Breakfast Muffins

I made these breakfast muffins using almond flour, and berries as a sweetener. They are delicious! Also have in them: salt, baking powder, banana, pumpkin, olive oil, 4 eggs, chopped pecans & blueberries (I used frozen). And pumpkin pie spice and extra cinnamon. I am cutting out some wheat, dairy (except eggs, which r not really dairy...) & sugar to lessen my inflammation & reduce pain. (From the Abascal Way Cookbook).

New Blog

I am venturing to update and revamp my blog. I want to focus on gardening, cooking and art. More to come...

Summer 2014 Garden Updates

Well it is September and the garden,while still producing, is winding down and looking rather tired. We have had a great bounty this summer of tomatoes, green beans, yellow squash, magda zucchini, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, basil, and several nice winter squash–acorn, butternut, delicata and sweet dumpling. It's been a manageable harvest throughout the summer, giving us just what we can eat, or can, and a little to give away to friends.

I have one eggplant out there that survived and flowered, but no fruit. Wouldn't it be funny if an eggplant started to grow now, at the end of summer? Maybe I could protect it from the cold and actually harvest a fall eggplant?

I am thinking of putting in some onions over the fall winter period. Will have to look this up to see just when is the best time to plant onions.

More later, with photos...

The Wallflowers

Well, it's been a while. I was just thinking about how we see ourselves in the world. It has come to me that I have seen myself as the wallflower for as long as I can remember. Somehow on the outside, hoping to fit in. Hoping to be asked to be included.

And when I have been included, it feels priveledged.

I struggle to understand this. I do not spend lots of time thinking about this. But in the darker times, in the gray areas, in the more introspective moments that come from an emotional blow, or a heart ache, or a dark moment, I think and know that this is where I see myself in my core.

Perhaps all humans are like this, in their core. We seek connection. To look someone in the eye and feel as if you are heard. To really listen to someone. To take the time. To care.

So in our world of technology which we all embrace so eagerly, willingly or skeptically, or fearfully...but most of us do come around. We lose ourselves, but gain a fake connectedness that brings us thrills, for a time. But the connection that we really long for is still ellusive.

I am the wallflower. I always have been and probably always will be. I wonder if we are all wallflowers. If we are all waiting at the side of the dance floor, for a connection. Looking for that connection that was once there, but left, with no explanation. And of the times we left someone standing alone, across the room, without even thinking that the wallflower was there, feeling things we could not be aware of, and going on with our own lives, unknowing. The wallflowers among us; the wallflowers that we are...so the thing to is to reach out, when in doubt. When in doubt, reach out.

Monday

Monday is not my favorite day of the week; but now that it is almost over, I look forward to Tuesday, which is usually not as drab as Monday.

So...the search for the missing brothers in my life is sort of at a stand-still right now. I have not found out any more information at this point. But I have had some time to think about my half-brother Michael, and how much it means to me to have found him online and the recording of his life story. I have to admit I have been fantasizing about contacting him. But I won't.

I have come to realize that I am rather protective of my somewhat lonely life, and I know that sounds strange. What I mean is that when you grow up as an only child, with a sort of limited connection to your own parents, and just snippets of friendships along the way, you come to realize that there are only a few people in your life who really take the time to get to know you. Even long-time friends, over the years, develop perceptions of you that are stuck in a sort of time warp, and unless they really know you, really get down deep and try to understand you, and care enough to really listen, they will be caught in that old time warp, and they will start missing the real person that you are constantly becoming. Really, we keep the people that we know in a state of unchanging, perhaps because it's convenient; and perhaps because it's all we can do for the moment. I'm sure I do it myself.

It reminds me of Amba talking about the files we have on people. It's her idea about how we have files on people we know; scripts about them that sum them up. Things we have decided in our minds about they way the are and the way we expect them to be. Files. These files can be bad, negative things. They are expectations. Of course, people don't always behave in the same way. We are, each of us, ever changing. Even when we seem like we are doing the same old things, we are still in the process of changing in some way.

More on this later...I hope for tomorrow, which will be Tuesday, that it will be a good day.

Spring is Here

It has been a nice couple of weeks. I have been busy with some satisfying projects lately. I say satisfying because I have done some good work, made a little bit of money, helped out a worthy group, learned some things along the way, and have kept myself just on the edge enough to get that residual energy that comes back around like a boomarang. I created a logo for a local community group and it was well received. I have been working with Sarah's choir group, donating my time creating print materials for their upcoming concert. It has been a great collaboration with their board and artistic team; they are really a wonderful group to work with.

I have found some ways to help my mom out, too. While she was quite on the edge for awhile there, I have made sure that she can get by financially, get the help that she needs, and is safe, in a nurturing environment, and seems to be pretty much happy. She is much more engaged in her community than she used to be, and is quite healthy for a 92-year-old. I try to spend as much time with her as I can, and help her out a couple of time per week. What she likes most is me spending time with her. I need to remember that.

So, life being the balancing act that it is, is good right now. I have love in my life, and health, and energy. I am discovering ways to create new energy, and ways to keep the energy flowing. My kids are getting out there and living their lives! I love them each so much.

Welcome Spring! I am so glad you're here.

Post from zenhabits

Create a Sacred Space in Your Heart

‘Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.’ ~Thich Nhat Hanh

By Leo Babauta

Yesterday I had tea with a Daoist tea monk who said for tea to change you, you have to create a sacred space in your heart for the tea.
Imagine that space for a moment. How does it feel? What can reside in that sacred space? How different is it from mechanically drinking tea, without paying attention to it?
Now think about the difference between just drinking tea, as if you were drinking anything and not really paying attention … and drinking tea with that sacred space in your heart for that tea. It’s profoundly different, and it changes everything.
You can do that for anything, not just tea. Anything that’s important to you.
If you create a sacred space in your heart for something, it changes how you do it. It changes you, at the molecular level.
We crank through things these days — email, social networks, news, work tasks, calls, meetings, deadlines — and then the day is gone. This is a waste of a miracle, the day that we’ve been given.
Instead, create a sacred space for that which matters most:

• meditation, yoga, tea
• reading at bedtime with your child
• having tea with your spouse
• a daily walk
• writing
• your most important and creative work

Perhaps every moment should have a sacred space in our hearts, but we have to start somewhere. Pick something small but important, and create that space today.