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.

Marvelous mash up

Who's up for some internet awesome?

Sweet saturday sigh

I can practically feel the yeast colonizing in me...I have been consuming much sugar.  The time to stop is right around the corner.

Cap and I had a nine o'clock appointment with our accountant this morning.  I loooooove having an accountant.  As you know, understanding money is not a forte and my consciousness has been unburdened of much stress thanks to forging this new relationship last year.

I read a terrific graphic novel today, The Voyeurs, by Gabrielle Bell.  It's not so much a novel as a collection of memoir vignettes in comic form.  I liked it a lot.  It was kind of mesmerizing to recognize myself in some of her self-characterization.

I have been focusing on getting more sleep (successfully though not so much on the falling sleep earlier thing) and cutting out gluten.  I'm in a hormonally indulgent phase and have been eating quite luxuriously.  (That's popcorn popped in coconut oil and drizzled with Kerrygold butter and sprinkled with truffle salt.)

Next week, bringing Qigong fully back into the picture and cutting out sugar.  And hopefully reading some more.

Peace.

Comma

The kids worked hard today.  We finished the big decluttering/reorganizing push in their room.  Now everything has a place...which will facilitate independence in keeping the room tidy and clean!

My goal is to move on to the next room and accomplish the same.  Declutter/reorganize to the point that clean up becomes more manageable...efficient and pleasant.  The big front room which acts as living room/den/homeschool room/dining room/half foyer, the "big bed" room which acts as bedroom/Cap's office/my Qigong space/half foyer, the eat-in kitchen/pantry, and the bathroom/linen closet.

It's gonna take some time.  But, I tell you, it feels so good to get it done.

(The kids' room is not completely finished.  We are starting to shop around for a second dresser.  As they have grown, their storage needs have, too.)

Peaceful weekend to you.

A speck breathing easier

Paid a visit to my western doc today.  I've had some curious physical things occur in the orbit of the left side of my face the past couple of months...all minor and intermittent/fleeting...which yet put together clanged a distant alarm.

Vinny has been consulted all along and he has been treating me accordingly.  He agreed that finding out more info would, of course, be useful.  Especially anything visual of the inside of my head/body.

However, western doc was completely unconcerned.  I am quite enamored of this doctor, our family doc since we moved here nearly seven years ago.  It is remarkable how opposite ends of the spectrum western and eastern medicine can be.  She treated my symptoms as completely unrelated.  Vinny and I have tended to view them as very much potentially connected.

I was relieved to hear her use the word "crazy" when I asked for confirmation that I need not worry about stroke.  (This is a testament to how good our relationship is.)

So, one thing checked off the list (cease worrying about a possible tumor growing in my skull).  I am still feeling like a speck overwhelmed by just about everything.  But I am a speck breathing easier...enjoying the good moments which I find tucked into the chaos.

St Pat.

Peace and love.

P.S.  I don't know how to put this eloquently...but I totally think it is possible that there is something going on underneath skin and bone on the left side of me...in the upper left quadrant.  But, whatever it is, I am content not to worry about it any longer, in this present.

I do not fear death

A wonderful essay on dying by Roger Ebert, who passed away.

Where I be

Wow.  I feel so inconsequential and overwhelmed and untethered...whispering like a mantra "something has to give, something has to give".  Feeling like I have to give.

I am pretty happy, though, where for years this kind of chaotic state would make me miserable.  I am doing one thing at a time, trying not to think too much about things.  Winging it.  By the seat of my pants.

At moments feeling frozen at the intersection of my temperament and the season as they rage and whorl.

PMS is challenging me a bit at the moment.

I have two new favorite songs right now and the album that contains one is on sale at Amazon for $5 (mp3 download).  (The Carpenter by The Avett Brothers.)


Here are some shots from our road trip.  We had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends in Massachusetts.  There's a lot of love and joy and bittersweet there.

Peace and love.