World Organizing Day

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May 20 is World Organizing Day. I found this out reading an article on the Container Store website today.

Right on cue unwittingly the shoe rack I ordered from the Container Store arrived today. I’ve been keen to organize my shoe collection better.

Does a woman or other person need 35 pairs of shoes? I wonder about this. Is having only 10 pairs of shoes okay?

You can’t wear suede shoes in the rain, so this makes having Converse in your array a benefit for inclement weather. Or else don’t buy suede footwear to begin with. Cutting down on your required number of shoes.

Oh–I think I have 30 pairs of shoes.

I’m going to review Christine Platt’s new forthcoming book Less is Liberation when it’s published. She wrote The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living with Less. Platt’s life took a turn for the better when she became famous after this first book was published.

Her motto was to “live with intention” in how you make choices. Paring down and helping readers do so had a profound impact on Platt.

You can subscribe to her new newsletter which I recommend. In a future blog entry, I’ll talk about Platt’s entreaty for readers to be “self-ish” that is chiefly concerned with our own life and livelihood and health and happiness.

Christine Platt wrote in The Afrominimalist’s Guide that she counted every pair of jeans she owned and found out that she had 53! Pairs of jeans.

How could a person buy and own 53 pairs of jeans. This boggles my mind. I own 5 pairs of jeans total. That’s all folks.

Taking the time today to just breathe is called for when faced with the overwhelm of an overstuffed living space. Starting out with a 15-minute tidying project can help. I will write in a future blog entry here too about a super time management strategy. It could be perfect to use this technique when embarking on a tidying festival like Marie Kondo talks about.

Happy World Organizing Day!

Protein Sources and Grams

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I Googled the grams of protein in serving sizes for a few food items. If you ask me a one cup serving is OK to have as vegetables are low in calories and high in benefits.

You can calculate your RDA of protein linked to your weight in kilograms. It will likely be lower than what some people think is acceptable. I tell followers to decide for yourself in consultation with a reputable integrative health coach.

I’ve read that a person should have 30 grams of protein by noon. Having 3 large eggs for breakfast (18 gm) with a container of Fage plain Greek yogurt (16 gm) would satisfy the requirement.

1 cup asparagus has 3 gm protein

1 cup Brussels sprouts has 3 gm protein

1 cup broccoli has 2.5 gm protein

1 cup cooked zucchini has 2 gm protein

1 cup cauliflower has 2 gm protein

1 medium-sized sweet potato has 2 gm protein

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3 oz chicken cutlet has around 26 gm protein

4 oz salmon has 20 gm protein

5 to 6 medium shrimp have 20 gm protein

20 mussels have 20 gm protein

6 large scallops have about 20 gm protein

1 crab cake has 11 gm protein

1 large egg has 6 gm protein

The Happy Home

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I’ve gotten a kick out of the book above. The subtitle is The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Home that Brings You Joy.

The six chapters are Uplift, Calm, Energize, Comfort, Empower, Express.

What I’ve believed is that a person can transform a drab space or a not-ideal living arrangement into a wondrous haven with a little art-felt ingenuity and creative decorating.

A person who lives in a room in a halfway house can hang a poster on the wall with Command hooks.

Ways exist to brighten your abode and boost your happiness living in it.

In a coming blog entry, I will talk about Christine Platt’s newsletter. She is the author of The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living on Less. Her new forthcoming book is Less is Liberation.

As said, I think that livening up your home can turn it from boring to buoyant with a little simple and not costly tweaks.

For years I’ve studied and practiced feng shui. Using feng shui guidelines in our homes we can attract abundance. Generating good fortune not with money more than anything else but with health and wellbeing.

Why settle for less. Like Marie Kondo attested in her book Kurashi at Home: Organize Your Space and Create Your Ideal Life. She wrote that you’re not limited in how you express yourself in challenging quarters like a 350 sq. ft. apartment.

The Happy Home book gives readers questions to write down answers to about your ideal living space and aspects in your space today that disrupt your ease and harmony.

With guidance for creating a home that instills joy.

Sometimes a tiny act can spark a right-then improvement. Like simply arranging objects atop your desktop in a neat and tidy way. Banishing the items you kept on the desk and keeping only za few items remaining.

Simply rearranging something like this can give cheer. I’m a fan too of removing items from view that clutter up surfaces and storing them out of view.

For instance: I took magnets and other small objects off the desktop.

I would say that clutter is an insidious force that can cause us to feel miserable not only about our homes. It can erode how we feel about ourselves and our prospects in life.

I’ll end here by saying that organization is a form of self-care by design. Forget the cleanses and bubble baths and other influencer-peddled forms of self-care that aren’t really effective in improving our health long-term.

If those forms of self-care had any real lasting benefits Americans would not be getting ill with diabetes heart disease and other issues like we are today.

Tidying up is one of the best forms of self-care that I know of. It works to give us self-confidence and a spring in our step.

Now that it’s spring I say let’s tackle a tidying project or two.

2025 Spring Lower Body Routine

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1.Dumbbell forward squat: hold both 12 or 15 pound DBs between legs + forward – hips back and chest up 3 x 12.

2.Split squats: one leg back on platform with one riser- DB on same side that goes down – harder side first 3 x 10 @ 10 pounds.

3.Kettlebell swings x 15 with 20 pound KB

Immediately followed by:

4.Romanian dead lift with 20 pound KB – hold with both hands + keep feet together – bend forward until stretch 3 x 15.

5.Clam shells: for glutes – lying on side stack legs – legs bent place DB on leg at thigh and open leg / separate 3 x 15 @ 10 pounds.

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Jumping jacks x 30

+

Plank – 15 seconds on one foot – 15 seconds on other foot

15 sit-ups / crunches

+

Wall sit – 2 x 30 seconds then one time As long as possible

2025 Spring Upper Body Routine

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1.Alternating DB chest press on floor (lying flat press DB to ceiling elbow touches floor at bottom) 3 x 12 @ 12 pounds

2.DB bent over row alternating DB in each hand bend over with straight back alternately row dumbbells to squeeze back. 3 x 12 @ 10-15 pounds

3.KB upright row holding 10 pound KB with both hands pull KB up to shoulder height – stand up straight 3 x 12

4.DB curls: keep base of weight touching the entire time 3 x 12 @ 10 pounds

5. DB skull crushers – 2 DBs – lying on floor bend at elbow to bring DB next to head then extend back to ceiling 3 x 12 @ 5-8 pounds.

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Fast paced step ups x 20 seconds

+

leg raises x 15 then hold last one above floor

Alternating leg tucks x 15

+

Twists x 15

Shrimp Sandwich Recipe

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This is a no-oven recipe if like me you buy grilled shrimp that is pre-cooked. Otherwise it might take 5 to 7 minutes to heat the shrimp. Either way it’s a quick and easy dinner to create.

I’ve altered this recipe. I thought it would taste better if the bread were toasted. So I used a panini grill for a couple minutes. The recipe originally called for softened butter. I don’t like eating raw butter. Plus it called for mayonnaise at the same time as the butter.

I opted to buy Primal Kitchen mayonnaise with avocado oil.

This brand of mayonnaise tastes better I think. As regular mayonnaise is made with soybean oil which comes from GMO soybean crops.

This sandwich is delicious. However it’s a light meal on its own so I recommend having a salad with the sammy. Or better yet in keeping with the seafood theme a can of clam chowder.

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1/8 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning

2 slices of whole wheat sandwich bread.

2 1/2 tablespoons minced cooked medium shrimp

2 teaspoons of mayonnaise

I slice tomato

Crispy salted potato chips.

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Stir mayonnaise and shrimp together. Sprinkle Old Bay seasoning on one slice of bread. Spread shrimp on bread. Top with tomato slice. Then top with potato chips. Cover with other slice of bread. Cut bread diagonally.

The next time I make this I’m going to heat up New England Clam chowder to serve with it.

Tasty!

Thoughts on Popping Pills

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I’m thinking of how I want to live my life when I get older. In light of a milestone birthday coming up.

The choice a person makes to take pills to be well is a personal choice. No one should attack you or me for taking pills.

The conundrum faced in old age is the advent of taking medication. I read that ninety percent of old people are in poor health.

Could it be the luck of the draw that ninety percent of old people—nearly one hundred percent—has health problems. How could only ten percent of Americans be well when we reach retirement age at 65. What accounted for who was in this minority.

Googling the ninety percent statistic brought up an American Psychological Association article that verified this fact. Ninety-two percent of old people had one chronic condition. Seventy-seven percent had two medical conditions.

I have experience seeing a person who is 87 take 5 or 6 pills every day for heart, cholesterol, high blood pressure and other ailments.

This is not how I want to live should I be lucky to get to my eighties. I’m not keen to rely on pharmaceutical intervention for health issues I’m creating via my lifestyle choices.

This is the real deal: If you want to buy half gallons of ice cream every week and polish them off in that time you’ll likely be required to take a pill to be able to do so.

In my life I’m going to have the affogato 2x per month as a treat. I would rather not take any extra pills. The fact that lifestyle choices require a person to take medication is hard for me to swallow.

This was why the MD author wrote the book Metabolical that I reviewed here a while ago. About how the current U.S. medical model is predicated on treating disease not preventing illness in the first place.

Today you and I must act as our own healers. Take pills if it will keep us healthy.

Yet I say: Consider scaling back on sugar, trans fat, saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavor, and the other ingredients in food or drink that ARE making us ill.

We cannot control external factors like an inherited risk for disease. We often cannot prevent getting ill should we have any kind of breakdown either mental physical or emotional.

What is within our power is how we respond to what happens to us. The enormity or severity of a setback doesn’t determine our fate. How we respond to this obstacle is what matters.

I call creating a baseline of health “establishing the floor.” So that if we’re treating ourselves right and taking care of ourselves as a matter of course it will be easier to thrive after we get ill.

I say: each of us has the choice. A person might want to have ice cream every week. They’re likely OK with popping a pill to do so.

Th ex-governor of Tennessee easily 15 years ago wrote a book titled Fresh Medicine about what’s ailing the healthcare system in America. The governor’s primary care MD told him: You can either eat healthy or choose to have the cheeseburger. You can eat the cheeseburger when you take a statin.

What kind of credible advice is that? This is what’s not right with medical care in America. It’s almost like healthcare professionals are in collusion with pharmaceutical companies.

Food is making us sick. I want no part of making myself sick.

In no way am I going to take an extra pill just so that I can eat food that would make me ill otherwise.

In the future I’m going to post a blog entry about Acting As Our Own Healers.

Coming up new recipes that are quick and easy to create. With the weather getting warmer day by day I’m going to share no-oven required recipes that are tasty.

Pistachio Ice Cream Affogato

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The recipe calls for high-quality pistachio ice cream. I found this in the spring issue of Magnolia Journal. Again this photo is not as pretty as the one in the magazine.

The Van Leeuwen ice cream doesn’t have the chemical additive of natural flavor. In this regard I will buy the product again.

Alas, ice cream of any kind is high in saturated fat and added sugars.

As an every so often treat though I think this recipe can’t be beat.

Use short glasses.

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One scoop premium-quality pistachio ice cream.

Espresso poured on to taste.

Sprinkle pistachios on. Drizzle honey atop if you’d like.

New Recipe Posting Soon

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Coming up soon the recipe for Pistachio Ice Cream Affogato that uses espresso. To brew the espresso you can use a coffee maker like the one above. I recommend the Bialetti.

This coffee maker with the Dolce & Gabbana logo I bought even though the designers were in a controversy a few years ago over comments they made. Though I wouldn’t wear their clothes I ordered the machine because of the design.

Plus, it’s at a reduced cost this week with a code on the Macy’s website. You could order another Bialetti for only $50 that is just as good.

Before the first use you add water and heat up the water solo without ground coffee. After that you use the maker 3 times with ground coffee in it to lock in the aroma of coffee. Then you can use the machine to brew a cup to drink.

The machine will sound off when it’s getting too full. Shut it off before coffee bursts out. You pull out the safety valve before using it. Position the coffee maker on the stove so that the safety valve is not facing you.

Parts should be stored separately to let air circulate. The leaflet doesn’t tell you that you should use the machine with white vinegar and water every so often so that your coffee doesn’t get saturated with coffee oil from repeated brewing. A Google search will bring up how to do this.

It takes only about 5 minutes to use the coffee maker.

The flame shouldn’t extend beyond the rim of the bottom of the machine.

Affogato is my new favorite every-so-often treat. Not an everyday indulgence as ice cream is high in saturated fat and added sugar. Yet I love affogato so I’m glad I can make it at home. Instead of paying $10 for it in a restaurant.

Creating a 10-Year Plan

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I’ve always thought a person should give themselves 10 years in which to achieve a goal. If you study and practice numerology you will follow along in a 9-Year cycle. Either way this entails giving yourself what I coined decades ago a lifeline not an impossible restrictive deadline to accomplish an outcome.

My take as an optimist is to take the long view. In terms of expecting that when you turn 60 or 65 the best is yet to be. Why give up in one year or worse 2 months when you don’t get what you wanted?

Expect that you can have a better life. Having something to look forward to can keep a person going. What if we could envision that 10 years from now our life will be extraordinary beyond how it is today?

As I’m fond of saying in Italian: “Creo nell’impossibile”–I believe in the impossible. I’ve always thought that what others said was impossible was indeed possible.

Far healthier to give ourselves the gift of a lifetime to carry out our goals. Break into one-year each sub-goal to bring us to the end goal.

This is about all I want to write about serious topics.

Coming up: a recipe for pistachio Affogato–a cool treat for spring and summer and really any time of the year.