Monday, monday

The leaf has turned.  To the Paleo side.  Lunch was roasted rutabaga and sweet potato, haricot vert and baked chicken (in lieu of grilling outdoors).  I followed Well Fed's recipe for grilled chicken and it was delicious.  The kids liked it, too.  I cooked the chicken while working with the kids this morning.  Easy.

The fridge is packed with pre-cooked/prepped meal components:

• steam-sautéed red cabbage

• steam-sautéed Brussels sprouts

• steam-sautéed bell peppers (green, red, orange, yellow...I love my colors)

• roasted plum tomatoes

• roasted sweet potato and rutabaga

• steamed haricot vert

• sunshine sauce

• browned ground beef/lamb

• grilled turkey sausage

• baked chicken thighs

I also have a tub of baby spinach and plenty of eggs.  Cap is swinging by Trader Joe's tonight and will pick up basil (for a pesto sauce for which I will also need some homemade mayo) and some veg for raw consumption (Persian cukes, grape toms and snap peas).

I think this is going to be too much food.  There will be an easing in period of figuring out what (variety and balance) and how much (quantity and perishability).  One of the things I am curious to see is which meal components the kids will dis/like.  In the meantime, yum.

Had rare-for-me scary dreams last night involving scenes of personal danger.  Yuck.

Early morning quiet enabled an hour of listening to a This American Life podcast while practicing Qigong and squatting.  Very nice.

Peace and love.

 

Sliding into sunday

My eyes are drooping but I wanted to check in before tomorrow's scheduled media-free day.  Here are some pics...

In a fit of...self-care?...self-love?...pushing to get closer to finishing something I started?...inspiration?  I decided to move my personal work/inspirational books to the top shelf.

The fantasy is me curled up reading poetry...some day.

Sweet blooms are studding our hyperlocal landscape.

Went to a community swap today at an elementary school gym in town.  It was sobering to see folks who clearly needed the respite of picking up things they need without having to pay for them.  I felt a little guilty taking anything...but things were pretty picked over by the time I was poking around.  My very interesting find was this this old chopper thingy.  I was completely intrigued having never seen anything like it.

Shifting the old diet back to sugar- grain- and dairy-free on Monday.  Stocked up on animal protein at the farmer's market today and pre-cooked some veg.  Tomorrow I will roast some more veg (sweet potato and rutabaga) and if I have time, brown and grill some meat.  Oh, and hard boil a dozen eggs.

Peace and love.

Excellent exhale

I have been overtaken by another big push in the decluttery reorg...

I've culled the linens and have a bag of soft old cotton cloth to donate to a local animal shelter.  Those colorful plastic trays were purchased for homeschooling organization a few years ago.  They never quite hit the mark in that regard, but I was reluctant to pass them up because they were not cheap.  Thanks to the label maker, they have been relocated to the linen closet where they hold things of different category in a compact space.

I used to shop at Target a lot, but now only go about once a season.  I was stoked to find this lid organizer on my recent Target trip.  These lids have been the rattling bane of my kitchen existence for months since I shoved the glass lids in the cabinet with the metal ones (which also housed most of our pots and pans).

While we were at Ikea earlier in the week, I came across curtain wires and was intrigued.  Cap liked them, so we picked them up.  The curtain area of Ikea was overwhelming and complicated and we left the store with curtain wires and no curtains.

I found these curtains at Target and brought them home not really knowing what was what...other than that we could make these work with the curtain wires.  Cap and I have never bought and put up curtains in our twenty-plus years together.  Never.  He likes blue and I liked the springy-summery look of these.  They are 100% cotton.  They are machine washable.  They require no sewing.  Project Curtain Hanging will happen in the next few days.  Pics to follow.

I went off-list quite a bit at Target, but these "over-the-door" brushed metal hooks were on my list.  We've had one in the bathroom for years, but while making the final push in the kids' room, I realized we could throw a couple of these up in there to hold odds and ends like their bathrobes, the bow that Sag bought at the craft sale last week, and their backpacks.  I quickly extrapolated that I could also use one in this corner behind the door of the big bed room.

One of the challenges of living in not only a small space, but one that is unconventional in shape, is that we don't have a foyer or coat closet.  We use the closet in the big bed room as a coat closet, but it's in the room, not right by the apartment door.  So, early on, I asked Cap to put up this set of hooks closer to the apartment door to facilitate the kids independently and easily hanging their jackets.

But, then there were the bags.  We have a lot of bags.  I am kind of a bag freak.  I like bags.  So for years, these coat hooks were stressed with not only our fleeces and hoodies, but with bags upon bags.  Not pretty.  Or user-friendly.

I have no idea why it took me so long to figure out this space-expanding measure.  But, I don't care, I am going to spend my energy just loving it.  The corner now breathes.  It exudes peace.  Yay.

The Target shopping and linen closet work triangulated to reorganizing the medicine cabinet.  I wish I had taken a "before" shot, but, well, most of you can probably imagine what an overflowing medicine cabinet of expired/no longer used junk would look like.  While I was at it, I decluttered the cabinet under the sink, as well.  Ahhhhh.

When we put the new dresser in the kids' room, it freed up my very old childhood dresser which had been acting as overflow catcher of kids' clothes.  We have had this dresser...probably since my parents' moved out of the old homestead at the turn of the millenium.  It's kind of clunky and unattractive, but I have hung onto it kind of irrationally.  Today it found yet another new life, this time, as my bedside/crafting dresser.  Yay.

The little red dresser that could.  (Can you see it's missing an eye?)  In repose on my side of the bed.  Sigh.

My sweet little space is coming together.  Those are my cookbooks on the bottom shelf.  Eventually, I would like to dedicate the top shelf to spiritual/personal work books and "stuff".  Right now I have the materials for photography projects stuffed in there.

I'm glad I got to keep my dresser.  There had been some talk of Sag taking it and my getting the new dresser.  Originally I had hoped to pare down my clothes enough to buy a smaller dresser.  But, I wasn't up for the task of going total ascetic...and luckily, Ikea had affordable options in the bigger size.

This is the pile of stuff that still needs tending to...

...not bad considering what the pile looked like for a couple of weeks there.

There is a Japanese turn of phrase that comes to mind: kotsu kotsu to (little by little)...

Peace and love.

Dressers

As reorganizing the kids' room has proceeded, I realized it was time to get a second dresser in there.  The kids have shared a dresser since birth.  We bought their dresser right before Gem was born.  We chose it because we wanted it to double as a changing table.

The sturdy thing has moved with us from Cambridge to Plympton to Sacramento to here.  It is of the style we favored for a long time after Cap and I coupled up: unfinished wood.  The kids decided it would become Gem's.  Sag was willing to roll the dice for a new one.

The new dresser is of our new style: Ikea.  Gem has proclaimed (not with joy) that their room/our apartment is starting to look like an Ikea showroom.  This dresser is so roomy I am a bit regretful we didn't think to get one sooner.  No more jamming in clothes to recalcitrant drawers for them!

I think, finally, their room is "done".  I'm sure the need/desire to tweak things now and again will arise, but there is a satisfying sense of completion, for now.

I leave you with a photo shot today (yesterday by the time you read this...we are doing another media-free day tomorrow...today by the time you read this).  The kids and I went to the library and this was my view as we walked there from the parked car.  They, our town, the world, our universe...so beautiful.  I feel very lucky.

Peace and love.

Feast or famine

I try to be more in balance, but feast or famine is a vein that runs through me.  Rituals do not come naturally, I am more of a habits girl.  And being an Air sign, my habits can barely be called habits as they have nothing to stick to.

On Sunday we had a mostly media-free day.  No email, , no social media, no video gaming, no computer/online usage except for homework or research.  We did watch parts of the Red Sox game, the kids and I watched Amazing Race and then I watched Game of Thrones and Mad Men (which I was unsure of until just before I decided to watch both).

Sag loved it and asked when we could do it again (Wednesday).  Gem chafed under it and his misery grew with each passing hour.  I was amazed (and delighted) at how much the day seemed to lengthen and open up.  There was no feeling of pre-commitment to an electronic device/activity (Sag and I, in particular, seemed to be wired to relate this way to screen time).  There was no feeling of having lost time...or its sister feeling of regret at the hour of the day/realization that you haven't done what you wanted to do yet...despite having occupied oneself with what seemed entertaining and even necessary, at the time.  (The brain/nervous system can be tricky.)

I have been trying to (re)form (re)new habits:

• sleep.  sleeping better, more consistently.  dreaming.  but not waking/going to bed early enough to call it a habit yet.  not getting the natural positive reinforcement of waking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, either.

• Qigong.  it is so working-against-me to call Qigong the bane of my existence.  and overly dramatic.  but I continue to be challenged, vigorously, by my seeming incapacity to develop a habit here.  there is no spark.  when I have practiced, it has felt good, but not good.  interestingly, my occasional Y workouts (30 minutes of elliptical, I have not made it back to a Zumba class) had me believing I was happily healthy inside because I have been able to handle them without aches or pains during or after.  but as the weeks have passed, my body is getting stiffer and every time I practice Qigong I am faced with less, not more.  argh.  I am energetically resisting (re)gaining energetic health.

• tv.  I haven't gone as far as deleting them from the DVR, but I am dropping The Following and Revolution.  some shows have ended (Top of the Lake, House of Lies, Shameless, Spartacus, Southland...the latter two for good), I am picking up Rectify and The Bletchley Circle.  Project Runway ends this week.  Amazing Race ends this week or next.  there is some disentangling...I am feeling more tired at the end of the day, really feeling in and listening to my body, and zoning out in front of the tube less.

• expressing.  I have yet to do the emotional cleansing exercises Vinny keeps prescribing.  yet, I find myself expressing my emotions more organically, bit by bit.  sometimes, I can feel myself separating from myself right after.  still a protective kind of response in place.  pulling away to watch the scene.

• eating/food.  have not made it back to Paleo.  the effects of inflammation (which is tied into everything, but to me feels most connected to this realm) are ever presently evident.  yet, yet.  I am eating simpler, I am eating less.  but I am bloated and heavy.  and I am not willing to completely give up sugar.  my stomach/digestive system has been doing its own cleansing which appears to be of internal workings rather than due to foreign invaders.

And now, here, about an hour has passed.  I can hear one kid stirring, which usually means the other is not far behind.  I have a date to go to the Y and then to Target.  I would like to eat a bit beforehand.

But, one more thought.  (Well, two.  I did not address money/finances.  Another time.)  Spring shoots growth to front and center.  And as I grapple with my issues, I am reminded more forcefully than in any other season (seemingly, but don't trust me...us sensitive types we feel "most"/"-est" quite often and it blots out all else), everything changes.  And where for years and years, I resisted the absolute transience of all, I am grateful to be in a place of accepting it and being truly okay with it, much more often than not.

With that, I leave you with the Japanese sign of the season, the inimitable symbol of the delicate beauty and design of the temporary...

Peace and love.

Priming to unfurl

I am finding the season inspiring despite its tendency to throw down the gauntlet year after year.  (C'mon, I dare you to grow.)  Greens popping up in lovely varieties.  Seasonal delights like music to all of my senses.  Energy pulsing crescendo bursting at seams.

Islands of quiet provide respite...but the current keeps pulling me along.  I think this time of year is hardest for me in terms of being highly sensitive-ish.  The impulse of the natural world in Spring is undeniable and absolute...in supernatural overdrive.  Grow, strive, reach...(re)create, (re)birth, (re)new...there is no choice, there is no exit.  Resistance is not only futile, it is inviting Thanatos in for a cuppa.

I spent this morning with Kelly.  So, so long overdue.  We talked and talked and I was able to unpackage some of my feelings of the last weeks into a thought: Spring has made me her bitch this year (as she so often does)...but I have held steady.  I've been bending and bending and overall have been quiet and tired.  But, I have not broken.  I have definitely retreated, but I have not invited Thanatos in...(or have I)?

Concretely:

• I have been expressing my emotions more.  (Good for me, but hard for me and good and bad for those closest to me.)

• I have been facing my mortality, gaining some understanding of aging and more clearly seeing the rest of my life.  The last few weeks have been an opportunity to improve my health and my ego has been steadfast in doing what it does best: toot its own horn.  The id has been strong (fueled by the life energy of Spring?):  I want to do what I want to do.  Then ego chimes in: sure, be in the present, this moment is forever, live it!  For many, many years, super-ego would then rant and rave about laziness, slothfulness, shamefulness, gluttony, selfishness, etc.  But, the last few weeks, super-ego has been quite constructively critical.  It has been patiently and quietly saying: you can have more energy, you know what to do, you have the capacity...and it is time to understand that you are insisting on making withdrawals on your qi account when you are at a stage of life when making deposits is no-way-around-it crucial (using some Dragon's Way speak there).

• I have been feeding my urge for more plant-based meals.

• I have been sleeping a bit more, though not consistently well.  I still wake up tired more often than not...but subtly less so.

• I have not been going to the Y...the last time I worked out was Easter weekend.  I have been taking walks and practicing Qigong.

• I have been enjoying ice cream with splashes of PX sherry in the evenings.

• I have been reading anew.  (I do not know if I will ever knit again.)

• I have been experiencing a distinct boost of vitality in the boudoir.

• I have been happier despite the bouts of fatigue and retreat.

Peace and love.

The week

We've been taking walks and it got hot.

Cooking up carrot-tofu scramble for Gem.

Our meat guy at the farmer's market has had Brussels sprouts for the last few weeks.  Not organic, but so fresh and lovely.

Love noticing the plates we are still using from my childhood.  I remember these plates coming out of the Mikasa box and being so thrilled.  (The steak, a rare boneless rib-eye, was delish.)

Fantastic book.  Loved it.  Gonna buy it.  (This was a library read.)  I'm a wannabe physics geek, but do believe this would appeal to folks from various walks of life.

My body/energy/hormones have been nutty.  Think slog.  Vinny put three of these little pressure things on my right ear to help me this week.

The heat in the atmosphere, the heat gathering in my body, particularly rising to my head...all roads lead to iced coffee!

Lists have been helpful this week to pull my sh*t together.  The universe's gift to ADDishness.

The change in weather has also meant: pesto.

Moments like this serve as a reminder: I am so, so lucky.  And grateful.  This time with my kids...I am so blessed.

Special treat: Grace went to Hawaii and brought back chocolate to sell in the store.  She knows freaks like me will plunk down $10 for a unique bar.

It was worth it.  Fruity and floral, flavorful and bouncy.  Once in a lifetime bar.

This book is a revelation.  Quietly disquieting.  It's making me gawk and making me laugh.  It's breaking my heart.

He has had these Spider-Man pajamas since he was around five.  He loves them and still squeezes into them.

The weather is in transition.  Cold and wet today.

Heard this lovely Roberta Flack cover of a Bee Gees song on The Americans this week.  It was an emotional scene and the song heightened the gorgeousness of the visuals wonderfully.

Peace and love.

Shifting

Tomorrow some beginnings will spring forth...the rebirth of familiar fauna, the arrival of new shoots.

• daily morning Qigong for me.  perhaps with the setting of an alarm clock to nudge me into an earlier to bed/earlier to rise pattern.

• piggybacking on gluten-free, and going sugar-free.  a tweet I saw today said it all: "The key to a healthy diet is to cook or live with someone who does."  the last few weeks I have loosened up on meal planning, which is not good for the budget...but it has been good for taking pressure I wasn't even aware of, off of my shoulders.  removing a component like sugar from one's whole foods leaning diet means making a commitment to cooking/baking more of your own food.  it takes a commitment of true time and energy, in addition to a sense of mission/intent/discipline.  I have recovered enough energy to renew my commitment to cooking more.  and improving the health of myself and our family.

• sigh.  it's that time again.  renewal.  making a list of my tv commitments and cutting down.  I heart watching tv.  but it's the thing that has got to give a bit right now.

Game of Thrones

Mad Men

Amazing Race (ends soon)

The Good Wife

House of Lies (ends this week)

Shameless (ends this week)

Top of the Lake

The Following

Revolution

The Mindy Project

Nashville

The Americans

Southland

The Soup

Project Runway (ends soon)

Parks and Rec

Community 

Legit

Hannibal

Spartacus (ends this week)

Real Time

sheesh.  not including the shows ending this week, that's 15 16 hours a week.  I was going to reduce to 7 hours a week, but I don't think I can...  (wow...in addition to these shows I marathon watched two Cinemax series...Hunted and Banshee...in late winter/early spring!  and Downton Abbey was on for two months there...and The Walking Dead...and Justified!)  I also have the first season of Call The Midwife on my dvr and am recording the second season.  *deep cleansing breath*  yes, I love good tv.  oh my god I just remembered I started watching Hannibal...and it's really good.  and the baseball season just started so we're watching Red Sox games.  the Good Wife...I crossed it out, but dang, two weeks ago they put out a top notch episode.  it was so good.  Nashville is my guilty pleasure.  Amazing Race and Project Runway are ending in the new few weeks.  I could drop Project Runway now except I've given it so much of my time already I kind of want to see who wins.  it has been an interesting season with crazy judging.  a friend on Facebook pointed out that things will slow down with summer, which is true.  it feels good to just take an accounting.  to face the situation.  and looking at this list, yes, it's long, but if I cut The Following and Revolution, there isn't much garbage in there.  I guess what will be culled will be culled organically, as time and new commitments dictate.  (see above, setting morning alarm.)

• new rule pertaining to electronics: no electronics until after day's table activities, cleaning work and outdoor time are done.  this is a biggie and will be tres challenging for the kids and me.  but I think the bump to a different reality will be enlightening.  I have no idea how I am going to deal with checking my e-mail.

Here are some photos that tell other parts of the story of my day/weekend:

the upside to sugar is enjoying a bowl like this: vanilla ice cream with a splash of Pedro Ximenez sherry.  so, so scrumptious.

switched the seasonal shelf to a Spring tableau.  I asked the kids if they were still into it and their response was immediate and unequivocal: yes.

the Japanese corner.  the rock and its stand belonged to my paternal grandfather.  the card came from an aunt.  the card holder is from Japan, too.

the gnomes are from our Waldorf days.  they arrived in Christmas stockings, I think.  the rock was painted by Sag in an art class a few years ago.

decluttered the linen closet and now have a supermarket paper bag full of old linens to donate to our local animal shelter.  these towels on top were a commitment ceremony gift to us...twenty year towels.  special.

some chemical shifting within has already begun.  I eschewed the Chinese food I thought I wanted for lunch for simpler home fare.  the last of the goat Brie with baby spinach in a brown rice wrap with grape tomatoes on the side.  yum.

this is what my corner of the apartment looks like at the moment.  a way station for decluttered stuff from the kids' room and the living room.  some day, hopefully sooner rather than later, this area will be my morning Qigong spot.  visions of Qigong, meditation and yoga dance in my head.  it is a process...always.

Peace and love.