I saw this highly corrupting meme and thought it summed up things for me at the moment. Swap the booze in her hand for cozy-restful-winter and 2020 for 2024 and well, I think that’s what I have. Well, well, well.
The old me loved Will & Grace, a gin and tonic, a blue joke, a fun party. I feel caught between two worlds at times – that old me, and the current one. The old me was a fun party girl who could be out at the beach all day and stay up into the wee hours without a second thought. The current me is just a frumpy, old hausfrau with a varicose vein problem she’s going to have to get addressed. And I don’t think I “get” the joke any more.
My challenge, as I currently see it, is to be able to retain my former sunny-silly-party-girl nature in a way that glorifies the Lord and his creation.
Anywho.
At first the snow was cute. And the negative temperatures were a fun adventure into the possibility of frozen pipes (we were spared this aspect of the adventure this time). But as I’ve been told that people are saying on social media, I’m taaaaaard of Alaska’s free trial of weather.
It’s now that I really appreciate the work I did to take pictures and document the warmer days. It felt silly and a little boastful at the time. But it’s the proof I need at the moment that the warm days and the garden does indeed return.
So it has been well over a month since I stopped working out. I had built a good momentum and finally was starting to shed some weight. But I really got knocked off between being sick for 3 weeks and then the drastically cold temperatures. The “gym” is in the garage and well, I just can’t do it. I bounce around and pull weights in the hottest of heat, but the cold – I can’t. The sauna has helped at least keep a sweat going. But I haven’t lost a pound. I have two medical visits coming up and I am not wanting to get on the scale. I’m rather ashamed of myself.
I think that’s one of the worst parts of believing that illness, imperfections in our human forms, etc., come from either negative thinking or negative words being spoken. At first, it seems empowering: through your own thoughts and words, you can change your life – heal from wounds both internal and external. But in the end, when you don’t get what you feel you need, and have worked tirelessly on, it can really make you feel like a giant turd. What’s wrong with me? What am I doing/thinking/saying that’s wrong?
This thinking came from beliefs instilled by people close to both of us. It’s the basis of propaganda like The Secret. But I see it take place in other places, too – it’s just called something else and the remedies look a little different. But the damage is the same. So that does make me wonder, if the fruits are rotten no matter where you got the tree from, what kind of tree is it really.
Wow. Ok Friday. Stopitnow before you land in hot water.
So I’m just going to eat something. I OMADed for a week and not a pound was moved. A friend made orange marmalade, my favorite! It was the first thing the aunties in Hawaii taught me to make and preserve. I never make it because Eric can’t eat it and so it would just be me eating it. My friend expressed concern that the oranges weren’t sliced thin enough. Au contraire!!!! Chunky orange peel in marmalade is so yummy! I greatly prefer it now that I’ve had it this way. The color is so beautiful. I think it’s the best thing ever.
Eating Hawaiian style is the best during a snowstorm. We enjoyed spam, eggs, spinach and kimchee on the first day. I like mine with rooster sauce, just like the old days. We had it on day one but that was it – it’s actually not something I truly enjoy, I guess it is just nostalgia. This meal always reminds me of one of my favorite days: a long tropical forest hike, culminating in a dive into a deep, remote, cold pool high up in the forbidding mountains of our old Hawaii home. We would do this in winter and come home to spam, eggs, local kimchee. Sometimes poke or sushi. Sometimes a local family had roasted a wild pig and there was laulau (pork and butterfish cooked in a ti or a taro leaf). Much better than spam, of course,
It was so choice.
The dogs hate the snowy ice. But I think they look so cute in their matching sweaters. I enjoyed making them. I got pink yarn to make a couple more for the valentine’s season. Not that I care about that holiday, it’s just an excuse to make them matching sweaters. Maybe I will make a cat and a kitten sweater too. I wish I knew of a shelter or a foster group that wanted sweaters. It’s so cozy to make a sweater for a cold critter on a cold day.
I finally got my stuff together to start ginger early. I plan on a large ginger garden this summer. Ginger takes 10 months to grow, so starting it early is required. I love young ginger: ginger peel is apparently the last part of the ginger to form, and so if you pick it a bit early, they are tender and spicier. It is what a good Japanese restaurant uses in their ginger pickle. It used to be something I could find – this young ginger. It was part of the reason we went to Atlanta this past fall, because that’s the season for it. But it was nowhere to be found. This time, I am growing a Thai garden at the shallow end of the pool. Ginger, galangal, lemongrass, Thai basil varieties, and tiny little Thai eggplants.
It is supposed to warm up this week as rain comes in. Eric will need to drain the pool a few inches. I will get out and see what the toll on the garden is.
I also am choosing seeds to get started indoors this week. I am teaching a dear friend how to start seeds: she has a great sunroom to house the seed starting equipment, and wants to learn how to do it, so I am starting almost everything at her house. I’ve just been procrastinating on what I want to start. But I can’t wait any longer.
Eric is making me a box in which to store my seeds. Right now, they are in file folders in a file box, but it’s a little unwieldy. So he is whipping one up, to my specs, on the laser cutter. He prototypes on old cardboard first so as not to waste wood. I laugh to myself because he does this because of his experience running our manufacturing business all that time – it’s not something that he just does. Prototyping and refining before production. So funny. He always cracks me up.
When I shared this little project update with a friend the other day over the phone she said, “Of course Eric is making you a seed box. He’s always doing sweet things like that for you.” Indeed.
And now off to make him some lunch so I can watch him eat while I continue to fast. 🙂