sueeeus

Today is a be still kind of day for me.  What a treasure!  Some people want or need to be entertained, or constantly on the go, doing something, going somewhere, being with someone.  I get so few moments to just be still.  I sit in silence in my living room, looking at the ceiling, looking at the sky through the skylights, looking at the colors and placement of the furnishings and decor, breathing deeply and simply being peaceful.  It’s a friendly room.  It’s nice to just be still for a moment.  I have a thousand things I could or should do, but I’m not going to.  I’m just going to sit still for a little while.

I love my cedar ceiling. Love!

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I find it tragically amusing that I posted in October about not falling apart, when I realized yesterday that I’ve fallen more apart than I had any idea!  I’m glad that I can amuse myself, even if it’s in a tragic manner.  Imagine the amusement I can attain when I’m rockin’ my world!  My core, the essence of me, always wants to find the light and bright side of things.  It may take me a while, but I’m always looking for it.

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I’ve been thinking about perspective.  It’s so easy (for me) to be caught off guard and lose perspective.   I can get stuck wondering what I did or said that caused a given action or comment, and jump to some conclusion that may or may not be valid.  Or else I can’t come up with an answer at all, and I am completely flummoxed.  In my professional life, when I get stuck trying to solve something, usually if I drop it for a while, rest, and come back again with fresh eyes, I can figure it out.  I will then chastise myself for not dropping it earlier, thus saving myself the time, anguish and frustration of beating my head against the wall.  In my personal life, if I could at least remember to tell myself that problem solving is problem solving, and if I could remember that it always works well to just let it rest for a minute, allow myself to regroup, then clarity will more than likely follow shortly.  If only.  I sure would save myself unnecessary anguish.

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There has been a lot of passion and agitation floating about regarding Ferguson, and I don’t know anything about the issue, other than some people I love are passionately impacted in one direction and some people I love are passionately impacted in the opposite direction.  I have absolutely no opinion because I don’t know the situation, but my heart aches and strains over the anguish and passion that others are struggling with over this very public issue.  Politics.  I can not abide.  The mere thought causes literal gut wrenching sensations.  It’s visceral.  Absolutely and completely.

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Loose ends.  I have such a strong desire for conclusions, answers, solutions, closure –understanding.  Maybe that’s the bottom line.  Understanding.  For some reason, loose ends leave me feeling frustrated and incomplete.  It’s probably an OCD thing.  Sort of like writing a sentence and not using a period to punctuate the end.  That would drive me NUTS!  The thing is, it drives me bonkers in almost all elements of my life.  If a conversation just drops off in thin air, with no apparent reason why, I’m left wondering why.  I suppose it boils down to order vs. chaos.  A loose end represents chaos in my world.  A conclusion represents order.  With understanding, closure, conclusion, summary, completion, whatever it is called, I can put whatever it is away, and it will no longer clutter my mind and emotions.

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Sometimes the accumulation of loose ends and lost perspective cause me to doubt myself, and I get turned around, upside down.  When this happens, I have to somehow retreat and regroup.  It’s so hard to do, when you’re stuck!  Sort of like trying to swim against the current.  I visualize myself, a lone figure, and I visualize myself spinning, arms spread, spinning around and around, sending waves of light, love, comfort, and harmony out from my extended hands, weaving a tornado of protection around me.  I stand in the center of stillness and catch my breath and gather my strength until I can emerge.  As I describe this, it brings to mind a scene from Guardians of the Galaxy in which Groot weaves himself into a cocoon of protection around his friends.  Like that.

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I really should never doubt myself.  I should be more vigilant and remember, always remember, that I am empathic and absorb the emotions of those around me.  So often I get slammed by other people’s emotions, and it takes me some time to realize those aren’t MY emotions.  Those feels I feel, yes, but those feels aren’t always mine!  Empathy is a beautiful gift, and I truly love my ability to connect with people on such a deep level, but I just need to learn how to distinguish my feels from someone else’s feels.   I suppose that’s the thing about empathy though.  Those feels become my feels.  Oh, the feels.  All the feels!!  I am so often battered by the feels, like ocean waves crashing against a rocky shore.

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Finding joy.  Gratitude.  It’s the simple things in life that bring me the most joy.  I grew some vegetables this year.  I planted multicolored carrots, and yielded only two.  Two!  The beets did well.  I love beets.  I also grew a mystery vegetable.  At first I thought it was a pumpkin, but it turns out it was an acorn squash.  I don’t even remember ever having squash, because I don’t like squash, but somehow it ended up in the compost, and when I built my garden, I added some compost.  That particular seed sprouted and thrived, so I decided to let it live.  It actually completely overtook the entire garden box, and produced several squash.  The slugs ate most of them, but it yielded one respectable squash.

garden bounty

I decided to take my end of season garden yield and make roasted veggies for my contribution to the Thanksgiving feast.  I roasted garlic and used fresh thyme and rosemary from my herb garden, and made a buttery spread.  I had an inordinately grand time, gathering the veggies from my garden, cleaning, prepping, and cooking them.  It felt so complete!  So wholesome!  And believe it or not, the squash actually tasted good to me.  Wonders shall never cease.

roasted and color coordinated

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I’ve been struggling quite a lot lately.  I mentioned tragic amusement above…   Anyway, I’ve been thinking of all the various monumental life changes taking place, contributing to the struggle.  Work.  That’s a huge change.  The transitional dust most likely won’t be settled until at least next summer, so there remains quite a long road ahead.  I need to gird up.  Along with that, my niece, sort of the daughter I never had, graduated high school and moved across the country this fall.  This had a much deeper effect on me than I had any idea, and I was completely unprepared for the emotions that would surface.  Closing chapters of a long relationship, opening and closing and trying to navigate the waters of forming a new relationship leave me worn and depleted.  Frustrations over the superficiality of people in the singles world.  I see deep seated fears and insecurities in men manifest in various ways.  They probably have no idea of these things themselves, because they are living only on the surface.  But that’s a whole other probably very long winded post for another time.  Countless hours spent in traffic.  Darkness when I rise, darkness when I return.  Single parenting struggles, wanting my children to grow into gracious, kind, responsible, confident, and respectable men, and not knowing quite how to accomplish that.  The responsibilities of life.  I have a full plate.  It can be daunting and overwhelming if I think about it much.  That’s why I like to slow down and be still.  I get the most joy out of the simple things.  I go outside and feed my alpaca girls, chastise them for fighting each other for the lion’s share, and wander around the pasture, picking up their poop.  It’s therapeutic, really, to trudge about outside, rake and bucket in hand.  The wind in the trees releases the most wonderful cedar scent.  I feel happy.  I am very blessed.  I live a beautiful life.  I am full of love.  I love.  I am loved.

happiness is a rake and a bucket and a pasture full of poop

Where oh where are those four agreements when I need them?  Specifically, the one about not taking things personally.  I think I have a natural inclination to be impeccable with my word and to do my best, but when it comes to making assumptions and taking things personally, I stumble.  And stumble quickly.

I can only be accountable for my own feelings, and how I feel is a choice, so truly, I should never (or seldom) allow myself to feel hurt.  I need much more practice!  Or a frontal lobotomy.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised or caught off guard when I am misunderstood.  Another person’s reception has much to do with their own reality and perceptions and predispositions, so it’s up to them to sort our their own agreements.  Yes, I can strive to be clear, but apart from that, what can I do?

Am I confused?  Of course!  Who isn’t?  Does anybody have all the answers in life?

I try very hard to do no harm, and I apply that philosophy to all living things.  I try, anyway.  My choices sometimes confound others.  I don’t have any desire to be vindictive or spiteful.  I won’t take advantage of some one or some thing, just because I can.

I seek harmony.  I seek peace.

At some point, I suppose I should learn how to better protect myself.  I’m not ready for a frontal lobotomy.  So I’ll just regroup, over and over and over again.  I know my intentions are innocent.  And that’s the extent of my responsibility.

Me.  What comes from me.  Therein is my accountability.

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lizard tongues

Lizard Tongues!  I absolutely adore BB’s imagination!  He presented them to me on a tray.  Look!  Lizard tongues!  And he picked one up and blew the end to make it extend.  Priceless.

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hearty bliss

It takes nearly an hour, but I am IN LOVE with steel cut oats!  The secret to their divinity is toasting them first in butter, then cooking them slowly in 1 part milk and 3 parts water to 1 part oats (and a dash of salt).  OMG.  Chop up some dried apricots and cranberries and it’s pure, hearty bliss.

It looks like Mother Nature is granting us a white Christmas (in the Pacific Northwest, anyhow).  Even the trio of miniature trees on my covered front porch are blanketed in snow.

They’re tiny trees and I decorated them with fruits and birds.

Awww, isn’t that sweet?

Speaking of sweet, my cookie baking failures continue.  Alas!  If I were to put a price on these cookies based on how much time they took and what I get paid for real work, these would probably cost $10 each.  No cookie is worth $10.  Not even a Versace (if there were such a thing).  I’m a terrible cookie maker.

I gave up on shaped cookies and tried drop-smashed instead.  This recipe emulates the Lofthouse cookie.  It’s light and fluffy and the icing is surprisingly good.  They are a far cry from uniform, though.

To my credit, they all taste good.  The execution, however, leaves much to be desired.  Because I like to beat a dead horse, so to speak, I may make one final attempt at holiday cookies before Christmas.  I’m thinking of a sugar cookie dough that is rolled, refrigerated, and cut with a wire to make uniform circles.  Or, I could try to overcome this ridiculous perfectionism personality disorder, and resist the urge to produce a beautiful, delicious, uniform cookie.  That would be the better road, in many ways.

I also made some sweet and spicy almonds, which turned out okay, but could be improved upon.

The same can be said for the Chex Mix as well.

Again with the dead horse.  I am SO very tempted to try again with all of these concoctions.

The thing is, in the interest of giving home made things to friends and family for Christmas, I can hardly feel good about giving something that looks gross or tastes gross, now, can I?  I think I’ll just put these out for people to nibble on (if they dare, and if they care) and not use them for any sort of gift.  Eventually I’ll get these recipes figured out, and hope for better luck next year.

Have you ever heard the one about finding a worm in your apple?

Not finding the other half.

The same goes for salads.  And finding a bug.  Or part(s) of a bug.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.  I know, get over it, if it were that disgusting, you would have noticed it when you ate it (if in fact you did).

And I wash my lettuce meticulously.

But not meticulously enough.

Apparently.

The washing of lettuces and all manner of things in which creepy crawly things might seek refuge is from henceforth escalated to a level of scrutiny far and beyond meticulous.

I am so squeamish, I’d never make it as survivor (wo)man.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s nothing like the smell of home baked bread.  I’m a novice, and will hopefully eventually master a low carb loaf, but for now the diabetes has abated (generally it’s not something that abates, but the sugars have been in blissfully remarkable control after the placenta went its way, and now I can have a warm slice of delicious bread without wreaking havoc on the control systems) — deep breath, this is still one sentence — I thought I’d try a full-fledged high carb recipe.

While I was visiting Suse, I over-indulged in her delicious bread for the duration of my stay.  She bakes a consistent loaf (sometimes several times a week), and whips it out with barely a blink of the eye, tossing the ingredients together from memory.  It’s an impressive thing to behold.

She’s kindly taken the trouble to extract the recipe from the confines of her remarkable mind, and my first attempt turned out quite well.  I am pleased.  BB even liked it, and he’s become a finicky little boy.  I used the crushed vitamin C tablet as an improver alternative, and I think I might use less salt next time.

Here is the recipe, used with implied/assumed permission:

a smidge under 400ml tap temperature water (390ml I think)
2 tablespoons oil (canola or something mild)
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups white flour
2 cups wholemeal flour
throw in some seeds (poppy, sesame, sunflower, linseed etc)
2 1/2 tablespoons milk powder
1 teaspoon bread improver (optional – makes it rise better but be careful to get a natural one, many of them are chock full of numbers and chemicals. For an alternative crush up a vitamin C tablet)
2 teaspoons yeast

bread machine: wholemeal setting, 1kg size loaf, takes about 3 1/2 hours to bake.

slather with butter and ENJOY

My head is swimming. Or spinning. Or both. I feel sort of on the verge of dizzy all day every day. Maybe I’m just tired. It’s so hard to tell.

I thought I’d consider looking into dietary adjustments, to see if that might help. But now my head is spinning even more. It would be nice to be an average person with average weight, average blood sugar, average blood pressure, average energy levels, average everything.

I’ve read that poor blood sugar control can harm the developing baby, so it’s vitally important to keep the blood sugar stable and in control. To do this, it’s important to limit the amount of carbohydrates ingested at any given time. But if the balance slips the other way, and I don’t get enough carbohydrates, it looks like the results can be equally as damning to the developing child. Or more so. Now I’ve read horror stories of stunted brain development , lower IQ, and mental retardation with the presence of too many ketones, a potential byproduct of a very low carbohydrate diet.

I only started reading because I felt somewhat alarmed at how quickly my belly has ballooned, and as well, the corresponding increase in the numbers on the scale. I don’t want to obsess. And I’m so good at obsessing.

I feel like throwing my hands up in the air, and just not worrying about what I eat and how much I gain. There is a plethora of healthy foods that I like to eat, so I should be okay.  And just relax, alright already, for crying out loud.

But gosh, I feel awful and guilty if and when I gain. Especially after hearing and reading that women who start out significantly overweight shouldn’t be gaining much during pregnancy. And here it is, Cinco de Mayo, and I’m thinking of making rice and beans to accompany the tacos tonight.

Having had the recent pleasure of spending some very high quality time in the House of Soup, I came away with some yearnings and inspirations. That wondrous home is often filled with the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread. And by often, I mean several times a week. Seriously!

It’s heaven.

Not the best temptation for a diabetic, however. I didn’t exercise any nearly enough self-restraint, and gobbled slice after delicious slice of that fabulous bread.

And so it was that I pined to fill my own home with such delicious smells. As luck would have it, I discovered a handful of low-carb bread recipes on the web. Armed with these, I justified the acquisition of this beauty. It’s a Zojirushi, and it bakes a horizontal loaf. A full-fledged, horizontal loaf!

Unfortunately, my first two attempts have been less than admirable. The very first loaf was a recipe for a 1lb loaf, and this is a 2lb machine. Not that I know the ramifications of either, but it did seem that the liquids at the bottom of the pan were not well covered with the dry ingredients, and possibly the yeast came in contact too early. Possibly. Also, the paddles stuck terribly in that loaf. It was exciting to have home-baked bread, though, and at only 3gm carb/slice!

I bravely tried again. This time with a 2lb recipe. The liquids were better covered, but the loaf came out quite lopsided. I don’t know if this has anything to do with me peeking at it during the second and third rise cycles. Even so, it’s exciting to have fresh, very low carb bread! The paddles came right out with this loaf.  Now I’m drooling over the thoughts of french toast, panini, and all manner of bready delights.

The texture of this bread is somewhat rubbery. It’s made with vital wheat gluten and soy flour. I think traditional flours would produce traditional textures. But I can grow accustomed to the texture. Especially since it means I can indulge in toast with a spot of jam. Imagine it! Jam! Or marmalade! How I love marmalade!

I am pleased.

Yesterday I dropped by Costco to order a birthday cake for Mr. Gadget, what with his 40th birthday looming.  I was distraught, distraught, I say, to find that no longer is the white whipped frosting an option.  Heretofore, it has been the only reason to buy such a cake.  It requires a major occasion to justify the acquisition of a half-sheet cake.  It’s not the only unfavorable change, either.  For some reason they changed their take-and-bake pizza options from plain cheese (our family favorite), plain pepperoni, and combo to ‘gourmet’ meat lover (disgusting concoction loaded with an abominable amount of salty greasy meat products), ham/pineapple, and mozzarella/basil/tomato.  I would probably like the fresh basil kind, but I don’t think Mr. Gadget would go for it, and we generally end up with the ham/pineapple, which we like, but it just isn’t as good as the previous plain cheese*.  We tried the meat version, but had to scrape off all the meat to make it palatable.  Not to worry.  That meat found a home in a future meal in which it was not so overpowering.  So.  As devoted a Costco customer I am, these changes are not to my liking.

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I cooked four chickens last night.  Costco had a buy one, get one free coupon, and one in this case is a two-pack.  So I had four chickens to deal with.  I’ve been pining for some nice home-made soup so decided to roast them up and then make stock with the remains.  I could only fit three in the oven, so I cooked the fourth in the pressure cooker.  Fully cooked whole chicken in 20 minutes.  Woot.  The other three took two hours.  Every time I do this, I tell myself not to do it again, ever, due to the mess and effort.  I’m not a big fan of skin peeling and decarcassing.  I figured I’d do it in one fell swoop and get it over with, though, rather than on four separate occasions.  So I cooked them all.   I won’t be doing that again soon.

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We had chicken with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy for dinner last night.  I was going to do the gravy from scratch, using the roast drippings, but that would have meant waiting for the chicken to cook, and I decided we’d dine on the pressure cooked chicken instead.  So I used a poultry gravy mix and added fresh sauteed mushrooms.  Not long after, Harry said, “Mommy, you itch my back?”  I lifted his shirt to comply and was horrified to find a sheet of bright red rash covering his entire back.  I tore off his shirt and inspected the rest of him, and it was spreading to his chest.  Luckily I had bought a pack of Benadryl skin cream and had it on hand.  I doused him with it and gave him a dose of cold/allergy medicine, only to find, upon closer inspection of the lotion label, not to cover large areas of skin, and not to mix with any other antihistamine.   Oops.   I was ready to call the doctor and/or race to the ER, but the lotion started to take effect and he showed no signs of anaphylaxis, so I waited.  And Googled.  It’s obviously an allergic reaction, but I’m not sure if it was the mushrooms or the flavor enhancer additives in the gravy mix.  I think he’s had mushrooms in tiny quantity before, but he tried tasting one raw last night.  I wonder if it was the gravy.  It’s enough to scare me away from prepackaged foods for a while, even though he’s had plenty of convenience crap like mac & cheese, ravioli, and canned soups, all of which probably have those same additives.  I’m going to have to be even more vigilant with my label screening.  Meanwhile, I need to find the culprit.  I might try a scratch test tonight**.  That year of breast milk was supposed to shield him from this sort of thing.

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Did I mention the latest exclamation heard shouted about the house?  This, from a three year old.  “What the HELL?”  You see, we let him watch the Spiderman movies**, all three of them, and in the last movie, Eddie Brock makes that exclamation when the black Spiderman (the dark side of Peter Parker) destroys his camera.  So it stands to follow that that is an appropriate expression for moments of frustration and consternation.  He says “Dammit” alot too.  I tell him these aren’t very nice words, or they’re grown-up words (and still not nice). 

*It sounds as though we eat a lot of pizza.  But we don’t.  Honestly.  It’s all relative, though, right?  Okay.  Truth.  Maybe once or twice a month.

**Please don’t call cee pee ess.

…fruits of the forest

…dangerously delicious

While on the phone with my sister, and forced outside to obtain a clear signal, I discovered some very odd looking mushrooms growing amongst the bark chips. I picked one and brought it in for some google research.

Lo and behold, the elusive, the mighty, the morel. Morchella elata, to be precise.

Brave Stupid All those warnings and red flags about lethal mushrooms mixed with memories of childhood tales of that most sought after specimen of culinary delight. I sauteed the first one in some butter. It was to die for (although I hoped not literally). I gathered my courage, collected the crop, and proceeded to make this.

I’m not a pasta aficionado, but the recipe sounded so good that I thought I’d give it a try. I followed the recipe completely, with the addition of shallots. After much toil –it takes quite a bit of effort to roll out pasta dough to the appropriately thin consistency, the result is was, indeed, divine.

Oh. My. Goodness. As an old friend would say, budgasmic. But I don’t speak like that. Of course, anything that’s cooked in butter and cream can hardly help but taste incredible. Especially if there’s garlic and shallot involved. I happily indulged, all the while wondering in the back of my mind how much of an idiot I am for eating something so questionable. I’d feel so much more comfortable had I found the mushrooms at the local grocer, rather than in the wild. My pioneer spirit won (after considerable reading and comparison of photos, dissection and inspection). And I did live to tell.

Mr. Gadget wanted no part in this, and of course I wouldn’t try to extend such an experiment to my loved ones. I fashioned a nice red sauce for them. Safe. Fresh roma tomatoes, basil, garlic, onion, and beef.

Dinner at 9 p.m. isn’t the best of ideas, though. If ever I’m fool enough to attempt pasta from scratch again, I should start by 3.

And speaking of fools, today marks four happy years with the Gadget man. Four years ago today, we stood together in a little chapel on the Vegas strip, and said I do. I picked April 1st. My quirky sense of humor. It’s a date that’s easy to remember. Isn’t our wedding announcement fun We went to a photo booth and inserted our faces on a magazine cover (I always wanted to be a dancing girl, deep down inside).  We got the license plate as a souvenir from the chapel, and I merged it all together (covering the scantily clad parts so as to make the announcement more office appropriate).  People at work thought it was a joke — they didn’t believe that I really did run off and get married.  It was a fun reveal.  Four years later, and all is well.  Four fleeting years.  My, how swiftly they’ve passed.

I recently underwent a 9-day colon cleanse in which 5 days were spent fasting, with apple juice only to wash down the psyllium/bentonite combo formula. I’ve suckered myself into this very same thing, ten or fifteen years ago. Why, oh why, would anybody intentionally ingest clay I learned some interesting things, though.

1. I learned that I am addicted to food the way a junkie is addicted to drugs. At night, sitting on the couch next to my honey, I was fidgety and practically had to sit on my hands while I tried to keep the thoughts and desires for food at bay.
2. The things you read about on the internet, namely regarding disgusting pictures of colon cleanse results, are actually achievable with the 5-day BH fast (linked above).  Eeeeeeewwwwww.  (It hasn’t made me a believer, though.  I’m still a skeptic in that those pics might just be what one would expect bentonite and psyllium to look like on its way out, so it’s not necessarily any great achievement of internal cleansing after all.  Just normal what goes in must come out, because, after all, what goes in must come out, eventually.  And don’t even get me started on the cost of these cleansing programs.  S.U.C.K.E.R.  Yes, I parted with $100 to do this, in the name of science, health, and self-experimentation.  Need I repeat   S.U.C.K.E.R.)
3. Weight loss from 9 days with nearly no food is dramatic, to the tune of nearly 11 lbs.
4. Weight gain after resuming normal and reasonable food intake is equally as dramatic, thus, there is very little actual weight loss from such a severe, and thankfully temporary, regime.
5. I was very pleased with myself, post cleanse and pre resumed stable weight, for having succeeded in going without food for five full days, and for losing a substantial amount of weight.
6. I was very disappointed in myself for gaining any weight back.
7. I am an emotional eater. My emotions drive an intense urge for certain foods.
8. I am a recreational eater. This goes along with being an emotional eater. In a certain environment, such as relaxing on the couch to watch some TV at the end of a stressful day, I have an almost uncontrollable desire for hand-to-mouth exercise, with said hand full of something crunchy or savory.
9. Hunger has very little to do with any of this.
10. One bite of a particular food can awaken the beast. For instance, a Ritz cracker seems harmless enough. Allow one to pass the lips, and very shortly after there is an incredible desire for another. Once the simple processed flour product has begun its evil works, the desire expands itself quickly to other simple carbohydrates. One cracker is not enough. There must be toast. Or cookies. Or more crackers. Or popcorn. Or potato chips. Or whatever there might be available in the house. Or all of these. The beast is awakened and a frenzy can ensue. It takes extreme restraint to tame this beast and wait out the cravings until they subside.
11. I find this very distressing. I love good nutritious food. I eat loads of vegetables. I love whole foods. I love healthy foods. I wish that I could eat something as seemingly benign as a cracker without awakening the beast, because I really don’t want to eat a whole box of crackers. I just want to enjoy a couple. But I can’t. I can’t. Well, I can, but the restraint required is extreme. I wish that I could enjoy a reasonable amount without having to exercise restraint. I wish it were natural and automatic.
12. I don’t like being a food addict.
13. I don’t particularly want to completely remove certain foods from my life, which is what seems necessary in order to overcome, or rather, avoid spiralling into the abyss.
14. It appears that I have reached an impasse.