Good Mornings and their Source

I'm a morning person. That doesn't mean I always jump out of bed with bright eyes ready to conquer the day. That just means that when I have had enough sleep, I can get out of bed and make a cup of coffee. The next thing I do is always going to be done well. The problem is, by 10am, that prime is over and self-discipline has to (but doesn't always) kick in.

My Epiphany

I’m having an epiphany. 

Everything I’m struggling with in my relationship has very little to do with my relationship and most everything to do with my internal conflicts. 

I’ve been reading a book called Women Food and God,  a work intended to deliver emotional eaters from their compulsions. Binge eater or not, the author Geneen Roth challenges the readers to delve into their feelings when hit with the “inclination to bolt." We desire to escape ourselves, to flee from our emotions, fears and insecurities by running to the nearest source of solace whether it is chocolate, pizza, TV or web browsing. For me, looking up recipes and new things to be learned about food preparation and making healthier choices is my way of escaping what I don’t want to deal with. 

But now that I am three quarters of the way through the book, I have learned about the practice of inquiry. When the inclination to bolt hit one night, I asked myself questions. I asked myself what I’m feeling, where in my body, what its color is, what shape and texture it is.

I’m unsettled.

I have a swarm of vibrating thoughts like little red, orange and yellow dots vibrating together in a tightly packed school. Each dot is trying to get across the board like in a game of Chinese Checkers. But the dots just keep bumping into more dots and no one can get anywhere. What do I do? Do I calm down?  I take a deep belly breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. I am calm. The dots have stopped vibrating so maybe they can get somewhere. No. They just move slower and hit one another more softly. 

I have the false notion that marriage will settle me. That if all of a sudden everything I own is under the same roof with my intended spouse that I will suddenly feel settled and that I can see a thought through to its intended resting place. That somehow I will have fewer conflicting intentions. Or that I won’t have to pack all my feelings up so densely! 

I also am hanging my self-worth on whether or not I’m marriage material. That if someone doesn’t desire to marry me tomorrow that my youth with expire. I’m already scared of hitting the 25 year mark in my life in about a month but even more terrifying is trying to settle with the likelihood of not walking down the aisle until I am 26! Twenty-six!? Twenty –six is when adulthood is undeniable. Twenty-six means no more fun. It means responsibility, off-white walls, taxes, and no more youthfulness.  The pretty girls don’t get married at 26, they get married at 22 or 23. They are young, beautiful, they have vivaciousness in their eyes.  I wanted to be a young blushing bride. I wanted a flawless face and wide eyes to be revealed at the removal of the veil. I didn’t want to uncover the beginning of wrinkles in the outer corners of eyes that have seen harsh realities. I didn’t want the salt of commitment placed on the lips that have spent more time frowning!  How can a lady be a blushing bride at age 40?

I want to be a princess. A princess has youthfulness to be snatched by a handsome dashing man before she starts turn older. If I am not wanted as a bride at age 24 then I’ll never be wanted because my feminine charms only descend with age.  

You’re reading this right now, shouting “That’s not true!” It’s not. But it’s what I believe. I’ve seen the beautiful young girls in the ministry get married young and the reason is because they are virtuous and feminine and perfect. The women who have gotten married later in life are not perfect. They’ve struggled with their weight, their career, their emotions. I remember a woman in my fellowship when I was  around the age of 12 who always seemed to be crying. I thought why is she crying? What is it that constantly sets her off? Her and her husband-to-be were so in love. This woman was dying to make her nest; to settle down in a home with her love and raise children. I see it now. I see why she was so teary eyed during the least expected times. She desperately wanted to be married but circumstances stood in her way. 

Who is to be blamed for me believing this lie that if I don’t get married now when I’m under 25 that I will never have my beauty and feminine virtues to offer anyone? May I blame Walt Disney? The countless movies and love stories I’ve seen of beautiful maidens whose waist is tiny enough for their prince to wrap just his hands around. Their eyes, pools of crystal blue or green looking up at their prince in wonder. Their strands of hair delicately resting on their thin necks. This ideal of beauty played out in front of me as far as my earliest recollection! I watched a beautiful yet unique girl fall in love with a man, overcome one big challenge at the climax of the film and, all within two hours or less, they are at their wedding sealing the deal on unending love and happiness. 

Sure, I hit my feminist phase once I was in my teens. I didn’t want to be a wounded bird who needs saving.  I never dreamed of the day I could be a stay at home mom and bake bread for my family. That might have been when I changed my mind about wanting the fairy tale but it was too late to erase what I learned at my most impressionable age.  

Who else can I blame for the way I’m feeling? Mike who got my hopes up, made me feel like the princess I always wanted to be, and then abandoned me without warning? Marshall who threw scriptures at my problems and retreated at any sign of emotion? My mother whose negative self-talk weaseled its way into the depths of my heart and now I can’t believe anything other than I’m a horrible human being who needs fixing, a makeover and outside approval to make a move?  

It’s too late for the blame game.  If I’m to think about the issues I have with a clear head, I need to deal with what life throws at me responsibly. How can I deal with it if I’m treating the symptom and not the disease? 

I think I’m in the middle of breaking through something and I will finally be free soon. But before that, I just can’t make any honest evaluations of my relationship.

Granola Topped Banana

Since my yogurt turned into cheese (and I am not complaining about that--the cheese is AMAZING!) I don't have any venue for my home made granola. It's just sitting in the cupboard. Also sitting around are somebananas I bought a week ago. Now remember: brown spots=ripe=sweet!

Hmmm...

I wondered what it would be like if I ate some of this granola over a mashed banana. So I peeled it and put it into a bowl, mashing it with the tines of my fork. Then I poured a scoop of granola over the banana mash. I bet you're wondering how it tastes too. UH-MAZ-ING!!

I'm on my 2nd one for breakfast. Yogurt is the farthest thing from my mind right now!


My Recipe for Homemade Granola
6 cups of steel cut/old fashioned oats
Seasonings to taste (I sprinkled generous amounts of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice)
1/4 cup of extra virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup (or more) of honey
1/4 cup of slivered almonds
1/4 cup of raisins
3 tbsp whole flaxseeds

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2) Place oats in a high sided pan such as a roasting pan. Don't use a cookie sheet or you'll lose your granola.
3) Sprinkle spices over oats. Toss with a wooden spoon to distribute.
4) Meanwhile, heat coconut oil and honey in a small butter warmer until both are melted and combined. Pour oil/honey mixture over oats in a thin stream. Toss to coat.
5) Place pan in oven for 10 minutes, keeping a close eye on the oats.
6) Remove from oven and mix the oats around. You might find the ones nearer to the edge of the pan toasting faster.
7) If needed, place back in the oven to toast until the oats are golden-light-brown.
8) Remove from oven. Add nuts, raisins and flaxseeds.Toss and let cool for 30+ minutes. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. 

Yogurt! Errr... cheese.

I have been making slow cooker yogurt with my boyfriend for a few months. I procured very detailed instructions from this blog. Earlier this week, we started a batch and I went home before the process had ended so I could rest my exhausted self.

Now. In short, you heat some milk to 180 then cool it to exactly 110 or 111. Then you're supposed to add your starter culture.

Well.

Our thermometer beeps when it it reaches whatever temp we set it to but it does not alarm for falling temperature. My dear got a little distracted and ended up adding the starter at 106 degrees. So upon my arrival in the morning, there was nothing more than warm milk in the crock pot. Sigh...no yogurt for breakfast today.

We've rescued uncultured milk before so we heated it back up last night. We noticed how the whey was separating from the white mass and had a GREEN tint (he was a little disturbed by this). When the probe read 112 we wrapped the stoneware in a towel to sit overnight and see what would happen.

In the morning as I was pouring off the whey, I discovered a round blob of ricotta cheese! I strained the mass through a sieve and plopped it into a bowl to refrigerate after taking a taste. Quite good!

Now I have to figure out what I'm making with it for dinner tonight.

Also on my list of things to do is get a camera so I can capture these moments and call myself a "real" blogger.

Peace.

Stir Fry...I'm doing it wrong!

So...I attempted making stir fry. It did not turn out terribly but one would think that such a common dish would not be hard to perfect. Ughbughlandulphi...

Last night I came home and felt not-hungry enough to survive a quick grocery run. So I made it through the abbreviated trip and returned to the abode to start the stir fry. I already had made some brown rice the other day so all I had to worry about was the pork, vegetables and sauce.

Usually I make stir fry like so:

• Brown my meat in the wok but don't cook all the way through.
• Take meat out of pan, place on plate.
• Add vegetables and sauce ingredients to pan. Cook until sauce is almost as thick as I want it.
• Add meat back to pan to finish cooking (without overcooking-- I HATE overcooked meat) while sauce reduces.

PROBLEM! I'm a terrible judge of when I think something is almost done. I'm going for a nice thick sauce here so when I think I'm on my way, I add the meat back in but the sauce still takes another 10-30 minutes to reduce!! By that time my veggies are mushy and my pork is terribly dry. Or I just get frustrated and eat it before my sauce has properly thickened but my vegetables are the crip-tender texture I want! Somehow though...the meat is always over cooked.

SOLUTION...or so I thought. Last night I decided my sauce was going to thicken independently of my veggies and pork. I put my broth, vinegar, seasonings and corstarch in my highly conductive Royal Prestige butter warmer pan with a spout. Turned the heat to HIGH so I could get the little sucker boiling right away and started heating my paella pan (it's not really a wok but who cares) while my wonderful boyfriend sliced our pork chop.

"OH NO IT'S GOING TO BOIL OVER, TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF!"  Did I mention my butter warmer is highly conductive? It's times like these I really miss cooking with a gas stove. The heat retention on these electric burners makes it so difficult for me to judge how much is too much or not enough to get these sauces to reduce. Therefore, I'm blaming the electric stove for my failure--at least partially.

Phew! I caught my sauce before it boiled over and didn't have to move it off the burner. I moved onto the rest of my preparation, vegetable julienning and such. Then I catch a glimpse of my sauce. It's not moving in any fashion. Oh joy. I did forget to turn the burner back up to medium once the threatening boil calmed. It's just sitting there. It is not simmering therefore it is not reducing. You can't just increase the heat to get a still liquid to simmer so I brough it back up to a boil.

Guess what? The process repeated itself.

I had it at a semi decent simmer (maybe) and added my veggies and pork back into the paella pan. I cooked them to a satisfactory texture and removed them from the heat of the burner.

My Sauce. Is not. Thick. Enough. Yet. Waiting. For This. Cornstarch. To do. Its JOB!

I give up. I'm hungry. Let's eat. What did we eat? Overcooked veggies and overcooked pork over brown rice covered in a sauce that was way too thin.

Any advice for me?

One idea I had was to pre-make a big batch of my own sauce, allowing it to reduce as long as it needs and then bottling it to save in the fridge and pour over my completed dish.

I don't just wanna buy bottled preservative and sugar/corn syrup-loaded stir fry sauce at the store. The goals here are:

1. Healthy
2. Frugal
3. Delicious

But I guess if it really came down to it and I have to blow 5 hard earned dollars for a pint of organic sugarless delicious Wegmans Asian Classics...healthy and delicious would be the factors that would Tip the Scale.

Getting Back to "Normal"

As you could say. Normal is relative. Normal isn't always good and it isn't always bad. Normal is just...what you're used to. And since I took 10 to ingest nothing but liquids, there really isn't a normal for me right now.

I'm not going back to eating the way I used to, that's for dang sure. I think I've done a pretty good job at proving so the last couple of days. Yesterday at work, the managers had a meeting at Noon so since they couldn't go out to lunch, they had it brought in. Guess what it was? PIZZA!

Oh, and salad. Gotta have something remotely healthy right? Not so much. Yes this salad is tasty-- the antipasto salad from Paladinos. It has all the bells and whistles; olives, salami, pepperonicinis, a delectable Italian dressing all over... ... ... iceberg lettuce. BARF! If it makes you feel virtuous to nosh on tasteless, nutritionless leaves covered with fatty toppings, be my guest. I'll admit, that is one circumstance in which I will eat iceberg lettuce-- what can I say? I'm a wanna be Italian!

Pizza wouldn't be so terrible if it was baked on a whole wheat crust and made with cheese that was a little more pungent so you could us less and topped with vegetables to take the glycemic index down. But alas, even though some of these pies had veggies on them, the cheese was probably dripping with oil and the crust, I betcha, white as a paper towel.

They put the leftovers in the fridge in the kitchen. When my 2pm snack attack hit me, I had such a hard time!! When I went in the fridge to get something I got a whiff freshly baked dough and garlic! How much more fragrance does one need to survive? I wanted a piece. I wanted one so bad!

I had plans to have friends over for drinks and dessert that night. I had my heart set on making Key Lime Pie from our left over limes from the cleanse. There was no way I could have pizza today and still feel good about myself that night while I noshed on pie, chips and dip whilst the wine and drinks kept flowing. I restrained. I was SO PROUD of myself!

Then this morning I went to a benefit event for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. There was coffee, donuts, popcorn, cotton candy and food galore! I wasn't hungry so I didn't eat anything. Well isn't that principle number one? If I was hungry, there were some apples and little things of yogurt. I find that healthy options are usually available but just in smaller quantities. And you have to look real close.

So all of the little dancers are helping themselves to donuts and cotton candy and collecting free ice cream coupons from Burger King and I say...well...good for them. They're young. Their metabolisms are racing. They should enjoy. I just had no desire for sugar whatsoever. It was free but who wants free fat and disease? Not I. Not anymore. It's a lot easier to resist eating free junk food when I just got off of 10 days of eating nothing!

During the cleanse I thought "I can't have that  food or I will not get the benefits I'm looking forward to." The benefits of the cleanse were immediate. Nothing has changed since I went off the cleanse--I can't have that junk food or I will not get the benefits I'm looking forward to! The only difference is that these benefits are long term.

Last night, yes, I indulged a little. Ok, a little more than a little. Two margaritas, a glass of wine, a slice of pie, a chocolate chip cookie and countless dippings of chips in salsa or the bacon ranch yumminess Deb brought over (AND THEN LEFT HERE, THE SNEAK!).

But I know today is my day to compensate. I'm going to the gym later on and then having taco salad for dinner with Amber. I'll bring my pie so it can be disposed of.

Oh but I had honey nut cheerios with whole milk for breakfast :/ When options are limited, you do what you have to. At least they're whole grain.

Ease Out Day 3

According the THE BOOK, Day 3 is the last day for a guided food plan. I was supposed to have had fresh OJ for breakfast. Veggie soup for lunch and quinoa, salad and steamed veggies for dinner. Whatever.
I woke up starving so instead of toughing out the time it would take me cook some eggs (I was out of oranges) I took the last few sips of my protein drink from yesterday. Then about 15 minutes later I had one slice of 100% whole wheat toast with Schmucker's natural peanut butter on top.
I got to work and I was TIRED. I'm unsure whether I should credit this to my short night of sleep (at least 6 hours I think) or the lack of nutrition. Or perhaps my body is mad at me because I still had more toxins to flush out and I needed to stay on the cleanse longer. I'm not going back into it. I'm sorry but I like cooking. I like eating. I love to have fellowship over food and drinks with friends. I'll do it again just not now.
How I felt was similar to how I feel when I wait too long in the morning before drinking coffee. I was tempted to have a cup all morning. I figure why should I do that to myself when I've gotten this far? Plus if what I have is caffeine withdrawal how come it's kicking in now after 12 days of not having any? I resisted.
At 11am I was going a little dizzy so I had a rye cracker. Delicious but so loud! That held me over till noon when I heated up last night vegetable soup and had that with 2 rye crackers onto which I spread a thin layer of plain cream cheese. Yes, dairy is not in the plan for today but I'm DYING I need sustenance. I'm sure I'll be fine. I haven't thrown up yet.
It's 3:42 and I'm starting to get a "need to eat" headache. I think I'm justified in having a nibble.

Okay, so that didn't go as well as planned! Yikes! All of a sudden I had this gassy pain and I ended up in the bathroom for about 10 minutes, uh, eliminating quite a lot of what looked like orange pulp. It just kept coming out! I couldn't believe my body would hold onto so much!

It didn't end there either. I went to Garrison's and felt a little more pain that sent me to the toilet for another 10 minutes. Ok I know most people go to the bathroom for this amount of time to, well, do their business. But I don't. I'm quick. In and out, no sitting or waiting, reading or pushing for me. It's the least appealing thing I could do. I would much rather wait until I absolutely HAVE to go and then make my way to the throne. But anyhow, I felt sick. I was in there for a while and what I smelled was very similar to what I smelled during the cleanse: lemon and cayenne pepper. Could my body have held onto that for this long? I'm so confused!

Since ending the cleanse and returning to food, I have been so much more tired. Especially after eating a meal, even a light one. We had a salad with chicken, olives, blue cheese and lots of vegetables on top. I elected to use red wine vinegar as my dressing instead of Greek as Garrison used. Usually after eating such a salad, I feel sated and no longer hungry. But after finishing the salad last night, I felt FULL. Crawled into bed and stayed there until the alarm went off.