General Garden Update

The cilantro, which probably spent too much time indoors, seem a bit beaten by the strong breeze, so I've helped secure them with toothpicks and a wiretie. One of what I originally thought would be cilantro is probably going to turn out to be endive. Oops. That's what happens when seeds stick to your wet fingers. Sometimes you find them in unexpected places.

The brocolli seems to be having an especially hard time growing, or staying. It seems like the ones I ground sow aren't sprouting and the ones I gew indoors don't survive long outside. I'm not sure what's getting to them, but right now I have one, maybe two, of an originally panted 7, and that second one could die any moment. It's practically just a stalk. It was under the cup/bottle, so I'm not sure what got to it to eat the leaves, but something did.

Some of the kale has sprouted, and in some spots where I planted nothing has sprouted. I'm not sure why. I don't know if I should replant once a week until something does sprout.

I have planted all the pouches of my hanging garden with basil. I suspect I need to put my thyme and my oregano outside but I worry about whatever was digging in the garden getting to them. I still have some limited space in the garden proper for potted plants, so they might go there. I'm hoping the mint will be fine, though I'm wondering if, perhaps, I should put it on the chair.

The lettuce is coming up nicely, though some of my seedlings have taken on a particularly purple hue that I don't understand. Is this natural? I don't know.

I am also trying to make use of my remaining bird net. If I can use it to sequester off other parts of the garden, say, near the fence, it will be quite usefull.

Aside from that, I very much wish I was still on the no sweetner at all diet.
It was easier, and I felt better, to just turn everything down.

My Garden is Growing

Well, just about everything has sprouted a bit.

I was having trouble with something digging in my garden so I've put down bird net and cayenne pepper. The bird net has knocked over many of the bottles, and catches on my fingers, but I don't see any plants devoured by anything other than, possibly, a slug. Certainly, there seems to be no more digging. Yay! I suspect this problem will arise again later.
That said. I have now planted:
Kale
Chard
Spinach
Lettuce
Carrots
Peppers
Broccoli
endive
Snow Peas
one cucumber plant
one other plant that is like cucumber (squash? can't remember. Oops)

Also, the potted things have been seeded. I put tomato seeds in all the pots with the yellow sticks in them. I transplanted most of my cilantro to the other pots you see there.

In my hanging garden I have now put seeds in 12 of the little sacks. All basil. I bought some sweet basil seeds at the store because, frankly, I ran out. I might buy lemon basil too, because that tasted quite lovely last year. It's likely that most, if not all, of my hanging garden will be basil. You can see the mint plant in the previous picture and it should do quite well. I have a potted oregano and thyme which might need bigger pots but certainly I don't need another plant and they seem healthy, and the sage that I planted next to the back door may actually be making new leaves. This leaves a few random spots in the yard where I'm considering whether I should plant a tomato or try for some other kind of herb, or simply try to inundate myself with greens.

Next time I will get out my big ugly camera and take some pictures of the seedlings.

Too Much Junk

I think I may need to revise my "will only eat unhealthy food in social situations offering food" to "will only eat unhealthy food in very special social situations." Needless to say, eating junk almost three days in a row (brownie and pudding and a corn dog at cg, 3 root beer floats over 2 days at my mother's house, white bread and a brownie and coke zero at an art demo) resulted in a low level migraine for three days and plenty of my stomach and joints just generally disliking me. That said, brownies are awesome. I am not disappointed by brownies. LOL.

And, so, my feelings about sweets make it very strange that they are such a standard in our culture. I wanted to thank my references for writing me such wonderful letters for grad school. So, yesterday, I went to Wholefoods and picked out a special thing for each of them from the pastry case. I did it because culturally this is an acceptable gift. But am I poisoning them? Surely they would not prefer a boiled egg and a green pepper as a thank you.

Plugging an awesome blog

This is a great blog, and very much what I've been going through in my quest to be healthy. I think I almost died of laughter. The cat thought I was having some sort of attack.

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

You Don't Need to Change Your Vagina

Body love is body love. Love your body, love your vagina.

Grown women have grown women's vaginas, and grown women's vaginas are bigger, and darker, and curlier, and hairier than a little girl's. If it's not sick, don't change it. Don't let a sick society tell you that there's something wrong or ugly about you when there's not. Stand proud! Be your natural beautiful you! And, if a man you're with, or who you talked to,is so indoctrinated that he thinks that the flat, child-like, plastic, porn star vagina is the only one he'll take then drop the asswipe (or, say "fair's fair" and ask him to get his bits waxed, his balls nipped, and his penis extended so he looks like the ideal, too). I know there are men who agree with me, and if more women stood up for their right to be unique and have beautifully unique vaginas then, I promise, even more men would agree.

But really. Your vagina is awesome just the way it is. Just like you.

Here is a link to a great article:
http://jezebel.com/5977025/unhappy-with-your-gross-vagina-why-not-try-the-barbie
and here's a link to a tumblr account that shows all kinds of vaginas (even some, gasp, hairy ones):
http://vaginasoftheworld.tumblr.com/page/8

Day After Easter

So, Easter has passed, and today is the first day of the rest of my dietary life (it occurs to me that I'm aaaalll the tiiiime.
going to have to find something new to fast from next Lent). Lent is, of course, over, and I have chosen to continue with the no processed sweeteners with the exception of parties and holidays and situations where it would possibly damage relationships/important impressions. Lent was quite easy this year, once I got past the first week or two and the headache and the feeling crazy hungry

It was much easier than last year, even pleasant. I feel that I learned a lot about eating food in a more godly way, but not a lot about God. Though, I did begin to have Bible times again, so that's something. However; I'm not sure the fast directed my focus to God as much as I was hoping it would. Ah well, there's always next Lent.

That said; I feel that I have a much greater appreciation for food now, for flavors, for the subtlety of flavor. I feel as though I understand more clearly the concept of food "for my joy and nutrition." I also feel much more confident in eating. I don't think anyone could look at anything I eat now and reasonably claim it's unhealthy. Not unless, perhaps, they were a local-organic-raw food-vegan. ;-)

This morning I woke up and knew that I had to work out. I think I was in Korea the last time I woke up and was like "I need water, and exercise, stat." Worked out for 55 minutes instead of my normal 32 and drank a nice amount of water. I watched the Christmas episode of Doctor Who while I was on the stair machine. it was awesome. I felt awesome afterwards. I love working out and feeling awesome! I mean, I hated making myself work out to get thin and feeling guilty afterwards! I love working out because it feels good!

Wasn't really very hungry today but I was really craving healthy food, which was kind of a tough place to be in because I didn't want to eat, but I wanted to eat. I think my body just wanted to make up for what I ate yesterday. My stomach has also been making crazy rumblings all day long.

Today I had:

A banana
A small apple with 1/4 cup of whole fat Greek yogurt
Two scrambled eggs with a sprinkling of cheese
Two pieces of whole sprouted grain sweetener free toast with "buttery spread"
a serving and a half of grass fed beef cooked in a cup and a half of water with organic tomato sauce
1/4 of a large white onion
about 2 cups of steamed kale
extra strong coffee with 1 cup of milk and 2/3 of a tablespoon of local raw honey
a fruit leather
2 (3?) cups of 100% whole grain curly noodle pasta
Oh, and a handful of organic cherry tomatoes



I think this could work.

Easter Dinner

I ate Easter dinner over at my parents' house, like we usually spend every holiday. That is, a single meal, prepared without much enthusiasm. But, it's a chance to spend time with my mother, which I will always take.

As we ate, and breaking the Lent fast meant I ate about 5 times my daily recommended amount of sugar today, all I could think was I wanted to eat my food. I really just wanted to go back to the food I've been eating for the last 49 days. And, I felt disappointed that the sugary food wasn't better. I wish I hadn't taken a bite out of the small chocolate bunny because then I could give it away. The Cadbury creme egg wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. The fried bananas (mad by me) and the wine was pretty good. The rootbeer float was nice, but even that was making me feel kind of ill by the end of it. I only had a bite of someone else's pie. I didn't want seconds of the sweets. I felt sick. I wanted my food. I wanted some fresh squeezed orange juice and some eggs on whole wheat toast or chicken with lots of spinach. I wanted an apple with greek yogurt.

I feel kind of bad, because I...think...my parents tried to prepare a good meal. I'm also a bit resentful that I wasn't included in the preparation plans. I'm a pretty awesome cook. They're...notsomuch.

Especially with my mom's stomach problems, she can hardly eat anything at all and her stomach is still swollen after all this time and the doctors don't know and don't care and she's tired of getting poked only to be told "we don't know." (and sometimes I wonder if it's psychosomatic, and sometimew I wonder if she's dying and sometimes I just suffer when I think of how she suffers)

I love Easter. It is undoubtedly my favorite day, but I feel disillusioned about the food. I thought it would taste better. I thought it would be worth how ick I'd feel. It wasn't.

It really really wasn't.

My Garden Started, as Promised

So, here's my garden. Give it some time; it's not much right now, just a few tiny plants and some colored sticks. But, on the left you can see the tomato plant that survived the winter indoors. I hope that it's strong enough to deal with the

outside, but I feel like the indoor stuff is starting to get kind of spindley. I used a pesticide on them this morning because I came out to discover that two (three?) of my seedlings had been devoured last night. Not cool. I'm not sure what it is but I will check to see if it hurts bees before I use it once the plants start flowering. I buy (very) local honey anyway, so if it's a dangerous pesticide I might be eating it anyway. I'm fairly happy with how it's coming along. The weather on Monday is supposed to get down to 32, but I think that only the endive might have a hard time with that. I've also ground planted some, so we'll see how that goes. I look forward to what this garden is going to do, and to adding in some cucumber and a zucchini plant, maybe a few carrots, and my herbs later this spring.

Today is, for all intents and purposes, absolutely beautiful. I haven't seen a day this beautiful in quite a while. The weather is in the low 60s, the sky is clear. It was lovely and foggy and cool this morning. It's perfect. It's so perfect I'm ignoring the headache I've had all day (migraine? Allergies? Someone shared a sinus infection?).

Went shopping. Still trying to figure out how I can get eggs that are natural, fresh, and cheap. Still trying to keep my budget to $60 a week. Though, after consideration, it might be good to try for $55 or even $50. I know of a family of 6 (7?) that's trying to feed themselves for $400. I spend over $200 for one person. >.< And, they're trying to eat veggies and stuff. Wow. This is where time-sharing (that might not be the right term) and bartering come in (which is totally something I want to do, but I don't know how to get into it).

Woke up at 8:30am again this morning, so that's great because maybe the melatonin is starting to work its magic and reset my body clock to something reasonable.

My Garden

My garden is pretty much planted. Hopefully I will get around to taking some pictures and posting them tomorrow. There are a few things (basil, carrots, cucumber, zucchini) that I'm waiting to plant until after the risk of frost, but everything else is in the ground, either as seeds or small plants. I'm trying to do that staggering thing. Hopefully it will work and the critters will not eat my food!

I spent a couple hours on the wheel today and so now my arms and upper back ache. Tried to throw a 4 pound vase at the end and couldn't even center it to begin with so I just rewedged it. I figure that can be my work out because I've got a migraine. I'm not sure if the migraine is from being hunched over the wheel or what? But it was probably coming on this morning, now that I think about it, because I was crying over a $15 parking ticket, and usually unreasonable tears predict an oncoming migraine.

Also, I got into grad school. :D

In a little while

This is not a picture of my garden. My garden is bigger,
has less intentional plants, and more unwanted grass.

I will begin posting pictures of my garden soon, but first it has to stop frosting. Right now I have inch high snow peas and spinach and everything else is dead and/or dormant. I have a whole table of baby plants ready to put outside. But, yeah, they're not very frost hardy, so I'm waiting. Hopefully the warm-up that's supposed to start tomorrow will last through the summer.