Tag Brussel sprouts

Busy, busy: Taking care of yourself takes time (but we always make time for adventures)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s been what, a week?, since I wrote in this forum. I know, I know.

I have been trying to write. I have plans to brainstorm ideas for BookTok, projects to edit, and I decided to make short, very real, unedited videos for BookTube.

But, as I left myself 30 minutes to write this blog entry and “wasted” 15 minutes of that panicking over a medical form (all part of “things that have happened since last week”) I may have to leave you with a list:

  • The Intermittent Leave I submitted to my PCP was illegible once printed out, so I typed a new one over the weekend and sent it to the doctor’s office. I had not heard from them, so I double-checked the email this morning and thought the form I sent them was blank. I panicked, discovered my eyes had misled me, but had already messaged the office so now I probably have high blood pressure and look like an ass.
  • My favorite foster, Khloe the Sassy Princess and Cuddler, went to Chaar in Forks Township in search of a home. I went to visit her before the gym Wednesday and she made me biscuits.
  • My workouts have been brutal… I mean amazing, really I do. I’ve been doing what feels like some great weights and focusing so hard on form.
  • We had a heating oil delivery yesterday and I hadn’t anticipated that for another three weeks. $700. Ouch.
  • I had brussel sprouts three times this week. I do love my brussel sprouts.
  • I saw Nan Tuesday night and we practically made a comedy routine out of reading her junk mail.
  • My creative brain is swimming with ideas. Is that because I have no time?
  • I am soooooo close to fully performing at work. They messed up my accommodations Tuesday. My percentages are 98%, 103%, 103%. Accommodations make a difference.

But here’s my big take away:

Feel free to let me know your opinion.

Regardless of whether you have a disability or not, and that can even be a personal determination, getting older sucks… anyway… Taking care of yourself takes a lot of time. Monitoring your habits (food, sleep, exercise), health and treatments take so much time. Finding and visiting doctors. Physical therapy, training sessions or independent-led exercise. It’s ridiculous. Filling out that intermittent leave paperwork really drove home how much time I spend taking care of myself.

Maybe it is easier to neglect oneself. Maybe it would be so much less stressful to eat what I want, accept my “limitations” and live a more sedentary life. Maybe it is easier to stop fighting and be miserable. Maybe it takes an exhausting amount of energy to take care of oneself.

I’m a doer, a fighter. It’s who I am. So I will never stop trying. But now I think I see why some folks don’t.

Review: first meal kit from Green Chef

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Last week I got a hankering for a Purple Carrot meal kit delivery and I had missed the order deadline by a day.

A search of the internet indicated that I could order a vegetarian meal kit from Green Chef for half price, or $35 for 3 dinners for 2.

The box came Wednesday as I was headed to work. You can see the unboxing on YouTube here. Today I made the first meal— you can see it all from start to finish here.

While setting up the camera for the video I noticed this cool view of the bottles on my kitchen counter.

My daughter and I both thought the meal was tasty.

As I was unpacking and later preparing it, I noticed the packaging and style of containers/organizing mimicked Hello Fresh. The recipe cards very closely resembled Hello Fresh except that Green Chef color-coded the cards to the bags which I thought was convenient and clever.

But like Hello Fresh, they also had the annoying poorly labeled plastic bags of ingredients that I had to wrestle to open.

Purple Carrot has the best labeling and food storage containers— little plastic jars with lids that I reuse.

Green Chef had a strange combo of prepared ingredients, like tomato cream sauce, yet sent whole almonds that I had to “roughly chop” myself. So the preparation was far simpler than Hello Fresh, but not as quick as Hungryroot, and certainly not as protein-packed as Purple Carrot.

And Green Chef was the only delivery service so far to have coolant from the box leak all over my living room.

I will provide another update once I made the next two meals.