You is kind.

You is smart. You is important.

I watched the movie "The Help" last week. One of the main characters in the book is Aibileen, a black maid who tends the children of the white families she works for. In spite of the hideous way she is treated by the white, female mother, Aibileen gently and insistently tells her child this: You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

I gave a talk in church on New Year's Day. My assignment was to give "a leader's message for the new year" to the ward. Which made me feel a lot of anxiety and pressure. I mean, I am a leader in the congregation - it says so right in the church bulletin every Sunday - but to me that means that I have extra responsibility, not additional insight or skills. And certainly not an agenda or anything like that. So coming up with "a message for the new year" for everyone else felt like a hardship. After a night spent tossing and turning and praying for guidance I did come up with one, and it is to have love as your motivation for the things you do in your life. In everything from setting new year's resolutions to repenting of your sins to interacting with other people.

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important." What would be different in my life if I started with that as the truth about everyone I interact with each day? And then added love for them from my side? Although the most obvious message in the book and the movie is that Aibileen is a wonderful and selfless person who is loving and generous in spite of the persecution and fear present in her life, the underlying message, for me at least, is that love and unselfishness is the only way to eliminate persecution and violence in the world.

So even though it is unselfish to offer love in return for unkindness, it's really the only way to change the world for the better for yourself. It's like Minny says in The Help, "You think they gonna make a law that say you gotta be nice to your maid?"

Mother Teresa said, "Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier."

Starting with the idea that people are kind, smart, and important. Having love as my motivation to make the world better. Making it real, and not just an ideal. Believing that I can do all things, even these things, through Christ, which strengthens me. It's going to be a big year.

End of Week 3

This week for dinner we had:

• sloppy joes and french fries
• spinach, bacon, and roasted red pepper quiche
• spaghetti
• a casserole-style dinner with rice, cheese, salsa, and chicken
• a celebratory dinner out
  
• and a couple of nights where people fended for themselves or ate leftovers
  

I spent $85.76 this week on groceries - a little more than I had budgeted for but I still have quite a bit of food left over that will be used next week. I think it will take me a while to figure out how to not stock up at the store when I'm shopping. I am getting the hang of not going to the store all the time, and only paying cash for things. I am beginning to love living on cash, but I'm still carrying my debit MasterCard around because it feels kind of dangerous to not have it with me. What if I needed it? I ask myself why I would need it, and although there are reasons I think the danger of reckless spending because I have the card is more likely than me needing my debit card because I had an emergency on the way to the grocery store or the post office. It's kind of ridiculous that I am on the wrong side of 45 years old and still don't quite have a handle on self-discipline when it comes to spending money. Although I think I am pretty good at it, there is still much room for improvement and I admit that I get a sort of thrill from shopping, even though I don't enjoy it. I just have to keep telling myself that spending money doesn't fill any kind of emotional or mental void. I know in my head that it doesn't. But it actually kind of does, although it's very short-lived. I haven't been practicing this way of spending long enough to see any big rewards but I'm not giving up, and the small successes are helping me stay on track.

In my Bountiful Basket this week I got:

• two giant heads of romaine lettuce
• a classically beautiful head of cabbage (seriously, where do they get this gorgeous food?)
• 4 big slicing tomatoes
• 5 avocados
• 1 basket of button mushrooms
• 8 bananas
• 12 or so gala apples
• 6 oranges
• 4 or 5 lemons
• 4 bosc pears
• 2 pints blackberries

All that for $15. (The extra head of romaine and pint of blackberries I got because my Little Prince and I volunteered at the drop site - you get a prize when you work.)

Week 2

of the Great Grocery Challenge of 2012.

This week for dinner we had:

• baked potatoes
• pork roll-ups ( a quick dinner that is sort of like a taco but not Tex-Mex)
• cheesy potato/carrot/ham soup and apple crisp
• roast chicken with sweet and spicy sweet potatoes and steamed green beans
• Parmesan risotto with chicken and green beans
• chicken Caesar salad and sliced oranges
  
• light chicken Alfredo over linguine and salad

I spent $44.11 at the grocery store this week, mostly on juice and Gatorade, and a few things for our New Year's Eve party. I notice that we've eaten a lot of chicken this week - I roasted a whole chicken one afternoon and stripped all the meat off of it after dinner that night. It lasted quite a while. There were lots of green beans and oranges in my Bountiful Basket last month that we are still working through! Bountiful Baskets is next Saturday - I still have onions, green beans, and oranges left from last time. By the end of next week I'm sure they will be gone.

I have determined that I am going to have a budget of $100 per month to restock my freezer, pantry and shelves. That way I won't find myself completely out of everything at some point. I will use this $100 to take advantage of good weekly grocery sales. I am still baking bread every few days and my family is still eating it up. I'm sure it's not cost-effective to bake bread, but since I already own the ingredients I figure it's already paid for and we might as well eat it, right?

I've noticed this week that trying to keep a tight grip on the grocery budget has had the added benefit of making me use up food that I have in the house instead of going to the store and spending money for something different. Also, I haven't been making a ton of food for dinner each night - basically only what I think we'll eat that night with maybe one serving for leftovers. These two things add up to a lot less food waste in the last two weeks than normal. Yes!

To make pork roll-ups I use my bottled boneless pork loin chunks that I processed in my pressure canner over the summer. I drain them well and heat in a dry skillet, adding salt and pepper (because I canned it without any seasoning). I mix some thinly sliced green onions with some grape tomatoes that I cut in half, and add a dressing made of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley. Put a few pork chunks in a warmed flour tortilla and top with the tomato mixture. Roll it up like a soft taco. Super good!

It's winter...

...but it sure doesn't feel like it.

No matter. It has to be cold for at least a day or two eventually. I finally finished knitting a scarf and an adorable ear-flap hat for my niece C. I can't wait for her to see it!

The hat - oh my goodness. A bigger kid who belongs to a friend of mine was trying it on yesterday and I couldn't believe how cute it is. I see myself making lots more of these!

peace

I love how there are people in this world who exude tranquility. I possess a certain kind of peace that comes from inside me but if you chanced to meet me you would never, upon describing our interaction to someone else, call me "serene". You wouldn't say to your friends, "Let me tell you about this incredibly serene person I met yesterday".

You just wouldn't.

I am pretty okay with that. Sort of. I wish I was gentle and tranquil and serene but I'm not. Calm and gentleness don't lay easy on my tongue. I may have those feelings from time to time, but not on a regular basis and certainly not spontaneously or when required. In fact, at the exact moment when I most need to feel tranquil and filled with love, that is usually the very moment when I feel frustrated, agitated, and flustered instead. Maybe a little angry too, just to make it interesting.

I wonder how people do that. Were they born this way, or did they learn it? If you can learn a thing like serenity, do you have to practice it all the time or does it become second nature to you?

However it happens, I'm glad people like that exist and that I run into one of them once in a while. It's a gift, like a breath of fresh air.

New Year's resolution

To take care of things more promptly. I am usually pretty good about getting things done eventually, but procrastination is a problem for me. These are the things that get to me:

• The three serving items (from a wedding that was months ago) that belong to other people that are still in the trunk of my car waiting to be returned. This is something that can be taken care of in less than 30 minutes and only involves me driving the items over to their rightful homes so you might think maybe it doesn't belong on a resolution list, but there are so many things just like this in my life - recycling the giant pile of newspapers by the front door, putting away the last few random items from a trip to the store, taking the books back to the library on time. The list could really go on forever. Why do I not do these things immediately instead of adding them to the list of Things I Have To Remember?
  
• The confusing, cluttery pile that is my desk. I am going to clear it off once a week instead of once every two weeks. I am going to do this every Monday morning because I am usually home and otherwise unoccupied on Monday mornings. The thing about my desk is that I put stuff there that has to be dealt with. Things that need to be filed, or shredded, or paid, or resolved in some way. Sometimes I don't know what to do with an item and it will sit there for weeks or maybe months. And walking by the messy desk, as I do multiple times every day, and seeing it and knowing that all that awaits me adds to my anxiety.
• Mending and other kinds of repairs. Clothing, closet doors, holes in walls, loose screws, etc. Since I'm already baring my soul in this post I will tell you two of them - a pile of mending that has been sitting on my bathroom counter for over a month. It might have even been there for two months. And the door to the laundry closet that only needs to be glued, clamped and allowed to dry. The actual repair time would take ten minutes. It could dry overnight, and then I could have the door back on my laundry closet the next day instead of propped against the wall in the upstairs hallway which is where it's been for the better part of an entire year. Why do I make myself learn to work around these things instead of just fixing them? It's beyond ridiculous.
  
• Correspondence. I love sending cards and letters to people and it's only because I don't take the time to sit down and do it that I don't do it more often. I have in my possession all the beautiful cards and letters (and the envelopes they came in so I have the right addresses!) that people who care about me and my family sent to us for Christmas. I am going to write each of them a note or letter expressing my love and appreciation for them. I will work through the whole stack by January 31. I will spend time on Sunday mornings doing this, and also whenever I remember to work on it during the week. I am going today to buy stamps for this project.

I think getting a grip on this will help me make my life easier, happier, and more pleasant. It has to, right? Living a life where things are taken care of, put away, uncluttered, and in good repair and where free time is actually free instead of filled with anxiety about all the unfinished tasks? It sounds blissful to me.

Thoughts on changes for a New Year

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.