Kael and Nana's Excellent Adventure

Kael came by for a visit yesterday. Something about Alisha and the grocery store, I dunno, all that mattered was that I got to spend time with my favorite five-year-old. First we had some music.



It's amazing how LOUD a toy plastic flute can be. And HIGH, in a piercing kind of way. I'm sure the neighborhood dogs suffered. As for me -- I never blinked. My method of grandchild watching is of the "never let 'em see you sweat" variety. Although he DOES know that Nana has bad knees. He was always wanting me to run with him and I had to nip THAT in the bud!

Then we watched some tv. Kael's current favorite is a Disney series called The Octonauts. It's made for preschoolers, so he is their target audience -- and I tell you this so that you will know that there is NOTHING scary or violent or anything else even borderline objectionable in these shows.

Kael is the most auditory child I've ever known. By this I mean that auditory stimuli affect him more than they do most people. If I am watching a scary movie on tv I might cover my eyes -- not Kael. He plugs his ears. If it's REALLY scary (like when the rat sneaks into the baby's room in Lady and the Tramp) he not only plugs his ears, he makes me turn the sound off. So here he is watching The Octonauts at a particularly scary (not) point in the show...



Next we decided to go outside and get some exercise. We took a trip down the sidewalk on the Kael Car (our name for it). There is a red line painted on the sidewalk down the block a piece that I designated "the finish line." I did this because Kael would want to go around the whole block (a mile) and halfway around he'd get tired of his car and I'd have to carry it all the way back home and try to keep up with him (the kid can run FOREVER -- he HAS to go out for track when he gets older).



It's slightly uphill all the way to the finish line. He moves along pretty quickly, though. Here he has just crossed the finish line and has turned around to go back home.



It's hard enough for me to keep up with him when he's going uphill. I don't even try when he's going down. He's REALLY good about not crossing the street without me, though. Yesterday we were waiting for a car to pass and he told me to "pretend you're a stone, Nana" (don't even MOVE when you see a car coming). Which I did.





Suddenly he abandoned the Kael Car and ran back to me, arms wide. Just for the joy of running, I think.



He got all the way back to me, threw his arms around me, looked up and said, "Oh, Nana! I missed you SO MUCH!" The kid could be an actor, I tell you. He is so dramatic.



We also decided to take the car for a drive to the beach. He always likes to drive. He has developed a love for the horn, however, so our driving days may be numbered.



Finally, we decided to play baseball. Or tennis. We're not sure. He's bound to be a great player in one of those sports, however.



Even better -- if the kid can keep hitting the ball to all fields (and I think he could be a switch hitter), he's got a future:



Even the best have off days, however. (Bruce, don't watch this video. Kael was using Bruce's racquet -- I can't tell them apart and thought I'd given him one of the junky ones. Oops!!!)



More later...

I Heart Kael

I did not take a picture of dinner and I didn't follow an exact recipe. It was awfully good, though. I water-sauteed a large sweet onion. Then I took a head of bok choy trimmed it, chopped it, and added pretty much the whole thing to the skillet. This particular head was pretty dirty, so I washed each leaf individually. It's like most any other leafy vegetable -- it looks like you're adding a ton, but it all cooks down pretty well. I bought a bag of grated carrots and added a couple handfuls and then a can of sliced water chestnuts and three or four chopped cloves of garlic.

For a sauce I took about 3/8 of a cup of peanut butter and maybe a quarter cup of honey. I sprinkled in about half a teaspoon of ginger (Publix disappointed me and did not have fresh ginger today!), about a quarter cup of rice vinegar, about 3/8 of a cup of soy sauce, and maybe a teaspoon of hot chili sauce.

I cooked a pound of whole wheat spaghetti and tossed it with the veggies and the sauce. Yum. Now, I'm not exactly sure about the amounts because I tasted it, added a bit more peanut butter, tasted it, added some more honey, etc.

Alisha brought Kael by and Alex came over after work and they had dinner with us. Alisha has been teaching Kael his alphabet and he's doing SO well. He knows a lot of letters, but four in particular...



74. How thankful am I for this kid? I'm still his "best friend Nana" and he worms his way into my heart more every day.

More later...

Back to Real Life

Before the arrival of The Troubles, I finished How It All Began by Penelope Lively. This was recommended to me by a friend, Barbarann Fernandez (we worked together at the Orlando Sentinel before Alex was born; she now lives in Washington state and is a Facebook friend), so this is a partial fulfillment of one of my 101 Goals (read ten books that are recommended by friends).

The book is delightful. When I started it, I thought it was going to be simply "chick lit," but it's quite well written and definitely stretches beyond that category. The book begins with the mugging of Charlotte Rainsford. This event sets in motion a series of completely unrelated events and the author carries us along through a number of story lines. This could be either confusing or too complicated, but in this book it's neither. Most of the characters are appealing (even though they are certainly flawed) and the book held my interest throughout. It was a light read, but not frothy (if you know what I mean).

After I finished I was trying to decide what to choose next and I was going through the books on my Kindle. One book was "represented" by an unlabeled gray square. I tapped it just to see what it was: Chosen by God by R. C. Sproul. This is one of those books that's been on my I-should-read-list for ages. So, not believing in coincidences, I plunged ahead. To my surprise, the book is VERY readable (I expected an academic slog). I'm absolutely enthralled. Sproul is tackling "free will" right now -- not exactly an easy issue, but he handles it amazingly well (there's a reason he's famous, apparently ;). So -- just delighted with this choice, so far. The topics he attacks are HUGE ones, difficult ones, complicated ones. To be able to sail through them like this (and I don't mean he shortchanges the reader -- he is simply blessed with the ability to translate difficult subjects into clear and understandable prose) is exhilarating. (How often is a book described like that???)

So, for now...

69. I'm grateful for light entertainment, especially the kind provided in a book like How It All Began. It is exactly what we need sometimes.

70. At other times we need meatier subjects and I'm very happy to have opened up Chosen by God. I expect to have an increased vocabulary for discussing some intricate and perplexing (but important!) topics.

I did not go to church this morning. Friday night I could not fall asleep; I finally conked out around 1:00. I awoke at 4:00 and knew that I would not go back to sleep, so I packed my stuff and headed home from Florida. It was a treat to get here so early (I arrived around 1:00 and that included a stop at the Barnes & Noble in Dothan, Alabama). Alex was here, using our flat driveway as a place to change the oil in his car. He came inside and we had a very nice visit -- I don't talk with him too often these days, as you might imagine. Bruce is blessed to work with Alex and they have lunch together a few times a week, so I am the parent who suffers from Alex withdrawal. He knew, too, that I was hurting and Alex has a way of making me feel better that no one else can match, not even Bruce (Bruce is good, though, too). So...

71. Grateful for time spent with Alex. He is a good man, a good son, and I love him.

Anyway, back to skipping church. I was exhausted Saturday night and actually went to bed around 6:30. I awoke about midnight because I was starving. Or -- I don't know if that's why I was awakened or not, but I couldn't go back to sleep because of hunger. I had a nectarine and Cascade Farms' version of Cheerios, went back to bed, and slept late. There's more than a little wallowing going on -- licking my wounds, feeling a bit sorry for myself. I figure I can have today for that, but I need to regroup by tomorrow.

72. Today is my dear friend Melanie Muzio's fiftieth birthday. She does not read my blog (I don't think she even knows how to find it), but I am grateful for her so she gets mentioned here! Because she is my friend, Alabama is a happier place for me. And because I am here instead of Florida, I get to participate in her birthday lunch tomorrow. I'll have a good time, be surrounded by women I care about, and get to celebrate Mel.

73. Prosecco. My new favorite wine. I asked Bruce to put a bottle into the freezer for me today and when I took it out and poured a glass the top layer was Prosecco slush. Wonderful.

More later...

Thanks

In everything give thanks.

You keep a gratitude journal as a practice exercise. You practice thanking God for big blessings, little blessings, so that when something comes along that on the surface doesn't look like a blessing you are in the habit of gratitude.

I'm not there quite yet. Something happened -- you know me, I would tell you every detail but it doesn't involve just me, so I can't -- and it has thrown me for a loop. It is NOT anything like Alex being hit by a bus or Bruce being diagnosed with cancer. It is far, far less than that, so don't worry. But it took a good twelve hours before I thought, "In everything give thanks." I need to practice more.

And here is what I think about being grateful for things that on the surface do not appear to be things we want.

First, our gratitude is not just the "look for the silver lining" variety of optimism. Sometimes the lining appears to be pure darkness. The gratitude encompasses trust. I trust that God loves me, that this thing that blindsided me did not blindside Him, and that His plans for me are for my sanctification and because He loves me. Sometimes growth is painful. Period.

Second, sometimes what appears evil works out for our own good (not just our sanctification, as I just mentioned above, but a tangible blessing). The story of Joseph illustrates this perfectly and he even tells his brothers -- the men who sold him into slavery and told their father he had been killed by wild animals -- "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good..." Joseph was a slave, was in prison for more than two years -- but ended up being second only to Pharaoh in Egypt. Who could have guessed how things would turn out when his brothers ganged up against him and sold him?

Joseph saw the end of his own story -- how the evil he suffered was turned into good. Sometimes we don't see what we are saved from. There is a Jewish fable (it's long-ish so I'm going to summarize it) about an old couple that welcomes a prophet into their home and the next morning their only cow is found dead. They never knew it, but the Angel of Death had come for the wife and the prophet had been able to persuade him to take the life of the cow instead. Sometimes what looks bad to us is actually saving us from something far worse -- and we will never know it. That's where trust comes in. We don't have to know: we have to believe in God's love and goodness.

Finally, sometimes we CAN see a silver lining (although I don't believe that is the purpose of the "in everything give thanks" charge). As soon as I -- haltingly -- began to give thanks, I saw a not-insignificant silver lining. I still wish this had not happened, but I can see a small bit of good from it.

68. So -- I give thanks for things I do not understand and I'm trying to BE thankful along with the mechanical thanksgiving. I need practice.

More later...

Sunshine State

I was in Florida just two months ago, but it seems like I've never seen it so clearly before. This weather is perfect. Perfect. Yes, I know it gets hot in the summer (and the spring and the fall), and it's humid -- but to be honest, hot and humid sounds better and better to me these days.

67. Florida -- land of my birth, the only place that feels like home even if I don't live here. (My home in Alabama feels like home, too, but if -- when -- I move it will no longer feel that way.) I'm sorry not to come here more often, but I'm glad I can come regularly.

I finished Faulkner's Light in August. Not a happy book: a complicated book. But people are complicated, I guess. I am so happy so much of the time that I am always caught up short when I realize that other people aren't. Are most people unhappy? I don't know. I'm blessed that I'm not in that group.

I'm reading a lot more now that I've quit that stupid Castleville game. Honestly, I can be so ridiculous I can't explain it. My next leap is back to writing. I'm so close I can taste it...

More later...

Contentment

I married him on his 23rd birthday; he seemed so mature and wise to me. I was just eighteen, but I knew almost everything. What I didn't know he did and the very little outside of that wasn't important. I was just eighteen and full of energy and vinegar and all the confidence and insecurity that comes with being that age.

I always figured (he probably did, too) that I'd be the one to take care of him -- what with him being a man, five years older than me, and from a line of folks not known for their health and longevity. That's what I always figured and it may turn out that way yet, but for now he rubs my knees, rubs them, tries to make the swelling go away with the gentle force of the heels of his hands, tries to make this site of chronic pain feel better, feel good, for at least a little sliver of time. And -- it works. My knees always feel good while he's ministering to them, to me. And invariably they feel better the next day and the swelling is less. Love is an action verb; often it is a conscious effort of will. Love relieves my aches.

63. I'm grateful for my knees. That they work at all, that as bad as they get they always improve, that they provide an opportunity for Bruce to put love in action and to transmit mercy and grace through his fingers.

64. For one day at home. I left St. Louis at oh-dark-thirty yesterday, rolling out of the hotel parking lot at 5:51 a.m. I actually beat Bruce to the house, rolling in without keys or garage door opener (there's a secret way into the fortress that I took advantage of). Today has been laundry, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, re-packing. Ready to roll out tomorrow, heading south, I'm a heat-seeking missile. The forecast is not favorable; I'll drive in the rain all day it looks like. And if the weather forecasters are right (and when are they not?) it'll be more gloom than sun while I'm in Florida. Not exactly what I'd wanted, but I'll be warmer there than I would be anyplace else so I'll take it and be happy for it.

Dinner, incidentally, was the rigatoni dish that I made not long ago. I'd thought it would be really good with mushrooms, so I bought them -- and forgot completely about the eggplant! Anyway -- it was good and there are leftovers to feed Bruce for a little while.

65. 101 goals in 1001 days. I am LOVING it. I love goals and I love checking them off as completed and this list is a challenge because a lot of my goals are of the "read ten books" variety -- they're going to take time to accomplish. But whenever I do something that constitutes progress on a goal I go to the web site and record it and get a crazy sense of accomplishment. And -- I am reading things that I've told myself I need to read for forty years. Well, twenty-five. My current book is Light in August by William Faulkner. I've always felt guilty that I'm from the south and had never read Faulkner. Feels good to be delving into his world (it's not a pretty world, but it rings true).

66. I'm about finished packing for the trip and it's not even 7:00. I'll be able to go to bed early tonight, I trust. I need to be on the road at a decent hour because I have to go by the office and pick up my stuff before I can settle in at the hotel. I'm in pretty good shape for all of that.

More later...

Glomitts? M'loves?

Irene wanted to know why I wrote "Canada geese" instead of "Canadian geese." Then she wrote back that she now realizes that "Canada geese" is the proper name.

Here is the funny part. When I wrote the last post, I wrote "Canadian geese" and "Canadian goose" and only changed that after I published and re-read it. I think we grew up saying "Canadian" and maybe from living in Michigan I realized that the proper name was "Canada." I still slip and call them "Canadian," though. :)

And -- she also wanted to see my fingerless glove/mittens (there really needs to be a good name for these: I've seen a few names but nothing has caught on). So -- here they are:



I think Bruce bought them for me from the Sundance Catalog ten years or so ago. You could not choose a color -- you got whatever was on top of the pile when your order came through. What I like about them especially (better than the ones I posted a picture of yesterday) is the thick yarn -- these can stand up to snow without the wet soaking through. They're stretched out and pill-y and worn but I am loathe to get rid of them. They were my go-to hand covering for those long Michigan winters!

More later...

Early to Bed...

56. Piggybacking on my last entry: not only did the snow stop, it didn't stick hard on my car. This morning there were only a couple of inches on my car (there were about four inches on it when I left work last night) and it just brushed off -- no scraping ice off my windshield or anything. And it's supposed to hit about 40 today, so there will not be anymore snow this trip -- or this winter for me, most likely. I'm almost giddy. :D

57. Lessons learned (probably just temporarily, sadly). A Facebook friend posted a status about being annoyed that someone asked her to work at the last minute. I am sure she didn't expect to be a cautionary tale, but all I could think of when I saw the status was how ungrateful she is and how there are a lot of folks out there who would be thrilled to have a last-minute job. And then it hit me harder -- how ugly we sound when we are being ungrateful. How ugly ***I*** sound when I'm being ungrateful. I want to reflect God and His glory, but I don't do that when I am ungrateful. This whole gratitude journal thing is about getting used to looking at the world through different -- grateful -- eyes so when the bad things happen our reflex is gratitude. In everything give thanks. In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. God's will for us is always to make us better, to move us along the path of sanctification. His will is for us to give thanks for every single thing. Everything.

58. Those fingerless gloves/mittens that have a flap that you can cover your fingers with -- do you know what I mean? Let me post a picture of some...



Mine are old and ratty (I would wear them all the time in Michigan). They are red and dark green and yellow and black and purple and white and brown. I love them with all my heart. They keep your hands SO much warmer than regular gloves and they are so much handier than regular mittens. I may not love that I have to wear them because it's so cold and snowy, but I love that I have them to wear!!!

59. Cemeteries in the snow. I went out this morning to buy a coffee maker for the training center. The old one was...very old. I didn't know where I was going (hello? that's why God made GPS devices!) and I was driving along what I hoped was a likely road when I came across an old Jewish cemetery. Now, Jewish cemeteries are very common in New York and New Jersey. Probably in south Florida, too. But these days I rarely come across them so this caught my attention. It was an old one -- or at least the part that I could see from the road was old -- because it was filled with upright headstones. With the snow still on the ground and topping the headstones it was an interesting -- peaceful, sad, beautiful, mysterious -- sight.

60. Legible handwriting. Part of my job is grading tests -- some of the tests require LOTS of writing. The difference between trying to decipher a scrawl and effortless reading is huge. I know not everyone can write well, but I do think people who are writing for other folks should make at least a minimal effort. My dad printed everything because he said his cursive writing was so poor -- I only ever saw him write in cursive when he was signing his name.

61. Canada geese!!! I know they are big problems for some areas, but I had never seen a real, live Canada goose until we moved to Michigan. I LOVE them. I've seen a few on this trip and when I was driving here on Sunday I passed a farm with hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of white geese in a field. It was pretty spectacular.

62. Spectacular Sins by John Piper. This is the book that my church friend loaned me; I finished it a little while ago. It's a very short little book. In it Piper recounts what he calls "spectacular sins" (the crucifixion, the Tower of Babel, selling Joseph into slavery, etc.) and how God uses evil for His purposes. Piper treads a fine line and does it with the skill of a tightrope master. His purpose is to prepare us for hard times, which he believes are coming. If we can look back at Scripture and understand that even in what appear to be the darkest moments in history God is in control, we will be strong in the face of adversity.

More later...

Let It Snow! (Not!)

53. Okay, this one is HUGE. And I'm almost afraid to write it down for fear it will disappear on me. But here goes...

I used to be addicted to political stuff. I'd read political blogs, columnists, tweets...I would spend hours and hours every single day wallowing in it. Now -- I do think being informed is important and I also think that there are a lot of people who SHOULD spend hours and hours every single day wallowing in it. But not me. At the end of the day...every day...I would have nothing to show for the effort. And more than that, I'd have nothing of substance for MYSELF either -- because politics is like the ocean. No matter how many waves you study there is always another one coming. You can never study everything; there's always more. So I quit, cold turkey...

...and filled in the empty hours with Castleville. Castleville is one of those Facebook games -- like Farmville. And because I have an addictive personality I would play it for HOURS every day. HOURS. Leaving me with even less to show for it than when I used to spend time in politics.

Well, I quit that, cold turkey. And I've been filling in the extra time with...books!!! (And eventually I hope to fill it in with writing.) Even though books aren't tangible in the sense that I have anything to sell or look at or sit on, it's still a better use of my free time by a factor of about a million. I always wanted to do this, but my own unregenerate lazy self resisted. I can't wait to finish this post so I can get back to my book.

54. Which leads me to this: I'm thankful for John Piper. A friend at church loaned me Piper's book, Spectacular Sins. I'm sure she had a reason for loaning me this book, but I have no idea what it was. I don't remember us talking about it or anything -- she just brought the book to church one Sunday (when I was in St. Louis) and gave it to Bruce, telling him it was for me.

It's a small little book -- I started it tonight and will finish it tonight. And it's very good; everything Piper writes is very good, even blog posts and tweets. So, yes, sure, it's a gift -- but here is the bigger gift: God has really been using John Piper to speak to me. For the past six to nine months, actually. I'll be thinking about something or wrestling with something and I'll come across an article by Piper about the very thing I have been pondering (without looking for it). I noticed last summer that Piper was quoting from Chesterton's Orthodoxy when I was reading it -- we were reading it at the same time. All our lives, of course, God brings people into our orbits when we need to hear their particular message and for me, lately, that person has been John Piper. So I'm thankful for him.

55. IT HAS STOPPED SNOWING IN ST. LOUIS. HOORAY!!!!

More later...

C-c-c-c-c-cold St. Louis

47. Easy drives. Weekend drives are usually nice: not a lot of traffic on the roads. If there's no rain or snow (and there was neither today) it usually makes for a stress-free trip. I crossed the Mississippi River into St. Louis about nine hours after I pulled out of my Alabama driveway.

48. P. G. Wodehouse, whose books have been (so far) the only things I can listen to while driving (I'm blessed that he wrote a lot of 'em!). I listened to one I'd already heard on the drive up here. I think I have a new one for the ride back on Friday.

49. Wrong turns. It might have come at a better time, but I saw some interesting sites tonight. I have a Garmin GPS. My rental car has a Magellan, so I decided to use that and leave mine at home. It brought me into St. Louis and had me turn a different way and I missed it (it didn't help any that I, um, was trying to listen to the end of my audio book...). I got off and drove by the zoo -- apparently the area was also the site of the World's Fair. Anyway, it was dark and I was hungry, but it was kind of cool to drive around down there. Once it warms up a bit (I should be back in March) I'm going to go check it out for real.

50. A great grocery store, Dierberg's, near my hotel. If I can't have a Whole Foods five minutes away, Dierberg's is the next best thing.

51. There's a 90% chance of snow tomorrow: about three inches are expected. I'm SO THANKFUL I don't live in a place where it snows often (I think it has snowed twice in Alabama since I've lived there). And I'm thankful that by Wednesday the snow will be gone. :p

52. Reading in bed. G'nite!

More later...

Sleep Tight

44. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. It was beautiful. Sad, but more beautiful than sad. Loved it. So -- that's two books recommended by friends that I've read (I need to finish ten to accomplish the goal).

I'm starting Light in August. Faulkner. I've always been intimidated by Faulkner, but one of my goals is to read a book by him, so here goes...

45. Warm beds, soft pillows.

46. Do you ever listen to hear your husband breathe at night? I do. I'm thankful that I've always heard him.

More later...

Meet Me in St. Louis...

38. A husband who plays his grandfather role to the hilt, even when he's fighting a cold. Kael will remember how you fed him with your love and your presence. He is blessed; we are blessed.

39. A visit with my baby, my grown-up son, already a parent himself. Full of ideas about how to make money for his family, full of affection and love for his boy, learning the heartaches and the powerful joys of fatherhood.

40. Muffins, straight from the oven, so hot I have to blow on mine before I can take a bite. They are "Mighty Muffins" -- no fat, only a teaspoon of sugar per muffin (and you could use honey or maple syrup or Splenda or agave nectar -- any kind of sweetener you like). I made them with brown sugar and cooked them just slightly less than the time in the recipe (although cooking them for 45 minutes would have been fine). They are not super sweet, so if you need that you should add more sugar or drizzle them with honey or put apple butter on them or something. I thought they were fine as they were, although I will add cinnamon next time; I had two and that made a very filling breakfast. Oh -- the recipe makes twelve. You fill the muffin tins all the way up, but the batter is pretty dense so they don't rise all that much. They are heavy for their size.



41. Wind howling outside while I am warm and still inside. It's a pretty day if you're not out in it, as my mother would say. Outside it is windy and cold. My hammock has blown over. It's nice to be here, warm.

42. The miracle of modern grocery stores. I'd never heard of bok choy until the late 70s and now I can just walk into Publix and pick it up. How amazing is that? I made my old pad Thai for dinner tonight and changed it a bit more. I think I am going to make a HUGE change the next time and just call it something different. In this iteration I used bok choy in place of the bean sprouts and it was definitely a good idea. I threw in a can of sliced water chestnuts. I think the next time I will not use tomato paste but will add a mixture of hoisin sauce and peanut butter. I didn't use any oil -- I sprayed the pan with Pam when I browned the tofu, but that was it. I made 1 1/2 times the sauce recipe. I think I'll throw in a green pepper next time, too. Yum.



43. Cooking with Bruce. He's fun to boss around. ;)

More later...

Good Night

35. Sweet little boy feet on my lap. I can tell I'm going to have to get up to speed with Veggie Tales fast because he expects me to name them (Larry is the cucumber and Bob is the tomato -- I just learned those!).

36. Listening to Kael play an alphabet game, saying some letters, guessing others. Being in on the beginning of another human being learning how to read. A miracle that we can unpack EVERYTHING we know by using just 26 symbols!

One of my 101 goals is to get ten book recommendations from friends and to read all ten (I've read one so far). Even though One Thousand Gifts was recommended, I'm not putting it into that category (because I have to read thirty-four "spiritual" (or theological) books and I counted it toward that). But the book I chose to read was recommended to me by my sister-in-law, Carol. It is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. It's a novel and so far it's wonderful. I'm barely into it, of course -- anything could happen. It's one I'll finish fast, though, because I am already drawn into it.

37. Bedtime for Kael...

More later...

What Comes Next?

27. Moore Maids. They come to my house every other week and clean my counters, my bathrooms, my floors. It's not like they save me any work because I almost never did those things. You can see why we need them, though, can't you? :)

28. I pick up blue, fluffy bathroom rugs. I place them inside a washing machine. I pour in a little soap, punch a button: clean rugs. Miracle of modern times. Most women have lived all their lives without this miracle.

29. Finishing a book. A sense of accomplishment and a sense of anticipation (what will I read next?). I finished One Thousand Gifts. I recommend it, but it will not be for everybody. Her writing style was off-putting to me at first, but I got used to it (other reviewers have commented that it grated on them as they read more and more). She writes poetically and her phrasing is...different. To me it feels a little forced -- certainly not natural. She also needed an editor (doesn't Zondervan employ editors anymore?). She kept talking about the "morning dove" and wrote "anyways" at least twice. I don't blame the author: no one can edit himself. And my e-book had several errors that I'll bet are not in the dead-tree version (including -- unforgivably -- spelling the author's name "Vaskamp" once). The last chapter bothered some reviewers (not me). These are trifles; I got a LOT out of this book. I'm counting blessings as you can see. I have much to ponder.

30. Balanced checkbooks. With online banking I don't look at bank statements anymore; I balance my checkbook every week because Bruce gets paid weekly. Usually it takes me four or five minutes; today I found I had made two mistakes in one week! (Addition errors -- I wrote down two checks, one for $165 and one for $700 and subtracted $700 both times. The second time I wrote down a check for $65 and ADDED it to the balance. Both times I was talking while I was "adding.") When you are an accountant (which I was...am) you have to find every error, even if it's one penny. The old accounting joke is that you're really not off by one cent: you're off by one million dollars in one direction and one million dollars and one cent in the other. I have always liked paying bills, even when there hasn't been quite enough money to do it. I remember a bookkeeping class in high school: grown up monopoly, it seemed to me. Still does.

31. Bird songs so loud I can hear them clearly through closed windows. Spring's comin'!!!

32. A call from Mom to ask how to share a Facebook video. What is better than a mother who learns to maneuver -- however unsteadily -- through Facebook's labyrinth?

33. Bruce coming home for lunch. I give him grief about it, telling him that he's messing up my dinner plans (he eats for lunch what I'd wanted him to eat for supper), but I like cooking for him most times and I warm up a veggie burger and soggy home fries and he eats them with as much enjoyment as he did the first time he had 'em.

34. Light shining through my favorite drink: pomegranate green tea by Republic of Tea.



I cooked leftover veggie burgers for lunch for Bruce and later for me. Not sure what dinner will be tonight: I'm babysitting Kael and Bruce has a men's thing at church, so it's sort of every man for himself. There is leftover quinoa, leftover Manwich sloppy joes (made with tofu crumbles) and salad stuff. Bruce thinks that sounds like supper to him. I'm thinking green smoothie for me. Kael will probably have a Lunchable, although I am thinking of taking him to Chick-fil-A. The kids are going to Birmingham: P.F. Chang's for an early Valentine's celebration. In ten days they'll have been married six months. In some ways it seems longer, but mostly I can't believe they'll be on the downhill slope toward their first anniversary. Since Kael will be sitting next to me in less than an hour, I'll have lots more to be thankful for in just a bit.

More later...

Pretzels for Dinner

"God is always good and I am always loved." That's the truth for the inexplicable times -- when a child dies, when a beloved spouse receives a cancer diagnosis, when a fire destroys all earthly possessions.

I have thought about our punishments -- specifically the curse from Genesis 3. And the insight is this: that the punishments are for our good because God is always good and we are always loved.

I was slow to grasp this because I was a weak parent who could hardly punish my son; God is a good parent, determined to transform us into everything we can be. He will love us and encourage us and spank us and discipline us and in the end we are transformed. In the end we are glad for the transformation.

Before I mention the next God's gift, I have to explain something. I have written about my veer away from politics: that for me in this season it's not the focus God intends for my life. There is something else about which I feel convicted and that is sports.

There is a part of me (who am I kidding? HUGE chunks of me) that is not like most people. I don't get trash talk; I may hate the Red Sox but I don't want to hurt the feelings of a Boston fan who loves and lives and dies with his team the way I love and live and die with mine. I know how it feels when the Yankees lose game seven of the World Series: it hurts. Why would I want to magnify the hurt of someone else by exulting in their pain?

I see this most clearly during football season because I view this set apart, from a distance. My nice, sweet, caring friends who write ugly things on their walls, on the walls of friends. "Have you come to your senses yet?" Meant in jest. Probably taken in the spirit in which it was delivered, too. (HUGE chunks of me that are not like most people.) I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want anything to proceed from my mouth (or my fingers) that brings low. Yes -- of course I fail constantly. That is no reason to give up the quest.

But (always a "but") -- I love baseball the way I love all the things I've named so far on this gratitude journey. It is soul satisfying for me. I see beauty in the game, feel a connection to my dad, travel to heights and depths: I don't want to give it up.

I am a singular sports fan. I love the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Yankees and I live in Prattville, Alabama. I'm not exactly swimming in a sea of like-minded folk. Sports has most often been a thing I share only peripherally: Bruce checks the scores because he loves me, not the Yankees. Someone four pews over at church professes a love for pinstripes. I smile and nod.

So I have a compromise. I'm going to be an invisible sports fan. If the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup you will never know it from my Facebook page or my blog. If the Yankees set a new record for losing games at the beginning of the season, I'll likewise be silent. There are some friends who will post things on my wall -- things that scar my heart as ugliness even though they are meant in jest (not like most people) and I will not respond. No trash talk, no exulting, no cheering. I'll be loving my teams with the passion I've always had, but I won't be sharing it with anyone. Does this seem strange? I think it probably is. I'm trying it anyway.

So I am bending the rule a bit (and might bend it again in the future). But this IS a gift for me, to me, and I am naming it and am thankful for it.

17. Hockey, the NHL, the Red Wings. As of this day owners of the best record in the league. Peaking at the right time, for sure. I came to love hockey because of the skating: I was amazed at the talent and the beauty of men zipping around on thin blades of steel (or aluminum or titanium or secret metals from dwarf mines -- I don't know). As I learned more about the game I became even more awestruck and I fell deeply in love.

18. Indoor plumbing. Wow.

19. Golden light of sun in late afternoon. For thirty-six years Bruce has said, "This is my favorite time of day," all because of this golden light, beams slanting almost parallel to the ground, visible, almost tangible.

20. Kneading -- warm, yeasty dough. I love the process of kneading: of turning the raw ingredients into something delicious (I hope!). As a student of Alton Brown I envision the strands of gluten being formed as I push and press the dough beneath my palms, the heels of my hand. I am also transported back centuries because women (and men) have kneaded dough this way for as long as history can record...

21. Smell of pretzels baking in the oven. How good of God to provide aromas like that!

22. Warm pretzels dipped in honey mustard! Two makes dinner (I can cheat like that every now then, right?)

The recipe is adapted from one on The Fresh Loaf site. My differences: I used a whole packet of yeast (what're you gonna do with leftover yeast?), I used 100% white whole wheat flour, and I used vanilla almond milk (I would've preferred non-vanilla, but it was all I had and I could not taste vanilla in the final product). I boiled mine; I didn't need two spatulas -- I lowered one into the water with a slotted spatula and just let it float while I counted slowly to five. I had real pretzel salt left over from some frozen soft pretzels, so that's what I sprinkled 'em with.



23. Sleeping husbands in recliners. He will sleep, snore a little, wake up and say, "I guess I should go to bed." It's a routine.

24. Cold feet warming up under soft blankets.

25. Paying bills online (when was the last time I wrote a check?).

26. Dark chocolate. Just a square or two satisfies ("Chilies and Cherries in Dark Chocolate" was tonight's flavor) and I am content.

More later...

And So On...

I got out of bed at 10:45 this morning because I was on the One Thousand Gifts web site until 4:00 a.m. And the first thing I wanted to do was to come here and write down more things for which I'm thankful. I encourage everyone to make a gratitude journal. As Ann writes (I feel like I need to call her that; she doesn't know it, but we are too close for me to be more formal), "[Since typing that quotation mark I have written up a bank deposit, driven to the bank to get it in there, brushed my teeth (floss, brush, Listerine), made my bed. It's going to be one of those fifteen-things-at-one-time kinds of days!] And I see it now for what this really is, this dare to write down one thousand things I love. It really is a dare to name all the ways that God loves me."

Oh, she writes so much more. That writing down gifts places us firmly in the present: in the presence of the great I AM who is always present, always now. That writing our gifts slows down time for that same reason -- we are not rushing ahead or looking back, but here. Now. Savoring the gifts of now. There's a lot more and I'm only through chapter four.

It is dangerous to name people in a public (even as small a public as I have here) gratitude journal, but I am going to take the bull by the horns because today I am especially gifted by two people.

9. Sue Bohlin, whose message at a women's retreat two years ago laid the foundation for this effort. Gratitude 101 -- Sue, I don't need to follow your link because I remember more than you can imagine and have whispered your words (His words) to myself on many occasions. In everything give thanks. We have been in the same zip code for about two days of our lives, but I love you as though I've known you forever -- because that's how much time we have. You walk the talk; your grateful spirit is a blessing to so many.

10. Irene Anderson, whom I HAVE known forever. If you see Irene from across the room you notice that she is beautiful, but the best part is that her inner beauty is so much more dazzling. She lives her life as a gift to others; she has been a take-my-breath-away gift to me too many times to name. She recommended One Thousand Gifts to me first and when someone else named it as well I felt that it was necessary for me to pick it up (this is her second change-my-life book recommendation). Irene and I have slipped into a delightful relationship where one-sentence emails get dashed off two or three times every day. An easy conversation that continues; a chat over cups of tea that never wraps up. She is always ready for an adventure, always poised to offer a word of encouragement to me. I love Irene with a kind of amazement that she would want to be friends with someone like me.

11. Buds on trees! By the time I get back from Florida the pear trees will be in full bloom (I hope I don't miss them!). Today I noticed them as I drove past neighbors' yards: the symmetrical branches tipped in round, fat buds. There is no more spectacular tree in springtime than Bradford pear trees -- giant white Q-tips decorating the city. The flowers smell dreadful and the trees split easily -- I can think of two trees in our neighborhood that have divided in two and had to be removed -- so I did not plant one in our yard, but I do enjoy them in others'. Spring really is on its way!

12. Faint smell of garlic on my fingertips. It never goes away; I buy garlic by the bushel because we eat so much of it. (Okay, I don't really, but I do buy a LOT of it!) I used to use a garlic press every time -- I hated the smell on my skin. But I almost never use it now. I like chopping the clove into tiny, tinier, tiniest pieces. The price for that indulgence is garlicky fingers -- but that just reminds me of a meal well cooked and eaten.

13. Blue Monster energy drinks. Bane of my existence, delight of my mornings. I keep thinking I have to give them up; I keep buying them by the case from Costco. I crave one first thing in the morning and drinking one, cold, from the fridge in the garage, is a daily ritual that is a blessing to me. I'll never like coffee; Monsters are my caffeine delivery system of choice.

14. Husbands who do dishes. Need I say more?

15. Kindles, ebooks, my Kindle Fire. This morning I have read from M'Cheyne's Daily Bible Reading Calendar, from two versions of the Bible (ESV and King James), and from One Thousand Gifts. I searched for the quote above from bookmarks of highlighted text. I've used the dictionary. All from one device, from one handheld marvel. William Blake saw eternity in a grain of sand: his mind would have exploded if he'd been given an ebook. Will I ever cease to be amazed by all this device has to offer? I don't think so; I hope not.

16. The Epistle to the Romans. Such meat, such depth, so many answers to everything. Who is a Jew, really? Is God faithful to His promises? How does salvation come about? Ponder on Romans forever; reading a chapter a day is embarrassing. Read, think, pray on a verse a day, maybe. I can read God's voice! Amazing.

More later...

Moving Right Along...

7. The sounds of silence in the house at night when Bruce is asleep and everything is just mine. I am alone here during the day, too, but it is different at night. I've always been a night person; he is a creature of the day. For me the night holds mystery, but because I live in it there is also familiarity and comfort. Chesterton writes about how we all want those things -- mystery and familiarity -- and the night gives both of them to me. When I was young I would sneak out of the house late at night and run down to the corner -- the corner I passed a thousand times during the day but which became a different place at night. When we lived in Plant City I would sometimes go out at night and walk around the block; I felt completely safe there in a way I have never felt anywhere else because I knew so many people and was never more than a few houses away from a friend. That is the mystery -- the danger -- of the night. A part of me wants to be a morning person because that is what the world expects, demands -- but too much of my soul is fed in the wee small hours. The night is mine; the day belongs to everyone.

8. Sisterhood with strangers, women I have never met but who are truly sisters through our relationship with our Father. I went to the One Thousand Gifts web site and there are videos of the author discussing each chapter of her book with two other women. I had just started chapter four of the book and so I went back to chapter one, re-read it, and watched the video. Chapter two, chapter three. And these women, these strangers, share their excitement and their hope in ways that ring the truest truth and I know they want transformation for me, truly, although they don't know my name. God is so good; His mercies rain down. If He had not adopted us we would not be sisters and what a tragedy that would be.

More later...

More Gratitude

Irene asked about me reading while I'm in the hammock. There are two problems with this, although maybe I will overcome them. First, I'm blind without my glasses and when I am in the hammock I take my glasses off. Even though I'm only out there for twenty minutes it kind of builds up over time and I don't want to have white lines down the sides of my face from my glasses. I want to get contacts, though, so maybe I'll actually DO that and eliminate that problem. (I tried making the font as big as it would go on my Kindle and I STILL have to squint to be able to read -- I am really bad without my glasses!) I don't know how reading the Kindle Fire in the sun will be -- if I can even see it. It's not like the old e-ink Kindle, so I'll have to see if it's possible. I don't want to wear sunglasses, of course, so we'll see if it's too bright to pick up the text. Anyway, I'll make an appointment for the contacts and go from there.

Dinner tonight was good, but there are ways to make it better. This is a recipe that I'm really intrigued with, so I'm going to make it again with my "edits." The recipe was Thai Veggie Burgers. I made it exactly as shown except for the sesame oil. I added two teaspoons of bottled teriyaki sauce instead.

Here's what I will do differently next time. First, neither of us detected even a HINT of the peanut butter, which was disappointing. I think next time I will use chopped peanuts instead, so you get a real peanut taste when you bite into one. Or maybe chopped cashews -- either would be good, I think. Second, I am a HUGE fresh ginger fan, but I'm going to use powdered next time. I chopped it very fine but every once in a while I'd get a bite where the taste of the ginger dominated. Third, I think adding some scallions would be very nice. Maybe in place of the cilantro, which I didn't really notice (or maybe in addition to it -- who knows?). I think adding a little pineapple juice to the mixture would be yummy -- a couple of tablespoons maybe. I did top the burgers with pineapple slices (which I cooked alongside the burgers) and that was excellent. I topped my burger with the pineapple slice and some Thai sweet chili sauce. Bruce topped his with the pineapple slice, a slice of tomato, and some extra teriyaki sauce. I think it might be nice to add some sweet chili sauce to the burger itself. And I think they would be delicious with some mango salsa on top of them.

Anyway -- I'm going to mess around with this and come up with something else. The recipe says it makes "4 large burgers" and it definitely does NOT. Each burger was less than 4 ounces. They were adequate, but NOT "large." If you want LARGE, make three.

To go along with the burgers I water-sauteed an onion, a green pepper, and lots of garlic. Then I grated three big potatoes and added them to the skillet. I used a very tiny bit of Pam -- just sprayed the pan liberally one time -- but it was unnecessary. First, the potatoes stuck. But then they didn't. The Pam did nothing. The bad part was that grated potatoes cooked without oil get kind of mushy and not crispy hashbrown-y. Don't get me wrong -- they were good -- but they weren't crisp like I'd hoped. I cooked them a LONG time, too -- they were quite brown. I like them better when I cube them and cook them that way. But the way I do those potatoes is that I cook them first and I didn't have time to cook these. Anyway, like I said -- they were very good, just different from my original idea.

So here's a pic. I really do need to be better at taking these pictures -- I was about to take a bite of my burger when I remembered that I should take a picture so I just threw the sandwich down and snapped a shot. I feel like I should apologize.



I have more things for which I am grateful...

4. OPI nail polish, which I love so much that I almost collect it. I love staring at the bottles of polish at the Ulta store, reading them all over (I love their names), thinking about the season of the year and what color best suits it (wine colors for fall, reds for winter, pinks for spring, PINKS for summer). I have "Dutch Tulips" on my toes now -- red, with the slightest undercurrent of pink. I will buy a color that is almost identical to one I already own, just because. Looking at my freshly painted toes makes me very happy.

5. Text messaging. Tonight I had a question that I knew Steve Bils would know the answer to. I have known Steve since junior high and even had dinner with him last year when he was passing through town with his father. It is safe to say, however, that in the last ten years I've only spent about two hours with him. But I can pick up my phone, text him, and have a short and useful "conversation" immediately. How amazing is all of that? The implications: of technology, of friendship, of the world becoming smaller. Most of my friends do not text -- or they text very seldom. But I get texts from Alex and Alisha a lot and I love that I can be present for them even when I am far away. Such a gift!!!

6. New pens with inks of all different colors. Would you like to know how influenced by advertising I am? So much so that when Mel described a commercial for InkJoy pens (by PaperMate) I had to buy some -- and I STILL haven't seen the commercial myself!!! Anyway, they are really great cheap pens -- you just glide across the paper. And I bought the pack with purple and green and turquoise and pink and red and blue inks so I have a pen for my every mood. I love opening the drawer and seeing all those pens in there, just waiting to be chosen. Pretty much the only things I write these days are grocery lists and labels for the stuff I freeze for Bruce, but still. Writing with something fun makes those tasks more enjoyable.

More later...

Gratitude

I'm reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I've only read three chapters so I don't necessarily know where the book is headed, but you all know how I am about lists and goals and such. She started keeping a list of blessings -- gifts -- writing them in a gratitude journal. I'm going to do it here. As I said, I'm not sure what the "right" way to do this is (there can't be a "right" way, of course). My thought is that I need to be in the moment -- thinking of gratitude throughout the day -- so the list will reflect my daily activities. I'm also thinking that I need to be grateful for everything -- not just the obvious gifts. And so I'm starting with this:

1. Rheumatoid arthritis. If I didn't have it I would be less understanding and empathetic toward others with chronic illness -- people who look fine but feel anything but. My RA made Alex more self reliant and tough when he was a baby (I had a significant flare right around the time he was learning to walk, so I could not jump up and run to him every time he fell down). RA usually affects small joints -- fingers and hands -- but mine is mostly in my knees (and not in my hands at ALL); considering my life that's a HUGE blessing. When my knees feel better I'm so grateful and I don't take pain-free walking for granted. And I think having RA has made me more accepting and patient. It's not like I've arrived with any of this stuff, but I can see the benefits. And to be honest, I'm not sure I'm actually grateful for this, but I am trying to be. "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

2. The promise of spring. Living in Florida it is easy to overlook spring -- it's pretty easy to overlook winter, too, since it happens just a few days each year. But when you live in Michigan -- or even Alabama -- spring is something to long for and anticipate. The grass in Alabama goes brown in the winter: a horrible, dull, depressing color that looks lifeless and hopeless. I cannot wait for the end of that and the entrance of warm days and green everywhere. Our days have been warming: this has been a very mild winter over all, so I keep expecting spring to arrive in one fell swoop one morning. The saucer magnolia trees are flowering now (they are my least favorite of the blooming trees for some reason, but they are the first to burst forth so they have a special place in my heart). The next thing to appear will be the wild wisteria growing all through the woods.

3. "Eating clean." I love going into my kitchen and making a meal that contains no oil, no animals, no processed grains. I was thinking yesterday that I need to clean out all the oils from my pantry; I don't want to use them (I don't use them), so why have them around? My pantry is becoming easier to navigate as I eliminate categories of food. Simplifying my diet, my pantry, my life.

Dinner last night was Vindaloo Vegetables. I served it over quinoa. It was good, fine, edible. Nothing all that exciting, really. I added raisins because it seemed to me to need something, and I think it was an excellent addition. I have a pic, of course:



I feel like I am in a rut with my cooking. Everything is "throw a bunch of vegetables into a pot." I need to make something different. I found a recipe for Thai Veggie Burgers and that's what we're having tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

More later...

The Church's Loss...

SUPER good dinner last night. I bought all the ingredients on Saturday so that I could make it to take to Family Night Supper at church -- and then we didn't go. Alisha and Alex and Kael came over after church so that I could help Alex with their taxes and by the time they left I was pooped. (SO worth it, however. I hadn't spent quality time with Kael since before I went to St. Louis.)

The name of the dish is Rigatoni with Zucchini and Eggplant. I followed the recipe pretty closely with one exception: I do not have a four-quart casserole dish. At least, I don't think I do. That would be a BIG dish. I have a Pyrex 13x9x2 container and that holds three quarts, so I used that and a smaller bowl for the excess (I think I could have piled it all into the 13x9x2 and will try that next time). I am almost embarrassed to tell you how little we had left over. (It fit into two one-serving freezer containers.) I had seconds, Bruce had thirds. It's definitely a winner. I took a picture, but I didn't notice it was a little blurry and all the food is either eaten or in the fridge so I can't take another! Here's the best I can do:



I was a slug yesterday. Mostly I read (and what I read had no redeeming social value). Janet Evanovich writes a new Stephanie Plum novel once a year and I buy it and read it in about a day and a half. This one seemed shorter than usual, but I got it on my Kindle so I'm not sure. Anyway, this was the eighteenth book in the series and it was pretty much like all the others, which is what I want: the same formula over and over (if it ain't broke...). Anyway, it's behind me and I'm on to bigger and better things.

I did get to plop down into the hammock for twenty minutes. It's so weird -- when I see the hammock in the sun I want to climb into it but when I am actually out there I am SO BORED I CANNOT STAND IT. I really need to work on that. I'm going to post this because I am now cooking tonight's dinner and will write about that in a bit.

More later...

LIVE!!!

A friend of mine posted an obituary the other day. The deceased was a middle-aged woman with two daughters (one a teen, one a pre-teen). She died of a heart attack. I just hate it when I see something like that because I truly believe that if she'd been eating a plant-strong diet it might have been avoided.

Let me reiterate: I'm not eating this way to live longer, but if I were a mother with children at home who still needed me I would be. At this stage of my life I'm not exactly looking for the exit, but there is nothing like being a mother of small children to make you want to stick around for a bit.

No, I am eating this way not to prolong my life but to enhance it. I want to LIVE until I die. If Drs. Esselstyn and Campbell are any indication, eating this way will certainly have that effect. They are both extraordinarily active and fit as they near eighty. For most people heart disease doesn't appear suddenly and kill you. No, it creeps in and steals your quality of life, costs you thousands of dollars, and causes those you love to become burdened with your care. It's all of those things that I am looking to avoid.

And as Dr. Esselstyn says, "Heart disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never exist and if it exists it need never progress." He also calls heart disease a "food-borne illness." Remember -- there is nothing that a cardiologist can do to stop or reverse heart disease. All that Western medicine has to offer are ways to slow the progression of the disease. But diet can stop it in its tracks and for most people even reverse the damage.

This is an excerpt from Dr. Esselstyn's book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease:

"It was a Friday in November 1996. I had operated all day. I finished, said good-bye to my last patient, and got a very, very bad headache. It hit me in a flash. I had to sit down. A minute or two after that, the chest pain started. It radiated up my arm and shoulder and into my jaw." These are the words of Joe Crowe, the doctor who succeeded me as chairman of the breast cancer task force at the Cleveland Clinic. He was having a heart attack. He was only forty-four years old. He had no family history of heart disease, was not overweight or diabetic, and did not have high blood pressure or a bad cholesterol count. In short, he was not the usual candidate for a heart attack...

...After his heart attack in 1996, tests showed that the entire lower third of his left anterior descending coronary artery—the vessel leading to the front of the heart and nicknamed, for obvious reasons, "the widowmaker"—was significantly diseased. His coronary artery anatomy excluded him as a candidate for surgical bypass, angioplasty, or stents, and at such a young age, with a wife and three small children, Dr. Crowe was understandably disconsolate and depressed. Since he already exercised, did not use tobacco, and had a relatively low cholesterol count of 156 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), there seemed to be nothing he could modify, no obvious reforms in lifestyle that might halt the disease.

Joe was aware of my interest in coronary disease. About two weeks after his heart attack, he and his wife, Mary Lind, came to dinner at our house and I had a chance to share the full details of my research. Both Joe and Mary Lind immediately grasped the implications for Joe of a plant-based diet. All at once, instead of having no options, they were empowered. In Mary Lind’s words, "It was our own personal disaster, and suddenly there was something small we could do." Immediately, Joe embarked on my nutrition program, refusing to take any cholesterol-lowering drugs, and he redefined the word commitment. He stuck to the plan rigorously, eventually reducing his total blood cholesterol count to just 89 mg/dL and cutting his LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, from 98 mg/dL to 38 mg/dL.

About two and a half years after Joe adopted a strict plant-based diet, there came a point when he was exceptionally busy professionally, under considerable stress, and he noted a return of some discomfort in his chest. His cardiologists, worried about the recurrence of angina, asked for more tests to see what was going on.

On the day of his follow-up angiogram, I went to Dr. Crowe's office after work. After we greeted each other, I thought I saw moisture in his eyes. "Is everything OK?" I asked.

"You saved my life," he declared. "It's gone! It's not there anymore! Something lethal is gone! My follow-up angiogram was normal."

Nearly ten years later, Mary Lind recalled that they had wondered, that first evening at our house, "how the Esselstyns did it"—how we had managed to completely change the way we eat. "Now it's part of our family," she says. "We've eaten the same things for a long time, and I’m on autopilot."

Later, when I asked Joe what made him decide to change, he responded very simply. "We believed you," he said, and added, "since I had nothing else, the diet came first. If I had had bypass surgery, diet would not have been first. The diet set us on another path, empowered to do something we knew we could do."

In the book Dr. Esselstyn shows the two angiograms -- the first one shows a section of artery that is badly diseased and the second shows the artery of a teenager. Pretty cool.

I was waiting to get heart disease -- waiting for it to begin to affect my life. And now I'm not. Now I look forward to continuing to lose weight, to regaining as much mobility as I can, and to living for as many days as I have left. So many times we are -- or feel like -- victims of our health. I very often feel that way with my RA. With this, though, I feel empowered. I am heart-attack-proofing myself and I feel great about it!

I have an exciting recipe today. It's potato chips in the microwave! And they're not only not bad for you, they're GOOD for you!



You really need a mandoline or something similar because you want the slices to be very thin. And the same thickness, too. All you do is slice the potato (I didn't bother to peel mine) and put the slices on parchment paper. Put the paper directly onto the microwave turntable and cook them on high until golden brown spots begin to appear. When I just put slices around the perimeter of the turntable this took about two-and-a-half minutes. When I loaded up the turntable with more slices it took about four minutes. Anyway, let the slices sit there for one minute and then cook them on high again until they are brown all around like you can see in the picture. The chips in the bowl have been sprinkled with popcorn salt but Bruce made some with garlic salt and he sprinkled some with his old bottle of Montreal steak seasoning and they were very good, too. You can also dip them in cider vinegar before cooking if you like salt-and-vinegar chips.

The only down side is that it takes about six minutes to make a dozen chips. Still -- we had fun and I will definitely do this again!



More later...

That Feeling of Accomplishment

I love my Day Zero Project list. I just accomplished my first goal. The problem (if it's a problem) with this list is that a lot of my goals are multi-part (read ten books, don't eat white flour/sugar for thirty days, read the Bible in a year, etc.). So I can't sit down and say, "Okay, today I am going to whip out ten of my goals."

I'm crazy excited to have accomplished something on this list, though. I'm always amused (in a semi-detached kind of way) by the things that motivate me. In fact, one of my goals is to put ten bucks into a piggy bank every time I accomplish a goal, so I am going to go do that right now. I should have a thousand bucks in 971 days!!! ;)

More later...

Yesterday, Today

Ten minutes ago I told someone that I felt like I was holding everything together pretty well and now I feel like I've got twenty balls in the air. I think my false bravado caused all of the things that I need to do but haven't to come rushing into the forefront of my brain and now I can see just how far behind I really am.

Sigh.

I'm typing this while buried under a blanket and I'm still shivering. The reason is the green smoothie that I'm happily consuming. I used an entire bag of frozen mango in this one (that's 270 calories of mango, for those keeping track at home), along with a small can of pineapple, five dates, three handfuls of kale, and some water. It makes three full glasses of smoothie, which is a lot, but I was hungry and now I'm not. I have really missed these smoothies. I hope I remember to bring my Vitamix to Florida when I go in a couple of weeks.

I have a dilemma. It's less than two weeks until the deadline for applying for the Food for Life instructor position. I am having second thoughts. I'm thinking that I should wait a year. Lose all the weight that I want to lose and THEN apply. My story will be more compelling then, see? Then I just think, no, go ahead and apply. You'll be a lot closer to your goal by the time the class rolls around.

I dunno. I want to look the part. Hmmm.

My knees were so awful when I was in St. Louis and they are almost back to normal (which isn't great, but it's a HUGE improvement). Wish I knew what made 'em bad and why they're better now. A mystery. An annoying mystery.

Big folderol on Facebook. One of my friends inexplicably wrote a status in which she stated that everybody should stop bashing Paula Deen because it's nobody's business that she has diabetes. I don't wish Paula Deen ill, but she has made millions of dollars promoting heart disease and diabetes and only came clean about her own diagnosis because she saw a way to profit from it (as the spokesperson for a diabetes drug). There is a lot wrong with the whole situation and I would say that she ought to be ashamed of herself if nothing more. And since she's the one who went public (and has been talking about it on talk shows all week) I fail to see why she merits any kind of privacy in this matter. Anyway -- it's a sign I need to get off of Facebook more (when something like this irritates me).

I wrote all that yesterday. It was Alex's birthday and he and Alisha and Kael came over to celebrate. Alex loves the pizza from Mellow Mushroom and even though they NEVER get our order right (no added salami on the Mighty Meaty pizza (for Alex) and they made it a medium when I ordered a large) we like their food, too (they have tofu and vegan cheese and tempeh). I wanted half of their tofu hoagie. Bruce said he'd eat the other half. I ordered it without cheese BUT I FORGOT ABOUT THE MAYO. My first thought was to just scrape as much off of it as I could, but when it came right down to it I just couldn't eat it. So, with that behind me, I have accomplished another one of my 101 goals: to go a month without any animal products. As far as I know I didn't have any in the month of January. (That's not completely true. I had honey, which I don't count, and there are places like Panera where they use a dough conditioner that may be derived from animal sources. I figure that's almost microscopic, so I don't worry about that, either. Also, when I was in St. Louis I was going to put fat-free raspberry vinaigrette dressing on my salad at the salad bar and drizzled about a teaspoon-and-a-half on my salad when I thought, "Maybe I should look at the ingredients" and it said that it contained milk products. My goal was to do it to the best of my ability, and so I don't count that as a failure, either (and again, the amount was very, very tiny). The biggest thing was: no meat, no cheese, no eggs, no doughnuts, no cake...There were times I came close, but I didn't give in. So yay!)

ANYWAY -- it was wonderful to see the three of them. It's been a couple of weeks! Kael was fabulous until it was time to leave. He does not transition well. Had a meltdown, Alex "powered through it" and then Kael was fine. I don't do well with meltdowns. Alex was never a meltdown kind of kid and my every instinct is to do whatever I have to do to make it stop. I don't think I'm very helpful. :/

And...because I love St. Louis so much, I'm going right back up there. Brian texted me this morning to ask if I could cover for the second week of Ed's class. Helen is having back surgery. It's the 13th through the 16th and I head to Florida on the 18th. So...busy month (I'm not sure if I'll be in St. Louis for the whole week or not).

I need to do some work, believe it or not.

More later...