Toast

All I can think about is toast. My eating has been very bad lately. Very emotional. I am of the school that if you want it you should eat it. But eating and eating and eating is not the intended outcome of this school of thought, and that is where my lovely eating compulsion has taken me as of late.

As a note to my future self, whom I'm sure will get out of this funk:

The quinoa-pumpkin muffins I made a few weeks ago were awesome. Pumpkin was a great way to revive the quinoa muffin. I sweetened the batter with pureed apricots (pureed with the water so as not to break the blender). Next time I plan to halve the amount of apricot, and instead add cinnamon and nutmeg and clove and walnuts, to make it more like pumpkin bread. I'm dying to put raisins and shredded carrot in too, but neither of these ingredients is on quinoa day. I might try a dried fruit other than apricots. I'll have to see what is available at the co-op. Figs or dates maybe? Just NOT prunes. Previous attempts to use prunes in my baking were completely gross.

Toast. (Homer-inspired-drooling)

La-la land

I used to be really worried and stressed all the time about everything. It was bad for me, but it really made time management natural and easy. The last couple of years, I've been learning to relax. This was a very healthy move, but I haven't yet learned how to manage time while relaxed. I'm late everywhere, I pay bills late, I'm always rushing to get my food prepared, I don't have time to read or exercise.

I've always had a childish dislike of activities being timed. Like tests especially, I figure if I know it, I know it, and it doesn't really matter how long it takes to pull it out of my brain. And it's always really bugged me on Project Runway how little time they get to plan their design and pick out fabric. I've always thought that things would turn out better if they had more time.

The challenge on the episode last night was to design an outfit for a recent college graduate. Each designer had a young woman and her mother as the "clients." They had 30 minutes to pick out fabric and it suddenly clicked that things are timed because in grown-up land, you can't afford to spend three hours picking out fabric. Your client is paying you to get the job done, and you have lots of other jobs to get done, and there are only so many hours in a day.

So I'm having a new appreciation of the ability to do something quickly and efficiently. It's finally just hit home that time is limited and working efficiently could go a long way to making life more enjoyable. I love watching my hands make rice (one activity I do efficiently.) It goes so smoothly. There are no mistakes or re-do's. It's smooth, thought out and practiced. Compare that to grocery shopping. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about this or that dish, or maybe someday being able to eat such and such food. Or making the smallest decisions like what kind of peanut butter to buy. Thinking over my routine tasks, I think many of them could be made more efficient, and more enjoyable in the process.

Yes, sometimes it's nice to just go off into la-la land and really take a lot of time on something. I just don't need to do that all the time. It makes it hard to have time to do the things I want to do. And actually makes me worry sometimes that it's an escape for me, a way to avoid life's problems.

I fully believe in having unstructured time in which to let my brain ferment and relax and daydream. But I think I can improve my life by being purposeful with this unstructured time. Do it while relaxing near a window. Or doing something creative that I enjoy. At the very least, NOT in the peanut butter aisle.

Things I like

I like it when my sister gives me stuff that used to be hers that she doesn't want anymore. Everytime I use it I get a warm fuzzy. It has my sister in its history, and when she was done with it, she thought of me and thought I would like it. On a even more practical note, the item has been test driven which means I end up using it a lot. Nothing pokey or itchy in the clothes she gives me.

I like vinegre as a cleaning product. Vinegre is single handedly making me the type of person that cleans everything. Which is very good for my environmental allergies. And my very real belief in feng shui. A clean house is obviously good, but vinegre goes above and beyond clean on the feng shui front. It's simple, inexpensive, multi-use and safe for the environment and my person. I can store it anywhere. I like it. As a belonging, it has a big fat gold star.

I like yoga. I am stuck indoors right now due to my allergies. The weather is beautiful and it's that kind of summer that makes all the winter cold okay. But I've had a sore throat from the pollen that hurts so bad I can't sleep at night. I had this problem last summer too. It was stupid to not start getting allergy shots right away. I didn't start until 3 weeks ago. But anyways, I'm stuck inside and I'm really grateful to know more than enough yoga to stay in shape and not go crazy.

Bell Peppers II

The peppers were local, but not organic.

I care more about local than organic. Maybe this makes me a bad environmentalist. An organic vegetable from California sits in a truck for 2-3 days being driven to my grocery store. A local vegetable gets sprayed with pesticide and fungicide, and grows in soil enriched with chemical fertilizers. But then it takes a 2-3 hour drive to my grocery store. Now that I see it in black & white, it seems like the problems with each are of equivalent weight, both for my own health and the environment's health. So I care more about local than organic, but just by a little bit. What tips it towards local is how much better the food tastes. And those extra three days I can leave it in the fridge before it wilts. And supporting the farmer who is trying to help the environment by selling to a local grocery store.

I get in a zone at the grocery store. If it is plump and fresh looking, I buy it. I spent 20 seconds staring at the bucket full of peppers wondering why nobody was buying them. And then bought 8 of them. And feeling weirdly guilty ever since. Or maybe not guilty, but defensive. Or annoyed. Or confused. Ok, I think I'm back to not caring now. Whew.

It's not really a soapbox I want to stand on. I'm definitely okay with giving my customer testimonial, for local, organic, and local-AND-organic. But I will emphasize flavor and convenience right along with health and the environment.

Bell Peppers I

I bought bell peppers at the co-op that are just mind boggling. The brightest and deepest colors I've ever seen in a pepper, and heavy for their weight. That means instead of a thin layer of pepper holding in a lot of air, you have lots and lots of sweet crispy pepper flesh and just enough space on the inside for the seeds.

The Joy of Cooking tells you to buy squash that are heavy for their weight. I tried it and was completely sold. The thicker layer of squash on the inside means you can scoop out big spoons of squash and then scrape the skin, whereas when you buy a squash that is light for its weight, it's all scraping. More work, less squash.

And for these peppers, there is also more pepper for the same amount of slicing. But there is also the novelty and intense pleasure of biting into such an enormously thick slice of pepper.

And it isn't just thick - it's fresh. Because it's local. I'm totally hooked on local. My super simple food preparation methods, necessitated by my food issues, are not a hindrance to me when cooking with very fresh food. It seasons itself. And when I do season it, I need just a pinch.

Red bell peppers taste like strawberries when they're really fresh. Well, they taste like strawberries would taste if the world ended, a time capsule was found, and a Strawberry Shortcake doll was used to re-create the flavor of a strawberry. None of the yucky tartness of a real strawberry.

Although, my bitterness that real strawberries do not taste like a Strawberry Shortcake doll smells, was recently reduced considerably. I got my hands on local strawberries. At first I was kind of pissed off because they were too tart for human consumption. But then I remembered the sugar bowl -- people who didn't grow up with my calorie-phobic parents do this funky thing where they dip fruit in sugar before they eat it. So I got my zylitol and started dunking. Homer-Simpson-inspired-drooling. Much, much more similar to the doll than ordinary strawberries. Though a fresh red bell pepper is still a closer match.

The Uber Fit

We need new words to describe fitness. The more I read about fitness, the more I know. Or rather, there is a lot of ignorance to be had, and after much reading, it is shocking to find out exactly how much ignorance I had. Shocking because my parents exercised with us when we were all little. On their own they ran and walked and did light weight training. With us they walked, biked, skated, swam, and played badminton, softball, ping pong and occasionally tennis. So I should be on the more knowledgeable side. There shouldn't be much of anything that shocking.

The shocking part has been to learn exactly how much work goes into looking like you're fit. Or rather, to look like the people described as fit on TV and in magazines. The conclusion I've drawn is that is 110% ridiculously horrifically ludicrous to describe those people as fit. Fit as an adjective should be attainable by everyone. Kind of like the words alive and breathing. If you're alive and breathing you can be fit. If your main focus in life is getting into the top 5% of human fitness, alwaysX10 focusing on what affect your training is having on your appearance? There should be a different name for their results. I should get to call my results fit. I can walk 5 miles and pick things up off the floor without any fear at all of hurting my back. I can dance for an hour and climb two flights of stairs and carry my own groceries. But I feel entirely prohibited from doing so. People like me are supposed to call ourselves “relatively in shape” and I just think it's bullshit.

Super fit. Uber fit. Obsessed. Compulsive. Really really fit. Really really really dedicated. Professionally fit (they can and invariably do make money off of it.) Professionally in shape. Having the appearance of a fitness model or a personal trainer or an action move actor. Shockingly fit.

Or even “fit in appearance.” Which would leave me and myself with “functionally fit.” Because a lot of the uber fit have pretty major injuries they have suffered, are suffering, or are perpetually recovering from. Not all, but a lot. They are certainly also functionally fit, but in the bigger picture, I should "fit" and they should get "uber fit."

Maybe now my heart will be free

I am still fine tuning what I want to write about here. But I think I'm finally back to my original idea, which was to share my daily crazy thoughts and experiences. The pressure to have a blog that is all on one topic is strong -- never overt, invisible really, but strong.

So here is the one thing today that made me laugh so suddenly I inhaled my own spit. In my gmail account which advertises to me based on words and phrased it finds it my e-mails, was this ad:

He Lying To You? - TakeBackYourHeart.com - Learn "Secret Reason" Why You're Attracted To Jerks & Players

Snort.