25 August 2015

Stressors

At the Chiro's office last Thursday, I had 5 minutes before my appointment and the book 'Sitting Down on the Job' caught my eye.  It was mostly advice about posture, but I read the chapter on sleep (obviously a big thing to me these days!) and most of the chapter on stress before I ran out of time.  His definition of stress has been practically helpful over the past week.  Stress (removing the emotional reaction to the word - sheesh, even the word 'stress' can cause stress depending on how stressed out you are!) Stress is a change of circumstances.

'Stressors' (those circumstantial changes) can be good and motivating.  Example, if you have a new deadline to meet and feel that you are able to focus in and complete your work well and to that deadline, then the stressor has caused you to work efficiently and feel good about it.

It's only when the stressor starts making you feel overwhelmed or incapable that it produces the negative word now used obiquitiously - 'STRESS.'

However, it's entirely our emotional response to the external circumstances - not neccesarily the circumstances themselves.  The stressor is just a change in circumstances.

As I'm typing this, I'm thinking 'well, yeah, duh!' but here's how it's been useful.  I'm going along the day, doing all the myriad of little jobs that keep everyone around here alive, clean, fed, clothed, etc., etc., whatever.... and suddenly I realize my 'stress levels' start rising and I'm starting to have a negative emotional response (I feel like a Vulcan typing that last part) BUT, instead of immediately reacting and getting drowned in the moment, I take a mental step back and think, 'Woah now, wait.  What's changed here?  How is this different from 5 minutes ago when things weren't falling apart?'

And it's been a helpful analytical tool - because when I determine where the stressor is coming from, I can decide either how to fix the problem right then (eliminating stress), or when I will fix the problem if I can't do it right this minute (eliminating stress), or if the problem is even worth worrying about (thus eliminating stress.)

So, probably hair-splitting and stating the *totally* obvious, but hey, sometimes I'm slow.  And it prevents 'the feels' from running away with 'the thinks.'

Crockpot Meals

OK, so I found this blog on FB... (ACK - open facebook gingerly and squeeze the eyes shut peeping through one tiny slit of an eyelash just to re-find this one article and not be sucked into a direction-less but oh so entertaining scrolling of new articles and pictures and information.........wait, I've gotta stop, shut down the FB browser and oh, what was I doing again?  shoot.  open facebook gingerly....)

OK!  SO I found this blog on FB -

https://newleafwellness.biz/2015/08/06/31-crockpot-freezer-meals-for-back-to-school/

and this woman is a genius!  Frozen crockpot meals in 1 gallon freezer bags.  Recipes and even ingredient lists with themes like '12 meals in 75 minutes after a shop at costco!'

I chose 3 recipes that I thought my family would like from this particular list to try out and used them to process the meat we bought from costco this weekend.  (And this is why I finally bought ziploc bags, mom!)

Here's how I did 6 meals in about 30 minutes, (while watching both kids and getting the other housework done....)

First, the recipes are good because there's a lot of overlap in the ingredients list.  (And there's nothing crazy-weird like boiled squid tentacles and stuff you sometimes find in fancy cookbooks.)  For example, all three recipes called for a small onion and 2 cloves of garlic.  So, instead of individually chopping 6 onions and 12 cloves of garlic, I blitzed 6 onions in the food processor and scooped them into each bag - about 1/2 cup in each.  Instead of fresh garlic, I had a jar of 'very lazy garlic' in the fridge and I just popped a teaspoon of that in each bag.

Also, I didn't know if I would be interrupted half-way through doing any particular step of the process.  I didn't want my chicken laying around all over the counter (potentially all day long) so I put all the other ingredients into the bags first.  Then, when I was opening the flat of chicken to make dinner *anyway* I just washed and cut up the rest of the chicken at the same time and popped it into the waiting bags.  And so we won't die of salmonella poisoning (this week, at least!)

A picture worth a thousand words - (thank goodness for smart phone cameras)

Blitz the onion

Finished product ready for freezing!

Lay out all the ingredients on the counter first....why did this add photos out of order?  Oh well, you get the picture...

I like this idea because making these dinners will be so easy - put it in the fridge the night before to defrost a little, then open the bag and plop it all in the crockpot in the morning.  30 second job, maybe?

Also, the other ingredients will act as a marinade for the meat in the meantime.

Also, as easy as frozen left-overs, but doesn't taste like left-overs since you're cooking everything for the first time (as she states on her blog!)

Also, since I've made 2 of each recipe, if I have company coming over at short notice, I'll just put two bags instead of one in the crockpot - sorted.

So, I'll report back how the recipes go.  Once we find our favorites, it'd be seriously easy to do twice as many meals at once, just duplicating the bags.