so far, for us at least, 2017 is looking very promising! even though since 2017 began, we have already had 2 major storms that kind of fizzled by the time they got to us. here's a pic of a few days ago:
not a terrible amount of snow and actually quite pretty! but sorry snow - some rainy, foggy, above zero days does this to snow:
that's a pic from this morning - snow all gone! woohoo! so far, this winter has been usual. temps either normal or below normal and still no staying snow - another woohoo!
my friend TB, who writes for the blog
The Forty-Five has had some interesting posts lately that have got me thinking. in one of his posts
here he thanks all of his readers and commenters for returning, whether regularly or not, whether commenting or not, but for just being there and reading. i thought it was a wonderful thing to do (say, or rather, type). so to all of you who are our dear friends, online or in "real", regular commenters (like Sweet Sandy, TB himself, Mr. Flashman and if the post is right - PioneerPreppy among many others!), frequent commenters (like Dani, Susan, Fiona and a bunch of others!), sometimes commenters (i'm talking to you Deb Harvey!), friendly lurkers (thanks guys!), not so friendly lurkers (and you know who you are. maybe you should get lives perhaps!) and of course those dang pesky Russian hackers, jambaloney and i say thank you very much!
(written with the beautiful fountain pen that i got from my good friend Ed last year. thank you again Ed! you can read more about the
beautiful, hand-made pen from Ed here.)
at this point i know that my friend TB is probably blushing! but even though i haven't been keeping up with blogging and commenting lately (i know - my BAD!), i still do read all of your new posts if you are listed in our blogroll. our favourite blogs are listed there and i try to stay on top of everyone's new posts. even if i don't comment - please know that i keep up with you all and forgive me for not always commenting. i so enjoy reading about what you are all doing, thinking about, eating, who you are spending time with, magazine/book/movie reviews....all of it. the people listed in our blogroll are very interesting people and if you haven't already checked them out - you really should. and if you would like to be listed in our blogroll - send me a link to your blog and i will check you out and see if you fit our required profile of homesteader, wanna be a homesteader one day, gardener, survivalist, prepper, nut-case, weirdo, fisherman, and/or someone who just loves life. you will definitely get a spot in our blogroll if you are someone who tries, sometimes fails/sometimes succeeds, but always trying to learn more and always trying to share with anyone who will listen (or read).
so i should have called this post - "a post about my friend TB" because he has another post recently found
here about changes in his diet. being more consciously aware of what he is eating and why. we are in the same place. we are trying to be very conscious about our diets for several years now. we went dairy-free (minus butter and eggs - can someone please tell me why eggs are included in dairy???) over a year ago and about a month back, went to a friend's party. they were serving pizzas to each table and of course, we looked at each other, knew better, but ate a piece of pizza each. not trying to gross anyone out - but on the whole drive home our stomachs were in knots! and i only made it in the door and barfed my guts out!!! and being that we are dogs for punishment, a week ago, i wanted nachos with cheap cheese and sour cream. i used to load my nachos with an entire container of sour cream!!! one bite and both of us were turned off for good! when you remove things from your diet, things like milk-solid products (whatever they are) and caesin - your taste buds change and some people, like us, find that when you eat that stuff again - it either turns you completely off or, like me, you barf. sorry kids, just sayin'.
anyway, a few months ago we removed gluten products from our diet. after 3 weeks of absolutely no gluten, we tried some fresh bakery bread. it wasn't so bad. kind of enjoyable. so now, every now and again, we will have some bread and we haven't suffered for removing it, nor introducing small bits back into our diet. it's all about portion-control for us and not eating 8 pieces of bread a day.
over the past several years, our diets have gone from a heavy dairy (and i mean cheese - lots of it every day!), heavy gluten, heavy meat diet to one that involves more whole foods with tons of fresh veg, fruit, legumes, seeds and nuts. and we have certainly not suffered from it!
here's a delicious dinner of butternut squash and pumpkin puree that we made up and canned from last year's harvest.
add in some coconut milk, cayenne, turmeric, cumin, cilantro, sea salt and pepper - and that will keep you fed until supper!
we eat a variety of different salads made from scratch every single day. it's interesting but i read a quote from some nutritionist who said something like - even if you can't get access to organic fruit and veg, then non-organic, even if it is GMO fruit and veg is better than no fruit and veg at all. i tend to agree.
a lovely mid-afternoon snack for the 2 of us to share:
parsley salad with red onion, a ton of fresh garlic, cumin, cayenne, turmeric and fresh- squeezed lemon, some home-made from-scratch hummus, and some home-made radish and carrot kimchi.
a lovely supper of vietnamese pho done the correct way (frozen slices of beef added to the bowl with the boiling broth and veg poured over the beef):
jambaloney wanted some steak with his and so had this lovely cut:
normally he can eat twice that much steak but with us incorporating more raw, fresh whole food - we are both eating much less meat. fish and seafood, however, will always have a happy place on our plate! and of course, fresh veg stirfries! yummeh!
sometimes you just don't need the carb or the meat in a meal. and like most of you who are regular readers already know - we aren't regular dessert people. dessert for us is about 2 hours after supper and usually consists of raw veggies or fruit. we try to consume as little refined sugar as possible and when we do, it's a choice. a conscious choice.
our diet has developed over the last 15yrs eating and cooking food together. now don't get us wrong - when we want a full english-style breakfast - it'll be a throwdown! no one on the planet can eat more hollandaise sauce than me. but that is saved for occasions when it is appropriate - otherwise - we choose to have a few meatless days a week (it happens by accident), we eat a ton of fresh veg and fruit, we eat almost no processed foods, and we have learned that we love pickled veg, fresh from our garden and pickled and/or canned when at it's freshest. we try to be conscious eaters.
so if this post was long, boring and drawn out - you can blame my buddy TB because it was reading a few of his previous posts that i started thinking about these things and remembering when we started making conscious decisions about food - and remembering things like thanking your readers, commenters and lurkers.
last but not least - he has a post up about determining what the essentials that you require, specifically you,
in order to lead a fulfilling life. oh jeesh. i've spent all day on that one. am gonna spend some time thinking about it for myself, have jambaloney think about it for himself and then on sunday - another snow day for us - we are going to do what we always do - sit down together and figure out what our real essentials are in order to live the best life that we can live together.
i feel like i am ripping off of TB's posts...but i found them very thought-provoking and what better time to be thought-provoked than at the beginning of the year!
thanks TB...and thanks to all of you! we hope that 2017 is looking as good to you as it is to us. and we wish you all of the best in this brand-spankin'-new-year!