Spring!

Another Easter arrived last weekend. We colored eggs, made spring foods and had our bouquets of pussy willows, Easter Lily and daffodils. I feel new energy and excitement, knowing the garden and potting shed will soon be humming again and the deck will replace the living room.

Ok--this "think yourself thin" business is working. I've lost 7 pounds. It has been mostly my mental shift that has allowed me to eat differently. I'm eating purposefully. I know the "superfoods" for health: deeply-colored fruits and vegetables, fish, turkey, beans, soy, oats, nuts, yogurt and tea. I keep those foods in the house. If I don't have them, I can't eat well. I find diet books and articles somewhat helpful and inspiring and I use them for recipe ideas, but I like exciting cookbooks better--the ones that contain small meals full of flavor. My breakfast today was 1 hard-boiled egg, half a slice of whole-grain bread, a chopped tomato and a small apple, cubed and rolled in a bit of walnut oil and ground walnuts. I actually couldn't finish the whole egg--it was all so satisfying. I'll have my daily smoothie later. It's usually made with some type of frozen fruit and skim milk. My favorite is frozen bananas, a spoon of Nutella and skim milk. However, a tropical fruit smoothie with cream of coconut added is pretty darn good!

My lunch will be "Tapas" style--small amounts of a variety of good foods that I have on hand. There is leftover pork that can be a small pork medallion with a bit of Asiago cheese over it, some baked sweet potato--I can glaze a couple chunks of that with some acacia honey and microwave it a couple minutes. On the side I think I'll add a marinated artichoke, a bit of sour-cream cucumber salad and a couple grape tomatoes drizzled with a bit of olive oil and fresh basil.

If I plan my meals with emphasis on small amounts and lots of flavor, I have the perfect combination. And I've already started running out to the herb garden this spring. The new chives are up, the parsley is producing its second-year crop and the thyme survived the winter well.

Birthday Reflections

Last week I had a birthday. I looked back at my goals of two years ago when I turned 60. I had said I would “dance” through my sixties. I wasn’t really sure what I meant. When I turned 60, I took a year off from work to clear my life of some clutter. I found my house and my mind were actually quite similar. Both were cluttered and tired and needed some revamping! During that year I organized, I gardened, I cleaned, I cooked, I walked, and I wrote. I started a cookbook, I visited my daughter in Baltimore, sailed, went to some great restaurants, strolled on an island beach--and I danced. I danced at the weddings of two of my children and I danced at home. I learned my greatest passions in life involve my senses. The fragrance of daffodils transports me to all the springs I have known and loved. Roses and honeysuckle are overwhelming in their fragrance and an armful of lilacs is almost more than I can stand. And there are lilies-of-the-valley, mock orange, . . . My family helped me plant a tiny lavender field so I will have plenty to scent the sheets on the linen shelves upstairs. I brush my hands over the lavender whenever I pass by.

My year off was filled with heady fragrance and culinary adventure. What is better than a kitchen stove with a ready pot, a counter of fresh vegetables, mushrooms, cheeses, and a bowl of straight-from-the-garden dill, parsley, rosemary and thyme with a good Wusthof knife and a cutting board? All of that is even more delightful if the blackberries are ripe and a pie crust has already been rolled out by best friends in the kitchen, with a dog or two waiting for a snack.
I discovered that I love clothes that feel good on my skin—soft cotton is my favorite. I like the feeling of earrings that are long enough that I can feel them dangling against my neck.

I rediscovered music. Sometimes I want beautiful, soft music so I can float along with it in my mind, sometimes I play music that is powerful, and sometimes I just play any music that makes me want to move. Dancing has become my exercise.

Over that year off, I learned what “dancing through my sixties” means to me. It means absorbing the fragrance, feeling the sun, the breeze, and the earrings, sharing the food, laughing at the humor, and treasuring the faces. It means responding with all my senses to any music I hear or want to hear, and eliminating all the clutter that makes me stumble.
In the movie, “Ratatouille,” the food critic says, “I don’t like food; I love it. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.”

"When The Sun Rises, Wake With A Song"

Well, Laura, there’s this “pie of the month” thing. . . and when you peel a healthy avocado for your salad, what do you do with the other half?? It turns brown if you don’t eat it. . . and then your husband gets interested in the pie thing and he makes one that sits in front of you on the counter all day. How can you just have one piece of that?! And can’t we all just eat a lot and then hibernate for the winter? What happened to that idea??
I did walk outside today and prune the grape vine while the wind buffeted me all around. That felt like some kind of exercise. I think I’m lighter now.

I looked to my wise list of advice from a dog for something inspiring. One says “take naps,” but that doesn’t help. The next one says, “stretch before rising.” OK. I will get up 20 minutes sooner and start the day with Yoga to some beautiful music—stretching myself thin. It’s time to bring out the inspiring Yoga for Chickens and bask in its wisdom. My routine, just for this week, will be, “Gizzard Stretch, shoulder shrug, hippie chick, drumstick stretch, cat-cow, and flying bug/crawling bug.” All will be done before the Sun even rises. I'll face the day--a better chick.

Hahaha. What would I do without your support, Karen?? And your humor! I'm hurrying to get my new socks finished so I can share them here. I'm making wool socks even though I can't really wear wool. In fact, I think I'll go ahead and share them, even though they aren't finished yet. It was tricky trying to start the yarn at the right place to make the design fall the same way in the second sock as it did in the first. I didn't get it quite right. I can see now why mismatched socks have become popular. It would have been easier to let the second sock form whatever pattern it wanted to rather than trying to start with the same color at exactly the right place! I need a sock knitting class. Maybe I can get my second one finished during our next session of "Golden Girls" and knitting!

I keep hearing weight loss advice everywhere. It seems that dieting has been shown to "never work." Now we are advised to lose weight by forgetting about diets. Instead we should just watch what we eat, avoid sugar, watch portion sizes, write down everything we eat, when we eat it, why we ate it and how we felt after we ate it. TV says "this is not a diet--follow our guide and menus. . ." HOW IS THIS NOT DIETING??? Books say, "Think yourself thin!"

OK. There must be some sense in there somewhere. I'm going to lose weight by willing myself to do so with the power of positive thinking. I'll let you know how it goes. Seriously.

New Year

"Faith is believing that one of two things will happen, she said, that there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught to fly."

I don't know who wrote that. It's on a magnet that I bought in Ocracoke, NC, last summer. It gives me the courage to live life the way I choose--not that it's been very daring so far. Still, I like it--in case I do decide to take some kind of leap someday. And I did try Caviar over Christmas!

I can't believe I haven't written since June. Too much has happened since then to catch up on, but it's been an awesome 6 months. We've had a second wedding that was beautiful in the mountains of WV. And we have another one coming this summer on the Bay. Christmas was awesome and New Year's Eve was lots of fun. After Christmas we hit some sales and I have almost a whole new wardrobe to inspire me to do the New Year thing again and get vibrant and healthy. I'm excited about my coming projects for January. I'm knitting socks, trying new recipes and making a "pie a month" with a friend. And I'm planning a wedding with my daughter. I'll be sharing some of my favorite things here.

A Rainy Day

I have been busy renewing a long-neglected garden. Most plants are planted and seeds are sprouting. It has been a long time since I've had a spring that was free to spend in my garden and my potting shed. Yesterday I stopped at a little nursery I love and picked out just a couple more flowers to plant--white ones--nicotiana, penta and nierembergia. But I'll have to wait a couple days until the garden dries out a little. We had quite a bit of rain last night. The storm has left the garden looking like a bad party. On bright sunny days the golden coreopsis stands tall, swaying with the lightest breeze, attracting the rusty colored Fritillary. This morning its stems are laying every which way leaning into nearby feverfew and peony. As I approach to get a closer look a cloud of goldfinches takes to the air. I wonder why they were in the coreopsis. Can there be seeds there already for them? The fairy rose that normally arches gracefully with long branches of light pink blooms has become heavy and sodden—drooping over an area much bigger than its allotted space. I have to find a tall stake to prop up the clematis, “Polish Spirit” that is pulling over a trellis far too small for all its exuberant growth. It is thick with purple starry flowers. My son brought it home for me from a nursery where he held a summer job last year. It was tiny when he gave it to me in a black plastic pot. True to its name it now needs a sturdy support, which my husband promises to build for me in the west border very soon. The lady’s mantle is mud-splattered, a fading lily has lost its last petals and the borders generally look beaten down. But I know the earth has benefited from the deep soaking of the storm followed by a night of steady rain and the next sunny day will bring a burst of growth similar to a rain forest. I’ve seen it many times. I check on the striped green caterpillars of the black swallowtail. There were about ten of them on the rue, parsley and dill. There are fewer now and I wonder if some of them have fed birds that are always looking for morsels in the garden. I have read that a person can have many butterflies or many birds, but not both. At dusk two deer come out of the back woods to visit a salt block and nibble some nearby grass. They are pretty but I hope they don’t make their way up to the garden. As I get ready for bed I hear the distant call of a whippoorwill.

How Much Is That Doggie. . .

Yes, anonymous, I probably should have a little dog as a role model. One thing I could really use is the ability to live in the moment. I contemplate far too much. It’s mostly happy contemplation, but mind-consuming nevertheless. And, sometimes, it’s just a “mad,” that I decide to stay on. I’ve never seen a dog do that—except for the times when Kelly doesn’t get any of my ice cream because it’s chocolate so she turns her back to me and lays on the other side of the room. And I like to think a dog doesn’t worry—but Kelly gets funny when she thinks you’re getting ready to leave and she may not be going with you. And I swear she’s thinking too much, too, when she keeps staring at you trying to figure you out or trying to tell you something and we don’t know what she’s “thinking.” But she does know how to enjoy what comes her way and run joyfully, barefoot, through the grass with the wind in her ears . She definitely follows Rule #1, "When loved ones come home, always run to greet them," and Rule #16, "When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently." I guess the idea of a dog as a role model and a friend is still a good one, but maybe Kelly is a little bit “human.” And if I had a dog, I’d probably be expecting it to be like Kelly and it would just be a little dog. Hmm . . . another thing for me to think about.