Day 24

I wonder if I will stick with this as long as the 100 day project from two years ago.  That was part of the preparation for leaving that other life, although I had no idea that it was back then.  At the time it was a way to concentrate on something for a hundred days.  Whatever this is, I hope that there is something great at the end and that it does not take an additional year to show up.

BREAKFAST
I awoke hungry, until I was up and about.  Then, my appetite went somewhere without me, so I had a cup or so of my nut mix.

LUNCH
1/4 pound of baked ham, fat removed

After I ate the nuts, I went to the refrigerator and the only things in there were/are a bunch of condiments, most of a carton of eggs, 3 apples and a ham.  So, I baked the ham and had a few more nuts along with a square of chocolate.

The ham was pre-cooked, but I remember from ages ago, when I last bought a ham, that they taste better when they are baked.  So, that is what I did, and it was ready by lunchtime.

DINNER
a bunch of small ham slices, heated in a frying pan with a can of sauerkraut on top

That was good, except for the part about forgetting that there was still half of it in the pan.

I will grocery shop when I take my friend out to do something with her accountant, have an early dinner and take her shopping.

I did not waste any meat this week, but a few vegetables went into the trash in the past few days.  I am doing a respectable job of using the food I buy, and hope to keep getting better at that.  It was easier when I was buying mostly fruit, during my fruit binge buying, as that never went to waste, but you cannot eat just fruit and salad, as I found out.

I have no idea what to buy and will wait to see what is on sale.  The market she likes is too expensive for me, but I always buy stuff there because I am already there.  The meat is very good.  Very unlike the discount market meat and these recent trips to her favorite market have been a strain on my budget, with those higher prices, but the meat purchases have made it difficult to go back to the quality of meat I was buying.  I feel guilty buying the better meat.  I just do.

I meet with my spiritual adviser in the morning.  It continues to amaze me that I have a spiritual adviser and that I am going to church once in a while, although the church part is not all that connected to the tender explorations I have with Sister.

I never know what we will talk about, not even when I meet her.  It all just happens, mostly interesting and forward moving stuff, but there will come a time when I and the process will become redundant.  I know that.  My hope is that I actually have a spiritual practice that means something to me before that happens.

I am hoping to finish Sue Monk Kidd's, The Invention of Wings tonight before I fall asleep.  At midnight, just a half-hour from now, it will be overdue at the library.  I need to finish it for the next person waiting in the queue to read it and I need to find a used copy for myself, because I need to read it again, as soon as possible.

I have this fistful of books that I re-read nearly every year, and this book of Sue's has become one of them.  I liked The Secret Life of Bees, very much, but this book, it is speaking to some vital part of me, not so much my heart, but some little place inside that does not have a name.  I know it is there, that part.  I can feel it respond when I am reading.  That part inside me takes in the words as I read, fetching them from my eyes and brain and folding all of it into something that makes the kind of sense I need right now, sense for which I am in such need.

It supports my work and it just might be the next step in whatever I am supposed to do.  I knew that I liked it from the beginning and I thought that I should read her other two books.  Now they have to wait until I re-read this one. 

This same thing happened to me when I first fell upon Alice Walker.  And, Margaret Atwood.  Harper Lee, George Orwell, Poe, Kurt Vonnegut.  Those and the others who live on the shelf at the head of my bed, their dusty covers shedding the stuff that kept me alive in that other life and which feeds me now.  I wish it would also help me be a better housekeeper, but I guess you cannot have everything.