Taking time to take stock – Take a knee soldier!

Picture the scene, our space faring descendants have just crash landed on a hostile earth. And the earth has good reason to be hostile, because we are not very kind to it right now, are we?

Anyway, in the movie “After Earth”, Cypher (played by Will Smith), instructs his son, Kitai (played by his son), to “Take a knee soldier!”

Obviously there are hordes of dangers intent on taking revenge on human kind, and the scene I need you to recall, is where Kitai is scared *&^%!less, and is just running blind, not aware whether he is running away from, or towards, even greater danger.

So, it is time to take a knee, and take stock.

I am sitting here in my most favourite Ginger Mary T-shirt, (and if you know me, you have seen it many times over the last decade), wondering whether this should be a blog about our metaphysical existence and growth during this change that COVID has brought, or, whether it should be about the progress of my living off the land experiments.

I guess it will be a little bit of both. After all, life is about balance, correct? You may not be fantastic at all levels in your life, but if you pay attention to all aspects in your circle of life, your wheel balancing will be optimal. I was going to try and sound clever, by quoting the ideal wheel balance as 20˚S-0.1, but instead I found some fitting life lessons at https://www.liveabout.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-wheel-balancing-3234378.

1. Balancing is necessary.

Just like no tyre’s weight is perfectly distributed, life’s pressures and stresses are not evenly spaced out. It takes resolute action to take stock; and adjust.

2. Balance changes over time.

Today’s oh-so-important and urgent task may very well be trivial tomorrow morning. So, what works today, will not work tomorrow. But before you sink into the doom and gloom of things are only going to get worse from here, there is a 50/50 chance that it will get better, not worse. Back to step 1 – take stock; and adjust.

3. Balancing only fixes balance.

There is no one size fits all solution. Sometimes it is going to take a more than just a few tweaks here are there.

After those few tweetable statements, all is right in the world again. There is simple and clear logic. Yep, now if only everyone would be logical. Now that I have addressed the existential questions and our future, lets tackle the next taking stock item, with reference to the content promised in my first blog. https://thegreatreset-thorn.com/sugar-spice/

Growing vegetables

The reason that this salad is called “Base Case”, is because I started with lettuce that I found in the fridge. From there it was a case of “what else can I add” given that we dont have any of the salad staple tomatoes, feta, cucumber.

I ended up with the finest slivers of picked ginger, crispy green apple, some sesame seeds for panache, and chickpeas for substance.

The combination worked well. So if you are going to create a dish out of what you can find in your fridge, I would suggest one element of zing (ginger usually is a good option), and one element of sweet/sour (crispy green apple in this case). Let’s see what you tried, leaf a comment. (Did you spot the wordplay there? 😉

Creativity

Sorry, the Christmas box surprise is now spoiled. But it will be a surprise if I can finish it before the Chicago winter is done.

Contrasted collections observations

Just check out the titles of my posts. From corporate governance, to menu planning. I know, you should see what it looks like inside my skull!

Produce from Stone Store by DBP

Here is just a small selection of farm fresh sourdough breads. One of the best experiments, was the olice and caramelised onion bread. One of the healthiest ones I was happy to share with overnight guests, was a pumpernickle style seed bread. And nothing, but nothing beats that first slice, slightly warm, with farm fresh butter……

Taking stock is all good and well, but now I have to go do some weeding. Good week ahead to all my friends, colleagues and followers.