Category: health

It’s all good

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, health, italian, local fun, restaurants, tweens

I was annoyed the other night, thinking that even though I was lucky to have had an extra day off from work this week, it had been all used up with medical appointments. Deciding to make them, scheduling them, dealing with insurance company in advance to try to make sure they didn’t weasel out of paying for them, transporting to and from them, waiting to be seen after arrival, waiting for test results…

The ocean

That evening, as I was telling my husband how annoyed I was, I decided to stop and change course. Why? As I was talking, I noticed that he was quickly becoming tense and seemed to be losing his good mood. I decided to change course and instead started listing what had been good about the day.

  1. I did not talk myself out of exercising in the morning!
  2. I had time to finish reading book that I was loving while I waited for my husband at his appointment
  3. My daughter told me things about her day that she probably wouldn’t have otherwise while we waited for doctor at her appointment (“Guess what! I’m an alto in the chorus this year!”).
  4. Lunch (Chinese lunch specials from Maple Leaves!) and dinner (Quattro Formaggi pizza from Pizza Napoli!) and dessert (Mocha Mousse Torte and a chocolate chip cookie as big as your head from Bread and Roses in Ogunquit!) dates with spouse.
  5. Drove down to say “Hi” the ocean for a few minutes. 🙂
  6. Appreciated having my son around the house more, now that college has started back up again.

After reviewing list, noticed that yoga was missing, and immediately jumped to the floor into “down dog” so I could include it on my list, and in my day.

I realized that my day had actually included many of my favorite things, but if I hadn’t noticed my husband’s reaction to my complaining, I may not have taken the time to stop and appreciate that it had, in fact, been a really great day!

Sometimes, when you try to do something nice for someone else, you are actually doing something really nice for yourself!

Exercise? Ugh!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, gardening, health, local fun

Some people love exercise; I am not one of those people. I like to eat big, however, so I have to (at least sometimes) engage in physical activity of some sort to avoid doubling in size.

I subscribe to the idea that little (read: bearable)  increments of exercise throughout the day that add up to a half an hour are as good as 30 consecutive minutes. Better, maybe. So.

Here’s what I do in increments on the days that I can’t talk myself into going to the gym (ugh!):

  1. Hula hoop. I keep one in my cubicle at work. Some days if I get in early (eg: before any potential witnesses) I go into an empty conference room (one with enough clearance!) and hoop for 10-15 minutes.

    Hooping!
  2. Yoga. There are several yoga poses that you can do at your desk, in line at the supermarket, even in the car.
  3. Gardening. Depending on the time of year, that might mean berry picking (straw, blue, black, in that order), weeding, dealing with tomato staking and harvesting, digging potatoes, watering, and so on.

    Yukon gold potatoes from our garden
  4. Walking. Go to the ocean for a walk. Also, getting out for 10 or 15 minutes to walk on a work break is usually doable. Problem: I often walk to the gelato store…nothing like a caramel turtle or a cappuccino fudge brownie gelato to lift one’s spirits… 🙂
  5. Bike ride. Not in “treks” or “marathons” of any sort; just in circles in the driveway or around the block on flat pavement.
  6. Dance! Crank up the stereo/iPod/mp3…almost painless. 🙂

A bonus is that all of the above can be done with your child present. Maybe they will even participate. You can feel good because a) you are setting a good example for him or her and b) not having a babysitter is not valid excuse to blow it off.

What do you do for exercise? Do you love it or hate it?

Conscious eating (WF&G week 2)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, education, family, health

There I was,  in week 2. Here is what I’ve learned:  conscious eating is hard. Applying those 7 principles is hard.

 Regarding principle #3:  It is very hard to not do another blessed thing when you are eating, ever. Plus, I totally miss reading while I’m eating if I am eating alone. Regarding principle #2:  It also is hard for me to always sit down while eating. I sit down for 10 hours (plus commuting time) every day that I go to work, so I always stand while I am eating on my lunch breaks.  Regarding principle #4: It’s not always possible to tell if it’s my body or my mind that wants the tiramisu.

I know now why author Geneen Roth gives workshops about how to eat consciously: I’m guessing that few, if any, people would stick with it if they didn’t have the structure imposed upon them by another (structure that they had to pay for; money motivates).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying the “80/20” rule to conscious eating, but decided that it sort of demeaned it. I mean, I could have lived with it if I eliminated numbers 2, 3 and 4….

So, bottom line is this: week 2 was a bust.

WF&G 7 guidelines: Week One

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, health, italian

Okay, so what I’m learning with applying the WF&G (Women Food and God by Geneen Roth) 7 guidelines is that I’m in trouble right away (for example, I am trying to figure out ways to sync the guidelines with the Weight Watchers Points system…and somehow, I think that is not the author’s intent…). It is also actually harder to follow all of the guidelines on workdays.

  1. Eating when I was hungry seemed like a “no-brainer’, but if it is true that what I’m hungry for (often) isn’t food, then I really had to stop to consider if I was hungry. This is diametrically opposed to: it’s 12:30; time for lunch! I decided to try to use a scale of 0-10, with “0” being not hungry and “10” being stomach growling non-stop. I would try to eat at the 4-5-6 range.
  2. Not eating in the car? OMG! Does this include Altoids? Tictacs? Gum? Does downing a McD’s caramel frappe comprise an act of eating?
  3. Eat without distractions….this is the hardest one for me. It was a total wake up call too; I had no idea how often I was doing other things while I eat, for one thing. The worst thing though, is that I love to read while I eat, something I’ve been doing since childhood. (Sob!). Plus, on a workday, I often eat breakfast on the way to the gym. It was hard to wait till I arrived at work to eat. Will have to rethink that one.
  4. “Eat what your body wants” I also thought was going to be easy, but here’s the thing: I found out how often what my body is asking for is at odds with what my mind thinks is appropriate. (Example: my body wants a pizza, not a 3 point Weight Watchers meal).
  5. This one isn’t too hard at this point (eating till satisfied).
  6. Not eating anything that I wouldn’t eat “in full view of others” is also not hard for me.
  7. This one: “Eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure”… No problemo! I am Italian, after all!

For now, I’ve decided that gum does not count as food/eating; Altoids and Tictacs might count, but for this week they don’t. Non-caloric beverages (water, black coffee or tea) will not count; caloried ones will (so long frappe). One week down, three to go. Is anyone else working with these guidelines? How’s it going?

Women Food and God

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, health

Women Food and God: an unexpected path to almost everything is written by Geneen Roth, who has written many books about compulsive eating and weight. She will be presenting a program at Kripalu in Lenox, MA this September. She has been on the Oprah show and some of her writings are on Oprah’s website as well.  Her recent article is entitled: The Cupcake Dialogues….hello? I mean, it doesn’t even matter what she has to say really: she had me at “cupcake”. 🙂

She also offers a self-guided online retreat.  This gave me an idea…why not try a self-guided- retreat, period? Seems like a (potentially) more cost-effective route (I say “potentially”, because if I really am eating everything I want, well, serving after serving of  tiramisu can really add up!).

So, for August, I’m going to try to live by Geneen’s 7 guidelines for just one month: August.  I wonder how it will turn out?

Midsummer garden update

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening, health, italian
first red tomato!

Well, so far, so good. After the scary appearance of blossom end rot on two of the heirloom plum tomatoes (Juliets, I think, but since my husband buried its name tag during planting, it’s anybody’s guess, really) that led to me wildly flinging them into the woods, no more have reared its ugly (and I do mean ugly) head. 

There are 3 varieties of eggplant planted in the garden: the large Italian kind, the slim Japanese, and the variegated slim purple and white. With the exception of that first Japanese one that had the hole burrowed through it, there has been no further defacement of them. Each plant has 2 or 3 eggplants growing on it, except one of the Japanese eggplants has 6! 

The peppers have (so far) been problem free. No mishaps, like last year, when I mistook the small pepper seedlings I had just planted for basil and snapped off the tops of all but one of them before I realized my mistake. Each plant still produced, but not much. Quelle let-down. This year, they look amazing. Now excuse me while I go knock on wood. 

I pulled up one of the beets to see if they were ready. They were not. The beet was so small I could barely see it at the bottom of the greens. I will take another peek at them, and at the carrots, to see if they are nearing pickable size. 

The peas are exhausted, so I pulled those out and threw them in the compost. A zucchini that was growing from seed in a pot took its place. The string beans are winding down but still producing. Speaking of zucchini, those plants are continually producing one or two zuccs per day. It’s to the point that I am grating it into my salads to use it up before it gets to the stage where it is chicken food, vs human food. The yellow squash is a little less prolific, maybe one or two offerings per week. 

The lettuce is doing okay, but looking a bit bedraggled. I’m not sure what kind of spinach we planted this season, but it had no appeal, and seemed to go right from sprouting to bolting without any edible, pickable stage in between. Note to self: write down names of types of vegetables planted! Don’t count on finding stake with name after husband is through planting! 

The potatoes and watermelon look pretty good, but that is no indication that they will produce anything edible. My fingers are crossed though. 

Now, if I could only get some time to pick the blueberries! I priced blueberry rakes, but they cost more than I am willing to pay, so I am resigned to only actually picking a fraction of the berries we have. 😦 There are some wild blackberries snaking a thorny route in and around my blueberry bushes, but no fruit on them yet. 

How are your gardens doing? 

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Saying goodbye to a friend

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, fitness, good grief, health, tweens

My daughter’s friend delivered some unexpected news last week. Without preamble, she sent a one line email declaring that she was moving. To California. Like, soon. 

Chocolate chip cookies

 

Well. It’s not the first time that one of her close friends have moved away; it’s the third time, actually. It seems to be hitting her in a different way this time, however, which I imagine is due to her developmental stage. She is feeling it more, so of course, I am feeling it more as well. She was visibly sad, and was telling anyone in the family who would listen about how her friend was moving and how much she was going to miss her. 

Then a funny thing happened: as I was busily trying to think of a way to help her to feel better, she was busily figuring it put for herself. This is what she did: 

  1. She took construction paper and crayons and made a book for her friend. The book’s title? “Things I like about (name of friend)”.
  2. She asked me if we could bake some chocolate chip cookies for her friend, having ascertained beforehand that these were her favorite kind of cookies (note: date stamp on photo is incorrect; it’s a new camera and I’ve yet to set the date!).
  3. She obtained her friend’s new phone number in California, and in addition to placing it in a safe place, she made sure I had saved it in my cell phone as a safety measure.
  4. She hunted down a gift bag (purple! purple is her friend’s favorite color!) that was big enough to hold the construction paper book without folding it, the container of cookies, and an “I’m going to miss you!” greeting card, then assembled the gift.

So, she did all of these things just by instinct. She thought she was putting together a nice present for her friend and making sure they could stay in touch. I realized that she was processing her grief, and doing it by instinct, and in a healthy way. 

Then, she put it all aside and went out in the yard to hula hoop for an hour. 

 

Isn’t it amazing how much our children teach us about life (see note about picture date stamp, #2 above)?

How it feels to be attacked by a rooster

by Karen, posted in health, raising chickens
The rooster

 

Ever wonder how it actually feels to be the target of a rooster? I didn’t give it much thought, actually, until it happened to me. 

So, what’s it like? 

  1. Well, the first thing was, I was surprised! I had no warning that the big guy was about to come at me. I was just collecting the eggs at the end of the day, when I hear a squawk and felt something pierce my leg. This leads us to the next feeling:
  2. Pain! I felt searing pain in my calf at the site of the pecking. It felt like my calf was on fire. I had heard in the past that if a rooster is coming at you, you should advance toward him. So, with a “never let ’em see you sweat” bravado, I advanced. Unfortunately, so did the rooster (please note: rooster’s bravado was not false). Score another peck for the rooster.
  3. Next, anger starts to creep in. At this point, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. I was trying hard to hold it together so that my daughter, who was on the other side of the (closed) coop door yelling, “Mom! Mom! Are you all right??”, would not freak out. But hey, this rooster was big! and was not backing off! I decided that a well-timed scream of “Get away from me!!”  at the offender was in order at this point, as I made for the door and managed to get out without him following me. This time I exhibited some well delivered, effective bravado for the purpose of relieving my daughter of her fear about my well-being.
  4. Finally, time for my fear. How bad were the wounds? Puncture wounds from farm animals seemed to me to be a likely source of virulent infection. I reasoned that since it was my own farm animal, however, I had less to worry about than I might have had it been a wandering, vagabond rooster  (I also began to second guess my artless, not quite factual affirmation of a tetanus booster “within the last 5 years” to the ER nurse last month where I went to have a foreign object removed from my eye). Well, it actually didn’t look too bad, thank goodness, which led to the final emotion:
  5. Relief. No ER trips today; home treatment is all that is needed.  After a good old-fashioned washing with soap and water, ice and arnica would do the trick.  Three days of observation for symptoms of infection were also indicated, which I did, and there were (fortunately) none.

For future reference, here is some advice about how to protect yourself from a rooster attack.

Any other tales of rooster woe out there?

Garden update

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, gardening, health

The garden is looking so great so far this year (excuse me while I knock on wood). Again, I congratulate my self on holding back a few blueberries and strawberries long enough to take a picture before devouring them all!

blueberries and strawberries from the garden early june

In addition to these, the blackberries and raspberries are looking great, and should be able to harvest some of those soon.

The cherry tree has plenty of cherries, but most are way up high and, since this tree is now about 12 feet tall, the birds are reaping the harvest for themselves (not motivated to put up a ladder yet to gather those). Also, due to dealing with the pests that were trying to destroy the tree, we are concerned about sudden death following consumption of said cherries…better to wait for next year (so far, there have not been any avian corpses unexpectedly falling from the sky, thankfully).

The tomato plants all look well, and one of the 11 even has 3 tomatoes on it already! I’m guessing it’s the early girl; the stake with the name of the tomato  got buried during planting and I haven’t yet found it.

One of the eggplant seedlings had aphids and some other unpleasant looking bug on it, but my husband found them early and immediately sprayed it with the insecticide soap, and it looks okay now. Keeping my fingers crossed for this one. The other 2 eggplants seem unaffected.

The zucchini and yellow squash plants all have teeny tiny squashes growing. The bell peppers, beets, potatoes, pumpkins all look good. The melons look iffy, as they have for the past 2 years that we have (unsuccessfully) tried to grow them.

The herbs are all doing well.  The basil we planted from seed is sprouting, and the large leaf Italian Basil plants are still alive, green (not yellow, not black) and look healthy. Last year’s pineapple sage may even have reseeded; will be keeping an eye on the 2 little seedlings nearby.

We are still harvesting last years lettuce, and this year’s crop is growing very well.

How are your gardens doing? What are you growing this year?

Date night

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, no fear

After 19 years of marriage plus 2 more of courtship, I’ve learned something new about my husband: he’s ambidextrous.

How did I learn this? I stepped out of my comfort zone for an hour. Way out, actually. My idea of a night out is dinner, maybe a drive to or walk on the beach, ice cream, maybe a movie. So, when my husband mentioned that he used to like to shoot pool and did I know that there were two pool halls not far from where we live, a little warning bell went off…I mean, sure; I’d seen pool tables. We even had one when I was growing up. You know, in the dining room. Under the plywood. It majored as our dining room table. Oh oh, I thought.

Well, in the spirit of  “do the thing you think you cannot do” (a la Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote) I decided that I “must” do it. So I kept my reservations to myself…well mostly. I did ask my husband this: “What if we get there and I decide that I don’t want to go in?” to which he (graciously, and smartly) replied, “Then we won’t go in!”.

Which was exactly what happened at the first place we visited. I looked around at the building exterior, and with quip about it’s bad feng shui, declined to enter. Bill said, “No problem!” …and so on to the next stop.

Old Port Billiards on Fore Street was the next stop. I was not put off by the exterior this time, so in we went. There was a woman tending the bar and six pool tables.  I glanced at the menu and noticed right away that they had brownie sundaes, so then I knew everything would be okay (see? even when on an outing to play pool, it’s really all about the food! 🙂 )

No one was renting a table yet, so we were the first, but within an hour, all but one table was rented by two others by couples like us, and 2 others by groups of (male) friends.

We played for an hour and had a great time. And I found out that after 21 years, it’s not too late for me to try new things (and that I don’t know everything about my husband!).