Retract, Regroup, Restart

As recent weeks and months have passed, I’ve noticed that my energy for the various challenges I’m supposedly participating in has evaporated.  Lots of reasons all converging:  extra paid work that is taxing my time, much free time spent getting the winter’s wood in (still ongoing), feeling mentally down (variety of reasons but mostly relationship-oriented), and the fact that my garden is a bust this year, with only potatoes and chard doing well.  I might end up with four or five winter squash total, perhaps four beets, two tomatoes, three jalapenos, one bell pepper.  Time just got away from me and all of a sudden everyone else was harvesting, when I was still looking at seedlings.  As for the blog challenges, they were generally sucking more energy from me in the guilt of all that I’m not doing, than they were enlivening me with the accomplishments I was doing.

And, I realized recently that there are some things — personal paperwork, housekeeping, reading list — that I really would rather be spending my time on at the moment.

So, I’m officially cancelling my participation in just about everything:  Riot for Austerity, Independence Days Challenge, Growing Challenge, etc.  I will of course still have a goal of moving forward with preparations and skills learned for the future, growing and cooking new things, etc.  I just won’t be taking much time to report on it on a regular basis.  Every now and then, yes — every week, no.  And I’m sorry to say that I will probably stop reading many blogs too — my blogroll had gone from ten or fifteen blogs to several dozen on a reader that told me when a new post was made.  I could easily pass the evening online just reading blogs.  While I may still do that now and then, I’m going to try to wean myself from that in favor of time spent on my own projects — sorry, y’all, no offense I hope!

Hopefully this new direction will mean that I occasionally have something to say here other than an IDC report or whining about how tired I am!

A Twist on the Week’s IDC Activities…

The twist is that I’m not at home — I’m in the Bay Area for a week visiting my mom and dad.

Planted: Nothing, but I did buy a potted chocolate mint plant at Mom’s farmer’s market.  I think it will be a container plant at home, but we’ll see.

Harvested: Nothing

Preserved:  Nope.

Stored:  Five pounds quinoa pasta (actually I bought it for a friend who can’t have wheat, but it turns out this contains rice flour in addition to quinoa flour, and she can’t have that either, so I’m keeping it.  I’ve never had quinoa pasta, so stay tuned for me to try this and count it as ‘cooking something new’ one of these weeks).  Dog treats.  Soymilk.

Managed: Nothing.

Prepped:  Four more buckets and gamma seal lids from the co-op.  Plus, I went into the local Goodwill store near Mom’s and found a nice wooden kitchen table for only $25 (marked $49.99 but it was half-off that day!).  I didn’t have a kitchen table and definitely wanted one, so I guess this is a prep, though it doesn’t have much directly to do with being ready for a different future.  I’ll consider it like a ‘tool’ for doing more in the kitchen – you need enough room to spread out and have a work space, right?  OK, now I do…  :)

Advocated for local food economy: Nope.  I wore my Locavore Farms T-shirt to the Mountain View farmer’s market, but no one noticed or asked about it, so it doesn’t count.

Reduced waste: Got showed a better way to string the line in the weedwhacker that was brand new but not working right, so that hopefully it can have a full life reducing the fire risk in my yard, instead of being junk.

Cooked something new:  Yes!  I made cole slaw from the cabbage I bought at last week’s farmer’s market.  I perused recipes online until I got the basic gist of the mix of ingredients.  I wanted something simple, but that also approximated the cole slaws I’ve had before (which is what my taste buds were craving).  I shredded one head of cabbage and one carrot, added salt and pepper and caraway seeds, and mixed it all together.  I mixed together four tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and two tablespoons of white sugar, and then poured that mixture over the cabbage.  I then added two dollops of mayonnaise (about 3 tablespoons total, I guess) and mixed it in — just enough to barely coat the cabbage.  When I tasted it, it seemed to need something sharp-flavored — just a bit more tangy.  So I added the juice of half a lemon.  It made a pretty big bowl, but my mom and I made short work of it — after two meals including it, there’s only one serving left.  I’d still like to add something a big spicier into it — maybe a dash of cayenne?  Or some chopped pickle/relish?  Some of the recipes included some onion, and I didn’t add any, but that’s also an idea.  Anyway, it worked and was yummy!  This worked out well, as I don’t usually eat mayonnaise and don’t have any at home, but since I was at mom’s I was able to use hers.  When I make cole slaw next at home, I’ll probably try one of the no-mayo recipes for a more long-term personal recipe for me.

I want to expand this “cook something new” category to also include eating something new, even if it doesn’t need cooking or if someone else does the cooking (to expand the kinds of food I know about and can eat).  To that end, I tried a smoothie — I suppose I can’t claim I’d NEVER had one, but it had been years, sufficiently long that I wasn’t even entirely sure what was in one.  When a co-worker raved about the one she got from the wifi cafe, I went ahead and tried one.  Bleah, just not for me.  It was ok while it was all still frozen, but something about the thick texture of it as it melts is unpleasant to me. Perhaps it’s the pineapple juice I don’t like — I might try getting a custom-made one using different juice.  On the other hand, since I don’t (yet, I’m thinking about it) have a freezer, I suppose getting hooked on blended ice drinks isn’t such a smart idea anyway…