I don’t know why, but when my freezer is packed untidily full, I never want to go there. I might have enough meat for two weeks but I don’t want to stray into that amorphous mess so I feel quite uninspired. I don’t have room for precooking meat-centric dishes, which is my favourite way of getting ahead of the game. And I cringe a bit when I gaze at all the little butter boxes of whoknowswhat packed haphazardly on the lower shelves. When I look at that, all I can think is, “I wonder what’s in them,” and  “How hard would it have been to ID the lids with a Texta?” Doesn’t help any, but that’s what I think every time I get myself into this pickle.

So when I’m suffering from lazeeitis I know it’s possibly because a few of my organisational necessities have gone awry. I either don’t have the right ingredients in the fridge, which means my shopping plan has failed or—more likely—I have become lazy about packing my freezer and it’s time for an arctic upheaval.

It’s very important to be well organised and I think the easiest way to get, and stay, organised (at least for a while) is to have room. If you’re always expecting an avalanche when you open a door, that’s a door you’re probably not going to be keen to open anytime soon.

So today’s job is to reorganise the freezer. It will probably take about quarter of an hour, which makes me feel terribly ashamed that I’ve been too lazy, or uncaring, to do it until now. But when I’m finished it will be back into order. Cooked dishes on one shelf, raw protein on one, bread-type items all together, frozen vegies corralled somewhere convenient and items like butter, flour and ice-cream (yes, I know, not very healthy) in their designated spots. And today I will also pull out that 2kg packet of mince I froze instead of dividing into small packages because I was short on time. It will be tomorrow’s job to make that into various freezer meals. I’ll be able to do that because I’ll have made some room in the freezer shelf that’s supposed to be only for cooked meals (but has become a landing space for all sorts of other tubs of whoknknowswhat).

I’m really busy with work at the moment. That could be an excuse for not doing this task, but actually it’s more of a reason to get it done. When you’re busy, the shopping, fridge and freezer plan needs to work. I do the shopping and fridge part much better, but my freezer seems to be a bit like John Ralston Saul once described democracy—you get in and tidy up the problem areas, it’s all good for a while, then it gently devolves into a mess. So you get in and clean it up again. Okay, he didn’t describe it exactly like that, but I think that was the gist of the message. That’s what happens with my freezer, anyway.

Let’s play a visualisation game today. This is about someone’s bad attitude and how it affects you. Hubby is fuming about something. Not just fuming—articulating strongly. The youngest child is drumming his heels into the carpet having a spack attack. Someone cuts in on you in traffic and nearly causes an accident, then has the temerity to give you the finger. Whatever.

So, the scene is set. Our natural tendency in these situations might be to get upset ourselves, to hit back in some way or to withdraw as fast as possible. I have been known to do all three, but perhaps not all at once!

However, if it is not up to you to fix the whole world—and it is not—then to drill down into specifics, it’s also not up to you to fix the problem the other person is having. Of course it’s nice if you can be sympathic and helpful, but in the end it is that other person’s decision to react in anger to their situation.

Say that you want to simply stand there and observe instead of jumping in and (1) getting irate yourself (2) trying to fix the problem or (3) attempting to jolly the other person out of their funk. And say that you normally find quiet observation almost impossible (as it is in my case).

Here’s the game. Your inner self, which has an invisible body that takes up the same space and dimensions as your outer self, has only one available response. That is, to throw heart-shaped foam-type objects at this person.

As this is visualisation, anything goes. So as the invisible you (you might imagine an outline of yourelf making this movement while your physical body remains still, if that helps) draws back an arm, the heart appears in your hand just as your arm reaches the furthest part of its backswing. You concentrate on making sure the heart is thrown with enough energy to reach the other person. If you’re throwing it like a frisbee, it appears as your arm bends across the front of your body.

At first you use the heart like a missile, putting a fair bit of arm strength behind your aim. The pointy bit of the heart ricochets off the other person, causing a small but not painful jab. When it hits, it makes a noise. A short kissing sound. You watch the foam heart drift to the ground around their feet. It is red, but not fire-engine red. More a softer hue with apricot overtones.

As this all happens, you are growing in stature, making the other person’s anger appear smaller, A heart appears in your hand every time you swing your arm, so you keep lobbing them. Over the noise of the yelling or screaming (if there is any) you distinctly hear the sweet sound of little kisses. In fact, the angry vocalisation becomes strangely muted and the heart kisses sound louder as you  continue to send the hearts spinning that other person’s way. Your action of throwing becomes more gentle, more loving as the hearts start to build up around the other person. They look gorgeous all clustered around the howling one and you realise that you created them from your mind and in difficult circumstances. Sweet.

This doesn’t have to be when someone is throwing a temper tantrum. You can practise this when another person is being surly, unreasonable or showing any kind of emotion that would normally unbalance you and cause you to take on their angst. Their angst is theirs. Let them own it. You owe it to yourself to learn a way to be calm and loving in difficult circumstances and not to be infected by another person’s negative emotions.

Because you didn’t take the other person’s anger to heart and therefore were not hurt by it, perhaps you can now say something helpful or reassuring. You can certainly take yourself off happily to the kitchen to prepare a nutritious dinner. You’ll be in a gentle frame of mind and will prepare the food with love. (No doubt the pots and pans will thank you for your new serenity). While you’re at it, throw a couple of tomato-sauce flavoured hearts into the pan.

Laziness can be a very dangerous habit. It allows you to devolve into slothful living. Nowhere is this more apparent than meal laziness. You can’t be bothered to cook so choose unwise takeaway options. A lot. Or, if you use your own kitchen but suffer from can’t-be-bothered syndrome, your freezer may have meat pies, pizza and breaded fish, as I admit mine does.

In fact, I was at the supermarket the other night at dinnertime and I found myself looking at all the frozen foods that seemed to only need heating. What an easy way to have dinner sorted, I thought, and grabbed two packets.

When I got them home and I read the cooking instructions, one of the items was going to take longer to heat in the oven  than I usually take to prepare dinner anyway. So back into the freezer it went to be used some other time when the dreaded lazybones sickness hits me but I have the time to twiddle my thumbs while it cooks in the oven.

In contrast, a couple of days later I cooked up a heap of vegetables (cut large, so I didn’t do much preparation) in some stock then whizzed them into a deliciously thick, smooth soup. The next night I cooked a big dish of diced vegetables then stirred them into some leftover soup for a chunky style soup that tasted totally different even though it was made from the same ingredients. I really didn’t feel like making dinner, but having leftovers and a loose plan stopped me from making a poor decision.

The point is, the actual work of dicing the vegetables probably took less than five minutes. No one is too lazy to do a five-minute chore. (Are they?) So the lesson is to prepare some part of the meal in advance so you have a go-to option for the days when you’re feeling lazy. I know I’ve said it before, but I really must put a heap of simple, fast recipe ideas into a folder for the days when I’m feeling particularly uninspired. I also need to spend some time in the kitchen to restock my freezer with precooked meat-centric dishes. My family’s health is too important to squander it through laziness.

Today is a new day.

It is mine. Yes, I have obligations, but still the day is mine to choose my mood, my attitude and my level of attention to whatever I do.

This is empowering. I can choose to strengthen what I call my ‘verbing muscle’—the action of doing something at the exact time that a task presents itself, thus keeping as close together as possible the thought and the corresponding action—or I can procrastinate and be generally unproductive.

Today I choose to be attentive and aware, to enjoy even the smallest chore and to work, if only for an hour, towards something that is important to me.

That’s a good start to the day.

With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan for this post title, I’ve been thinking about one of the reasons you backslide. It usually happens when you’re tired or overwhelmed and doing the right thing just seems like too much trouble.

So I am writing a little list that incorporate two things—one is to have the world’s easiest recipes for getting a good meal on the table in next to no time; the other is to have a list of my favourite ‘fail’ foods and to find a way to replicate them in a healthier way.

For example, there is always store-bought pizza in our freezer for the occasional nights when I just don’t have any ideas for dinner and nothing healthy seems to appeal. I have realised, though, that I have an easy cheat recipe for the pizza base. I make this when I feel like having pizza and have the time to do a little preparation. What I need to do is make better choices in the flour I use and see if this homemade version will freeze. Then at least I am improving over the store-bought product which has who knows what in its ingredient list.

In this way I would have a fall-back position for the nights when I’m just not in the mood to cook. So my list will contain all the possible ‘fast’ foods that I can prepare in advance and freeze.

We have been eating pre-breadcrumbed fish of late. I need to find a way to buy just fish and put a little coating on it myself, so that I know what goes into it. I’m going to try an egg dredge followed by a coconut flour dredge and see how that cooks up in a bit of coconut oil. And maybe do a bit of homework on coatings. It’s so good when you can do all this yourself when you have the time and inclination for food preparation.

Another idea is the preparation of all the ingredients for a whole dish and then freezing or putting in the fridge to cook up the following night. I already precook meat-centric dishes and freeze in portions, but this other style of preparation is worth looking into. Anything that gives you power over the quality of food you are eating is worth a little study. And having something available for those times when you feel tired and uninspired is just common sense.