The Salad Chiller

I got this salad chiller as a wedding gift from my registry.  I love the idea of salad- a quick and healthy lunch that can be spiced up in an almost infinite number of ways.  From the base (no more boring iceberg lettuce) to the main ingredients (cucumbers, mandarin slices, almond, craisins or whatever) to the dressing, everything can be switched up to an individual taste.  Still, I have rarely ventured into this dish that is a staple for so many people.  I have certainly had salads I enjoyed, but I get stuck on so many gumption traps that I rarely commit to making one.  Here are some of the most persistent offenders:

1) Lettuce is only sold by large quantities (unless you get loose leafs, which is more expensive).  Inevitably, much of the lettuce goes bad and I really hate to waste food.  So, I would really have to commit to eating salad everyday for a number of days in order to use it all up.  I have yet to make this commitment, for a variety of reasons, but these will sound like excuses so I won't get into them here.

2) Good dressing is expensive, and I am too chicken to try making my own- I am worried about the various elements separating.

3) Vegetables don't stay fresh for all that long.  Since I'm menu-planning more now, this should be less of a problem (I can schedule my salads so that I beat the natural vegetable spoiling process).

This salad chiller is a pretty nifty device.  It has an ice-pack built into the lid, along with a separate compartment to store and pour dressing.  I can think of a few people who might really like and use this.  So, I could re-gift this or I could make the commitment to at least try and eat salad (at work, using this bad boy and at home).

To me, eating salad is the epitome of being healthy.  If I choose to rip this chiller out of its packaging, I am committing to keeping it in my home, possibly using it, and taking a step towards being healthier.  Until then, it is a nagging thought lurking unopened and enexplored in the back of a dusty cabinet.

Praying the rosary is akin to this salad chiller.  While my rosary has seen more action than this kitchen device, it remains just a pretty potential when stored away and not in use.  I admire anyway who commits to a daily, healthy lifestyle just as much as I admire one who commits to daily prayer.

There is always tomorrow.  There is always tomorrow to return home, to go to mass, to open myself to God and to move forwards with more goodness and love in my heart.  There is always tomorrow to start a healthy diet.

I am learning to accept the reality between the cliche: "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey."  However, I don't want to rest on my laurels with the comfort that there is always tomorrow.  I know that it takes a while for habits to form and become ritual, so I welcome moments (like uncovering the salad chiller) that signal me to tie my shoe laces and keep walking onwards.

The Small Picture

It is very easy to romantacize the "big picture," to wax philosophical about grand ideas of peace and hope, to imagine myself one day as a Good Catholic.

On a recent family vacation, we all sat around and talked about hope- hope for the coming year and hope in general.  I talked about my hope to promote peace in the world.  I used to believe that I could be like Martin Luther King Jr., like Dorothy Day, or Thomas Merton.  I can be like them in the sense that we share humanity, we share the inevitable shortcomings that come from having temptations and the dreams of reaching beyond our own limitations to the divine.

Before we can create peace in the world, we have to be at peace at home.  My peace on a day-to-day basis consists of making decisions to promote a simpler lifestyle than what is popular.  I use cloth diapers- laundering them brings me peace.  In not contributing more waste to landfills in the form of disposable diapers, I am (in a very small yet very concrete way) moving towards peace.  There is nothing grand or exotic in this, yet I believe that it is important.

I have several specific goals for 2012: weight loss, pray more, read more, be nicer to my dogs (they really push my patience), be a good mother, be a good wife....etc.  I really ought to measure all of these goals against the overall measure: will these things bring me peace?  Some of them (weight loss, specifically) are means to an end that will (hopefully) bring me peace.  I try to break goals into smaller ones, because these days, it's easy for me to get lost and discouraged during this time of adjusting to the demands of a new baby.

 My focus has been sharpened since becoming a mother.  Everything is for my son, and for any future children I might be lucky enough to have.  Not only am I setting an example to him, but I am providing him with a model of what a mother and wife should be.  Yikes!  Talk about pressure.  I've been reading Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas (?), and it talks about how a spouse is a mirror- one that shows us our failings and successes...I wonder what a child is?  A magnifying mirror?

Anyway, this post is a bit scattered.  I'm still thinking about all of this, and how it seems very important that I "get it," right now.  I feel positive that I'm moving in the right direction, it just feels like it is going rather slowly.  I hope I can move fast enough.  I fear that I will fail my family.  Failure is not the worst thing...I think it was Dorothy Day who said, "Fear of the thing is worse than the thing itself."

Prayer brings me closer to God.  God wants me to bring peace to the world.  Being peaceful helps me look for God in all things.  I hope to someday see myself the way that God sees me: That is a good new year's resolution.



Side note: I have been thinking a lot about prayer.  This post http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/2011/09/as-convert-with-no-collective-memory-to.html was very instructive.  I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few months.  This blog, in general, is shouting the direction I want to go in.