A better world?

Yesterday I was taking a walk and thinking about how I wanted to live in a different world this year - meaning I don't want to live in the publishing world so much this year, and I don't want to live in the cyberworld. I'm enjoying my blogging, but I find that most of the time I spent on the computer is NOT productive time. And when I get on the computer with the ambition to do something productive, I end up wasting time. Then I'm too tired to do something productive so I log off having accomplished nothing.

You would think my goal would be to put my computer time to better use, but alas, my goal is really to have less computer time all together.

Don't know how that's going to work out, but I'd like 2015 to be the Year of Good Health, not the year of blankly staring at the computer wishing I could get back on the writing train and start raking in the bucks that other people are raking in.

I spent this afternoon noodling around in my gardens. Added glass mushrooms to the terrariums to combat the melting the and mold that happen with the clay and resin ones.

I then fixed up my now non-living beach terrarium, inspired by the terrarium book I got for Christmas.

The pretty little starfish I had in there disintegrated, so I put a shell over the remains and tucked some dried moss in to look like something is growing.

Then I created another bottle garden - this one using the quilled plants that I made years ago. They used to be in the faux fairy garden I made, but that's getting tossed in favor of other real plants.

Now my real question for the day was this... Which is really the better world to live in? There's a lot of strife and argument between the people who live in the present and the people who want to live in the past. My question is, which makes a better world:

The commercialized present, where holidays are about retail sales, the seasons dictate what we buy and big business strives to keep us artificially happy by constantly providing us with new things to want and to need so that we work hard to have money to spend on things, things, things - and everything is shiny and bright and new and somewhat hollow... or

The 'idealized' past, where religion rules and tells us we must look askance and things that are new and commercial, where we should be working hard not to earn money but to earn our place in 'heaven' and government and church work to keep us artificially unhappy so that we are always striving to be better and more pious so we can attain our reward in the afterlife?

Is it better to be happily rushing off to the mall to pick up the latest tablet and video game and new flavor of shampoo that will give us shiny hair, or is it better to be trudging off to church or synagogue or mosque where we will be reminded that we are sinners who are worth nothing until we atone for something that supposedly happened centuries ago?

Is it better to pretend to be happy in a world with no sustenance, or is it better to be oppressed by a system that only allows us happiness when we're dead?

I know the latter isn't a world I want to live in - and really, neither is the former, but living on the fringe of both is rather frightening. Do you fall into the commercial present and be sucked into the next Black Friday or do you continue to resist the religious past where your soul is sucked out and sold back to you through prayer and atonement?

Maybe this is why I like to live in miniature world of my own creation.

Loot

I'm in one of those weird moods where I have a ton of stuff to do and I'm completely bored. To combat this, naturally, I went shopping and bought way too much stuff at JoAnn's.

 

I started by going crazy in the yarn aisle.

 

Then I was led to the fairy garden aisle where I also went a little nuts.

 

So many plans, so little ambition.

 

I did spend two days making this hat.

 

 

And that got me back into crocheting, now I'm out of control.

 

I have a Groot problem

I sometimes make the mistake of saying I like action figures a little too much, and then I get them as gifts.

Here's my collection of Groot figures. I do love Groot - in fact I adore Groot. So I suppose I can't complain.






I gave the figures a place of honor among my relocated terrariums. After rearranging my art supply closet and switching it with my office supply closet, I also moved some of my terrariums from my very crowded garden shelf to my desk where they won't get as much light, but they really shouldn't need as much. This should free up some room for my Norfolk Island Pine and the gardens I plan to add later in the new year. I have to be careful about how many plants I 'rescue' - I'm severely limited in my space. Hopefully the Groots will lend their support to my jar plants and help them grow.

A gardener's Christmas

Apparently there was a meeting at some point of people who wanted to find ways to combine the love of terrariums with the love of coffee. They were obviously thinking of me.

This is what I got from that collusion of geniuses:

A terrarium to grow coffee plants! And a coffee mug with terrariums on it. From two different people who apparently did not confer. I'm so excited to get started growing coffee. I'll have to add that to my crop list for 2015.

I also got myself some tiny gardening tools which should help me take care of my growing indoor garden and will make work in next year's fairy gardens a lot easier.

Now I should be able to root around in my tiny little plant homes and clean them up nicely. Off to the gardens. Now all I need is a pair of overalls! Or green jeans... [JK, I hate overalls and jeans.]

Merry Christmas!

Finally!

I've been working on this afghan for years! Though the pattern was easy to follow, and required no thought once it got started, I don't spend a lot of time crocheting anymore.

After carting this thing up and down the stairs for years, I finally said enough and got to the end.

 

 

Close-up!

 

Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I started a granny square pattern afghan in rainbow colors. We'll see how long that one takes me.

 

Just because you CAN

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should.  I probably just got myself into a Facebook flame war over the stupid movie controversy going on right now. {And I should know better than to enter into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent, but sometimes I just can't let stupidity lie.]

Here's the sitch in a nutshell. A stupid group of actors and writers and directors made a stupid movie about the assassination attempt of a stupid [but still living] Asian dictator. Said Asian dictator found out about the stupid movie and got mad. [Not defending him, because he's an asshole, but really, who wouldn't get mad?] Cyber terrorists apparently strong-armed the movie company [Sony?] and threatened horrible things if the movie wasn't pulled. The stupid people pulled the movie.

Now the Internet is broken over whether or not they should have backed down and how they were just exercising their right to be assholes to free speech.

I gotta be honest - I hate asshole dictators as much as the next person. HOWEVER, I can see the merit in NOT making comedy movies about assassinating living political figures. It looks bad. It makes asshole dictators mad and while asshole dictators deserve to be mad, when they get mad, they can make things unpleasant for innocent people in ways the stupid movie makers never even imagined.

So crying that we have the right to free speech and we should be allowed to say whatever we want may sound like the rallying call of 'patriotic 'mericans' but really, it's the whine of the rampant moron. BECAUSE, just because you have the right to say whatever you want to say, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. It's not always wise to run off at the mouth.

So while 'patriotic 'mericans' think that American filmmakers made a funny movie and some asshole dictator got mad and some cyber terrorists got involved and made the filmmakers pull the movie and that's so wrong -- what REALLY happened was, some brain dead American filmmakers made a stupid movie that made them look like a bunch of idiots and an asshole dictator got mad and some cyber terrorists strong-armed them into pulling the movie which they did, telling the world that these strong arm tactics may be used freely the next time some asshole dictator gets mad about something.

They made the US look bad and added fuel to the fire burning under a volatile political situation.

I call that treason. Other people - let's say...stupid people... call that 'freedom of speech.'

'nuff said.

On to more interesting things like my latest plant rescue.

Meet...Fiona. She's a Norfolk pine tree.

I found Fiona dressed in Christmas finery and languishing in the lobby of the local CVS pharmacy. She couldn't stand on her own. Her root ball was dry as a bone and falling out of the pot. They had spray painted glitter on her needles and hung some cheap ornaments on her branches and were selling her for $6.99.

I could not leave her there to die, so with a $4.00 coupon, I rescued her and took her home. She has a new pot and a spot of honor in my indoor garden where she should be able to soak up some much needed sunlight and enjoy the company of my other indoor plants. Wish her luck!

My indoor garden

 

Despite the lack of sunlight this season, my little indoor garden is managing to eek out a living in the only south facing window in the house. This bowl has parsley salvaged from the dismal outdoor plantings and some lethargic basil that I grew from seed. It also has some of the polka dot plant cuttings that are doing pretty well. You can see Nathan, my rescued aloe plant, in the background, still clinging to life now that he's been replanted in sand and marbles. Less water, more light seems to be helping him, but not much.

 

Here's the thatch house garden. The polka dot plants are second generation, since I cut the long stems off to make new plants I've gotten these more compact, leafier plants that look a lot better.

 

My plan for next winter is to replace some of these 'home made' plants with a couple of nice starter gardens from a plant store so I'll have something a little heartier to look at over the winter of 2015-2016.

 

Can't wait to get back out and work on my container garden for next spring.

 

I've narrowed my crops down to the following:

 

Parsley

Lettuce

Spinach

Garlic

Green Peppers

Jalapeños

Cucumbers

String Beans

Tomatoes

Strawberries

 

Ten crops - all fairly easy to grow. The garlic is already bedded down for the winter and I have Jalapeño seeds. I've decided rather than buy a pricey seed bank with a lot of stuff I'll probably never use, I'll just invest in some good quality seeds of the things I really know I'll use.

 

On the writing front, I did some editing and came up with a mini-plot for a new story. Maybe working on that for a bit will get the creative juices flowing. Two cups of coffee has revitalized my brain a bit, so we'll see.

Still makin' bacon

The new eating plan is still going great. I've never enjoyed eating more. It's so nice to finally feel in control of food, not the other way around.

If only I felt that way about my writing life. I'm on a down slope of the roller coaster again. All that feverish work on my new sci-fi and now, in the editing process I'm stalled. I'm bored. I'm so disillusioned with the industry and with just being on the computer at all, that I have no drive to do anything.

I miss the days when I really believed in what I was writing and I thought it was fun, instead of second guessing everything. There are so many writers out there just churning words onto a page and making bank - and I still agonize over how every word will be received. I thought removing the stress of deadlines would help, but it hasn't. The problem is, I want to be living life instead of writing. I find that all the things I used to find such guilt in - like cooking, cleaning the house, going out for the day - all the things I used to feel bad about doing because it meant I wasn't writing - those things are a lot more enjoyable now. I can relax and not feel bad about wasting time that should be devoted to writing and when I'm writing I feel like I'm wasting my time.

That's a problem. I think it stems from seeing so many people with their wild successes and still feeling like I have to work so much harder for so much less. Social media is a big problem to. There's some new thing called tsu that all the writers are flocking to - and I can't bring myself to go check it out. The last thing I want is one more time suck. I'm still orbiting Facebook though I haven't made any writing related posts in a long time and I don't intend to. Part of me wants to create a new on-line persona, but that means actually interacting with social media and caring what other people have to say on social media and there's this deep down part of me that keeps saying all this virtual interaction is not just a waste of time, it's a mockery of life. Go outside and LIVE. DO something, don't just post things. It's asinine. I really, really hate the thought of being on line all the time [she says while she's blogging.]

But I don't write this blog for feedback. I write it to put my thoughts down somewhere. To say what I need to say as a record of what I'm doing and what I care about. I thought of going back to Twitter as The Zen Clam, but what for? I'm not a diet guru - though I thought of maybe writing a cook book for people like me who don't have fancy ingredients and just want to make something quick and easy that tastes good. But what credentials do I have to write a cook book? Who is the Zen Clam? Does Zen Clam have a future on line? Does Zen Clam want a future on line? Do I want to police what I say because I'm afraid of how people will react to it? NO. I know I don't want that.

I just wish I knew what I did want - other than to plant my spring garden [wish it was spring] and get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Oh, the life of a clam.

Thanksgiving challenge

"Don't eat too much!"

That's what I heard people say all week long. Apparently, it's the new American equivalent to 'Have a nice holiday.'

Well, the jokes on them because I actually didn't. Yes, I had some stuffing. It was awesome. And I had some mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce and pumpkin roll and apple pie.

But I don't feel bad about any of it. Life is about being able to enjoy the things that are made to be enjoyed. I eat well all the time and yesterday I ate well too. Today I will also eat well, but the pie is gone. The pumpkin roll holds no more appeal for me, and I don't need more potatoes. I can get back in the grove with no regrets.

Today is all about decorating for Christmas, since I don't go in for the Black Friday mall madness. [I order my gifts on line, because that's what on line shopping is for.]

Updates this week: I broke up with Twitter. My pen name with the Twitter account is gearing up for retirement, so there was no point in staying on line. My plan is to have a simpler life in 2015. I may be breaking up with Facebook soon too. I plan to keep my personal account which is tied to the pages of my two original writing names, but the 3rd name may be bowing out. I just need to decide if I'm going to make an announcement on the website. That may be my next plan. We'll see. My goal for 2015 is to write. To publish and then to write more. No more wasting hours on social media that could be spent writing. No more promoting to other writers who are only there to promote to me.

I suppose I do need an online presence, but I haven't figured out how make that work without it making me feel sick. I really want an unconnected life - I know, in the 21st century that's just crazy talk, but I do. I want to live my life outside of my computer screen 90% of the time.

We'll see how that goes.

As promised...

Fairy gardens!

My sister-in-law and my niece wanted fairy garden terrariums, so using the gorgeous glass jars I found at a garage sale coupled with the rocks and marbles and gravel I've been collecting, and some new little plants from Home Depot, I put together two pretty cute ones. The polka-dot plant I bought for them was quite big, so rather than chuck the leftover stems, I HAD to make a fairy garden for myself too.

 

 

The yellow fairy's garden home

 

The green fairy's garden home

The blue fairy's garden home

 

I had a ball making these, except that I could really use some terrarium tools. Even jars that are large enough to get my hand in still present a problem when the plants are in, getting the decorations situated. It was somewhat of a challenge, but the results were better than expected.

 

Better 'n eggs

The trend continues. Still feeling good and enjoying the new eating plan. Today I made egg 'muffins' for lunch. Scrambled eggs cooked in a muffin tin. Fun and easy - and halfway through lunch [which I didn't eat until almost 2:00 after making THREE fairy garden terrariums {{pictures later}}] I was starting to feel full.

I've still been obsessively researching and discovered all the 'setbacks' I feel like I'm experiencing are normal, so I'm sticking with the idea that if I feel better, I am better.

The hardest part is that I keep coming back to the notion that the diet industry and the medical industry have been lying to us. Popular media driven opinion is still that eating this way is somehow WRONG and eating the wrong way is somehow right. The idea that so many people have been made to believe their diet failures are THEIR failures when they've been set up to fail because it makes more money for someone.

This cost me nothing. I don't need a book [though I did purchase a cookbook on Amazon]. I don't need to buy shakes [I can make my own], or pills [did buy vitamins, can't remember to take them], or cards so I can deal-a-meal, or a scale, or pay dues to some organization so I can go to meetings for a pep talk. I don't need a counselor or a prescription or anything. So not the way for Big Pharma, Big Diet and Big Medical to make money off me. Poor them. Boo hoo.

My husband is on board too. I'm hoping eventually he'll be able to get off the blood pressure meds and be able to laugh in his doctor's face when the MD suggests statins for his high cholesterol.

Looking forward to eating out tonight - another thing most 'diets' don't allow for. I can eat out and not have to consider it a 'cheat'. Never leave the restaurant swearing I'll never eat again only to be starving two hours later and looking for a snack.

My only regret so far is not discovering keto sooner. It's too well concealed a secret.

Cravings? What cravings?

This is me enjoying cooking again.

I had been at the point where I really hated to cook. Not only was it a time suck, I was always too hungry to really enjoy the process, and I was sick of making the same old subset of meals all the time and knowing I would feel awful after I ate.

Since this change, I've been enjoying cooking again, because I feel like I have the time to cook now. I'm not racing against the clock in my stomach that says, "I'm STARVING NOW! Feed me now. Just order something for heaven's sake! Or grab a cookie at least while you're working." I can enjoy the process of preparing food, and I know that after I eat, I won't feel like I'm going to explode and need to just lie down and relax. I also think cooking is simplified because although I'm finding a lot of recipes and using them, I'm not spending a lot of time reading instructions off of a box. The ingredients in my meals are simple. Cut up vegetables, cook meat. Meal done. It's sounds boring, but actually it's liberating.

It also amazes me that I have not been craving sweets. Forty years [or more] of always wanting something sweet, and now I can pass it up. Finally. Without having to argue with myself, or feel deprived. What's that about? How can a craving be kicked so easily when the diet industry has been selling us 'tips and tricks' for kicking cravings for years that didn't work?

I know it's for the long haul, and maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase of it, but so far, I'm impressed. Who would have thought I'd be a happy clam again when it came to food?

Realizations

The experiment continues - not because I'm not discouraged, but because I have to keep reminding myself why I'm doing this.

I've stopped getting on the scale every day. {Reminder: It's not about losing weight in any way possible.} The scale tells me nonsensical things that cause me to spend half the day wondering what could possibly be wrong when I'm eating vegetables instead of bread. [Today's lunch included chicken salad 'sandwiches' on romaine lettuce.] Along with bacon, cheese and olives.

I have had one incident of acid reflux, but only one and I think it was because I ate late at night. Otherwise, I've been enjoying the reduction in back pain, the not falling asleep in front of the TV and the better, more comfortable sleep at night.

I'm amazed that I'm not ravenous for a cookie, but I haven't even wanted one. Not that I wouldn't eat one that was right in front of me - and not that for any amount of money I wouldn't eat one - because I would, for any amount of money. But I could go into the cabinet and get one for free and I'm not doing it.

I've realized, somewhat scarily, that this has to be a permanent change. There's no going back because if I added bread and potatoes, and chips and pretzels and cookies and cake back into my diet, I'll blow up. Even if I haven't lost any weight, I'll gain now - so the choice has been made. This is long-term. Fortunately, I still like eating this way. I feel better. It's nice to go the food store and pick up almond milk and cauliflower and lettuce [and an avocado - avocados are DIS. GUSTING, BTW. Really. They're awful.]

I also know full well that I don't like to wait for things. I want to see long-term results NOW. I want to know how all this play out a year from now. I'm not satisfied with crawling along one day at a time and that bothers me. That's why I'm frustrated because I'm not a 'wait for the big picture' kind of person. I want the end result immediately, so that's a challenge. If I felt this much better in two and a half weeks, how will I feel in two and half months? In six and a half months? I won't know until I get there but I want to know NOW. I want to know it isn't temporary and it's not for nothing.

I hate that weight loss is the barometer we are taught to judge our health by. It can't be working if I'm not losing tons of weight right? Because we're taught that how we feel isn't as important as how we look. You can tell someone you're on a diet and you feel really good - but if you haven't lost a huge amount of weight they don't care. You can tell someone you're on a diet and you lost 20 pounds but you feel like death warmed over and they're out buying the book because they don't care how they feel either, they just care about numbers on a scale. I hate that I still end up caring about numbers on a scale when the evidence that this is a better diet is right in front of me every day.

In other news, I'm STILL waiting for the critiques of my latest story. I don't know why it's taking so long and I hate to chase people for things. I'm working on book 2 again and my plan is to get them both out around New Year's or a little after. We'll see if I can get any feedback. These are people who volunteered by the way... ugh.

The upside is, I'm very glad I've made writing a hobby rather than a career. I don't need the stress of feeling like I'm losing money for every second something isn't published.

Keto update

I never would have thought coffee would be my downfall, but it's the one sweet thing I can't seem to give up.

Okay, week 2 of the experiment - remember those 2.6 missing pounds? Well 1 pound came back. I would be discouraged except I have to keep reminding myself I got off the 'I need to lose weight' moron train a long time ago. This is about feeling better - and as far as the way I feel, this experiment is already a success.

* Still no more acid reflux or indigestion.

* Back pain greatly reduced.

* Better sleep

* I'm not falling asleep in front of the TV anymore.

* A lot more energy and some better mental clarity.

* Feet not swollen at the end of the day.

* I don't feel like food is controlling me.

* No constant nagging hunger.

Here are the down sides:

# Don't have that nirvana enjoyment of food - the first bite of a buttered roll, the joy of a chocolate cookie or a piece of gooey candy... food is becoming just fuel - which is good and so bad at the same time.

# I'm spending time obsessing about numbers - searching for an almond  milk with no carrageenan, using keto calculators and wondering if my protein percentage is too high - that isn't what good health should be about.

# If my previous diet had been more unhealthy I might be losing more weight/faster - but I was already eating pretty well. Other than having a lot of multigrain breads and my cookie fix, I was drinking a ton of water, eating a lot of vegetables, fruits and nuts - so I think I've replaced the calories in the breads and cookies with the calories in cheese and meat, therefore probably not getting the big caloric deficit most people get who jump into this eating style from the cheeseburger-French fries-and-a-coke lifestyle I had 7 years ago do. If I'd done this back then, I might have been dropping pounds like crazy.

# I have to not allow myself to think in terms of 'never having that again'. I don't like that idea, but there is that fear that giving in and having something carb-heavy will put me right back into the cravings that I've finally kicked after 30 years.

Bottom line - I've made a lifestyle change that I do want to stick to and I have to remember that I FEEL better, which is what good health is all about. It's not about how your clothes fit, or what number is on the scale. It's about how I feel and since I feel better, it's a success.

Foodie update

It was an interesting day. We went to the Chocolate Expo in Secaucus today - sort of like a visit to Mecca for chocoholics like me. We went two years ago, and it was nirvana. Back then I ate my way through dozens of vendors offering free samples of everything. There were chocolate fountains, chocolate covered chocolate, chocolate covered bacon, chocolate covered pickles, honey, fudge, peanut butters, cheeses, fruits, nuts, tea, sauces - some chocolate, some not, but all delicious.

My plan this year was to buy some nice, high quality chocolate and splurge on some chocolate covered bacon. So off we went.

I was overwhelmed by the crowds as usual, and yet also sadly underwhelmed. Having been on the keto eating plan for about ten days now, I had NO DESIRE to eat everything that was handed to me. Samples of cake, biscotti and sugar-covered nuts actually turned me off. I did eat a chocolate marshmallow and a delicious bite of a Nutella crepe my son bought. I could have dived into that crepe and not come up for air for a week. It was heaven - but I stopped myself after one bite and handed it back. I may have wanted the crepe, but I didn't want to feel like I used to feel, so I stopped.

I tried samples of cheese, chocolate covered bacon [it was way overpriced so I didn't buy any] and some kind of nut roll which was like eating sawdust and required getting a bottle of water ASAP.

My ultimate purchases consisted of a roll of raw, organic sea-salt infused dark chocolate pieces and five bags of pumpkin seeds.

We then decided to forego the usually obligatory big restaurant lunch and came home and made lunch. Mine is above - spinach/kale salad, cucumber, olives, button mushrooms and some glorious slices of Parmesan Regiano cheese. I added some of those pumpkin seeds, some kale and basil from the garden and had the leftover banger sliders from Friday. One thing I've found is I have more patience to prepare food because I'm  not starving. One of the chief reasons I relied on restaurant and fast food so much was because so often I was just too tired and too hungry to cook. I wanted the food to be ready immediately and not have to expend energy to create it, and when you're not starving it's a lot easier to take the time to prepare something.

I'm truly amazed at finally being able to gain some control over my relationship with food. It's been a struggle for 30 years all because of the diet and medical industry lies.

Lies My Doctor Told Me [Part 1]

Week 1 of the Last Grand Experiment has produced some interesting results. I spent the last 7 days doing extensive research on the High Fat-Low Carb lifestyle and trying to go as carb-less as possible, and here are the early results:

* For the first time in my life, I've been able to kick the carb cravings. I guess when you eat food that actually makes you feel full, you don't need that constant hit of sugar to keep you going.

* For the first time I've been able to stop eating in the middle of a meal because I'm full and not still want a cookie or a piece of chocolate.

* I've been coming home from work and foregoing the obligatory handful of snacky stuff I normally have to grab to keep me going through dinner prep.

*TMI - my normally cloudy pee is clear

* I have not had an incident of acid reflux in a week

* Most amazing of all: My chronic back pain that usually leaves me hobbling in the morning when I wake up has subsided. When I tell you, for several years, I've woken up every morning cringing because my back hurts. I've blamed the mattress, blamed the position I sleep in, blamed my two epidurals and naturally blamed my weight. Every time I've mentioned back pain to a doctor in the past, even when it's been due to an injury, I've been told that my weight is a factor {naturally in medical school they teach you that skinny people NEVER have back pain}. The times I've lost 10 pounds or 15 pounds or more, my back pain has never resolved. On day 2 of this eating plan, I woke up with my back pain reduced to almost non-existent. Guess what, it's NOT my mattress. My mattress is fine. My back pain was caused by inflammation. What caused the inflammation? Not weight - since I only lost about a pound in those first 2 days. Could wheat, carbohydrates, flour, sugar, gluten?? be causing inflammation that's responsible for my back pain? Hard to believe. But what else could explain it?

* Weight loss on day 7: 2.6 pounds.

What did I eat this week? Eggs, steak, broccoli, spinach, olives, cheese, pork chops, spare ribs, chicken, cream cheese, protein shakes with heavy cream added, bacon, quiche, nuts, pumpkin seeds, shrimp, strawberries, a small amount of dark chocolate and about half the bananas I usually eat.

2.6 pounds

And no back pain.

Could it really be that the medical industry and the diet industry have been blatantly lying to not just the American public, but the entire freakin' WORLD for decades? Is low fat really the key to the cash cow obesity epidemic? Is it the machine that generates customers for doctors who have patients with obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, acne, arthritis, and a million other ailments that keep them coming to the doctor all the time?

I'm torn. I mean, first of all, it's only been a week. Who knows what next week will bring. On one hand, I'd be thrilled beyond belief to have finally found a 'cure' for the many problems I can't go to a doctor about because all I'll be told is 'eat less and exercise more' and when that bland, pathetic prescription doesn't work, it's all my fault for 'doin' it wrong'. How great would it be to finally be in complete control of my diet and not feel like food is controlling me?

On the other hand, what a horrifying realization - that an entire industry - well, more than that, medical, pharmacological, food industry, diet industry... are ALL LYING - all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. That's terrifying. It's depressing. Is it really just lack of knowledge, poor studies, a desire to be politically correct? Or is it something a LOT more insidious. A desire to profit from the pain and suffering of billions of people??

That's dark.

It's unthinkable. I'm not sure I can really process how awful it would be if it was really true that what we've been told about how to achieve good health is all A LIE.

Yet, the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center has a Ketogenic Diet Center. [For the treatment of epilepsy in children]. Nevertheless.

The jury is still out.

But so far the case against the medical profession is stacking up in an alarming way.

The last experiment

About 7 years ago, I embarked on what I now call ' the last diet'. Research has shown me that dieting is so many things - wrong, stupid, pointless, a lie - it's just a way for the diet industry to make money and usually ends up causing more harm than good. That belief is backed up by a lot of research that the average person has been conditioned not to believe.

I decided then that the best I could do was to try to be as healthy as I reasonably could keeping in mind that perfect health doesn't exist, nor does good health ensure anyone a long life. 

I changed my eating habits drastically - and the resulting weight loss didn't last. Despite keeping a lot of good habits and getting rid of a lot of bad ones, I ended up back where I started. This only gives credence to the idea that most conventional medical wisdom is a pack of lies. 

This week I began what I'm planning to call the 'last experiment'. I've tried all kinds of eating plans hoping to find the one that will make me feel good, allow me to enjoy my life, not turn into a full time job and be sustainable. I tried DASH and Paleo recently and while they have good points, they make no difference in my health in my opinion. 

Now I'm trying something new. A last ditch effort if you will that is allowing me to flip the bird so to speak at the establishment. If it works, I'll REALLY flip the bird to the establishment. In fact, if it works, I might even make a doctor's appointment, just for the joy of rubbing their faces in it. 

If it doesn't, then I'm officially and finally done worrying about what I eat and trying to make a difference. 

The photo above is my lunch. A spinach salad with bacon, feta, pumpkin seeds and a collection of deviled eggs. This meal actually carried me over for seven hours - with no snack - and when I finally got my dinner [after 7:00 PM] thanks to a specialist who was running THREE HOURS late on his appointments, I didn't even have the urge to overeat or pig out on a donut as desert. 

So far, so good. Let's see how it goes. I'll get back to you.

A bigger better terrarium

The marathon garage sale day turned up this loot - a fantastic, giant glass jar for $1.00 [complete with blue gravel], a bitters bottle, a miniature clear vase and a cute hurricane lamp that will be a great home for a tiny plant - which I haven't found yet.  I ran right out to buy something for the big jar because it needed to be a home to a needy plant ASAP.  Here's how it turned out.

The tree-like plant turned out to be bigger than I wanted it to be. I was really hoping to find some tiny plants, so they'd have a lot of room to grow big, but this isn't the season apparently for small plants. Hopefully the tree plant won't grow too big too fast. I added the spare bird's nest - and I'm pretending it's a blue-footed booby nest rather than a robin's nest. I set this in the bedroom window, we'll see how it does. I also grabbed the last of the ivy from outside [I did a much better job of eradicating it than I had really planned on, so I cut two small springs and planted them in the round open jar where i used to have the polka dot plants that weren't doing well.

I'm starting to outgrow my very limited indoor area for plants and I've got to bring my lemon tree inside soon, so things are going to get crowded for the winter. I think I have a plant addiction. Is that a thing?

Ridiculous happiness

So much time and money is spent on trying to find happiness. If anyone asked me, I would say the problem, why no one seems to be able to find happiness, is because everyone is looking for something big. Happiness is winning the lottery, having a huge wedding, getting a new car, a bigger raise, a bigger house - but those things don't happen to people every day, so they spend most of their lives unhappy, waiting for one of those big happy moments to happen.

The 'secret' to happiness, I would say, is to find happiness in the little things that can happen any time. This weekend, I was ridiculously happy - because of potatoes. The ones I planted in the summer from that vine that was growing in the pantry were finally ready to pick. So yesterday, while it rained like crazy, I dug them out of the container. This is what I got.

Gorgeous, right? Most of them were tiny but the I was really surprised by how big the biggest ones were. I'm inspired now to plant a lot more next year - I can't wait. My goal this season has been to grow enough of something to make a side dish for a family dinner and tonight I did that.  Here they are, cut up in preparation for roasting. 

Even more gorgeous, right? And they turned out great! A little olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and they were amazing. I've never eaten a potato that was picked yesterday. To be honest, I was really proud of myself. I really feel like I've succeeded in changing by brown thumb to green.

I love having written...

I forget who the author was who said, "I hate writing. I love having written."

Well, I don't hate writing, but I do so love having written and I finished the book I started writing on my staycation and I'm now working on the sequel and plotting the relaunch of my sci-fi pen name.

It's so much more enjoyable to write because I want to and not because I feel like I have to. My dilemma now is how to gracefully 'semi-retire' my contemporary name. She's on a very long hiatus and may never come back. That December book - well, it's probably never going to get written unless I discover I make less money writing sci-fi than I did writing contemporary. THEN I may decide to go back to it, but for now, my mental health is more important.

I've also decided what I want to do garden/greenhouse wise for next year and I'm looking forward to being a 'full time' gardener next year, with my goal being to produce a LOT more food for the table, even if it means pollinating plants by hand.

Need a vacation...

...to recover from my vacation. One day left and I've got a lot done, but I haven't really relaxed.  Today I did melted crayon art, wrote some, did laundry, scrubbed the upper deck and started painting it. [Pictures to come!]

In all it was a productive week, but now I could probably use a couple of days doing nothing in particular. Problem is, now that I'm deep into this new book, I don't think I could happily do nothing even if I had the time to happily do nothing.

Here's one of my recent projects: made my own sliced wood fairy garden stepping stones and some pieces of wood that will make a great archway. I can't wait to make new gardens next spring.

Half over

So vacation is officially half over. I've gotten quite a bit of my To Do list done and I have quite a bit left, but I'm NOT stressing about it. I'm not only enjoying doing things around the house that need to get done, I'm also enjoying WRITING!

I started working on a new sci-fi romance and it's flying. I haven't been in the zone like this in so long. The only problem I have is not wanting to burn out. Sitting for any length of time leaves me headachy, so I'm trying not to overdo. I'm also handwriting then typing later, so it's double the work but sometimes it's the only way to get things done.

This little guy is Sylvester. He's been visiting the yard and my camera was able to take this amazing closeup before he hopped off into the bushes.

I'm thrilled that I haven't spent a lot of time obsessing over a book that isn't going to happen. It's time to let go and cut my losses. This isn't about making other people happy - it's about me being happy. And sometimes you have to make the hard choices. Unfortunately there are things that I can't change that impact my life such as the miserableness of other people. It weighs on me when I have to deal with certain individuals who are just obnoxiously narcissistic and only happy when they're complaining or making some kind of fuss. There's nothing I can do to change it, because in addition to being self-involved joy-suckers these individuals [okay one individual] is also incapable of handling even the smallest criticism. So even a constructive suggestion is met with disdain and drama. I take my frustrations out on the Internet - which is why I still can't stop visiting Yahoo and I know I should.

As they say in Frozen - Let it Go! Let it Go! But it's hard when you know someone needs a good swift kick in their ass and to be told to grow up and get over themselves - but you know that's impossible.

Sigh. So that's the only the only thing ruining my otherwise productive and enjoyable week.

Vacation begins!

I made the decision not to stress during my vacation. The book that was going to be out in December is on hold - it may be permanently on hold and that's fine.

I have plans for the week, to accomplish things that will give me an actual sense of accomplishment and I've already tackled two things on the list, in addition to finding this adorable little bird's nest at a garage sale and finding a place for it in the new branches of my lemon tree.

I worked in the garden today and prepared for fall. I've got plenty of projects and I'm looking forward to doing them.

What I find most interesting is that most of the people who asked me what I was going to do on my vacation were cool with the idea that I was planning to get things done, and be productive - but there were also some people who made 'the face' - I suppose because they expected that a vacation from work should include some expensive foreign destination - or maybe just doing something THEY think is fun. I resent the idea that they should be able to pass judgement on how I spend my time. If you can't at least be neutral about the answer, don't ask the question. Sure I'd love to be spending a week on a Caribbean island with my toes buried in warm sand, a tropical drink within reach at all times and nothing but blue sky and blue water - but that's not reality. So I'm actually happy to be spending the week fixing up the place where I LIVE and doing things that will streamline my existence for the next couple of months. I know some people don't think that's important, but that's their problem. I shouldn't have to justify what I do with my time.

Off to watch Dr. Who. I grudgingly enjoy Peter Capaldi's performances - however, I do think he's trying to hard to be funny to compensate for the fact that he really doesn't have the charisma of David Tennant or the boyish charm of Matt Smith. Just sayin.'

Plant replant

Now that summer is unofficially over, I'm actually feeling a little better. I picked up a story I started in 2011 and I'm getting back into it and I'm also plotting a new sci-fi. The book that was planned for December is NOT going to happen. At least not in December and maybe never.

I should feel bad about that, I guess, but the only way I can move forward is to not feel bad about it. I'm a fan of a writer whose next book has been postponed for more than a year. It's frustrating, but when the book does come out, I'll read it. So if anyone is anxiously waiting for this book to happen - they'll wait and they'll read it when they get it.

In the mean time I can't put my writing life on hold because one story isn't working for me.

Today I cleaned up the garden a bit. The last cucumber has been eaten. The first fairy garden has been remodeled for the fall. The pretty little purple plant in this picture had been replanted in a bigger pot and I've got links saved for the greenhouse I'm coveting for spring. I may actually go with an $800 polycarbonate walk-in that's just gorgeous. What I wouldn't give to have it now, but everything in time. This season is done. I can only prepare for next season.

I found some great mason jars at a garage sale yesterday and replanted the cutting of the polka dot plant in one of them. Two others are reserved for relatives who've asked for terrariums, so I'll have projects to keep me occupied in the fall. The week after next is my vacation, so I've got to come up with things to do - and now I know I don't have to fret about wasting my time writing things I don't want to write, I'm actually looking forward to it.

Arachnophobia

 Saw this when I looked out across the deck this morning. Originally it was just barely visible so I got the spray bottle and doused it with water to make it show up better.

And yes, the spider that made it was HUGE. I captured it [big fuzzy brown bear of a spider] and carried it [in a mayonnaise jar] over to the shed where hopefully it will find a more appropriate place to live than under the banister.

What's new

Updating my last post - I'm having a hard time really breaking up with Yahoo. I hate it. I get bored and I go surfing. It's like following an ex on Facebook. You don't want to, you know you shouldn't, but you can't help yourself. [Note here, I am not young enough to have ever had the opportunity to follow an ex on Facebook, so I don't really know if that's what it's like, but that's what it seems like.]

The surviving polka dot plant survived. I guess I was over watering it and maybe taxing it with the ultra humid environment inside the soda bottle cloche. It seems to be doing well now.

Finally, the genre hopping, is, as I suspected, not going well. I started a story, but of course I'm second guessing myself and not liking the direction it's going in and I'm only on Chapter 2. I dug out an old paranormal that is actually pretty good and I had a lot of the plot for a 3-book series already floating around in my head, so this may be the one that I work on over my vacation. I really wish I could stop wasting time writing stuff I hate. Hopefully with the summer coming to a close I'll feel a little more like myself, but right now, I'm just a loose cannon. I have no discernible direction and it's driving me completely insane.

Breaking up is hard to do

Lot's of stuff today:

1. I broke up with Yahoo.

That might seem small, but it's really not. For a while now I've been addicted to ridiculous news articles, commenting, critiquing, becoming enraged by the stupidity that passes for news on the Internet. It's been frustrating and just plain bad. It brings out the worst in me and I've decided I don't like it. As much fun as it can be to go grammar police all over a poorly written headline or call out some internet journalist on their lack of research or their obvious lockstepping for whatever media outlet is making money off of disseminating false or inflammatory information - I never really feel good after having done so. Not that Yahoo news doesn't need a constant reminder that it serves no useful purpose in this world because it does [need a constant reminder], but I've just decided my time is better spent. So I changed my homepage to Google. I know. Google is a demon also, but at least I won't be hooked into arguments with insipid headlines for 45 minutes every time I log on the computer with the intent to get some real work done. Half the time, by the time I've commented and complained about everything that requires comment and complaint, I'm too worn out to do anything useful.

On that note, today I went for a walk in the park and took the above picture. A much better network to be surfing...

2. The transplanted polka dot plants were faking being happy. Today the larger one practically wilted and died before my eyes. It even had roots - so it wasn't like it hadn't grown. I don't know what went wrong except perhaps - and I hate to admit this - I may have over-watered it. The remaining one is limp and listless but it's still standing up right so I'm giving it air and letting it rest.

3. I'm thinking of genre hopping. And by that I don't mean sub-genre hopping - I mean main genre hopping. I've been so bored lately with my subject matter that I'm starting to think maybe it's time to really step out of my comfort zone and make the leap to a whole new world. It's better than quitting, and while it means some half finished projects may languish forever, it could mean that I can revitalize my muse and get excited about creating again.

Polka Dots!

I've been worried that the polka-dot plants I relegated to the safety of my home office to protect them from the cats weren't getting enough light, but apparently they like their habitat because one of them has produced a gorgeous little purple flower that looks like a cross between and iris and an orchid.

Likewise the cuttings I took last week and planted in potting soil seem to have taken hold. They're growing new leaves and enjoying the humid atmosphere in the half soda-bottle I'm using as a green house.

One potato, two potato

The potatoes have come a long way. They're such gorgeous plants. I'm looking forward to seeing if they produce enough tiny potatoes for a side dish of roasted spuds some time in the fall.

Next year, I think potatoes will be one of my major crops.

Wish I was here

One of my favorite walks - a narrow plank pathway leading to the Atlantic.

Sometimes I think the reason I'm so out of sorts in the summer is because when you're doing the same thing you do all year, go to work, come home, make dinner, check e-mail, wash dishes, watch TV...whatever - it doesn't feel like summer.

I miss real summer - I want to have a summer where you spend most of the day in a wet bathing suit, with sand under your toes and the smell of BBQ in the air and you sit around in the evening with friends talking and laughing and watching the stars pop out in the sky one by one. If it isn't that - then it really isn't summer and summer that isn't really summer isn't really anything.

What's wrong with 'You should...'

I'm sure I'm guilty of it myself, but I promise to make an effort not to start conversations with other people with the words, "You should..."

It's not so much about making a suggestion as it seems to be about telling someone to do something because you would do it, or wish you could. It's not so much offensive as bothersome.

I've been told on a couple of occasions, 'You should make terrariums and sell them at craft shows.' Ugh.

To the people who have suggested it, it sounds like a great idea. Just start churning something out, assembly line style, and boom, start making a profit. Except that the people who have suggested this to me seem to have no idea that it's not just something I pull out of my butt. I had to assemble all of the supplies and to make a terrarium properly, it DOES in fact cost money. If you find things cheaply, such as at garage sales, where I like to find things, you're lucky if you can make a handful of things with the supplies you find. To go into business selling something you need a lot of product... and either your product needs to be consistent, so that you can create a viable pricing system and a production schedule, or your product needs to be individual enough that you can charge whatever you want for each individual item. Once you create a bunch of things, you have to transport them to where you're going to sell them for all this profit people assume you will make. And you probably have to pay for space at your sales venue - so hopefully a couple of sales will make up for that cost, otherwise it's just a big exercise in futility.

So, now you've got something that's a fun, creative craft project that has morphed into an expense for the proper supplies, time to create a decent amount of stock, store them until you're ready to sell them, transport them and pay for space. Now you're selling these items and people who buy them will have questions - can you answer all those questions?

How long will the plants live? I don't know.
What kind of plant is it? I'm not really sure.
How much light does it need? Some, I'm not sure.
How much water does it need? Water it once a week? Or more. Or less. I don't know. It's an experiment.
What if my cat eats it? What if my kid eats it? Don't let them do this.
Why not? Is it poisonous? I guess it could be.
How can you sell something that's poisonous? I'm selling it because someone who thinks they know better than me told me I SHOULD.
Can you customize it for me?  Not really, because I don't feel like it.
Can I return it if it dies? Not really.

And on and on. Maybe I over think things. But I didn't start making terrariums because I was looking for a new cottage industry. I've already got one business that's more trouble than it's worth [writing]. I really don't need another. What I need is a hobby that I enjoy, that's fun, that's isn't going to create stress in my life.

So, NO. I shouldn't make these and sell them. What I should do is what I want to do, not what other people tell me I should do.

Why I write

I saved this picture to my hard drive a long time ago because I thought it explained how I felt about writing. The stories go on in my head all the time, and getting them on paper is a way of clearing the clutter out of my brain - but lately...I think I've gotten too good at suppressing the voices.

I made a concentrated effort a while ago to be more focused, and get out of my head so that I could experience the world through more than just my computer screen. I spent a lot of years writing feverishly and editing and basically spending almost all of my time staring at my computer. I spent today doing that - after a long time of finding excuses not to do it. I started out with some household work, spent a good long time worrying over a revision of rights letter to a publisher that is very likely in the process of imploding, and then spent the rest of the day alternately avoiding working on my book and making infinitesimally small advances in my rough draft.

I managed to write part of a scene this evening and then hit a brick wall again, so I'm still on page one of chapter one of a book I really don't feel like writing. And the worst part is, I'm not sure I feel like writing anything at all. The love just isn't there right now and I'm worried that this time it's gone for good.

Writing is my talent. It's my gift. I've spent decades learning how to do it better, learning the art and the science of story telling, and I feel like I owe it to myself not to let that gift fade away, but I'm also just exhausted. The publishing industry sucks. Books just aren't as good as they used to be... sorry, but that's my opinion. Even my own work isn't as good as it used to be.

I don't want to churn out books. There are plenty of people doing that - and the rub is, they're making more money than me. I want to write stories that at least if no one else likes them I think the're good and lately it seems I don't even like my own writing. That's a problem.

Hopefully it's just the summer blues - I battle them every year. But I'm really starting to worry that I've spent too much time ignoring the voices and now they don't want to talk to me anymore.

A river runs through it...

I managed to hold off on making more terrariums until I had the day off. So 1/4 of my four day weekend was spent working on these.  This one is for my aunt. It's just a simple plant that needs good lighting. She has no pets, so she doesn't have to worry about feline interference. With no lid, it can grow as big as it wants and it will look like trees surrounding the little deer. The only problem with it is, like most of these projects, it's just too easy to make. It took me more time to assemble all my tools and supplies on the picnic table than it did to actually put the thing together.

And here's the lemonade dispenser terrarium. It turned out pretty good! I have no idea what the plants are since neither of them came with any identifying cards. Hopefully the light from the dining room window will be enough for them because that's where they're going to live for now.

I used the awesome pearly glass marbles to make a river running across the front of the property. The figures I glued to flat rocks work well, though they're a tiny bit too big to actually get through the door of the house. Hopefully, perspective-wise that little detail won't really be noticeable. 

So once again I procrastinated a day away. I know what I want to do with the story I need to write, I just can't seem to get myself to the point of actually sitting down and doing it. With these projects out of the way, hopefully I can devote the next three days to some actual work.