateful, too, for all the bad things in the world.  As opposed to being sucked under by them, I have decided to frame them to push me forward to be a better person.  To do good work every day.  To challenge myself when I am being judgmental and ask for a blessing on that person rather than thinking they are terrible or horrible or stupid or whatever negative adjective I all too often immediately apply. For me, at least, this is more difficult work than being caught in the miasma of negativity and feeling helpless.  I'd rather move past helpless to a space where possibilities exist.  I've struggled with knowing I am a white woman ...

Obvi I possess some Domestic Goddess traits otherwise the title of this blog would probably be different. In teaching my Road Next Taken classes, I've been learning that some people prefer to start with what they don't want or like or prefer rather than what they do.  My tendency is to begin with what I like but in this case, I can start with what aspects of Domestic Goddessness are not in my DNA. 1. Cleaning.  Never have liked to clean, never will. 2. Picking up.  I suppose you could call this an aspect of cleaning.  I can leave the dishes on the table and the countertop, the newspaper and clothes on the floor, etc. and not even bat and eye.  Now, interesting observation.  If Dan leaves his stuff laying around, I am eagle eyed and annoyed. 3. Running errands.  I believe I wrote about this previously.  Just not fond of it. 4. Shopping except grocery shopping.  I have family members who can center their day around shopping (you know who ...

This falls into the category of "other assorted retirement activities" as in reorganizing the fall/winter closet.  Yes, don't judge, I have two closets, one for the aforementioned fall/winter clothes and a second for the sweatshirts and spring/summer clothes.  With the culling of the fall/winter clothing, however, I might need to consider moving the sweatshirts to the fall/winter closet although sweatshirts, for me, are a year round item of clothing.   The past two weeks, I've had the pleasure of teaching a few classes.  When I teach or speak in public, I feel compelled to wear a dress.  Hence, on the evenings I taught, I pulled out a dress.  And heels.  Again, don't judge.  Remember, I'm 65 1/2 years old and came up through the ranks when NO ONE wore jeans to work unless it was Casual Friday and even then, if you were an administrator, you thought twice about wearing the jeans.  (Once you crossed the line, however, you seldom we...

I feel that the test is coming. The past couple of weeks in yoga, our instructor has been reminding us that fall is a season of change that we might feel in our bodies, our hearts, our minds, our souls.  We may be experiencing a sense of disequilibrium as the days shorten, temperatures fall, and we can see through the trees to branches rapidly becoming bare.   Right now in the upper Midwest, fall color is peaking.  Earlier sunsets are often sky filled blazes of wide swatches of pinks, purples, oranges.  In that respect, it makes it easier for me to accept the falling temperatures, the constant chill in the air that both intuitively and intellectually I know will only grow deeper and more intense over the coming months. You all know that I am a warm weather girl, truly the warmer, the better.  I park my car in the sunshine year round, never in the shade (I mean, come on, why?).  My gravity chair has a place of honor in the sunniest spot in the bac...

We've been ripping our basement apart, a retirement activity if I ever saw one.  We demolished a powder room that we stopped using a couple decades ago--fortunately, when we opened the toilet, we didn't find any dead critters in there.  We pulled down sheetrock from waist-high down, which means ripping out the insulation as well.  There was a unused bar in the basement and it's now in the dumpster.  Finally we pulled up the carpet from the basement stairs.  That night, we sank into our matching recliners in the family room.  Dan looked wearily at me and said, "We're never doing that again." Damn right. Anyhow, while demolishing, I've had a lot of time to think, too much time perhaps.  Pulling down the powder room walls, I composed the following letter to my Congressman, Erik Paulsen (R-MN).  I originally intended to send it to all members of Congress and the President.  However, as I researched doing that, it became clear that members of ...

So about this Clean Food movement... I googled Clean Food to ensure I understand this concept.  Lo and behold, I do.  Clean Food is what my grandmothers and aunts and great aunts cooked.  Fresh meat and produce, often purchased the day of the meal, served as the backbone of our meals.  As kids, we preferred canned vegetables over fresh--what was wrong with us?--and a small box of frozen veggies provided a special treat.   Once my grandmother sent me back to the store with a head of broccoli because she thought it looked terrible.  Freshness was paramount to her.  She also knew how various foods were good for you.  Onions contributed to shiny hair.  Carrots kept your eyesight sharp.  An apple a day keeps the doctor away.  Red meat put protein to build muscles and iron for red blood cells.  I'm sure there were more and I wish I remembered them. The Panera commercials touting their clean and real food caught my attention...

A few years ago, I discovered how incredibly easy it is to can tomatoes. Time consuming, somewhat, and kinda messy, but nonetheless relatively easy.  I took, and continue to take, great joy in pulling a pint or quart of home grown, home canned tomatoes off the shelf to use in soups and other recipes during the dark winter months.  Yes, I know you can buy a can for less than $2 at the grocery store, but really, they don't taste the same.  The only ones I've found that come anywhere near to the taste of home grown and canned are Muir Glen Organic, which cost over $2 a can. So it's become something of a tradition for me to can on Labor Day weekend.  This year, because I am retired :) , I didn't have to do it precisely on the weekend.  Once you have the tomatoes ready to go, however, you are on a limited time span to get them processed and bathed in their jars.   Here they are, neatly displayed, ready for the pantry It ended up that I had an ex...