Living the Simple Life

by Elaine St James

  70. A Simple Weekly Menu Plan

  Though Gibbs and I both love to eat, neither one of us wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So years ago we came up with a solution to the perennial question, “What are we having for dinner tonight?”

  We didn’t recognize how much it simplified our lives until I started hearing it as a tip from readers who do it, too. I know this won’t work for everyone, and it’s a flagrant violation of the get off automatic pilot suggestion (#30), but we got into the habit of eating pretty much the same thing each night of the week.

  For example, on Mondays we have grilled chicken breasts with steamed veggies.

  On Tuesdays we usually eat at one of our favorite local restaurants.

  On Wednesdays we have either a large Greek salad or a salade Niçoise with one of Gibbs’s muffins.

  On Thursdays we have fresh crab or tuna gazpacho with a muffin in summer—or a hot veggie soup in winter. Or sometimes we really break loose and have grilled chicken with veggies again.

  On Fridays we have Gibbs’s scrambled eggs with whole wheat toast, turkey sausage, and fresh squeezed orange juice.

  We like to keep it light on the weekends, so on Saturdays (our favorite) we have blue corn tortilla chips with fresh guacamole.

  On Sundays we have popcorn and apples with cheese. This leaves room for our weekend dessert treat, maybe a fresh fruit cobbler or berries and cream.

  We’ll stick with this menu until we get tired of it; then we’ll come up with another menu plan. As one reader pointed out, this simplifies not only the meal planning, but also the grocery list, the shopping, the provisioning, the cooking, and the cleanup. It’s one less thing to have to occupy your mind with each day.

  Another reader told me about a variation on this theme, which Ethel Kennedy has reportedly used for years: a menu plan based on simple roasts and broiled meats, omelets, and salads that rotates every two weeks instead of each week.

  I know that for many people this approach would be boring beyond belief. Obviously, if you love to cook, you can do other things to simplify your life so you have the time to spend preparing your favorite meals.

  But Gibbs and I enjoy knowing each morning what we’re going to have for dinner that night. We eat only foods we’re really fond of, so we tend to look forward all day to our predictable dinners.

  71. Some Other Possibilities for Simple Meals

  This idea, which I heard from many readers, is one I did for years: Cook up a week’s supply of spaghetti sauce or lasagne or one of your favorite soups or casseroles, freeze it in meal-sized portions so it doesn’t spoil, and have it every night for a week, perhaps with a different salad or a variety of rolls or fresh bread.

  I recently came across another book that you might explore if the idea of cooking ahead and freezing appeals to you: Once a Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerboard. It’s a step-by-step guide for preparing a month’s worth of dinner entrees in advance and freezing them.

  Depending on the size of your family, the program might require the addition of some larger cooking pots, extra freezer space, and a lot of organization. And it definitely requires a complete day of your time each month to do the menu plan, the provisioning, and the cooking. If you’re willing to put in that whole day, it would definitely save you money and simplify your life.

  Another simple option for frozen meals might be Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine or any of the other well-balanced, dietetically proportioned frozen dinners that are now available. These are not the standard TV dinners. A friend recommended these to us a while back and we found, to our surprise, that they are quite delicious. If you select carefully, you can find a variety that are well balanced in terms of protein, carbohydrates, and fat and the appropriate micronutrients.

  Gibbs and I keep some of these on hand for evenings when we don’t want to go out to eat and want the simplest meal possible. Yes, they are more expensive than using Mimi and Mary Beth’s system of cooking from scratch and then freezing, but as a stopgap measure—and with the addition of a fresh salad—they’re another simple solution.

  And given that the major cause of overweight in this country is overeating, an added benefit we’ve found from having this type of frozen dinner from time to time is that it’s a very simple way to limit our food intake. The preset portions serve as an excellent reminder of how little we need to eat to stay fit and healthy.

  72. A Simple Way to Maintain Your Weight

  I don’t believe everyone needs to be pencil thin. But I have found that life is simpler if I can keep my weight to what for me is an acceptable level. When I do, I feel better, I look better, and I don’t have to keep a thin wardrobe and a heavy wardrobe in my closet.

  Gibbs and I have struggled for years with the problem of maintaining our ideal weight. A couple of years ago we discovered what has become for us a surefire way to keep our weight in check: We use a chart to track our weight each day.

  We use plain graph paper taped to the wall above the bathroom scales, and we keep a red pen nearby.

  It’s amazing how easy it is to nip in the bud a small weight gain from a dinner out, or some indiscriminate snacking from the day before, when we’re keeping track on a daily basis. If we’re up a pound in the morning, we know we have to make some adjustment in our intake for the rest of the day in order to bring it back down by the next morning, or possibly the next.

  Modifying our food intake based on the movement of that red line up the graph becomes an automatic, unconscious, and almost painless way to maintain the weight we want.

  Time and again, if we slack off on using the chart—either we’ve been too lazy to make up a new one for the month or we’ve misplaced the pen—we can gain five pounds without batting an eye. It’s so easy to convince ourselves that the piece of double chocolate mousse cake was only a small piece, or that the extra handful of M&Ms we pilfered at last night’s meeting didn’t count because we ate them standing up. But the chart isn’t so easily convinced.

  We’ve found it’s not sufficient simply to weigh in every morning and not mark the weight on the graph. If we do that, we somehow conveniently forget what we weighed the day before and the day before that. But it’s impossible to lose track when the weight is recorded in bright red ink on the bathroom wall, and difficult to ignore when it’s moving inexorably up the graph.

  Now we photocopy enough weight graphs to last the entire year, and we keep the red pen in a nearby drawer so it doesn’t get misplaced. Maintain your ideal weight with a red pen. It’s so simple.

  73. Dealing with Unwanted Callers

  Margo Bogart also had some good ideas for dealing with incoming phone calls and uninvited solicitors at the front door.

  She says, “Our first line of defense against unwanted phone interruptions at home is an unlisted number. The reduction in dinner-time interruptions has been well worth the onetime $40 cost of switching from a listed to an unlisted number. Now all the people we want to hear from have our number, and most of those who would solicit us for purchases or contributions don’t.

  “Also, to keep your number out of the computer files of businesses with Caller ID, we begin by pressing *67 before we press the phone number. This defeats the Caller ID system, but only for that call, so we must remember to press *67 whenever we call an organization we don’t necessarily want to hear from later. I’ve put a sticker on my telephone receiver to remind us to use this blocking code more often. (The blocking code number varies from region to region, depending on your phone service provider.)

  “For those telephone solicitors who make it through our first line of defense, I have a foolproof response that brings their calls to a speedy conclusion. Years ago my husband and I made a pact to simplify our lives: We will not buy from any salesperson or contribute to any cause that approaches us by phone (or at our front door). This pact leaves no room for the salesperson to attempt to change our minds, so it really is foolproof. I simply say, ‘Sorry, we don’t accept any telephone
offers,’ or ‘We don’t contribute to any organizations through telephone solicitations.’ My husband’s response is even simpler: ‘NO, thank you.’ (Click.)

  “Regarding your suggestion about not answering the doorbell, either, we have saved ourselves untold visits from the area Fuller Brush man, religious proselytizers, and kids selling candy and magazine subscriptions by posting a hand-lettered sign in plain sight near our front doorbell. It reads: ‘No Soliciting. We don’t do business at our front door.’ As persistent as these callers are trained to be, they generally remove themselves from our front porch without even ringing or knocking when they see our sign.”

  A big part of learning to say no (#62) is learning to avoid the kinds of situations that put you in the position of refusing a request. If this is a problem in your neighborhood or in your life, preparing for them in advance will help. In life as in football the best defense is often a good offense.

  74. The Simple Answering Machine

  We all know about using the answering machine to screen phone calls and about turning the phone off altogether if we need some uninterrupted time to work or spend time with our kids.

  But I’ve found another effective way to utilize this true time-saving device. An associate and I keep in touch via our answering machines.

  Monica and I know that if we get on the phone together, we can talk for ages. That’s fine when we both have the time, but our lives are such now that one or the other of us is always on a deadline. So we agreed some years back that when one of us has some information to pass on to the other, we’ll just leave a message on the machine.

  Even if the other person is there and listening to the message as it’s coming in, neither one of us has to feel compelled to pick up the phone. In fact, often we prefer that the other not pick up. And so the one calling will say, “If you’re there, don’t pick up, but I just wanted you to know such and such.”

  If the other party has a need to respond to the message, she can then call back and leave any pertinent information on the other’s machine.

  I have since established similar answering machine relationships with people I have no need to talk to in person, but whom I have a need to keep in touch with. Think of it as audio E-mail.

  Obviously, this arrangement wouldn’t work for all your relationships, but learning to use the telephone effectively can free up an extrordinary amount of time that you might not even be aware you’re losing.

  Another way to keep incoming phone calls under control is simply to let people know when it’s convenient to call you. If you want to avoid phone interruptions during your mealtime, have all the family members let their friends and associates know that they can reach you before 6 p.m. or after 7 p.m. or whenever your dinner slot is, and that any calls during that time will not be picked up.

  Another option is to set up a phone date. Arrange, even through answering machine messages if necessary, to get together by phone at a prespecified time.

  But perhaps one of the greatest advantages to having an answering machine pick up your calls is that telemarketers will hang up when a machine answers.

  75. The Simple Fireplace

  If you’re a purist when it comes to wood-burning fires, please don’t read this.

  But if you are tired of the hassle of wood-burning fires and have access to natural gas, consider installing a gas-burning log in your existing hearth.

  Gibbs and I love sitting quietly in front of a fire on a cold evening. But, except for special occasions, we went for years without enjoying our fireplace because of the inconvenience involved.

  To begin with, unless you have your own source of wood, there’s the expense and the bother of having the wood delivered to the house and stacked in a suitable place, away from the house to avoid termites, but not so far away that it’s a bother to retrieve the logs when you need them.

  Then you have to haul the wood—free of spiders and other insects—into the house and build the fire, cleaning up the bits of bark and chipped wood as you go. Then you’ve got to get the fire lit and keep it burning without smoking out the living room in the process. You’ve got to make certain the fire screen is in place so that flying sparks don’t burn holes in the carpet after you’ve gone to bed.

  At some point you’ve got to clean out all the ash from the burned wood, and depending on how much wood you use through the season, you should have the chimney cleaned at least once a year.

  Unless you particularly enjoy chopping wood, having a gas log means you can eliminate that chore from your list or cancel your standing order for wood for the winter.

  Admittedly, Gibbs and I live in a mild climate, and though we wouldn’t be able to do this if we lived in Wisconsin, we use our gas log through most of the heating season as our only source of heat for our home. The recent technological advances in ceramic logs have not only made gas-burning logs much more realistic looking and attractive, they’re much more efficient as well. We light the fire early in the evening, let it burn for an hour or so, and then turn it off. Because of the heat-storing capability of the logs, it will continue to put out heat for at least another hour or more. Of course, we also keep sweaters and extra blankets nearby during the colder months.

  Burning a gas log is considerably cheaper than burning wood, running roughly a quarter to a third the expense, depending on where you live. Best of all, gas burns much cleaner and is more environmentally friendly than burning wood.

  Though a gas fire doesn’t have that wonderful snap and crackle that a wood fire has, and you don’t get the wood-burning aroma, we’ve found a gas fire is just as warm and just as romantic as a wood fire, much easier, and you never have to interrupt a cozy snuggle to stoke the logs.

  76. The Simple Bed

  Gibbs is a churner. He falls asleep easily and sleeps soundly, but tosses from one side to the other all night long, taking the covers with him at every turn.

  It takes me a few minutes to get the covers and the pillow adjusted comfortably, but then I fall asleep and remain in exactly the same position until morning.

  Gibbs is a heat machine and needs only a light cover. I’m usually cold at night and like a heavy quilt.

  The standard bed with sheets and blankets tucked in at the bottom doesn’t work for our different sleeping habits. After years of struggling, Gibbs and I have finally devised a much simpler way for each of us to get a good night’s sleep.

  Though it might not work for every couple with radically different sleeping habits, our solution to this common problem works well for us, and several readers wrote to describe variations on our approach to the simple bed.

  We have a king-sized bed with a fitted sheet over the mattress. We each have a queen-sized comforter. Mine is heavyweight; Gibbs’s is lightweight.

  We fold each comforter in half—the lightweight one goes on his side of the bed and the heavyweight one goes on my side—and we use them as sleeping bags. The folded edge of each comforter runs down the center of the bed; the open edges run down the outside edge of the bed so they’re easy to get into and out of.

  Because the comforters are queen size, there’s plenty of room for each of us to spread out within our own quilted envelope, and it holds the heat better than a blanket spread over the whole bed.

  Making the bed up in the morning is a snap. You can either leave the top half of the “bag” in casual disarray, or with one flip of the top layer, each half of the bed is neatly made (well, sort of neatly made). Several couples I heard from who use this method fold up the comforters and place them on the foot of the bed each morning.

  Also, by flipping the whole arrangement head to foot or inside out, the options for irregular laundering are greatly expanded. Let your conscience be your guide. Each comforter makes a full load for the standard-sized washer and dryer.

  This system makes snuggling together more of a challenge, but it keeps the game interesting.

  77. Simple Laundering Ideas

  It was a relief to learn that Gibbs and I were
not the only ones for whom socks have been a daily and weekly complication.

  Not only are they a pain in the neck to find in a freshly laundered load of clothes (mine invariably find their way down a long dark sleeve or pant leg, or into the deepest recess of a pillowcase), but then you’ve got to find the mate and somehow tie them together so that when you want to wear them they’ll both be in roughly the same vicinity in your chest of drawers.

  Finally, in self-defense, I came up with a solution that works for us. Many people have written to me with variations on this approach, so this system can be adapted to suit your own circumstances.

  I bought seven identical pairs of dark socks for each of us, one pair for each day of the week.

  I also bought two zippered mesh bags for each of us. The bags are available at most hardware or variety stores.

  Arrange the bags side by side in your closet on a hanger or on a hook, or designate a sock drawer that will hold both bags. Fill one bag with clean socks. Since the socks are identical, you don’t have to mate them. When you need a clean pair, take them from the clean bag. When you remove your socks at the end of the day, put them in the other bag. At the end of the week, toss the dirty sock bag into the laundry.

  When it comes out of the dryer, it now becomes the clean bag, and the process starts all over again. You’ll never have to match socks or hunt for the mate to your favorite pair again.