I'm still drinking my first cup of coffee, but I'm also gearing up for a busy day. Once I get Tessa to school, it's time to work on the Hunts Point book. It's also Tessa's riding lesson day, so when I pick her up from school we'll head to Woodinville, and after her lesson we'll have dinner with Grammy & Grandpa.
The weather prediction is for another day like yesterday, so I think I'll work outside today. I need as much sun as I can get, and I know that the forecast is for rain later this week.
Last night we had our first Simplicity Circle meeting, which took place at our house. (What was I thinking making a chocolate bundt cake when I'm on WW? The first piece was fine. It's the second piece that'll get me!!!) I committed to sitting quietly with my journal and thinking about time simplicity....
I'm longing for summer. I'm longing for days spent on Alki, evening picnics, and camping. Yesterday Shep and I went for a walk at Alki, and it looked like summer - girls in bikinis and guys with no shirts playing volleyball - and then when we picked up Tessa we went to Whale Tail Park with friends and the moms sat on a blanket while the girls played. It was delicious - the sun, the friends, and all. The more days like that the better, because this Seattleite feels like she's been patient enough. Bring on that sunshine!
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
Garden pictures
The rosebush under Tessa's bedroom window....with a carrot patch beneath it. (That carrot patch looks like dirt right now, but there are seeds...)
Pots with flowers and herbs....the chives and sage and thyme came back, and the primroses, and some other flowers....but it's time to replant most of them.
Raspberries, over by the swingset. (Look closely. Three sticks poking up = raspberries.)
The beginnings of the new beds - about 1/4 of the lawn has been dug up so far (thanks, Ryan). The patch here is where the tomatoes will go - the best sun up front.
Last year's garden bed, all planted and ready to go this spring. Strawberries, fava beans, garlic, sugar snap peas, lettuce, chard, onions, spinach. Plus four parsley plants.
Part of the raised bed out back - the problematic raised bed because of the way it gets sun throughout the day (very bright, then not at all). The reddish plant is a peony, and this pic shows a big rosemary bush, and then there's dug up dirt with potatoes under it, and there are irises and lady slipper and bleeding hearts....
Last year's garden bed, all planted and ready to go this spring. Strawberries, fava beans, garlic, sugar snap peas, lettuce, chard, onions, spinach. Plus four parsley plants.
Part of the raised bed out back - the problematic raised bed because of the way it gets sun throughout the day (very bright, then not at all). The reddish plant is a peony, and this pic shows a big rosemary bush, and then there's dug up dirt with potatoes under it, and there are irises and lady slipper and bleeding hearts....
Sunday, April 05, 2009
One choice at a time
It's hard work, losing weight, because it's not about one choice (to lose weight), it's about a million little choices. Not just what to have for breakfast, but how much to have, and some of this, but not that, and these but not those, and this treat, but not that one.
I did okay today. I was craving hamburgers fresh from the grill today - 70 degrees out! - but made some decent choices about them. I made my own hamburger buns using 100% whole wheat. I measured out the meat into 1/4 pound patties (4 ounces). I chose lean meat. Everyone else had cheese, but I did not. I made a potato salad recipe that had a vinegrette dressing instead of mayo (and delicious - lots of fresh herbs, reduced wine, whole grain mustard...). I made salad and had extra portions.
A million little choices. Only a tiny bit of mayo on the burger, no second helping of potato salad, go for an extra green salad instead....
I'm going to lose weight by a million little choices at a time,a dn this is what I need to keep reminding myself. I've now been on WW for a week, and so tomorrow morning I will weigh myself, fingers crossed for good results. I will attend my first meeting on Wednesday night,a nd they'll log my weight there, too.
Bit by bit, inch by inch....
I did okay today. I was craving hamburgers fresh from the grill today - 70 degrees out! - but made some decent choices about them. I made my own hamburger buns using 100% whole wheat. I measured out the meat into 1/4 pound patties (4 ounces). I chose lean meat. Everyone else had cheese, but I did not. I made a potato salad recipe that had a vinegrette dressing instead of mayo (and delicious - lots of fresh herbs, reduced wine, whole grain mustard...). I made salad and had extra portions.
A million little choices. Only a tiny bit of mayo on the burger, no second helping of potato salad, go for an extra green salad instead....
I'm going to lose weight by a million little choices at a time,a dn this is what I need to keep reminding myself. I've now been on WW for a week, and so tomorrow morning I will weigh myself, fingers crossed for good results. I will attend my first meeting on Wednesday night,a nd they'll log my weight there, too.
Bit by bit, inch by inch....
Care
I think that one of the things that I love best about gardening ....
Wait a minute. I said that last sentence without thinking, but I'm realizing that it's wholeheartedly true. I'm learning to love gardening! Me, who two years ago could barely be bothered to stick a tomato in a pot (I rarely got a harvest because I'd kill the tomatoes first) is suddenly A Gardener. Well, whaddayaknow.
Anyway.
One of the things that I love best about gardening is that I feel the care of it. Nurture, care, guardianship. I'm caring for our home - the whole home, not just the indoors. I'm caring for our family. I'm caring for my body (gardening isn't all picking flowers). I'm caring for the neighborhood. I'm tending to the earth in my own small way. I'm caring for Tessa's connection to earth. I'm even caring for our pocketbooks - food grown at home is a LOT cheaper than store-bought food.
Care. I think that care is highly underrated in our society. It seems to me that society all about rushing and accumulation and multitasking, not stopping to nurture.
Gardening has its own schedule. I just put potatoes in the ground, and if they grow the way they're supposed to, I"ll get to harvest them in "late summer." The carrot bed that I planted (under a rosebush - do you suppose that carrots and roses can co-exist peacefully?) doesn't look like a bed of carrots, it looks like dirt. (Fresh black dirt, I might add. I added rich vermicompost to it.) But I have visions of Tessa's friends coming over to pull a carrot for a snack, just like they did last year, only this year I won't have to say "just one please because there aren't that many" (or at least I hope not). Last year we got perhaps a dozen total blueberries - we knew that we wouldn't get much of a crop for a few years. Looking at our yard now, with only small buds on the trees, and bare patches in teh grass, and gardens that look like sticks and dirt, it's hard to imagine any sort of bounty coming from it....but if to everything there is a season, today is the time to plant.
I am tucking vegetables all over the place, trying to care for this planet. Every vegetable that I grow is that much less packaging, that much less travel - even Farmer's Market produce arrives to me in a truck (though a couple of hundred of miles is much better than a couple of thousand). It tastes better, too, but it's better for the planet. (Especially now that I'm making my own compost; I'm not buying anything chemical to put on the beds. I'm still using a little organic fertilizer, but I'm trying to buy as little of that kind of thing as possible and make it all myself. All those kitchen scraps and raked up leaves are going to good use....and one of the benefits of pony lessons is free manure.) So, I feel like I'm caring for the earth.
And I'm caring for my family. Today we're out back, Tessa flying on the swings, then jumping down to examine a worm, and asking me questions about things in the garden, and occassionally doing a bit of her own gardening. Ryan hasn't been feeling well so he's doing comfort stuff - tending to his bike, of course. (This was a compromise; he wanted to ride all day but definitely wasn't up to it.) Tessa has her own ideas about the garden, and what she likes best, and what she wants to do.
And out in front, other neighbors are busy in their gardens, too, planting and tending and planning. We chat with one another, care for one another, connect with one another.
I feel more connected to the earth than ever before. I've always been a nature girl, but nature was often something that I visited to admire. This isn't wilderness, but it is just as much a part of nature. Humankind has been participating in agriculture for about eleven thousand years, and I feel that connection when I get my hands dirty. Tessa and I have picked up "Farmer Boy," the Laura Ingalls Wilder book that is third in her series, and Tessa and I understand so much more of what they're talking about now. It makes me think that, while I'm grateful for computers and blogging and iPods and bread machines and washing machines and indoor plumbing and medicine and all kinds of other modern inventions, humankind was meant to get down in the dirt. I find it shocking that I'm nearly forty years old and I can't really picture what a potato plant looks like, even though I've eaten potatoes my whole life. When I think about it, I can't picture many things that I eat unless I'm picturing them in a plastic sack or in a bin at the grocery store. Well, no more....I'm learning, and I feel the connection of that learning.
It's a quiet way to live, but it feels very full and boisterous, too. "Care" isn't a sexy life philosophy, really, but I don't find it dull.
And I'm hoping that all of these delicious vegetables and fruits that I'm growing will nourish me, and that the work that I do in the garden will tone me, and perhaps THAT will make me feel a little sexier.
Right now, I don't see much of a down side. My aching body even feels good, because my aches are not surgically induced in this case, but brought about by good, hard work.
Nice.
Wait a minute. I said that last sentence without thinking, but I'm realizing that it's wholeheartedly true. I'm learning to love gardening! Me, who two years ago could barely be bothered to stick a tomato in a pot (I rarely got a harvest because I'd kill the tomatoes first) is suddenly A Gardener. Well, whaddayaknow.
Anyway.
One of the things that I love best about gardening is that I feel the care of it. Nurture, care, guardianship. I'm caring for our home - the whole home, not just the indoors. I'm caring for our family. I'm caring for my body (gardening isn't all picking flowers). I'm caring for the neighborhood. I'm tending to the earth in my own small way. I'm caring for Tessa's connection to earth. I'm even caring for our pocketbooks - food grown at home is a LOT cheaper than store-bought food.
Care. I think that care is highly underrated in our society. It seems to me that society all about rushing and accumulation and multitasking, not stopping to nurture.
Gardening has its own schedule. I just put potatoes in the ground, and if they grow the way they're supposed to, I"ll get to harvest them in "late summer." The carrot bed that I planted (under a rosebush - do you suppose that carrots and roses can co-exist peacefully?) doesn't look like a bed of carrots, it looks like dirt. (Fresh black dirt, I might add. I added rich vermicompost to it.) But I have visions of Tessa's friends coming over to pull a carrot for a snack, just like they did last year, only this year I won't have to say "just one please because there aren't that many" (or at least I hope not). Last year we got perhaps a dozen total blueberries - we knew that we wouldn't get much of a crop for a few years. Looking at our yard now, with only small buds on the trees, and bare patches in teh grass, and gardens that look like sticks and dirt, it's hard to imagine any sort of bounty coming from it....but if to everything there is a season, today is the time to plant.
I am tucking vegetables all over the place, trying to care for this planet. Every vegetable that I grow is that much less packaging, that much less travel - even Farmer's Market produce arrives to me in a truck (though a couple of hundred of miles is much better than a couple of thousand). It tastes better, too, but it's better for the planet. (Especially now that I'm making my own compost; I'm not buying anything chemical to put on the beds. I'm still using a little organic fertilizer, but I'm trying to buy as little of that kind of thing as possible and make it all myself. All those kitchen scraps and raked up leaves are going to good use....and one of the benefits of pony lessons is free manure.) So, I feel like I'm caring for the earth.
And I'm caring for my family. Today we're out back, Tessa flying on the swings, then jumping down to examine a worm, and asking me questions about things in the garden, and occassionally doing a bit of her own gardening. Ryan hasn't been feeling well so he's doing comfort stuff - tending to his bike, of course. (This was a compromise; he wanted to ride all day but definitely wasn't up to it.) Tessa has her own ideas about the garden, and what she likes best, and what she wants to do.
And out in front, other neighbors are busy in their gardens, too, planting and tending and planning. We chat with one another, care for one another, connect with one another.
I feel more connected to the earth than ever before. I've always been a nature girl, but nature was often something that I visited to admire. This isn't wilderness, but it is just as much a part of nature. Humankind has been participating in agriculture for about eleven thousand years, and I feel that connection when I get my hands dirty. Tessa and I have picked up "Farmer Boy," the Laura Ingalls Wilder book that is third in her series, and Tessa and I understand so much more of what they're talking about now. It makes me think that, while I'm grateful for computers and blogging and iPods and bread machines and washing machines and indoor plumbing and medicine and all kinds of other modern inventions, humankind was meant to get down in the dirt. I find it shocking that I'm nearly forty years old and I can't really picture what a potato plant looks like, even though I've eaten potatoes my whole life. When I think about it, I can't picture many things that I eat unless I'm picturing them in a plastic sack or in a bin at the grocery store. Well, no more....I'm learning, and I feel the connection of that learning.
It's a quiet way to live, but it feels very full and boisterous, too. "Care" isn't a sexy life philosophy, really, but I don't find it dull.
And I'm hoping that all of these delicious vegetables and fruits that I'm growing will nourish me, and that the work that I do in the garden will tone me, and perhaps THAT will make me feel a little sexier.
Right now, I don't see much of a down side. My aching body even feels good, because my aches are not surgically induced in this case, but brought about by good, hard work.
Nice.
Refusing to rush
We stayed home from church this morning. We just weren't up to the rush; Ryan is all stuffed up, and we haven't been home together in a week really Ryan was gone for six days) and we just feel the need to move slowly this morning.
I've been reading "Mother Earth News," and Ryan is finishing the last few pages of his book. Tessa is reading some Easter stories to herself - we keep them up in the attic and just brought them down, along with the 'egg tree' that is now on our dining room table - and we're drinking coffee by the gallon. Sarah McLachlan's "Ordinary Miracle" is our church music this morning, and I'll read from Mark Nero's affirmations for Ryan and I. We will walk to the Farmer's Market, we will work on the garden.
Next week we will go to church. But today, we needed this quiet family time.
I've been reading "Mother Earth News," and Ryan is finishing the last few pages of his book. Tessa is reading some Easter stories to herself - we keep them up in the attic and just brought them down, along with the 'egg tree' that is now on our dining room table - and we're drinking coffee by the gallon. Sarah McLachlan's "Ordinary Miracle" is our church music this morning, and I'll read from Mark Nero's affirmations for Ryan and I. We will walk to the Farmer's Market, we will work on the garden.
Next week we will go to church. But today, we needed this quiet family time.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
The Parent Trap
Tonight Ryan isn't feeling well - it is the sinus infection that has attacked each of us - so he's laying low, Tessa and I are having Chinese (chicken and broccoli for me - low points and boring if I may say so myself) and we're watching The Parent Trap.
Remember it? Hayley Mills - times two - at camp. Lots of shenanigans. Lots of laughter - and Tessa is enjoying it just as much as I did when I was young.
I love having a daughter.
Remember it? Hayley Mills - times two - at camp. Lots of shenanigans. Lots of laughter - and Tessa is enjoying it just as much as I did when I was young.
I love having a daughter.
Gardening
I think it's a bit of an addiction.
This afternoon we spent a few hours tidying up the back yard. Planted three raspberries (bringing us to five total; the other two are out front), a lovely lupine (one of my all time favorite flowers) and a red columbine. I set up the beginnings of a potting bench and stocked it with old pots, cleaned up leaves, pulled weeds out of the grass, filled in a hole Shep and friend had dug and reseeded the grass...
A whole bunch of nothin' important, in other words. But it feels SO good to be outside, to get my hands in the dirt, to add to the compost, to grow things....
This afternoon we spent a few hours tidying up the back yard. Planted three raspberries (bringing us to five total; the other two are out front), a lovely lupine (one of my all time favorite flowers) and a red columbine. I set up the beginnings of a potting bench and stocked it with old pots, cleaned up leaves, pulled weeds out of the grass, filled in a hole Shep and friend had dug and reseeded the grass...
A whole bunch of nothin' important, in other words. But it feels SO good to be outside, to get my hands in the dirt, to add to the compost, to grow things....
Friday, April 03, 2009
Home from the cabin
A lovely time with Katie, Jessie and Emma.
I counted WW points the whole time, managed some treats (Katie's home made scones and a glass of wine) and didn't go over. Very nice.
My pants still don't fit and I still feel fat - different than looking fat, but I *feel* fat in the way my body wears my clothes and feels lethargic - but I am on plan. Change will happen!
Now we're waiting for Ryan to arrive, hopefully in the next hour. We've missed him this week, and it will be great to have our little family back at home together.
I counted WW points the whole time, managed some treats (Katie's home made scones and a glass of wine) and didn't go over. Very nice.
My pants still don't fit and I still feel fat - different than looking fat, but I *feel* fat in the way my body wears my clothes and feels lethargic - but I am on plan. Change will happen!
Now we're waiting for Ryan to arrive, hopefully in the next hour. We've missed him this week, and it will be great to have our little family back at home together.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Only a little bit evil
Sometimes, I get very invasive questions about why I only have one child and aren't I going to give her a brother or sister etc.
I always start with the polite answer, "We're very happy with the size of our family, and couldn't ask for more. We're content."
But if people keep asking, I can't resist adding "Well, I had to have my ovaries and uterus removed because of my cancer treatment so I can't have more children."
That usually ends the conversation.
It's a little bit evil but I can't stop myself. We only wanted one to begin with, but if someone is going to go on and on and on, well, this does tend to end the conversation.
I always start with the polite answer, "We're very happy with the size of our family, and couldn't ask for more. We're content."
But if people keep asking, I can't resist adding "Well, I had to have my ovaries and uterus removed because of my cancer treatment so I can't have more children."
That usually ends the conversation.
It's a little bit evil but I can't stop myself. We only wanted one to begin with, but if someone is going to go on and on and on, well, this does tend to end the conversation.
A new day
I emailed my boss to postpone our next meeting about the book. I'm annoyed that I had to do so, but I just haven't been able to accomplish as much as I had hoped.
Drat.
Tessa and I will be heading up to Crystal Mountain with friends tomorrow morning for a quick trip, and I can't wait. We won't ski, but we'll play in the snow, sled, and have a great time. I'm certainly looking forward to it.
And planning meals. Yes, this is a part of WW that I must adjust to. I need to plan for success, and if I'm not careful then I'll play in the snow for a few hours, work up a huge appetite, and then go inside and consume mammoth quantities of chips, salsa, and sour cream. Ack! But no, I won't do it. Instead, I'll go to the store today, and I'll pick up some more fruit, and I'll make some little snack containers. Today I think I'll make hummus - with carrots, I find it a near perfect snack. I also volunteered to make dinner, and received a request for tacos. No problem - I can do that! I will use whole grain tortillas (though I'll bring the "regular" kind too), I'll skip the cheese, and I'll go heavy on the veggies. I'll bring fresh lime juice to garnish mine, even as others pile on the cheese and sour cream.
I can do this. (And really, I'm telling myself that, not you, gentle reader.)
Today I woke up to weather that was nearly snowing; cold sleet was falling. Brrr. However, it seems to have stopped now, so I think it's time to get Shep some exercise. I will bundle up!
Drat.
Tessa and I will be heading up to Crystal Mountain with friends tomorrow morning for a quick trip, and I can't wait. We won't ski, but we'll play in the snow, sled, and have a great time. I'm certainly looking forward to it.
And planning meals. Yes, this is a part of WW that I must adjust to. I need to plan for success, and if I'm not careful then I'll play in the snow for a few hours, work up a huge appetite, and then go inside and consume mammoth quantities of chips, salsa, and sour cream. Ack! But no, I won't do it. Instead, I'll go to the store today, and I'll pick up some more fruit, and I'll make some little snack containers. Today I think I'll make hummus - with carrots, I find it a near perfect snack. I also volunteered to make dinner, and received a request for tacos. No problem - I can do that! I will use whole grain tortillas (though I'll bring the "regular" kind too), I'll skip the cheese, and I'll go heavy on the veggies. I'll bring fresh lime juice to garnish mine, even as others pile on the cheese and sour cream.
I can do this. (And really, I'm telling myself that, not you, gentle reader.)
Today I woke up to weather that was nearly snowing; cold sleet was falling. Brrr. However, it seems to have stopped now, so I think it's time to get Shep some exercise. I will bundle up!
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