Quick and Easy Apple Coring for the Neurotic

I am always looking for easy ways to eat well. I think about food and what I am putting in my body a lot. I wouldn't say I have an eating disorder, I have never made myself throw anything up and I am able to stop myself from all out binge eating. I do however get a lot of pleasure out of the high level of control I experience when I am closely monitoring my food intake.

Yesterday, as I ate my healthy brunch of a toasted salmon sandwich with spinach, I turned on Martha Stewart to keep me company. She and her guest were coring apples to make applesauce to go with a pork loin roast. I discovered the most amazing thing, you can core an apple without using the second step of cutting out the cores and wasting some of the apple and most importantly precious time. See diagram below.















So the next time you are standing around in your kitchen avoiding work and looking for something to feed your deep internal hunger, cut up an apple and head back to your desk. It's fast, it's easy and you'll feel virtuous which is good as gold in my warped mind.

-

Emergence

Spring is emerging and it's fever is being felt in all areas of our lives. The garden is really only the tip of the iceberg but it works as a pleasant analogy. Rebirth and remembrance of what we are shedding to make way for a new way of being are the flavors of the day. My daughter will be ten soon and I am entering a new phase of parenting, time to readjust my approach to fit her changing needs. The story of our lives unfurling ever upward, ever hopeful for the future.

_

Rain at last

I started getting a headache yesterday afternoon, a rare occurrence for me ever since my ex husband moved out 6 years ago. I had it this morning when I got up too and lo and behold it has begun to rain. I have a sensitivity to changes in barometric pressure. It has been pretty dry all month and we have been thoroughly enjoying working in the garden, cleaning up the yard, riding bikes and walking around without a parka on. In the back of my mind though I have been thinking, easy girl, the rain needs to return for awhile to feed all these hungry buds that sprouted in the warm weather. So here it is rain, and I couldn't be happier.

Work vs not work

I should be working. I need to work. There is work to be done. I don't want to work. I want to lie on the couch and watch crap TV and fall asleep and then at around 1am shuffle off to bed. It's so slack but after a long day it's really all I have energy for. I have between 5 and 8 productive hours in me per day and today I used them all up.

The couch calls.

-

Beauty Tips

I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, it came free with something I bought. I don't really read it but the Oscar issue caught my eye and I read a few pages, I enjoy their graphics. They have this feature that is a little chart that tells you what is cool, what is not and what is 5 minutes ago. I was highly alarmed to see what they had to say about hair style trends. It suggested frizzy was in and straight was 5 minutes ago. I need to mention here that I have naturally wavy hair, persistently waving I would call it and I straighten it causing myself great discomfort and consuming valuable time. I hate the thought that this solution for my bumpy mop like reality is now passé. I realize this is a rather first world problem but it's my first world problem. Maybe pigtails are the answer.

_

Safe Passage 01

In the months leading up to my mothers death I dreamt a lot about her. The dreams were always centered around water, an ocean shore, a river bank, a pools edge. The edges of water, the dividing line between breath and suffocation. In these dreams she was forever slipping into the water, silently and with purpose. I was forever leaping in to save her. Searching around under water looking for her, eventually pulling her up and out to the breathing side of things.

Current Work

So I am working on a new chap book. I've been working on it for 10 years. The duration of this project does not trouble me. I recently finished a quilt I had been working on for 10 years and I like everything about it, so it was worth the wait. Now it's the chap book's turn to tell a story.

I want the piece to be a collection of short entries, strangely similar to these blog entries— coincidence or fate—so that may be what you're reading for the next little while. Gotta multi task. I enjoy this blogging but I am a pathological achiever and I need a goal.

It's called "Safe Passage" and it's about the day my mother died.

I realized today the message of the dream from the other night is that I still have a long way to go on my path of discovery, each of these personal projects seem to increase my ability to be visually articulate. Am just trying to take one step at a time. One cocktail hour at a time.

_

Dreams

I have always had dreams that reoccurred over long periods in my life. Lately a new dream has been emerging. In the dream I have to take a trip or I have already taken the trip and it is so far, the distance is so extreme that I can barely stand the thought of it. When I first had the dream it felt like I might have been on another planet all together. The over-arching feeling I come away from the dream with is the distance involved in getting there. I can't see yet what the message of the dream is, right now it just feels disturbing and uncomfortable.



.

Spring Fever

I have spring fever. It feels great, I am giddy, giggly, cheeks flushed. A Bald Eagle passed over me today as I flew my bike along gray roads and I rose up out of my seat as if to meet him. I actually shouted up at him as I went under, fly! I yelled. I could clearly see his big yellow feet and beak against his graphic body. He flew so close to me, I am no threat to him. It was a nice day for flying.

The Sun

When the sun comes out in February in northwest Washington, you will naturally want to go outside. Even if you have nothing to do there, and many more things to do inside, you put on your boots and migrate out.

I was outside for 90 minutes today. I worked in the garden adjusting the stepping stone path that leads to my office. The flat discs have not been the right distance apart, first they were too far apart and I leapt from one to the next, then they were too close and I could only get up to a slow stroll. Now they are just right. I also collected up all the disgusting old black plastic I have stored around the garden and laid it out on the new piece of territory I am expanding the garden into. Because its so windy right now I laid big cedar branches all over it. I had the branches leftover from some pruning I did in the fall. It looks like a conceptual art installation.

Now that it's dark I guess it's safe to get back to work.

Irate Returns

Irate came back today. I was going for a walk with the dog when she arrived. The dog was momentarily MIA so I walked up the driveway calling for her. Whistling, then calling then whistling, then walking and pausing to listen for her tags, then calling again, then yelling. Then yelling more. And there she was. Irate. I wanted to kill the dog, scream at my neighbor (I'm sure she was somehow involved in the dogs disappearance) and really showcase my big bad ugly anger.

It's been several hours since the incident. Irate has had a few glasses of wine and should sleep for another month or so.

The Process

The process of coming up with ideas is arduous for me. There is a place I get to where there is great confusion of image and color and line, and expectation. Eventually the elements slow down and then I can see the form in each one and that is where the fun for me begins. In deciphering the form of each element I can make something meaningful out of thin air and good intentions.

When Roosters Attack

So the bastard did it to me today. Oscar Sanchez, my Single Comb Brown Leghorn Rooster jumped me from behind while I was spreading scratch in the pen. Apparently he didn't like how I was distributing the delicious mix, turning clockwise in a slow circle. It really pissed me off so I showed him the soul of my boot. I knocked him back a few times, he came at me a few times and then backed off. The whole gang was a bit out of sorts today as the wind picked up and the rain has returned. I swear I'm calling the taxidermist.

The Triumph of Self Loathing

I learned just last week that the idea of high self esteem has been grossly misunderstood in child development circles. Turns out all those kids who were told they were "so very special" are having trouble transitioning into normal adult life where it matters what people think of you. Apparently too much self esteem building at an early age results in young adults who need a lot of praise and can't take much criticism. In their world of "it's all about me" they have trouble navigating relationships and don't do well academically. Basically its not high self esteem that leads to high accomplishment, it's accomplishment that results in high self esteem.

It turns out what does build successful people is a heaping handful of self loathing and doubt. Something to nip at your heels, to remind you that you aren't good enough and you should work just a bit harder.

Finally I am doing something right, well not that right.

Sunday Night

The end to another weekend. Pearl and I are home alone, Mark and Eddy are up at their place. I always feel a bit blue when we retire to our separate abodes. It's such a novel idea that we might actually live together one day. I wonder if when it happens I will miss this missing feeling.

Friday

So we're in for the evening. We had a nice walk under the high tension power lines up the road. Luna ran around like a maniac chasing the ball. There is still a fairly convincing layer of snow everywhere. My feet got pretty wet and cold as we trudged around the park. It was beautiful though, there is a section where you walk through bare trees along the top of a ravine. The light was low but it all looked very graphic and pretty.

We have some tandoori chicken from the local Indo-Canadian meat shop for dinner and I expect we'll watch a movie. Something Tarantino was mentioned earlier. Maybe I'll work.