Hello First Monday in October

Ha! Just showing you I figured out what day it is.

Watercolor inspired by a Pinterest pin, so not exactly original. Okay, not original at all, but it is my painting and my photo. Let’s just call it “bird with killer eyelashes” and file it under P for practice.

This morning I looked at my calendar, located Monday, and marvelled that it was already the 8th of October.  Except that it’s not.  Time stands still when you neglect to flip your calendar.  Yep, STILL stuck on September.

So that’s been rectified.  Yay me.  We’ve had guests this past week, including this lovely lady.  She’s not that spooky in real life.

On the weekend we removed a very old hide-a-bed from our spare room and replaced it with a queen Ikea bed.  It was either that or risk inflicting back problems and insomnia on everyone concerned.  I suppose we could have opted for something more expensive and comfortable (although even a straw mattress on the floor would probably have been an improvement) but this way no one will be tempted to over stay their welcome, right?   Come to think of it, my cooking might have that problem covered already.

Also this morning, on the 6th, not the 8th, I donned my  long neglected running shoes (which I had to rummage around in the closet to find) and went for a walk.  No one is more surprised by this than me.  It’s a gorgeous fall day!  Sunny and windy and warm.

I saw a lot of trees.  But not one of those painted birds.  A chickadee flew right past my head into a spruce tree and refused to come out and strike a pose for me.  Nevertheless,  the wind and the sun and the fresh air and sunshine blew the cobwebs out of my blogging brain and this mish-mash of a post is the result.

It includes everything but the kitchen sink and a recipe.  I’ll fix the recipe part of that by giving you a list of smoothie ingredients:

• blueberries
• fennel
• cucumber
• spinach
• kale
• apple
• lemon
• banana
• avocado
• cinnamon
• ginger
• turmeric
• coconut water

Yes, I drank that, and yes, I am still alive.  It tasted great, even with the cucumber, which normally I find remarkably yech and try to avoid,  but mixed up with all the other stuff it’s barely discernible.  The only good cucumber is a pickled one.  (Pickles in a smoothie??  Huh.  Maybe not.)

And on that note, adieu for today.  Tomorrow I might be more focused, but I’m not making any promises.

I call this “Dead Grass and New Growth in the Autumn Sunshine Along a White Picket Fence”. Anything can be art as long as you give it a long enough name.

 

Bad Things Happen in Threes

These are not three bad things, they are three good things that work well to offset the bad. This picture is from somewhere on Facebook. I really need to start writing down who is responsible for this stuff.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was yesterday because today I get to work the actual stat holiday and make regular pay plus stat pay and perhaps die from boredom in the process.  These holidays are never busy for us at work, unless you count being a glorified repair service for broken arms on glasses, or emergency suppliers of the odd contact lens.

Yesterday, in the middle of preparing dinner,  I knocked almost a full glass of my smoothie on to the floor where it splattered for miles into as yet undiscovered places.  What a mess.  It also got all over me, so I cleaned it up and changed my clothes.  Then when I took the splattered clothes down to the laundry I got more smoothie on myself and my second outfit.  Change of clothes number three.  Later when I tried to shove a bowl of vegetable cooking water (for making gravy) out of the way on my counter I forgot that the bowl has a rubber non slip thing on the bottom of it, so it tipped over and a tidal wave of hot water soaked my work surface.  Yay.  Another unexpected clean up.  And THEN, while clearing the table after dinner I knocked over my finish-the-last-of-the-bottle-because-it’s-too-little-to-put-away glass of WINE!

At which point I remarked – thank gawd that’s the third spill of the day and thus the last.  Because bad things always happen in threes.  And there had been two sets of them in one day all ready.  Also,  there was more wine to open if I really needed more, which I didn’t, obviously, if I was at the glass knocking-over stage of the day for me.

We ate too much and packed the fridge full of whatever left overs we couldn’t force our daughter to take home with her, and went to bed, thus avoiding whatever third set of three bad things the universe had in store for me.

Perhaps I’ll find out today.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it today.  Hope you don’t get indigestion or break your glasses.  Or spill your wine.

What I’ve Learned From A Smoothie A Day

Yes, it’s another damn list, never mind how the beaver spells it.  This list is in my normal random scatter brained order, important points cleverly interspersed amongst the mundane and useless.

1.  I have learned that baby kale has better blending qualities in a smoothie than mature tough-as-boot-leather all grown up kale.  I freeze little zip lock bags stuffed with spinach and kale and use one in every smoothie.

2.  Avocado pits take for flaming ever to grow roots.  From now on I’m just going to toss them in the compost box and let them fend for themselves.

3.  Lemon seeds disappear in a blender, freeing one from the task of laboriously digging them out of the lemon before adding it to the blender.  Now I just throw the whole thing in there and forget about the seeds. So far no lemon trees have grown out of my ears.

4.  Don’t touch the blueberries with your bare hands.  Unless you like blue hands and stubborn blue stains under your fingernails.

5.  Cut back on the antioxidant juices or coconut water to about half and use calorie free water instead.  Yes, it took me longer than the normal person to figure this one out.

6.  A Starbucks tumbler and a straw combine to make it less likely that my lips will turn a color not normally found in nature.  For lips, anyway.

7.  A good veggie powder is better than a protein powder.  This is my opinion, based on reading somewhere that you shouldn’t mix protein with fruit.  I prefer to get my protein from other sources, such as actual chicken breasts.  Some things are better left unblended.

8. Chia seeds appear to be indestructible, which makes me wonder if and how they’re being digested.  Apparently you can grind them up, but seriously, who has time for chia seed grinding.  Not me.

9.  Cinnamon and ginger add subtle flavor, but turmeric tastes weird.  I now take turmeric in tasteless capsule form.

10.  Besides going half-assed gluten-free, I am also trying to cut back on dairy.  I no longer put huge globs of Greek yogurt in my smoothies, and frankly, I don’t miss it.  The avocado and a banana add enough thickness.

11.  I need to stop reading all those health food going green articles because every time I do there’s another ingredient I feel compelled to add to my morning blender concoction from hell.  Besides, one of these days I’ll probably come across some dire warning about smoothies being bad for you.  With all health crazes it’s just a matter of time.

12.  My skin looks better, I’ve lost some weight, and breakfast has never been more fun.  I’ve been drinking these things haphazardly for a couple of years, and religiously for about six months.  Even if the various health benefits are all in my head, I don’t care.  If nothing else, I am doing my part to keep spinach farmers in business.