Unsubscribe…

It was one of my first posts of the year when I talked about subscribing to my go-to food blogs, hoping to have dinner ideas galore waiting for me in my email inbox.

Yeah, in theory, it was a good idea, but as I suspected, I was inundated with multiple emails from the five blogs I subscribed to.

The worst part was nothing inspired me. Most recipes call for a slow cooker or an instant pot. I have neither by choice.

Today, here in Arlington, VT, it was a gray, foggy, rainy, mixed precipitation kind of day. The miserable kind of day that makes you not want to leave the house.

When I look at the weather on Wednesdays for dance class, Marty tells me when there is snow in the forecast, I will be fine by explaining our truck is all-wheel drive, has good tires, and to just drive slow. Yup.

This morning, he told me things looked iffy for my drive home from dance. I thought about what to do while we were working in the production kitchen.

I came up with my decision and called my dance partner Kathleen.

I told her I was staying home tonight and explained why. She told me to relax and that things would be fine without me. I already knew that.

Kathleen and I have been dancing together for 20 years. We’ve danced and spent untold hours together. We are growing older together and getting wiser.

As we age, she tells me, since we don’t have any estrogen left, we give less fucks about things. True. ✔️

We also do what we want to do and not feel obligated to say yes to things we don’t want to do. ✔️

We listen to our bodies and common sense and don’t feel guilty about our decisions. ✔️

So instead of teaching dance class right now, I unsubscribed to those five food blogs. It feels good to get rid of things that drive me nuts.

Getting rid of things right away is freeing. Such as, stopping a TV show only after 1 episode helps me not waste my time.

Deleting a music playlist or Kindle book that doesn’t do anything for me or getting rid of old recipes that turned out like shit.

Ah, the power of the delete button. I’ve deleted many blog posts after I go back to edit them. I like to let them simmer for a bit and reread them.

This happens when I hear Jon Katz’s voice boom in my head; it was one of the first things he told me about writing. Ask yourself why would anyone give a shit?

I am proud I am not such a lazy ass anymore since I am better about returning things right away that I don’t like or am disappointed in.

Money is tight, so returning shit right away is cash back in my pocket. I used to let them sit in my backseat for weeks.

I missed class tonight and my friends but needed to play hooky and hunker down. I never would have done this ten years ago or known what self-care was.

As far as all those pesky emails from the blogs, they are gone. That is the beauty of the unsubscribe button way down the bottom of emails in a print so small you need a fucking magnifying glass to see it.

While typing this, I received emails from each site telling me I unsubscribed.

I appreciate you guys for not hitting the unsubscribe button and continuing to read my spontaneous blog.

I always say that sometimes I never know what the post will be or turn into until I start typing.

When I started typing about unsubscribing, I had no idea it would turn into talking about getting older and wiser. 😜

***Update the roads were horrible last night! The plow truck drove by our house at least 6 times while I would have been at dance. Cars off the road everywhere. Thanks Marty for the heads up. ♥️