So while the rest of the world is staying in, staying home, and (hopefully) staying safe from this awful, plague-like virus that’s going around, I’m still going to work in a small, thus-far mildly effected hospital.

I say mildly, because in the grand scheme of things, we have been truly lucky up to this point. Business is much slower right now than it normally would be, and I hope it stays that way so that we can cheer the community for their heroic measures of staying in at this time.

Meanwhile, I’m taking the time to learn new things, make some serious progress on a quilt I started around this time last year, and doing my best to keep my coworkers comfortable by sewing buttons on their headbands.

My accomplishments over the last two nights have been:

• Sew buttons onto 14 headbands for coworkers
• Make 100+ English paper piecing hexies
• Submitted documentation for renewing my professional certification
• Read some professional journals
• Researched schools and options for earning CEUs, and advancing, and possibly changing my role in healthcare.

While the Covid-19 isolation and quarantine time isn’t much fun for anyone, it is a really good time to do some self reflection and figure out who and what we want to be once this all blows over. Now is the time to maintain the things that are worth keeping, and build the foundations for the changes and improvements we want to make.

I think I have an idea on what direction I want my life to take after this. More of that later, once I fine tune the details.

I’ve been sitting on this blog for a while, waiting for the right time to start writing, and always letting something get in the way of starting it.

Not any more.

No more excuses.

I can write while still picking up a crazy number of overtime shifts, while working in healthcare, in the midst of a crazy-terrifying pandemic. And if I can make time for writing during these chaotic, stressful times, then I can make other dreams and goals happen, too.

For the time being, I’ll document what I’m doing to get through this time that is already trying and stressful for a lot of people. It may or may not sound like everyday life for me, but, if I’m being honest, the current situation is really just a slightly weirder version of my normal.

Ready, or not, here I am!

For almost two months I have been following the Hot Belly Diet. The name is kind of silly, but makes sense if you’re read the book. The diet is based in Ayurveda, and meant to really stoke your digestive fires, hence Hot Belly.

It’s more than just a diet, though. It’s more like a lifestyle change and a course in getting to know yourself better.

It encourages gentle (but very effective!) exercises like yoga and walking. It encourages time spent outdoors in fresh air and sunshine. They have a suggested bedtime, as they really want people to get enough restful sleep. And so much more.

One of the things I really like about it is that it has changed my flavor preferences for the better. My sense of sweet has changed, and things that I used to think of as only somewhat sweet are now too sweet for me. I’m more likely to appreciate a less sweet piece of fruit or vegetable, than a piece of candy or bowl of dessert.

My sense of spicy has also changed, though not as consistently. Some things are spicier than they had been, while others are tamer.

I also find myself occasionally wanting something with dairy in it, but then when I take a bite or drink, it’s not what I wanted or expected, because of the dairy in it. I mean, I never thought I’d say this, but I like black coffee.

I have been having some cravings, though. Being hot here lately, I’ve wanted a cool, refreshing salad for dinner, instead of a hot cooked meal. Greens are good, but they’re not where it’s at for me right now. I wanted balela.

Balela, for those not familiar, is a middle eastern bean salad. with lots of tasty brightness, bite, and some spice, all nicely coating some garbanzos and black beans.

I’ll work up my adaptations for the recipe for that tomorrow. Until then, here’s a teaser:

 

Goals are funny things. Depending on who they are important to, they can be important to us, or others. They can be extremely gratifying to achieve, or leave you feeling a little blah or even let down. Today, I’m on the gratifying end of the scale, and pleasantly surprised to be here so soon, in one area. In several other areas, I’m still working toward those goals.

Last fall I found a really cute tee shirt in a freebie pile. It wasn’t my size at all, but it was totally my colors and my style. Given that it was about a size and a half too small, I figured it could be my visual reminder of goals of getting healthier by losing some weight and getting more fit.

That didn’t really work out for me. Seasons changed, and all of the seasonal clothes, including my new cute tee, got put away and replaced by cold weather clothes. I completely forgot about it until the seasonal lothes made the rotation again.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I found my cute shirt again. It still didn’t fit.

That was May 23rd. Today, mini-goal achieved, I’m wearing that shirt!

I’ve lost enough weight to feel and look comfortable in a shirt that I couldn’t even put on three weeks ago. Not only that, but there are some other signs of improved health that I’m noticing since starting this new diet/life style, such as:

• Certain symptoms of being anemic have gone away. I will need to get blood work done to verify this, but I believe my anemia is improving.
• I have reduced my need for caffeine. In fact, I have enough energy now that I could probably cut it out completely, if that was my goal. (It’s not. I enjoy tea and coffee far too much to totally quit caffeinated beverages.)
• My legs are taking on a more flattering shape. I have ankles, rather than the dreaded cankles, now. And my calves and thighs are definitely slimmer. I still fit into the same pants I was wearing three weeks ago, but they fit differently than they did when I started this adventure.
• I am already stronger and more flexible than I was at the beginning of this.

That’s just a handful of the benefits I’ve noticed from following the Hot Belly Diet.

While I don’t actually feel deprived, there are some minor challenges with this plan. They are:

Eating socially.  – Whether it’s going out to dinner, or a potluck at work, keeping to the diet can be tricky if you aren’t cooking your own food. There’s not much you can do about potlucks, but you can make it easier on yourself when going to dinner with friends, if you research your local restaurants for places that serve diet approved foods.

Prioritizing your time.  – Technically, the breakfast options on this diet are oatmeal with fruit and nuts, scrambled eggs with veggies, or a smoothie, with recipes included in the book for all three options. I will admit that there have been a couple of days where that 20 or so minutes for fixing breakfast were spent getting a little extra sleep. On those days, a couple pieces of fruit from the approved list were my breakfast. I’m not too stressed about those days though, since I made healthy choices, and getting enough sleep is part of the overall lifestyle laid out for you in this diet.

The timing of everything. – They lay out the ideal times to eat, exercise, and sleep in this diet. And that’s great, if your job is 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday, and completely predictable in the daily course of events. I don’t have a job like that. I work odd hours, in a completely variable field. While this diet may work better if you adhered to the suggested times for everything, I’m here to tell you that it still works even if your personal schedule doesn’t sync up with what the diet suggests.

 

Overall, though, the Hot Belly Diet is pretty easy to follow, and turning out to be quite effective for improving my health through weight loss, and gained health through balanced nutrition and exercise.

It’s been a little while since I’ve been here. Life got crazy and priorities got skewed.

Today I’m back, and I’m here to stay.

I’ve got some things lined up for myself that I think are kind of biggish. In no particular order, they are:

Developing new healthy habits. I re-joined a gym a few weeks ago. Then last week I started taking a yoga class. And this weekend I’ll do the cleanse and start the Hot Belly Diet for real.

Crafting. My row marker for my Rain Gauge Blanket fell out a couple of weeks ago, and I have yet to count the rows, put it back, and knit the rows I’ve missed since then. I’ll post progress pictures and the design concept once I’m caught up, and have a non-rainy day to take pictures outside.

I also have enough of the right sized fabric scraps now to make a good start on my denim orange peel quilt. So I’ll start that in the next week or two.

I recently finished a pair of hand-sewn linen palazzo pants. I love them. The waist band needs a little bit of re-doing since either the elastic is too wide, or I need to undo the stitching around the waist and make it a teensy bit wider to accommodate the elastic. I also cut the elastic a little too long, so the fit is just a little too loose to be completely safe from accidentally baring my backside to the world. These are just minor adjustments, though, and I know what to do for the next pair. Pictures and details are coming, probably next week.

Priorities. I’m going to be around here a bit more. The big part of why I started this blog was because I have ideas I want to share with the world, and goals I want to reach. Some of those goals include:

• Writing and publishing at least one cookbook before I turn 50.
• Feeling good in my own skin and company.
• Restructuring my priorities to better reflect my values.
• Enjoying more music, books and blogs, and art.
• Entering a quilt into a judged quilt show.

I’m not yet sure how I’m going to do most of those, but I’ve got a pretty good handle on how I’m going to do the last one. I just need to finish one or several quilts, and enter them into a local, or somewhat local, quilt show.

Learning new things. I’m always researching and learning about something. A week and a half ago, I took the first in a series of herbalism classes. This makes my inner foodie-crunchy-hippy-“do it myself”-toddler happy in so many ways. It’s more than likely that I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this, and what I’ve learned about herbalism here.

Have a good morning, all. I’ll leave you with this picture of this morning’s sunrise, from about where my bedroom window will be once our house is built.

2019 is looking to be a big year for my husband and I. Among other things, we have a house to finish building, and a farm to start. These are big projects all on their own, but I have a few other things I want to do as well.

I want to continue improving my health.
I know. Everyone says this at the beginning of the year. They even usually say it with good intentions. And then they don’t follow through.

I’m guilty of that myself. I’ve been there, and definitely not done that.

This time though, it’s a continuation of something that was already underway. And I plan to build on it. Current health improvement projects include:

• Improving and correcting my carpal tunnel. – I’m probably headed for surgery sometime later this year, since occupational therapy helped some, but not as much as we had hoped. A few more visits with the doctor will come before that, though.
• Weight management and fitness. – I lost a little bit of weight last year, and have a ways to go before I fall into the healthy range again. Hectic, chaotic schedules didn’t help with making further progress, but settling into a routine will help.
• Correcting my anemia. – Correcting this will probably also help with the weight and fitness aspects of getting healthy, too. I’ll be experimenting with my diet (and sharing tasty recipes) until I find the right balance to give me what I need to not be anemic, and still be able to shift over into a healthy weight range while having the energy to get fit and build my house.

I want to complete 10 non-house-building related craft projects.
I’m crafty by nature. I knit, crochet, sew and quilt. I’m a member of a maker’s space (think co-op for creative people), and the SCA (fun group of people who geek out on, and recreate, the Middle Ages), and part of my dream for our farm is to have it be a teaching farm where we share and teach crafts with things that come from our farm.

I want to knit two sweaters. One is going to be a cowl-neck, raglan-style tunic. The other is going to be a learning experience. I want to knit a top-down sweater with color-work in the yoke. My family called them ski sweaters when I was growing up, though I have no idea why, since we never went skiing.

I want to knit at least one blanket. We love throw blankets around here, And there are so many pretty patterns out there that I want to try.

I want to finish at least the tops of two English Paper Piecing quilts I’ve been working on, and complete the orange peel quilt I’ve been making out of old jeans.

I want to submit at least two A&S projects for the SCA sometime this year. I have no idea what they are yet, but I’ll find something cool to do.

I haven’t decided where I want to go with the other two projects that would complete my list of ten. Something somewhere will spark my creativity, and then I’ll have a project.

I want to finally get started on that cookbook I’ve always wanted to write.
It’s kind of scary putting it out there, but there it is. I’ve been dreaming of writing a cookbook for the past 10+ years. Everything from old family favorites, to things I’ve dreamed up and served to a happy husband. This blog will serve as landing pad for some of that.

I want to be more generous.
I’m kind, but I could be kinder. I enjoy volunteering, and would like to find more time and opportunities to do so. And while I have a few favorite national charities, I’d like to find a few that are more local to work with.

I want to read for fun.
I mean, research and learning is fun, but I haven’t read a fluff/pleasure/fiction book since sometime in 2014, when I went back to school. I didn’t have time for reading anything other than my textbooks. After graduating, my ability to focus on a story line took a bit of a vacation. Now, it appears to be back, and ready to enjoy a good story, which I’m looking forward to.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton