Fat free, sugar free, gluten free

I found a way to take all the guilt out of coffee and cookies!

 

I made these for a friend so we can share a guilt-free long-distance snack. Can't wait to send them to her for her birthday.

 

In the meantime I'm working on the rainbow afghan and looking forward to making another one after that. My wrist is not cooperating too much, but I'm determined to ignore it and carry on.

 

I just finished reading Tim Gunn's book - and I have a new understanding of his catchphrase "Make it work!" I've always been a big proponent of scrap it and start over when something isn't working. I like to start fresh, [especially in writing] because it always feels like I've made such a mess of things that I can't possible waste time weeding through and making what I have work. But now I see that perhaps that's a better approach - in some cases. I'm not saying starting over has never worked - it has, but it's also derailed me completely so many times that I feel I've wasted even more time.

 

So now my plan is to work with what I have and somehow 'make it work.' This is on you, Tim. I hope you're right.

Seeing the forest for the trees

Fiona seems to be doing better. I added a little fence and some mushrooms to cheer her up and with the midmorning sun from the south facing window, she's perking up. 

 

 



The view of my project board through the branches of my lemon tree. The tree seems to have reached its growing capacity in the pot its in. Now the question, do I repot it this spring and see if it will get any bigger? Then have to lug a bigger pot inside next winter, or do I leave it like this keep it this size? I despair of every having home grown lemons - and those thorns!! But I wanted trees, so now I have trees. 

2015

So a new year begins. Off to an auspicious start with the failure of the last grand experiment. The sweet madness of Christmas derailed my hard won efforts and I'm back to square one and wondering why I keep trying so hard to make a difference.

Is it worth it to struggle for 8 weeks to lose 5.6 pounds and gain it all back in the 7 days between Christmas and New Year's?  True, the eating plan was not a struggle - it was enjoyable, but falling off the wagon is too easy. One piece of bread becomes bread every day becomes cookies and candy and all the things I had gotten to the point that I didn't want. All because those insidious voices of others that say 'Oh, it's the holidays, live a little!'

Maybe I want to 'live a little' in the other way for a change. The way that I look better in my clothes - maybe that's living a little better than cramming cookies in my face. Maybe it's more fun to 'live a little' by having energy and feeling good than by indulging in boxes of chocolate. It bothers me to talk like this, but the idea that I'm doing something I don't get to do very often by having a piece of pie or an éclair is bogus. I can do those things any day I want to - what I don't get to do very often is wear nice clothes that look good on me. Or have the energy to go for a long walk or be in a buoyant mood all day. That's the 'living a little' that I would rather do.

I hate making New Year's resolutions. In fact years ago I instituted the un-resolution - the resolve not to make stupid resolutions that I knew I would not be able to keep.

So starting over again on New Year's day is abhorrent to me, but my goal this year is to 'live a little' - meaning to get back those moments that I felt good, that I looked good, that I wasn't craving a cookie or a sweet cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate, that I could pass up a piece of bread and not feel bad about it. That's the way I want to 'live a little'.

I'm tired of hearing the 'oh, you have to enjoy yourself once in a while,' crap - when the truth is, I'm not really enjoying eating all that crap at all, I'm just doing it because it's in front of me.

Now, to keep my resolve? I don't really know. I don't want to be that person either - the militant 'eat-gooder.' I hate those people. I hate the people who harp on 'I lost a pound!' or 'OMG I was sooooo bad this weekend!' Morons. I've already decided I don't want to live in that world - the world where you spend the entire day telling everyone you don't have plans for New Years and this is your biggest problem, the world where your focus is on losing ten pounds for a vacation during which you will probably gain it back.

But I don't want to live in the world where every day is a 'special occasion' that requires a rich dessert because you have to 'live a little'. That's just bullshit too.

Off to try to make today count for something.

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!