#home – Life, on purpose!

Ten years from now…

Ten years from now, I will be about sixty years old. Ten years from now, my first granddaughter will be old enough to start driving. Ten years from now, my car will be long paid off and likely ready to fall apart. Ten years from now, there will be a lot of changes that take place in my life.

But I choose to think about the types of changes that I can affect taking place in my life. Where I want to be ten years from now, and the things I would like to accomplish ten years from now. I have always believed in and maintained a five-year plan, and now, I am giving consideration to my ten-year plan.

Ten years from now, I would like to be an accomplished author. I would ideally like to have written forty books by then. At the very least, I would like to have at least half that much. Twenty books written and published would be adequate for me ten years from now. As long as the books are of good quality and will sell. I could be ambitious and set a goal of writing one hundred books within the next ten years, but if every one of those books are rushed and of low quality, every single one of them would be a waste of my time. I would prefer to have only written two books of high-quality work that people will want to read because they feel as though they have something to gain from them. However, for the sake of my ten-year plan, I will simply say that I would like to have written and published forty books ten years from now.

In addition to writing and selling books, ten years from now, I would like to have generated other streams of income. I would like to become a life coach and help other people set their sails on the right direction for the stormy seas they face. Ideally, I would like to become a successful life coach only after creating my own successful life free of the self-doubt, anxiety, insecurity, and lack of self-confidence that I currently have. I would like to create a bonafide system for overcoming the mental and physical obstacles that prevent me from living a truly happy and free life, in which I have defined the ability to shed mental and physical clutter that prevent the clarity and freedom of living life fully. Ten years from now, I would like to share my own life success story with the world. I would also like to host a successful podcast in which I share my own life story, a memoir of such, and give others the courage to face and overcome their own demons and battles.

Ten years from now, I would like to have my ideal body and achieve optimal health. I have a significant amount of weight to lose currently and have been battling depression and high blood pressure for years. I would like to see myself overcoming both of those hurdles. My blood pressure can easily be managed by reducing my body weight and maintaining a healthy diet. Reducing my body weight can be quite a challenge, due to the fact that it will require a great deal of work on my part. The work will not be easy, nor will it always be fun. However, I owe it to myself and to my family to do the work necessary to gain better health and have a healthier and more active lifestyle for years to come. There is evidence of a direct correlation between depression and obesity. However, it is a vicious cycle and a catch 22 of sorts. Depression tends to lead to overeating “comfort foods” or binge eating and being overweight tends to lead to depression. They go hand in hand and one can create the other. Therefore, ten years from now, I would like to have gotten a handle on my weight and reversed the damaging effects of high blood pressure and lowering my risk of heart disease. As well, I would like to have overcome depression by living an active life that includes hiking and participation in many family events.

Ten years from now, I would like to have achieved obtaining my master’s degree in psychology. I would like to take the things that I learn and understand about the human psyche and human behavior and apply them to my writing as well as the topics discussed in my podcast. I have always had a great fascination with what makes people do the things that they do. I would love to develop a great understanding of that and develop the ability to put it in ways that can help others understand human behaviors as well.

Ten years from now, I would mostly love to have the ability to live my life as a reflection of the success and achievement of accomplishing all of the things that I have set forth in my ten-year plan. I would love to own a quaint little farmhouse in north Georgia, the place I call home. I would like to have small parcel of land to accompany the home, in which I would have space for gardening. I would love to have a large rocking chair front porch with a white porch swing. I would love to be able to spend morning sitting in the swing with my morning coffee and watching the world come to life with the morning sunrise. I would love to have family over and enjoy holidays and meals with the people I love most. In addition, I would love to own a nice little codo in the Gulf of Mexico, the place I call the home of my heart. Going back to the multiple streams of income, I would love to have the ability to use the condo for a rental place when we are not there. I would love to spend time sitting on the balcony overlooking the teal blue water and watching some of the most incredible sunsets my eyes have ever had the pleasure to behold. I would love to have the ability to walk down to the beach and just sit watching the waves and birds, while contemplating what an incredible life I have and gaining inspiration and insight for new writing material.

There are no guarantees in live, and by no means are there any guarantee that I can achieve any of the things in which I have set forth in my ten-year plan. However, nothing that I have chosen is such a massive dream that it cannot be accomplished. The reality is that nothing I want for my ten-year plan is unrealistic to me. I simply have to be willing to do the work and make the effort to take the chances on myself. Ten years from now, I would love to look around at the incredible things and people surrounding me and think back fondly on this blog post and remember when it was all just a dream. It is often said that a goal without a plan is just a dream. Dreams are good and dreams are important. However, dreaming about my ten-year plan, will never make it come to fruition. Each of these accomplishments, require a solid plan. A plan that will include hard work and possibly many late nights or early mornings. But the reality is that each of these things are worth it to me to put in that work.

Ah, the nostalgia. Growing up, I remember my grandmother planting a huge garden every year. And, every year, I spent the better part of my summers sitting on her front porch picking, shucking, and snapping until I thought my little fingers would snap off because, well, “we’ll be eating good this winter.” I also remember how she would arrange all of the freshly prepared bounty of vegetables in the kitchen in preparation for the very meticulous job of canning. She would run everyone out of the kitchen once she was ready to begin the process, as canning was a sterile job and the pressure cooker could “blow up.” Year after year, we were graced with countless jars of green beans, corn, and tomatoes; along with various other delicious foods, such as canned soup mixes and sauerkraut. I still can close my eyes and breathe in the heavenly aroma filling the entire house as the vegetable and fruits were meticulously prepped for canning or freezing.

As an adult, once I had become a mother, I had longed to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps in having a healthy and bountiful winter harvest prepared for my family. So, I began to take up gardening myself. After a first couple of successful seasons with the produce I created, I decided it was time to take my gardening to the next level. I purchased a pressure cooker and various sizes of canning jars. To be completely honest, I was terrified of trying the pressure cooker out for the first time. It was massive in size and given that my grandmother had never allowed anyone in her kitchen while she was doing her actual canning, I had never really seen on used before. At that time, there was no such thing as smart phones, YouTube, or Google, so I read the instructions provided with the pressure cooker, and reluctantly set about canning my first vegetables. Before long, I had my pantry filled Mason jars of green beans, tomatoes, and corn. I had also even attempted pickles, and while they did not turn out as crunchy as hoped, they tasted amazing. The sense of pride I felt was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

However, as time went on, my job changed and with it, my life had changed as well. The time that was necessary for tending a garden and canning vegetables seemed to be lost to me forever. So, eventually, I got rid of my treasured pressure cooker. For the following years, I really never thought much about it. It had been a time consuming and unnerving process, with the fear of the cooker “blowing up” always in the back of my mind.

Recently there has been a resurgence of sorts in the pressure cooker. They certainly do not look like the pressure cookers of old and are used commonly in most households today for preparing meals, rather than canning. This new generation of pressure cooker has become a staple of many homes. Understandably so, with the ability to cook a pack of chicken from still frozen to ready to shred in a mere fifteen minutes. You can search the internet and find hundreds upon hundreds of recipes for the modern pressure cooker. Additionally, they still have the ability to do canning as well. However, I have not found many people using them for canning as much as meal preparation.

Following the watching of a myriad of YouTube videos, reading some blogs online, and a handful of infomercials on the television, I decided on purchasing the Power Pressure Cooker XL. It would be no stretch to say that I am utterly in love with this new addition to my kitchen. Although admittedly, when I used my modern day pressure cooker for the first time, I was nervous because of the underlying threat that had been instilled into the recesses of my mind from childhood. It did not take me long to get more comfortable with my new cooker and begin to experimenting with new recipes. With the ability to boil a dozen eggs in a mere six minutes and prepare a creamy chicken and rice dish in under twenty minutes, it is no surprise why these modern pressure cookers are all the rage.

I sometimes follow recipes that I can find online, but I often play around with ingredients that I have on hand and make my own versions of many popular dishes. I recently prepared a dish for my family that was a huge favorite. And, in light of the fact that I only used one pan- the pressure cooker- it will be a dish that I intend to make often. I decided on a chicken taco soup, and given that it was a Tuesday, it seemed a fitting dish for Taco Tuesday.

I prepared my chicken in the pressure cooker, which only took fifteen minutes. Then I removed the chicken to cool and emptied the water in the bowl. While the chicken was cooling, I replaced the bowl to the cooker base and added my remaining ingredients. Finally, I shredded the chicken and added to the mixture and stirred to mix it well. Then, I set the pressure cooker on the slow cooker setting, which has an automatic time set of two hours, then it will shift to keep warm. I went back to finish my workday and let the pressure cooker take care of the soup. At the end of my workday, my family was treated with an absolutely delicious chicken taco soup, and I became the hero of the household. But, we all know the real credit goes to the Power Pressure XL!

INGREDIENTS:

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken ( for my recipe I used chicken tenderloins- if using large breasts, only 1 lb needed)

1 ½ C water (for pressure cooking chicken)

2 cans black beans

2 cans whole kernel corn

1 can diced tomatoes

1 packet taco seasoning

1 ½ C chicken stock

PREPARATION:

Place 1 ½ cup water in pressure cooker
Set rack in cooker and add chicken on top of rack
Close pressure valve
Press the chicken button on cooker- 15 minutes
Once completed, open pressure valve to release steam (USE CAUTION)
Remove chicken and allow to cool
Remove wire rack and empty water from bowl
Replace bowl and all tomatoes, beans, corn, chicken stock and taco seasoning
Shred chicken and add to mixture, stir to mix well
Select slow cook setting on pressure cooker- 2 hours
Serve warm with tortilla chips and favorite toppings.
ENJOY!

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Tag: #home

Ten Years From Now

One-Pot Pressure Cooker Chicken Taco Soup