SoCS: If You’re Going to Call Yourself Pro-Life ….

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “starts with pro.” Find a word that starts with “pro” and use it any way you like in your post. Enjoy!

The first thing that popped into my head was pro-life. Then, Oh, no. You better be careful with that, especially if you’re going to be writing stream of consciousness style.

Maybe I should just get this out of the way and then change the subject. This is something I have strong feelings about:

If you’re going to call yourself, “pro-life,” then please be pro-life. Try not to harm things that are ALIVE.

If you’re going to call yourself, “pro-life,” at least try to be a vegetarian or vegan. Don’t use pesticides much, especially outside. Don’t buy poinsettias during Christmas time and then just throw them in the trash when Christmas is over if they still have LIFE.

If you’re going to call yourself, “pro-life,” then don’t support the death penalty. Don’t support war.

If you’re going to call yourself, “pro-life,” then help babies and children stay alive even after they are born.

If you’re going to call yourself, “pro-life,” then work to support all life on this precious gift of planet Earth. Protect forests and oceans from so called, “development,” which destroys the lives and habitats of so many plants and animals. Support renovation of existing buildings and build green.

The list goes on. Pro-life, means in favor of and in support of LIFE.

Well, I haven’t changed the subject yet. I’m not sure if I’m even going to publish this as it is so controversial. But it’s something that really irks me. If someone calls themselves pro-life, and they truly are pro-life and not just pro-human birth, then we could probably be friends, even if we don’t agree 100% on everything. I could respect them for being honest. For Life’s sake.

Maybe I’ll just have a gallery of life pictures:

Me and Daughter Ayla 1993

Ayla and Mira 2022

Esther and baby Mira

Butterfly on Lantana

Chimp mom and baby – Source Unknown

Life hiding in the grass

Family of Geese Crossing the road

~~~

For more about Stream of Consciousness Saturday,

visit out host, Linda Hill

by clicking HERE.

Good News Tuesday, April 21, 2020: Support for Health Care Workers, Planet Earth, Living Kindly, and Captain Tom Walks the Walk

Seeking Balance One Tuesday at a Time

Support for Health Care Workers

It does our hearts good to read about all the people supporting and donating to health care workers. Here’s just one example among many: To celebrate their birthdays, two teenagers had the idea to give free gasoline to first responders, police officers, doctors, nurses, and other health care workers coming to their family’s business, Harry’s Food Mart in Massachusetts. Delivery fees were also waved by J&S Transport company delivering the gas.

…

For Planet Earth

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and while we need at least a whole month to celebrate and honor Mother Earth, I wanted to include some good news about how people are working to help the planet.  Here are ways to be creative with solar panels in driveways and at church.

The Budapest-based startup, Platio Solar has developed a residential solar paneled driveway made out of recycled plastic bottles. According to the website, “a 20-square-meter (215-square-foot) driveway system has the capacity to cover the yearly energy consumption of an average household.” Or it The Good News Network provides details. 

A Polish priest inspired by Pope Francis used his own money to put a 70 foot cross of solar panels on his church. By day, the cross provides the electricity for the church’s lighting, heating, and air conditioning. By night, it provides a colorful neon light show.  Here’s more on that story which I found in my Goodnewsletter.

Living Kindly for Animals

The animal welfare group, Live Kindly, has an abundance of  good news for animals in the following video, like Dr. Fauci recommending an end to live animal markets, dogs and cats no longer being listed as livestock in China, a bill to ban ivory sale in Washington DC, sea turtles nesting freely, and Paul McCartney making sure Lisa Simpson is still a vegetarian before he goes on The Simpsons. If you love animals and the earth, this is good news.

…

 

99 Year Old Veteran Walks the Walk

In just two weeks, Captain Tom Moore has raised over 13 million pounds for England’s National Health Service by walking 100 lengths of his back garden before his 100th birthday.  Now, there’s a campaign for Captain Tom to be knighted. Captain Tom reminds us that we’re never too old to make a difference whether by walking or with a smile.

UPDATE: Thanks to Derrick for this update in the comments: “Captain Tom didn’t stop there. Stating that he would continue walking as long as people continued giving, by 18th April the total had passed £23,000,000.”

It was hard to pick just one video about Captain Tom, so I urge you to watch others too.

…

Got good news?

Please feel free to share in the comments!

It can be global, local, or personal.

Run with Love (Motivation for a Plant-Based Diet)

“Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.”  River Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix quoted his late brother in his recent Oscar acceptance speech. It was a moving speech. Here’s more of my favorite parts:

“I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.”    ___Joaquin Phoenix

The whole speech:

 

In his speech, Mr. Phoenix reminds me about animals suffering in the dairy industry. This encourages me to return to my goal of becoming vegan which means consuming no animal products. While I’ve done fairly well in abstaining from most meat over the last four decades, I’ve found it hard to give up fish and dairy (especially cheese) for good.  The 40 days of lent starting next week give me strength to do better, to show myself what I’m capable of. Going vegan for lent in the past helped me be done with chicken and reduced my dairy consumption after lent. Maybe this will be the year I’ll be done with dairy. As far as seafood goes, we’ll see. For now, my goal is to be vegan for lent.

Here are three reasons to move toward a plant-based diet:

1. A plant-based diet is healthier as long as we don’t eat a lot of junk food.

2. It’s better for the environment because it takes way less energy to produce plants than to produce plants to feed to animals in an industry that adds more pollution. Animal agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change.

3. A plant–based diet reduces animal suffering and leads us in a direction of kindness and peace.

 

 

Please consider joining me in reducing our consumption of meat and dairy products. Every small step makes a difference and prepares us for the next step.

If you’re not already a vegetarian or vegan, you might want to consider something like Meatless Mondays.

Thanks for reading.

Vegan Chocolate Pudding with cocoa, almond milk, and avocados. Delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

SoCS: Not Going Nuts, Art, and Almond Milk

Today’s prompt is, “nuts.”

I’m trying not to go nuts about getting ready for our church’s annual artisan fair. Both David and I are vendors, and as I write this Friday afternoon, there’s a lot to do before set up tonight and the fair tomorrow (Saturday.) Taking a deep breath. I want this to be fun. It will be fun. I need to relax and be thankful that I can do this without having to go work in an office at a stressful job.

Just goes to show you that even if you are doing the job of your dreams and have the man of your dreams, your life can still have some stress in it, especially if you let your anxiety or perfectionist gremlins infiltrate your peace, JoAnna.

It’s a beautiful day, and I really like the peace, ha, I meant to type piece, I worked on last night that I started in the laundromat while washing my old dog’s bed for the 20th time and finished (the painting) last night.

Flying Over the Ocean: acrylic on up-cycled wood

I’m still in love with it since I did it last night, and because it reminded me that my favorite kind of art to do is to see what the grain and knots in the wood want to be.

More on nuts: Being a vegetarian (mostly) nuts are a big part of my diet. I do love them and have walnuts every morning in my oatmeal. Thank God I’m not allergic to nuts. A good smoothie to make is just banana, peanut butter, and almond milk. Sometimes I add oatmeal or some other fruit. My son makes tacos with a blending of walnuts and broccoli as the filler/meat substitute. It’s really rather good. Rather. That’s an odd word to use.

I’d rather be a nut than a mean person. A funny nut is much more fun to be around than a sane meanie.  Now I’m just rambling along the stream of consciousness. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. I would not be at all surprised if John at The Sound of One Hand Typing shares that commercial for Almond Joy and Mounds. But just in case he doesn’t, here it is.

Nope. I’m going to be honest. I just spent at least ten minutes looking for a commercial I liked and didn’t find one. That was way too much planning and editing for SoCS. So, I’ll share my favorite funny commercial which IS about nuts. I don’t like violence, but I have this other side to me, like we all do… that got tickled by this commercial which came out when I was still single. Whatever that means.

…

Sorry I haven’t been around much. Will catch up soon!  Maybe that extra hour will help as we “fall back.”

…

For more nutty streams of consciousness, visit Linda at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/11/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-2-19/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

 

 

One-Liner Wednesday: Give the Boy Beans

Being almost vegetarian, beans are a big part of my diet. Yet I am cautious as the amount of beans I will eat in one sitting. You can imagine why. If there are a lot of  beans in my minestrone soup, I give some to my husband. He is not cautious about beans at all.

“Give the boy beans they said;  it’ll be alright.”

That’s what my husband David always says when we talk about beans or I give him some of mine. I figured it was something he heard from his grandpa Malcolm. But when I asked David about it, he said he made it up himself more recently in response Mr. Willie, the cook at the Mission where David worked and still volunteers. They joke a lot about food among other things.

I like the part about “It’ll be alright,” which in the big picture is usually the case.

…

One-Liner Wednesday is brought to us by Linda G. Hill. For more one-liners and the guidelines, visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/31/one-liner-wednesday-up-there/

Signed Up for Spaghetti Night

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt is “ink.”

I signed my name in ink. There were these spaces open for Friday, Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, to cook dinner. For about 50 to 100 people, but more like 50, realistically, at the meeting we go to. I asked my husband after the meeting was over, and I saw the blank spaces for next week. He said, okay. So I signed us up for Dec. 1 with the plan to ask if people from our church will help like they did last year.

On the way home, my husband asked, “Do you know what date you signed up for?”

“December 1st.”

“Do you know what date that is?”

I thought for a second. Then I mentally hit my hand on my forehead. “Our anniversary!” How could I have forgotten? “Well, you could have said, no.”

“I didn’t realize it until just now.”

“Maybe God wants us to serve on our anniversary. Then we can go out to dinner Saturday night….  Are you mad?”

“No.” Or maybe he said, “Nah.”

I don’t think he’s mad. He will make spaghetti sauce Thursday night with meat. On Friday, I’ll make vegetarian sauce. I’ll take the sauce to the church where the meeting is and make the spaghetti at the church. Maybe garlic bread. Hopefully, I’ll get some help. My husband will join me when he gets off work. I don’t really regret signing up, though I might not have if I had remembered it was our 5 year anniversary. But maybe I would have. You can celebrate by serving. I must have been feeling energetic. And blessed. Wanting to give back. But there’s another, less generous reason too. I’m a vegetarian, and there has been little for me to eat at these meetings lately that does not contain meat. So, I’ll make a vegetarian sauce option.

Last time we did this, it was fun, but tiring. So I’m going to rest up Friday morning and take it easy in the early afternoon. Maybe we’ll go out for Frozen Yogurt afterward. Why did I capitalize Frozen Yogurt? I like the kind made with almond milk, and lots of nuts. And dark chocolate chips. Or maybe we’ll wait til Saturday night or Sunday, or a day when we go hiking. I miss hiking. And I need to go hiking with all the holiday eating coming up. Sigh. But I am thankful to have so many options for eating, serving, hiking…..

Feeling blessed.

Chocolate Almond compliments of TCBY

The Saturday Stream of Consciousness is brought to you by Linda G. Hill. You can follow more inky streams at:

https://lindaghill.com/2017/11/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-25-17/

Here are the SoCS rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Pigs, Chickens, and Almond Milk

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt is a touchy subject for me. The word is, “ham.” Being an “almost vegetarian,” I don’t want to get preachy because I am so imperfect. But ham is one thing that was never hard for me to give up. It has something to do with pigs being mammals and at least as intelligent as dogs. Why do we live with dogs and love them so much, but eat pigs?

Chicken and fish are another story. Is it right that I haven’t had the same success with giving up eating animals that are so much more different from me? But when I watch those videos about factory farmed chickens, that has given me strength. I’ve just about got the chicken thing down. A piece might slip in through a broccoli casserole, but most of the time, I’m done eating chicken.

I’ve been reading a book about raising chickens by Kelly Chripczuk, called Chicken Scratch, Stories of Love, Risk and Poultry. It’s a sweet little easy-to-read account of her adventures raising chickens. She makes them sound so lovable, or maybe it’s because she is so loving. I met Kelly at a writer’s retreat at God’s Whisper Farm where of course they have chickens, along with goats and beautiful Great Pyrenees dogs, but no pigs as I know of. I wonder if someone would write a book about pigs like Chicken Scratch. But the problem is, pigs don’t lay eggs, so…. let’s not get too complicated. Pigs could make good companion animals. They’re really smart, so they could be service animals -fetching things, letting you know when someone’s at the door…..or they could just be pigs for pigs’ sake.

So, yeah. I have no trouble not eating pigs or cows and most of the time chickens. Fish and shrimp are a bit of a challenge, but lent helps. During lent, I can be a strict vegetarian, knowing it’s just for 40 days. Dairy might be included this year in my abstinence plan for lent. Almond milk is pretty good once you get used to it. It tastes lighter somehow and seems to keep longer than cow milk. That reminds me of this commercial from a few years back that just tickled me. Let me see if I can find it.

I enjoy watching the new milkman keep a straight face.

Talk about ham!

(The pig photo is from pixabay.)

The Saturday Stream of Consciousness is brought to you by Linda G. Hill at

https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-1817/

Here are the rules for SoCS.

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Anything is Possible Cooking with the Stream of Consciousness

I enjoy cooking when it’s an experiment. That means not following a recipe. With the exception of baking – cookies, pies, cakes which require specific measurements or else you could have a bunch of dog treats on your hands, or Frisbees – I think of a recipe as a general guideline or an idea generator.

My husband, on the other hand, likes to follow a recipe with precision. When I’ve made an experiment that turned out good, he says, “How will you be able to replicate it?” But following a recipe, or writing down what I did, just seems to take the fun out of it.

One exception that we can both have fun with is soup. We’ll throw all our leftovers or last chance veggies in a soup.

I’m making my traditional vegetarian lasagna for Christmas Eve, even though it will probably be just me and my husband, and even though I’m experimenting so it won’t be a traditional recipe, just the tradition of Christmas Eve lasagna. This year, I’m experimenting with vegan cheese. Yeah, it might not melt on top, but, well, we’ll see. I’m also baking ginger cookies, but I’m taking the easy way out with a mix. I’m just adding the vegan butter and one Humane Certified egg. So the cookies will be soft and chewy, a step above the store bought in a bag ginger snaps, but easier than starting from scratch.

Speaking of easy, Christmas day, we’ll go take my dad out for Chinese after church. It’s a new tradition for us since my mom died a few years ago and it works okay for me to not cook.

Here’s a cooking song my dad used to sing to my mom. It’s not my kind of music, but it’s my stream of consciousness, and the words are cute.

“Hey, good lookin’ whatcha got cookin’?”

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE, EVERYONE!

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt was: “cook.” Find a word that means “cook,” (or use “cook” itself) and use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

The Saturday Stream of Consciousness is brought to you by Linda Hill at:

 https://lindaghill.com/2016/12/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-2316/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

Countdown to Colonoscopy No. 2

Oh, this is so easy. Today’s stream of consciousness post is “no,” as in the abbreviation for number or the word, no.

So, I’m getting ready for colonoscopy no. 2. The first one was 10 years ago when I was 50. The preparation protocol is no better, in fact, it’s worse.

I was instructed to take no vitamins starting on Thursday, and yesterday and today, I’m supposed to have a “low fat, low fiber” diet. That means no whole grains or nuts (I miss my morning oatmeal!) no raw veggies, except lettuce, no pulpy juices or fruits, except, thankfully I can have bananas. And I can have all the dairy and meat products I want – how is that low fat?  The chart even says butter and oils are all okay. And refined flour is okay, but not whole grains! This is so unhealthy! And I’m trying to be a vegetarian here!

The good part is that I’ve been wanting pancakes for quite some time, so last night I had pancakes and an omelette at IHOP for dinner.

Of course the fun part starts on Sunday when I don’t get to eat any food all day long. Just clear liquids, and those four pills at 3pm, and then I start drinking that stuff at 5pm mixed with Gatorade, and at 1:OO in the morning I get to drink a bottle of magnesium citrate to make sure my colon is spic and span for my 7AM procedure on Monday.

So, what does this have to do with “Anything is Possible?”

Fingers tapping.

I suppose it’s possible that this is necessary for the best view of my colon.

It’s possible that I will lose weight, on Sunday anyway, and appreciate healthy food more.

I will have faith that these new preparation procedures are necessary, and in the long run, healthy, as in good for my health, and I will have more information about the state of my large intestine.

Thank you for allowing me to rant and whine a bit.

_______________________________________________________________

PS: Since Dan Antion has clarified that it’s okay to add photos, and that’s not editing, I have to add this fun video that I just remembered. Classic Sesame Street: The No Song:

If you’d like to rant and whine, or just let your stream of consciousness run free, visit Linda at the link below:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS April 16/16

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

How Not to Waste Food: Eat Leftovers, Compost, Share with Dogs

Today’s Stream of Consciousness prompt was: “food”

If I hadn’t written about my efforts to be a vegetarian just a few days ago, I would have written about that…..

Do you know how much food is wasted in the US? A lot!

My mother used to say, “We don’t throw away food.” She grew up in the depression and didn’t throw away much. But sometime, when it has mold on it, you do need to throw it away, unless of course you can compost it. We keep our compost in the freezer until it piles up enough to carry it out to the composter.

Having dogs also helps us not to waste food. And we eat a lot of leftovers. Sometime we can make a whole meal of leftovers, two meals even. A thin friend of mine told me that she felt like when she ate too much, it was wasting food, so it’s the same as throwing it away. I don’t know. But it got me thinking about how maybe I don’t need to eat something just to keep it from going to waste when I’ve already had enough. But I still don’t like to throw it away if it’s usable, meaning eatable.

My husband’s dogs, who are now my dogs, my step dogs, will eat just about anything, including kale, broccoli, carrots, apples and bananas. My little mutt has started to eat some of those things, too, since her step sisters seem to enjoy their raw veggies so much. But when we toss her the kale, or a piece of raw carrot, she mouths it and then looks at us like, what is this? This is not food.

Yet, for humans, it is food, unlike things like potato chips and candy – food like products, right? Except that last night, I had some potato chips for the first time in a very long time, and they were good, sort of, not wholesome, yeah, they didn’t taste like food. Okay, so I won’t do that again for a very long time. I hope. Because it’s true what they say about weight gain and getting older. It’s not mandatory to gain weight as we age, but it does seem to be a trend. And then there are those people who get thinner as they get older.

But back to food. I’d really like to eat mostly what God made, through nature, for us to eat to be healthy. We are blessed and lucky to have so many choices in the modern world. But I do like dark chocolate, and that is not made by God/nature. Cocoa beans are though. I don’t recall ever having a cocoa bean. I think it’s about time. Because beans are good for you. And I want to eat food that’s good for me. I want to eat to live, not live to eat.

If you’d like to join in the banquet of Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness, visit:

http://lindaghill.com/2016/02/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-2716/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!