Everything Wants to Be Round. And Saturday food.

I was reading MizFit's blog yesterday and thinking about vision and gratitude boards and so forth, and about the amount of time I spend these days in activities that do not get me closer to any positive goal.

And so I decided to just do something that I've been putting off until the stars align properly and all the right things fall into place... setting up my glass working equipment again.

It's been years, literally, since I've done this... working with glass is the one thing that I've wanted to do practically forever, and about 6 or 7 years ago, I started taking beadmaking classes in Rochester and in Corning, and I finally set up a small studio at home. And I was just starting to feel like I was getting somewhere with this, when just about everything in my life changed, and I moved, and it took a long tiime to get things set up again. When I did, it was winter... and I work in the garage, and although the torch itself is over 2000 degrees, in winter here, it was just too cold. So Michael did the sweetest thing ever two years ago and as a Christmas present, hired someone to partition the garage and insulate it, so I could work in the winter. But the guy who was doing it, the son of a friend, turned out to be... well, "less than competent" would be putting it kindly. This was supposed to take a few weeks, and he finished at the end of last July. By that time... well, that was right after my mother died, and about when all the rounds of Michael being really sick started, and it's seemed like about the last thing that I should be doing. And too much effort to dig everything out and get going, and time that I couldn't afford to give.

So yesterday, I made a vision wall, instead. I tacked up all the pictures I had of glass by Kristina Logan, my personal inspiration, hooked everything up, and made a few beads. Wow, it's been a long time. I have forgotten everything. But it will come back.

Working with glass is a very meditative kind of activity for me. You have to be patient, not something that I do well. Lots of stuff goes through your head. Yesterday, what was going through my head was what one of my teachers said... "everything wants to be round." What she meant was, hot glass will always try to be round, so you have to remember as you're trying to shape it.

But to me, that means something else... it is easiest to be what you are naturally.

It's an extension of something I was thinking about earlier in the week, regarding exercise and food... it's a lot easier to try to follow an eating plan that suits the way you like to eat. Exercise for me got a lot easier when I got over the idea that I had to run, like all my friends, because this is not something that is natural for me. And when you get right down to it, most of the things that cause me pain in my life have to do with trying to be something that I am not, but that I have some notion that I "should" be.

Everything wants to be round. Use what you are naturally to make yourself better.

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Food.

I am not paying as careful attention as I should.

Quiche/protein shake breakfast.

Then I went off to give a makeup exam, and ran by the grocery store to pick up prescriptions. I brought home some seafood salad for lunch, discovered that Michael had already eaten, and so just tossed a little seafood salad and a couple of chicken wing segments on a plate, and couldn't be bothered to take a picture. Also couldn't be bothered to have the green salad that I'd planned. Yes, I know... I will fuss around if I'm making food for other people, and I won't bother to feed myself properly. Not a Good Thing.

Around 5, we had 2 crackers with a little smoked salmon and some cheese that I'd bought earlier, plus 2 thin round of something billed as "Chianti Wine Salami." Good, not great.

And then dinner was pork shoulder, cauliflower purée, and broccoli with a little Parmesan cheese. The red stuff is a cranberry-walnut sauce, not low carb but there's only about 2 teaspoons of it.

But I nibbled on bits of pork as I was carving, and I ate a few of those little hamburgers I made a couple of days ago (and fed the rest to the dog), and I think I had a chocolate, and I sort of feel like I'm getting back to that not paying attention kind of eating. It's mostly, I think, because I've been sick and so haven't really been exercising, and that tends to make everything else kind of fall apart. This needs to be nipped in the bud now.

And today's bonus picture... a very bad picture of six not-very interesting or symmetrical beads. It's a start.

Gratitude. And Friday food

I am thinking today about gratitude. This is not something I am remotely comfortable thinking about. Not at all. The last few years... well, the last decade... have been so difficult for me that it is the hardest thing in the world some days to be grateful rather than resentful. And it is the bad thing about me, that I can be filled with resentment and anger for all the ways in which my expectations about people, about life, have not been met. And I forget to be grateful for the good things that have come rather than mourning that things that have not come or have been different than expected and desired.

It is hard.

I'm trying to think grateful things without the caveat on the end. You know what I mean... "I am so grateful to have this excellent job that I love and that is secure.... BUT wow, I've done a really good job of screwing up my academic career because my head was far more involved with the rest of my life than with work." I am so grateful to have people in my life who care about me... BUT why don't they see how much I need help? Why was no one there during the ten years when my first marriage was falling apart, and I was alone and desperate?" The trouble is that, whatever the truth is, putting those caveats in takes positive things and makes them negative. It takes things that are good and makes them bitter. It makes it impossible to rebuild things because they are so weighed down by the past. And the past doesn't matter... well, it does, in a way, but more because it's how we got here than anything else.

So, maybe for today, I could practice leaving off the "BUT" on the end.

And, now, the food part...

So we had the usual protein shake and quiche slice, the latter quite late in the morning because it is quiche-making day.

And then I went off to Rochester with my adorable son, partly to order doors and such for the renovation project we're working on, partly to buy him something respectable to wear when we go to New York City at the end of the month (happyhappyhappy looking forward to this), and partly to go to the Better Grocery Store. All of this took pretty much all day, and when we got done at 5, I had this...

which is a summer roll that is mostly lettuce and a little smoked salmon. I have no idea how one eats these things slowly and gracefully because I always seem to be stuffing them in my mouth before they fall apart. And, yes, I stole a little dumpling and a bit of squid from the Chinese food he'd gotten.

Didn't get home until 6, and then had to run out to get some wine for the fish stock I wanted to make... I bought fish bones at the store, and they needed to be made into stock now, because in this part of the world, fish is never as fresh as you'd like it, and I want to make chowder later, so I'll make this tonight and freeze it. This put me in the mood for a glass of white wine, something I almost never have, and so I had a glass and a half and felt very happy. These days I drink so rarely that I'm a very cheap date.

For dinner, we had skate, a bit of cauliflower purée leftover from yesterday, and fresh green and yellow beans. Ate really late, though, which is not such a good thing. Haven't had skate since I was last in the UK, so really a great treat.

This photo food diary has been a very interesting thing for me, so far. First of all, I have to say that feeling like you need to take a picture AND that you're going to post it somewhere public is a big deterrent to picking up small things to nibble on, and this is my big downfall in general. I have lost a little weight every day that I've done this, except Friday (writing this bit first thing Saturday morning), and that day may be because we ate so late in the evening. It's also making me see think harder about portion size, which is one of the things that I have the hardest time getting a handle on. So we continue on, for the moment. It's interesting, for me anyway (I have no idea at all whether it's interesting for anyone else!).