Back to the Gym

After the holidays it took me a couple of weeks to get back to the regular gym routine.

I'm happy to say, I'm back in the regular groove.  As usual in January I'm seeing lots of new faces, interesting workout routines and lots of enthusiasm at my local gym.

Hope your new year is back in grove too.  Until next week, take good care of each other. xxoo

Jolly Cold

As my friend Louise says with her British stiff upper lip, it's jolly cold.

That happy turn of phrase--Jolly Cold-- about something most of us complain bitterly about, muttering curses as we walk penguin-like on sidewalks treacherous with ice, reminds me that there is no cure for hot or cold.

This little gnome, a gift from Mary Ann, sits on my kitchen windowsill guarding the thermometer. I check the temp every morning to prepare myself for what lies ahead.  But this morning when it read 8 degrees above zero and I thought, "not too bad," I forgot that we have an optimistic thermometer. When it gets this cold, the thing registers heat radiating out from the kitchen window and so is usually off by about 10 degrees, making it really 2 below zero!

As soon as I launched off the porch I could feel the needle pricks of cold on my face. I suffered not so much from the cold, but more from my own dissatisfaction with the cold. There was no threat of suffering frost bite, rather my misery was of the more mundane and everyday kind of wanting one thing, a brisk morning, and getting quite another, a prickly, bitterly cold morning.

Whether we're saints or sinners, we all know the pain of the unexpected.  Sure some days it's all summer, ice cream and lotto winnings.

By the way, I didn't win the big lottery drawing this week, did you?

But life deals us loss as well as gain.  Which I know in my head, but my heart has trouble when the roulette wheel spins to "loser".  I take it so personally when the universe conspires against me, frosting my life with frozen fingers, dead car batteries, and frozen pipes. It's so easy to feel justified in being annoyed with everything when the days are dark and blue.

But when I lighten up taking myself and my preferences less seriously,

I notice how beautiful the frost on the trees looks in the sunshine.

The purples and blues on the creek near dusk are stunning.

The rose bushes tinged with frost.

The neighbor, Annie's crab apple looking winter festive. It all reminds me to take the losses less personally.

Neither I nor the Universe are fixed.  Tomorrow holds out new possibilities for all of us, heck no need to wait until tomorrow, I could get over myself right now, warming my numb fingers with warm breath and enjoying the beauty all around me.  Winter lasts such a short time.

I don't have to give so much consideration to my own likes and dislikes.  I could just let the roulette wheel of life spin, and then spin again.

To ward off that winter chill I recommend a good dose of Hoppin' John, corn bread, wilted spinach and a lovely glass of wine.

Here's the recipe for Hoppin' John:

15 oz. black-eyed peas (frozen are best, but canned will do)
4 slices bacon
One small onion
1 C of diced ham
1 tsp mustard
1 C cooked rice
1/4 C of red wine, sherry or vegetable cooking stock (chose just one)
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry bacon in large cast iron skillet (any skillet will do, but I like my cast iron skillet for the ease of clean-up). Set bacon aside.  Dice onion and saute in bacon grease.  Pour off excess grease, leaving enough to coat bottom of skillet. Add black-eyed peas to onions and cook till warm, add ham and rice, cook till warm, add 1/4 cup of liquid of your choice. Crumble bacon and add to top of each dish.  Serves 4

Wilted Spinach

One bag of fresh spinach
1/4 cup butter
salt and pepper to taste

Wash spinach in colander and pat dry with paper towel.  Melt 1/4 cup butter in heavy skillet on medium heat, put as much spinach as will fit into skillet, place lid on top, wait one minute, if you couldn't fit all of the bag of spinach in, put rest in now, place lid on top.  Wait two minutes, salt and pepper.  Serves 2.

Winter is made for warm dishes, good books, great friends, and walks in the frosty air.  Summer will be here before we know it!

Take care of each other until next week.....xxoo

Mad Hatter

Warning: This is a longish post, best savored with a cup of tea and scones.

Did you watch the start of the last season of Downtown Abbey on Sunday?  I'm mad for their hats.

None of the hat wearing ladies on Downtown Abby get a free pass from life.  Still it is a lovely dream to suffer life's indignities: love lorn heart break,  scandal, bad judgement, black mail, money troubles, snipping sisters, loved one's deaths--which none of us escape anyway, from the comfort of a big manner house, with servants and the most divine hat collection.  It would be just my luck to live in the big house as one of the scullery maids with a dish rag covering my head.

I'm not the world's biggest consumer. When the children were little, only their pitiful looks of hunger when there was no food in the pantry got me into the grocery store. When my girlfriends announce a day of shopping, I take to bed with the "flu."

 I own no collections, except hats.  I love hats. I shop for hats, I buy hats. I'm mad for hats.

I covet the hats of Downtown Abbey.

Here are two of my newest hats, added to my collection while shopping the Charleston City Market.

This hat coordinates perfectly with my long camel hair coat,  it covers my ears from frost bite and it has the loveliest bow detail. Fashion, coverage and panache--gotta have it!

This next hat folds in my luggage and is the perfect summer time straw hat.

It's made out of paper and polyester! Do you think the polyester will hold the paper together if I get caught in a rain storm?

I like unusual details in my hats, like the back on this hat which is cut away and has a black Velcro band so that it fits my head.

My head, like Alice in Wonderland, shrinks and grows day to day. Curiouser and curiouser! And now I can adjust my little Velcro tab accordingly. Brilliant!

This could explain why my head swells and shrinks.

I have a whole collection of straw hats that fit no matter my head's size:

Uptown Hat

Grrr, animal print!

The first hat Prince Charming bought me.  He's had to fetch it out of Lake Superior and the Atlantic Ocean when the wind took it for a ride.

The most expensive hat I own.

Floppy beach hat

And another of winter hats:

I'm especially fond of this rich, exuberant number!

This is my "everyday" winter hat.  It's got clever little ear muffs to protect my ears from the wind and cold. Especially important when the highs this weekend are predicted to be near zero.

This hat also has ear muffs, but they look ridiculous when pulled down.

Silly, no?

Brown Winter hats:

I have the hat I wore when I married Prince Charming:

My only regret about this hat is that I didn't add a little blue lace to cover my face.

I have my wonderful berets:

It's the details of these hats that I love, like this button on top of the beret.

Prince Charming might dispute the ownership of the berets, pay him no heed.

“Take off your hat," the King said to the Hatter."It isn't mine," said the Hatter."Stolen!" the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact."I keep them to sell," the Hatter added as an explanation; "I've none of my own. I'm a hatter.”

This cross country skiing cap may look very mundane to you, but when I wear it, I transform into a snow sprite.

Last and most humble of all is the Garden Hat, complete with hole at the crown.

All hats provide mystical transformative powers.  These hats alter my rather hum-drum personality. Wearing one of these hats I become a woodland nymph or a duchess; a woman of mystery or a woman who lunches.

It's the magic of each hat to highlight and bring to the fore some aspect of my personality that delights. I discover characters in myself I hardly knew existed. Breathing life into these characters enriches my life, adding new pleasures each day.

It's all in the magic of the hat.

Can you feel the magic?  Do you have something in your closet that brings out wonderful new aspects of you? Let's meet for tea and you can tell me all about your magic transformation.

Take good care of each other until next week.

Dreaming

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? Do you keep your resolutions?

“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been” —Rainer Maria Rilke

I used to make resolutions. Resolutions focused on shoring up my shortcomings. Often resolutions involving my thighs. I'd try putting those lovely jiggly girls in pants that bind and accuse myself of all kinds of bad, reprehensible, despicable and worse--irredeemable-- character flaws.

Funny thing is all those bad thoughts about myself never led to significant changes in behavior. I didn't exercise more, or eat less or become a more selfless person by thinking bad thoughts about myself.

So I ditched annual resolutions and came up with annual themes like peace, or health or joy. This worked slightly better. 

 Some years I could remember into the second week of January that I wanted to focus on health as I hit the snooze button on the alarm meant to wake me for my new fitness routine.

This process of thinking deeply about my life and trying to improve it was an effort to create a happier version of myself. But my methods weren't working. Instead of making me feel happier, more confident and capable, I felt like a failure, powerless to change myself or my situation.

I gave up.

"Drink from the well of yourself and begin again” — Charles Bukowski

I quit making resolutions, or themes of the year. New Year's day became a day to do nothing, to not think or ponder. Instead I let the mind wander, giving myself a holiday from doing.

An amazing thing happened. I started dreaming. Not that I called it "dreaming". At first it looked like I'd let the gerbils out for a little romp in the snow. My mind flitted from how the Barbie Doll body would require learning to resist the James Bond types to wondering how i'd remodel the house if I won the lottery.  world peace, making the neighborhood better or even quieting my own noisy little heart didn't come up.

I wasn't checking email, or watching TV or talking on the phone. I wasn't reading a book, or writing next week's to-do list, or cleaning the house. New Year's day became a do-nothing day. I slept late. I sat in my kitchen drinking coffee and looking off into space. 

 After a nap, I built a fire and stared into the dancing flames.

At the end of the day I felt competent, rested, clear headed. The day spent dreaming resulted in some new ideas that excited. Extending kindness, grace, time and space to myself did more than any aggressive plan to change, improve, set goals. Loving ourselves, it turns out, is never a bad plan for the new year.

The world can be a hard, harsh place.  We all need to take care of our health by eating right and exercising.  But it doesn't motivate or help us to do these things consistently by first beating ourselves up.  Maybe your thighs slide into corduroy pants without threatening to start a forest fire; good for you!  Maybe your issues are around money or love or your well-being or a gnawing anxiety that a little tipple of the wine bottle helps calms.

Whatever your issues are, hardly worth mentioning, I know, except that they are driving you to distraction; I'd urge you to spend today letting your mind drift. Stare out the window, stare into a fire, watch the steam rise from a cup of tea, think about nothing in particular. It'll do wonders for you.

Wishing you love, peace, happiness and a little dreaming time this New Year's Day.