New
Welcome to my new blog theme! It has been ages since I have written and I am jumping back into the saddle, keyboard in hand. The past months have been filled with letting go and moving on and now that things are settling in, I am finally ready to start thinking and feeling again instead of just going through the motions of making things happen and keeping things going.
I was ready for a change here too so I explored the WordPress themes and am trying this one out. Please let me know what you think! Comments are encouraged. I am sitting here in my new writing space, a room with a view. Right now I just see night-time shadows and lights twinkling in the distance but the comforting sounds of the occasional owl or airplane interrupting the otherwise silence of the night is a welcome change from the previous more populated location of our former home. The newness is everywhere and the settling in work is constant, but I am at peace here and the hills are great to come back to. I am just getting my feet wet tonight and I hope you are all still out there to read what I write and give me your opinions and feedback.
Filed under change, creative writing, Life thoughts
Loss
Last week I lost a friend who passed at the end of a year-long battle with cancer. The unfairness of his passing, the wife and daughters left. The friends left in limbo and confusion, touched me in the way that loss does, when I wonder why. Why do vibrant, generous, contributing people leave us so soon? I am sad for my loss, and that of his friends and family. All were touched and the celebration of his life last Sunday was both touching and tragic.
I have been thinking about loss lately and was inspired to read the book Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times by Rabbi David J. Wolpe. The loss he discusses is not merely the loss of a life, but the book takes a look at the menu of losses we encounter in our lives. My friend Laura said, maybe life is just a series of losses and when you get to a certain age, it does feel that way at times.
The loss of youth.
The loss of dreams.
The loss of parents.
The loss of jobs.
The loss of home.
And, at times, the loss of hope.
So what is it that keeps us going on, hoping, dreaming, working, creating relationships and establishing new homes? Where does that will to survive come from?
The wisdom of aging.
The spark of an idea.
The chance for celebration.
The opportunity to start fresh.
The glimmer of hope found in a new day, a young child’s smile, a lovers warm embrace, the comfort of the familiar found in the remnants of change.
In times of terrible, unspeakable loss, we somehow find the courage to stand up and take the first step towards an unknown, mysterious, yet intriguing future.
We guide the young in our lives and instill our values.
We feel the flame of excitement while we imagine and create.
We honor our parents and friends who have gone by cherishing their traditions and family values.
We work to create new and interesting jobs and meaningful work.
We look for a place to call home and celebrate community.
Filed under change, Family, Life thoughts
Why I Walk
At the finish line!
I walk in honor and in memory of those touched by breast cancer.
A very motivated group of 2500, ready to start the first day of a two-day walk!
- Walking with Lezlie, my friend of 25 years, and her daughter Courtney, who I have known since she was 2. Three days before the walk, Courtney’s best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. The day before the walk she had a double mastectomy. She is 27 years old. It can happen to anyone at anytime.
Houses were decorated to welcome us to neighborhoods throughout Santa Barbara.
Filed under Life thoughts, Walking
Happiness
I went to the Topanga Film Festival this morning to see the documentary Happy and I started thinking about happiness, the concept, the reality and the possibilities. I have been following The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin for about a year now and enjoy the daily quotes and reflections, but I wondered, how can I spread happiness, encourage happiness and find areas in my life to insert happiness?
Encouraging signs are popping up everywhere, for example, my husband was given the book Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert awhile ago and it was mentioned in the movie today, and this quote that showed up today on Facebook from Weight Watchers:
“Life has no remote. You have to get up and change it yourself!”So I know what I can do to make myself happy:
incorporate a healthy lifestyle into my daily life,
read,
allow creativity to be a priority
spend time with my family
connect with my close friends
practice kindness and tolerance
Now I want to expand by giving more happiness:
sharing what I have to give
helping worthy causes
creating more happiness in my home
creating more happiness in my classroom
It is a commitment, but also a choice, to surround oneself with happiness. It is a road I am choosing to walk.
Filed under choice, Family, Focus, Life thoughts
Soup’s On!
I was inspired by my wonderful Weight Watcher leader, Michelle, to cook roasted vegetable soup last Saturday and I thought I would share both the recipe, and my documented soup-cooking journey. Michelle shared the recipe at our meeting and although you will never notice, this soup has only 1 Points Plus point! It is amazingly delicious and fairly easy to make.
Step 1:
Spray 3 baking sheets with non-stick spray ( I also lined mine with tin foil because I really don’t like to scrub baking sheets).
Step 2:
Chop the following vegetables into chunks:
10 Roma tomatoes
6 stalks of celery (peel the fibers off with a vegetable peeler first)
3 yellow onions
3 yellow peppers
5 zucchini
Step 3:
Put all of the vegetables on the baking sheets and add rosemary and thyme sprigs (a few) and lots of cloves of garlic! Mist each baking sheet with olive oil (or drizzle if you don’t have an oil mister, but I suggest you get one.
Step 4:
Roast the vegetables at 400° for one hour.
Step 5:
Meanwhile, put one box of low-sodium vegetable broth, and one box of low-sodium tomato soup in a large pot and warm. When the veggies are done, put them all in the pot and blend with a nifty Cuisenart Smart Stick.
If you don’t have this handy blender, you can blend the vegetables in a regular blender first and then add to the broth. After the veggies are blended, at 2 more boxes of vegetable broth and one more box of tomato soup. Bring to a simmer and enjoy!
Option*
If you would like the traditional grilled cheese with your soup, try this:
40 calorie bread or 80 calorie double fiber wheat bread spread with Laughing Cow lite cheese mixed with a drop of Greek yogurt and diced tomatoes. Spray a grill, panini maker or other type of sandwich press with non-stick spray and grill. Just a couple of Points Plus points for a yummy meal.
Thanks Michelle!
Aren't the veggies beautiful?
Mmmmm, lot's of garlic!
Step 5:
Meanwhile, put one box of low-sodium vegetable broth, and one box of low-sodium tomato soup in a large pot and warm. When the veggies are done, put them all in the pot and blend with a nifty Cuisenart Smart Stick.
I love my Smart Stick!
Filed under food, Life thoughts
Life is not always a bowl of cherries.
It occurred to me the other day, that the saying “life is a bowl of cherries” is a little confusing. Taken literally, comparing life to a bowl of sweet, plump fruit, I am confronted with the basic fact that life certainly isn’t always sweet and ripe with potential. Life can be sweet and I can think of many sweet events in my life: my wedding day, the births of each of my three daughters, watching recitals, concerts and musicals my daughters performed in, bat mitzvahs, and graduations. Like cherries, those events and moments are small, bite-sized bits of deliciousness, a little fruit, eaten in one bite, but life is also filled with hidden dangers, little landmines, hazards, and potential debilitating stones on our path to happiness and contentment.
Cherries really rise to the occasion when they reside in cherry pie, sweet, kind of sloppy and held safely within a firm crust. I can trust these moments because the crust guarantees that the cherry filling won’t slide away. I can enjoy it all, licking the plate if I want to, no morsel wasted.
Cherries are delectable in jam, pureed into sweetness that I can spread on more solid bases and use it to make the most ordinary, special. The memories evoked by the smell and the taste of the cherries take me to places where I enjoyed the first bite of summer fruit, long lazy summer days when I had nothing more to do than enjoy a bowl of fresh cherries.
The hidden part of cherries, the pit within, is a reminder that even the sweetest parts of life have peril, sometimes, hidden inside of “normal” events are parts of life hard to deal with and dangerous to swallow. There are times when our bodies betray us and hide deadly disease, and times when a toxic secret is revealed in a relationship. There is nothing to do with a pit, swallowing it can choke the life out of you. The only reasonable thing to do is to spit it out and move on to the next bite.
Cherries offer the best surprise when they are hidden among other fruit. A fruit salad filled with flavors, some tart, some tropical and then, when you are least expect it, a sweet, ripe, juicy cherry, a reminder that the variety of flavors in life offers chances and challenges, changes and character building opportunities. If all of our experiences were prepared for us, pitted, where would the excitement be? Predictability has a place, but I prefer to live in awareness, being present to the moment, pits and all.
Filed under Life thoughts
Summer in My Shoes
The real me.
The day starts out gloomy and gray but I get up early, committed to the 5k I’ve signed up to walk in today. My feet are hiding in my sneakers, nestled in my extra-cushioned peds, my exercise clothes hugging my newly thinner body. I am motivated and slightly excited as I meet up with my group to begin our walk and more than pleasantly surprised by the ease of the walk after my weeks at the gym. We finish the walk and I head home, thinking to myself that my shoes felt a bit flat and confirming the need to get a new pair of sneakers for next week’s 10k.
Through all of this, my toes ache for summer’s warmth and flip-flops. I give in to temptation and the desire to feel a warm foot bath, foot massage and splash of color. After my pedicure, my toes smile up at me with their extravagant flowers. Sure enough, the sun peaks out from the clouds and when I exit the salon, it is actually warm. I figure it is a little early for painted toes, but I kind of like the idea of the little secret in my shoes. As the school year winds down slowly, and the work piles up, I can imagine the purple toes with flowers and the warm months ahead when I can slip on my flip-flops and head to the beach.
Filed under Life thoughts, Walking
Happiness is My Own Island
My own little island.
I have been pining for a kitchen island for about 10 years but never it never even made the top 5 of my priority list. First of all, I could not find exactly what I wanted, a portable workspace, preferably with a butcher block surface and some shelf space. Secondly, I could not rationalize spending any more money on household items.
We are a family that loves to cook. We cook together when ever we can and especially during the holidays when everyone is home and all are assigned a dish to make for the celebration. Counter space is lacking and we usually spread out to the kitchen table. Times spent in the kitchen are my favorite, surrounded by things familiar; the family stove that my mother bought in 1952 when she got married, the big mixer Gary bought me one Mother’s Day, the family table that holds so many memories of meals shared together throughout the years. I love looking at the tiles with little teapots, the tumbled marble and the view out the kitchen window of neighbors passing by with their dogs. We listen to the old-fashioned radio, to NPR news, Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk or Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. My daughters poke fun at my listening choices but as they grow older, they too appreciate public radio.
Today my kitchen became complete and I have my island thanks to the barter system. A friend told me of her kitchen remodel which involved a new, bigger island in her kitchen. Her house is the same model as my house and our kitchens are twins. She wondered if I would like to buy the island she would no longer need. We talked more and she told me of her need for a dishwasher. I just happened to have a brand new dishwasher in my garage from a prior vacation home. We struck a deal! Her contractors came with the island and left with the dishwasher. I am thrilled!
It is funny how a little thing like this can give me such inspiration. I did some spring cleaning, opened all the windows, aired out the house, washed the linens, cleaned and rearranged the kitchen and feel like I am in a new, updated house. This Passover we will have plenty of room for all of us to make the special food for our Seder and our meal and another memory will be created. This one, created on an island.
Filed under Life thoughts
Wisteria=Spring
The rain is dissipating, the clouds are blowing off to other regions and though the ground is still damp the wisteria have decided to burst open filling the yard with fragrant, lovely lavender blossoms. The bees aren’t interested in us anymore, they are drunk on the sweet-smelling nectar oozing from these springtime visitors.
It has been seven years since we planted these wisteria plants and I’ve grown used to their arrival with the sudden explosion of lavender perfume and the following lush green foliage. It is a treat every year and a pleasure I look forward too. In other areas, the seasons bring radical differences of shocking red, orange and yellow leaves, dramatic weather, snow, blizzards or tornadoes, but in California, we delight in the smaller changes: actual creeks, small waterfalls, lupines and wisteria. It reminds me that there will be warmer weather to look forward to.
Our wisteria is a simple pleasure, but one I can enjoy free every time I open the sliding door to the garden. It brings tears to my eyes, as do many sensory experiences that elicit memories of other Springs when there were more of us here in this house, and times were not so uncertain. The scent of spring flowers is an expected indulgence that I have shared with my family and even my dog seems to wallow in the heady blossoms that litter the patio.
Spring is a time for new beginnings, and as my Weight Watcher leader said at our Saturday meeting, “We can’t create a new beginning, but we can create a new ending.” We have a chance in the Spring to start again, to look forward at the ending we want to create and begin now to walk that road. The wisteria remind me that there are possibilities and there is still hope. I hope I see them blossom again next Spring.
Filed under change, Life thoughts
Zumba, Wine, and Candlelight Flow: Happy Equinox
Tonight was the Spring celebration at my gym: Equinox. It was a great party with all the festivities, a DJ playing pulsing music, wine and appetizers, special classes offered and tours of the club. Even with all that to offer, as I sat at home, syncing my phone after a reset to fix my corrupted software, I debated leaving the comfort of the couch to venture out. I decided to go for it and I am so glad I did.
I arrived at the gym, stowed my bag in a locker and strolled over to the main studio for Zumba, which I have been dying to take, only to find out that the class started a half hour earlier that I had thought. I hesitated, but spotted a woman I knew and she waved me in. It was a blast! I was dancing for the half hour and got a great workout, but it ended too soon. I had come to the party and wasn’t ready to call it quits yet so I headed up to my favorite yoga class, Candlelight Flow. Wine was being served outside the spa, so I took a glass with me into class at the encouragement of Holli, my yoga instructor. What a wonderful class we had in the dimly lit room with Holli’s amazing music and encouragement.
Days begin early for me lately, since I started a 5:45 a.m. workout regime and then head off to the world of kindergarten-a workout in itself, but I’ve realized that being a teacher is like being a mother, and I have to take care of myself if I am going to be able to take care of others. Here’s to self-care, cheers!
Filed under Life thoughts
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