So, it’s passed, Thanksgiving is gone and I made it through
it without a complete and utter break down like I normally do because I miss
the folks so bad. I thought this year
would be harder still because the girls weren't around but the key to not letting
a holiday get to you I think is to keep busy.
I think Mom would have appreciated how busy I've been keeping myself…..my
body has been aching because I don’t sit as much as I used to and I like that
to an extent…my feet have been protesting which tells me I need to take it easy
on them….
Today, after church, we did what we've been doing lately and
went to the market to try and buy enough fruits and veggies to get through the
week. Now this is really sad, but one of the things I miss the most from the
states I think is going into Wegmans and not having to think about what type of
veggie to get, knowing I could put it in the freezer (I always bought the poly
packs of veggies that are frozen) and then when I was rushing around in the rat
race of life in NY I would simply throw a bag of frozen veggies in the
microwave and be done with it. Not so
here! Everything is fresh, you buy it
fresh from the farm and you eat it quick before it goes bad. I've had stuff go
bad and you feel the pain of it, thinking that you wanted to use it and then
because of the heat here (they say it’s warm here but not much so to me
anymore) everything goes bad quickly. (Also,
I didn't bring a microwave down here, why should I? I am trying live simpler)
After my visit last week with my girlfriend Donna to Orange
Walk and the Peoples Store and looking at the real deal as far as grocery
stores I got to be thinking about how it’s so nice to eat fresh but knowing
that sometimes when you buy something it will be going bad soon enough. Like a head of cauliflower or broccoli, it doesn't take much and I love those two veggies and sometimes they are really
hard to get. So, today after Church
when I was in the market I saw a full head of cauliflower! I decided then and there I would buy the
whole thing (usually they cut off how much you need) and I would “put some up”. Now, we haven’t bought our property here yet
so I haven’t started the garden and the lifestyle I want to attempt (trying to
live as much self sustaining as possible)
but this small gesture could work to maintain my feeling that I would be
more able to handle the care of produce and make it so I could live my
words. I bought some carrots as well (a
staple down here and I think a healthy one, in church I was looking around and
a lot of people here don’t have glasses, I think it’s because they eat so much
carrots! ) and broccoli. I put up a
frozen bag or two of the veggies I brought and kept some aside for during the
week.
It is so easy to “Put away” veggies, I've been reading up on
it and it doesn't require a whole lot of work, just general preparation. You cut up the vegetable that you want and
you par boil it in salted water and then put them in plastic bags and freeze
them. It was good because now that we are
down to three people eating, buying one of those big bags wouldn't work anymore. I love the fact that I could fill the bags
with only as much as we would need for a meal.
Hey, this wasn't so hard!!! And I
was recycling too, cause I would keep using the same boiling water and just
swap out which veggies I was boiling down….and then I used the boiling water to
heat up my dish water (I don’t have a kitchen sink here, just two tubs, one
with dish water and one with rinse and bleach)
and I felt good. Then I figured
something out…..In NY it was a rat race and I would race around like crazy
working my butt off to make sure we brought in enough money to make it through
another week, here I am thinking things
through and trying to live as cheaply as possible, it’s all about
survival! No matter where you are in
life and what you do with your life you are trying your best to survive in that
lifestyle that you feel is necessary….
What have you done lately to make your “survival” more
successful?
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