Procrastination station

Looking forward to the day when this form and the tax forms are happily in the past...in sepia tones ;-)

Saw Vinny yesterday and he says my "gateways" are super tight and need work.  I laughed.  That doesn't sound like me, at first listen.  I'm kind of the go to illustration for "open book".  But, if I stop to think on it, I can understand it in a few different ways.

Mainly, that my body is more aware (and therefore I am, too) and working to deflect harmful, toxic elements.  It's defending itself, much like an immune system.  I can see how this would make the gateways more active and on alert.

This isn't ideal.  It would be better for the gateways to be relaxed.  That way the energy flows more freely.  For my Self to be able to accept everything and use what I can and discard what I don't want.

I am remembering one year ago.  Soon it will be the anniversary of my mystery lung thing.  There was pain (every time I took a breath), there was a "something" on a chest x-ray, there was a lot of worry.

I don't think there's going to be a repeat of last year, this Spring.  I feel like I've moved forward a ring or two in my Spiral.  I am accepting Vinny's challenge as my own this week: practice Qigong five times, even if it's "just" Dragon Standing Between Heaven And Earth.

You know the drill: each moment is an opportunity to start anew.  To do something rather than wait.

Sigur Rós

I posed the rainy day music question on Facebook, too. And an old friend who I've come back into touch with suggested Sigur Rós. YES. Thanks to my SIL and brother, I had some iTunes money and bought an album. And I requested a few others from the library.

Here's a taste for y'all.

Rain music

Any suggestions for a rainy day playlist would be greatly appreciated.  Leave it in the comments, please :-)

A little bit of unpackaging

I was blogging about my Thai curry dinner over at the eating blog and unpackaged something about my eating. I'm including an excerpt here:

After I finished my first bowl of rice and curry, I sighed with pleasure and contentment. And instead of being with that moment...truly becoming one with it, I immediately began to think of a second bowl. And, probably there were a few things that went through my mind, and I don't remember it all. But, I do remember thinking: it would be better to have a second bowl of rice rather than have the rice go to waste.

Our rice cooker is on the fritz, too. And where pre-fritz it cooked rice perfectly (for 16 years!) and then kept it warm and perfectly edible for 24 hours, as of a month or so ago, it is cooking the rice unevenly and the rice becomes wet and soggy after a few hours.

(And, yes, we can take the rice out of the cooker and put it in the fridge to reheat, so it wouldn't go to waste, per se.)

So, I had a second bowl. It was a small portion, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't satisfy in the same way. At all. Because I didn't really want the food. I wanted that delicious feeling of utter satisfaction. And I was so driven towards that that I failed to recognize that I had that feeling already. It. was. right. there. Instead, I dropped it to chase it.

This is where eating mindfully can help me. If I can slow down and savor to the very last bite, chew and swallow, bliss is there for the experiencing.

I love food. And derive great pleasure from eating delicious food. Eating mindfully can help me re-train my habit of thinking that eating more food will get me the pleasure I seek. I can get a lot of pleasure from just one bite. I know, because I've experienced that.

There's a flipside to this with two parts.

One is that maybe I have a fast absorption rate of pleasure (however that plays out biochemically...) So, where someone else would experience the pleasure for longer, I burn through my pleasure quicker and it literally dissipates in an instant, leaving me eager and even a little edgy, for more.

The other is that I have a deep and unknown emotional (and/or possibly chemical) need for extending my experiences of pleasure (or having them at all). This need extends its long fingers at the faintest whiff of pleasure and grabs at it, refusing to let go.

I know that I can achieve some balance through practicing Qigong. And being more mindful and present in everything I do. And hopefully, if there is some mystery emotional garbage down in my subconscious weighing me down, I'll be able to unearth that and get rid of that, too.

Moon-y

I could wax on and on about the moon and its effects on me.  But there is work to be done. Suffice to say the moon is full and I can feel it through all this rainy atmosphere.

So now that I've got the chicken stock going, got the sandwich bread going (I have to bake a loaf every day or two), got the kids fed, got myself fed, got the groceries unpacked and put away, got caught up on my e-mail and Reader and Facebook, got the blog post about chicken stock done, got the go ahead to fully plan for our upcoming weekend away, got the Blue Moon video primed to upload...

I'm going to settle down with a massive backlog of paperwork.  And Spring tunes to brighten the dreary day.

I'm feeling distinctly better today, which is a relief as much as I don't want to think of it that way.

Peace and love, people.

Emma Thompson

I used to love Emma Thompson, but haven't seen her much in the last decade or so.  I watched Last Chance Harvey today and, boom, back in love with her, just like that. 

Cold

Whether it's viral or not, I don't know.  But, my body has some cold-like symptoms.  As Vinny said today at an emergency in-between-treatments treatment, "something's goin' on".

honk.

(I love you for regarding my nose-blowing visage.  truly.)

I've noticed this week, my first of being GFCF, that I have been feeling very full upon eating despite consuming less than what I have been.

Tonight it hit me.  I'm too cold.  Between all the salad and soaked raw cashews, I think I'm consuming too much cold essence via uncooked food.

Getting ready to watch a post-dinner movie with Cap, I put some water on for tea to take my herbs and I realized I was craving ginger and lemon.  A few minutes earlier I had said to him that I felt like eating nothing but rice and soup for a week.

Having a cold?  Tipping too far over to the cold side of balance?  Whichever it is, or it could be both, the ginger tea with lemon and honey felt amazing.  It helped to restore some calm to a system that objected to the cucumber (raw, of course) I shoveled into my mouth at dinner because their cool felt so good in my cold-symptomy-warm/dry mouth.

I had a second cup while we watched Julie and Julia (Meryl Streep...sigh).  

I can feel aspects of the four elements at work inside me: Air, Water, Fire and Earth.  I need to pull back on my zealousness...or rather, pause it in order to recalibrate as I move forward.

I love food and this week so much was about the food as I made a shift.  But, it goes deeper than the food...  It's not really about the food.  I've got to practice Qigong.  Every day.  This is important.  A cornerstone without which the building of me cannot stand.

I feel as though I'm in an Infinity.  I peel back layers and gain awareness...then peel back some more and regain the same awareness.  Is there a center?  A core? Or is it about traversing the sideways eight over and over again?

Kinks

I just wrote a post about sometimes dreaming of opening a café and my love of leftovers. I debated about where to post it and decided to post it at the GFCF blog which I am already rethinking as more of an Eating blog.

Still working the kinks out of how to separate these strands when sometimes that is (naturally) hard to do.

You can read the post here.

Schweddy balls

One thing led to another this morning and I found myself rewatching this classic Saturday Night Live clip.

Empty your mouth of food/drink if you don't want to be cleaning your screen in a couple of minutes. :-)

Tea and honey

I think I may have a cold.  I have the symptoms anyway.  It's soothing to prepare and consume my tea in the morning.  Taking it easy, moving slowly.

Justified

I watched the second episode of this new show, Justified, last night.  (It's on Tuesdays, I had recorded it.)  I'm enjoying it, but dug this interview of Timothy Olyphant even more.  It's cool to get this kind of background on an artist whose work you are appreciating.

Happy Birthday ♥

connecting with the birthday girl.

Happy birthday to just about the bestest egg I know:

Brave

Artistic

Resonant

Bellissima

Righteous

Asana

Sweet song

What's up

I went to my partner-in-healing yesterday evening.  It was interesting.  I told him about going GFCF for a year and he really listened and heard me.  At face value this kind of proclamation rubs him the wrong way.  But, how I broke down 'the proclamation' seemed to make sense to him.  That I am not seeing this as an answer of some sort made him feel better, I think.

He senses a big question and answer in me.  And he really wants one of us, preferably me, to figure it out.

He also said something felt very different about me.  So interesting!

Then he found some really tight and painful points and went to work on them.  Ouch.  (I missed an appointment last week because he was out-of-town.)

Last night, instead of kicking the kids out of the living room so I could veg in front of the tv, I left Gem in there to read and hung out with Sag in their room, for an hour.  It was fun and we laughed a lot.  I then read them the second-to-last chapter of The Moffats and tucked them in.

(Then I vegged in front of the tv.)

I did a half-practice of Qigong this morning and felt my tendons and meridians stretch and creak open.  I can feel 'gunk' releasing from organs and working their way out.  It borders on feeling crappy, actually.

Woke the kids up, which I hate to do, but I am trying to reset their body clocks to an earlier to sleep-earlier to wake mode.

After we had all eaten and Cap and the kids got going on schooling, I mixed up a quadruple batch of a protein flour blend and now have a loaf of sandwich bread going in the bread machine.

Reality continues

Again with feeling so full.  I had Panda Puffs with sliced banana and rice milk for breakfast and miso soup and salad for lunch.

Full and dense is how I feel.  Like there's little room for molecules to bounce around.  Heavy, but not sodden.

Fell asleep earlier than I have been, was woken up by a creaking door when Cap came to bed and lumbered out of bed because I had to pee badly, which is just about unheard of, for me.  I never have to pee in the middle of the night.

I didn't wake up early enough to practice Qigong.  It's been awhile.  I'm looking forward to seeing Vinny this evening.  I can feel realignment starting to happen inside and it will feel great to have some energy directed at strengthening these 'new' channels back to what's right.

Maybe there's a low pressure system above.  Gravity is feeling immensely powerful on me at the moment.

I was in a bad mood this morning, have been able to keep mostly to myself which helps me not to lash out at others.  By the time lunch time came around I was feeling better and made a nice lunch for the kids and me.

I was able to get to a few things this morning.  Nothing like the whirling decluttering I'd imagined, but shit that needs to get done nonetheless.

Like the fridge.  I emptied it of some moldy oldies and reorganized it somewhat.  Stopped short of putting labels on the shelves, but haven't abandoned the idea entirely.

Miles

Our car, Miles, is in the shop.  Again.  I got the call this morning, estimate is just shy of 1K, can they proceed?

Winding down

I felt a little blue this afternoon.  And a little irritable this evening.  Not bad for the first day without.  Though there's probably waves to come in that realm. 

It's looking like I will go to sleep earlier tonight, which I kind of desperately need.  I went without caffeine today except for a bit of dark chocolate.  I can feel the positive effect this is already having on my connection to sleep.  (I've been going wild with the Raspberry Earl tea.)

I felt very full after dinner tonight.  Turkey soup, a piece of corn bread with green goddess dressing, and a ramekin of warm rice pudding.  Full in a satisfied way.  Dense.  Not in a too much way.  It felt good.

I did read to the kids and get them to bed earlier.  I can hear them chattering away...we'll see when they actually fall asleep.

Not much decluttering happened, but I can see much of the computer desk now.  It's a start.  I'll have more concentrated time tomorrow.

Peace and love.

Factor

This is a musing.  Not a complaint.

It has been about two hours since my last post.  During that time I made myself lunch.

I ate my lunch and then I made Gem his lunch.  A salmon pasta salad made with leftover salmon, leftover pasta, some salt and mayo.  (No photo taken.)

Then I made Sag his lunch.  A grilled cheese sandwich.

The turkey soup is smelling really good.  Then I thought I should make some corn bread to go with dinner in case the kids really hate the soup and need carby sustenance.  So I got all the ingredients out to get them to room temp (an important GFCF cooking tip.)

There was a near continual stream of washing plates, bowls, utensils, salad spinner, etc.  By the end of my time in the kitchen, I was really wanting to pop one of these in my mouth.

But, they have milk in them so I passed.  And feel okay.  It's caffeine withdrawal that I am feeling more than anything.  Well, that and lack of sleep.

I've also dealt with the car repair shop and a younger son who is emotionally volatile and an older son who is bearing the brunt of this volatility.  Now, it's 2:30 and my "day" of dealing with a room is whittled down to two hours or so.  I'd like to have dinner on the table by 6:00.

Tonight I am aiming to get the kids in bed by 9:00 and to read to them.  We've gotten out of that routine and since daylight savings they have been going to bed very late.

Off to declutter...trying not to be too bummed about the shrunken time and the dashing of my room-a-day hopes.

Spring cleaning

This morning I popped out to drag around trash and recycling cans and wandered to the back corner of the yard to look for crocuses and chives.  I was happy to find both.  Then I moved into the kitchen and put away dishes and pots and pans while making a fried pastured egg sandwich with mayo, smoked paprika, garlic and cayenne.

Turkey soup and rice pudding are on my menu for dinner, green goddess dressing for lunch.  I made the dressing and have the soup going in the crock pot.  (A shout out to the butcher at Whole Foods who cut me a really nice looking piece of turkey breast with skin left on.)  The rice pudidng I will make later.

For now, multiple blogging done, I'm going to have some lunch and move on to Spring-declutter a room.  Which room, which room...

Spring Equinox Hike

I absolutely adore having this tradition with these friends.  We mark the start of each new Season with a hike around a local pond.  There is a familiarity of place and routine, but Mother Nature always provides entertainment as she sweeps us along in her constant rhythmic dance.

Today there was an abundance of water, which is always fun.

See photos of past Spring hikes here and here.  Interesting to take a look back.  It was much warmer today than it has been the last two years!  Also, we have not seen Broken Wing since last Summer or Fall.