Etta James – A Sunday kind of love

I’m not just making amends with human thorns this Thanksgiving weekend, but with some veggies from my past as well!

So here I am, digging through my personal closet and recapitulating my past, attempting to shine some light on all the places that I have ached.  I totally believe that our senses hold memory and, for me, smell and taste bring back beats of my past like crazy. Learning to eat healthy whole foods and veggies that I’ve either never tasted or have haunted me since childhood has been challenging to say the least.

Part of how I eat is to eat what is in season. In doing so, I am working with my body to support the climate that food exists in- in short, aiding digestion!  This is totally in line with the idea of feeding people with seasonal allergies local honey – they do better! Since it is fall and I’ve been evaluating my local seasonal choices, one haunting vegetable faces me: SQUASH!

SQUASH has been the toughest adjustment. When I was about 5 years old, before my parents divorced, we lived up on Lake Erie in a white house that haunts my memory with HUGENESS.  I remember this house like the back of my hand and I also remember the first time I ate dinner with the neighbors.  This neighbor lady served a scoop of cottage cheese, a hamburger with no bun and a side of BUTTERNUT SQUASH!!

My 5 year old taste buds screamed “YUCK”!  There was NO flavor and salt was not part of the deal!  That night I threw up everywhere…scarred fo’life from the SQUASH!

That being said, this fall I have been trying to find a way to patch up my “Squashy Past”….

Honestly, here is my new FAVORITE recipe: I make this soup once a week and eat the entire pot by myself!

One large Butternut Squash – Peel it, clean out the seeds and dump them (just like cleaning a pumpkin!) Then chop into medium chunks.

One large carrot – washed and chopped into medium slices

1 quarter of a sweet onion or a red onion makes it yummy too! Slice into medium pieces.

1 Quarter of a peeled and cored apple – any apple, I prefer a sweet one!

Ginger!!!! I tablespoon of chopped up ginger, you can add more for more of a kick!

1 Teaspoon of Tamari or Shoyu sauce. (this is soy sauce)

1 Teaspoon of Tumeric – you can buy fresh or ground in a jar from the market, this is major body medicine for us all!

Garlic!!!! I use at least 4 cloves, I love the flavor and again, the magic that it brings.  If you aren’t into it then don’t use as much. I also use a garlic press, so that I can squeeze juice from the cloves into the soup.

1 Teaspoon of Vegan Vegetarian Soup base. (you DON’T necessarily need this – but I like a bit of flavor.  You can also use veggie broth or chicken broth if that’s what your down with.

3/4 cups of left over brown rice  or freshly cooked brown rice ( if you have it, if not, don’t worry – I use it as a thickener)

Now that you have your list here is what ya do:

Place 3 cups of water in a small soup pan and add your veggie soup base or veggie soup broth or chicken broth. Bring it to a simmer and add EVERYTHING EXCEPT the cooked brown rice. Cover and bring to a boil, cooking until your veggies are soft and mushy.  Add your brown rice and mix through.  Once it’s heated up separate a small cup of it and pour over two large tablespoons of sweet yellow miso, dilute the miso and then add it back into the soup , let it cook at a LOW temp. Remember we don’t want to BOIL the miso or overcook the veggies!

Once it’s all heated and integrated, move your pot to your closest power plug and bust out your WAND! I love this thing, it’s the best new appliance, and if you don’t have one put it on your list! It totally makes our hand mixers (and even blenders) an appliance of the past.  I don’t even have to use my blender anymore!!! (Find the Wand on Amazon by clicking here!) I plop my wand in and “VOILA ” I have a creamy soup ready to rock and loaded with pro-biotic!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jumper – Third Eye blind

For those of you that have been following my blog for a long old while now, you will remember how I’ve expressed my concept on personal thorns?

If you are new to the blog, here is a brief definition: A personal thorn is someone that we have hurt in the past.  These thorns can be relatives, friends, lovers or work relationships.   I call them thorns cause as long as they exist the ache is felt by us. Being that we are 70-75% water we need “light” to penetrate the water to keep us healthy and clean, if we’ve got thorns clouding up our water the light can’t get to all parts of us.

A few years ago, I came to terms with the fact that I had a lot of forgiving to do, and most of that forgiving had very little to do with what others had done to me, but what I had done to myself by allowing my “Hi I’m Fine With Out You” to take over…Of course you all know her right, that part of us that sabotages situations and then turns a cold shoulder, blocking out instead of owning up to our part in a situation.  A lot of time “Hi I’m Fine With Out You” doesn’t even need a situation, an assumption is good enough for her to turn away and take over.  For Mee, I made a list of folks that I really cared about at one time and wanted to ask forgiveness, when I say made a list – I mean I actually sat down and made a list and wrote out my request for forgiveness.

I should warn you, doing this brings opportunity to apologize.

My list of thorns presented itself and I took each and every action I could to reach out and say “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”  Even if I wasn’t the only one to sour the situation, this is about owning my part.  The good news is that some of these ‘thorns’ and I have reconnected and picked up where we left off, in fact our friendships have grown stronger than ever!

A little light goes a long way and cleaning up those thorns allowed some much needed sun shine to turn my murky interior swamp into a fresh mountain spring!

It’s not always easy, I’ve had to make good with the idea that I didn’t need anything from them – acceptance of the apology and the need for it would have been selfish – that’s not what this process is about. Of course my “Hi Is It Gonna Hurt” totally gets all in a tizzy, she is so afraid of confrontation and anything that can sting…

There has been one person in particular  I’ve really wanted to ask forgiveness, this person was one of my best friends when my family passed, they supported me and always saw my greatness no matter which ‘Character’, showed up in the room.  Of course, I went through my really arrogant 20′s in Hollywood and in the process I showed my back side by being rude and inconsiderate.

In the end I didn’t just break my friends heart but mine too…..There have been so many time I’ve wanted to share a moment in my life, touch base or just hang out on their beach back home. I really wanted to tell them that I JUMPED, I heard them and I’m really trying to walk that road to my greatest self.

I’ve seen this person on line, yep facebook and twitter, however my “Hi Is It Gonna Hurt” was in control of my keyboard.  I was way too caught up in how they would receive my apology.

The other day I took my keyboard back and tapped away.

Guess what?

This person responded with greatness!  Gosh it feels so good, one less thorn bringing me down…….Just maybe one day we will pick up where we left off.

(click ‘play’ to listen to Adele’s “Chasing Pavements…”)

I don’t know what it is about ‘anniversaries’ but when I know they are coming close, my little ‘expectation’ radar gets all ramped up and off I go projecting into the world what is gonna happen or how it should all go and feel…
When I was 18 and the year marker of all the accidents was approaching, I began to get restless, uptight and to tell the truth, I thought just maybe something awful was going to happen again.

I had left the mini-blind interior design job behind and moved to a receptionist position in a big D.C. law firm.  I was having a good time exploring the city and setting my life up, having health insurance was a huge perk – an appointment with a psychologist was in need and fo’sho included in the coverage.  Not knowing who to see, I asked the director of human resources and they sent me to a serious corporate psychologist.

I was just a teenager, I’d never been to see anyone before let alone spoken about my trials and tribulations to a stranger!  It was a cold and rainy December day, I felt like the little girl in the movie ‘It’s a beautiful Life’ – wrapped in my long red rain coat, I left the gray, wet, cold outside to enter an office covered with wall to wall gray carpeting and matching paint, even the sofa was gray.  I peeled away my wet, red parka, leaving my pasty white, sad skin to blend into the gray sofa.

I remember scanning the room, taking in the Yale University Certificates of Education and various other award like hangings.  I thought OK, she is smart I bet she can help out.  She asked one question following our introduction “What brings you to see me?”

SWOOSH…..The flood gates opened and I covered the rug with my heart ache and fear….When I looked up – the psychologist sat with a blank face.  My lap was layered in tissues and my eyes as red as my jacket.  I waited, I waited for her to say something….Finally, not one to fear speaking first, I asked her “So do you think I’m normal?”

“Normal’, no you are not normal….”
“What? Doesn’t this happen to everyone? Aren’t we all brokenhearted, doesn’t everyone die?”

“Yes,” she said “Everyone does die…however not in the tragic way that you have lost.”

“Well, can you at least tell me how long my heart will break and ache? Is it 6 weeks?  8 months? How about 5 years?  If you tell me how long it’s gonna take I can do it, I can make it happen.”

She was silent, then she offered me her plan “I think you should come back every week, in the meantime I can give you something to help ease the pain.”

I heard her, I quietly gathered my things…said ‘no thanks’ to the prescription and walked to my car, I began to sob.  I wanted a hug, I wanted someone to tell me that’ yes this is normal’, that people loose their entire families every day all over the planet – look at war torn countries.

Life is about reinvention, and we start over throughout our life times.  I wanted her to offer me love, affection and kindness.  As I climbed into the car I heard a voice “Awww, Awwww, little miss know it all…don’t get down, you are gonna heal this and then head into the world to create a platform to stand on, one day you will sit in a circle of women and you will get your hugs.”

A few weeks ago I read about a place here in Nashville, Magdalene House.  Founded by Becca Stevens, an Episcopalian minister who was raised by here single mother after her father was killed by a drunk driver.  Becca had a desire to become her greatest self and now she guides other women in finding their greatest  selves.  Women live at the Magdalene House for 2 years and work at Thistle Farms a non-profit business run by the women who have survived lives of violence, prostitution, and abuse.  Thistle Farms products are hand-made by the very women they benefit.  All proceeds go back into Thistle Farms and the residential program.

I’ve found that there is a ton of information about our food and healing our bodies with food that is tough to uncover and if you don’t have internet access and can’t afford to work with a food specialist like I am, then how will you ever know that you actually have a choice and power in helping your body?  This is now my responsibility to share what I know, so I headed to Magdalene House and made some Miso!

The ladies there were so cool and funny, sniffing the seaweed and givin’ it that “I don’t really eat beach food face”.  But the best was how they rallied and came to the table ready to try something new and super excited that eating food can actually be beneficial to ones body!

The Magdalene Women asked some seriously great questions and I thought I would share them with ya’ll:

Does Whole Foods and other Health Food stores take food stamps?
YES!!!  They dooooooo!  So does The Turnip Truck in East Nashville…

Is eating this way expensive?
NO!! Here is the deal if you shop on the perimeters of the market veggies, grains, seasonal produce and fruits CHEAP – listen it doesn’t all have to be organic – just wash your produce.  Also grains are cheap and go a LONG way…hence why they are the staple in most 3rd world countries.

If  you buy processed foods, meaning frozen or boxed items your grocery bills go up and your health goes DOWN!!!

Does Organic mean healthy?
NO it depends what’s in it and how much sugar is in it – even if it’s brown rice syrup, agave, evaporated cane juice or stevia.  Too much sugar is sugar.  After eating 2 teaspoons of sugar our immune systems are weakened for 4 hours!

What does it mean if it says ‘Healthy’?
ha,ha…Here is my rule – if you meet someone for the first time and they say “Hi I’m Nice”  do you believe them?  I hope not, read the labels!!!  Meaning go beyond what’s obviously written and find out for yourself.  The fewest amount of ingredients is the better choice!

What should I change first in my diet to improve my health?
SUGAR – Cut it back baby. How read the label and remember this 1 teaspoon of sugar for every 4 grams.  So if it says 20 grams of sugar divide it by 4.  That’s 5 teaspoons of sugar – would you allow your child to put 5 teaspoons of sugar all over his food? How about soda – it’s like 32 to 48 grams of sugar – that’s 12 teaspoons of sugar added to a glass of water!! YIKES!!!

We sat around the table chatting about food and things to do with it, I shared my story of my life and listened to theirs.  At the end one of the women came to me and gave me a hug…whispering in my ear “this is the hug you needed so long ago.”

As I walked to my car I heard my Angel once again “Awww, awww, you found your circle little miss know it all…and you will find many more, keep on keepin’”

Princess Know It All is totally my platform and it is allowing me to grow and share, bringing gratitude my way and fulfilling dreams from long ago….Another week of gratefulness has come.