In my previous post, I defended buying pre-mixed foods, but I wanted to also present an argument against these, for the sake of completeness. The argument is that the food supply has largely become corrupted as companies cut corners, introduce harmful chemicals and pesticides, and otherwise rely on deceptive labeling to trick consumers, and this […]
Preparing Food to Scale
There’s often a financial benefit to preparing your own food in bulk, but preparing everything is a chore and doesn’t always offer the benefits you might think. I am a lazy cook, and any food that takes me more than 30 minutes to prepare has my immediate suspicion. The only exceptions to this rule are […]
Anxiety as Status Symbol, Part 3
Since writing the first two posts on this subject, I’ve actually been sleeping much better. I’ve started getting more tired earlier, and I have even taken a few naps in the evening, almost as if my body is catching back up with what it really needs. I suspect the stress had been building up for […]
Anxiety as Status Symbol, Part 2
I finally went hiking today, and it gave me a lot of time to think about what I wrote the other day. Ironically, I prayed the night before that I would wake up at the time I needed to get myself out the door, so I don’t know if it was just an answer to […]
Anxiety as Status Symbol
It’s a boring Sunday evening, and a voice at the back of my head tells me I should go to the gym. It tells me this because the more I go to the gym, the better prepared I will be physically for exploring the high country; more importantly, the more I go to the gym, […]
Bread Machine Maintenance: Economic Thoughts on Bargains
I have finally figured out a decent custom setting for making einkorn bread in my Breadman bread machine, but while making my most recent loaf, the machine started producing an annoying squeaking sound. For awhile now, I’ve been finding some grease at the bottom of the pan, so I decided it was time to replace […]
A Quick Note on Salt
As a brief follow-up to my previous post on biomarkers, it would appear that my blood pressure has actually dropped since my last visit to the doctor. Mind you, the first reading was at my gastroenterologist’s office, and was only about 10 points above normal for both systolic and diastolic, which is pretty low compared […]
Perspectives on Health, Biomarkers, and Aging
It might seem odd to put “aging” in the title when I’m nowhere near “old man” status, but the truth is, the years are passing, and the health decisions I make today might not kill me overnight, but they could easily kill me in 10 or 20 years if I don’t choose wisely. The funniest […]
Organizing Medical Records and Expenses
It is precisely because I hate administrative paperwork so much that I am insistent on keeping it organized. However, for the past few years, my file drawer has absorbed a crazy number of medical and insurance documents, and this has been getting in the way of other things, so I finally sat down the other […]
When the Skills Pool is Dominated by Special Interests
I’m a firm believer in learning and developing skills over time, but I have to acknowledge that these don’t always work in employees’ favor. The first thing that comes to mind is how academia gleefully encourages people to pursue academic degrees even when those degrees can’t afford their own expense, but this also carries into […]