The Savvy Life

As a single man in the city, I sometimes struggle with the concept of eating well.  Sometimes eating well to me is not eating the entire bag of tortilla chips.  I was discussing the process of making dinner with a coworker and he talked about making chicken pot pie by opening the box and putting it in the oven.   This seemed fundamentally wrong to me, though I am just as guilty on relying upon frozen dinners for sustenance.  I decided to attempt to create a chicken pot pie.

The result was an unqualified success, and the process was so simple that I felt a compulsion to share.

Here is the basic recipe:

1/2 chicken breast (roughly 1/4 pound of chicken)
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cup vegetable broth (I only buy vegetable broth in case I  have to cook for a vegetarian, chicken broth obviously would work as well)
2 tbsp of flour
1/4 cup of water
1 pie crust

Add the chicken, vegetables, and broth to a pot and bring it to a boil.  Mix the flour and water together to form a nice slurry and drizzle into the boiling broth.  Stir thoroughly and reduce the heat so it goes to a simmer.  Flour needs to cook for awhile to eliminate the cereal taste, but this is just the first cooking step.  The next step is to transfer the ‘filling’ into an oven-safe bowl and lay pie crust on top.  Pop the bowl on a cookie sheet and place in a 400 degree oven for roughly fifteen minutes or until the crust is all browned.  I pulled mine out just a bit too soon and missed out on having a nice golden crust.  If I would have brushed it with butter, I could have gotten that delicious golden look.  I was content with this result, though.

Now you might notice that this isn’t a true ‘pie’ since there is no bottom crust.  Nothing is stopping you from laying down a bottom crust in the bowl, baking that while cooking the filling and then finishing it off as I described above.  I just happen to dislike the sogginess of the bottom of pot pies so avoid it completely.

For the pie crust I used the stuff you can find in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, usually near the biscuits in a tube.  Its cheap, you get two in a box, and it serves the purpose without having to take the pains of actually making pie crust.  Or, if you like your crust more flaky, track down some puff pastry to place on top of the filling or some of those biscuits in a tube might serve as a tasty topper to this meal.

Some words of caution… the gravy is HOT when it comes out of the oven.  I had to let this cool for a good five minutes before I could attempt to eat it.

It snowed again in Chicago. This winter seems to be going on for a long time. I am not complaining about this but it is starting to make me a bit glum. Spring is still a month away and even then, Chicago is still grayish until June. I need to find ways of chasing away the gloomy feelings that the dark days of winter invariably cause.

The winter blues are easily diagnosed by feelings of lethargy, unusual cravings of carbohydrates, intense feelings of self-deprecation, and a decrease in creativity. The winter blues aren’t to be confused with cabin fever – which is more of a reaction to feelings of being cooped up. Winter blues are more commonly associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder, but usually a more mild case. More severe cases might need to be treated with medical attention.

Here are seven ways to beat the winter blues.

Maximize Daylight

The root cause of seasonal affective disorder is the lack of daylight. Modern American society is one that lives and dies by the clock, not the sun. We don’t wake up with the sun so we miss out on a lot of that restorative sunshine. At work, we may get sunshine from the windows in our office, but if some people, like myself, work in the center of the building and only sometimes get to see glimpses of sunlight from the windows of other people’s workspace. Then when leaving work, the sun has already set.

A concerted effort needs to be made to maximize exposure to sunlight. Waking up earlier, making sure blinds and curtains are open in our living spaces, and getting outside during the day can go a long way to chase away these blue feelings.

Declutter and Enliven Your Living Space

Clutter is usually a symptom of depression, not a cause, but for mild cases of winter blues, clutter may enforce the feelings of depression and lethargy, causing a downward spiral. There is something very restorative in renewing your living space. Just decluttering is not enough, though, we also need to enliven the space. The quickest, easiest way to bring life to a space is to literally put life into it. Two of the easiest ways of doing this is through plants and animals, specifically houseplants and fish. Fresh flowers are an option, but if we aren’t careful, we might end up with dead flowers which look tragic and not very uplifting. Other ways to enliven your living space is through smell. Bright spring scents can go a long way in shifting moods. Other smells also trigger happy thoughts, like the smell of fresh baked bread, the smell of mint, or the smell of fresh laundry.

On a not so cold day, we can open up our windows and doors and let some fresh air into our space to help enliven the space and make it feel new.

Bring Color Into Your Life

Color has a remarkable affect on mood. When our days are filled with gray, it might be hard to find the color we need to enhance our mood, which means we have to take special actions. We need to look around our work space and living space to see what elements of color we are surrounded by. I know my work is blah beige everywhere and at home, my apartment is stale white. I’ve also fallen into the trap of decorating things in a modern style which means blacks, whites, and reds. These colors don’t enhance a person’s mood and in many cases will only help in causing feelings of depression. Yellow, orange, and green colors will help enhance a person’s mood.

This may sound silly, but simply making sure the computers we work on have a brightly colored desktop picture is a good, simple start in adding color. We can make sure our wall calendars are filled with great colorful pictures. Finding ways to add color to our lives during this gray season can be uplifting in and of itself.

Reconnect With People

People may be the source of our greatest annoyances, but we humans are by nature  tribal creatures. Winter months cause isolation due to inclement weather and this isolation affects our moods. Due to the feelings of lethargy that come with the winter blues, we might convince ourselves that is a good thing that we aren’t seeing people because we just don’t have the energy to do it. Because of these feelings, we need to make special effort to reconnect with people. Just spending time with people we like will help remind us that the season isn’t so bad.

Usually connecting with people also involves activity, whether it is watching movies together, playing games, going to concerts, or simply sipping tea which energize us. Often all we need to do is remind ourselves of good things. During the winter months, life can become monotonous and our schedules look more like ruts. There isn’t any reason to turn our lives upside down to break out of the rut – instead we just need to reach out to people that we are close to and spend some time with them.

Do Less

I know, I just said we need to be more active. Doing less means we don’t have to maintain a hectic schedule. The stress of trying to maintain a hectic schedule can make everything seem more difficult. It is okay to pull back on our schedules. Pulling back on the stress we cause ourselves in our daily lives will enable us to focus on our mental health and won’t let gloomy moments spiral out of control.

Not being able to have time to ourselves only makes us feel drained and that feeling of being drained makes us feel like we aren’t working to our full potential at all times. When we feel this way, we tend to start beating up on ourselves.

I had a neighbor growing up who made the comment that we shouldn’t spend too much time kicking ourselves in the ass because there is a whole world filled with people willing to do it for us.

Exercise, Eat, and Eschewal

Okay, I was trying to get fancy there with the forced alliteration but I wanted to cover three elements together. Exercising, eating, and eschewal (which is just a $10 word for temperance/avoidance) are elements of maintaining the ‘body temple’ as it were. I make no bones about being a hedonist. I believe life is pleasure and should be pleasurable. This means enjoying good food, good times, and good wine. Yet, when we are feeling blue we tend to overeat or eat the wrong things. Carbohydrates give us a boost in seratonin levels which does relieve feelings of depression but overdoing it leads to other problems. Choosing complex carbohydrates over sugar is a better option. We can’t forget exercise. Exercise is another way of increasing those chemicals in the brain that makes us feel good. Yes, oh my god yes, I completely understand that trying to get the motivation to exercise is near impossible in the winter. I’m already cold, I don’t want to go outside and run. The effort has a huge psychological payoff though. Getting some exercise seems to clear away the cobwebs in th brain and the body. Nothing chases away feeling of self-deprecation faster than a thirty minute jog. Hey, if I can exercise, then I must not be wasting away.

So what about this ‘eschewal’ I mention. Well, be very aware that alcohol is a depressant. It is funny that when I am feeling the winter blues, I tend to want to have a drink… which only further contributes to the winter blues. It becomes vitally important that when we are feeling the blues that we don’t attempt to self-medicate the problem with alcohol. When in doubt, opt out. Again, this is not my normal advice since as a hedonist, I do believe in the power of the social lubrication alcohol provides… yes, the key word there is social. Drink with friends, not alone.

To wrap it all up…

I feel the need to restate that clinical depression needs to be addressed by medical professionals not through blog entries. Anyone who is suffering from long term cycles of depression, even if there are good days where the depression isn’t overwhelming, need to seek out medical assistance. This is one of the reasons why I am trying to use words like glum, gloomy, and blues to differentiate these moods from actual medical conditions.

Over the past few days I’ve read a few other blogs that have stated in their long lists of ways of improving financial situations that one of the ways of accomplishing this is to ask for a raise.  There are entire sites devoted to the methods in which a person can ask for a raise.

I’m intrigued about other people’s experiences with getting raises.

My company has a Byzantine bureaucracy built around reviews and tie pay raises to a complex formula that gives the appearance of impartiality but is still fundamentally arbitrary.  Requests for pay raises are easily dismissed  by referring the employee to the yearly review process and the standard 3-6% raise that this review process produces.

It seems to me that companies develop this process to protect themselves (and their budgets) from unexpected requests for pay raises.  This means, though, that if I poorly negotiated my initial salary, I am forever on a weak financial track with the company with no hope of ever catching up unless I get that rare opportunity for a promotion.

I do believe all rules can be broken.  I see it done often enough to know it is possibly, yet it is annoying to me that I am made to feel that the company I work for has intentionally created barriers to my getting paid what I am worth.

Do others feel this way?  How common is this methodology in other places of work?  Do you feel like your company is assisting you in financial success or hindering you?

I’m in the midst of writing a complicated post regarding money lessons I learned the hard way which has put me in a personal finance mindset.  When I saw 21 Money-Saving Sites from Around the Web, I felt a need to pass it along.  This entry from the Get Rich Slowly site contains such a wealth of resources it is almost shameful.

I haven’t written much about dating, relationships, and sex and there is a reason for that. I can’t say that I have a lot of great advice to offer in these areas and planned to collect the advice of others and present it here as a clearinghouse.

Dan Savage’s Savage Love Podcast has been the best source of information on all things sex – not necessarily all things dating and relationships, but definitely the best source of realistic information regarding sex.

In Dan Savage’s latest podcast Episode 64, dated 1/8/2008, he is helping a woman deal with her boyfriend’s porn collection when he makes the following pronouncement that made me pause. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees when you are in the thick of it.

The world is stacked against guys. Male sexuality, heterosexual male sexuality in particular – they get the raw end of the stick because male sexuality is pathologized. It’s not healthy, it’s not good to want to fuck a million people. It’s not healthy, it’s not good to want to look at pornography. Or want to not be monogamous. Guys are derided for having standard issue heterosexual male fantasies like a threeway with two girls. Guys can’t seem to catch a break. Guys are told that love is not wanting to sleep with someone else, when actually love is refraining from sleeping with someone else.

I can’t speak for women, I can’t speak for homosexual or bisexual men, but I can speak as a heterosexual male that I understand this statement so well. If a man wants to have sex more often than his partner, then there is something wrong with him. If a man doesn’t want to have sex as often as his partner, then there is something wrong with him. If a man wants to do something kinky, he is a pervert. If a man doesn’t want to indulge his partners fantasies, he is a prude.

Yes, I am certain that women also feel these constraints, yet women exploring their sexuality is generally encouraged by men. Men again are just considered perverts.

There isn’t much here other than a general recommendation of Dan Savage’s podcast for quality raw information about sex.

It seems like common sense.  It is so common that governments do it, businesses do it, and non-profits do it.  To achieve any sort of financial success or stability, a budget is necessary.  Let me restate that.  Budgets = Financial Success.  It is a very simple formula.  Budgets help define spending and make sure it is in line with income.  Budgets encourage savings.  Budgets assist in making decisions.

Knowing all this, I still can’t seem to make a budget for myself.  I know what my bills are, I know what my income is and I know how much is in my accounts.  From that basic standpoint, I’m not doing horribly, but I’m also not making any headway.

Trying to make a budget from scratch seems almost impossible.  Tracking my expenditures is not as simple as straightforward as I would like it to be.  I know it is a simple matter of keeping my receipts and recording them in a spreadsheet or investing in Quicken or Money.   Just can’t do it consistently enough that I trust the numbers.  Trusting the numbers is critical for following a budget.

To help rectify this problem, I have started using mint.com to keep track of my accounts.  I have five accounts to track: checking, savings, ING Direct, and two credit cards. Mint.com takes all of these and merges the data into simple charts.  It lets me plot through the various transactions, coding them as I see fit and then begins to build a budget for me – a budget of actual expenditures which I can then go in and adjust to match my financial goals.

There are two big problems with this for me: one is the amount of access and personal information I need to give up in order for this to work.   The second problem is the amount of time to truly capture a solid image of my spending.  It will take another month for me to have a realistic view of how much money I spend on gas, utilities, food, and entertainment.  I decided to take the risk and let Mint.com access my checking and savings, but not ING or my credit cards.

What I’m seeing in the charts Mint.com provides is I am well within the national norms on my spending so far and seeing how much I am spending on things like my cable churns my stomach.  Do I really watch $60 worth of TV a month?  I will have to evaluate that expense and look into alternative broadband internet access.

I’ve been using Mint.com for roughly a month and a half.  I tried to user wesabe.com at one time and found it too bland to bring me back.  I like colorful charts. I like the thought that maybe there is some intense analysis going on behind the scene trying to find me ways to save money.  Of course the only way it has determined I could save money is switch my internet, phone, cellphone, and everything else over to Verizon.  I think maybe this free service is sponsored by Verizon.  Just a guess.

I know the only real way for me to save money is to monitor my spending carefully, make wise purchases, move money from my checking account into my ING Direct saving account, set other money aside for emergencies, and work the other side of the budget equation: earn more money.

How to Have Less Awkward Conversations, located Postivity Blog and found via Lifehacker attempts to give a bit of advice in making daily interactions a bit less stressful and a bit more rewarding.

Assuming rapport. This is definitely one of the best social skill tips I have ever learned about. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten a bit about it lately. Maybe you have too. Or missed it altogether. So I thought I’d bring it up again.

Now, what is assuming rapport?

Basically, instead of going into a conversation or meeting nervously and thinking “how will this go?” you take different approach. You assume that you and the person(s) will establish a good connection (rapport).

How do you do that? You simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one.

I am a bundle of social anxiety often, worrying about how others are judging me, what kind of impression I am making, and whether my breath stinks. This concept of assuming rapport, convincing yourself that you are meeting a friend, and essentially many of the other ‘tricks’ that revolve around telling yourself a lie are doomed to failure. I’ve been in situations where someone begins treating me like we’ve known each other for ages. It is creepy and too much like glad-handing. I know that isn’t what this article is asking people to do and does further clarify later by asking people to just be themselves and be positive which is to act naturally and approach the encounter in a positive frame of mind.

I believe at the core of this is self confidence, on of the most elusive personality traits that goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks: gnothi seauton – know thyself. While I am not supporting the view of having less awkward conversations by making assumptions about the non-existent relationship, I do support the view that no assumptions should be made and a positive outlook should be used.

New York Times has a feature on 101 Simple Appetizers that can be made in less than 20 minutes.  Some of these are perfect for a quick something to bring to the office or to a party.

My personal favorites are the rumaki (#30),  shrimp cocktail (#53), nachos (#59), and #92, the “easier than carpaccio”.  Makes me hungry thinking about it.

A set of pictures of top 10 drinks men should never order. This is an arguable list, in my opinion, as I am not willing to give up my killer margaritas,

I’m in the thick of it now. Cocktail parties on my left, dinner parties on my right, stuck here in the middle with you. Or not. There are plenty of suggestions out there on how to throw a good party but only a few covering how to be a good guest. Friends, family and acquaintances go to a lot of effort to create a festive environment and make their guests feel welcome and warm in their homes. They provide copious amounts of food and beverages to sate even the most gluttonous appetite. What can I, the guest and recipient of such great holiday largesse do to acknowledge the effort or to at least minimize the effort?

1. RSVP
Répondez s’il-vous-plaît The most important thing I can do as a guest is to make the person who invited me aware of my status as a guest as soon as I possibly can. Was that too confusing? Let me try again. That phrase RSVP isn’t fancy French for ‘please ignore this invitation and then show up at the last minute’ or ‘don’t bother indicating you won’t show up’. Telling the host whether or not I will be attending allows the host to plan appropriately. The sooner I tell the host, the better it is. I may think that my presence one way or another won’t matter but it will. Unless the event is very casual, such as a holiday cocktail party, the host needs to make sure there will be enough of everything for all the guests without ending up with leftovers for the month of January. There is enough pressure in hosting a party and the least I can do as a guest is not be one of the people the host is worrying about.

2. Come Bearing Gifts
The host/hostess gift is a long held tradition that extends back to the days our ancestor’s dwelt in caves. When Og and his lovely wife Igg invited the neighbors over to their cave to feast upon berries, the neighbors made sure to bring shiny pebbles, sharp rocks, and maybe one of those melons that grow near the mammoth run as gifts of Og and Igg. I don’t have to be so extravagant as to risk my life getting rare fruit, but a simple gift as an acknowledgment of thanks to the host is always nice. Real Simple has 20 Clever Hostess Gifts to spur the imagination as to what to bring when you are invited to an event. All the items listed have one thing in common and it is the one thing I and anyone bringing a host/hostess gift needs to consider: it is a consumable. Imagine what it would be like to invite twenty people to a party and each person invited brings a trinket for which the host has no real use? Yes, that little crystal angel looks adorable, but unless the host collects such things, it will most likely end up in the spring’s garage sale. I need to make the gifts small, of minimal cost, yet meaningful to the host. Some of my friends are big tea drinkers, so gifts of tea are very much appreciated. Others like smelly things, so small fragrant hand soaps make great gifts. And yet, some of my friends are impossible to determine what they actually like and in those cases, a bottle of Canadian Club Classic usually goes over pretty well.  Do not bring food or drink and expect it to be served at the party.

3. Timing
Timing is a tricky thing. If the invitation says the event begins at 8pm, do I show up at 8pm on the dot or 8:30pm? For cocktail parties, it is okay to be a bit loose on when I arrive. In fact, showing up right when the party begins is generally reserved for the host’s closer friends. For dinner parties, though, punctuality is key. Dinner may not be served until all the guests have arrived, and while the good host will have built in buffer time between the start of the party and when the meal is served, if people are still arriving up until the time the meal is served, the host is put under extra stress taking care of the new arrivals and trying to get the dinner served. Even at informal affairs don’t show up at the very end of the party. While I may think that popping in at the end is doing the host a favor, I may be walking in right as the party has wound down and the host is trying to clean things up. Sometimes being on time is the best gift a person can give another.  Knowing when to leave is also important.  Don’t overstay your welcome.  Leaving early is better than leaving too late.

4. Temperance and Moderation
Attending a lavish affair brings out the bon vivant in all of us. Yet, these are holiday parties to share festive moments with friends and loved ones. Seeing someone get drunk and stumbly isn’t exactly the best of times. Sure, the person who has over indulged may be having a great time, but everyone else is simply praying their coats don’t get puked on. As a guest, it is my responsibility to drink moderately and make sure the host doesn’t have to concern him or herself over my indulgence.

5. Help the Host Host You
If I’ve been invited to a dinner party and I have very specific food requirements, such as allergies, religious, health, or ethical issues, it is my responsibility to politely alert the host of these issues. How to alert the host is the hard part. I came across a suggestion at About.com, “When you’re invited to a holiday party, inform the host immediately of your food allergies and offer to do what you can to help out. One extremely considerate option — and one that can ultimately make life easier for you, too — is to offer to cook or bring one or two of the dishes….” From personal experience, it makes the host feel really bad when he or she goes to the effort to prepare food and then having a guest who can’t eat anything because of an allergy or religious/ethical belief.