First Instant Pot Trial

Although I've had my I- pot for a week now, I've just made my first meal in it. The recipe for this vegan, no oil stew was found on Simple Daily Recipes.  I didn't use the faux meat though as I prefer my food not to look like meat.  I tweaked other things to my tastes and adjusted spices including omitting salt. The family loved it. The liquid smoke gave it depth and authenticity as a stew. I felt that the broth was delicious although somewhat thin for a stew. I will play with this in the future to try to achieve thicker consistency.  Delicious.

It has taken me a week to start using this amazing appliance due to hurting my wrist last Friday. I currently do not have use of my left arm below the elbow.  No definitive answers from the ER on Saturday and with very little improvement with pain or mobility, I plan to see a doctor again tomorrow. Treating the pain is one thing, but I really want to know what is causing the pain and address that.

The steroids definitely mess with body weight and I'm thankful that the pharmacist mentioned that or I'd be freaking out right now. The high dose is making my heart beat wildly so I will not take anymore. The force of it was so strong that I could see my hand on my chest go up and down to the rhythm.  Scary stuff.

I am hoping tomorrow brings some answers regarding my injury and subsiding side effects from Prednisone.  I'm a terrible couch potato and just want to get back on track with all I need to do.

Decluttered Body; Decluttered Home

Four Weeks. That is how much time I have until school starts.  This is important because for four weeks I have a certain amount of freedom I will not have for another 10 months.  Granted, I will have some small chunks of time to devote to my choice of activities but for four weeks I will have great chunks of time.  Boy, do I have some goals.

I have been working at eliminating all animal products from my diet since April 2, 2017.  I have reduced 15 pounds off of my body so far.  It feels great to declutter my physical body.  I feel much better and am working on getting completely back on track to a WFPB diet and cutting out the processed food that I added in over the past 6 weeks.  

Another area that I have been working on for the last seven years is decluttering my house.  (Is there a body/house connection here?) Oh before children it was not very hard to keep everything neat, tidy, and more toward a minimalist style.  Oh, but children change everything.  They need stuff.  They want stuff.  They keep stuff.  I keep stuff for them.  I keep important stuff.  I keep nostalgic stuff.  I need stuff.  I want stuff.  I own more stuff then I've ever owned before.  Time to evaluate my stuff.

Now, I do constantly get rid of stuff and always have a donation bag or two in the works.  I have had a few focused efforts of purging stuff and have tackled my clothes closet on more than one occasion.  It does desperately need it again, though.  

About three months ago, I purged the linen/personal care closet.  Two months ago, I purged a couple of kitchen cabinets and my make-up drawer.  A bit more than a month ago, I purged my cookbooks.  

Still, I have too much stuff everywhere.  Pretty things, neat things, interesting things, all join necessities and useless things alike.  At this age and stage in my life, I long for calm.  Think flat spaces with little on them.  Shelves with only a few special items needing dusting.  Closets that are easy to put things away in, simply because there is space and a place.  

So I have a dual focus for the next four weeks.  Purge the junk from my dieta and purge junk from my home.  Junk that I don't want in my diet is anything that is not a fruit, vegetable, whole grain, legume, or seeds and nuts.  Junk that I don't want in my house is anything that doesn't fit, is not used, is not usable, or that does not bring joy when encountering it.  Sounds easy enough.  I know better.  If it was easy we'd all have done it already.  I found this article inspiring today: 18 Five-Minute Decluttering Tips to Start Conquering Your Mess. I am ready.  Let's see what I can accomplish in four weeks.

First picture: taken right this minute: 3:05 p.m.: my desktop computer area before:

After:  3:54 p.m.

 It did not take me 49 minutes to do this.  There was a bathroom break, phone call, a trip to another level for a duster, etc.  It actually probably took about 10 minutes.  Small task and focused effort =accomplishment.  Now, time to make a focused effort to eat an apple.