From "precious" to "previous," and triggers to epiphany

If you're local and would like something of mine, knowing my tastes, contact me! I'll bet there's something I'd love to give you that you'd love to have.
Ah, dear Homer--raining and snowing at the same time! 

We've been spared so much of that this winter, but I think being forced to drive in deep, wet, heavy snow on slick pavement with high winds and lots of airborne slush has been great trip preparation, as well as good memory-building of quintessential Homer.

On Sunday night, I realized the time had come whereat I could either let things slide along and have a very very dramatic last forty-eight hours in Homer next week, or I could make some lists and schedule time and plot slots, and make a calm, self-assured exit. I'm pleased to say I made the latter decision--I didn't get out of bed on Monday morning until I'd made a few pages of lists. Boxes are being taped, packages consolidated, emptied, passed on, used up. There have been some lovely serendipities as I've sought new homes for things that have been precious to me (and now, through an easy typo, are previous to me) :)
If you're local and would like something of mine, knowing my tastes, contact me! I'll bet there's something I'd love to give you that you'd love to have.

An unexpected abundance: two minutes after taking this photo, I'd found another half dozen paperclips and two more rubber bands. I never have enough clips and bands--until now!

This darling garden will have to come down soon. Since I'll be driving through Canada to get to the ferry I don't think I'll be able to carry dirt, but I'm thinking of sprouting clover in a mesh bag.

 Did I even talk about my birthday in my previous blog post? That post was maybe a bit too abstract, wasn't it? ;)
My birthday, plus the need to consolidate all kinds of ingredients, was my opportunity to play with this, which is danger zone for me...

 ...and to re-verify that this is a far far far superior alternative for me.

Five photos, five triggers. In the last couple days, I've been having some massive epiphanies around my relationship with food.
The need to drive in challenging conditions, the need to pack up and clean house, the practice of making treats for others, for myself, and seeing whether/what the differences between these are, have been tremendously instrumental in these realizations, and I'm feeling so grateful for the learning opportunity.

Do you want to hear more? It's an opening up I'm considering for my writing. Big changes are happening, and simply the fact that I can verbalize any of it is exciting to me.
Big love--local folks please hit me up soon if you'd like something of mine; anyone anywhere, if you'd like a postcard from the road please send me your address and I'll send you one!

In the Ears of the Hearer, In the Eyes of the Beholder; Five Paradoxes of Self Development; One Intention

Why do I see an elephant in the desert?

Work has been a little slow, although I have a lot of rusty German to brush up with a new translation project just revving into gear. Meanwhile, I've been swimming in an ocean of teleseminars/webinars/summits/start-the-year guidance. I've finished my critical paper for my MFA, and am revising the thesis and contemplating what it will mean to have that qualification. It's always been about the process, not the product; but part of being and becoming a writer is, of course, producing a body of work.
Which is why I'm writing a second blog post this week--I've been intending to go back up to two or three posts per week instead of one for some time now, and it's time to put my fingers where my intentions are.
According to one of the wise teachers I listened to this past week, an African proverb says

While you are praying, move your feet.

Set the intention, open your heart, believe in yourself, give your subconscious the experience that your desired outcome is already in existence, pray, ask the angels for help, pay attention to your dreams...

and act.

It's my belief that we see and hear what we believe in, and also that we see and hear exactly what we need to see and hear in order to shift our beliefs. (Otherwise, why would we see elephants in the desert?) If that's a paradox, here are four more from the wisdom I've been absorbing:

1.  Say "yes" to what the universe offers you   OR   You must know when to say "no" to what's offered
2. Talk about your intentions and recruit other people to broadcast them to the universe   OR   Don't talk about the intentions; don't give naysayers the chance to pull you back
3. Set many intentions for the year  OR  Set one or two intentions every month   OR  Set one or two intentions on your birthday   OR  Don't set intentions at all
4. Only you know what is true for you; tune in and listen to your inner voice   OR   If your best thinking isn't getting you where you wish, get some good help/hire a coach

I'm in transition right now. Coming to the end of my time in Alaska, but not yet knowing where to next, or when. Nearly finished with my MFA, with no six-figure book contract or tenure-track position in sight nor solicited. 

I'm also the smallest I've been in close to ten years, less than when I went away in 2012. I feel better than I did then, though, so I'm still musing over whether it's truly an issue in my current transition.

One intention I do want to put out there, though, is that I intend to produce more than I consume.

It isn't my plan to accomplish that merely through minimal food consumption! 

My intention is--more beauty, more joy, more sharing, more dreams, more giving, more receiving, more learning but more teaching too, more excellence, more love, more blog posts--MORE!

So there's a bonus paradox for you.

Watch out for another post soon in which I'll share some commonalities in all the different wisdom I've been absorbing. Oh, and check out the Future of Nutrition Conference, starting Monday January 27, in which I expect a plethora of paradoxes, since nutrition thinkers from all sides of the spectrum are going to be giving of their best--55 of them!

Love and Light in ears and eyes.

How To Increase Calories (Part 1)

Deep breath...I'm looking for your help on this one, too. Some people say "Write about what you know." Some say, "Write to discover what you don't know." On the emotional and spiritual level, I write in order to discover. But on the knowledge/information level, it's difficult for me to write about something in which I really lack expertise, like how to increase caloric intake. Here are some preliminary thoughts, with a call for your advice, and I will follow up, no doubt.

A big medjool date can be three times as many calories as a small deglet

When it comes to dates, I prefer to save medjools for recipes and smaller, drier, less sweet dates like deglet noor, halawi, zahidi, abada, for eating straight. A small deglet date can be less than 20 calories; a big fat medjool can be close to 70! But swapping out my deglet snacks for medjools is not necessarily the answer to increasing calories. As I showed in my avocado pie rework (I hope), sometimes the things you remove to reduce the calories are things you would do well not to put back in! With the dates, medjools are more intensely sweet than other dates as well as being bigger. They have more fructose, when a higher sucrose ratio is a better thing. And I find that if I eat a lot of medjools "straight up," they can hurt my teeth, which is never a problem with the less sweet dates.


I'm not willing to increase by throwing in a bunch of empty calories. I'm even inclined to count staples of mine like nettles, spirulina, chlorella, as worth double the amount of calories they actually measure, because they're so very nutrient dense.

Here are some other examples of how not to do it, and some alternatives that might be better

I'm a sucker for goodies that are marked down, like this "22 days" bar.

I'd never buy it at the full price, but a buck and a half? Sure thing. True, they then tend to sit in my pantry uneaten for months. And look at the nutrition information (below)! Those four fifths of the bar (yes, I did eat one fifth--bad budgeting of calories) pictured above each represents more than 46 calories!

A fifth of the bar, 46 calories. Look how small the pieces are! The whole bar is not very big, and most people would eat the whole thing, I guess. The first ingredient in there is almond butter; the second is agave nectar. I never eat agave nectar, so in some ways I almost can't believe I bought it. Mark-down-induced blindness, I guess. 
Having almond butter and agave in addition to the traditional almonds and dates seems to me to be totally unnecessary fat-and-sugar-loading. Yes, those four remaining fifths of the bar, reasonable portions in my mind, have sat around in the pantry for weeks.


But when these mint-choc Jocalats were marked down to less than a dollar a few days ago, I still bought a couple. (What was I thinking? Oh yes, chocolate-mint is a siren song.)

Nutrition info is a bit better than for the 22 Days bar--a quarter of this bar (which is slightly smaller) would be close to 50 calories. This one is more of an honest-to-goodness almond-date bar without the additional almond butter/agave. But I can't imagine opening it anytime soon.

Instead, I've dug into the freezer and been eating these lovely carob-raisin balls I made almost a year ago. I make myself good stuff--why don't I eat it, then? I guess I gave up snacking. A hard habit to resume at the moment.

I have to guesstimate the calories in these, because I didn't calculate them when I made them all those months ago. (I should also reconstruct what I did and post it here.) But these are basically just raisins and carob powder, with a little shredded coconut on the outside--plenty sugary from the raisins, for sure, but much less fatty with the carob.


Another bad idea purchased because it was marked down:

Oh my goodness. 90 calories in a half cup??? And most of that is sugar. I would never have more than an eighth-cup at a time. Also, even more caffeine when I'm supposed to be getting off of it.

That said, liquid calories are one very smart way to increase calories, as they're often easier to digest and easier to consume. I've been buying unsweetened nut milk, 25-45 calories per cup depending on the variety, and having 1/3 to 1/2-cup servings in smoothies, making up the difference with water. Now, there's no way I'm going to buy the "sweetened" regular nut milks--per the principle at the beginning, why would I want to add in empty calories? On the other hand, if I had a whole cup of unsweetened nut milk rather than watering it down, that wouldn't kill me, and might be a very painless way to increase!


Or, why don't I make my own, like I used to, and then I'd have the pulp for making goodies?

The truth is, I've always had trouble with homemade nut milk, because I've never known how to calculate the nutrition value. How much of the nut nutrition is in the milk and how much is in the pulp? I can't count the pulp as zero calorie, and it's not fair to count the milk as representing all the calories and nutrition either! If anyone has the answer for that, I'd be enormously grateful. 
The other truth is, I've been too busy generally, and although I'm sure I could work nut-milk-making into my schedule, I haven't done so, and if I shop sales (as I do), the unsweetened, calorie-declared, store-bought milks are often cheaper than making my own! 


As the schedule starts to get less overloaded (I turn in final grades tonight), if I can find out how to calculate the nutrition in nut milks, I might add that back in as a way to increase calories that is also a self-nurturing use of time. There's more and more talk of making me go away for treatment; meanwhile, I'm convinced I'll turn this train around as the schedule calms down. 


Keep your fingers crossed for me, and hit me with all your advice! 

Sunday's on the Phone to Friday and Nettle-Fig "Instant" Bars

I bought Phil new binoculars and several bird-feeders for his birthday back in November. We've been enjoying the visitors: a recent favorite is this plucky little woodpecker.

He doesn't let the bully-boy magpies chase him off!

So, what happened to my regular Friday post? Well, I guess this is it! Nonlinear time strikes again, and both Friday and Saturday managed to pass in the recently typical 18-hour-workday-haze. I want to address that current situation today, and I also want to share a recipe--another "instant energy bar" recipe.

On Friday, at least, I "busted loose" for a hike with Phil. It wasn't a huge long hike, but it was enough for me to reconnect with the ocean and the outside, and to remind myself of how essential that is, even if I was wearing four pairs of pants and even more layers on my top half against the cold, and two hats. It had been so long since I'd even taken a short walk. This pic is from the end of the hike, by which time we were well warmed up, with unzipped jackets.

But there wasn't time to make a blog post and take a hike! When there wasn't time for either one yesterday (because we were having dinner with our beloved friends), I had a moment of truth. I realized I'd done almost no creative writing or reading in the past week. I realized I've been working 12-19 hour days, seven days a week, for the past two months. I realized that although I'm learning a lot through teaching this course, and hopefully teaching some students Linguistics too, that's not my main goal in life--becoming a better writer is. Similarly, although I love editing, the editing deadlines last week ate up even more of my time. Similarly, the extra course I'm taking these next two weeks, which is a training in the rubrics for teaching online courses, is great as an enhancement to my teaching abilities and sense, but is not in line with my main goals. Similarly, I don't have time to have a conversation with my husband.

The fear clawed at my heart and chills ran down my back--what if I don't put the most into my MFA--what if I "coast," like I always did academically, when my heart is so totally in the MFA--wouldn't that be a criminal waste?

Then, several hours of today that I didn't have to spare have been spent talking with Phil, who is feeling the loss of me to my work, and feeling the same concern that the bulk of my time is going into something that's not my passion. All is not quite in balance here. Tomorrow's "50 First Weeks" renewal should address that yesterday, and here I am.

And here's the recipe!
This one is similar to my "instant apricot power bars." Another wonderful dried fruit is figs--so rich in calcium, soluble fiber, and other benefits. When I lived in CA, I almost never ate dried figs because we had seasons of fresh figs, which are quite something else and really almost divine. Up here, though...well, I paid about $5 for a small basket of fresh figs last summer, perfectly ripe. It was money well spent.

My one problem with traditional fruit-nut bars is that they don't always have enough minerals (and possibly protein) to give a sense of satiation, so that I can eat one (or half of one) and be done. So, in addition to the mineral rich figs and hempseeds, I added some dried nettles to this bar! You can't even taste them, but they definitely help with the satiation factor, even though I made them much smaller than traditional lara bars.

"Instant" Nettle-Fig Power Bars
1/2 cup dried nettles
1 cup dried figs, chopped (I used black mission, but calimyrna are delightful too)
1/2 cup hemp seeds
1/4 cup flax seed meal
4 dried apricots (chopped)

Whiz the nettles in a food processor until they're powdery. Add the figs, hemp seeds, flax meal, and process until the mixture starts to form a ball. You may need to add the apricots to facilitate this, depending on how dry your figs are (mine were quite dry, and I needed the apricots).

Roll into small logs--I got about a dozen.
Again, these are not super-sweet, but there's a real "heartiness" to them, and they are delicious.
Enjoy.

Big Mr Moose was back again--Phil's been busy putting up more fencing, and felt brave enough to chase Mr Moose off from the other side of the fence. His trick? See the wheelbarrow next to him? He raised it above his head to make himself look very tall, which stopped the moose in his tracks. Then, he banged it down on the ground--and as you can see, the moose decided he'd rather be somewhere quieter!

I'm sharing this post and recipe here: http://wholenewmom.com/traditional-tuesday/allergy-free-wednesday/