Salon thread 2: Making dealing with the world easier

[jenett]

Welcome to our second salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) The first one went swimmingly! People! Talking! About awesome stuff! Feel free to talk about anything: my topic of the day is just to get us started.

Some of the comments in last week's thread got me thinking about the little stuff we do to make dealing with the world easier for us (lifehacks). And then why. Some stuff I do (briefly, on the theory it might encourage conversation)

1) I am very boring about my clothing. (basically, a black skirt and coloured knit top, or a coloured skirt and a black knit top.) Except for special occasion clothing, it is all cotton, it all goes in the wash together, and I basically only have to think about it when I want to. When I want to be fancier, that's what jewelry is for.

2) I do not have glasses in my house. I have pottery mugs. I am less likely to drop them (yay, handles) and if I do, they break into bigger and much less transparent pieces. (I am not as clumsy as I was during the worst of the medical foo, but, y'know. It's still useful.)

3) I have no idea what I did before a smartphone, which for me is less phone, and more "thing that fills at least a dozen other needs, but is only one thing to keep track of, plus more than enough books to keep even *me* occupied for a while, and oh, yeah, occasionally it makes phone calls.")

4) I periodically write up a document called "The care and feeding of Jenetts (or at least this one)" designed to help people navigate spending time with me. I had hoped to have a sample here but a) the week got away from me a bit and there was other stuff that had to take priority and b) some bits of it need to go under access lock. (For those who can see my locked posts, I expect to finish it by the end of the week.)

Anyway, this includes things like methods of communication, privacy notes, basic health stuff, more in-depth health stuff (with a focus on "Here's what you need to know so we can enjoy time together."), things I like as presents, things I'm really bad at doing, foods I eat and don't eat (and a brief "why" so people can figure out which bits really apply in a given setting), and stuff people should know if they want to visit me.

What stuff do you do? I'm especially curious about anything where you do it and other people look at you and blink and then go "Oh, that's an awesome idea!" (I've had that with my mugs, for example.)

(A word on advice: please don't give it in this discussion unless someone asks for it. A bunch of people I know will read this have Complicated Stuff, and I trust that they have found solutions that work for them for reasons that work for them. That said, if you'd like advice, go ahead and ask for it!)

Music in the background: Last week's salon had a lot to say about the topic of music, and it got me thinking about listening to the stuff that connects us to the universe. So, on my playlist for this week's salon are "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys, "All Will Be Well" by Meg Barnhouse, "Brave" by Sarah Bareilles, "Allegria" by Cirque du Soleil and "Give us room to roar" from Ruth Mackenzie's Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden.

A quick reminder
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.

Comments

[elisem]

Lifehacks! Yes. Useful things.

A big one for me is Opportunity Food. My personal definition of Opportunity Food is "food I can prepare when I can't stand up all that long." Mostly, for me, that's stuff that can be put together cold, or can be microwaved, or can go in the slow cooker while I go lie down again. (I think everybody gets their own definition of Opportunity Food because each person's situation is different. My own definition of Opportunity Food years ago was "stuff I can carry in my bag and have whenever I need it and will keep for weeks, because I will certainly forget it in there.")

One of Mike's lifehacks for dealing with his serious lack of appetite was to watch the Food Channel, which led to all sorts of things, many of which were only tangentially related to food. (It fit into his love of knowing how things were made, too.)

[mrissa]

Yes! I have several variations of Opportunity Food.

There's the stuff that's always in my bag--always--because who knows when I will desperately need it. This is usually stuff like fruit leather and ginger chews.

Then there's the do-ahead stuff. Every once in awhile I will make a big batch of squash chili or a big batch of black bean soup and freeze single-serving portions of it so that I have a hot meal in 3 minutes whenever I want/need one. When we get certain kinds of fresh veggies or fruit, I clean them as soon after buying them as I have the energy/steadiness, so that I can throw them into a salad or, y'know, my mouth without having to have energy/steadiness at the right time.

And then there's the stuff I can buy pre-done and go with it. The seedy bread we both buy at Byerly's, the nice crackers, the nice hummus, the stuff. Kashi makes a thing called Mayan Harvest Bake that is very good Mrissa Chow when Mrissa Chow is hard to come by. (And unlike the original Mrissa Chow--a.k.a. Grape Nuts--it is hot.)

[jinian]

Maybe you don't like it this way, but I microwave Grape-Nuts with milk/sub for a hot version.

[sanacrow]

I've only this spring gotten to where I am willing to buy pre-done food as much as I should. I realized after the second cantaloupe went soft because I wasn't safe with the knife to cut it up that I was really getting silly in my stubbornness. It's one of the reasons I'm shopping at Publix more often now - they do a lot of pre-cut fruit that's really good, doesn't spoil too fast, and isn't ungodly expensive.

I'm having to learn to cook a lot differently since with my hand issues I can't always count on being able to use a knife safely, and sometimes I can only deal with the smallest pots. Robin is a big help, but I like to cook, not just be a director in the kitchen.

[jenett]

This.

Also, I occasionally point out to my brain that if I buy the pre-cut stuff when I need it, I have more meaningful minutes for other things I also want to do. There are not *that* many days when I would rather hack up a squash, say, than read more fic. Or knit. Or whatever.

[finch]

There's a weird sort of... almost a stigma attached to convenience foods, it's there? I buy pre-cut fruit because, like you, I just don't get around to prepping it half the time (though for different reasons). I make jokes about being "lazy" when I do it, but really, if the options are 'pre-cut mushrooms' and 'order pizza' or even 'pre-cut apple slices' or 'not eating' then paying the extra dollar to be "lazy" is totally the better life choice for me.

[ckd]

Yup. My ex and I called those "cheater foods": cheater carrots (baby carrots in a bag), cheater cauliflower (precut florets), etc. They're a simple time/effort vs. money tradeoff, and if you can afford to make that tradeoff then why not?

[elisem]

Many of those would be my Opportunity Foods.

[mrissa]

You are my secret twin. For years I would look at the pre-cut fruit and veg and think things like, "Oh, come on, I can cut up a head of broccoli, for pete's sake!" Then I realized that 1) some days I really really CAN'T cut up a head of broccoli safely and 2) some other days I can but then I can't write a short story or see my godkids or whatever. It's not always bad for me to be stubborn, but it is bad for me to be stubborn about the wrong things.

And yes. "Please make me soup" and "I will make soup now" are so very very different.

[jenett]

Yes, on the Opportunity food.

One of the things I like about the slow cooker is that it forces me to break up the food-prep stage, the eating stage, and the cleanup stage, and there are days I find that exceedingly handy. (I can go on for days about the slow cooker.)

I've also found the Kind bars handy for "go in my bag and have if I need to" (they are nut based: many many of the meal bar options use soy protein, which I don't eat, and which really limits options for portable opportunity food sometimes.)

[zhelana]

I put granola bars in my purse, and then forget they are there until I clean out my purse months later and wonder why there are squished granola bars. Last time I found a squished brownie! :D If I actually remembered I had food it would be a good idea though.