Throw Down Your Truth

I haven't updated since Sunday night; not a whole lot has been going on.  But a few things have happened:

Monday & Tuesday

We put some of our starter plants into the garden, eight tomatoes (we saved two to put in pots on the patio), six peppers, and two eggplants. We are so incredibly late on getting any seeds into the ground, but it's always worth planting radish and beets, I think, so we'll do that some night this week.

Tuesday Slid into Wednesday

We went to pilates last night (Tuesday) and I was really tired after. We worked our little legs off!  We came home via the pharmacy and the co-op. We didn't get much at the co-op, but we did need some bread and such.

Late Tuesday night, I had a little bit of a freak out over what I think are side-effects from my otherwise demonstrably ineffective blood pressure medication. (Poor Dave. I woke him up in the middle of the night to talk me down from a panic attack, and then he got up early to take me to the doctor's office. Then he had to go to work.) I've got some symptoms that the doctor I saw at the urgent care center today thinks are unrelated, but I'm not convinced. I mean, you don't just out of the blue develop the symptoms I have. Anyway, I've got an appointment to see my new, as-of-yet-unmet primary care physician--in JULY. So, we'll see. In the meantime, I'm going to stop taking the medication and I'll try not to drop dead. So that should be fun.

I went back to the pharmacy--yay--and then came home and did a bit of yardwork. I thought I'd try to get a nap in, but the postman knocked on the door to deliver a package. Saba didn't like that at all, but she went out to the door with me to see who it was. She's like a little dog that can't bark. She does growl, though, as does Gray Kitty. But he's a scaredy cat and runs away when people come to the door.

Today--Wednesday--is the third week anniversary of my diet. I don't weigh myself on Wednesday, but I do get a weekly reward for sticking to my diet. (I mean, mostly sticking to my diet, because there was BBQ and Chinese food this past weekend, but I did get right back on the program as soon as that was over--and I'm blaming it on PMS, as you do.) Anyway, I'm thinking of getting a small food processor (like a 3-cup sized one) as a reward. I've always been a hands on kind of cook, eschewing most small appliances, but now I'm thinking that I'd like to have one. They range in price from $13 to $40, so I'm doing a little comparison shopping on Amazon right now.

Wednesday Evening

After pilates on Wednesday evening (yes, we went Tuesday and Wednesday!), we came home via the co-op. We hadn't planned anything for dinner, so we came up with a bean soup idea on the fly. At the co-op, we picked up an extra can of black beans, a single jalapeno, a lime, and some watermelon (which I just realized we never ate). We also picked up some probiotics. Little pills filled with bacteria are expensive!

At home, Dave went out to feed the wormies while I started on dinner.

The bean soup I made ended up being: one onion, chopped up and sauteed in olive oil with three large cloves of garlic, a big spoonful of ketchup (which sounds odd, but I've been using it as a cooking ingredient in chili for awhile when I don't have any tomato paste), two cans of black beans, Better than Bouillon vegetable broth, oregano, cumin, red chile powder, and black pepper. After it simmered for a bit, I blended it with the stick blender (but left it a bit chunky).  We ate it topped with with toasted corn tortillas, plain yogurt, and chopped tomatoes, avocado, and jalapeno. It was quite tasty. (I had some of the leftovers this morning for breakfast on top of a baked sweet potato with some plain yogurt.)

After dinner, I was really exhausted. I was practically falling asleep at the dinner table, so even though it was only about 8:30, I changed into my pajamas and got into bed. David practiced his clarinet for awhile though it didn't keep me awake. I fell asleep listening to an episode of Bob's Burgers.

Wednesday Slid Into Thursday

Of course I got up again at 2:30. I took my pill and had a big glass of water. (I've been trying to drink a lot more water recently. My goal is 32 ounces per meal, so 96 ounces per day at least.) Just before breakfast, I had my weekly weigh in. (Despite its being that time of the month (which always adds a pound or four) and my weekend run of over-the-top restaurant cheat meals, I was still down one and a half pounds for the week.) I made a cup of coffee and my breakfast and ate a bit before 4:00 a.m.

Lately while I've been having breakfast, I've been journaling and reading my daily affirmation. This morning I wrote a bit about dreams, not the sleeping kind, but the waking kind. I need a new one. I've also been drawing or sketching a bit as part of my journaling. Yesterday, I was reading the website of an artist I like very much, Elsa Mora. She was answering a question from one of her readers about how to get unstuck when you think your creativity has dried up. Her advice was to pick the thing that worried you the most and draw it. I tried that and came up with a new sculpture idea.

After that I was still tired, so I went back to bed.

Lots of Good Things On the Internet

I found a list of fourteen things ("every single thing I know") that Anne Lamott wrote on the eve of her 61st birthday. Here's an excerpt:

1. All truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It has been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it is filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.

...

5. Chocolate with 70% cacao is not actually a food. It's best use is as bait in snake traps.

...

10. Grace: Spiritual WD-40. Water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Dick Cheney and me exactly as much as He or She loves your grandchild. Go figure. The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, "Help!" and then buckle up. Grace won't look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, but the phone will ring, the mail will come, and then against all odds, you will get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness, even if you are sick of me saying it.

And then this morning the internet wasn't working, so I was listening to some music on iTunes. One of my favorite songs that I forget all the time is one of my favorite songs is The Next Voice You Hear by Jackson Browne:

Gather your deeds and your possessions,
Whatever certainty you know,
Forget your heroes,
You don't really need those last few lessons.
Stand in the open.
The next voice you hear will be your own.
...
Throw down your truth and check your weapon.
Don't look to see if you're alone.
Just stand your ground,
Don't turn around whatever happens.
Don't ask directions.
The next voice you hear will be your own.