Quiet your heart ~ variations on a theme

The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber.  The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky. 

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

Alone with myself
The trees bend to caress me
The shade hugs my heart.
~Candy Polgar

The trees are whispering to me, reminding me of my roots, and my reach... shhhhhh... can you hear them? Selflessly sharing their subtle song. 

~Jeb Dickerson

Quiet your hearts ..... quiet your minds..... breathe.....

Live your life in a way that pleases you, that is authentic, that makes you proud and gives you joy

Pottery of the morning

And so yesterday I was blessed with a little time and so I grabbed a piece of clay and made this!  I like to make pretty organic shapes as a rule, so this was an attempt at a more somewhat geometric piece.  It is fairly big, and not exactly what I had in mind.  I can't seem to get away from my natural curvy forms.

Oh well, I like it!  It is a great way to start the day!!!  Now I have to get going on an oil painting, too, not that I don't have a couple more major irons in the fire now!  Winter does bring me some interesting challenges.  BRING IT!!!

It's cooking time! Wheat berries and winter vegetables, beet salad

This past weekend, I further investigated my newest cookbook!  I bought some fresh veggies and wanted to use them first.  I had read on the way down to the Mad-oldest son's place a week ago about a fresh beet salad with a light dressing.  This is a perfect thing for me, as I love to use beet greens for greens and beans, and the only way to get them at this time of the year is to get them attached to the beets themselves.  SO, I decided to try this out!  I am excited about the new food processor too, so I got to use it for BOTH of these recipes- so yay for me!  :)

The beets and carrots together have a a wonderful taste!  They are somewhat sweet and the lime and ginger really enhance this flavor and also gives it a very fresh taste for this time of the year!

Begin with about 8 oz of beets and 8 of carrots

Roughly cut the beet and process with the blade of your  FP.  Don't puree- chop!

Dressing is comprised of lime, ginger, cilantro, oil, Dijon and sweetener

Mincing the ginger

Mix the vinaigrette 

Such pretty color in this!

Add the cilantro for a beautiful green counterpoint

This was fresh and delicious- not super "beety" and the ginger adds such a great touch

Beet and Carrot Salad with Ginger

Adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

1 T canola oil

1/2 lime- juiced

1 T minced fresh ginger

2 T chopped cilantro

1 T dijon mustard

1 T honey, agave or maple syrup

1 medium beet

8 oz carrot

Chop the beets and carrot together in the food processor. Combine the oil, lime, ginger, mustard, sweetener and mustard.  ( I added the sweetener- not in original recipe)  Toss with beets and carrots. Add chopped cilantro and serve! 

About 4 servings, around 65 calories per serving

There are several variations to this recipe as well!

And then there was this for leftovers for the week for me!  I had read about wheat berries and bought some down in Janesville.  Park Falls is pretty sparse in these different types of grains.  The awesome thing about this recipe is that I was able to use up stuff and substitute freely what I had in the frig.  I had a mostly used bottle of white wine and this was a great way to finish that bottle- well, there would have been another great way, but you know those margaritas the other night......  :)
I love having go to ideas when there is a variety of fresh food available and I can pick and choose my flavors.  Though the original recipe called for carrots, I came across this lonely parsnip and then I noticed the partial pack of portabellas and so on.  NICE!

Wheat Berries and Winter Vegetables
Adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
About 8 servings, 350 calories per serving (approximately a cup)

2 cups cooked wheat berries- see below for instructions

1 medium chopped onion

1 sweet potato or small acorn squash- peeled and chopped

1 diced parsnip

1/2 cup mushrooms

1/2 cup plus white wine and/or vegetable stock

1/2 small cabbage, sliced thin

1/2 - 1 tsp sage leaves or dried

Cook wheat berries first-

Use about 1.5 cups wheat berries, put into pan and cover with water by at least one inch.  Bring to boil, add a little salt and cook on low, stirring occasionally.  Add boiling water to keep the grain under water as it cooks. Drain and set aside

Keep the water level up as it cooks off and the grain absorbs the liquid by adding boiling water

Begin by sautéing the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil

Add the raw vegetables to the onion- mushrooms, sweet potato, parsnips..... any vegetable you have on hand will work!

Add liquid to these vegetables as you cook them down- I had white wine and some vegetable broth, you can use these and/or water.  For the denser things like sweet potato, allow a good 20 minutes.

After the vegetables are soft- about 20 minutes- then add the cooked wheat berries and sliced cabbage.

Cook this down for another 10 minutes or so, until it is ready to eat!  SO GOOD!

I finished this off with a little Spike seasoning and dried sage!

This was quite a successful experiment and gave me a lot of joy!  I think it will continue to as the week goes on.  :)

Random memory

So in my Margarita induced state of joy I forgot about this until I was drying my hair this morning- it is funny enough to share!  At least it was for me....

There was a guy next to us at the bar before we had dinner on Friday night, and all of a sudden he turns to me and says I must be seeing things!

I look at him and think (drink much??) LOL!  Anyway, I said Why??

He said, the girl next to me has all these colors in her hair!!! He was looking at my head!

HAHAHAHA- I said, but it's cute, isn't it!!

He said, yeah, it is actually really pretty!

AW!!  He was rewarded with a great smile and a thank you!!

I don't recall where the conversation went from there, but I was secretly happy for the rest of the night.  I do like my copper highlights!  I guess others do too.

Funny the silly things that will give you joy!

pic of the day-

It was a lovely day yesterday afternoon, at least it was sunny!

I was going to shoot the stone house, but my favorite tree held more interest. I got a lot of great shots, but here is a teaser!  

This tree is old, but it is still growing, still alive, still reaching for the clouds.  I like that!

And it gives me a lot of joy!

P of D and a few other little things

This is the REALLY cool pic that I came across first!!  LOVE!!

I have a hard time keeping track of things sometimes!  I was SOO excited to find this awesome pic on my camera last night, this crazy thing was way better than I thought it would be!  It seems to be the perfect hit of color, texture, composition and everything!  I DID NOTHING- not one thing to this picture.  I frequently will crop or adjust the shadows a little lighter or something and this was fresh off the SD card. Anyway, keeping track- this is my 5th Photo of the Day.  I was sitting here debating if I had done 4 or 5 of them, and had to go look at my stats for heavens sakes.  I guess it really doesn't matter, but that sort of thing can bug me.  I am also on day 10 of another (looong) challenge, and that is a massive success so far!  woo HOO!

This is the second one- I love the composition!  Can't decide which is better- one of these is getting sent to channel 9!

There are a few little annoyances this morning that are on my mind.  Nothing major, and it is after all just life- pain and suffering!!  hehe.  I tried to get onto the loseit website this morning and it literally is freaking out!!  It kept almost loading and then it would revert back to the loading screen and it flipped back and forth like 20 times in 15 seconds.  So strange. I tweeted to loseit support - I hope they can do something there!  Oh well.

I have overdone my walking, somehow, and I have some major shin pain and even in the tendons and things in the backs of my legs!  Now you tell me HOW I could have done that??  I have not slowed down my walking really.  It happened when I did that 10 mile walk on Dec. 31 after finally getting back from all that Christmas celebrating, and of course I had tons of energy so was walking the first half of that at a sub 15 minute pace...... hmmmm.  Anyway, I am limping around like an old arthritic person.  I hope it abates by later today!  I think I will do a slowish walk only to the stone house just to keep active.  I have plenty to do in the house today, so I can rest a bit.  At least it is not my knees!  sigh

Related to all that, I tried to weigh myself this morning and my scale has a low battery.  Again.  SERIOUSLY, I do not know how the batteries can go so fast.  I swear I do not hop on that thing everytime I walk past.  In fact it gets a lot LOT less use now that I am maintaining!  Maybe it is lonely and the life is getting sucked out of it in it's depression....  doubtful.  I was too lazy to replace them, as I think because of afore mentioned leg issues, I will be a little heavy anyway. Eh.  I'll work on that.

And one more stupid thing- coffee.  I am super sensitive to caffeine again lately.  ARGH!! Really all I want to do is bathe my brain in caffeine all morning and then I promise I will stop.  AND because I had all but quit drinking it for a few weeks, it just doesn't taste very good anymore.  I can't TELL you the injustice I feel!!!  It was one of my last (and almost my favorite) vice!  I, even this morning, really can't finish drinking this cup that I have.  It just doesn't taste as good as usual.  ANOTHER sigh.  I'm on the lookout for a new vice!  :)  Actually I need to work on my chocolate vice.  I had planned to break my sugar addiction by not eating it for a while, but THAT is one challenge I have failed at miserably. Mostly because I challenged just myself and didn't actually make it official!  By telling someone I was going to or having that person goad me into it.....  well anyway, I am apparently not willing to do that at this time.  But I am inching closer to being way more sugar free.  Then I really will need a new vice!

OK!  Enough of that!  POSITIVES for the day!
* I have a new canoe tucked into the garden shed!!
* Babygirl is going to be born in 3 short months!!!  Even more reason to look forward to the end of tax season!  Tax season (it is my blog, I will digress) is an interesting time of the year.  On the one hand after long days of noisy children at school it is a relief to come home to a quiet house.  Not that the MA is all that noisy, but you know what I mean.  But by the time April comes I am about ready to crawl the walls!  I AM that little bundle of contradictions you know- I want quiet, but I need someone to talk to! And I NEED to go out by that time!  I am in need of adult entertainment and beverages that are not located within the confines of my refrigerator!  And God forbid, maybe a movie or something!!  I have great hopes and expectations, don't I?  I am not holding my breath for the last thing- remember it is spring then and we all know that **someone** just wants to run amok outside with chainsaws and rakes and garden shovels. We shall see.  sigh
*Back to positive - It is NOT -25 and shouldn't be for a while!  This is good for January
* I ROCKED my new arms weight program yesterday!!  So cool, even my biceps are sore today, so this is a win for me!! Looking forward to getting back to my 4 days routine again!
*I have time today to make some good food, clean a little bit, and do a project that I want to do.  Maybe even read!!

I have a list and I am going to attack it right after pancake sunday is taken care of!  And that is always a joy!  :)

And sometimes when you least expect things!

I was lucky enough today to be able to purchase a CANOE!!!  

Now if you know me at all, or at least have known me since last summer, you know that I adore canoeing.  Ever since I returned from the Boundary waters last summer, I have been missing that past time badly.  We took the canoe we had borrowed back to it's rightful owners, and I have been without water transportation ever since.  Sad Debi.

I was in the right place at the right time (wow, that is saying something, considering where I was at the time-eesh) and a colleague of mine told me about a REALLY great canoe he had for sale. He had a need to lighten his load and knew that I might be interested!  So, after thinking about it for perhaps a minute and a half, I decided I probably would be getting this amazing deal, with some nice little perks thrown in. Like paddles and life jackets and good stuff like that. Later, after another meeting, a gym session and a phone call or two, the plans were made.

This morning, Dan shows up with this beauty!  FABULOUS!



It is pretty funny to see the canoe perched in the snow like that~

It is going to be tough to have to wait until May- but it isn't THAT long, right?


And that first launch will be a joy!  Anyone want to join me this summer??  I have an extra life jacket :)