Debi Simons 
I’ve been saying for some time now that one key to healthy eating patterns is the following:
Don’t eat in the evening.
Sounds pretty simple, but there are actually quite a few moving parts involved in this brief statement, most of them running counter to the way we eat in our modern American culture. Here’s the way it can go for a
Every once in a while I get an image of myself as I’d like to be: admirably self-controlled, unruffled, good-humored, respectful of others and therefore eliciting respect for herself, setting high standards for myself but being tolerant of others . . . the list goes on. It’s a picture of my so-called “best self.” That person doesn’t actually exist, unfortunately, but I find that picturing her is helpful. Last night, for example, we were at a restaurant celebrating a family birthday and I had ordered chili rellenos. Very, very good. But there were two of them, and I knew after finishing one that I didn’t need any more. I could save the rest for today. But that second one, with its crispy crust (always get the crispy rellenos! it’s a rule of life) was very tempting. I looked at it; it looked at me. And I thought, ‘My ideal self wouldn’t eat it. She’d stick to what she decided to do.’ So, while I did cut off one corner, the rest came home with me and is sitting in the fridge even now, waiting to be consumed for lunch.
I listen to a wide range of podcasts, some on politics, some about mysteries of the past, and some that I’ll call, for want of a better term, “lifestyle” podcasts, dealing with everything from home décor to finances to happiness. Last week I heard the same idea coming from two very different parts of this spectrum, that the way to get ahead in your career when you’re just starting out is to be willing to get things done, even if those things are tasks you might consider below you. The classic example is that of getting coffee for people.
Today I sat down to go through an accumulation of notes I’ve taken over the past couple of years, mostly from sermons at my church and lectures at Bible Study Fellowship. I was particularly looking for ideas that I’d scribbled down in the margins about possible blog posts, while also reminding myself of the wonderful spiritual truths that have been showered down upon me from various speakers. I don’t know that I intended to spend quite as much time as I did, but now I have a manageable little pile of notepaper with various areas highlighted. So I decided to go with the idea that ended up on top, quoted above. Here’s the entire quotation:
I’ve been watching a program called “Impossible Builds” on our local PBS station on Wednesday nights (until they started up yet another of their endless fundraising marathons—sigh) and have found myself equally tickled and saddened by it all. (That’s a pretty hard pair of emotions to hold onto at the same time!) The series will include an office tower in New York City, but so far the three projects showcased have all been luxury homes, either downtown condos (in Miami) or vacation homes (in the U.A.E. and, I think, Saudi Arabia).
I’m so excited! Jim has just posted my first podcast episode on my political-commentary website, “Intentional Conservative.” Those of you who get my weekly newsletter will perhaps remember that said newsletter came out late last time because we were trying to get the podcast up and running so that I could announce it. Such was not to be, so I went ahead and sent out the newsletter on Wednesday, telling my subscribers that the next one would be this coming Friday, March 16. But since I’m planning to do the podcast weekly, I’d be publicizing two of them at once. So I’m going ahead and sending out this two-post newsletter today. (Note that we’re not yet up on all of the podcast platforms, so you’ll be listening to this first episode directly from the website. But when we do get uploaded or downloaded or whatever, I hope you’ll subscribe in one of the feeds. I’ll notify you through this website when that happens.)
I wrote in a previous post about my identification with Teddy Roosevelt’s poor vision and his utter amazement when he got his first pair of glasses. I’d be interested to know how his vision problems progressed as he got older. Since Benjamin Franklin was the inventor of bifocals, I’d assume that TR at least had that feature available to him. And there were some primitive contact lenses as early as the late 1800’s, although it doesn’t appear that he ever wore those.
Did you watch the Oscars this past Sunday night? I don’t always do so, but KRMA was having yet another set of fundraising programs, and the guys were playing a game that I didn’t want to participate in, and I always like to see at least a little bit of the show, if for nothing else than to observe the crazy outfits that the women wear. Honestly! If we women don’t want to be treated as sexual objects, why do we put ourselves on such display?
Well, enough of that. As the world now knows, “The Shape of Water” won Best Picture. I was rooting for “Dunkirk” or “Darkest Hour,” both of which I’d seen and loved, but it was not to be. “Shape” hadn’t held any particular fascination for me, but the more I heard about it the more familiar it seemed. Then I realized, wait a minute—that’s the plot of a book I read years ago, Mrs. Caliban
A number of years ago I was acting as a group discussion leader in a Bible study group, and we were given a document titled “Are you a servant or a volunteer?” This happened near the end of the year when I was feeling a bit weary in well doing about being a leader. I loved my group and interacting with them, but I felt burdened and somewhat resentful about all of the time I had to spend in leadership meetings in order to spend 45 minutes or so guiding a discussion based on prepared questions that everyone was supposed to have answered in advance.So reading the article cemented my decision not to serve the next year. (I’m sure that was not the intention!) I had realized that my attitude fit the “volunteer” mold much more than the “servant” one.
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved
I heard about this book from an episode of “Fresh Air Weekend” that kept me sitting in the parking lot of a restaurant recently and made me decide that I must get hold of it immediately. So I used one of my Audible.com credits to get the audiobook, thinking that I’d love it as much as I had the interview. I was going to plunge into it and not emerge until I was finished. It was going to be great.
Well, not so much.
I managed to get through about half of the audiobook, finding myself less and less willing to get back into it. Finally, yesterday, I started it again and then thought, ‘I can’t do any more of this.’ I may or may not go back and listen to the final couple of chapters, but I’m done with the ongoing story.