Ep. 235 - Holiday Weekend Reflection

Join Rob and step back into reality after a long and wonderful weekend as he shares some experiences and stories about a "service exchange" barter arrangement, gluten-free stuffing, family, community, and the challenges of giving back in these current, interesting times. 

Working together to build the life and homestead of our dreams while sharing experiences through the stories of our lives...join us:  https://t.me/allaroundgrowth  

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Links:   

• Stuffing:  https://www.asaucykitchen.com/vegan-gluten-free-stuffing/
  • Approved breads for the croutons:  Happy Campers GF Bread (online only www.happycampersgf.com), Food for Life Brown Rice Bread (Frozen at Heinen's), Ener-G Brown Rice Loaf (Heinen's)
• Medina Odd Fellows Christmas Tree Sales
• Independent Order of Odd Fellows
• United Church of Christ Congregational
• Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash as a gift!
  • Let us know what you think in the chat!  https://t.me/allaroundgrowth  
• FREE DOWNLOAD - 2022 Goal Setting Workbook
• 48 Days Eagles Community
  • ...break free from monotony, find your true purpose, and create not only work, but a full life you thrive in.

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• How To Leave a Rating & Review in Apple Podcast App
  • This really *does* affect the algorithm...
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Have a Question or any feedback for Rob?

Send me an email at allaroundgrowth@gmail.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the show. This is another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast, a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of your dreams through the lens of my eyes and the stories of my life. My name is Rob Kaiser, and I am your host. Today is Monday, November 29th, 2021. We are back at it after a long holiday weekend. I hope that your weekend was as good as mine. And I'm gonna share some experiences with you. And what I wanted to do initially was read a letter that I had written to my niece as part of a time capsule. It was her first birthday recently, uh maybe a week ago. And we celebrated her birthday on Sunday in conjunction with the Thanksgiving 2.0 at my brother's house, which was very nice. They did a fantastic job hosting Thanksgiving. And I don't think I'm going to be able to read that letter while I drive. So with uh with the inability to read this letter, there's a bit of a backup plan. And I figured I would just share my experiences with you guys over the four-day weekend. Because why not? I mean, like I said, this is built I I'm trying to build the life and homestead of my dreams. That means something different to everybody. And hopefully the stories that I share and the observations that I make through the lenses of my eyes are entertaining enough for you to listen to and also provide some value and insight into doing the same with your life. That is, building the life and homestead of your dreams. So the long weekend began on Thursday, and I slept in. It was glorious. Thursday was a relatively relaxing day. I ended up doing some side work. I was actually doing that Wednesday night as well. Making some changes to the website that I am working on as part of a barter exchange for some services here on the homestead. I am exchanging some services for his business, and we are simply working together outside of the current financial systems, institutional systems, in order to better and improve our own lives. As oh boy, I'll turn this down a little bit so we can hear. Also, just to make it a little bit more comfortable for the drive. But yes, I made a gluten-free stuffing and it was very acceptable. The recipe is simple. I'll try to remember to link to it in the show notes. I linked to it in earlier episodes, but I don't measure stuff generally. I use the recipe as a baseline. But basically, I took a loaf of gluten-free bread, cut it into bite-sized pieces, crouton-sized pieces, spread them out on a cookie sheet that was oiled, drizzled some olive oil and minced garlic all over it, baked those up while those were baking, sauteed a diced onion and a few stalks of celery, three or four, whatever you feel like, depending on the size of the onion. Saute those up in olive oil when the onions are clear. Add in some diced carrots, one or two, and some more garlic and some pepper. Do that for a couple minutes. Finally add some herbs, a couple tablespoons of thyme, a couple tablespoons of sage, preferably freshly chopped, and in our case, freshly harvested from the herb garden. All we had to do was knock off a little bit of snow. These herbs are intact. They have made it several seasons in the hookulture raised bed. And I believe there's a little bit of warmth generating from that, and seeing as the raised bed is just a couple of feet from the southwest side of the cabin, it stays quite warm throughout the season. And we get some nice natural season extension from the plants that are in there without doing anything, such as covering or anything like that. Mix that up with the breadcrumbs, and after cooking those for 10 to 15 minutes at 400 degrees, stick it in the oven for 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 40 minutes until it's done. And at 350, and there's your stuffing. Oh, don't forget the two cups of chicken broth or vegetable broth or whatever you want to do. The recipe was for a vegan stuffing because a lot of the stuff that I a lot of the recipes that I'm using on this diet are this grain-free elimination diet. It's oftentimes easy to look up vegan recipes and then adjust accordingly, use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth, things like that. Now, Friday was a different story. Um I decided to even have some wine with Thanksgiving dinner over at my parents. It was just myself, my parents. But no big deal. Friday did some more website work, but also had my first afternoon spent at the Christmas tree sales with the Oddfellows. And the Oddfellows have been our local lodge of the independent order of Oddfellows, has been selling Christmas trees on the Medina Public Square for oh probably almost twenty years now, raising money to take local children from families in need Christmas shopping every year. Like last year, the school board has decided that because of the thing, that it's inappropriate for quote random strangers, close quote, to interact with kids and be on school grounds. Even though some of the members of our local lodge that will be participating in the Christmas shopping are actually employed by the school board. Right. Nevertheless, we won't be doing that. But we will be doing something a little bit different. That's taking them shopping in the spring. And this is a nice segue into another way in which we are going to try to help. Because while I was up there selling Christmas trees, I did that Friday and Saturday afternoon from 2 to 10. Or 2 to until dark until we decided to shut it down rather. And that's nice because our lodge is right across the street on the square. In an old building that was built in 1904. And there's always good food being cooked by some of the guys. Brotherhood. A little fire out on the square. It very much replicates the scene in the Christmas story. Except these trees don't lose all their needles like those balsams. And Saturday was basically a repeat of Friday, sleeping in late, running some errands, taking care of things, and then selling trees to help support the community. In the midst of the tree selling on Saturday, a woman named Mary walked up, and she was carrying a basket, a gift basket. And in this gift basket were stuffed animals, a few children's books, um missile, you know, some small toys, and the whole basket was wrapped up in plastic. And she was explaining to me that her mom makes these baskets and generally gives them out every year as gifts to kids, and they make specific baskets, some for boys, some for girls, and make about 20 of them, and they they they give them out. But this year, because we are currently living in this fear-based world, this world that where everyone's afraid, um people are unwilling to accept help and gifts from strangers because I'm not one of them, so I I I don't I can't speak to what their reasons are, but it saddens me because there are people out there, one of which I am, that want to help, but oftentimes find that it's difficult to do so, which means you've just got to work a little harder, and perhaps that's the point. So Mary was explaining that she was having problems giving the baskets away, and she came to us for help. And I'm a relatively new member, and I said, I listened and I said, yes, we've been experiencing some similar problems and challenges with our inability to take the kids' Christmas shopping like we normally do, and we've had to adjust our schedules. And I as we continued to talk, I said, Well, why don't you come up and to the lodge? And one of the trustees is up there today warming up and having some food, and I can show you around and introduce you to him, and we can talk about this. And at the very least, and I'm also a member, and I pointed to the church over there across, you know, kind of catty corner to where we were, and I said, I'm a member of the church right there, Medina Church of Christ, and I'm sure that I can connect with some people there as well, to our families in need, and um you know, get some of these into those hands as well to make sure that nothing, you know, what you've done doesn't go to waste. And it turns out that she was a member of that church as well. So we brought her up and you know, we we spoke, myself, uh Marion, the trustee, Pete, and just talked about some of the options that we had, how we were already working to give out some of the leftover turkeys and hams and a couple full meals from the reverse raffle that we did just a couple weeks ago, trying to find homes for those as well, so we can add this to the list of things that we have to give back. And then there was Sunday where we met at my brother's house with our family and his family, the whole extended family, for a big Thanksgiving dinner, and his daughter's first birthday, his second daughter's first birthday celebration, where we were all encouraged to bring little items for the time capsule. And I I wrote a letter, I printed off and laminated a paper wallet with twenty dollars of Bitcoin cash instead of Bitcoin, so that's another story for another time. Um another story for another time as to why I chose Bitcoin Cash over Bitcoin. Okay. So for those that are interested, for those that are listening, if you want to hear why, let me know in the telegram chat or via email. Telegram chats at t.me slash allaroundgrowth. Email is at allaroundgrowth at gmail.com. In addition to the dinner that we shared at my brother's house, I also went to a friend's house in Parma near Cleveland and for the first time this year perhaps, uh played, definitely this year, played music and was introduced to his sister who lives close by in Lichfield, the town next to us where we used to live, renting the house prior to moving out to the farm and homestead. So soon enough I will be playing music and have already begun executing on some of the goals in place for the 2022 year, and I'm excited about that. And would also encourage you as well to check out the 2022 goal setting worksheet that I used to get myself to the place where I am in late November executing upon goals for 2022 already, so that when the new year finally hits, we are primed and ready to go to launch into the new year strong, already making progress on our goals instead of spending that valuable time trying to figure out where we're headed and what direction we're going to go and what it is exactly that we're going to do. No, we've done the work now, we know what we're doing, we've got a very clear plan, we're ready to modify it, but yet we can still take action today, and that's what took place yesterday. After a little bit of planning and coordination with current plans, and I am happy to report and very pleased that it was the icing on the cake for the day yesterday. And something that was needed after somewhat of a saddening experience, some some some difficult dialogue with my new friend Mary, our new friend Mary, because while there are challenging times in this world, there are still plenty of people out there working hard to do good, working hard to give back, working hard to connect with others who are doing the same, and that's what this is all about in the Telegram chat. We're simply connecting with others who are on a similar path with similar goals and a similar trajectory in life, sharing our own life experiences because this life is short, and what we're all doing is simply walking each other home oftentimes. Or at least it sure seems that way. So if you want to do so with people of like mind, join us in the telegram chat, t.me slash all around growth. Read the word on social media if you like what you hear. Share the episode with a friend, family member, or a loved one. You can find information about the show in the show notes.