Bon Voyage?

So, right now I am actively not-packing. I should be packing. I should be getting my paperwork together and packing my bags and prepping mentally for my MOVE TO THE UK but I am not. Oh, also, I am moving to Scotland in two days to go to graduate school.

I know, I've been quiet about these major life changes on the blog. There were lots of reasons. I had to wait until it was all officially announced at work and... then I was just very busy dealing with life. My mom was in the hospital on and off with health issues. I had to move back into my moms house. In short... it was an intense summer.

I have this plan (it's ambitious, I know) where I write more in the coming year. I mean, yes, I'm going to school to study creative writing, so I know I will be writing. But I'm going to try to blog more so that people can keep up with my very exciting glamorous life (ha!). Maybe I will even write about more than just not being able to cook and having no time to exercise. (Who am I kidding, I will totally write about those same things I'll just be in Scotland)

So, if you would like to follow my adventures as I travel through the UK, please do. And if you don't want to, then that is also fine. I'll still be dishing out the questionable life advice and awkwardly bashing my way through life... just internationally!

The illusion of being put together, or, why I eat out

I think eating out may be the only true way to achieve, briefly, that glowy contented feeling of having your life completely together. Maybe this is not true for everyone, but when I am sitting at a table, beer (or wine, or cocktail) in hand, looking at a perfectly designed restautrant that just feels like a place where successful young professionals and hip young families come together to eat, I feel like I'm in some sort of magazine about good living. I get to pretend for a minute that I have the money and the lifestyle (and the metabolsim) of someone who does this all the time. I find myself saying "Brady, we are so lucky to be successful and happy and stylish. We should be these people all the time. This should be our life." I start to imagine that when I get home my furniture will be from Crate and Barrel. That my walls will be adorned with art. That I will be a person with trendy rugs and edgy wall colors and a vintage gas stove. That my closet will be filled with clothes I like and that in the mornings I will find time to spin (despite the fact that I have never been to a spin class).

I'm not sure if what I want most of all is to figure out how to feel that way all the time, or whether I'd be happier knowing that NO ONE feels that way all the time (which I'm beginning to think/hope is the truth). I think maybe we should take those moments and grab them and stay in them as long as we can because eventually you will have to go home to your messy room (or your own personal equivalent) and face the fact that there is nothing glamorous about folding laundry. Maybe pretending that life can be perfect and glowy everyday is dangerous to your own self esteem (and the self esteem of others... I'm looking at you, self help books, insprirational living gurus and crazy inspirational blogs written by seemingly perfect people).

Maybe if life was always perfect and glowy (and looked like a crate and barrel catalog) then those very special moments in very special restaurants with very special unique wonderful funny people would be mundane. And that would actually be so much worse.

Sowing the seeds of change

So. I had a birthday (more than a week ago now... time flies) and as a result I am filled with a desire to make this year THE BEST year yet (or at least get one step closer to that glowy light-filled kitchen from my last post).

So far I've tried cooking two new recipies (well, I started cooking and then Brady saw me chopping tomatoes and relegated me to stirring duty), I've tried to go to bed earlier (and have not suceeded in any way) and I've tried to exercise every day (I have exercised one time since I decided to do it every day but it's definitely not my fault that the bay area was hit by a massive, energy sapping heat wave the day after my birthday). I've tried not to eat out (so of course I've eaten out almost every day) and I've tried to give up white flour (so of course I've been eating it with every meal). I am not making exactly the kind of progress I hoped to make, but I think I'm sowing the seeds of change. I'm working on my intentions and I am hoping they will bear fruit eventually.

Neither of the recepies I tried last week would pass my Noodles, Peas and Cheese test (i.e. YES! I want to make that again because it is easy and delicious), but they were good, healthy and hearty. And fairly easy. So I share them with you here now (but without pictures because Brady and I forgot to take any):

Cajun Shrimp and Rice:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/cajun-shrimp-and-rice-recipe/index.html

My sister sent me the recipie and told me it was her favorite recipie ever. I found this to be yummy and satisfying and it required only a little bit of stirring and simmering. I reccommend having someone who enjoys cooking do all the chopping of the garlic and tomato at the beginning. Also, I wish I had found a way to buy peeled, de-veined shrimp because I thought the de-veining process was gross (even though I made Brady do it).

Vegan Moroccan Harira: http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/chefs_recipes/10644

Again, more chopping than I usually like to do (i.e. I do not like to chop ever) but Brady and I had fun in the kitchen making this and the 20 minutes of simmering time was not too bad for a weeknight. I would reccommend serving it with flatbread and I suspect it would be better the second day after the flavors have had more time to meld.

Is Cheese a Processed Food, and Other Burning Questions

I've been reading a lot lately about very beautiful, insightful people. They are everywhere once you start looking for them ... on blogs, on facebook, in magazines. People who can run 30 miles and still glow, who take spin classes and yoga classes and enjoy them, people who cook fantatsic fresh healthy "whole foods" and have beautiful, caring supportive husbands/partners. People who are spreading messages of inner peace, self confidence and enlightenment through exercise, healthy food and meditation. These are the people I want to be. I want to start cooking dinner at 4:00 in my bright sunfilled kitchen while my fabulous husband photographs our fresh ingredients recently delivered by our CSA. I want to still be glowing from my yoga class, ready to fuel my body with healthy organic unprocessed food.

I am not one of those people. I am not sure those people really exist. 

The picture accompanying my cooking blog would be a picture of anemic looking non-organic produce being cut with a dull knife on a worn cutting board in a tiny, not so clean kicthen. It would not be a sun-kissed room as the sun has always set by the time I get home. The flickering flourescent light would be the only light source, highlighting the old, barely functioning electric stove and the lamentable lack of functioning counter space. I would probably not have gone to yoga because I was just too tired or too hungry and couldn't bear the thought of losing one hour of my precious free time in the evening. It is possible that I would be drenched in sweat (not in a pretty way - literally drenched) having just staggered my way through a 4 mile run. My hair would be alternatively stuck to the side of my head, or flying free in a weird static halo. I would be wearing pajamas that would almost certainly have holes in them, and I would be drinking a glass of wine and I would really proud of myself for making it through the day and actually cooking something that didn't start in a frozen bag.

Surprisingly, this photo was not taken in 1985. 

Actually, where is that cooking blog? I would read that blog! The blog for those people who can barely cook, but have to anyway? Who consider 1 hour of cooking time to be wildly impractical for a weeknight? (And please don't remind me that I could always cook all my meals Sunday and then reheat/reconstitute them througout the week. That is not a real thing. People who want to do things like that are the same people who don't mind cooking on weeknights.)

I want the inner peace and the glowy skin and the skinny thighs and all of that too, even if I can't be perfect all the time. I want to be the lady who writes the Sprouted Kitchen Blog (seriously, you should check out that blog because she is awesome and all the things I wrote about in the beginning of this entry)! But I am always left with the feeling that I am failing somehow. That these step by step plans for making over your life and your diet work for everyone else, just not for me. Am I the only person who doubts the logic of a juice cleanse? Am I the only person who desperately wants to do a juice cleanse anyway, but can't afford one and thinks they look terrifying and so reads articles about how cleanses are bunk just to make herself feel better?

I cannot be the only person who feels like she is stumbling through life, thinking that she's polished and buffed and worked herself into perfection only to find out her dress was on inside out the whole time.

With that in mind, this one is for you. You overworked masses who just want to make dinner and get to the part of your night where you can sit in bed and watch episodes of old TV shows. Here is the recipie for "whole food" noodles peas and cheese. It's totally unprocessed (except for the cheese? I confess I struggle with the whole concept of unprocessed. I guess pasta is probably also not unprocessed).

Noodles Peas and Cheese

Prep Time: About 5 minutes depending on how long it takes you to grate cheese.
Cooking Time: About 11 minutes depending on how you like your pasta
Number of pots/dishes required: Two pots, one cheese grater
Number of servings: Completely depends on how bad a day/week/month it has been. Reheats very well for work lunches.

Ingredients:

• 1 package of 100% whole wheat spiral or bowtie noodles (I reccommend Trader Joe's 100% whole wheat pasta but any will do. Just make sure you read the ingredients because lots of pasta says whole wheat but then isn't. It turns out, it can't have white durum flour, or wheat flour or any of that. Who knew?)  
• 1 block of cheese, grated (I usually use it all. Don't judge.)
• 1/2 package of frozen peas (Frozen peas still count as unprocessed right?

Preparation:
Cook the pasta to package directions in a large pot. While the pasta is cooking, boil the peas until they are defrosted and hot. Drain the pasta and the peas and combine in the large pot. Add grated cheese and stir vigorously until pasta has reached desired gooeyness. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Finishing the First Draft

So.... I finished the first draft of my book.  Yep.  It's surreal.

You may recall this post back in February of 2010.  (In all honesty, I did not recall that post until just now when I went back to read it, but maybe you all pay more attention to me than I do to myself?) If you are wondering what this book is that I keep referring to, there's a brief description there for you.

I don't know if I really believed I would finish a draft until yesterday when I did it.  I wrote the last sentence and I said, wait, that was it? Because honestly, it wasn't so hard once I set my mind to actually writing.

Or rather, it was ridiculously hard. Getting myself to write was hard. Actually writing was hard. Re-reading what I wrote was/is hard. Some days it felt excruciating. It literally felt like every single word I wrote was being dragged out of me, painfully, leaving a limp bloated scene with no inspiration that I would have to re-write later anyway and what is the point? But it was also not as hard as I thought it would be.  I mean, I did it.  I finished a story.  There's a beginning, a middle and an end.  I think one day, I could maybe finish another book. This is not something I previously believed about myself.

So, the book I finished may be utterly terrible.  The writing may be stilted and amateurish. The whole thing may need to be scrapped, but it was so worth it to know that I can, in fact, finish a book.

When I started this blog I had 78 pages.  Now I have 209. Let the editing begin...

You Too Can Change Your Life... And Stay Exactly the Same

Alex's Summer Detox Plan (If by "summer" you mean late summer because it's already late June and by the way, where the heck did June go?)

 

1. Take the stairs (easy. done.)
2. Stop splurging (or if you have to splurge, splurge only one day a week)
3. Give up alchohol (except for when it is absolutely neccessary, or if it is a special occassion, or if it is one of those splurge days mentioned above)
4. Go to bed earlier (except when work or social life gets in the way, in which case, try to go to bed as soon as possible, definitely no later than 1 am, except on weekends when all bets are off)
5. Wake up earlier (except for when you've gone to bed too late and need the sleep - see above)
6. Eat more kale
7. Eat more fruit
8. Actually, just go ahead and eat all those foods that other people generally tell you are healthy (NOTE: Do not have your boyfriend cook them in butter to make them taste better)
9. Go to yoga twice a week (except when you have a work or social life event that gets in the way)
10. Start adding cardio (in your spare time when you aren't trying to cook the weird new ingredients that you don't like eating or trying to catch up on the sleep you lost while you were trying to detoxify your life in a vain attempt to not be fat and bloated and tired all the time)
11. Eat less (unless you are tired and hungry and frustrated with how you keep gaining weight in spite of all your endeavors and sad that your clothes no longer fit - no wait, definitely DO eat less if all those things are true?)
12. Clean house, declutter (in your free time. Cleaning will make you feel wonderful and you will absolutely not regret the entire evening you have spent decluttering aka moving all your belongings from one side of the room/house to the other with no real results because you can't stand to throw anything away)
13. Live in the moment, enjoy life more (in spite of the fact that the things you enjoy doing seem to make you fat and none of your clothes fit and you have no money and you are tired and sore all the time from trying to do yoga and incorprate cardio and eat better (with no discernable results). Even though those things are true, and will most likely always be true, ignore your guilt and enjoy yourself - just so long as you aren't splurging (see rule 2))

Metaphorical Treadmills and Other Tales From the Gym

I am slowly.... very very slowly... limping my way into a new lifestyle. I am not proceeding with any consistency and speed does not appear to be my goal.

 

Since starting this blog I've failed more times than I've succeeded and taken more steps backwards than forwards. It's nearly enough to convince a person to stop attempting any type of forward motion. And yet I'm plodding on, secure in the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, all of this adds up to progress. Maybe progress doesn't have to be forward progress to be counted as success - maybe while you're living it, it seems like backtracking, but in the end you find you've come a great distance?  I'm waiting for that revelation because right now, I feel like I've been on a giant treadmill of life, never moving, never stopping and I'm not even losing any weight.

I've been going to yoga twice a week. Anyone who has ever seen me take a yoga class is laughing right now. I have all the grace of a wounded elephant and half the flexibility. When I am asked to gracefully move from one pose to the next, the room is filled with heavy breathing and grunting as I attempt to move my body in ways it cannot move. I don't usually feel like a big bulky person.  I mean yes, I would like to lose weight, I've been thinner, but for the most part, my body feels like it's proportionate. Until I begin my yoga practice at which point every part of my body (including my wrists and toes) feels bloated and bulky. A strange new gravity sets in and I find that I can no longer lift my leg in any normal way. Everything hurts. I've been sore for days on end.

Did I mention I've only been doing this for about 2 weeks in a row? I haven't even been doing it very long and already it's harder then I can handle.

But I am determined to have this be the one thing I stick with. I have to stick to something eventually right? I want to quit pretty much all of the time. Halfway through class I am convinced that this is the last time I will go. I'm horrified at the thought that it will take months for me to be better at yoga, years before it's all easy second nature. And yet, I have gone back. I have done my breathing. I have in no way dug deeper to find any hidden reserves of strength, nor have I had any epiphany, I'm just stubbornly refusing to give this up. I've scheduled it into my day.

I've also been writing every Sunday like it's my job. I schedule writing time and I go to a tea shop and I push through even when I hate it. Even when it feels way too hard. Even when I forget why I ever liked writing. The end of my novel is finally finally in sight.  It's miserable and invigorating all at once. Which is pretty much be the story of my life.

So yeah, progress. Slow. Miserable. Progress. Maybe all that time on the treadmill was getting me ready for this. Maybe now that I've practiced some stationary movement I can sprint ahead with some forward motion because my body is ready and trained. Maybe that treadmill metaphor was actually apt. 

And maybe I will make it to yoga tomorrow, despite the fact that in the last few hours I have come up with 3 very good excuses for not going.