Life's Chapters

Full disclosure:  I drive a sports car.  

I know.  Boo!  

It's a 2025 Acura Integra, S-type, 6-speed manual transmission in cerulean blue.  She sparkles and purrs.  Her name is Zippy.  

I've never named a car before.  In fact, until I had Zippy, I never really thought much about cars as being more than a thing that got me from Point A to Point B.  I didn't like driving.  I didn't even like being in a car, and if I could walk there, I would.  Cars were (are??) a necessary evil for how we live in these modern times - what James Howard Kunstler has called "the greatest misallocation of resources, ever." 

I don't disagree that continuing to invest in our car-centric lifestyle is a bad idea, but there comes a time in one's life when one has fought the good fight as long as one can, and then, something has to give.

I guess this is what some celebrities call "selling out."  

Maybe. 

The part that's the misallocation against which Kunstler rails is the lifestyle that requires cars - homes built out on the fringes of communities and far away from work and shopping.  That's where I live.  In the 'burbs, on the outskirts of a seasonal community.  We have about 7000 year round residents, and mass transportation, like most things in my town, caters to the seasonal people.  

For instance, we have a train stop, and yes, I did commute to work by train for as long as I could.  From July until October, I rode the train to work in the morning and Deus Ex Machina picked me up in the evenings on his way home from work.  Then, for the winter, I had to make other arrangements, but I eagerly awaited the spring, when I could resume my train commute.  

When the next season rolled around, Amtrak changed the schedule so that the train was stopping in my town an hour earlier than it had the year before.  Riding the train would no longer work for me without making a lot of adjustments, and not just my schedule, but also Deus Ex Machina's schedule.  

And that's what happens, I think, for a lot of people, like me, who want to be able to make choices other than what's common; what's normal.  I think more people would really enjoy riding the train to work rather than driving a car, but for most of us, it just doesn't work.  It's not just inconvenient.  It requires an entire reorganizing of one's life.

Other people realized the convenience of the car life.  It's how we got to where we are.  My grandparents figured out they could live five miles, ten miles, thirty-two miles away from where they worked, and with a car, get there in a matter of minutes.  They figured out that they could access these far away places for work, and still make it home at the end of the day with enough daylight left to barbeque burgers on the grill in the summer.  They could escape the cramped, dangerous, dirty life in the cities and move to the 'burbs where their children could play on real grass and maybe enjoy a summer climbing trees. They just needed a car. 

And if they have a car, like Zippy, all the better!

It sounds like I'm making excuses for myself, and maybe I am, or maybe I'm just learning a few things the older I get.

I used to have some very rigid ideals for my lifestyle.  I was cutting edge, living on the fringe, being eco-friendly, cultivating a sustainable lifestyle.  

No processed foods.  Everything was local, sustainably grown and harvested, and/or organic.   

No paper towels.  

Line dry our laundry.  

Buy only second-hand clothes. 

And on and on stretched the list of things we didn't have and most importantly, didn't want. 

We didn't have air conditioning at home (I still hate air conditioning).

We didn't have cable TV (still don't), nor a television set to watch it on if we had had cable. 

It was a lifestyle that I was willing and able to maintain back in those days when I was home full-time and my daughters were young.

Then, they grew up, and I realized that my future financial security had been neglected for decades, and if I were ever going to be able to live that lifestyle that I so craved (the self-sufficient, world-by-hand), I would probably need to have some money stored away in a nest-egg somewhere.  

Deus Ex Machina has both an employer sponsored pension and a 401K, but there was a moment, when it was clear that I probably needed a nest egg of some sort. 

I'd spent decades figuring out how to live with less money (not no money, though), how to do things by hand, how to reuse, make do, and do without, and I was successfully practicing those lessons.  I lived by the credo: "Don't dwell on limitations.  Imagine possibilities!", and I did!  I imagined many of those possibilities into reality.  We actually did live the lifestyle that I wrote about on my blog, Surviving the Suburbs and, to a lesser degree, in my book, but only because the book imagines a future without modern amenities, which we still have access to.  

When I didn't also have to spend 8 to 10 hours every day, five days a week, 50 weeks per year at a job away from home, it was easy and possible, but at some point, I had to stop imagining what was possible and lean into what was practical.

Owning a sports car isn't practical, but letting go of the notion that I've failed in my life's purpose, because I allowed myself to enjoy the fact that we have a fancy-smancy car that's fun to drive is, practical. And it's also practical to have a reliable car to get me to and from the job that I now have that will allow me to imagine a future full of possibilities. 

I also bought a washer/dryer combo last year, and I use my dishwasher every couple of days (which probably saves on energy, because we use few enough dishes with just three of us, that I don't need to run it every day, and I also have it set on the one-hour cycle, which uses less energy). 

This weekend, Deus Ex Machina and I will be in search of a new coffee maker.  If you know me at all, you know I've been a bit of snob when it comes to making coffee.  I'm all about the French Press.  It's more eco-friendly, and arguably makes a better cup of coffee.

I'm a coffee drinker, and I won't apologize for that.  Study after study has shown that drinking coffee has overall positive health benefits. 

I was never worried about coffee before, considering it a delightful and healthy part of my diet, but my most recent blood tests showed a significant increase in my LDL Cholesterol levels - so much so that my PCP is talking about medication.  I haven't reached the point, yet, where I'm willing to compromise my stance on pharmaceuticals.  Medications aren't sports cars or really cool all-in-one washing machines that make my life easier and more fun. 

It's possible that my PCP is wrong and/or that the tests weren't totally accurate.  She's been wrong about other stuff related to my body, and I am looking for a second opinion, but also ...

The French Press doesn't use paper filters, and, according to Dr. Google, the unfiltered oil in pressed coffee contains compounds (cafestol/kahweol) that can increase LDL "bad" cholesterol.  My easy Google search suggests the possibility that my LDL cholesterol was so high on the blood test, because, while I was "fasting" (no food, black coffee only), I did have a couple of cups of coffee prepared in a French Press before the test.  

My PCP doesn't know about French Press coffee.  She didn't ask.  She wasn't interested in exploring why my cholesterol levels punched through the roof.  She just said, "Let's talk about Statins."  

Deus Ex Machina, apparently, has the same problem, and to compound our questioning the accuracy of the test, our LDL number was the same number.  I'm thinking that seems a little ... unlikely.

So, we'll be looking for a new coffee maker.  One that uses a paper filter.

There are days when I lament the loss of the life I wanted, and days when I think that this way of life I'm currently steeped in is a preparation for the life I will have when I (finally) retire, but mostly, I just know that life changes.  

And these days, while I'm still (always) excited about possibilities, I'm more inclined to lean into practicalities.

If you have a favorite coffee maker that uses a paper filter (we'll be buying unbleached, preferably from recycled materials :)), let me know.  I'd love some recommendations.

Inquiring Minds ...

This is a serious question, and I really am asking for opinions.

• What is your reaction to seeing someone purchase an expensive, luxury (think lobster or organic asparagus) food item using nutritional benefits like SNAP or WIC? 

• What is your reaction to seeing someone living in a luxury apartment complex for the winter and then traveling to their "summer home" in a million suburban home near Boston? 

• Do we have the right or responsibility to decide for others how to spend the money they have at their disposal?

Why or Why not?

=====================================

My question stems from a couple of interactions I've had recently, namely:

• an instagram thread in which the OP lambasted an individual featured in an NPR interview for purchasiing a $2000 custom advent calendar.  In this OP's opinion, someone who has that kind of money to spend should purchase a cheaper calendar and then give some portion remaining to the charitable organization of his/her choice.
• an individual who said someone using WIC benefits should not buy the more expensive raspberries, but rather the larger, less expensive container of strawberries.  Both items are approved with their benefits. 

The per capita income for the United States in just under $40,000, which is around $15,000 less than the per capita income for a person living in Southern Maine (York County, specifically).

Maine has the oldest population in the country with a median age of 44.9 years.  The poverty rate in S. Maine is 4.9% and most of those are senior citizens.  

I also work across the street from a luxury hotel where the rooms go for over $500/night with a two night minimum stay.  People who stay there for the weekend are spending more than some people in my community see in a month.

The instagrammer would, obviously, feel like that was excessive.  In her opinion (at least based on her commentary on Threads), no one has the right to purchase luxury items for themselves when people (like her) live in a converted shed with no kitchen, or worse, sleep on the park bench outside the City Hall entrance (which I've seen).

But there are plenty of people on the flip-sde of that argument, too.

There are plenty of people who might consider the instagrammer entitled, because she has some item that they feel is a luxury item, which she purchased using public money, which she received after an arduous application process.

Or even if she doesn't use her limited funds to buy a new pair of Birkenstocks (which are a great investment, but look out for that price tag!), if she's receiving any public aid, there will definitely be a long line of people who will scrutinize every purchase she makes and often will find her guilty of the same thing of which she has accused the calendar purchaser - making selfish decisions she is not entitled to make.  If we don't have enough, we shouldn't have nice things, but if we have too much, we should give our excess to those who don't have enough.  

Personally, I could not care less what other people spend their money on - even when that money originates in the public coffers.  I don't care.  

Honestly, I don't care.  

I don't even care if the money they're spending is a $5 bill I put in their hands as I walked by with my cup of coffee.  I don't care. 

And if they, like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, own three homes and a yacht that has more rooms than my house, great.  More power to 'em.

If it were MY money, I would make different choices, but it's not, and so I not only don't care, I can't, because it's not my place to tell other people what to do with what they have. 

What do you think?  Let's chat about it.

Physical Well-Being

I have been blessed with relatively good health.  

I won't say I'm lucky.  I make very conscious choices about diet, exercise, and lifestyle habits, and those choices have contributed to my overall well-being.

But as I've gotten older, I've noticed that some things don't work like they used to. 

For instance, there are some quirky aches and pains that I didn't really notice before, like my right hip suddenly started hurting - like all of the time.  So much so that it was affecting my sleep.  

I did what most people do, after ignoring it until I couldn't anymore, I went to see a medical professional.  Based on nothing more than I said it hurts and I am, now, a woman of an age, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis.   I was advised to take over-the-counter pain meds (you know, aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen - but not all at once), and the plan was to continue to evaluate it, and if it got worse, we could discuss my options, which were: medication and surgery. 

I mean, seriously?  Are those REALLY the only two options?  Take a drug or get cut open??

I'm not really interested in either of those two treatment options, but neither do I wish to be in pain all of the time or to start depending on OTCs for pain management.  I guess I don't want to manage the pain. 

I don't want to just quit feeling pain.  What I really is to understand it.  I mean, of course, I don't want to be up all night because my hip hurts, but addressing just the pain without knowing WHY there's pain is sort of like, putting a bucket under a leak to keep the floor dry without trying to figure out why the floor is getting wet to begin with.  

So, I started doing some reading.

Did you know that decreases in estrogen can cause joint pain?   As a woman becomes of an age, childbearing hormones start to decrease.  It happens.  It's inevitable, and many women, as a result, end up with joint pain, and almost always, they are told there's not really anything to be done except - medication or surgery.

But that's not all I discovered.  You know what else can cause joint pain?  Increased levels of cortisol.  Cortisol is also known as the "stress hormone."  

But, wait, there's more.  You know what else can be a symptom of decreased estrogen and increased cortisol levels?  Weight gain!

You know what else can cause joint pain?  Increased weight gain!

So, here I am, becoming a woman of an age and finding that the body that I thought I knew was changing into something completely alien.  It's the biological equivalent to TEOTWAIKI - the end of the world as I knew it.  My body was becoming something completely foreign to me.  

It was like this crazy little hamster-wheel.  At the same time that my body started losing estrogen, my stress levels increased due to some lifestyle changes, and I started putting on weight like I had never done before.  All of a sudden, I didn't even recognize myself, and everything hurt. 

With zero thanks or credit to my doctors, things have changed.  

Adding some supplements to help stabilize my hormone fluctuations and starting a regular exercise program made all the difference - no drugs and no surgery. 

The one thing, though, that I feel very strongly has made a huge difference, for me, is beginning a Yoga practice, that includes Yin Yoga.  

If you don't know what Yin Yoga is, I recommend you take a look, especially if you're someone who is getting up there in age.  

Thrifting My Own House

Eight years ago, I closed up my home-based business, gave away my desk, bought a pull-out sofa bed, and turned my home office into a den/guest room for when my adult children visit from out of state. 

I don't miss my home-business, and I love that we have this place in our home where our family can be comfortable and feel welcome. 

The only problem has been that over the eight years since I closed up my business, I have found that I've spent some time working remotely for other people, and so, while I never missed the home office, I did miss having a specific place, at  home, where I could do my job. 

In addition to the contract work I am doing these days for Relay Publishing, I also work from home at least one day per week for my full-time employer, and so having a place - other than my kitchen table - to do my work has been something I've been trying to set up for a while now.

Deus Ex Machina and I have discussed a number of different options.  

The first option was to purchase a laptop sofa desk, which I did.  It looks something like this one.

My laptop fits on the table, but if wanted to use a mouse (which I needed for at least one of the jobs I did as a freelancer during COVID) or take notes, the desk wasn't big enough.

I started looking at all sorts of other options from a rolltop desk to adding a hinged shelf to one of our book shelves for a DIY secretary desk.  Nothing really seemed to be the right answer.  All of the choices would require that we move things around, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but we would also need to giveaway or sell some of the pieces of furniture we have, because there wasn't really room for more. 

Then, we started working on a different room.  We painted the ceiling black and found the perfect new-to-us sofa on FB Marketplace - and they delivered!   The new couch was twice the size of our old loveseat, and the room, suddenly, became much smaller.

Compound that with the fact that we have a lot of shoes, and no place to really put them, which was a problem, because the larger couch takes up more floor space, which means, we were tripping on all of the shoes.  

I decided to give away the beautiful, solid wood Spanish Colonial armoire we'd purchased over two decades previously.  It was actually one of the first pieces of furniture that we bought, and it's definitely one of the nicer pieces we own.  

But it's really large and bulky, and it just didn't fit the space anymore, and I couldn't imagine where else in our house it might go.  So, I listed it on my local Buy Nothing group.  

I received an almost immediate response. 

And then, I spent several days reaching out to giftee to reschedule, when he no-showed, yet again, until finally, he said he wasn't interested afterall.  "It won't fit in my car."  

Umm ... ?  The measurements were in the original post.  Whatever.

As it turns out, the guy did me a huge favor.  Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and new, this cabinet retails for over $1000.  

But that's not why, I ultimately, decided to keep it.

As I mentioned, I've been looking for a desk so that I can set up a home office, because I work from home at least one day a week, but I don't want a regular desk, because we wanted something that would close up and keep the work stuff contained, especially when family visits.

I bought shoe cubbies, and I raided my tool cabinet for some hooks for coats.  We have a new entry way. 

After we shuffled some furniture around, relocated a piece or two to other rooms, and cleaned out a filing cabinet we hadn't opened in five years (and which still had receipts and invoices from my closed business dating back a decade and a half), Deus Ex Machina and Precious moved the armoire into the den/guest room.  

I'll add some lighting, install a pull out shelf for the desk, and get a bar-height office chair, and I'll be all set.  

My new "desk" cost nothing.

And I didn't have to giveaway one of the prettiest piece of furniture we own.

I'll add some lighting, install a pull out shelf for the desk, and get a bar-height office chair, and I'll be all set.  

My new "desk" cost nothing.

And I didn't have to giveaway one of the prettiest piece of furniture we own.

Ode to a Crock Pot

Working the 9:00 to 5:00 grind.

No time to cook a meal. No money to buy one.

But I found that magic machine.

Cold, raw food goes in.

And eight hours later

Hot dinner on the table.

Easy BBQ Ribs

Ingredients:

1 package of ribs

Enouth BBQ sauce to cover

1.  Pour enough BBQ sauce to coat the bottom of the crock.

2.  Add ribs.

3.  Top ribs with more sauce, enough to mostly cover.

4.  Add 1/4c water.

5.  Rotate ribs in sauce to evenly coat.

6.  Put lid on crock.

7.  Set to low.

8.  Cook 6 to 8 hours until meat falls off bone.

Serve with choice of sides.  We like it with cole slaw, potatoes, steamed green beans, drunken apples, and/or a green salad.

Prepping the Space

Several years ago a friend started a remodeling project.  The plan was to gut the kitchen and completely rebuild it to make it more age-friendly.

I've thought a lot about that over the last few years, when I became a woman of an age,  I'm not getting younger, and there may come a time when living in my house - the way it is right now - might be difficult for me.

But there's more than that, actually.  I'm not as worried about needing to be able to navigate through my house with a wheelchair, but I would like that living in my home be as low-cost as possible.

I've mentioned before that my goal has always been to be off-grid - to be producing our own supply of electricity or gas, or whatever it is that we're going to use as fuel.  We don't have a solar array or a windmill or a methane digester.  We don't have any way of producing our own fuel.  So, instead, for us the focus has been on reducing our usage.

I was looking at my Facebook memories the other day and one popped up from thirteen years ago.  We were really working hard to get our electric bill down to the absolute minimum we could manage.  At that time we were using 300KWh per month.  Depending on the source, the average Maine household uses around 900KWh per month.  Back in the day we were pretty far below average.  

A series of crazy things happened, including the need to replace our waterheater, and we thought the best option was to replace the on-demand propane heater that had gone belly-up with an on-demand electric waterheater. 

We had no idea. 

Our electric bill doubled. 

I was bummed.  

Fast forward a few years, and we decided to (finally) get rid of the old furnace, which we hadn't used in a decade.  We installed a heat pump as a secondary (the real world considers it our primary) heat source.  It also cools, just FYI.  Then, last year, we installed a heat pump waterheater to replace the on demand electric unit that used so much electricity.  This past summer we purchased a washer/dryer combo.   The heat pump technology in the combo units uses a lot less electricity than our traditional machines.  In fact, according to one source, the all-in-one washer/dryer uses 28% less electricity that the two machines use.  The combo unit also uses less water.  So, it's a win all the way around, for me.   

I'm not sorry, or embarrased, or apologetic, for jumping back on the modern appliance bandwagon.  I got a lot of flack when I got rid of my dryer.  I'll probably get a lot of hate for bringing that appliance back into my house.  What-evs.  

For me, it's about the numbers, and the numbers say that the all-in-one is more cost-efficient for electricity usage than even just my washing machine.  Even without adding in the cost of running a traditional dryer, the washing machine I had before, combined with my air dried clothes drying option used MORE electricity that the single unit that does both.  The new unit uses less water and less electricity than just my washer alone, and I no longer have musty smelling clothes, because I washed a load and then, it either rained or I just didn't have time to get it on the clothesline.  I can put a load of laundry in the washer before I leave for work or in the evening before we go to bed, and when I get home, or the next morning before work, I take the clean and dry clothes out of the machine (no forgetting to switch the loads, either!), fold them, and put another load into the machine.

The only downside is that all of the laundry is washed, which means I've realized how many clothes I actually have.  

ThredUp is a great place to buy gently used designer clothes at discount store prices.  I'm not embarrased that I have a really nice wardrobe, either.  Just sayin'.  

The other day our average electridal usage for the month was right around 500KWh.  

It's more than we were using at our lowest, but less than Maine's average, which is less than the national average.  It's the one thing I enjoy being below average on.

We also painted the ceiling black and installed some really cool lights.  

Big Little Sister says the room has a micro-brew feel.  I like it.  I'm also working on finding the furniture I want for the space.  I found a great couch that I think will really look awesome in the space. 

My next project is setting up a (new) home office.  I worked from home for 20 years when my kids were young.  When I took an outside job, my home office went away and the room became a den/guest room with a pull-out couch.  

Now, I'm finding that I need a home office again, but we still need the guest room/den.  So, I'm lookinig at options.

Believe it or not, all of those things are part of the prepping mindset. 

The new appliances reduce our overall usage so that we can, one day, install an off-grid system to produce what we need to keep things powered.  

The home office will allow us to move our work back into our home, perhaps. 

The remodeling things, like painting the ceiling, just make home feel more fun and cozy, and really, that's important, too.  Home should be a place where one wishes to spend one's time. 

A friend remodeled her house to add an ADU - accessory dwelling unit.  Apparently, Maine law allows ADUs as a property owner's right.  I've been thinking a lot about it recently, as my kids have gotten older and are looking at their housing options.  

Buying a home is a costly venture when one is young.  

Owning a home can become more difficult as one ages, especially, if the home is sized for a large family.

I've been thinking a lot about these ADUs, and looking at my house and wondering how I could break it into smaller units - one for Deus Ex Machina and me and one for one of my children and her faimly.  At some point, our house may become too much for Deus Ex Machina and me to take care, and if we have already invested in the ADU, it will make the management of the house easier, because we'll have a younger person there to help with the silly stuff, like painting a ceiling and planting the garden.

But even if one of our children doesn't want to live in the unit, it wouldn't be a waste, because we could rent it.  Then, we have an income in our later years that will allow us to pay the property tax, and maybe go to a movie occasionally.

When I was younger, I was prepping for the end of the world as we know it.  As I get older, I realize that I'm still prepping for the same thing, because as I get older, the world as I know it, changes.  

Every new beginning is another new beginning's end.  Two points if you know the reference ... :).

  

Once a Prepper ...

I often think fondly of those days, almost two decades ago, when there were so many of us here, on blogger or wordpress, in those pre-Facebook and Instagram days, when we spent time drafting out our thoughts and ideas and actions.  We were "influencers" before that was a word.

The Crunchy Chicken.  Sharon Astyk.  John Michael Greer.  James Howard Kunstler.  Dmitry Orlov.  The Dervaes.  Miranda.  Daisy (who is still writing and sharing and prepping at The Organic Prepper).

I JUST learned that Jules Dervaes, Jr. passed away in 2016.  I mean, just now. Just this minute.  He's been gone almost 10 years.  It feels like the end of something ... and I missed it.  RIP, Jules.

Those people - all of those above and many more - had such a profound impact on what I was doing, what I was building as a future for myself and my family here in the suburbs of southern, coastal Maine.

In a lot of ways, those were pretty amazing and intense days, and I am so incredibly grateful for all I learned during that time.  My children had such a different experience than I had as a kid.  It's not a good thing or a bad thing.  It's just a thing.  Sometimes they tell me stories of experiences they have with other people where they will share some knowledge they gleaned from living the way we lived, and that person with whom they are interacting will ask, incredulously, "Why ...?  How do you know that?"  In a snarkier moment, they'll respond with, "Why DON'T you know that?"  

There's a saying about apples and trees.  We all know where they get that snark.

My life is very different now that my kids are grown.  Precious is the only one of my large brood who is still living at home, but she's a grown-ass adult with a full-time job and an active social life.  It's very, very different from days of yore when my children were the center of my attention and everything I did revolved around what they needed in that moment and the prepping I was doing in the hopes of having a more comfortable future.

There was a lot of living in the future.  As a prepper, that's what we're doing, but not.  Not "living" in the future, but every day is spent preparing for tomorrow.  

There were so many things that needed to be done NOW: splitting and stacking wood; planting, tending, and harvesting the garden; tending the animals; butchering; canning; preserving; cooking; eating; sewing; crafting ....  It was very much about doing what had to be done today, because today is the only day that it can be done.  Tomorrow it will be too late.  Everything had a time, and it had to be done in its time.  Chicks arrive in the spring.  Strawberring ripen in the summer.  Apples are picked in the fall. 

I spent most days just doing what had to be done to get ready for the next thing.  There isn't a lot time to be worrying about what's gonna happen next week, when you're dealing with what's for breakfast today.  And having so much to focus on every day doesn't leave a lot of time to worry about what happened three weeks or three years or three decades ago. 

In those days, my dream was to be a full-time surbuban homesteader - to be off-grid on my quarter acre, producing our own electricity, growing or raising most of our own food, being debt-free, and working at something to earn a little cash to be able to pay the property tax, and maybe go see a movie, occasionally.  My goal was to get everything ready and in place so that someday both Deus Ex Machina and I could be home full-time and just be doing things we loved to do, or just needed to do for survival purposes (like stacking wood.  Nobody loves to stack wood, and if they say differently, they're lying).

I still fantacize about being a full-time homesteader, and I think, when I retire, I'll go back to it.  Maybe even start a home goods or craft-centric side-job as a way to generate a little bit of an income stream.  

The other day, Deus Ex Machina and I were working wood (yes, we still heat, primarily with our woodstove), and I found three little birch logs.  I held them up to show Deus Ex Machina, and quipped, "I could wrap some twine around these and sell them for $15 at the Farmer's Market." 

I'm not going to make a living just selling birch log decor, but I have a few other skills I could use.  I still have my trusty sewing machine.  There's probably some fun, little thing that I could stitch together - like an apron.  People still use those, right?

Maybe I could start a gluten-free micro-bakery in my home kitchen and sell muffins and cookies at the Farmer's Market.  There's probably a niche for that sort of thing.  

For now, though, I'm working full-time, and I like my job.  It's a desk job, but if one has to do a desk job, it doesn't get much better than working in a theater.  

I guess we are, sort of, still doing some mindful prepping, but we're prepping differently.  We're prepping for a future in which we are still active.  So, we're going to the gym and doing a weekly full-body workout with weights.  I practice Yoga, taking classes three days a week.  We're watching our diet more closely, both for health reasons, and because I'm trying to lose a few extra pounds I seem to have decided to store.  When I became a "woman of an age", I found that I needed to relearn how to live in this body.  Eating chocolate after dinner when dinner is after 7:00pm means my body wants to hold onto all that chocolate goodness.  Did you know that chocolate is really heavy?  Ask my scale.

I'm learning to adjust to the new me.

I got a tattoo on my forearm a few years ago.  It says, "Kein tag aber heute."  

Recently, I was told that spending too much time dwelling on the past creates depression and thinking too much about the future creates anxiety.  I laughed in recognition of those roller-coaster emotions.  I know, I know, I keep saying "Do what you can with what you have where you are," and then, I spend all my time analyzing what I did and worrying about how it will impact me later.

So, I'm working on remembering - Kein tag aber heute -  No Day But Today.  And for those who aren't theater folk, it's a line from the musical, Rent with the message being that we can't change the past and tomorrow isn't a given, and the only time we have to really enjoy life is right this minute. 

Deus Ex Machina and I celebrated 30 years this year with a renewal of our vows in the place where we first said them.  

We aren't who we were 30 years ago.  Every couple who has been together as long as Deus Ex Machina and I have been will say the same thing - it's been a long, hard road, blah,blah, blah.  The fact is that we're still on that road, after 30 years, and that's pretty incredible.  Most days, we even still like each other enough to hold hands and laugh at each other's silly jokes.  

We raised meat birds this year, and bought a cow share and a pig share.  We still have our laying hens and share a lot of eggs with friends during the summer.  The rabbits have been gone for a while now.  

I planted a garden, as I have for the past twenty-five years.  We harvested a bunch of tomatoes, lettuce, and broccoli.  The cucumbers were a failure, as was my cardboard box potato experiment.  The Brussels sprouts may get big enough to leave for harvest later, if it doesn't snow anytime soon (I think we might have JUST had our first frost this past week).  The chipmunks ate the blueberries.  The birds ate the  grapes.  The squirrels ate the apples.  I don't know what ate all the raspberries, but it certainly wasn't me. 

In short, I'm not doing a lot of prepping - like I used to do, but we did get a membership at a regional warehouse store (by the way, we have a Costco - not a fan!) that carries a surprising number of local-to-me products, and I'm doing some stocking up on fresh and frozen things I can buy there.  

Life is still pretty good.  I'm not living the dream, but there's probably still time.

For now, Kein Tag aber Heute.  No day but today, and that's okay.