Have you ever been mad about something? or at someone? I have and tonight I read an article that bowled me over with its insight and helpfulness. I could even say it’s a breakthrough in intellectual understanding about anger and potential underlying emotions. Once it’s understandable in this way, it lets us go. Hooray for that!
Came across these photos of knitting in progress that were taken last year when I made a sweater for C. from yarn called “Blackstone Tweed” and the color was named “Steamers” a perfect fit for those of us in New England!
knitting in place . . .
Knitting notes accompanied by a bookmark of George Clooney for moral support!
Want to take a break from eating (so much) food? Take a look at Joel Fuhrman’s book, “Fasting and Eating for Health”. With a little willpower and clean water, you can safely fast for as long as 21 days!
Lowers blood glucose levels to zero in 2 days and then ketosis (liver using up fat) kicks in and we start losing body fat. How bad can it be? Or to put it another way, how much benefit can there be for weight reduction, lowering blood glucose levels, rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol, even uterine fibroids? And we thought we’d have to keep taking synthetic medications promoted by doctors and pharmaceutical companies, the side effects of which are little known.
The East has taught that it’s not what you ADD to a condition that promotes health (like pills,) it’s taking AWAY what doesn’t work – in this case, it’s the constant churning food ingestion/digestion/elimination cycle that’s wearing us out everyday. And letting the body rest, cleanse and rejuvenate itself.
I think we’re game and this is the right time to try it out. Even fasting a couple of days a week is supposed to be helpful. Sure does save a lot of time planning, shopping for groceries, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. Think of all the time that’s saving too! HAHA!
Update: Sunday, October 25th – I’m on the third day of my water fast and feel grounded and energized! A big contrast to yesterday where Day 2 was the hardest.
Going for 4 days altogether and coming off fast on Tuesday, 27th (watermelon every 2 hours and butter lettuce; then some protein.)
Motivation and good news is that my blood sugar reading today is at 87, which is in the lower normal range – a level at which I have not been at since forever! It will be so much more productive to calibrate carbs/sugar from this new baseline. This is the first time that truly improving my health has been within reach. What a wonder fasting turns out to be!
Life: glass half full (actually, a little more than half full). We are grateful.
Fall arrives when the Sassafras trees in our yard turn color. These photos were taken this morning from our bedroom window. They are even more striking when the sun is out, but I like the deeper contrast in the early morning light. We’ll be raking leaves in a couple of weeks!
delicata squash with maple syrup, corn on the cob, corn muffin and caesar salad – buttermilk
I wonder how Jimmy Carter is doing? He turned ninety-one recently while having radiation treatments for melanoma. Still had that radiant smile going though. I read once that his favorite meal at a Plains, Georgia diner was always the same: three vegetables, cornbread and a glass of buttermilk.
We’ve had a couple of these meals in his honor already, and for some reason, I thought it would be nice to have it again tonight. There’s a delicata squash roasting in the oven with a maple/butter glaze permeating our kitchen with a delicious fragrance. Fresh corn on the cob and a caesar salad with croutons. A heated corn muffin in the skillet and a chilled glass of buttermilk.
Here’s to Jimmy Carter’s health!
. . . a symbol of longevity*
This morning, I read about a nun in South Korea who cooks food that is temple food, vegan and devoid of garlic and onion. Apparently, she has been discovered by the gastronomic world and visited by chefs from all over who gather to learn her secrets. She cooks for herself and two other nuns. Sometimes for monks and visitors.
The sophistication of her cooking and its Zen simplicity is described in a lengthy article in the New York Times today. To me, the wisdom imparted by her phrase, “let nature take care of it,” in commenting about whether wild animals mess up her garden or whether things grow in orderly fashion represents the philosophical core of her way of life.
Even when we want to step back and let things work out on their own, we find ourselves fiddling around to control outcomes or to influence people to do what we want. It’s not only the American way, it’s the human way. It’s hard for us to “let nature take care of it.” But, it seems to me to make the most sense, as hard as it is to let that happen.
We don’t have to try so hard to figure out what the right thing is to do or not do. We don’t have to ease others if they don’t want to be eased. And we don’t have to try to change the outcome of our lives when we reach a certain age because we would like it to be different. It is what it is. And today at least and maybe a bit longer, I’ll let ‘nature take care of the rest.’
Here’s a link to this interesting article.
On another brilliant New England fall day, I thought I’d post a link of Piotr Anderszewski playing a Chopin mazurka . . . to me, it’s a perfect piece to accompany the Fall weather that has graced us for the past weeks.
Someone said the mazurkas, usually characterized as folk tunes, also conveyed a “measured melancholy,” an apt way to describe the gradual waning of the brilliant season now passing us by.
Watching the Swedish mystery series, “Wallander” on my laptop and knitting a wrap tunic at the same time occupied some (a lot!) of my time during this past week. Last Tuesday, I went to Noho and traded in some yarn I didn’t care for so much for some beautiful lichen-moss colored yarn by Berroco called “Blackstone Tweed.”
When I got home, I envisioned knitting a loosely-fitted cropped piece to pair with lightweight turtlenecks that would not be too warm to wear indoors in the wintertime. I made a seed stitch border edging and knitted the rest in a vertical garter stitch – knitting sideways across the sweater rather than from bottom to top. I used to have a brown tunic designed by Eskandar years ago that had a crisscross asymmetrical front that I loved and this design concept inspired me to knit the fronts as fraternal rather than identical twin pieces.
I knitted the back so that it was about three inches longer than the front. And by serendipitous happenstance (and to my initial chagrin,) I had sewn the right front pieces by mistake to the bottom of the elongated back piece instead of midway as I had already done on the left side. But, trying it on, I realized that the loose fit I was looking for would be accomplished by doing the same for both sides (too hard to follow?)
After careful pulling out the left side lest I cut into the knitting which has happened to me before (grrrrr. . .,) I realigned it and reattached it to the bottom of the back, resulting in a floppy kind of fit that was exactly what I wanted but had no idea mentally how to do when I first set out to knit this little piece. I guess the Helpers were standing by even though I didn’t know it. I also knitted two side gussets that I had done with a previous Japanese-designed vest that I had made for C. a few years ago. This design feature allowed the back and front to float on their own and to allow for a cooler fit (pun intended.) The result was just the kind of graceful floppiness of a medieval-looking piece that I had in my mind’s eye when I started the project a few days ago.
The other thing that I did, unable to let this little project go without obsessing over the details, was to knit a narrow band of stockinette trimming that I sewed as a covering over the rough edges of the back collar seams. Having done that, I was satisfied that the sweater was truly finished and complete.
Actually, it even looks pretty good on and I’m thinking of wearing a black plaid shirt underneath it for some contrast. Vive la difference knitting from scratch and groping one’s way to the end! I guess I lucked out on this one — thanks, Helpers!
“montauk daisies” – in rockport, ma., a seaside town, there are huge plantings of white flowers that emerge in the Fall. They even sell these perennial plants at the local grocery store. I brought a few plants back home a few years ago to provide some blooms when almost everything else has gone by in late September and early October.
With almost no care at all, they have multiplied by leaps and bounds in just a few years.
mulberryshoots 