While grocery shopping yesterday, I grabbed a 12 pack of my favorite paper towels. Shocked by the outrageous price of $14.96, I stepped back while my eyes scanned the other options, all of which were lower priced. I had tried the other towels over the years but none could equal my favorites. (BTW, this is not an ad for paper towels. Note, no mention of a brand. Email or call me if you want the brand name).
Then it hit me! On average I use two rolls of paper towels a month. With slightly over four months until departure, we will end up with about three unused rolls of paper towels including the additional cleaning to do before we sign off on the house. No need to buy the 12 pack.
With the eight pack in hand at $9.97, the math swirling around my head, I laughed aloud at my ridiculousness, threw the eight pack in the cart and moseyed over the toilet paper, again going through the same preposterous calculations.
I passed on the toilet paper, having counted the eight rolls on the shelf above the toilet before heading to the grocery store this morning, as I often do. No imminent need for the ultra soft, zillion sheets, favorite toilet paper either. (Please email or call for that brand).
Certainly, a reader of this blog thinks I am the female version of Howie Mandell. I am picky, but I can be kissed, hugged, shake hands and touch the rail on the escalator at the mall (although I seldom go to a mall preferring to shop online). I wash my hands about 20 times a day, less from obsession, more from a logical desire for the safe handling of our food.
OCD?? Not really. I prefer to call it “detail orientated.” Perfectionism? I suppose, to a degree. I have messy cupboards and drawers with the intent to prove that I’m not a perfectionist. After all, wouldn’t a perfectionist, try to be so perfect as to try not to appear to be a perfectionist?
Who knows and basically, who cares? No one. Tom is hardly annoyed. Our kids think I’m weird in any case. And, most of all, I am neither stressed nor suffer any angst as a result of it. Periodically, I engage in a bout of worry in the middle of the night. Then again, who doesn’t occasionally worry in the middle of the night?
Thus, I am a content “detail orientated” individual that may annoy some of the people some of the time that, if they choose, may tease me relentlessly and I will genuinely chuckle.
Yes, I’m packing too much stuff. Yes, I spend too much time looking for a better deal on a small item. Yes, I will hang clothes in the shower to get out the wrinkles. Yes, I will wear a different outfit every formal night aboard ship and have ample choices for Tom as well.
Yes, I will continue my healthful, low carb, wheat, grain, sugar, starch and gluten free diet. (Tom, not so much, especially aboard ship). Yes, I will continue to workout and take a handful of supplements each day. Yes, Tom will continue to spend endless hours working online, fine tuning his ancestry.
We will bring with us, into this new life of world travel, who we are, our endless peculiarities, our annoying habits, our comfortable and seemingly pointless rituals and of course, some of our stuff. I don’t think we’ll bring paper towels or toilet paper but then again…
Wheat, grain, starch, sugar free low carb pizza crust?…Yep!…
Each night, as I make dinner either for myself when Tom works late, or for both of us, I wonder how we will eat in a foreign land. As I lay out our organic produce, grass fed beef, wild caught fish or free range organic chicken, I anticipate these items won’t be readily available where we are going.
As I have mentioned in prior posts, as of last August, we became gluten free, sugar free, starch free, grain and wheat free and low carb. Whew! Yes, it’s a challenge, but worth it!
For me, this way of eating has been a huge improvement in blood lipids, including glucose, triglycerides, HDL and cholesterol. With a family history of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and obesity, years ago I became mindful of a healthy lifestyle.
Over the years I have been able to combat the obesity factor with a careful “low fat” diet and regular exercise while painstakingly sacrificing the pleasure of enjoying my most favorite foods: desserts, with a proverbial sweet tooth.
Alas, all this effort was to no avail. I found myself with heart problems for which I had surgery two years ago, hypertension for which I still take medication and borderline diabetes with spiking blood sugars an hour after eating a carbohydrate rich meal. How could this be? I followed the USDA guidelines, MY PLATE and yet, my health continued to decline.
After hundreds of hours of reading the various Harvard, Mayo Clinic, UCLA Medical, Cleveland Clinic, etc., medical studies I, ultimately, ending up reading a book that changed my life forever, “Wheat Belly” by Dr. William Davis about the destruction of the wheat that our ancestors knew, formerly 14 chromosomes, now 44 chromosomes, genetically changed with the intent to increase the world’s wheat production; a faster growing, shorter crop that can withstand the use of Monsanto’s ROUNDUP! Oh, good grief!
Last August, Tom (who went kicking and screaming) and I both gave up wheat, rice (both white and brown), grains, bread, doughnuts, cake, cookies, pies, grain fed meat, farmed fish, corn, sugar, soda pop, MSG, potatoes, starchy vegetables, and on and on. Tom has now lost 30 pounds. I didn’t need to lose any weight, but desperately needed to change my health. This way of eating did exactly that!
A few weeks ago, a full round of blood tests confirmed that finally eating healthy fat and eliminating wheat, grains, sugar, starches and reducing carb consumption did indeed change my health for the better. Tom, now a believer, will enjoy a favorite item from time to time. But I adhere to this way of eating strictly, realizing the risk is too high if I don’t.
Tonight, we’re having homemade pizza made without wheat or any form of flour or starch. Here is our homemade crust with the recipe which is easy to make.
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| Homemade Grain Free Pizza Crust
Recipe for Jessica’s Homemade Grain Free Pizza Crust
Ingredients:
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 beaten egg
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Line a pizza pan with the dull side of Reynolds Non Stick Tin Foil
Mix cheeses and beaten egg in a bowl. Spread mixture evenly over parchment paper placed into the pan. If necessary to fill holes, sprinkle a little more cheese. This doesn’t have to be exact. Bake in preheated oven for about 14 minutes, keeping a close eye to ensure it doesn’t get too brown. Let cool before adding toppings. The challenge had been to find a pizza sauce without sugar. The best sauce I have found thus far is Rao’s Marinara Sauce, easily found at most grocery stores. Although pricey at $8.95 a jar, it does make four pizzas, which is less than a standard jar of sugary pizza sauce.
For the balance of the pizza, we like to add one pound of pre-cooked and drained hot Italian sausage, 3/4 cup sliced green olives, one cup, sliced mushrooms and 1/2 cup diced onions, all topped off with about 12 oz. mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, again checking frequently for a perfect bubbly golden top. We love this pizza!
The question becomes, will we be able to make our pizzas in in Belize, Madeira, Tuscany, Mombasa or Mallorca? Will we have access to Rao’s or a good substitute, a pizza pan and parchment paper? How readily available are grass fed beef, free range chicken and organic vegetables?
Will we be able to find sugar free maple syrup for our low carb coconut flour pancakes? Will we be able to buy coconut and almond flour or coconut oil, staples in our diet? What about our Crystal Lite Iced Tea? Liquid Stevia? Alpha lipoic acid supplements?
If anyone knows the answers to these questions, please comment at the bottom of the post. Love to hear from you. Love to stop wondering what we’ll make for dinner! With our way of eating, it’s been challenging enough! |
Bag the bags!…
Writing a blog about upcoming travel is very different than writing after traveling has occurred. Although we both have traveled extensively in the past, long before we met and little after we met, we know full well that predicting the outcome of future travel, its level of enjoyment and personal enrichment is highly speculative.
There is no doubt that later on, as we roll out each leg of our endless itinerary, that we may change our minds and subsequently change or add to these criteria that we have determined as important for financial success (staying in the budget) and security (of traveling exclusively utilizing our monthly income as opposed to using investments/saved funds).
The process of explaining this is a bit tedious for a writer such as me, preferring a more “flowery” and “expressive” type of writing, as opposed to the more “clinical” aspect of describing this process.
Undoubtedly, as we move along, traveling and writing, there will be a 50/50 ratio between technical details and the emotionally enlightening experiences such as cruising through the Panama Canal during its extensive renovation, catching our first king salmon in Alaska, and feeding a giraffe through the window of our temporary home in South Africa. The first 571 days of the itinerary will follow soon.
Here are our “rules” so far…
Criteria #1: Do not have a permanent home! Criteria #2: Do not own cars!
Criteria #3: Do not stay in hotels unless absolutely necessary!
Criteria #4: Do not pay more than that which we were willing to pay for rent in our chosen retirement community!
Criteria #5: Use the cruise!
Criteria #6: Bag the excess baggage! Cruise lines are more liberal on the number and weight of bags than airlines. In the first 10 months of our itinerary, we won’t step foot on an airplane. The temptation is to load up our two suitcases each and our carry on bags.
Upon investigating baggage fees, for example, for the possible airlines that can fly us to Africa, the fees are astounding. Some only allow 44 pounds in checked baggage per person! When we flew to Florida for 7 days last fall, we each had two bags totaling 100 pounds! I calculated that we would have had to pay an additional $800 each for overweight baggage, more than the cost of the flight per person from Rome to Kenya!
How will we pack lightly? Can’t imagine! Even Tom has a penchant for packing everything he owns when we’ve traveled in the past. Later on, we will write about how this preposterous scenario will unfold.
How will a woman, such as myself, pack lightly, one who insists upon using a wide array of cosmetics, having a fresh change of clothes daily, likes a certain tea, a certain coffee bean, a certain low carb sweetener, a certain baking pan and an endless array of gadgets?
What about workout clothes and the requisite rotating tennis shoes? What about the 20 different bottles of vitamins and supplements we each take in what may prove to be a futile effort to stave off “old man time?” What about heavy jeans, jackets, rainwear, hiking boots, Tom’s suit, and my evening dress (dresses) for “dress up” dinners aboard the cruise? I’ve spent hours reading about how to pack for travels; two pairs of casual pants, four tee shirts, one dress shirt, one pair of dressy shoes, one pair of walking shoes, a raincoat, an umbrella, and la la la.
Last week I bought a travel scale. I weighed it on the kitchen scale. It was advertised at 1.5 pounds, but in fact, weighed 2.3 pounds. I am already using 0.052% of my allotment (44 pounds) on the scale itself! Oh, dear, packing is almost as frightening as the zip line in Belize!
Criteria #7 to follow next time. Please come back!
Changing clocks…Changing life…
Sunday morning we both jumped out of bed at 6:00 am with a peculiar sense of urgency to begin the painstaking process of changing the myriad clocks in our home. Daylight savings began during the night.
Over the 21 years that Tom and I have joyfully enjoyed life together, we seem to have assigned ourselves, which clocks we each change, two times each year. We scurried about the house, mumbling to ourselves as we adjusted one clock after another, realizing that this will be the last time we will change clocks in this house, in this state of Minnesota and perhaps in this country.
In 7 months and 22 days from today, our journey will begin. Tom retires on Halloween after 42 years on the railroad (I retired 16 months ago) and off we go to the adventure of our lives, time being relevant to us in the future only in terms of the time of our next cruise, the time of our next flight, the time of the next ferry, or the time when we move into yet another vacation home.
As we each finished our last clock, oddly about the same moment, I said to Tom, “We need a domain name for our future website and blog.”
He chuckled, and said, “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.” It’s equally odd how couples often have thoughts simultaneously. We never cease to be amazed by this phenomenon.
We had been mulling over some names the past month, as we booked our plans well into the future, knowing the time to document this process was coming near.
Last year, I wrote my first blog, WorldWideWillie.blogspot.com as our beloved Australian Terrier, WorldWideWillie’s precious life came to an end, finding solace in the process. With over 400 followers, we found comfort in their invisible, lurking presence as I wrote almost daily from Willie’s perspective, his final days, days filled with love, humor, and tears.
When Tom returned home each night, I read him the daily postings, often crying a river through the sobs that welled up in my chest. Tom cried with me, unashamed by his vulnerability, a charming aspect of his manly demeanor that which I have always adored.
We chose to honor Willie by using part of his name, WorldWide, by adding a 3rd word beginning with a “w.” Sitting at our computers we looked up all the “w” words that may be available as a domain. We stumbled across “Waftage,” a word that means “travel gently by water or air.”
How perfect a word when in fact this blog will be about us leaving our well-established lives here in Minnesota to travel the world, leaving our grown children, including our six adorable grandchildren, other family members, our longtime friends, our amazing neighbors and all of our “stuff,” to be sold off at an estate sale… days before we leave on Halloween, 2012.
This blog will document a journey that at this point knows no end, a journey meticulously planned to be affordable and yet rich in comfort, visually stimulating, surrounded by nature, filled with history, all the while enjoying that which we have enjoyed the most, simply being together.
We’re lousy photographers, but we’ll post photos. We don’t like tourist traps, but we will visit some. We don’t care to buy trinkets, but we’ll surely buy a few.
Ironically, neither of us has ardently enjoyed “sightseeing” but, we will seek out those that appeal to us. We don’t like crowds, gridlocked traffic, loud noises, or waiting in line, but we will experience all of these.
We are both gluten-free, wheat, grain-free and sugar-free. We won’t eat bread, croissants, or pasta. I don’t drink alcohol, Tom drinks a little, but doesn’t like wine. Tom doesn’t like to go for walks. I love walks. Occasionally, we’ll walk.
Then why will we do this? 1. Because we have figured out a way to afford to make this possible with some creative planning, which we’ll share with you along the way. 2. Because we want to!
More than the concept of world travel in itself, we relish in the concept of stepping outside the box; getting out from behind our computers with fingers flying across the keyboard with our latest preoccupation; getting out of our comfy chairs while watching one of our big flat-screen TVs playing a popular premium hi-def series; playing another rambunctious competitive game of Wii Bowling or looking forward to the next great homemade meal.
We have loved every minute of our lives, whether hanging out with family or friends or looking out the window for another delightful morsel Mother Nature tosses our way: an eagle swooping into the trees outside our house, a beaver building a den along the shoreline, a pack of coyotes looking for “little dog lunch.” We have loved it all.
So, we registered our domain name early Sunday morning. We poured ourselves a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, topping each cup with a dollop of real whipped cream, and sat down at the bar in the kitchen. We both smiled, eyes locked on each other. The little crinkles around his eyes made a wave of something wonderful wash over me.
We both looked up at the same time to notice we hadn’t changed the time in the big clock in the kitchen. We both jumped up simultaneously, and said, “I’ll get it!” We laughed. We have all the time in the world.