cultivating me

This idea has been marinating in my head for a long time now.  I’ve read a few books, seen a few shows and heard enough information to know that the meat industry (with it’s use of antibiotics, hormones and the pollution it causes, not to mention cruelty to animals)  was not healthy for me or the planet.  But I’ve mentioned before that there is a gap – a difference – between my knowing something and doing something.  For whatever reason, it seems to take me along time for me to act on something.

The last few months, I have been feeling really crappy – run down, sluggish, sick, runny nose, sore throat, a cough i couldn’t kick and just yucky in general.  I became determined to feel better and I knew in order to do so, I had to make some changes.  I started by simply eating breakfast every day.  Then added drinking plenty of water followed by taking a multivitamin every day.  I began exercising a few days each week thanks to the Wii Fit and a gym membership.  And I started eating more fresh fruits and vegetables.  I didn’t feel better over night but I after a few days, I did notice improvement.  I began sleeping better.  I had more energy.  I felt lighter.  I didn’t need a Diet Coke every few hours – I still wanted them but didn’t need them.  And I started losing some weight.

As I made each healthy choice, other healthy choices became easier to make.  Then, for one reason or another, I started to not want to eat meat and so I ate less.  But then I started noticing how I felt after I did eat meat and it wasn’t great.  The thing which put me over the edge was seeing a clip from Food Inc. on Oprah which showed dead, cleaned, plucked chickens on a conveyer belt.  It reminded me of little baby bodies and I knew right then, I could never eat  chicken again.  Chicken was the meat I served most often in the house .  I figured, if I was going to eliminate that, why not eliminate it all?  And so I have.

I’ve done my research, found vegetarian food blogs and recipes and picked up “The Kind Diet” (Alicia Silverstone) which contains information on why meat is not good for us but also information on foods that do provide protein and the other nutrients we need to stay healthy.

It’s only been 5 days and I’m feeling good.  I know it won’t always be easy.  My bestest best has been a vegetarian for years and I’ve seen how hard it is to find a vegetarian option at some places when we eat out.  Over the weekend, I went out to eat with visiting relatives.  We went to an old fashioned diner type of place.  The kind of place which has been in town for the last 50+ years.  The menu had about 100 choices on it and yet only 5 of them were vegetarian without having to make substitutions.  And only one of those interested me – a spinach salad with feta cheese and tomatoes.  I even asked if they had chick peas or kidney beans they could throw on the side but they did not.  The salad was good but it was a reminder that there will be times when sticking to a meat free diet will be hard or at least limited.

But, I’m making this choice because I think it will be easier or more convenient.  In fact I know one reason I’ve waited so long to make this choice is because it just seemed easier to eat meat.  But for me, my health is now most important over what is convenient.

Please know, I am not here to preach to anyone.  This is just about what I think is best for me.  Everyone needs to make that choice for themselves.  If you want to join me, I’d love the company…

~cultivating me

Last summer I purchased dwarf citrus trees – lemon, lime, grapefruit and kumquat.  We already have a very large orange tree in our yard which we love and use on a regular basis.  Having citrus trees in my yard reminds me of the house where I grew up. We had orange, lemon and grapefruit trees in our yard.  They were big and provided more fruit than our family could eat.  I’ve missed those trees over the years and am very happy to finally have some my own.  The kumquat tree is mostly for my youngest son.  He loves the fruit and will eat handfuls at a time and is willing to share.  My daughter loves grapefruit as much as I do but we find them too expensive at the grocery.  Now, we get them for free!  (Although, my poor tree only grew one grapefruit this first growing season.  It’s almost ripe.  We’ll have to split it.)  The lemon and lime trees I purchased with my oldest son in mind. He’s a big fan of lemon and limeade.  Our lime tree did not produce any fruit this growing season.  I think it had a hard time with being replanted and did not particularly like it’s first location on next to the driveway.  We’ve since moved it to another spot in the back yard – next to the lemon tree which grew enough fruit to make up for the rest.

I’ve had lots of fun looking up and lemon based recipes trying to learn what I can do with the lemons beyond making lemonade? It’s cold this time of year and lemonade is not the first thing we want to drink on a rainy day.  We’d much rather wrap our hands around a large mug of peppermint hot cocoa.

So I spent some time digging around and rounded up a few likely suspects:

I found this fabulous recipe for lemon curd which I mustneedtohaveto use to make these cupcakes or tweak to make these mini Lemon Meringue Pies.

I also made myself a lemon sugar body scrub.

Oh, and I found this super yummy recipe for Lemon Pound Cakes from Joy (she’s fabulous! go see for yourself).

And for a more savory twist, I found this Baked Lemon Pasta that just needs to be made!

But what else?  What other lovely creations can I use lemons for?  PleasePleasePlease Feel free to leave a comment or link – I’ve got twenty or so lemons still on the tree begging to be used. and I cannot imagine how many the next growing season will bring!

At $10 – $15 a pop, I cannot afford to splurge on a container of scented sugar body scrub but I can afford to make my own!

Instructions found here.

A couple of months back, I read “The Five Love Languages” (How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate).  My relationship with my husband was a bit rocky and had been for a few weeks.  We weren’t (and are not) in jeopardy of divorce but we seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty communicating with one another.  It became very clear to me that I had a very bad attitude about the situation and needed to get a new one.  I read this book hoping to get some help changing my perspective.  It worked.

This book didn’t cause overnight improvement in our relationship or immediately solve all of our challenges but what it did do was remind me that loving someone is a choice. Relationships take work – especially when you get past he giddy intoxication of falling in love and into the reality of everyday life with someone who is different from you in so many ways.  We’ve all heard that haven’t we?  Relationships take work.  But I didn’t really understand, until I read this book, what that work might look like.  I love my husband,  I am in love with my husband but I realized I was taking for granted the fact he always knew this, or perhaps he always felt that this was true.  Does he feel loved when I’m cranky and don’t want to talk about even every day things? Does he feel loved when I’m feeling hurt and pull away from him physically and emotionally?  Does he feel loved when I lose my patience over something he or the kids have done and talk to him in an angry manner?  I could list so many other ways I act which are not helpful when trying to work through an issue and it makes me realize how I can and should improve as a partner to this man I do love so very much.

The book suggests that love, the work of love, is waking up everyday and consciously making the choice to show appreciation, and kindness for the person I’ve chosen to spend my life with – to consciously search out ways to bring happiness to his daily life and then do them.  I think it’s brilliant and I do believe it helped give me a more positive attitude.  Everyday is a new day – a day I want to continue to share with my sweetheart and I am trying very hard to express that to him.

I’m not perfect and I won’t ever be but I do know that making a daily choice to show love to my husband has been really helpful when working on our relationship – and it has really helped give me a much better attitude.

I love you Jerry – lots and lots and lots!

this is my new daily mantra.

it’s what i tell myself each morning when my alarm goes off at 6am.

… as i sometimes struggle through an afternoon of trying to explain fractions to my 10 year old.

… as i jog a mile on the treadmill or struggle to complete one last rep on a machine at the gym.

… as i see the weight on the scale drop another 1/2 pound.

… when i get so frustrated, i don’t want to be around anyone.

… when i’m struggling to keep up with just the reading for my courses but yet have paper to write.

… when i come home tired and ready for bed after studying to find a sink full of dirty dishes to wash.

… at the end of a long week as a plan for the next

… when i think i can’t

just call me the little engine that could

After about a year of contemplating blogging in general, if I still wanted to do it and if so, what exactly do I want my focus to be and if there should be a focus at all…..I finally moved into these fancy new digs.  Like with any other move in my life,  moving in was fun but then I started noticing leaks here, holes there and the home improvement list continued to grow.  I am quite proud to say that I’ve completed most of the tasks myself.  It has certainly been a learning experience – easier and more difficult than I imagined any of it would be.  I am proud of it though and proud  I was able to tweak code, upgrade, and install plug-ins/extensions all by my little self.

Once I dusted off the shelves and figured out what went where, I finally got around to unpacking boxes.  It was a very interesting experience.  Apparently, I’ve been blogging since April of 2007.  That’s almost 3 years! I had no idea.  I probably made importing my old posts more difficult than it needed to be because I have created new categories and decided to begin tagging my posts.  My brother is obsessive about tagging posts, photos, music….. I think a bit of it finally rubbed off on me.  In order to properly place old posts into new categories and add tags, I had to read them.  Let me tell you, I was not quite prepared for what I read.

I laughed at how random I was at times.  I smiled when I read things I had written about my kids.  I felt loved when I read what I had written about my husband and my family.  I was sad to read a time in my life when I was clearly in a funk and depressed. And I was ashamed to read posts stating I was finally going to take care of myself and develop healthy habits because let’s face it, I have not done those things.  Want proof?  I read a post talking about losing weight in which I stated my weight….it was 30 pounds less than I weigh today! Talk about lack of follow through…

Those old posts have certainly given me some food for thought. Admittedly, I had concerns and reservations about importing my old posts to my new site but in the end I am glad I did.  Good, bad, ugly, funny, embarrassing and heartfelt – those posts are all a part of me and I was not willing to let them go.

~cultivating me

I’ve imported posts from my old site and created a bit of  mess in the process.  Clearly this is something I should have thought about before launching this one but I’m learning as I go around here.  In the next few days, I’ll clean up my categories and sort out the posts but in the meantime you can have fun laughing at my randomness

Six Flags Magic Mountain to be exact and I spent Saturday there with Jerry, our 3 kids, my brother his girlfriend and her 2 kids.  It was a great day.  I’m not really sure what I liked most about the day because there were a great many things to like.

First of all, I got to spend the day with my brother who lives in Michigan.  He and I don’t have the best or closet of relationships and I am not exaggerating when I say the 8 hours we spent walking around the park yesterday was the most time we’ve spent together in the past years – and I don’t mean in one day I mean as in all the time we’ve spent together combined.  I normally see Mike once or twice a year.  Even though he comes into town for a few days over the holidays, I normally only see him at the table for a holiday meal.  A couple of hours tops and that’s it.  I’m not proud of it or happy about it and not quite sure how to improve on it but I am trying.  And Saturday was one of the ways I think both of us were trying.  He and I didn’t talk a whole lot while there but we spent the day together with our special someones and the kids which allowed us share an experience and stock up a few memories together.

Second, I loved spending a day like that with my family.  We are all so busy and the kids are off every other weekend with my ex so our ‘family time’ is limited so time spent all together like that is priceless to me.  If it had just been the five of us, we would have had fun but adding my brother and his girlfriend along with her kids to the mix made it so much more fun.  Her kids are close in age to my oldest two and it was great to see them get along.  It was even more heartwarming to see all four older kids continually include our youngest.  He’s 3 years younger than the youngest of them and yet they all offered to ride rides with him, not go on rides he’s not quite tall enough for yet, and include him in conversations.  I was extremely impressed.

There are other things I could go on and on about in terms of what I liked about that day.  But I’ll end with this – my most favorite ride of the day.  My most favorite ride anywhere for that matter – I loved it so much, I rode it twice!

I know it might seem silly to love a ride as simple as a carousel in a park with filled with thrill rides but that’s just the kind of girl I am.  I did woman up and ride a roller coaster or two.  I even rode X2 which I am not sure I am fully capable of talking about it yet.  I was perhaps the most scared I have ever been in my whole life and I have absolutely no plans to relive that experience ever again.  Ever.

I read this book with my youngest son.  Actually we read it together – one chapter a night, taking turns reading out loud.  As a family we have become so very busy.  I have gotten caught up in staying on schedule and planning ahead that I have let opportunities to spend extra time with the kids slip past me.  I have tried hard to change this lately and taking a few minutes each night to read with my son is one way I’ve found time to spend with him.  It has reminded me that taking time to give my kids some quality time and attention is not as hard as it seems.  Those few minutes reading with my son have become one of my favorite parts of the day.

You can read my thoughts on this book on my main site

This wreath isn’t perfect but I loved making it.  It took me just over an hour and was super easy to do.  You can see more pictures and get directions here