First Harvest

I'm growing heirloom and cherry tomatoes in addition to my big boy reds this year. Scrumptious.

Women

I'm reading a book called "The Women's Room" that was written by Marilyn French and published in 1977. It's essentially the story of the modern american feminist movement told from the perspective of every-day, run-of-the-mill, suburban american housewives. It's a fascinating look into a world that I, the same time, intimately recognize (I see it still in the lives of many women slightly older than me still, and sense that it still exists in a more covert way even today) and completely foreign (I have never experienced first hand the type of discrimination and lack of opportunity described in the story).

The more I read, the more my deep respect grows for women that came before me only 20 or 30 years, and pain-stakingly paved the way for me to have choice and opportunity in my own life. Rights and opportunities that I take for granted and forget to appreciate were certainly not so common only a few decades ago.

Home

Ryan has a very strong sense of "home" geographically in Orange County. It's hard for me to understand because I don't feel connected to any one place. I grew up in North Carolina, Washington state, and Utah, and now I live in California. I've lived in 16 different houses/apartments in my life (9 before graduating high school, 7 since), so I learned early-on not to become too attached to "places".

But I am visiting some friends in the Tri-Cities, WA area where I did actually live for 10 years (2 different cities) before high school and 1 year after. Being here made me realize that if there is any one "place" I feel the most at home at, it is definitely here.

Home will always be where my family is, but, for example, if my family moved away from Utah (where I graduated high school), I would probably never go back. California is exactly the same, I feel connected to the people but definitely not the place itself. If every one I know moved away from the Tri-Cities, though, I would still want to bring my kids here to see it someday because the place itself is special to me.

Here is what I love about the Tri-Cities:
1) The Columbia river. I've already been down there a couple of times and it's fun to see so many people out boating, fishing, playing frisbee, letting dogs swim, kayaking, listening to live bands, BBQing, etc.

2) It stays light until 10 pm in the summer. Fantastic. It gets light at 5 am in the summer. The days are so fabulously long.

3) Most people drive older non-luxury cars. There are a lot of old pick-ups around here, and I think old pick-ups are a sign that good people live in a town.

4) Most people do not wear any types of designer clothing. In fact, if you want to buy designer labels, you pretty much have to drive a long ways away to find them.

5) People drive slow. It makes me feel like life is not passing so quickly.

6) There is a lot of open space. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. There are a lot of soccer and football fields, parks, horse pastures, and just plain space. I really missed that in Utah and California.

7) A lot of the stores and parks and schools I grew up around are still here and still look the exact same.

8) Most people don't work until 7 or 8 and then spend an hour commuting home. In fact, I think most people here think that lifestyle is crazy and doesn't make any sense. No one I know here commutes longer than 20 minutes, either. Therefore, "rush hour" lasts no longer than 20 minutes.

Jeans

I sometimes buy clothes at stores without trying them on, if it is a store I shop at regularly and know my size. I really hate trying things on so I'd rather have to take something back every once in a while.

I did this at Target a couple of weeks ago and bought a pair of jean capris. Without realizing it, I later found out they were "mid-rise" instead of the "low-rise" I usually buy. I was disappointed because they are really cute. So, since I had gotten them on a good sale, I decided just to roll with it, meaning for the first time I can remember I'm wearing pants that come up almost to my belly button instead of just my hips.

Must look very dorky, you may be thinking. But, I have discovered through this shopping mistake that mid-rise pants are SO COMFORTABLE. SO SO comfortable. I'm not readjusting my shirt constantly. It's great. I highly recommend trying a pair.

What I'm Listening To Today....

I'm slow but I finally started using Pandora. I tell it what songs I like and it goes out and finds other music I will probably like as well.

Last week it found me The Greencards, a great country band out of Austin TX that I never hear on the radio but absolutely love. I got their 2007 CD but apparently they have a newer one that came out last April. The old one (Viridian) is great.

Ch'i, health and addictions....

I started seeing a more-holistic doctor about 10 months ago for three main problems that my regular physician was willing to treat only through prescription drugs (not something I was interested in). The first problem was despite getting enough sleep and considering myself a generally healthy person, I was constantly dragging and felt lethargic (I had no illness or anemia causing this.) The second was that I hadn't had a period (and therefore no regular female cycle....) for about 4 years. The third was that I am at risk for arthritis and already having some joint problems and want to prevent that problem as much as I can.

They introduced me to the idea of energy flow, which now fascinates me - I'd love to learn more about it. The basic idea is that our bodies are made of matter (what you can touch and see, and what Western medicine recognizes) and energy (can't be seen or touched, generally not treated by Western medicine methods). Matter and energy work together to make you and me alive.

This is really elementary and I'm probably not saying it right, but the idea behind acupuncture is that our bodies have 12 paths along which energy travels, called meridians, and each has a different "life function" associated with it. The meridians connect all parts of our body and are the paths by which positive and negative energy, and communication, flow.

Spiritually, I really connect with this idea. Thanks to the popularity of yoga and similar practices in the US, a lot of people are familiar with the word Ch'i (closely related to other words we throw around like yin and yang, even though I never really knew what those words meant before). Ch'i is the common energy that we share with each other, with the universe, and from a spiritual perspective, Ch'i is the energy that is God, i.e. Ch'i = God. It is energy that can't be created or destroyed (i.e. it is eternal), Ch'i is the energy that forms everything and holds it together (i.e. it is the Creator), and the force that not only gives, but actually is, life itself.

I really believe that our physical bodies and spiritual entities effect each other, so as I've learned about this it naturally makes sense to me.

So, the 12 meridians all work together, think of it like a circle (eternal). If 1 meridian is blocked and energy isn't flowing, it doesn't just block that one communication/energy pathway, it blocks the whole circle. So having a problem in one area of the body can potentially cause problems in other areas that, at first glance, may seem totally unrelated. Most of the connections my doctor has made about certain aspects of my health and the symptoms I have been experiencing would have never occurred to me, but the more studying I do on my own, the more it starts to make sense.

The three main things this doctor (actually it's a husband/wife team so I should pluralize it...) has done for me, treatments I guess I could say, are:

1) teaching me about better nutrition and some of the ways certain foods have a negative effect on my body, causing reactions and blocking energy flow;

2) regular acupuncture;

3) natural supplements for "matter" substances that my body needs but has become deficient in for one reason or another (I could write another big long post just about that...).

Expanding on #1, for the past 10 months I've been working hard to significantly reduce the amount of dairy and gluten I consume, as well as just eating a lot more whole, natural, organic foods. I used to eat dairy every day. Once I stopped and got it out of my body, I started realizing there are immediate negative side effects to eating dairy. Sour cream and ice cream are the worst, after nixing dairy I've indulged a couple times and had these and actually gotten sick. Other things just make me feel bloated and lethargic.

Ok, getting to the point of this: One of the things I've known I need to work on for 10 months is cutting back on caffeine. I decided to focus on the dairy and gluten first because I really didn't want to give up my caffeine. By the time I got the dairy and gluten thing down, it was Christmas, and I so love my hot (usually caffeinated) drinks in the winter, I couldn't bear the thought of giving it up. Then it was busy season. I have admitted this for the past two years, and will completely own up to this fact: From about February to May, I am physically dependent on caffeine. I'm not exaggerating, I'm too embarrassed to admit how much I consume during that time but let's just say there's been a few days where I've done the math and actually been scared about long term effects on my health.

I have at various times over the past 10 months tried to gradually "reduce" my intake to wean myself. But, I have one of those personalities that tends to be "all or nothing" and weaning myself from things doesn't really work. I always ended up back to my venti sized habit, downing more diet cokes during the day than I need to (and I don't even want to be drinking soda!) and sometimes on those 16 hour days, I'd find myself caffeinating at dinner time so I could stay at the office until 10 or 11 and keep busting work out.

Quick side note: I was raised not ever drinking caffeine, not even a coke, so I know it is possible to have plenty of energy without caffeine because I did it for about 22 years.

So last Sunday morning, I enjoyed one last Luxurious Smooth Rich Slightly-bitter Foamy Soothing Hot Tasty Cup (uh...large mug...) of Comfort and then called it quits.

I'm happy to say on day 6 of my journey, I woke up naturally at 7 am with no withdrawal symptoms (yes, I have been having them). I fell off the band-wagon on Wednesday and ordered a diet coke, and the withdrawal stuff I'd been going through subsided after the first glass...I got weak and let the server re-fill it two more times.... which made the withdrawal symptoms return full-force on Thursday. But today? No more aching head, no more "fuzzy" brain feeling, no more "I'm dying for caffeine" feeling.

I'm very proud of myself. Hello, my name is Elise, and I've been de-caffeinated for 36 hours. :-)

I know there are lots of de-caf versions of everything under the sun, which I may try during the winter when it's chilly in the morning. And I'm discovering there is a plethora of herbal, non-caffinated teas that are great right before bed.

I am not going to completely nix caffeine for the rest of my life, but I'm going to be very careful about only enjoying it occasionally and not "needing" it to function. Even during busy season. I intuitively know that natural energy will make me much happier and much healthier.

Redemption

I have redeemed myself and actually made yummy scones.

For sake of full disclosure, I will admit that the center was soggy and I had to throw it out, BUT, the majority of it was salvagable and I could even cut it into decent-looking triangles. Decent enough to eat one piece myself (taste-test) and deliver the rest to neighbors. My mistake was adding frozen berries that weren't thawed, so there was way too much moisture while they were baking. I should have cut down on the milk to make up for the frozen berries (the recipe calls for dried fruit, which I ignored).

I brushed the top (super-hot) part of the oven with my right hand while testing the done-ness with a toothpick, but never fear, I have such a permanent scar on the highest knuckle from doing this same thing so many times that I can hardly even feel it. :-)



3 cups flour (i used whole wheat)
1/2 cup sugar (raw unbleached organic is great....)
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter (not margarine!)
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk (i used vanilla almond milk instead of dairy)

Combine dry ingredients, cut in the butter, mix the eggs & milk together and then stir it all in. Reduce the milk a bit if you are going to add a cup of frozen berries. :-) I put mine in a circle on a stone baking sheet, lined the edges with a rim of tin foil, sprinkled raw sugar cane & almonds on the top, and baked for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

What I'm Listening To Today....

We went to a concert last night at a church in San Clemente last night and heard two local bands - one southern blues-inspired band called the Pawnshop Kings that I really liked, it was essentially two brothers and two guitars and the style was very much country, so it was right up my alley.

The second guy was named Phil Wickham. Ryan liked him better because he was incredible on the guitar. His music was good but I think he needs to switch to decaf - he had more energy than anyone I have ever met, including my mother-in-law, which is saying a lot. When he was talking in between songs I could hardly keep up with what he was saying.

Christmas Dinner :-)

We finally used the gift card we got for Christmas last year from Ryan's parents to go to the Savannah Chop House in Laguna Niguel last night. We were originally going to go to French 75, which is owned by the same company and therefore good with the same gift card, but Ryan looked at the menu and wasn't very interested. I've been to French 75 a couple of times and I have to say I actually liked the Savannah Chop House better. We really just wanted a quiet booth to have dinner and talk, which is exactly what we got. The chandelier above us was made from antlers and it felt like we were in Yellowstone.

We shared a grilled romaine salad with tomatos & toasted pumpkin seeds, and then Ryan had lobster and I had haliubut. The food was delicious and our server was great. It was a overall a very fun and tasty evening.

My Surfer

I saw this guy running toward me on the beach today in (only) a pair of boardshorts, surfboard in hand, light tan, and a couple of days of scruffy facial hair and thought to myself, "Wow. Is that really mine?"

*thanks to John for snapping this gorgeous shot

Check out the fun I had on the beach this weekend, too...

Drill Baby, Drill

Tar on the ocean floor and washed up on the beach = Disgusting




We had to use paint thinner to get the tar off our feet after playing in the ocean in Ventura.