Wonder Why.....

Today is one of those days. One of those days that I wonder why. Wonder why I'm here doing what I do to exist or even wonder why I wonder why.

Meditating.....

I've heard and read some about meditation many times. It sounds like a good thing to do and it also sounds a lot like I do without even realizing it. That is, until now. I didn't realize it because my meditation takes a form unique to me because I've been the only available person to think this over with me. It started when I noticed a news brief that said it's good to take a nap in the afternoon. Well, I've been doing this for a while so I assume that I'm ahead of the 'baby boomer' great idea of the moment. Here's how I got started with my version of meditating. After all, meditating can be various things to various peoples. I usually start by sitting in my recliner shortly after a satisfying meal and start to watch an old black and white movie. Although I have done this with many recent movies, television shows and news programs and gotten the same result. While I'm watching I start to wander within my memories, letting go of the now and enter into a place that's different. The transition to my nap takes place and I drift between places until I awaken to find out that, indeed, I am alive and back where I started. After this startling revelation I feel re energized and ready to watch more television.

STOKES FLOYD FORMERLY OF WILTWYCK GARDEN... :: Daily Freeman Classifieds

STOKES FLOYD FORMERLY OF WILTWYCK GARDEN... :: Daily Freeman Classifieds

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My kitchen owes much to my mother.....

I think that most of my money saving ideas that I use in my kitchen are, very much, in the opposite directions that my mother did in her kitchen. She would need to follow recipes exactly and that meant buying certain items that she never really used after that. She also would throw out the liquid left from cooking vegetables and most times even threw out the liquid from cooking chicken. If she was making chicken stock it was a different matter. I use whatever I have on hand for most of my cooking. I do buy special items to use, but these can also be used in other recipes as well. I don't buy items that have a limited range of use. I never throw any liquid left from cooking and that's even the frying of steaks. To that liquid I usually make a sour cream sauce to put on the steak or use it to form the base for a sauce to add to my leftover fried steak with vegetables on pasta. I even use my leftover fast food chicken to make a pasta topping that is much better than any restaurant. The spices from the chicken are all that it needs to be combined with sour cream, vegetables and a little salt. I think my mother cooked just to feed us and really didn't like to cook in the first place. I also think that if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have the ability to do what I now do in my kitchen to save money and create tasteful creations to feed to my family of, me.

Nesting Oranged Duck.....

I bought a frozen duck leg quarter, thawed it and then braised it in water/orange juice. I took the meat off the cooked leg quarter, cut up the meat and then refrigerated the meat and liquid from braising. The next day I browned the meat in vegetable oil (tablespoon), added the liquid from a medium sized can of mandarin oranges, the reserved cooking liquid less the fat and about 8 oz of frozen red/yellow/green pepper strips, covered the pan to heat through and then added cornstarch to thicken it, added the mandarin oranges, teaspoon each of ginger, turmeric and soy sauce. I then added hot sauce and heated through. I served it on warmed leftover white rice.

Public meetings.....

It seems to me that my local city and county governmental bodies haven't really gotten into the modern age. Every time that a public meeting is held someone points out just how few the numbers are of those that attend. In this modern age you would think that all things that require a public meeting would also require them to put the minutes of the meeting online so that they would get a better representation of it's constituents. Why is it that a person with no transportation or a fear of speaking in public is considered to be less patriotic or public minded because they can't attend the public meeting! Wake up politicians, utility companies and public representatives, use the modern age of online communicating. There are a few individuals without a computer or the use of a computer, but it would still afford the best way to hear more of the voice of the people.

Change.....

With each change,
I change.
With each change,
to change becomes easier.
With each change,
I become more of myself.
With each change,
I feel better.

Sudoku thinking.....

I started doing sudoku puzzles a few years ago. I've found that by doing them, and I don't solve everyone, it has given me a new way to look at things. This new way wasn't obvious at first, but now it has grown to include the process in just about everything that I do. By looking at things from every direction and how it will effect the end result is coming about in a natural way. Even things that have until now, become a habit, second nature to me, are being evaluated by my sudoku way of thinking. This has brought delightful surprises to my taste buds as I combine or alter my cooking methods. As an example when I now cook chicken in a little water with onions and garlic, I might also throw in a vegetable I have on hand. Then when the chicken is done I use my hand held wand blender to puree everything to save for soup, sauces or just to drink. Years ago I would have thrown out the vegetables and just have chicken stock. With this new method everything tastes so much better and I get much more of the nutritional benefits from the vegetables. I find that I now have very little waste in the kitchen and that saves me money also. In the future I'll write about other things that have been effected by my sudoku thinking.

Tea.....

I'm cutting down on my coffee intake and drinking more tea instead. Along with this I've started to search online about teas, their benefits, types and whatever else I can link to. With this search I started to think about how us, humans, make a lot of life more complicated than it could or should be. Why we do this I don't really know. There seems to be a lot of us who want to take an ordinary thing and make it extraordinary and become experts on whatever it is we've complicated to show others just how smart we are. I now know that I can spend a small fortune on teas and tea useful things and that I make the wrong type of tea in the wrong way! I'll probably continue with my wrong tea ways for a while. That is, until that day when I along with the many, will make this ordinary thing extraordinary.

Things that bother me.....

1. Why do a lot of television shows and movies hire actors/actresses with beautiful accents/speaking voices to then force them to conceal or change their voice!
2. Why don't credits for movies/television shows give their character name also? And why does television give the ending credits in such a fashion that the viewer can't read them?
3. I hate it when I get coupons for, buy one get one free or so much off the regular price. How do I know the regular price if they don't tell me? Why would I make a special trip to buy something when I don't even know if the price is a good one?

One thought to another.....

One thought went from one thing to another thing and so on until I came to here. In the last few years I've lost a lot of things in my life. My wife of thirty years died from cancer, I had to sell our house and my four legged companions that gave me much love and affection went on to new homes. Of course when I look back a lot of negative happenings are there, but most of my memories are of the good times. Times spent with the granddaughters on vacation in Plattsburgh, family cookouts, holidays and even doing yard work. When my memories go back farther I remember playing tag with my mother, teasing my brother and sister and riding my bike that sounded so clankity clank. Not once though do those memories contain the love of, or for, money. In fact money doesn't seep into my memories at all. Now of course it takes money to do anything, even buy food for cookouts, but the real pleasure for me was in the living. The living and wonderful pleasure to be a part of my little section of the universe. Things change with time and now I've got different companions at a variety of levels. Some I have contact with are physically close friends, shoppers in stores, waitresses, sale clerks, tweeters and email friends. The one thing that will never change is my love for them.

Power to us.....

In my local paper recently it stated that the price to feed a family of four had decreased. The consumer voice of the people has spoken and now each and every one of us should take notice of our accomplishment. We brought the price down by better choices of food items and being creative with our menus. It isn't by chance that we choose food to save some money on. It's because of everything else going up so much. Just about the only thing that most of us can cut back on in any way, is our food expense. But this should be a barometer to measure just how effective we can be when we act as a community together. Do you really think that the money grabbing food companies don't want to get more and more money to satisfy their needs and mostly egos? They try to charge top dollar for every little thing. They don't bring prices down just to be good people. No, we did it and we should use this power to bring about the right changes for us in the near future.

One sentence, many thoughts.....

I read a sentence the other day that took root in my subconscious mind and this brought about something I hadn't really thought about lately. First the sentence was this, "Most times the act of accumulating wealth is far more satisfying than spending that money." Now this statement has got to do with self made millionaires or those very rich. Us down to Earth peoples working to survive really do get a sense of enjoyment when we can eat, watch television or buy clothes. It also explains a lot about how employers treat their employees. If it's more like a game, employees are just expense items, nothing more. I'm sure that there has been many exceptions to this, but I'd say in general this holds true and is probably going to be that way for many years to come.

Little pieces of paper.....

Old man winter has come for a visit here in the Northeast, as well as most parts of the United States, which has been a catalyst for me to get my shredding up to date. I've been adding to my shredding pile for months now. Ever since I moved after my wife died I've been wanting to whittle that pile down using my handy, dandy, cross cutting shredding machine. With the cold wind blowing it's wintry tune and warm coffee at arm's length I've begun. It's funny when you think about it. Most identities are stolen online or when people use their credit cards for purchases in stores and not by garbage diving robbers during the dark of night. Yet we feel better by shredding up all those receipts, bills and maybe some xxx poems or photos too. Plus what I've found out is that it fits nicely into my simpler life style now. Years ago I would be saving every bit of paper just in case. Now I am letting it go to expand my livable space and mind set as well. Even the actual act of shredding has an added meditative aspect to it.

Winds of change.....

Very windy during the night. So windy in fact that it woke me up and this in turn starting my mid-night thinking process. I starting thinking about this wind of change that happening more and more lately. That change is a lot of us feeling that last straw as more and more politicians play the, blame the other party, game. Especially in these hard, and getting harder, times we need people in public office that pledge their service to the peoples of the United States. We do not want, shouldn't allow, politicians to vote with their political party just for the sake of voting with their political party. For that matter I think that our political system needs to end this party system once and for all. We should be at a level in our history where we can use the many news outlets to find out about persons running for public office and make an informed choice using only that information. We don't need the money sucking, lying and back stabbing Democrat, Republican or whatever to deliberately confuse us.

Time, a man made monster

Now that this new year is upon me I find myself once again thinking about time. Yes the past year has seemed to fly by and it seems like not so long ago that I was among much younger trees. These thoughts are my usual for this time of year plus this year I've begun to develop a theory about how time affects humanity. Even though the scientists need to use a measurement of time to make calculations about just about everything, time is a man made thing that ages us more than anything else. There's even a saying that comes closest to my theory. That is, "You're only as old as you feel." More and more lately I've heard and read about how much visualization affects us in so many ways. Plus how negative thoughts can cause harm to our immune system so much that it takes years of our lives. I think that keeping track of our age doesn't directly due us harm, it's only when we add to this the assumed negative aspects of getting older that it does harm us in many, as of yet, undetermined physical and mental ways. It's because of my new theory that I think the first thing anyone should do to go about anti-aging is to, develop a way to feel free of feeling like any age whatsoever. If we can find a way to really, truly believe that time only exists and that it doesn't control us, that part of us that's inside of us, our soul or if you like, our inner child, it will take over and we'll feel younger and more at ease with the world. We're all different from each other. We'll all spend different amounts of time here. That amount of time should be spent feeling the way we want to feel and not fighting the process of aging as we do now. It might only end up as being only an illusion, but I've seen a lot of magicians make me believe what I saw was real. This is just a theory of my own. Only time will tell if this theory works in actual practice for me, and then I'll be the only one to know if it did or not. Which brings up another theory.