Theme and Word for the New Year in Everyday Ramblings

This is from the hike on New Year’s Day. The light was low but you at least get the tone, the feel of the day here.

Mrs. Sherlock and I were going to hike today and I was looking forward to it but she hurt her back enough that she rightly needed not to put additional strain on it. She canceled about a half hour before we were planning on leaving this morning so I am in the process of reorienting my day.

I forgot to get milk yesterday I need for the Martha Stewart lemon cookies so I went back to the store for that and also got what I needed to make a sweet potato gratin in which I can use some left over orange zest from last week. I so admire cooks who can look at what they have and make yummy creative meals with that. I have heard it called “The Reverse Shopping List”, where you only use what you have.

Less waste is definitely on the agenda this year. Not that I am a super wasteful person but I am a single person and modern food packaging is all about encouraging one to buy more rather than less. My Imperfect Produce (they are called Imperfect Foods now) email yesterday told me that I ordered carrots 25 times last year. That made me laugh. I love roasted carrots and they are so easy to make.

I have taken myself to task since I retired to not do aspirational shopping anymore but shopping grounded in what I will actually eat. The hiking club is also a great place to offload extra cookies. :)

My theme for the 2020 year is Strong and Supple. The supple comes from the strength, just the right amount, not too much like a healthy animal in the wild.

My word for the year is COMMUNITY. This is going to be a huge challenge for me with my social anxiety but I am going to chip away at it. I will have a couple of opportunities to do that next week.

When I ordered my 5 meds a few days ago the calculation of how much they would cost, all generics, was $7.00 based on my (now previous) employer sponsored health plan. The mail order pharmacy shipped them this morning and they are going to cost me $47.00 on the supplemental plan. The reason I chose this plan was because I can use all the pharmacies that are attached to my doctors and when one is dealing with an illness or an emergency one doesn’t want to go out into the broader world to get prescriptions.

I knew they were going to be more; I did a cost analysis when I chose this plan. I will save enough in copays on doctor’s visits and tests on the other plans to make up for this but it is totally crazy.

I didn’t take two of my heart medicines for two months because I would have had to pay some stupid arbitrary full freight amount for them while I was waiting for the new plan to kick in. Just imagine what a person who has a number of health issues would have to deal with in the transition. Ughhh.

Could we please do something about this??? This for profit health care industry affects so many people’s lives negatively here in the United States. Obviously my activism in the years I have left will be focused on these sorts of issues.

One of the women in the hiking groups (she comes to both) is super fit. Mrs. Sherlock travels with her sometimes and told me she lifts weights regularly. We belong to the same gym chain and I have an all club membership so I can go to her gym. I asked her if she lifts on her own when I saw her Wednesday and it turns out she takes this “Body Pump” class three times a week. I looked into joining her but she goes to the 5:30AM class twice a week and without a car there is no way I can get over to her club safely on public transportation at that time.

I would need to go through the area that has the most people living rough downtown to get there and sadly it is a risky proposition at that time in the morning.

But they do have a 9AM class that I am going to try next Tuesday.

Yesterday I went to my gym and used the machines. It felt good, even though I clearly lost strength through the heart scare, end of work stress corridor last year I am thinking big cat suppleness to the best of my 65-year-old ability.

Now that my personal stuff is taken care of I am going to focus on my yoga teaching and writing goals for the year.

This will for sure keep me busy an out of trouble.

I wish I could say the same for my government. What were they thinking???

Last updated January 05, 2020