A Healthy Decision

1-7-10 resolution brain

I’m hoping my sister will decide to really make the effort to eat more healthy in 2010. So this blog is for her.

My sister is like me, she doesn’t enjoy time in the kitchen and wants eating to be convenient and fast. Unfortunately, fast usually means unhealthy, but it doesn't have to, if you make just a little effort.

It’s true- I’m not the greatest cook, and my cooking and eating is centered more around body fuel and not for eating pleasure, so here are a few tips for my sister.

Couscous: Easy to use as a base for a meal; and only takes boiling some water in the microwave, mix and allow to set 5 minutes.. and it's ready to eat! I make without oil or butter.



I make a whole bowl, then keep in refrigerator and use small amounts for each meal I create.

So in a small bowl, I start with a ½ cup of the couscous, I pick some protein to add such as either a boiled egg, black beans, or left over chicken or even deli turkey meat. I next pick some vegetables to add, such as steamed broccoli and carrots. A large amount of vegetables can be steamed and used for a few days. I’ve also developed a taste for artichokes, since are easy to add from the can.

Next you can add a few sunflower seeds, nuts, or cashews to give some nice crunch and for a source of good fats.

Then find yourself some healthy sauce which tastes good to you, and just use a small amount to mix in. I’ve found this “Iron Chef” Orange Sauce with Ginger recently in the health food section of the grocery store. I love it!



Then a healthy habit to start is eating a snack mid morning and mid afternoon….. Just grab a piece of fruit: apple, banana or orange.

Healthy eating is a decision that can be EASY!

Making Decisions

1-6-10 decisive brain

Life forces us to make decisions daily. What to wear, what to eat, what to spend our time on each day. Or BIG decisions like "what should I do with the rest of my life?"

The last few days I’ve been thinking about “decision making”, in some respects due to New Years, and because I've been thinking about my goals for 2010.

One technique I’ve learned to use to help with decision making is to visual the decision being made……

If it is a choice between doing A or B, I pretend that I pick A, and I then think about how that feels. Am I relieved? Am I happy?…. Or do I feel tense and still confused? Then I do the opposite and pretend that I made the choice of B…. and go through the same process of noticing how that feels to me.

Making a list of pros and cons can work also, but I really like pretending that I‘ve made a decision and see if I experience a sense of relief and a sense of peace about my choice.

For example, in November I decided to try to live without my 100 or so channels on cable TV. We don’t have cable at the KC house, so I figured I really didn’t need it in Des Moines either. Most of anything I might watch on TV, which isn’t much, I can see on network TV or the Internet.

I can report, that I haven’t missed cable TV at all….. AND I also love saving the $30 to $40 a month too.

More decision making tomorrow......

Starting 2010

1-5-10 New Year brain

My New Year's Eve was spent in KC this year. Friends Ann and Roy from Des Moines came to spend two nights on the Plaza and so Greg and I had a wonderful early dinner at the Grand Street restaurant party room with them. The food was fabulous! All four of us left full with happy taste buds.


We then hung out some in Ann and Roy's room on the 7th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel.....wonderful view! We didn't quite make it to midnight, but came close. The next day the four of us went out to Molly and Jeff's for a football party, but for me it was all about the food. For those of you who know Molly, you know the food was out of this world as usual!

Regarding the Rose Bowl football game which we watched.... my sympathy to my Oregon cousins. The Big Ten was the victor this time around.

Here I was having all this fun on vacation and still had two more days to go. Saturday and Sunday became "movie" days, since what else can you do when the wind chill is below zero, even in KC?! Greg and I saw "Up in the Air" on Saturday and I am now a George Clooney fan. Not sure why I never drooled over George before like many of my other girlfriends, but in this movie he is very handsome for sure! I liked the movie a lot... I found it interesting and thought provoking for me.

Sunday, Molly and I went to a movie while Greg was watching his beloved Cleveland Browns. We saw "It's Complicated"..... We both really enjoyed this movie and laughed a lot. Who knew "old people" could be so silly and have so much fun... oh wait! I'm "old"......

It's true, Life can get more complicated, interesting and FUN the older you get... and I'm hoping for all of this for my life in 2010!

Holiday Report part III

I am back at work today, but will continue finishing up my Holiday Report this week.

Post Christmas vacation continued for a few days in Des Moines. My sister and niece joined us for 24 hours. The highlight was taking my sister to have a joint acupuncture treatment with me. I’m been trying to get her to start taking better care of herself. Don’t get me wrong, her good habits are: not drinking, not smoking and she does try to exercise…. But her eating and sleeping habits are poor and her stress/worry levels are high.

My sister was born the mothering type, and thus she is trying to take care and control everyone else BUT herself. (Don’t worry Ann, this is not new news for Jan, these are things I’ve said face to face to my sister more than once, hoping at some point it will sink in),…. Not that I’m Ms Perfect, but I hope the consultation with my acupuncturist gives Jan something to reflect on and work on this new year.

Once simple step Jan , and all of us can work on, is watching what we drink. My acupuncturist actually recommends the “zinger” type of teas which are available in grocery stores. Red Zinger by Celestial Seasonings is my favorite. These dissolve in a glass of water and you can drink cold or hot.

My acupuncturist told Jan that this is actually healthier than plain water since the added herbs keep you hydrated better. I must admit I usually drink my zinger teas in the summer and had not been drinking any lately. So I started again, and I actually think I see a difference in my face and skin. I have to remember that winter is a very dry time of year and my body needs the hydration as much as in the summer.

Of course the advice from my acupuncturist also includes the cutting back of pop/soda. The carbonation is not good for you, and the synthetic sweeteners.

Here’s to a healthy new year for my sister and all of us who want to feel and look our best!

Serendipity Sunday: chasing Amy

1-3-10 perplexed brain
I'm in Kansas City this week and unfortunately there is really not much difference between KC and Iowa at this moment in time. Both places have snow and cold temperatures.

Here is the deck in KC. Greg tells me the average high in KC this time of year should be mid 30's! I was looking forward to that.... looks like I will have to wait until my next trip here to see warmer temperatures.

Yesterday Greg and I bought ourselves a post Christmas gift. This Asus netbook.



An explanation for my Dad is that this is smaller than a regular laptop computer, put larger than an iphone or Blackberry. The basic use is for email when you travel. So this is my connection when I'm visiting KC and want to surf the Internet and not use my work laptop.

This netbook is named "Amy".... it came with that name, since it once briefly, it appears, to have belonged to someone named Amy, who by total freak of accident due to some strange technology I stumbled into her blog.... still can't figure that out....??

It was like moving into a new house and being haunted by the ghost of the previous owner.... leaving me wondering and thinking about who this Amy is. I want to meet her and talk to her. Amy's blog only lasted for about a month and her last post was Dec 21st.

Oh how I love a good mystery.... Sweet Serendipity!

I did leave a comment on Amy's blog and hope she will come visit me on my blog soon.


PS: To explain further, we bought this netbook "open box" at Best Buy... it had been returned, but the Geek Squad thoroughly examined it to be in perfect working condition, thus we got it "used" and even more on sale. It seems to be working perfectly fine for me... but wondering why Amy returned it..... perhaps she no longer needed it?

Resolution

1-2-10 determined brain

In 2010, I resolve to:

"Don't tell God how big the problem is,
....but tell the problem how BIG God is!"

I can't remember where or who I heard this from recently, but I liked it.

A new decade

1-1-10 forward looking brain
Last week as I was winding down my work year before holiday break, I was listening to NPR radio and got interested in the discussion which was reviewing the events of this last decade. Wow, that is true, 10 years have passed in the new 21st century!

http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/12/the-end-of-the-00s?autostart=true

One panelist on the NPR show called 2000’s the “Flim-Flam decade”…..with many scandals, corruption and misrepresentations, which left many of us feeling swindled. Another panelist even called this the “decade from hell”. Maybe for us Baby Boomers who grew up in the post WWII "prosperous times", but I doubt this was “hell” for those who have lived through the 1930’s and 40’s.

Other discussion points revolved around:
* The loss of faith in institutions, banks, government.
* Technology has people taking control, grassroots movement on Internet and blogs.
* The facts and truth are blurred with opinions.
* End of the middle class.
* End of the American empire

This decade reminds me personally of the words to a song I like by Peter Himmelman called “Easy to be Broken” ….. some of the words are ......."The static get applauded and the truth gets hushed….. Everyone’s craving what nobody needs….the world is built on broken promises…… we’ve developed a heart of stone. …. It’s so easy to be broken"

I believe that most of these types of challenges we have faced for the last 10 years have happened since the beginning of time, just in a new form for us…. and maybe we all are just waking up to the truth of our fallen state we live in. Our human world has always been in a “broken” state.

But with these challenges comes opportunity…. And with brokenness comes the opportunity for healing.

At the start of this new year, I’ll try to remember the good things which happened in this last decade:
* Our 2000 to 2001 house addition.
* There was no end of the world on eve of Y2K
* Greg’s new job in 2000 in Des Moines and 2007 in Kansas City
* Opportunity to travel to Europe 2000 and 2005
* Fun train trips to Oregon and Arizona
* Grand Canyon trip
* New friends!
and all the small loving moments that touched my heart deeply.

Here's wishing more love, peace and healing in 2010!


(another new peace art work of mine)