Letter From My Dad

Being Bipolar I have my ups and downs. When I'm down I tend to be concerned as to whether I'm good enough, and is it acceptable to not work, shouldn't I have a career, and things of that nature. My husband and my dad end up burdened by my concerns with my need for reassurance. I feel bad about it but I think sometimes we all need someone to reinforce that we are doing a good job. Whether it's as a mother, a spouse, an employee. Whatever it is that we do, it's good to know that we make a difference; that we matter.

Last week I asked my dad a question. His immediate response was, "Yes, I'm proud of you! You are NOT a waste!" The next day I got this email.

You said you wondered if you’re doing enough with your life. I’ve wondered the same thing, and for a longer time. But look around at all the people in the world. Not every one of us can make a great scientific discovery, write the next great novel, or design the next amazing bridge, or something else that memorable. Most of us have to be content to make our marks on the world in much smaller ways, and have the faith that those smaller ways somehow add up to something equally as important as the singular things done by the famous, if not nearly as tangible. How you raise your children, the nice thing you say to a friend, the courtesy you show to a stranger at the store, those little things add up! Like the butterfly effect those little things you do every day, usually without even thinking about it, can have a major effect somewhere in the future.

You teach your children to keep trying, even when they fail. Years later they encourage a classmate in college to do the same. More years pass, as that person raises his child the same way. That child grows up to become a cancer researcher who, after failing repeatedly to find a cure for some form of cancer, and refusing to give up, finally succeeds. Without your small contribution, the whole chain of events might never have happened!

That person who walked into the store ahead of you was in a bad mood. Your kindness in opening the door for them and smiling at them jogged them out of it. As a result, when they got home they didn’t yell at their husband. The husband didn’t storm out of the house and go down to the bar. He didn’t get drunk and try to drive home, so he didn’t get hit that pedestrian. That pedestrian grew up, married, and had a child. That child grew up to become a famous writer. Your unthinking moment of kindness saved a marriage, saved a life, saved a family, and let the world experience the writer’s genius.

So have faith that you ARE doing enough with your life, just by doing the best you can. Be encouraging, be supportive, be kind, be nice. Those actions DO matter! Don’t envy the famous. They often have but one shot at making a difference. You can make a difference every day!

The Real Burn of Burnt Food

With scientific research comes more knowledge of things that are bad for us and we're left to make decisions based on what we know. We want to live life to the fullest, but we also want to live long and healthy lives. Some things we can't help. But everything else is a matter of omission, moderation, or indulgence.

I was drawn to an article about foods that are even better when they're burnt. Keeping in mind when they/I say burnt it means edible burnt. Who doesn't love a char-broiled hamburger, the crispy skin of a grilled hot dog, grilled corn, roasted peppers? And nothing says homemade mac and cheese or lasagna like brown crusty cheese. As with many things that we love to enjoy, the burn is bad for your health. Wait, what?

There was a slight "disclaimer" in the article that burnt foods may be unhealthy and a few comments that mention carcinogens, so that sparked my curiosity. I'd known that charcoal grilling adds carcinogens to your food and as with anything bad for you, should be enjoyed in moderation. But beautiful burnt cheese? I went to ask.com and typed "is burnt food carcinogenic?". I found this very informative article What's wrong with burnt food?.

This article explains that carcinogens are substances either known or believed to cause cancer. They occur both naturally and unnaturally in the environment and almost always make it into and/or onto our food. This, unfortunately, we really can't help. But we can keep it from getting much worse. When you cook these foods, you get chemical reactions called Maillard reactions. This is when amino acids react with reducing sugars. This is the good stage but there's a fine line between this and bad for you. When the heat is prolonged or the temperatures are too high; when things start to go from brown to black, thus starts pyrolysis. Pyrolysis changes the Miallard reaction molecules into carcinogenic compounds. Not only that, but you've greatly reduced the nutritional value of your food.

There's more information and quite a few tips on minimizing carcinogens on these sites:

www.healthy-food-site.com
live-in-green.com

Getting Going

It seems there are always setbacks in our attempts to accomplish things. What we have to remember is, no matter how big the setback or how trivial the goal may be, we always have to keep going. No matter how many setbacks there are, we always have to try again. Perseverance and determination are important in our pursuit of success and happiness.

So far I've been a bit slow at starting on my goals. Sunday night however, I made things a bit easier. I was exhausted and fell asleep around 10pm. That may not seem very early but for me it was hours before my usual bedtime. Normally falling asleep that early would be a nap and I'd wake up an hour or so later. I didn't wake up til 5am. For some reason I woke up feeling very cheerful so I stayed up. Monday night I could barely stay up long enough to get my son off to bed. This time I woke up at 7am when the man got home from work. And once again, very cheerful. I was thinking, maybe this won't be so hard. I can go to bed early and without the sound of video game machine guns and explosions. I can take up the whole bed with no one blocking the fan. Well, I still have to make room for the dogs. Best of all, I can wake up early and have all day to get things done. Unfortunately, last night was not that easy. I was on the phone for 2hrs with my dad. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't caught my second wind sometime during the conversation. Afterwards, I made myself go to bed anyway only to be woken up at 5am by a puppy that needed to go potty. Falling back to sleep was almost impossible with a dog pacing on the hardwood floor downstairs. So I get up to take the other one out and didn't fall back to sleep til almost 6:30. Needless to say I wasn't ready to get up at 7am and ended up sleeping late. Oh well, try again tonight, right?

The List

My last post I promised a list of goals. Not in any particular order, but I saved the most important for last.

2. Yoga
I've always loved yoga and how great it makes me feel. One of the many things I start-and-stop.

3. Jewelry-making
I love creating and jewelry I'm pretty good at. Another thing I start-and-stop.

4. Sleep
I need to get on a better sleep schedule. Not very easy when the hubby works nights though. I tend to sleep when he does.

5. Yardsale
Ugh! I've been putting this off for a couple years.

6. Disability (please don't judge)
I started the process but when they sent the questionnaire it overwhelmed me and never finished it.

7. Cooking
I cook most nights but I'd like to experiment with new and healthier foods again. I'm stuck in a food rut.

8. Baking
I love to bake but I don't do it as much as I could. I'd like to finally start on my breads book from the French Culinary Institute.

9. Reading
I have a bunch of books I've either never read or started and never finished

10. Housework
I need a housework schedule I can follow so maybe I'll do it.

Once I finished the list and sat back and looked at it I realized, most of my goals are doing things for me. At first I felt like I was being selfish. But then the more I thought about it the more I realized that these are, for the most part, things that make me happy. Even housework makes me happy by making me feel accomplished. How can I expect to make others happy if I myself am not happy, right? So many times in our busy lives we let ourselves fall to the wayside. We handle the laundry, the homework, dinner, appointments, the groceries, etc. and when we finally get a chance to unwind we zone out on t.v. or FaceBook. We don't take the time to do for ourselves what makes us happy and healthy. This in turn can make us rather irritable and less apt to deal with our day-to-day responsibilities. So in setting my "motivation goals", I am doing so with this overall goal in mind:

1. Be a better person

Motivationally Speaking

I started writing a book once, which is actually pretty ironic, that starts off describing motivation and lack there of.

Have you ever lay in your bed at night feeling good about yourself; optimistic? And as you lay there with your eyes closed, drifting off, you make this silent affirmation, "Tomorrow I'll do better."? You promise yourself with good intentions only to find, when you wake the next day, the motivation is gone; disappointment taking its' place.

I read something on a blog recently that reminded me of this. It was about taking small steps to dig yourself out of a rut. By setting goals, even just writing them down, you set things in motion to change. I will admit that I am definitely stuck in a rut. Motivation has never been one of my strengths. And when I finally start something I rarely finish or stick with it. Be that as it may, I am always willing to try at doing better. I'm even willing to try things again. I started blogging once, quit, and started that back up. So, I'm going to compile a list on here for all the world to see. A short one of course so I don't overwhelm myself. I just want to set some goals for myself to get this metaphoric ball rolling. I figure if I blog about working toward, and hopefully reaching, these goals then it will give me more incentive. I'm going to take a couple days to work on this. I need to decide whats most important to me. There can't be any room for me to pick and choose the insignificant.

I'm already feeling motivated to start my list.

Genetically Modified Foods

Labeling Genetically Modified Foods: Our Right to Know

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-farming/labeling-genetically-modified-foods-zm0z12jjzphe.aspx#ixzz22jhdAhWc


I came across this article on Mother Earth News that reminded me of something rather funny. At least, I find it funny now. It was actually kind of disturbing at the time. I was taking lithium for bi-polar disorder a few years back and my family and I had gone to WalMart. Let me say first that lithium did not quite work the way it was supposed to. Anyway, my husband picks up a peach and calls to my attention how large it was. This peach was huge! All of a sudden I start ranting, quite loudly and to the embarrassment of my family, about growth hormones. It didn't help that they were grown locally either considering we have tons of chicken farms here. So this tirade went on and on about them using "growth hormones in the chickens and fertilizing the peaches with chicken shit" and "the growth hormones leaking into the peaches" and "that's why girls are going through puberty at an earlier age and getting bigger boobs". I even pointed at my large chested daughter as an example, the poor thing. Needless to say my husband pulled me out of there quickly and I'm not taking lithium anymore.

When you think about it though, it's not really that farfetched. Especially after reading articles like this. The FDA doesn't care what the people want. They are only concerned with making big corporations happy. Big food corp. is most likely paying large sums of money to the FDA to keep the labels off their foods. Nothing would make a pack of tomatoes more appealing than a big gleaming "Genetically Modified" label and nothing would scream "buy me!" more than a "Grown with Growth Hormones" label.

What's even more disturbing is that big food corp. can lie to us based on FDA standards. Some foods can still call themselves "natural" even though they've been genetically modified or claim 0 grams trans fat when there's partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients. Hydrogenated oils ARE trans fat. The FDA has given them enough leeway so that as long as it's under a certain amount, they can still "claim" zero.

As long as big food corp. is happy making their money off our ignorance, then the FDA is happy to appease them and line their own pockets. The only time the FDA seems to listen to us little people is if we make a big enough uproar. Then it's only to make it look like they're actually doing their job "protecting" us.

There's a petition on Just Label It to tell the FDA we have a right to know what's in our food.

Ultimate Fudge Brownies

Ok, I have to brag. I made brownies last night that came out amazing! You know how sometimes when you alter a recipe it totally screws it up? Well, this was not one of those times.

I followed the recipe for ultimate brownies on the back of the Tollhouse semi-sweet morsels, for the most part. It called for adding 1cup of the morsels (not melted) to the batter. So I took the remaining morsels and melted them with a bit of butter and added that to the batter as well. It did take some extra time to bake. I think they baked for an hour. The recipe also called for a chocolate butter-cream frosting. I left that out. I didn't want a chocolate overload. Lol. Although I may try it next time.

I don't think I ever follow a recipe exactly. It's too much fun to experiment.

Artweaver

Last week I downloaded this fun art software called Artweaver. I got it off of www.cnet.com and it was free. When I was quite a bit younger I did a lot of oil pastels and watercolors. With limited resources now, the thought of making art digitally was very appealing.

There are so many cool things you can do with this software. For example the flowers were cut from photographs I'd taken awhile back. And you don't have an undo button on a canvas. Hehehe.

I know my "artwork" is a bit amateur but it was a lot of fun.

Hello

Ok, I'll start out with a picture of us so you have an idea of what you're getting yourself into ;) This was taken at my daughter's 8th gr. graduation. It's the best recent photo of us though it was taken a little over a year ago. She's starting 10th gr. in less than a month.