New Year's Resolutions---and all that, (sorry no food here!)

I’m sitting in a cafe keeping a date with myself. New Years Resolutions and all that to make more time to to clear my head through writing. I know what you’re thinking. Great! More crazy stream of consciousness from Holly’s head. It can be ugly, I grant you. Truth is my brain is always going. On no sleep today (it just happens from time to time), and with kids back in school, I worry. I jokingly dubbed myself the Neurotic, Control freak, Nazi “mom” this Holiday season. A lot of good it does me to want to control my world, because it’s a force all it’s own. And I know that’s news to you. I’m wise in 2011. 

It seems I have to re-experience this lesson over and over. I suck at stress and exhaustion. I ‘m terrible at tight schedules, severe discipline, and honest to goodness daily consistency. Now don’t misunderstand. I LOVE my schedule and really need structure in my life, but I also love tossing it out when the situation requests it. You might be asking yourself, what are the criteria for schedule changes? Seems it’s anything and everything. Internal, external, circumstantial, time of year, weather, mood, attitude, insomnia, and whim. Yes, Whim! The parts I can do something about are thrown about quite regularly by illness, injury and other circumstances beyond my control, like school schedules and homework. And if I’m honest it’s really easy for me to readjust it daily to suit me. That is a pro and a con. The part I can’t do a damn thing about is always there. The environmental allergens that give my kids allergies? All outside my home and completely outside of my ability to alter, fix, manage, control. You’d think I could contribute positively to the food they eat. Wrong. They are not allergic to food--technically--but sensory defensive and won’t eat hardly a thing that looks, smells or tastes like a vegetable or nutritious soup, stew or casserole. They should give up dairy completely to help reduce the histamine symptoms, but ...Hah! Other health factors like exercise are dependent on schedules. I usually get mine in mornings. Yoga, gym, a a dog walk, a family walk, a hike, but some days there are just too many demands on my time. Now I know some people who get up really early for this, but I can’t do it. My kids can’t do it. And my hubby--he can’t do it either. So it’s catch as catch can on the days when it’s not top priority. All complaints aside, there is a certain rythym to it all. When I can relax into it, it’s all good. 

So back to those annual resolutions and goals for 2011. If I had one goal it would be to surf the waves of my life. But, I’m not really a good surfer. After years of yoga, my hips are somewhat flexible and I can stand on the board. The challenge for me is paddling out--that’s a lot of work and timing the wave to catch it. My general propensity is to paddle until I’m exhausted, miss the wave and them get thrashed by the oncoming ocean or just diddle about on my surfboard waiting for my wave. I think I need lessons.

Now, I’m a complainer, but I also have immense gratitude for my life. My friend calls it being the “Lucky Luckies”. I certainly am one of the “Lucky Luckies” . No doubt about the fact that I have a lot for which to be thankful. Trouble is I find it hard to land there and stay there. I suffer from a crisis of faith. It’s true. Not necessarily the religious kind of faith or the ‘everything’s gonna be ok’ kind of Reggae attitude that permeates American culture. I have the kind of faith crisis that is a failure to hold onto the big picture. I ‘m about details. I’m good at details. I notice them. I see them. I worry about them. I’m fabulous in a crisis. I can problem solve, find solutions, important info, get to the bottom of it. I can direct people, research, analyze, sort, document, track and follow a set pattern or instructions. I can explain it, too. What I can’t do--especially under any stress at all--- is relax, get creative, ride the wave and see the big picture. I tend to knuckle under and get to work to solve my stress. Play goes out the window. The attitude is work--hard and more. Calling it like it is, that’s completely contrary to Ahimsa. A spiritual condition of Do no Harm, or Non-violence in Yoga. Ambition. Vanity. Ego. I keep trying to get it, seeing that pattern over and over again, but somehow I can’t hold onto that either. It slips away. It must be riding the perfect wave without me. I know that stress and fatigue are my enemies, yet I can’t seems to find the right balance between activity and rest. I know my back pain is affected by instabilty, but I can find--or keep--the yoga and exercise routine that will mitigate the symptoms long-term. Everything I do that is outside my twice/thrice weekly yoga practice (I know! Daily Home Practice! Another Hah!) seems to be too much. I know that a bias to external rotation on leg and internal rotation on the other is a major factor in my back health, but I’m still liable to overdo it somehow, sometime. I’ll be honest and say that I just can’t judge accurately: Stress and fatigue. I feel fine and I overdo. What the heck. Can someone get me a barometer for this stuff or something? The way I know I’ve overdone it? My back goes out. My head hurts. My eyes get red. I feel feverish--and I can’t sleep. Too late. Already overdid it. Grrr!

So how to catch the wave? Hold the big picture? Accurately discern my state of being? Use right action to approach the tasks in my life? Sigh. I was hoping you’d know. My detail-oriented, work-aholic brain is looking for relief. I go to yoga and exercise looking for emotional relief until I throw my back out. I do laundry, errands, dishes until I drop. The irony? Nothing is ever done!!! How can that be? I have two friends with OCD. They keep IMMACULATE houses. I have laughingly said more than once that I would love to buy an hour of that! Same with childcare. Can I buy a D? D being Divorce, just for a week. I want Wednesday night off and I want it to be Scott’s weekend so I can go play! Ok. I know folks are gonna kick me for wishing for OCD and Divorce. I can’t help it. I’m a work-aholic! I don’t really need chemical intervention or a lawyer, I need a twelve step program!

My twelve-step program is surrendering to swim the ocean of my full modern life without drowning--even I can’t surf. It’s making time for yoga--sitting, breathing, moving quietly, deeply through asana as often as possible, walking in nature, connecting with friends and family softly. No push, no rush, no hurry, If it doesn’t easily line up in a day I’m letting it go. My real New Year’s Resolution is to be nice to myself. It’s ok to skip that hardcore workout for rest, it’s fine to do nothing even if there is a ton to do, it’s essential to dial down the stress, soften the attitude and practice true AHIMSA (non- violence) towards myself. I complained that I keep relearning this lesson. It’s true; I’m thick. Yet, each revolution of the wheel brings me closer to my core, truer, more relaxed self. And the big picture comes from going to yoga, staying inspired by my teachers, writing, sharing myself with the world sometimes and selfishly staying in others. Cheers to a quieter New Year in 2011. I resolve to love myself first. Om.

The Easiest Weekday Meal in the World---as long as you are not vegetarian

October who? It Was, WAS a busy month at my house. So, once again we were staring dinner in the face with no plan at 4p (that’s dismissal time in Albuquerque). My kitchen was dirty (again) and if we were going to have anything that ressembled a real dinner I needed to get to the grocery store. Sigh. We really are useless some days. So I started doing a little Food Network research and begged Scott for a picky eater perspective. After browsing a few cookbooks, he grabbed his favorite old standby, “Dad’s Own Cookbook” by Bob Sloan thumbed to the MEAT section and landed on London Broil. When he puts his mind to it he can be really helpful.

I’m ashamed to admit that I wrote the above paragraph a month ago---and it was exactly what happened last night AGAIN. I say again because that’s what happened last night and uncountable times in the past month. With me out of town for one weekend for a workshop,  the Halloween High Holiday at our house complete with my parents visiting for a week, Parent Teacher Conferences (then and now---and you know how I feel about those) a soccer tournament, and a circulating cold that just won’t go away…we are scrambling for dinner many nights.

It’’s true, I have an advantage on many folks because I love to cook. And in the last month I have managed to tryout a few new recipes. Check out my Facebook Notes for my new favorite Winter Soup: Spicy Orange Leek Vegetable. I also made a lot of Banana Bread (you have that recipe),  Pumpkin Cookies and a super version of almost Lasagne called Two Sauce Lasagne bowls via Rachel Ray. I also have the pickiest eaters in the world at my house. I run out of inspiration FAST in that envronment! So easy and eaten has to be my motto.

I thought this essay was about sharing a recipe for a busy weekday night, but it’s really more about seeking balance. What I have rediscovered in the past month is that I am not SuperMom! Shocking, right? I just can’t do it all. I’m certainly in a creative, full, exciting time of my life. As a parent, my kids are growing up and there is a (wee) bit of space for me to do something. The trouble is I do too many things. With the big M creeping down my neck at 46, diet and exercise are increasingly important to stay healthy. I lost that battle this month. I outgrew my jeans sampling too many Pumpkin Cookies and Banana Bread and caught a mother of a cold. The same window of time I have to devote to exercise is the same window of time I have to devote to writing, upgrading my computer and photography skills, improving my home (ie keeping it from collapsing around us), shop for the kids’ winter clothes, buy new jeans to fit my post-40 butt, and volunteer my time at the public schools. I’m a 5^th grade Classroom parent after all—today is the Thanksgiving Family Meal at the Elementary School and it’s time to collect donations for the Holiday Drive.

Balance is an elusive thing in a modern household. If you rest enough, the dishes don’t get done. So be it. I’m trying to be ok with that. As for writing, I’ll keep finding corners to hide in and there will never be a shortage of topics. The part that’s hard for me is riding the waves of activity that overtake us. I do better with structure and routine. I like my schedule. These days I have to work around so many obstacles as to make a lesser woman hide behind her sunglasses. ( A friend once quipped about our November school schedule, “Apparently my kids don’t have school in November!” Referring to the many national, local and school breaks this month).  Alas, “my” schedule went out the window the instant we conceived our oldest son. From that moment forward, I began a journey of surrender that I’m still working to embrace. I try to get what I need in the midst of this crazy parenting life: yoga, writing time, dates with my husband, but if I’m honest, I rarely fully succeed. It’s their schedule we are on now. I’m just along for the ride.

LONDON BROIL:

2 –3 lbs of Flap meat, or flank steak

Salt and Pepper

Montreal Steak seasoning

Heavy cookie sheet, or Cast iron griddle

Turn oven to Full broil and find a reliable timer.

Preheat cast iron griddle in oven if using.

Season meat, and place on cookie sheet or hot griddle.

Broil 5 -7 minutes, turn meat over and broil 3-5 minutes.

I’ve served this a dozen different ways already. Some ideas: Marinated in teriaki sauce, with rice and stir-fry vegetables Sliced with tortillas, salsa and Guacamole.

Parenting 101, or Do you Want Some Whine with that Cheese

You can probably already tell that I’m a complainer. Yep. I’m a big fat whiner. But in my defense, parenting two boys in 2010 is complex. I got a note from  Middle School last Monday setting up Parent teacher Conferences for the end of the month and had an immediate anxiety attack. When your boys have learning disabilities and various degrees of advanced academic aptitudes, when they are boys of the ADHD variety with sensory integration issues irregardless of hard and fast diagnoses, when your boys can’t sit in their seats, avoid distraction, cease disruption, talking, singing, tossing, poking, bouncing, learning in a modern setting is tough. We all are pretty clear what that modern setting is: classroom, desks, indoors, cognitive tasks above kinesthetic ones (in even the best schools), and Reading, Writing and Computation priorities as needed for testing accountability.

So, note from school: anxiety attack. When you have my kids, every meeting and school change is another opportunity for the new teacher or school personnel--- or the  six new teachers in Middle School (not including other school staff , coaches and music teachers, etc..)---to weigh in on how your kids measure up---or not. How they are too smart to get those mediocre grades. How they should put more effort into their work, take their time, edit more, organize better, avoid distraction, pay attention and, bottom –line, be well-behaved and quiet and still. Now, we attend to a GREAT public elementary school and a GREAT public middle school. Both are traditional at base with a very progressive, creative edge and a core of excellent staff and teachers who are constantly pushing the envelope to educate whole kids. But let’s face it, modern schools are under pressure to educate every kid from every circumstance, as well as feed and care for them while their parents work. It’s really not easy. Cognitive education is being pushed to earlier and earlier ages as kids are less and less disposed to grasp it from lack of full brain education. Full brain education requires exercise and nature in measure with appropriate social and cognitive tasks---but primarily it means using your body to grow your brain. This learning is ameliorated by enriching experiences like travel, cultural immersion and events including language, art and music, and sports, and most of all a connection to and a wide range of experiences in Nature.

My kids have parents who prioritize balance. We eat homemade nutritional food and pack healthy lunches. We make time for sports and exercise. We have good solid routines for down time, rest, homework, bedtimes. Both parents are available to our kids for homework, in volunteer capacities: chaperoning field trips, coaching sports, leading expeditions to in town or in nature with friends as time allows.. We limit social activities, we minimize major disruptions, we stay home a lot and cook dinner or just hang out, we travel to see family and for fun when there is time, we prioritize our family---but we can still barely manage. Our kids don’t get enough exercise, nature, rest or sleep. They have only minimal time with friends and even less with family who live two states away ---to the East and West. They have strict computer and television limitations, homework comes before all else with only structured outdoor exercise getting the edge. We tell them that if they can’t do their homework:: all duties obligations and responsibilities, there is nothing else. No clubs, sports, t.v., computer, friends, allowance, errands, etc. The point? We are exhausted ---just getting to school and back.  Homework is stress. Structured sporting activity around homework is more stress. There is no time for anything else except a healthy dinner---on a good night..

Most of my parent teacher interaction of a professional nature has been painful. So you can imagine my distress at any note from school, parent-teacher conference notification or school-related telephone call. Your kid can’t hold it together. Your kid needs to slow down. Your kid is failing third grade. Your kid is failing Science. Your kid is not paying attention, bugging his neighbor, can’t stop eating—or folding paper airplanes, talking, moving around, throwing his pencil- in class. The message: DO SOMETHING.  There’s the rub. I can chastise, be aware and consequence. I can remind, structure time, support. I can coordinate, communicate and repeat, repeat, repeat, but I cannot fix. I cannot make a moving kid still. I can’t make a hurried child slower or more patient. I can’t make a kid unexcited by school, happy about homework. I can’t fix my kids so they fit the modern school system.

It’s amazing how many adults want to weigh in when you have bright, tough, noticeable kids. These adults --and the world-- want you to parent them into submission. I’m here to tell you that on the heels of many more qualified parents than I am, I’ve tried it. We’ve tried it. Guess what? It doesn’t work. You can’t force another human being to do anything. Call it free will, call it a spiritual path, call me a bad parent (you’d be in good company),  but they have to choose it for themselves. I can lead by example, make life and responsibilities joyful (sometimes), I can consequence poor choices, and set limits, but I can’t make a kid want to learn, exercise, eat healthfully or have a happy, productive life.  I can only create a structure full of healthy boundaries and limits, loving encouragement and positive reinforcements added to small victories that are the openings to success.

For now I’m considering it a victory that my middle-schooler goes to horn lessons with relatively little complaining, that the transition to a new middle school has been devoid of drama, that we can fit in soccer, and that we can find an occasional peer tutor for large projects that could blast mom and dad’s energy resources. That is all good to me. I also take comfort that my 5^th grader has a really nice male teacher who is challenging him, and classroom full of mostly really decent kids. I am also considering it a victory that we have one week left of Fall Baseball season and we’ve survived. Middle-school Parent Teacher Conferences are still two weeks away. Cross your fingers. Small Victories that provide the opening to success is my new motto. Do me a favor. Remind of this the next time I complain!

A Recipe for Homework and Banana Bread

I spend the afternoon cooking yesterday to nurse my wounds from a terrible day. Nothing earthshattering to complain about over here, it was just one of those awful days you just wish would end already. The crux of it it was homework. Yep, 7th grade homework to be specific. When you have a Twice Exceptional kid , school can be pretty interesting---and not in a good way. When a gifted/reading LD (learning disabled) ADHD kid has three Language Arts projects due at one time in addition to math, science, horn practice and whatever else they throw at him on a weekend it can be downright ugly. Add a time crunch,a soccer game, a sleepover, a disappointment and mix well. What you get is a blob of a kid and a homework meltdown. The details are fuzzy, but somehow we collected our puddle of a kid, got some homework done, and made it to the soccer game. It was a beautiful afternoon. The boys won the game. Mom was a mildly refreshed wreck. (Even socializing and sunshine couldn't fix her mood!)

This is a situation in which I cook. I've said it many times. Cooking saves lives. My kids are alive because I get in the kitchen when I can't do anything else. Last nite, we had an overnight visitor joining us for dinner, so a dinner plan was in order. I was far too tired and far too unprepared to make an entire meal, but I rallied. Our favorite Pepperoni Pineapple Pizza was called in from Giovannis and I dashed out to the store for veggies. In minutes, we went from Nada to Pizza, Mixed Green Spinach Salad, and Grapes. A simple meal, but a classic meal---and a Corona with lime for the adults. Once in the kitchen, the cooking vibe kicked in. Five overripe bananas and a Sunday brunch birthday party compelled me to head for my favorite Banana Bread Recipe. Here it is. Happy munching and remember, Banana Bread saves lives! Hugs, Holly

Banana Bread
from Emeril LaGasse, 2003

Ingredients:

10 TBSP butter, melted plus some for greasing bread pan
1 c. mashed ripe bananas (2 large, OR 3 or 4 small bananas)
1/2 c. sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2c. cake flour
1 TBSP flour for dusting bread pan
3/4 c. plus 2 TBSP sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips ( we like dark/bittersweet)
1/2 c. Pecans (or Walnuts)  for sprinkling on top or mixing in (toasted nuts are especially good).

Preheat oven to 350d.

Lightly grease a regular 9x5x2 loaf pan or two smaller ones with butter and lightly dust with flour, shake out any excess.

Puree bananas, sour cream, eggs and vanilla in food processor.

Sift/ mix cake flour sugar, baking soda and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer using whisk attachment.
Add 10TBSP butter and mix on medium-low speed until blended. Add banana mixture in 3 batches incorporating well after each addition. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into pan (s). Top with nuts.

Bake until lighly browned. Approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Launch party!

Welcome! I'm up and running! With a temporary title and everything. I'm a mom finding a wee bit of space to reclaim her professional life. And when I say wee bit of space, I'm not kidding. I pretty much have to fit everything I need  and want to do between the hours of 9a when kid number two goes to school and 3a when kid number one comes home. This is our weekday schedule as long as we don't have a doctor or orthodontist appointment---and as long as I'm not volunteering for something, or chaperoning someone---or trying to get to the grocery store before playing chauffeur, cook and tutor for the rest of the evening.

You've stumbled upon or been led to my space. It's my place to talk about life, writing, food, kids, and my search for balance. It will take a little while, but we'll get to know each other. This journey to write about my experience is for all of us and that's why I have what might only be a temporary title. Or maybe it's permanent. We'll have to see.

I want to know what you think of the blog title? I tossed around a lot of ideas, but none seemed right: Yogachef, Bread and Chocolate, Apples and Oranges, any combination of Orange and Green. I 'm hoping for a single word. Something memorable, easy to remember, easy to search and  relevant to my focus--- which is quite broad! ( I even took the suggestion of my great friend Rose and tried to call my blog "Temporary Title" or something equivalent. Everything from Untitled to Working Title to Titleless was taken.)

From this list, you might be starting to glimpse more about me. Yes, I like to cook---even for my very picky family. Yoga is a big part of my life,  as is general fitness (and fitting it in!), nature, nutrition, and alternative healing. Husband, kids, family (near and mostly far), education, travel, art, culture, language, music and books are all topics near to my heart. You'll be hearing more about them in time. Any bright ideas about bringing focus to my work and a perfect title for the blog? Throw them at me and we'll see what sticks.

As for me, I'll keep working on writing, worrying about my kids, and  trying new recipes. It'll all be here. Come back and travel the road with me. I promise to be neurotic, sometimes inspired and funny, often enthusiastic and occasionally downright terrified and unsure about what's next, but I'm in. I'm here. My blog is launched. It's time for a celebratory beverage after 5:00p!