Radiohead kind of day.

 

 

Tags: music, radiohead

I am a rare bird.

Just sayin’.

Knowledge is power, so are root vegetables and recycling bins.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, learning, and talking with my husband and friends about the matter of taking in what is best for our bodies. What can we do to revert to back to giving them the nutritious things they need? How can we best shift society’s McDonald’s and Twinkies way of life and do what we can for ourselves?  In what ways can I eat foods which come from the ground, not manufacturing machine cookie cutters doused with artificial meat and corn syrup?

Watching Food, Inc. helped to change our way of thinking as well. I think it’s one of the best and most informative documentaries ever made.

I am turning over leaves and discovering healthy means of cooking.  It’s very empowering.

Over the last several months, I’ve taken processed food and products containing high fructose corn syrup out of my son’s diet. We push fresh fruits and vegetables.  He is an iron-willed six year old who is as picky about food as they possibly come. Changing his diet, thankfully, hasn’t been too difficult since his interest in food was pretty low to start with (age 3-5 were hard years of finding anything he’d eat, and usually it wasn’t the best foods).  Now, he’s discovering his love for pineapple and green beans.  I’ve given him no other options. My dinner philosophy no longer caters to his wants, but to the overall needs of our family as a whole. The needs of my son, husband, myself, and the child I’m growing inside of me.

Since finding out I was pregnant, I’ve cut out 85-90% of my caffeine intake and about 90% of my soda intake. No doubt, pregnancy was a very good reason for me to push forward in healthier choices.

I’m not perfect, though. I still fall for a Snickers bar or a diet coke from time to time.

We’ve started a garden in our backyard. Well, my husband has put the hard labor into it all on his own. I have been known to water, admire, and encourage. It has been an interesting and rewarding experience thus far, and we’re really only a quarter of the way to our  real, first –no matter how small, harvest. We have a kiwi plant, plum trees, basil & cilantro, potato plants, lettuce, radishes, onions, tomato plants,  strawberry plants, watermelon vines, corn that is just blowing our minds, a blueberry bush, a grape vine, squash, and peppers.

Real, from the ground, natural and fresh. The way food should present itself to us, the way it did in the old days.

This garden venture is also an important lesson in working for what’s good and natural for my son. He’s gotten to learn about the process and watch things grow and be proud along with us. He knows how compost works and the nurturing growing things need.

Not to sound like a hippie, but it’s actually quite beautiful, the changes that have abound in my backyard and at my dinner table.

We’ve also taken up recycling. Another cool thing to introduce my kids to, and to show effort we’re making in our household alone. We are down to taking out a full trash can trash bag about 2-3 times in seven days.  We are recycling plastic (wrappers, bottles, etc.), cardboard (so much cardboard!!), and tossing out our fresh compost into the garden/compost pile. I’ve never been more amazed at how much material I was tossing into the garbage can, that could’ve been recycled. We take our recycling to the center every Thursday and have filled it up all over again by the following Tuesday or so.

I am by no means a perfect eater, recycling activist, or a gardening pro, but I am doing what I can do for now. I can only hope to improve over the next several years and be the most aware I can be about the choices involving food and natural living.

Tags: eating, Food, garden, health, Inc., recycling, vegetables

Playing in the rain

I watched my son run circles around our garden this afternoon in the rain. Each time he made a circle around it, the rain would either slow down,  speed up, or stop. We playfully wondered if  his running the circle around the garden was an on/off switch for   rain.  He tried and tried again to alter it, laughing, running with batting eyes, screeching to us on the porch about what he was “making” happen.

At one point when the rain started to fall harder, I said “it’s raining really hard now, come back on the porch with us!”, To which my hubby responded, “Hun, how often did you get to play in the rain?”
He was right. I let it go. Because, why the hell not? A little water on the clothes and slosh on the shoes aren’t a horrible price to pay in all honesty.

It was the best fifteen minutes of my day.

I hope that Drake will be able to recall that and I can share with him that it was special for me as well.

Tags: children, Drake, enjoy the moment, fun, garden, let it go, playing, rain, running

Thoughts on Contentment.

I realize these things when I’m in my kitchen, listening to Pandora radio.  I’ve just contrived a new stuffed bell pepper recipe (my latest thing, stuffed peppers).  I’m listening to Johnny and June Carter Cash sing “Jackson” as I spoon a delicious mixture of Spanish goodness into my giant bell peppers.  I notice I’m bobbing my head  and bouncing my knees, old country style, to the tune.

Wow. Contentment. This is a pretty nifty life right here.

The song ends and a Sting song begins.  Sting and The Eagles always take me back to being thirteen years old, babysitter for one of the best families I’d ever met.  They were a thirty-something couple with a set of boy/girl twins and a girl two years younger.  Sitting for these people were some of the best times of my teen years, bringing me a sense of comfort.  They were huge fans of both The Eagles and Sting. They were the epitome of modern with a hippie edge, intelligent, funny, and attractive.  Good parents, great children. After the kids went to bed, they didn’t mind if I played some of their  CD’s on the stereo. I did, every time.  I remember their dim living room and Don Henley’s voice, so soothing.
They moved to Pennsylvania some years later, and to this day I wish I could reconnect. I’ve tried without success.

Anyway, humming along to Sting I realized, “Hey– I’m the cool thirty-something parents I used to adore.”  It made me smile.

With time comes so much growth, more than I can put into words.

Some of the moments that currently fuel me are the feeling I get when my six-year-old reads a 31-page book to me — My second son kicking around inside of me as soon as I sit still. Or the way my husband makes me laugh, amazes me with his mind, and encourages my health and little passions every day.

Then I ponder the process in which my views and feelings, perspective on life, dark struggles, my triumphs and hopes have somehow melded together  into something so strangely almost-perfect.

Is my life perfect? Nah. Perfect doesn’t exist. Perfect would contain  no bobbles and bitterness. It would rob from me the authenticity of this experience. The talks with the people I love, the people I learn from. No bumps would take away the sweet appreciation of good that I possess. Or the scary-real, exhilarating feeling of  “it’s all gonna be alright”.
And it all is.

Tags: babysitting, contentment, cooking, good, Johnny Cash, memories, Sting, The Eagles, thirteen

just a little something..

recall the scene

these life scenes go by in steps
in slides created by passions
and curiosity
I can extract one down
slide it off of my brain shelf
thumb through those desires, the daydream, the choice
it feels written in reverse
and I push forward
smiles infused with  laughter you can nearly taste
a poisonous drink, a pill just impeccable
your face viewing my own- a gaze
it is a stone sculpture etched upon my cortex
this girl and her old soul
such stories and people she lost who became dust
your absorption and nods
I can retrieve another slide
the same cover of  skin in an alternate time
dark  moments which became softer ones
the shelf never empties
the pages are still crisp, slowly wearing as they are recalled
thrilling and dangerous
pure and delicate
scenes sliding across the screen

Tags: creative, memories, poetry