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thebarefootking · 4 years

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Food

As with many autistic people, my childhood was rife with battles at the dinner table over what I would and would not eat. (Or, in my case, the bar. Our trailer didn't have a dinner table, per se, and I ate on a tall chair in the kitchen, facing across the bar toward the living room TV, while my parents sat on the couch.) Some foods were fan favorites, some I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot fork. Tomatoes, I hated (and still hate!) One of my earliest memories is of a preschool teacher, so much bigger than me, coming up behind while I picked at my food.

"Don't you like tomatoes?"

"No. They're gross."

"Have you ever tried a tomato?"

"No. They smell bad and they're mushy."

"Well how do you know you don't like it, if you haven't tasted it?" she asked, ignoring the fact I'd just told her. "Try it. For me?"

"I don't wanna."

"Just one bite?"

"I don't. wanna."

"You need to try the tomato."

Of course, when I finally gave in to her badgering, I 'learned' what had already been apparent to me: tomatoes were gross.

Some foods, more interestingly, were one-day delights, preferred a couple times and then hated thereafter. Eggs, for example, were always a trial. A nice scramble was always accepted, at least for my youngest years, until I learned more about where eggs came from. After that, I swore I could taste the chicken embryos, and I didn't eat eggs for a good, long while. When I repented of my folly, fried eggs were the dish of the day, but only one way: cooked hard, with the yolk unbroken. That way, I could peel the egg white away and eat it, and leave the whole yolk on my plate to be disposed of or, more frequently, eaten by one of my parents.

For those of you who cook, you may know that this is a particularly difficult way to prepare eggs. Either the yolks stay runny and burst on the plate (bad), or they burst in the pan from heat and overhandling, and mingle inextricably with the white (worse). Dad claims it took him months of practice to figure out how to do it, and years to get really good… by which time I'd gone off eggs again, preferring a sweeter breakfast (probably for the energy boost it gave me. By the time 4th-6th grades rolled around, school was causing me to work up an intense appetite.)

Although I didn't have a very broad spectrum of preferred tastes, that didn't stop me wanting to experiment in the kitchen. Indeed, it was one of my favorite things to do! Unfortunately, I could rarely get an adult to allow it (partly because we, in our poverty, could not afford to waste ingredients. Partly because, again, due to poverty, everyone was just too damn exhausted to supervise something that potentially dangerous.) Instead, I usually ended up sneaking and doing it on my own, which invariably led to trauma of one kind or another.

One incident occurred one of the very first times my parents dubbed me old enough to stay home on my own while they went out to run errands. Having recently seen a news spot on dyed salt for those seeking to reduce their salt intake, I sought to replicate the stuff in my own kitchen. How hard could it be? I thought. Just add food coloring to salt.

Only, food coloring has water in it.

All the salt (and I do mean all the salt in the house) was now a dark blue-green color, and the texture of wet sand. I needed to dry it out! But I wasn't allowed to use the oven or stove unsupervised. What could I do?

I decided the best option was to microwave the salt. I spread it out on a large plate, and nuked it in batches until all the salt was dry. Unfortunately, for the first batch, I failed to realise how VERY FUCKING HOT the plate would be after several minutes spinning away in the microwave. I pulled it out barehanded, screeched in pain, and tossed the Perry-the-Platypus-colored salt all over the kitchen floor and microwave cabinet.

Not good. I was already beginning to worry about what my parents would think about all this business with the salt. Now I had a mess on my hands to boot. I tended to my (thankfully minor) burns, and then began swabbing the floor and cabinet with damp paper towels...

… which spread the food dye EVERYWHERE. Now the salt was teal, the floor was teal, the cabinet was teal, and I was teal.

And I had no idea when my parents would return!

I cleaned frantically, microwaving salt on the side the entire time. And somehow (perhaps Lot's wife was smiling upon me?) I got it all managed. My parents came home to a nice, clean kitchen (if you didn't see the small blue spots in the crevices at the very edge of one cabinet), and a calm, collected child (also slightly spotted, but only on the palms, easily hidden). Nothing of note occurred until dinner time.

"LAUREN!!"

Apparently, Dad did not like that all of his salt was turned 'blue'. My reasoning appeased his anger, but he was still pretty displeased. I was temporarily banned from using the microwave without permission. And they were far more cautious about leaving me alone, after that.

(These days, Dad frequently apologises for this. He says it was a creative and thoughtful act, and he shouldn't have gotten mad. I agree, but I'm also not mad anymore. The whole thing is rather funny in retrospect.)

A much more traumatic food event, much later, but still involving the microwave, was the first time I tried making microwave mac 'n cheese. It was around the inception of Easy Mac, so the idea was quite novel; it wasn't as if I had a backlog of knowledge on what not to do…

I followed the instructions exactly, with the single differing point of adding some dried parsley before cooking.

AND LET ME TELL YOU.

If you are going to add parsley to your Easy Mac, do it after cooking! Cooking amplifies and alters the flavor so that it tastes like you added some sort of cooked leafy vegetable, like spinach, except somewhat more like an inedible plant. The flavor permeates every nook and noodle, and even the cheese sauce can't mask it.

It was inedible. Beyond inedible; it was sensory overload of the worst kind.

And my parents, who had watched the whole thing, and warned me of putting anything in my food that I didn't 100% know would taste good, made me eat it.

At first, there was a screaming match, until I wore myself out with tears and begging. Then, I just sat there, defeated, thinking of ways I could get out of eating it. Maybe if I intentionally get choked on the food? Maybe if I shatter the glass of the coffee table, and then hurt myself with it? Something to make them care about something other than me eating this food. Anything to make them see how much eating the food was bad and wrong and how much it hurt me.

I was never, in my entire childhood, a willfully disobedient child. Well, small things, here or there, a child's innocent inability to self-regulate their impulses or understand the rules. Never did I knowingly and intentionally go against my parents' commands when I now feel like I had another real choice. But there were times, like these, when I didn't have a choice.

I ate three bites before my body rebelled and I threw up. Mom didn't follow through on her threat to make me eat the vomit and finish the food.

Instead, I got grounded for two weeks.

Incidentally, I've never gotten an apology for this little incident, despite it being the one I'm still angry over.

None of this is to say I was too picky to be fed, or that I ever went without (excepting that one night with the poison mac). If anything, I ate more than plenty in an attempt to offset the lacks in nutrition my pickiness inevitably led to. I'm sure that I was malnourished at times, despite eating more than my necessary share of calories.

And boy, was I aware of what that share was! My parents were and are avid yo-yo dieters, always on one plan or another to lose the weight they gained off a diet of poverty foods. All the while, frustrated by my pickiness, they fed me on breakfasts of whole packages of off-brand cinnamon rolls or apple turnovers. My lunch was usually whatever snack-foods I could convince the lunch ladies to sell me for the same price as a school lunch I wouldn't eat. With both parents either busy or exhausted, dinner was Taco Bell nearly every damn weekday.

It was inevitable that I would gain weight, with the genes, environment, and diet all inclined toward it. I was ten or eleven the first time my parents mentioned including me in one of their diet plans.

Not likely, I thought. I had long since decided that healthy food was gross, like school lunches and boiled vegetables and limp salads. And I wouldn't, couldn't cut my portions; not when I had to stay alert and concentrating while hauling all my books all around the school without a bookbag (which, after the Columbine shooting, had been banned at my school, lest we ten-year-olds have a place to conceal a weapon). I was already battling undiagnosed ADHD. I didn't need low blood sugar on top of it.

Still, if it gave them an incentive to buy more fresh fruit, I wasn't going to complain.

(And I didn't complain at all about any of their diets, until the one that consisted almost exclusively of boiled cabbage soup that stank the house to high heaven. I didn't even entertain joining them on that one.)

What it all added up to, though, was someone who, by the age of eleven, already had enormous issues with food and body image. And diet, for that matter, for we still hadn't found a healthy variety of foods that I would eat. By the time I was in high school, I was eating Cheetos and Little Debbies with Mountain Dew for lunch every weekday except Wednesday (chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes day in the cafeteria! Hell yeah!) I was also being (mildly) bullied for my weight.

Adulthood came after, with blessings and curses. When I moved out on my own, I had more opportunity (and income!) to explore what I liked culinarily. I got to employ the whole backlog of tips and tricks from cooking shows that I had watched for years. (At one point, during high school, I had wanted to become a chef. I gave up the idea when I realised how ill-suited I was to the job, but the education of the time stuck with me.)

I got to learn my favorite ways to cook food (pan fried, not baked. Baking unseasoned meat is not 'cooking', Dad.) I got to play with spices and flavors.

Or, I did for a while.

Very soon, my work at McDonald's caught up with me, and I found myself too tired to do much cooking. (Sorry, Dad! I understand, now!) More and more, my meals were eaten at work, from work. Over the next year, my stress increased, and my eating habits faltered along. And then, I began passing out at work.

Now, I needn't tell you this is a very dangerous situation, what with all the hot oil and ovens and lamps and such in a kitchen. I was sent home more than once, and it was becoming a danger not only to me, but to the state of my employment. I got in with a doctor as soon as I possibly could, and they determined that I had iron deficiency anemia.

No one was particularly surprised. I have a family history of the affliction, and I had basically been living off yogurt cups, Sausage Egg McMuffins, and chicken biscuits with cheese for months. My doctor suggested diet changes and high-dose iron supplements.

(One of these two turned my poop to black sin slime from a hell portal in my bowels. It was not the diet.)

Immediately, I switched over to a high-iron, high-protein, low-carb diet. And you know what? I felt fucking fantastic. I had energy for days, my mental acuity was improved, and my mood was better. I fell asleep faster and slept more soundly.

For three months, I kept it up. But then the financial burden became too much. Turns out, it's damn expensive to eat home-cooked meat every day when you're picky as hell. I was easily spending at least two to three times as much as I was when I was eating only fast food (on employee discount, admittedly). And soon, between the stress, the financial concerns, and my health problems, I had to move back in with my parents.

Honestly, I still haven't found peace with food and its place in my life. Coming to accept what my sensory needs mean for me has been difficult, and working around those needs in a productive way has been nearly impossible, especially with my other disabilities in tow. I feel that I'm learning to be kinder to my body emotionally speaking, but I could still be much kinder to it physically.

If only I could figure out how.

I wish I could be that little kid who loved experimenting in the kitchen, again. But I'm not, and I can't. So I'll have to find another way to take care of me.

#a year of writing #01062020 #self harm #school shooting mention #diet talk #child abuse #vomit tw #medical stuff #actuallyautistic #actuallyadhd #long post #this one's kind of long and disjointed #sorry for that lol #and lots of warnings on this one!

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canaryatlaw · 5 years

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alright, well today was pretty fun. my alarm went off at 9:30 and I got up and got ready, then walked over to the spot and met up with Jess, and headed over to the vegetarian place, where we got the same things we always get (with the same waitress we always have, we’re very predictable). Enjoyed our brunch, then once we finished we ran next door (like literally next door) to the UPS store where I paid $1.67 to mail the Illinois government my $10 check for the taxes I apparently owed them. The whole thing was fairly ridiculous IMO, but whatever, it’s done now and at some point I should be getting a federal refund around $600 so that will be nice (which I’ll surely spend on con plans almost immediately). but once we finished there we walked back to Jess’ place and down the street where she had parked and began our journey to get something figured out with her car because the lease was almost up. We had gone to dealerships in a suburb (there’s not really many actual dealerships in the city the way there are in suburbs) a few weeks back and they gave us some price estimates to consider, but they were kinda sketchy and giving off a weird vibe so we were gonna try the dealership in another suburb that’s up by the fancy movie theatre we go to sometimes. So we get to the Honda dealership, and the plan is to buy her current car that she had been leasing as that would result in the cheapest monthly payment. so we sat down with the salesman and start running numbers it turned out keeping the car was actually going to be a lot more expensive than initially thought, and at this point it would be a cheaper monthly payment to get into a new lease, so we opted to do that instead. The current model she had was doing fine so they went to see what they had on site, and asked for colors, Jess said she liked the red she currently has and I said blue, which she agreed with as well. So more paperwork, signing things and reading contracts (as the Lawyer Friend™ that’s my designated duty, even though my position on adhesion contracts is that they’ll never hold up in court anyway). So they pull the car up and it’s like, the coolest shade of blue, like fairly dark in tone but also pretty bright if that makes any sense (someone suggested it was Tardis blue, and that’s probably pretty accurate) which we very much liked. So we checked it out, it was nice, a lot of upgraded stuff, so we finalized some stuff which ended up getting dragged out and taking forever so when we finished we were like okay let’s go lol. So they kept the former car and we drove off with the new one, we need to run the second key up to them this week once Jess’ parents mail it to her, so we’ll be back. So from there we drove over to the mall/movie theatre complex we like and went to buffalo wild wings because I told Jess we could go there despite me not being able to eat the majority of the menu, lol. It was very clear they were severely understaffed, we had to wait for someone to come to the hostess booth to get seated for a solid 10 minutes or so, and then waitress checking in would be kind of sporadic. and like, this is a situation where a lot of people would think this is bad service and I’m not going to give them a good tip, but I’m very much of the opinion that a restaurant being understaffed is not at all the fault of the waitstaff, and it being understaffed is only making their job harder and they’re clearly trying their best, I’m not going to make their day worse by leaving them a crappy tip when they get paid shit money from the restaurant and rely on those tips. So I have strong feelings about that, lol. I rarely ever reduce a tip below 25%, I’m a strong believer in solid tipping lol (blame my affluent childhood). So we had gotten cheese curds to share because of course and I was trying to just get something light because at that point we were planning on going to the cheesecake factory for dinner so we didn't want to fill up, so I ordered something listed as “roasted garlic mushrooms” which ended up being deep fried mushrooms and they were just....not good. so I ate a lot of cheese curds lol. From there we went to the movie theatre that’s right there, it’s the super fancy one where they’ll do things like bring you a blanket for free if you’re cold in the theatre and have like a full dining menu available including like $40 steaks 😂 it’s wild. Since we had just eaten we opted to keep it lighter, Jess got a milkshake and I just got some skittles. We had decided on seeing “Isn’t It Romantic” which is the one with Rebel Wilson, we had initially been considering the second lego movie or how to train your dragon 3 but they weren’t playing at that theatre because they recently redid it so it’s all 21 and over since there’s a lot of alcohol available, so they wouldn’t be playing kids movies (even if there are adults who would like to see them). But yeah, the movie was pretty funny, got some good shots in at romantic comedies in general which was amusing, and the casting was pretty well done. By the time we got out we still weren’t very hungry and we had been debating how to do things because there was also a bubble tea place next door we wanted to hit up, so we decided to just do the bubble tea and head home, and do the cheesecake factory when we come back on Wednesday to drop off the key. So we got bubble tea which was like in smoothie form this time (meaning that they blended the ice into it instead of adding it afterwards) and it was very good, I enjoyed it. We headed back from there, a little cautiously since it’s still a new car to get used to, but we made it. Jess dropped me off, I got up to my apartment and ditched my uncomfortable jeans for the leggings I was wearing underneath them (they were ripped jeans and not suitable for wearing in the winter on their own), and then spent a while ripping the clutter in my room apart to make sure I had all the aspects of my cosplays for next weekend ready and good to go, so that took a bit of time. I’ll have to commit to actually clean up my room sometime this week, because it’s pretty messy at the moment. But once I had everything accounted for I moved to the couch and watched some more of The Americans until I decided to shower and start getting ready for bed, then I of course dawdled and wasted time, but then I did start writing and now I am here. Church in the morning, I’m not 100% sure which service I’m gonna be in the babies room for, I was initially signed up for the 11:30 but someone for the 10 am just cancelled and they’re generally busier, so it might be a good idea for me to switch to that one. Idk, we’ll see how things play out in the morning. And on that note it’s definitely time for me to go to bed, so I’m going to do that now. Goodnight babes. Hope you’ve had an awesome weekend so far.

#daily journal #February 2019 #Jess tag

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awintersail · 6 years

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Jordan, Egypt and the Suez Canal

April 26. Once again I am playing catch-up with the narrative of our journey. We are now sailing from Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy to Algiers, where will will spend a very short day tomorrow, our second consecutive brief stop. We only had six hours in Cagliari, but we used it well. Yesterday and Tuesday we were berthed in Valletta, Malta, our first European port of the cruise. Originally, we were to spend only one day in Malta, but the Tunisia port call scheduled for Wednesday was canceled for security reasons, and we picked up an additional half day in Valletta. We had heard about a month ago that Tunis might be skipped, so it was not a surprise. As described later, Malta was very nice, so it was a fine place to devote some extra time.

But, not to get ahead of the chronology, back to Jordan and Egypt. The fact is that we didn’t see much of Jordan except Petra and the ride through the desert and mountains to and from it. We docked in Al Aqaba, at the end of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is Jordan’s only coastal city. It is 4000 years old, but looks fairly modern and is taking advantage of the tourist opportunities afford by Petra and Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is where T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and his Arab army camped before launching a successful attack to drive the Turks out of Aqaba in WW I. The city shares both land and sea borders with Eilat, Israel to the west, and there is a busy border crossing point here.

It is a 3 1/2 hour drive to Petra, much of it through pretty desolate countryside of sand and jagged rocks. We climbed to an elevation of 5000’ before descending to Petra at 3000’. When you get there it is easy to see why only the Bedouins knew it was there until the early 19th Century. Petra was created by the Nabataeans around the 3d century BCE. It was positioned on a major trading route, and is thought to have been occupied by 20k people. Now, it is Jordan’s most visited tourist site

It is about a 2 mile walk from the parking area to the places shown in the pictures. The route is through a narrow, winding path known as the Siq. At the end of the Siq, the spectacular Treasury comes into view. Because the tombs of Petra were carved into sandstone, and because the area formerly was subject to annual flooding, many of the original features have been worn away by wind and water, but it it remains a marvel of ancient craftsmanship. We were fortunate that it was cooler than normal and with a breeze on this day.

From Jordan, we sailed access the Red Sea to the port of Safaga, Egypt on the west coast. Safaga was the departure point for our trip to Luxor (Thebes in the ancient world), The Karnak Temple, and The Valley of the Kings. Again, this was a long drive from the port, but took us through the fertile Nile River valley in addition to many miles of uninhabitable desert. In Egypt, only the Nile valley and lands irrigated by canals from the Nile, are arable. This constitutes only a small percentage of the country, and means that the population of 98M is concentrated in Cairo (20M), Alexandria (5M) and the other cities along the river.

Like India, Egypt has more people than it knows what to do with, half of whom are under 24 years old, and many are unemployed. Also, there are far more males than females in the youth population. Not a good situation. One solution appears to be to include them in the security forces. It is not an overstatement to say that armed men were almost everywhere. Most of the time, we had police escorts of heavily armed men including plain clothes men with prominent firearms protruding from their blazers. It avoided traffic jams, but we did not know whether we should feel more safe or less safe because of the security. Tourism is an extremely important (17%) part of the economy, and an attack on tourists would be extremely bad for business. But was this merely an excess of caution (or of armed men) or was there need for concern? I suppose if you hire all the men most vulnerable to recruitment by jihadis, you will reduce the number who are tempted to challenge the military rulers.

Our weather luck did not hold at Karnak and the Valley of Kings. It was hot and hotter; reportedly 105-110F. At least 2 people from the ship passed out from the heat. Despite the heat, this was the best ruin I had never heard of. This site is 4000 years old, and is remarkably well preserved, given its age. It is the largest religious building ever built. Comparing it to Petra shows you the difference between sandstone and granite. Much detail remains and many of the hieroglyphs have been translated. Truly amazing.

After Karnak, we crossed the Nile to the Valley of the Kings. It is a huge complex of underground tombs, only some of which have probably been found. The ancient Egyptians always placed burial grounds on the west side of the Nile, because that is where the sun sets. The Pharaohs abandoned pyramids and began creating underground tombs when they realized that a pyramid was mostly a large marker announcing: “grave robbers, here’s what you are looking for”. This dodge only worked a little better, which is why the discovery of King Tut’s tomb at this location in 1922 was such a big deal. It was still intact and the treasures were undisturbed. There has been nothing like it, before or since. Tut’s mummified body is displayed n the tomb, as is one of the sarcophagi which covered him. The remaining items are in the Cairo Museum which we visited 2 days later. Photography is not permitted in Tut’s tomb, but the other 3 open sites can be photographed. They include colors which were applied 3500 yers ago and are still bright.

On the next day we took a break from the heat and snorkeled in the Red Sea at Sharm el-Sheikh. As advertised, the fish and coral here were beautiful: far better than The Great Barrier Reef. Sharm, as the natives call it, is quite beautiful, and used to be a favorite beach resort for Egyptians and Europeans. It has a casino and many hotels of all prices. And, it is pretty affordable. Unfortunately, in recent years the political instability and fear of terrorists has kept many tourists away. Our snorkel guides said business is starting to rebound.

The entire day on Friday (April 20) was spent going through the Suez Canal. Because there are no locks, and the surrounding countryside is mostly desert, this was not very interesting. We did see the new part of the canal which was recently opened to permit two-way traffic in a portion of it.

On Saturday, we docked in Alexandria, and immediately departed the ship for another all-day bus ride to Cairo, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Sphinx. Giza is on the west side of the Nile opposite Cairo. As you might be able to see in the pictures, the city has crept to within a few hundred yards of the Pyramids. Despite the ever-present garbage in Cairo, the historical sites are pretty-well kept, at least by developing world standards. However, like everyplace we went in Egypt, there were hundreds of people trying to sell us “stuff”, or camel rides, or donkey rides, or offering to take our photo for a tip. Everything was “a dollar”, until you agreed to a dollar and then the price went up. These places finally put me into vendor overload.

The Sphinx is right next to the Pyramids, so it did not take long to see it. It is undergoing restoration, which is partly completed.

As noted earlier, we went to the Cairo Museum, which will soon be the old Cairo Museum. It is filled with antiquities, but the big attraction is the King Tut display which occupies a large part of the second floor. Pretty nice. Lots of people were here but we could have used a couple more hours to see it all.

Between the museum and our visit to Giza, we had lunch on a Nile River cruise boat as it motored through Cairo. Lunch was good. We had 4 police escort boats. Like I said, lots of security.

Egypt shows signs of entering the world of developed nations but still has a long way to go. Literacy among the young exceeds 90%, Internet access is widespread, and college graduation rates are high. However, there are no jobs for those graduates. Birth rates are still too high. And to make a bad situation worse, 135K Syrian refugees have come to Egypt. On the other hand, in the rural areas, horse and donkey carts were plentiful, and people were harvesting wheat by hand. It is as if the 21st century is struggling to emerge from the 19th century.

That’s all for today. More soon on Malta and Sardinia.

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jamiebongwater · 4 years

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Pretty Sure This Is America

Somewhere in America today a single middle-aged man who works in the financial sector parked somewhere to scarf down a quick lunch while skimming the news of the day. He was confronted by headline after headline telling of a polarized public and a mosaic of disparate, fractured Americas struggling to understand one another, and he wondered aloud to himself what the source of this confusion could be. “It sure seems like things used to be simpler,” he thought, “I would like to think we could just sit down and find a solution that works for everyone. I know one thing for sure though, I never would have thought to complain as much as this generation when I was younger.” He was feeding from a wrapper with a Taco Bell logo on it, and gave no thought to the place his lunch was made as he pondered the current state of the country he called home. Where were all these dissatisfied people he kept hearing about, and what were their lives really like? At this moment the man could not recall the faces of any of the working class people he had spoken to that day, even though they had made his breakfast, lunch, and coffee, and washed his car.

I recently took a gig at Jimmy John’s in an even smaller town just North of Coeur d’ Alene. I am planning to relocate to Las Vegas in about 1.5 months to make some real music, money, and art -related moves, and I need some extra money saved for the move. I am working five days a week as a cook at a downtown restaurant right now, which I like, but it’s just not enough money to fund my immediate endeavors. I decided to bite the bullet and get yet another retarded corporate job to fill out my schedule. I mean, I applied to some pretty cool places, but due to the time frame I basically had no choice but to take the first thing that came my way. This place didn’t even interview me.

ring ring

“Hello?” “Hey yeah I do need someone for mornings on Wednesday and Thursday. So just come in at 10, we’ll have a shirt for you and stuff. But there’s two training videos you have to watch, they’re like two and a half hours each-” “Wait a minute, I’m sorry- who is this?” “Sorry, my bad. This is Justin from Jimmy John’s.” “Oh, good to hear from you!” “Yeah, we just had someone leave and I’m actually tryna bring on two new people. So, you can come on down really anytime between now and then and watch those videos. I know it’s shitty but you get a sandwich for doing it and you also get paid so...” “Yeah man, sounds great. At the latest I’ll be by at 7:30am on Wednesday.” “Haha. Alright buddy.”

click When I got there Wednesday morning Justin looked tired and his face was red and puffy. “I’ve been out sick for two days, man. Today was the first day I had to wake up to an alarm clock again. Fucking sucked. Anyway, let’s get you set up with this video.” He wasted no time pulling out a Samsung tablet and setting it up on the table, where I watched my new owner personally explain how to uphold the Jimmy John’s brand for over 145 minutes. I was full of coffee and broke up my piss breaks to make the video go by faster. In every city there is a working-class underbelly composed of various spheres of fast-food workers, dishwashers and cooks, low-rent security guards, parking attendants, and other people working in marginalized industries, barely or not quite making ends meet while at the same time trying to get to a better stage in their lives. In different cities these circles overlap and mix to different degrees, but combined this working-class, service-industry group often comprises the largest single sector of the economy by number of employees. In Coeur d’ Alene the service industry contingent is particularly diverse, lively, and tight-knit. You’ve got some local cooks and bartenders who have been at it forever, some hardcore burnout kids from the surrounding areas, inexperienced waiters and pretty 19-year old servers who are more likely to be middle class, from out-of-state, and/or attending classes at NIC, literally anyone who had a kid at an economically disadvantageous time and just needs a steady job, and my favorite, the rotating cast of misfits, cluess 18-year-olds, tweakers, and lost souls who staff our local fast-food restaurants, chain stores, and corporate entities with the absolute laxest hiring standards and highest turnover. I’ve been embedded with this cohort since moving to Coeur d’ Alene, and I’ve had the chance to interact with people from across the spectrum. While I mostly try to work slightly higher-wage, less-corporate line cook jobs, work is somewhat spotty in this town and I’ve ended up working whack ass places both on accident and out of desperation. In turn, many of my friends work for Hagadone Hospitality, the owner of the massive resort I refer to as Dracula’s Castle, and my long time girlfriend Katie was a manager at McDonald’s. My point being, I’ve been taking notes. Inside, Jimmy John’s was a sterile, mechanized assembly line for the conversion of offsite manufactured product into end-sale revenue, with the elimination of individual thought, habit, and work style as an incidental byproduct of the corporate auditing process. In this regard it was pretty similar to Subway, Domino’s, Jamba Juice, or any one of these interchangeable corporate-shell companies that make up at least half of the world’s food economy now. Remember that people in America’s towns and inner cities live and die in these chain stores, feeding their children with paychecks stamped with beaming logos. I don’t take this corporate homogenization lightly. Our work is our life. Don’t let them take it from you. College dropout who prepared for an economy that wasn’t there, Retiree returning to work because his savings wasn’t enough, inner-city single mother who just doesn’t have a better way to fund the upbringing of her child...

If you step outside today in most populous areas of the United States the world looks rather shitty. There’s a McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or Carl’s Jr. on every block, at least one, and people are rushing between working shitty jobs and spending their money on shitty things. A person’s life is made up of their time, money, and actions. The world we inhabit is made up of human lives. When jobs are shitty, lives are shitty. Working-class life in Coeur d’ Alene is in some ways a microcosm of the dystopian future that I fear may soon await most of the country. The inequities would be almost comical if it weren’t causing palpable suffering to thousands of people every day and stifling untold human potential.

The huge influx of outside money necessitates a massive service industry, but the work is highly seasonal. People at the bottom, most often the people born and raised in the area, are reduced to fighting over scraps; rents are relatively high and no establishment pays more than they absolutely have to, especially since Idaho’s minimum wage of $7.25 sets the bar pretty low. Middle management positions that offer some tentative financial security are a far off dream for most, and those who attain them are forced to guard their status to the point of assholery, bullying subordinates into submission and withholding valuable knowledge. The huge amount of property tax revenue enables the right wing government to fund a massive police force. The town’s drug subcultures remain extant, but are kept in check by a police and court system that actively preys on the underclass for revenue and to justify their salaries. This is the American Police State 101: There are more than enough businesses paying more than enough taxes, so the availability of public funds isn’t an issue. What these businesses require, however, is an endless supply of cheap labor, and the police fill this need by maintaining a permanently marginalized population of people who are not housing secure, people of color, people with substance abuse issues, and anyone who has to miss work because of court appearances or fail a background check. These people, who society blames for their own problems, are continually re-arrested for suffering from the afflictions of poverty and thereby kept in a state of economic desperation. All in all, ordinary working brothers and sisters are largely prevented from sharing in the leisure opportunities and scenic beauty of Coeur d’ Alene that bourgeoisie tourists from around the world come to enjoy, all because of the false promises of economic justice that are so pervasive across the United States. I will give you a specific example. I have what would be considered a pretty good job for this area and I make $12.50 an hour. Extrapolated to one year, that’s $26,000. However, I made barely over $18,000 last year, I know because I just did my taxes. That’s like $1,500 a month. Rent on an apartment like mine is $1,000, though in my case I was splitting it with somebody. And in reality I worked over 5 jobs, some of them weird tip jobs like delivery driving, and never knew quite how much money was coming in. Needless to say nearly all of it was sucked up by bills, paying to fix shit on my car, and court expenses. These are the harsh realities of working class life in America. Jobs like Jimmy John's shouldn't exist as we currently know them. If a college kid or a single mother needs to get an entry-level job at a place like Jack in the Box or Wal-Mart because they have limited options and need to fund important things in their lives because they are adults, then they can be paid $15 a goddamn fucking hour or some kind of meaningful indexed minimum wage that enables them to actually do those things. Like eat, for instance, or acquire further training. If prices go up on prepared foods and service industry-based luxuries- fuck, it astounds me that people talk like that would be the worst thing imaginable. Have you seen our cities? This country has become an absolute corporate shitscape. These dumb corporate jobs, these cheap simulations of luxury, there needs to be less of them, they need to pay their employees better, they should probably be a little more expensive, and they need to provide at least a hope of a better future for everyone involved. Why anyone would oppose accomplishing that through legislation is beyond me. These companies have become the most profitable firms in human history off the labor and hard-earned money of ordinary Americans, and they have only used their profits to further decimate the working class. Money has to stay circulating for the economy to work. It moves upstream through consumer spending, and it moves downstream through paychecks. Right now the paychecks aren't big enough to keep the whole population in a state of healthy economic activity. Capitalists aren't going to start paying out more on their own. It's their job to protect their bottom line. The people need to use a combination of collective bargaining and legislation to protect their interests and to force more money out of the corporate machine. Because our government is now owned by corporations through legalized bribery, this will necessarily entail rooting out corruption from the Federal level down and making the bribery of representatives illegal. Not an easy task, but nothing worthwhile is. What are you gonna do, sit on your ass? How pathetic would that be. A sandwich maker at a chain sandwich shop could easily have a dignified existence. It doesn't have to be a terrible job. Make sandwiches, whatever, talk to people, get paid. As long as you have some sense of autonomy at the workplace, you have a chance to be good at what you do, you feel the people around you want you to succeed, and it enables you to actually live your life, there's nothing wrong with that. One could easily design the job at Jimmy John's so that it doesn't suck. But it would necessarily cost Jimmy John's more money. They wouldn't be able to schedule 8 grown ass men per day to work four hour shifts and weird split shifts, not train them at all, make them sign mandatory arbitration clauses so they can't sue or organize, make them pay for their own meals, no benefits,... your life emanates from your job. If your job sucks, your life sucks. Some conservatives will tell you that that's the point of Capitalism. Life has to suck so that you are motivated to make it not suck; in other words, the economy makes you work to achieve a dignified existence and your work fuels the economy. I happen to think this model is asinine and outdated. Healthy humans are largely self-motivated and they like to do work and make money. These corporations are not helping to train healthy, hard-working humans with these entry level jobs, they are wasting people's time in dead-end positions, systematically devaluing the labor of the working class. People can tell when they are being fucked over and treated as if they are expendable, and they don’t respond well to it. When your life sucks due to a lack of funds and you can't connect the dots, you can't pay a security deposit, you can't fix your car, you can't go back to school even though you want to, that's wasted human potential. Time, work, effort, and creativity are the things that our world is made of. Right now the corporate machine is devouring human life and shitting it into the ocean, and nobody is even saying anything about it. The great lie sold to the working class by the elite in this country is that the market forces of Capitalism will naturally and necessarily create the perfect meritocracy and by extension the perfect civil society. This lie is projected to the individual as "Work hard for your masters and you will be recognized and rewarded with your very own piece of the wealthiest society in human history." It's a perfect swindle, designed to make ordinary people identify with wealth that they don't have. Workers compete for their place in the paycheck stream by putting on appearances and throwing each other under the bus instead of actually working, managers are forced to cut labor costs and encourage high turnover instead of training and motivating existing employees, executives outsource, subcontract, and issue ever-more demanding corporate standards without regard to human life or dignity, and everybody blames the person immediately below or above them for the shitty state of things. THERE ARE BETTER MODELS. Social science has come a long way. THERE ARE THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE. I know what some of those things are but not all of them. I am not a scientist, I am a writer. My main job is to point out how full of shit everyone is. But there are people developing kickass solutions to the things that are making human life suck, and you need to listen to those people. The only people who are definitely wrong are the ones saying that the current system is fine and we don't need to do anything, or worse, that giving more money and power to the corporations is the answer. The corporations, as long as they have the unrestricted freedom to do so, will always find creative ways to staff their buildings that are cheaper than hiring and developing long-term employees who are paid a good salary. The corporations created this backassward world of ours, now the people will have to do something to change it. A simple place to start would be taking seriously the notion that everyone who has a full time job deserves at least an economy-class ticket to a decent life that offers some degree of choice and autonomy. Say, enough income to comfortably rent an apartment, stock the fridge, and finance a preowned car. You could accomplish this by creating a good federal minimum wage that is indexed against housing costs, alongside a robust social safety net and other worker protections such as standardizing work contracts so that employees who desire full-time employment or consistent hours have some guarantee that their expectations will be fulfilled. That's not really a lot to ask. All the modern western democracies do this, even ones that do dumb shit all the time like Great Britain and Australia. Can we be smarter than Australia, the country that elected Tony Abbott? I guess time will tell.

I hope things get better for the working people of Coeur d’ Alene, and I plan to come back to this area for Barter Faire and shit next year. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life fighting the impossible uphill battle that it would be to try to bring socioeconomic justice to North Idaho. I hate cops. I hate cops hate cops hate cops. I haaaate cooooops. I’m getting the fuck out of here. I need to get out while I’m ahead and try to make some real money somewhere else. I leave on Saturday. The Desert Cruiser is fully outfitted. See you on the other side.

JAMIE

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4healthlife · 4 years

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5 Ways to Simplify Your Life as a Mom

I love using minimalism as a tool for efficiency. Implementing minimalism not only helps me to save lots of time and money, makes my life easier but also helps me to realize goals. A mom wears numerous hats. Mother, wife, daughter, sister, housekeeper, cook, driver, volunteer, cheerleader, etc. you name it. Life can get so hectic. Finding ways to simplify your mom life can assist you to save time and money, reduce stress, be happier and luxuriate in life more.

Today, I’m getting to share 5 tips for simplifying your life as a mom. I hope you’ll find the following pointers helpful. Okay, let’s get started!

This post contains affiliate links, to seek out out more information, please read my disclaimer.

5 Ways to Simplify Your Life as a Mom Plan Ahead, Stress Less Planning and organizing your life with a planner will assist you to stay focused and obtain organized.

Use a planner to plan out your day, week, month and year. Write a daily to-do list. Prioritize support your goals and set the highest 3 tasks that you simply got to be done first during a day. Set up a calendar that will share together with your partner. There’s a wall calendar in our kitchen. I prefer to write down down appointments, activities, family events, etc. or anything that i want to urge my husband’s attention. This family calendar system helps us to urge our schedules organized effectively in one location that both folks can see. Create a monthly budget in order that you'll keep track of the expenses. Make plans even for a vacation. Plan a visit far beforehand helps you economize. Start contributing to a vacation fund will help to alleviate the financial stress when it’s time for a vacation. Write down goals that help you to remain focused and motivated. I prefer the vision board in my bullet journal. Do a brain dump a minimum of once every week. It helps to declutter your mind and gain clarity. You’ll be more focused on what matters most. I’m using this Midori Traveler’s Notebook to stay my life organized. I even wrote a piece of writing about how this planner gets me motivated and increase my productivity. Find a notebook that works for you. I’m also using this easy notebook daily to urge the ideas out of my head. it's a pleasant paper quality at a reasonable price. Purge Often and Regular Cleaning Set up a daily decluttering and cleaning routine which will help your home stay organized.

Check out my latest video! 4 Minimalist Home Organization Tips which Will Simplify Your Life Pause Unmute Make bed every morning. Wipe down the toilet counter every morning. Clean as you go. devour anything on the ground. Stop the spam clutter. Once you enter your home, sort mail and affect the papers immediately. spam should attend the recycle bin. If not, it'll get you to form a pile on the countertop. Wipe down the sink and counter after dinner. No dishes within the sink. Always wash dishes after a meal. Or put them within the dishwasher directly. Spend 10 minutes each day to declutter your home. Straightening up and put things away. I like lowering on things which will help me to wash less. for instance, I gave away the duplicate kitchen gadgets to friends. I don’t actually need the additional stuff to clutter my space.

Create a wardrobe that works for you! Purge items you don’t like or don’t wear anymore. I’m a stay-at-home mom and that I really don’t need many clothes in my closet. I” ve minimized the wardrobe over a previous couple of years. It made it easier to seem for what I would like to wear.

I desire once I own less stuff, I even have less stress. I don’t need to spend an excessive amount of time to wash and organize. meaning I can have time to relax.

Related posts: How to Clean Your House Fast and Efficiently

16 Ways to save lots of Money with a Minimalist Mindset

purge often, clean as you go, simplify your life

Meal Planning We’ve busy schedules after school. i actually don’t have much time to cook on weekdays. getting to have our meals to be balanced and healthy, homecooked dinner is that the only thanks to go.

We have a master list of our family’s favorite recipes that rotate weekly. Here are a number of our family favorite meals. they're quick and straightforward to cook.

Stir-fry beef with vegetables on Monday One-pan baked chicken on Tuesday Sheet pan salmon with vegetables on Wednesday Teriyaki chicken on Thursday Stir-fry shrimp with vegetables on Friday Every meal includes carbohydrates, proteins, and vegetables. We keep some versatile ingredients as our pantry staples like rice, pasta, noodles, bread, eggs, etc. and that we eat rice almost a day that keep us full.

I cook simple meals with real food. meaning in its original form. Eating real food boost our energy and supply the nutrients we'd like.

I’ve always liked to attenuate the preparation and cooking time, use a couple of ingredients a bit like this Oyakodon recipe. It’s quick, simple then delicious!

If you've got a tough time finding time to cook, try crock-pot cooking and sheet pan dinners. all of them prevent time and energy within the kitchen.

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mouldyoldgrower · 5 years

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It has been yet another very quiet week here in the potting shed,not a great deal to do in the garden this week, well apart from the usual stuff of keeping the weeds down and mowing the lawns otherwise yet another easy week for which I am truly grateful.

As the new week started I found myself really struggling healthwise, it has been a combination of lots of little things that have really all combined together to make for an unhappy start to the week, the Arthritis in my hands has been playing up really badly and at times the pain in three fingers has been excruciating and so I’m having to type this almost single fingered which is making it slow going. I have recently had a problem Cold Sore develop which is causing untold discomfort and is now starting to split my lip and make it bleed and VERY sore, this coupled with ulcers on my Tongue and Gum is making for a whole new level of miserable and unpleasant start to the week. hence the title of this post. Thank you to The Ramones for this one.

Thankfully on Wednesday it’s time for my 3 monthly Check-up at The National Aspergillosis centre at Wythenshawe and I intend to make the most of this appointment and bring up all the little things that are popping up such as the mouth issues and the Swollen legs again. So,that appointment went well all things considered my IgE levels in January were very good and so I’m happy with that, the Doctor wasn’t too concerned about the mouth issues and didn’t seem to think they were medication related which is another good thing, he did mention about seeing a dermatologist about the skin lesions but I told him about my previous escapades with dermatology and he agreed that as the lesions are not bothering me too much to leave well alone given how we feel about going down that road (Again) So it was more Bloods and chest X-rays and after saying our goodbyes to Pauline one of the nursing staff ,who is moving onto a real challenge of a job at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and who we both will dearly miss at clinic, it was time for the usual fight with the stupidest car park system and then onto the nightmare journey home through the rush hour traffic. (lovely)

This past few weeks I have been trying out some breathing techniques that I was put onto via a friend who is a retired Physiotherapist and I have to say that they have been quite effective in helping to treat my breathlessness especially at this warm pollen laden time of the year and when I’ve over exerted myself, so I thought I’d put them into this post for anyone to use.

Finding a comfortable position to relax and catch a breath.

Finding a comfortable and supported position to stand or lie in can help you to relax and catch your breath.

If shortness of breath is being caused by anxiety or by over-exertion, this treatment is particularly helpful. The following positions can relieve pressure on your airways and improve your breathing:

By sitting forwards in a chair, preferably with your head supported by a table

By leaning against a wall so that your back is supported

By standing with the hands supported on a table, to take the weight off the feet

By lying down with your head and knees supported by pillows

Deep breathing.

Breathing in deeply through the abdomen can help you manage your breathlessness.To do this at home, you should:

Lie down, putting your hands on your abdomen

Breathe in deeply through your nose, expanding your abdomen and letting the lungs fill with air

Hold your breath for a couple of seconds

Breathe out slowly through the mouth, emptying their lungs

Repeat this pattern for 5 to 10 minutes

This exercise can be done several times a day, or as often as you experience shortness of breath. It is best to keep breathing slowly and easily, and deeply rather than quickly.

And finally, my particular favourite.

Pursed-lip breathing.

Another breathing exercise that can help to relieve shortness of breath is pursed-lip breathing. Pursed-lip breathing helps to reduce breathlessness by slowing the pace of your breathing. This is particularly useful if shortness of breath is being caused by anxiety.

To try pursed-lip breathing at home, you should:

Sit upright in a chair with their shoulders relaxed

Press their lips together, keeping a gap between them in the middle

Inhale through their nose for a couple of seconds

Gently exhale through your pursed lips for a count of four

Carry on inhaling and exhaling in this way for 10 minutes

You can try this exercise any time you feel short of breath, and repeat it throughout the day until you are feeling better,I find this really helpful if I have been over exerting myself and especially when I have been lawn mowing in this warm weather.

I hope someone finds these tips as useful as I have.

The following Public Service Announcement has been borrowed from Jill at

https://aspergillusjill.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/you-get-what-you-give/

The Aspergillosis Trust has been up and running for a year now and we have made great progress. We had a big part to play in World Aspergillosis Day and we have raised over £7000 from fundraisers and selling awareness items along with generous donations.

Notepads £1.00 & Keyrings £2.00

Wristbands £2.00

Car Stickers £2.00

F.I.T Ribbons £1.00

Black T-shirt £12.00

White T-shirt £12.00

Cotton Shoppers £4.00

Car sticker £2.00

You can get merchandise from http://www.aspergillosistrust.org and support us and help raise funds for this awful disease.

You can read people’s stories on the website as well (Including Mine).

So that is about it for this week.

TTFN.

I wanna be Sedated. It has been yet another very quiet week here in the potting shed,not a great deal to do in the garden this week, well apart from the usual stuff of keeping the weeds down and mowing the lawns otherwise yet another easy week for which I am truly grateful.

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minty-minho-blog · 5 years

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Top latest Five natural hair growth Urban news

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The hair vitamins Diaries

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The smart Trick of hair fall treatment That Nobody is Discussing

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Vitamin A allows to make wholesome sebum, an oily substance secreted from the scalp, which keeps hair from drying out and breaking off.* Moreover, Vitamin A fights totally free radicals that weigh your hair down.* Let’s Examine these present day things which are intended to kill bacteria, and after that I’ll tell you about why this microbes keep one of The most crucial keys to curing baldness. , then I strongly urge you to complete further more analysis. Though hair transplantion can provide an aesthetic Increase, it’s not The solution towards your hair loss woes. You’ll still want to work to deal with the foundation result in Normally persons understand about acute (or IgE) food items allergy symptoms because the system’s response to your food stuff usually takes place immediately and with obvious implications which are very easy to see. Lengthy, shiny and healthy hair can be an easily achievable intention, supplied you dedicate a while to hair care and comply with these handy all-natural healthy hair strategies. I can’t go into all the small print here, but I want to give you a quick overview of the next rationale. Earning a hair rinse is as simple as creating a herbal tea. Add very hot water to the herb of one's decision, Permit it steep, covered right up until it cools down, then use. My most loved hair rinse is definitely the first a person over the listing. Delayed foodstuff allergy symptoms might be a significant cause of hair loss in Adult men and women. The overwhelming majority of individuals, however, are fully unaware that delayed allergic reactions from foodstuff even happen, not to mention could potentially cause and amplify hair loss. Again, oils like coconut and almond make a great depart-in conditioner. To utilize: Take a couple drops of oil and rub it amongst your palms and use to damp or dry hair (avoiding the roots) and go away in. In truth, I might go so far as to declare that it would be nearly impossible to cure sample baldness naturally without having to start with therapeutic the microbiome. Pumpkin Seed Oil (PSO) is really an extract from the pumpkin seed, which is a prosperous supply of antioxidants and a range of minerals. PSO supplies a number of Gains – including the regulation of insulin amounts and also the treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) – and its fatty acid articles also makes it a healthier snack. As briefly mentioned previously mentioned, PSO is likewise believed to have https://twitter.com/steptoremedies/ on the growth of hair. It’s crystal clear which the list of microbes killing modern-day inventions is extensive. visit s not easy to do nearly anything without jogging into some thing made to kill germs in one type or A different. In plenty of people, scalp hair growth will halt as a result of follicle devitalization just after reaching a duration of frequently two or three feet. Exceptions to this rule could be noticed in folks with hair enhancement abnormalities, which may induce an abnormal duration of hair growth. Chemotherapy[edit] It’s distinct that we don’t know enough relating to this topic still and even more exploration is necessary. But it's very clear that healing your microbiome will definitely enable your Total well being and Virtually absolutely help reduce your hair loss.

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wellpersonsblog · 6 years

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A Week of Component Food Prep and How To Use It

Here’s a week of component food prep from a Registered Dietitian and how to use it to make quick, healthy meals during the week!

Hi friends!

I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while now and I finally got my act together. You guys know I love food prep. You may also know that I don’t typically prep full meals…instead, I prep components and then throw them together, as well as cook some new things, to make meals during the week. Last week I documented what I prepped and then all of our meals so I could show you how I use what I prep throughout the week.

If you’re not already, be sure to follow me on Instagram, where I share my food prep sessions on Sundays, plus meals during the week.

So here’s what I prepped on Sunday:

I made:

Sweet Potato Muffins

Carrot Oat Bars

snacking veggies

massaged kale

roasted broccoli & sweet potatoes

Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Thai Chili Salmon

roasted potatoes

Farro

roasted green beans

rice

Sweet Potato Banana Bites

Salsa Verde Chicken

Not pictured: BBQ mushroom chicken that was in the crockpot

On my Instagram stories, I shared exactly how I prepped everything. In case you don’t follow me there, I grabbed screenshots of the process so here’s what I did:

One of my favorite food prep tips is to think about what you can do ahead of time what takes minimal effort. On Saturday evening I had about an hour before we were headed to a dinner party. I turned on the oven, dumped a bag of baby carrots on one pan and put 5 sweet potatoes on another pan and stuck them both in the oven at 400 degrees. Literally took 1 minute of effort and by the time we were ready to leave, they were both done and in the fridge, ready for me to use in the morning. I also pulled one of my freezer crockpot dump meals out of the freezer and stuck it in the fridge.

So, when I woke up Sunday morning, I turned on the oven first thing and dumped the crockpot meal into the crockpot. While my kids were eating breakfast, I spent 5 minutes chopping the sweet potatoes and regular potatoes and stuck them in the oven to roast.

While those veggies were roasting, I got out the carrots I’d roasted the night before and whipped up a batch of Carrot Oat Bars. As soon as the veggies were done, I stuck the carrot bars in the oven, rinsed the food processor and used one of the sweet potatoes I’d cooked the night before to make the batter for my Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Pancakes. I cooked those on the griddle while the bars were in the oven.

I had about 5 minutes left before the bars were done so I chopped up a head of broccoli and snipped the ends off green beans to get them ready to go in the oven. I also dumped some rice in the Instant Pot (I do 1 cup white rice to 1.5 cups water for 7 minutes, quick release) and started some farro on the stove. I put the farro and water in a pot, cover, bring to a boil, crack the lid, reduce heat and simmer for 12 minutes, then drain the water.

After I took the bars out and put the veggies in (I spray with avocado oil, and roast at 400 for 12-15 minutes), Little Miss and I made some Cinnamon Raisin Sweet Potato Muffins. I subbed chocolate chips for raisins. We had them ready to go into the oven as soon as the veggies were done.

While the muffins were baking, I did some dishes, started transferring stuff to my Pyrex containers. I can’t find my exact set but this is a similar set of Pyrex containers (aff link) and made a batch of my Sweet Potato Banana Bites. We were out of chocolate chips so I added frozen wild blueberries and chocolate covered chia seeds from Salba Chia.

Once I put the sweet potato bites in, I threw some chicken into the Instant Pot with a package of Frontera enchilada sauce that my mom bought sometime while visiting. The chicken breasts were thick so I cooked them for 16 minutes and then shredded.

I also put some salmon on a pan, added a little sweet thai chili sauce and had it ready to go in the oven when the sweet potato bites were done.

The last thing I did was chop some veggies for snacking and prep the kale. I remove the stems, chop it up, wash it and spin it dry, then put it in a ziploc, drizzle a little avocado oil on it and massage it until it starts to soften.

Once everything was done, here’s what it looked like. Plus the bbq chicken and mushrooms that was still in the crockpot. (Recipe will be in my freezer ebook) Since most of these are components, I wanted to show you guys how we used the food I prepped throughout the week to make quick meals.

The baked goods are often eaten for breakfast and snacks. Both my kids eat Dole peaches in 100% juice and yogurt almost every morning. Then we change things up with either a fried egg and toast, pb&J toast, oatmeal etc. My youngest usually eats a muffin. She also eats 2 carrot oat bars when she wakes up from her afternoon nap every single day. I usually eat a fried egg on toast with avocado and a muffin for breakfast every day. My husband doesn’t eat breakfast.

Everything in red in the meals below is from my food prep session.

On Monday, for lunch, the kids at some of the shredded chicken, with cheese in a taco. They each had a clementine and Squish had sweet potato bites while Little Miss had a carrot bar. I made a bowl with farro, shredded chicken and roasted sweet potatoes. I topped it with avocado, salsa and chips. My husband had to run out to get lunch between work meetings. He usually comes home for lunch since his office is close to home.

For dinner, I made a package of cheese ravioli from the freezer and the kids both ate that, plus a sweet potato cottage cheese pancake, banana with peanut butter and some leftover Braciole (stuffed flank steak) that we brought home from dinner at my in-laws on Saturday. I have the recipe for Braciole on the blog. I made quick soup using some shredded chicken and roasted carrots, plus some Lotus Foods ramen and chicken broth but only ended up eating about half of it (thanks pregnancy). My husband had leftover braciole, some roasted broccoli, farro and snacking veggies, plus fruit.

On Tuesday, for lunch the kids had naan pizza. I usually have mini naan bread in the freezer so I just pulled a couple pieces out, microwaved to thaw, topped with hummus, some shredded chicken and cheese. Squish had his with carrots and ranch and apple slices with peanut butter. Lyssie had hers with roasted sweet potatoes and strawberries. I had a couple sweet potato pancakes, plus a few omelet spirals that I made that morning to shoot for the blog. My husband had shredded bbq chicken and mushrooms, rice and broccoli plus fruit.

For dinner, my hubby grilled a few burgers and a package of chicken we bought over the weekend. The kids each had half a cheeseburger, avocado toast and sweet potato bites for dinner (plus Little Miss had some roasted potatoes. I had another bowl with farro, shredded chicken, roasted sweet potatoes and roasted green beans topped with salsa, avocado and chips. My hubby had a burger, roasted potatoes and snacking veggies and strawberries.

On Wednesday, we went to the bakery after swimming. For lunch the kids had pb&j on farmhouse white bread from the bakery (they typically eat Dave’s Killer Bread), veggie straws, clementines and sweet potato bites. I had some of the bbq chicken and mushrooms on a bun+ snacking veggies. Hubby had a burger, plus green beans, rice, kale and snacking veggies and some strawberries.

For dinner, I made a box of mac and cheese. I added some of the roasted broccoli and leftover grilled chicken to it. Plus they had roasted sweet potatoes and strawberries. I had mac and cheese with some of the shredded chicken and roasted sweet potatoes plus a few sweet potato pancakes and leftover omelet spirals. Hubby had leftover grilled chicken, plus farro, roasted potatoes and green beans.

On Thursday, for lunch turkey and hummus sandwiches, leftover ravioli, some sweet potato chips I’d tested for the blog that morning, a green bean and leftover omelet spiral. I had a bowl with farro, green beans and shredded chicken and hubby had leftover grilled chicken with bbq sauce plus rice and broccoli.

For dinner, Squish had a date with pb, cottage cheese, hb egg and bbq chicken and mushrooms on a bun. Little Miss had an egg, roasted potatoes, shredded chicken and sweet potato bites. I had two eggs on avocado toast and hubby had 3 eggs, avocado toast and some roasted potatoes and kale.

Here’s what was left from my food prep session after dinner on Thursday night:

some kale

about 1 cup rice

2 muffins

a few sweet potato bites

about a cup of potatoes

some shredded bbq chicken and mushrooms

a few broccoli stalks

some chicken (which wasn’t cooked until Tuesday and not part of my Sunday prep).

On Friday for lunch, Little Miss had a muffin and roasted potatoes, plus turkey and leftover tortellini. Squish had apples with pb, Love Grown sea stars cereal, tortellini, turkey and sweet potato bites. I had an egg on toast with pumpkin energy balls. Hubby had chicken, rice and potatoes, kale, hummus and veggies and strawberries.

We always go out to dinner Friday night….so after lunch on Friday, here’s all that was left:

1 muffin

5 sweet potato bites

1 cup kale

1 cup bbq chicken and mushrooms

1/2 cup rice

(plus some grilled chicken).

Here’s a side by side of what we prepped and what we ended with:

A few notes:

We obviously don’t mind repeating the same meals a few times during the week, but the beauty of component food prep is that you can do that, or put it together in different ways and flavor differently using sauces etc.

No, our family does not all eat the exact same meal every night. I realize this isn’t the norm but it works for us. Because of the component food prep I do, it’s easy for me to quickly throw together different combinations as shown above in the same amount of time as it would take for me to make one dish for all of us to eat.

No I don’t prep every single thing we eat all week. You can see that I cooked a few things during the week. I use food prep to help me but don’t think you need to prep every morsel of food for the week in order for it to be successful.

We do a pretty good job of not wasting food, but it does take a little practice to understand your family’s needs. I always suggest under prepping as you learn what works for you and then slowly increase the amount you prep until you find what works best.

Most weeks, the majority of the food I prep Sunday nights is gone by Thursday. Most leftovers are good in the fridge for 3-4 days. We typically stretch it to 5 days but it’s certainly up to you and your food safety comfort level when it comes to food prep. If you like to err on the safer side, you can prep enough to get you through Wednesday as well as a freezer meal that you could thaw overnight and cook to eat on Thursday. It’s all about finding what works for you and your family!

If you want to see how much of the meals my kids actually eat, be sure to follow me on Instagram. I share before and afters of their plates for most lunches and dinners.

Hope this helped!

Enjoy! –Lindsay–

First found here: A Week of Component Food Prep and How To Use It

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/republicans-find-donald-trump-appealing-jeff-flake-bob-corker/

Republicans find Donald Trump more appealing than Jeff Flake, Bob Corker

People keep wondering just what will it take for Republicans to finally stand up to Donald Trump, but on Tuesday, it turned out Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker doing it just wasn't enough. In the past week, three top well respected Republicans have called out Trump for his disgraceful behavior and treatment of the being American's commander-in-chief. Still, Republicans can't let him go yet. There was no dam break of Republican rancor against Donald Trump on Wednesday, a day after a pair of the party’s prominent senators denounced their president and invited colleagues to join them. Instead, most GOP lawmakers rallied around Trump and his agenda, with one all but saying “good riddance” to Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee. “Maybe we do better by having some of the people who just don’t like him leave, and replace them with somebody else,” Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma told media outlets. “And I think that’s what’s happening.” Trump heartily agreed, declaring that both men were retiring because they couldn’t win re-election, and “I think I’m probably helped greatly in Arizona by what happened with Sen. Flake.” Inhofe went further than most GOP lawmakers, but he had plenty of company in his refusal to echo the criticisms of Flake and Corker. Trump himself proclaimed he was leading a party unified in its pursuit of tax cut legislation. “There is great unity in the Republican Party,” he contended as he left the White House for a hurricane briefing and other events in Texas. Claiming a show of affection at his appearance at a Senate GOP lunch a day earlier, Trump said: “I called it a lovefest. It was almost a lovefest. Maybe it was a lovefest.” He repeatedly said that he got multiple standing ovations. But if the lunch — no outsiders allowed — displayed a unity of sorts, the events that preceded and followed it did the opposite. First Corker and then Flake blistered Trump with criticism, accusing him of leading the nation into a moral black hole. Both lawmakers do plan to retire at the end of next year, a semi-bombshell Flake dropped Tuesday, freeing them to speak without fear. Flake kept it up Wednesday with an opinion piece in The Washington Post. He likened the current moment to the red scare era of the early 1950s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy threw accusations of communism at a wide range of people. McCarthy’s career ended in disgrace; his downfall hastened when an Army lawyer, Joseph Welch, confronted him at a hearing with the question: “Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last?” “We face just such a time now. We have again forgotten who we are supposed to be,” Flake wrote. “There is a sickness in our system — and it is contagious.” “Nine months of this administration is enough for us to stop pretending that this is somehow normal, and that we are on the verge of some sort of pivot to governing, to stability. Nine months is more than enough for us to say, loudly and clearly: Enough.” Flake has contended in interviews that the Republican Party is at a tipping point, or close to one, and others will start to speak out, too. There was scant evidence of that Wednesday on Capitol Hill, aside from the few Republicans in the House and Senate who have already made public their grievances with Trump. Nearly everyone else dodged questions on the topic, voiced unqualified support for Trump, or answered by saying that distractions aside, the GOP must remain focused on passing landmark legislation to simplify and reduce taxes. After a drought of legislative accomplishments so far this year, a tax bill would give Republicans a major victory and a powerful argument for retaining their majorities in next year’s midterm elections, something the lawmakers desperately want. “You know my answer. I’m focused on getting stuff done,” said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, when asked about his colleagues’ criticisms of Trump. “He was elected. I disagree with him fairly frequently, and I do so publicly and privately. But I want to work with him to get stuff done.” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina refused to discuss Trump’s standing. “I am just not going to engage in that conversation at all. There’s no benefit to anyone,” Scott said. “At the end of the day the goal is for us to keep the focus on the American people and tax reform that will help them keep more of their money.” Sen. David Perdue of Georgia was even more direct. “We’re all professionals here. These two guys can say and do what they want to do. But right now, we’ve got a bigger issue, and the bigger issue is to get this tax bill done,” he said. In addition to their desire to get results on taxes, many GOP lawmakers confront the political reality that despite Trump’s relatively low poll numbers nationally, he retains the loyalty of a segment of the party’s base that nearly any Republican needs to win re-election. Trump has shown he can turn viciously on critics, and few want to find themselves in his Twitter crosshairs. Flake and Corker raised the question: Will the GOP ever part ways with its mercurial leader? Certainly not anytime soon it appears.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#Bob Corker #Donald Trump #Featured #Jeff Flake #Republicans

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andrewromanoyahoo · 7 years

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The lessons Trump's 'Red Team' needs to learn about passing tax reform

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin leave the Rose Garden, July 25, 2017. (Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Remember the Republican Party’s crusade to repeal Obamacare? You know, the one that featured prominently in pretty much every GOP campaign ad between 2010 and 2016 — and then consumed the whole of President Trump’s legislative agenda for first seven months of the year before collapsing in chaos right before lawmakers left town for August recess?

Never mind all that. Next month, Republicans plan to move on to tax reform—and they swear that this time, everything will be different.

As Bloomberg Politics reported Wednesday, the White House is now seeking to advance Trump’s signature tax code overhaul and “avoid the missteps that doomed the effort to repeal Obamacare” by toning down president’s “improvisational approach” in favor of a more “tightly orchestrated process.”

The centerpiece of this strategy, according to the four anonymous White House officials who spoke to Bloomberg, is a weekly meeting of aides and advisors who have taken to calling themselves “The Red Team.” The name — an homage to the similar groups that formed during George W. Bush’s big legislative battles — is meant to convey “urgency and close coordination,” officials said.

“There is a concentration of the mind,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “They in the White House have done much more focused job of messaging this issue than earlier issues.”

But as Trump’s so-called Red Team schemes about messaging, its members would be wise to remember how rarely tax reform has succeeded in the past — and try to learn some lessons from the few times it has.

The last time Congress reformed the federal tax code was more than three decades ago. The story of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 is long and convoluted. But the one thing everyone seems to agree on — the key to the bill’s eventual success — is that it was a bipartisan effort.

Tax reform typically involves two related tweaks designed to simplify and stabilize the tax code: Cutting rates to provide relief to individuals and corporations, and broadening the base — i.e. taxing income that is currently untaxed (which is usually accomplished by eliminating various deductions and shelters). The reason tax reform is rarely enacted is that pretty much everyone — whether you’re an ordinary taxpayer or a powerful special interest — has a deduction they’d rather not lose: mortgage interest, charitable giving, etc. Taking away stuff that people like is generally considered bad politics.

The way Republicans and Democrats typically avoid shouldering the blame for the less popular aspects of tax reform is simple: They hold hands and jump together. In his 1984 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan announced that he had directed his treasury secretary to develop a plan “to simplify the entire tax code so all taxpayers, big and small, are treated more fairly.” Democratic Sens. Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Dick Gephardt of Missouri were already touting their own proposal to reduce rates and eliminate preferences. When the Treasury finally unveiled its framework in late November, Democrats didn’t bolt; instead, two pivotal House leaders — Speaker Tip O’Neill and Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, quickly decided that “they should join [Reagan] and try to win some credit for the Democratic Party,” as the New York Times later put it.

What followed was one of the all-time-great demonstrations of across-the-aisle sausage-making. Rostenkowski declared tax reform his “mission in 1985,” then endorsed the principles of Reagan’s proposal in a primetime speech. Reagan undertook an extraordinary trip to Capitol Hill to personally lobby reluctant Republicans, flipping 35 GOP votes in the process. Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, chairman of the Finance Committee, assembled a team of seven senators — four Republicans and three Democrats — to secretly craft an 11th-hour tax package, then convinced them to band together against any changes to the proposal.

The Senate eventually approved Packwood’s bill by a staggering 97-to-3 margin; to hammer out a final version, Packwood and Rostenkowski engaged in five days of nonstop man-to-man negotiations. In the end, Reagan signed the bill into law on the South Lawn of the White House as rows of instrumental Republicans and Democrats beamed behind him.

Lawmakers look on as President Ronald Reagan signs into law a landmark tax overhaul on the South Lawn of the White House, Oct. 22, 1986. (Photo: AP)

But that, of course, was then. In 1986, Republicans controlled only the White House and the Senate; the House was firmly in Democratic hands. Today, the GOP has total control in Washington — and as a result, its leaders don’t seem to think bipartisanship is necessary anymore.

“I don’t think this is going to be 1986, when you had a bipartisan effort to scrub the code,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters earlier this month.

The president appears to be equally unenthusiastic about pulling a Reagan.

“One of the worst ideas in recent history,” Trump wrote about the bipartisan, broadening-the-base aspects of the 1986 reform law.

Instead, the Senate GOP’s current scheme is to use the 51-vote budget reconciliation process to pass a tax bill along partisan lines—just like they tried to do with their Obamacare repeal plan.

The problem with this, as New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait has pointed out, is that reducing the universe of possible votes to the 52 Republican senators gives any three of them the power to kill the bill — which means that “eliminating deductions … is going to be virtually impossible,” because “almost every Republican senator is going to have at least one current preference in the tax code they want to keep.” In this scenario, the likeliest outcome is that Republicans skip the hard stuff and stick to what they can all agree on — and high-minded tax reform morphs into another big, unpaid-for, Bush-style tax cut.

There is, however, another path. Tax reform has occasionally succeeded without a divided government to necessitate bipartisanship — at least on the state level. Utah is probably the best recent example. In 2006, recently elected Republican Gov. John Huntsman Jr., — now Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Russia — took up the mantle of tax reform. (The push started with his predecessor.) By 2008, Utah had eliminated its old income tax structure — six brackets with increasing marginal tax rates — in favor of a single, flat, personal income tax of 5 percent; the state also replaced many deductions with a credit system that phased out as income rose. At the time, roughly three-quarters of Utah’s state legislators were Republicans.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. at a governors’ conference in Washington, Feb. 24, 2008. (Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)

So how did Huntsman & Co. do it?

In a certain sense, it’s impossible to compare Utah and Washington. The former, a stronghold of Western conservatism and Mormon tradition, is relatively homogenous, both ideologically and culturally; the latter isn’t. Also, state tax issues tend to be lower stakes than federal tax issues, so the politics are rarely as perilous.

Even so, the movers and shakers behind Utah’s tax reform effort did manage (in a 2008 journal article) to distill their experience into a few simple lessons. The striking thing is how many of these lessons align with what federal lawmakers learned in 1986, and how few of them seem to have gotten through to today’s Republicans.

The first is that tax reform takes time. From the moment Reagan announced that simplifying the tax code was a top priority to the moment he signed the bill into law was a nearly three-year process. Same for Utah: Huntsman’s predecessor, Olene Walker, may have gotten the ball rolling in 2003, but a final bill didn’t pass for another four years. Trump wants a reform bill on his desk by October; Senate Republicans have said they’ll get the job done by the end of the year. Even that longer timeline is probably too optimistic, at least for real tax reform.

The second lesson from Utah is that principles matter, and that pursuing comprehensive reform may be the best way to preserve them. Walker and Huntsman — as well as Reagan and Rostenkowski — were committed to both cutting rates and broadening the base. That’s how they were able to pass reforms that might not have been popular in isolation but were designed to make the system more streamlined and equitable overall. As the Utah reformers have written, “true tax reform undoubtedly creates winners and losers,” so “attempting reform one proposal at a time” invites “opponents [to] selectively attack individually unappealing changes” and encourages “legislators to do the easy things first.”

It’s true that House Speaker Paul Ryan has been compiling his tax reform wish list for years. But right now there’s no actual legislation on the table and no one can even agree on what such legislation should include. McConnell, for example, has said that reform must be revenue-neutral; Trump, meanwhile, has said that he doesn’t care about raising the deficit. That’s a huge disagreement.

The final lesson from Utah is that tax reform needs a champion — “a political leader,” as the reformers explained in their article, “who understands fiscal issues but also understands the importance of the political process.” In Utah, Huntsman was that champion. He campaigned on tax reform in 2004; he called it his No. 1 priority upon taking office; and he fought through three regular legislative sessions — and called an additional special session — to make it a reality. Reagan acted similarly, introducing his plan in a primetime televised address, stumping for it in Oshkosh, Wis., and elsewhere during the spring of 1985, and personally lobbying for its passage on Capitol Hill.

Can Trump be an active, engaged champion for tax reform? So far, there’s little reason to believe he will try (given that he was largely absent from the recent wrangling over Obamacare) or that he would be effective if he did (given that his approval rating is a historically low 37 percent).

Still, the president’s Red Team, which is headed up by legislative director Marc Short and includes representatives from Jared Kushner’s Office of American Innovation, Steven Mnuchin’s Treasury Department, Gary Cohn’s National Economic Council and Vice President Mike Pence’s office, should probably look to the past as they plot the future of the U.S. tax system.

And they might want to give Trump’s new ambassador to Russia a call as well.