Six Steps That Lead To Everyday Joy

  

Simplify Your Home 

I cannot tell you enough how much a decluttered home will transform your life.  It makes a huge difference in many, many aspects.  Because you have less stuff to manage and take care of you will need to clean less often, you will feel better when you enter a room or open a drawer, and you will alleviate a lot of stress and anxiety.  Streamlining our processes as we age is super important to our overall wellbeing.  At this stage of life we deserve to live simply and abundantly.

 

Live Below Your Means 

Establishing a workable budget for monthly expenses helps us to spend our money more wisely.  Allowing ourselves an allowance for guilt free spending in addition to our regular budgets makes it so we won’t feel deprived or too constricted.  If you have any debt, get rid of it as soon as possible.  Don’t carry balances on credit cards and do your best to find workable solutions before financing and paying interest.  Sometimes by just being patient and doing without something for a time those solutions will manifest themselves in unexpected ways.

 

Learn Something New 

Keeping our brains active is essential.  Strive to learn new things on a regular basis.  Read books, watch videos to learn new activities, take classes at your local community or senior center.  Challenge yourself to do something outside of your normal every day existence.  Try new things and don’t be afraid to do them alone.

 

Give To Others 

Service to others is a great way to find fulfillment in our lives.  Simple things such as sharing a meal or a conversation with someone, donating to a food pantry, surprising a friend or even a stranger with a small gift, paying for someone’s coffee in line behind you.  Hauling a trunk load of decluttered items to a thrift store can be a huge rush.

 

Focus On Health 

Do your best to stay active and maintain your mobility.  Walking is one of the best ways to stay fit and healthy.  Make wise choices when it comes to your food by opting for wholesome real foods over heavily processed prepackage or pre-prepared items.  Load up on fresh fruits and vegetables.  Limit the amount of sugar you consume on a daily basis.  Drink plenty of water.

 

Practice Daily Gratitude 

Be thankful and grateful with what you have rather than pine away for the things you don’t.  There is no need to feel sorry for ourselves, for when we look around and truly assess our situation we will often find we have far more than we initially realized.  Comparing ourselves and our lives to others is completely unnecessary.  Remember comparison is the thief of joy.  If you are currently dissatisfied with the path you are traveling then all you have to do is change it.  Be joyful, be encouraged and by all means be grateful.

 

Abandoning Perfect

 

A little while back I shared with you that I have a super power.  With that comes a great responsibility to use those powers for good and more importantly in a healthy way that doesn’t affect my life in a way that isn’t so super, if you know what I mean.  Sometimes our super powers tend to take over and just about drive you nuts.

 

Since learning of my super powers I’ve been steadily working to be less super and not allow myself to be taken over by it.  The hardest thing for me has been to stop that constant need to act and have everything “perfect”.  I use quotation marks here because in all reality there is no such thing as perfect.  Perfection does not exist.  You can get close, but one will never truly achieve perfectionism.  It is an unattainable goal.

 

It has been a process for me, but over the past year or so I’ve been working on just being “good enough”.  Learning when to stop or just let it go as “good enough” and being okay with something that isn’t quite up to my usual standards has been hard, but it has also been incredibly liberating.

 

Letting someone into my home when I haven’t double or triple checked to make sure everything was super clean and in its place was something that would’ve been very uncomfortable for me.  There have been times in the past where I wouldn’t start or complete a project because it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted, it wasn’t perfect, but now that I’ve embraced “good enough” I tend to hop right in and do stuff.  I think I get more done now and I think I enjoy what I’m doing a lot more too.

 

The biggest thing that “good enough” has allowed me to do is accept myself, with all my flaws and imperfections, inside and out.  I like what and who I see in the mirror each day and I tell myself I’m pretty and really do I feel it.  All my life I’ve struggled with that.  I’ve never thought I was pretty or thin enough, or all that other nonsense we tend to tell ourselves.  Guess what?  I am.  And for that matter I am the only one who needs to think so.

 

The state of my home, my yard, my vehicles and myself is good enough on any given day, at any particular moment.  More importantly, if someone else might not think so it really doesn’t matter.  It is completely okay.  I’m okay.  Every day I keep at it, little bit by little bit.  And if sometimes that urge to make it perfect creeps in on me that is okay too as long as it doesn’t try to take over again.  If it does I just say, “ okay that is good enough, you’re excused now” and away we go.

 

Turning The Corner - REAL Food

 

After a lot of pantry challenges and this year’s extremely low monthly grocery budget I have finally turned the corner on my REAL Food endeavor.  Simply put, I want to stock my home with wholesome and nutritious foods and keep processed foods to a minimum.  Right now the only processed food I have in my home is some store bought breads, a stock of assorted pastas in my LTFS and a small supply of commercially made condiments.

 

I do plan to continue to cull the condiments some more because I feel I have too many and most are in the form of salad dressings.  I want to go back to making my own salad dressing or to only buy better quality options if I choose.  I really don’t use a lot of condiments so what I do make or purchase tends to last a long time.  Moving forward I’d like to focus on making or buying better quality items in smaller amounts.

 

 

One thing I do know, especially after completing my July pantry challenge, is that I don’t do well with highly processed foods or a carb heavy diet.  I just don’t feel all that great after consuming that stuff.  I feel so much better if I eat a whole food diet and limit my carbohydrates.  I used to subscribe to the Keto lifestyle and I loved it, however I had terrible leg cramps and I really don’t want to go back to that again.  Instead, I have found that happy medium with a lower carbohydrate diet focused on lots of good, healthy produce and proteins.

 

I’m super excited to finally have my pantry, freezers and my long term food storage set up the way I truly want it.  Good quality, wholesome and nutritious food.  It was a process as I moved from working woman raising a family to a retired empty nester, but in the end I think it was all very much worth it.  Now, I’d better get cooking!

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 124

 

Another week has gotten away from me and just flown by so fast I can hardly believe it.  It was a good one though, very productive.  I did quite a bit of home canning, harvested a lot of tomatoes and the chicken kept me well supplied with fresh eggs.

 

Reorganization is messy business

I cleared off and cleaned all of the shelves

One of the projects I tackled was to go through the garage and do some purging, rearranging and reorganizing.  I managed to move the metal shelving unit over and make a place to house the deep freezer.  This was always my plan from the beginning when I first purchased it last year, however I found plenty of other things since then to keep me busy.  I’m glad I was able to finally get this done and the freezer in its permanent home.

 

This is all the crap I got rid of - Hurray! 😃

All done!

Ready for the next hazardous waste drop

I loaded up the truck with donations, and topped up the trash and recycling wheelie bins with plenty of items I no longer need, want or use and hauled them to the curb for pick up.  I also collected a box full of items to take in the next time the hazardous waste collection trucks turn up.  On the way home from work one evening I swung thru the donation lane at a nearby thrift store.

 

At work I took a group of seniors on an outing to a rural orchard to pick peaches.  It has been ages since I’ve been to one of the orchards so I think I enjoyed it every bit as much as they did.  I get to do it again next week with another group.

A freezer blueberry muffin & half a cosmic crisp apple

Meals I Prepared: 

I enjoyed a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables this past week.  Plenty of good healthy salads to go with my meals.  Some yogurt with fruit made for a nice light brunch. 

I kept my meals pretty simple with some soups and reheated leftovers and items I’d squirreled away in the freezer.

 

Unfortunately the wildfires and all the smoke in the air led to me having to cancel a camping trip I had planned.  Fortunately the temperatures have cooled to the more normal ranges and we are no longer dealing with triple digits.  We could sure use a good downpour right about now, however.  It will happen eventually.

 

I hope you are all doing well and had a great week.  Anyone else dealing with the seasonal wildfires where you live?  Have the temperatures cooled down for you?  Enjoy your weekend!

 

Creating My Dream Job

 

While I was in high school I enrolled in the occupational health sciences classes and by the end of my junior year I was a certified nursing assistant (CNA).  I felt very accomplished to have done this at such a young age and felt I was well set up to be able to work and have this noble occupation while I went to college to become a registered nurse.  I really thought, at that time, that a career in the nursing field was what I truly wanted to pursue, however I quickly found out it really wasn’t.  That, coupled with a lack of funds, made my first stab at higher education a complete disaster.  However I was a CNA and I was able to secure full time work at a nursing home where I took care of the elderly.  I loved it!

 

I eagerly looked forward to donning my uniform and heading off to work each day.  Greeting my patients as I made first rounds and helping them with their daily needs throughout my shift.  I was in my element and I was so proud of the work that I did.  The only problem with that job was that it didn’t pay very well and it was difficult to earn a living.  As a single person I did okay, but once I was married and added children to the mix along with the limitations of daycare where their hours didn’t coincide with mine in any way shape or form I had to leave that job and pursue other avenues.  It broke my heart.

 

While I was working at the nursing home I always thought that someday I’d really like to do what our activity director at the time was doing.  I would’ve loved to do the fun daily activities with the residents and go with them on the adventures outside of the nursing home.  Take them to doctor appointments or on shopping trips, things like that.  Perhaps someday…

 

I often told my children about my first career and how much I had loved it.  I always thought that once money wasn’t such a big deal and my kids were older and able to be home by themselves that perhaps I’d return.  My final job as a patient care coordinator, before I retired, was a good compromise, but most of my work was done over the phone so I had very little one on one contact with my patients.  I mainly coordinated care with other professionals and it was a lot of administrative work.  It was rewarding, but it didn’t feed my soul.

 

As many of you know I applied for and accepted a very part time job, averaging eighteen hours a week, with the City of Boise Parks and Recreation Department this past October.  My job with the city mainly encompasses working at the senior center as well as helping out at the community center from time to time.  I absolutely love it and as I near the one year mark I can honestly look back and say I have yet to have a bad day at the office. Even more recently, it has only gotten better.

 

Because I was willing to put myself out there and try new things I asked my boss if I could become a driver and take people out on various activities and she was thrilled.  She asked me if I wanted to do this instead of working in the center and I told her ideally I’d like to do both and that made her even happier, I think.  I took the steps, I did the extra educational work on the computer that was required (scored 100% by the way) and now I am officially a city driver and I am super happy about it.

Let's go!

 

I feel like I’ve completely gone full circle and at long last I’ve literally created my dream “job”.  I frequently use quotations whenever I talk about my job with the city because it never feels like work.  It is hard to describe but it feels like I’ve signed up to go on a mission or something and that I’m doing really good work.  I feel at times like I need to pinch myself to make sure this is all real.  I am so happy and so fulfilled right now.  My cup is literally overflowing.

 

It is never too late to fulfill your dreams, whatever they may be.  For me it was to find my dream job and be of service to others.  A part time job like this was always a part of my retirement plan, not for the money, but for me, to feed my soul and sense of purpose.  I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this, but I’m so happy and so fulfilled.  It is hard sometimes to imagine life getting much better.

 

My Costco Hauls - Winter Stock Up

 

I am super pleased with my two latest Costco hauls I did to help me stock up my long term food storage and top up the deep freezer in preparation for the upcoming winter.  I was able to get quite a few things checked off of my list.  One of the things I did was go ahead and buy the Kirkland jarred peaches because they are really good and although they are a tad expensive it saved me a trip to the orchard and the hours of preserving.  With it just being me and the fact that I don’t eat a lot of peaches, plus the fact that I had a lot of other items on my canning list, this just seemed like a better way to efficiently put up some fruit in my LTFS.

 

My first Costco haul included a rotisserie chicken which I pieced out and froze half of saving the carcass in my bag of vegetable scraps for making stock.  Frozen vegetables ended up divided and vacuum sealed for the freezer as well.  That day I picked up a four jar package of the peaches and an eight count of canned black olives which I added to the LTFS shelves.

 

I measured and weighed them out for 1 pound packages

Next I headed back to Costco a few weeks later and picked up another package of the jarred peaches, a two pack jar of dill pickles, a two jar pack of Pace picante sauce, ten pounds of organic cane sugar and another rotisserie chicken.  Check, check and check!

 

Shelf stable items ready for the shelves

Once again I pieced out the chicken and added the carcass to the stock bag.  Once I collected some more veggie scraps I emptied that bag into the slow cooker and made a nice large pot of bone broth to can and freeze.  The chicken allowed me to put up at least eight meals, probably more like ten actually, not including leftovers.  Those rotisserie chickens are not only delicious but quite a bargain at $4.99 each.

 

I also made my first Costco fuel purchase and topped up the gas tank on my truck.  It was sitting just below half so it wasn’t too expensive to fill her back up.  They definitely did have the best prices on gasoline on that particular day.

 

Sugar repackaged and ready for long term storage

Looking good!

How are you doing with your winter preparations?  Do you shop at Costco too?