Healthy Living - Not Just Eating

Yesterday I wrote about when I began to consider getting back to basics. My primary motivation at the time was our financial situation. Getting back to basics saved money.

 As our financial situation improved, the need to save every single little penny didn't seem as urgent. We weren't rolling in the dough (we worked for a non-profit organization, enough said) but I didn't feel the need to make my own baby wipes anymore. Gradually our kids went from homemade playdough to Hasbro Play-doh. Needless to say, I was getting away from the "every little bit counts" mentality towards "I don't have any time or patience to make my own things" mentality.

Then a friend recommended the book What the Bible Says About Healthy Living. I loved the book because it's written by a medical doctor who spells out what God told the Israelites to eat and not to eat way back when, and then he explains the medical reasons why God would say that. Even though those dietary restrictions aren't necessary today, they're still a good idea for reasons the author explains very well. It turns out, God had some good reasons to tell His people not to eat pig.

Every Little Bit

I want to get back to basics.

This desire of mine started when I had my first baby and our income was half of what it had been. I relied heavily on Miserly Moms: Living on One Income in a Two-Income Economy which has been updated now to Miserly Moms: Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy. It was a great resource with lots of helpful hints to cut our expenses. One thing I learned from it: name brand companies are sourced by supermarkets to make their generic brands. So if you tend to go for the more attractively packaged name brand because you are familiar with the product, you may be spending money that you don't need to spend. At the very least, try out the generic brands. You might find that you like them (because they're really the name brand product!) and that you like the extra money in your pocket.

Collaboration X

A while ago I blogged about my art history and my new favorite place and Marie who has been encouraging to me by challenging me to just dive in and do art. And so to fly.

At her urging I entered a poet / artist collaboration exhibit. Looking back, I was crazy to do it. I had only just learned how to make a clay tile when I said I would be an artist in the exhibit and use clay tiles as my medium. At the time I didn't realize just how difficult a medium it is to work with. Making flat tiles is tricky because the clay has a tendency to want to curl up. Painting the tiles with ceramic glaze is an exercise in adjusting your expectations.

I can do it.

My counselor told me to put little signs around the house with truths that I need to believe to replace the lies I've been listening to. One of the lies I've believed is that "I can't do it." It took various forms at different times. Sometimes it was, "I can't do anything." Or sometimes, "I can't do anything right."

I think my counselor had post it notes in mind when she told me this, but I've been trying to feed my creativity, so I decided that an evening spent painting would feed that creative part of me while I remind myself of the truth that "I can do it."

My Mix Tape

I've recently had a couple conversations regarding the saying "time heals." It's been eye opening to me  me how deeply rooted this deceptive saying is. It's devestating, really.

There are several seemingly harmless cliches that play in my head like a bad mix tape. Coping cliches.

Side A: Coping
Armed with coping cliches playing on my mind's mix tape, it's no wonder that I've developed coping mechanisms to avoid the pain. As long as I can ignore the pain, then I'm okay. That is, until I need to find something else to dull the pain. Things like watching television, escaping into books or Facebook, cleaning, or various hobbies. Trying to be a good (perfect!) mother, wife, or hostess can be a form of coping. Investing time in relationships that aren't primary relationships is coping. (Developing relationships with friends is good, developing relationships to avoid pain and that cost your primary relationships is not so good.) Even submersing myself in bible study becomes an unhealthy coping mechanism if I'm doing it to avoid facing my wounding.

Psalm 151 Recycled

I've been crazy busy between trying to get my art piece ready for the April exhibit and being a mom and making my seven year old's baby book (finally) and the whole trying-to-figure-out-what-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it thing - Oh! - and I had to read Hunger Games for book club. Of course, since it's book one in a trilogy I couldn't eat or sleep until I read all three.

So, like I said, I've been busy. Too busy to blah-blah-blog about what I am thinking about. So I thought I'd re-post something that I wrote in 2008 that still seems to reflect my thoughts in 2011.

> Psalm 151 | Originally posted July 3rd, 2008:

I was reading Psalm 139 this morning and these verses struck me, especially because of my last post.

If I say, "Surely the darknes will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night." Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as day. Darkness and light are alike to You. (verses 11 & 12)

It inspired me to write my own psalm:

Good Labels

some good labels

I like wine, but I am not a wine connoisseur. I really can't be bothered with the nuttiness or fruitiness of my wine. I like cheap wines and expensive wines. (Not that I've tasted many expensive ones.) So, when I'm at the store deciding what to buy, I really have two requirements:

1.) can I afford it? 
2.) does the label make me smile?

Since I have to be picky about spending money, and since I don't really know what clarity, nose and palate mean, I figure that I'm going to choose my wine based on something I can appreciate: good visuals and a sense of humor. I'll give my money to the winemakers who take the time to make a nice looking label or come up with a clever name.

law and/or grace

This has nothing to do with this post, but I like it.

Here's something else I've been thinking about lately: why do I sometimes feel more loved outside the church than inside of it?

[Oh boy. Here I go.]

Sometimes when I go to church I feel condemned, not loved. I'm sure my experience differs depending on what church I go to, and is influenced by my upbringing and my own insecurities. But I'm finding out that it's not just me that feels condemned at church.

A lot of non-Christians who I talk to feel that way. I guess some technical saints might say, "Well, of course non-Christians would feel condemned at church. They are condemned, so that makes sense." And that makes me really sad.

Some people think that the church is really only for Christians. "The church is the Body of Christ, the Body of Believers," they'll point out. "We need to feed the sheep that are in the flock. We can't make even all the Christians happy, let alone try to make non-Christians happy." (I've had this conversation. That's what they said.) They believe that the church should be focused on Christians because it's Christ's body. They say that if non-Christians feel uncomfortable at church that's too bad because church is not for them anyways.

Her voice

- jumping in - and taking off (?)

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

I did something really crazy a while back. (And I'm not referring to my tattoo.) I submitted registrations to be considered for the Poet-Artist Collaboration X exhibit at Crossings, which will be on display in April.

For those of you wondering what that is, basically artists make art based on selected poems. Both the artists and the poems are selected by a panel of judges.

I entered as both a poet and artist. The poem I entered was Winter's Grace. The examples of art that I entered were just photos of my (then unfinished) clay tiles.

While my poem wasn't chosen (no surprise, I'm a novice), I was chosen to be an artist in the exhibit (big surprise, I am a novice!).

I just returned from selecting the poem that will be my inspiration. I started crying while reading the poem - it's beautiful. I don't know how I'll translate it to clay, but I had to choose that poem when I read it.

I am really, really, REALLY scared to make art for it. I hope I do it justice.

"Oh boy, here I go."

I feel a little bit like I am standing on the edge of a ledge about to jump, hoping that I sprout wings before I land.

Or if I don't, that I'll at least land on something soft.

things I found while blog jumping

Sometimes I like to go blog jumping. There's so many good blogs out there, it's fun to discover new ones. And I like to click links that people post to see what kind of blogs they're reading. More often than not they lead me to some fascinating blogs and sites.

For instance, my friend Amy, a/k/a Tea Girl, commented on one of my posts about her friend Jennifer's art. So I went to Tea Girl's blog, found Jennifer's A Poem Life and lost myself in her wonderful creativity.

Then I noticed a link on her post to Brave Girls Camp and was transported to a wonderful resource for soul-flying and reconnecting with the creativity in me. Oh my gosh! I so want to go to Camp, but just reading the blog is inspiring.

And just like that, I found some sisters in Idaho who sing my soul song.

Or, sometimes I find interesting links when I do a google search. For instance, I googled 'blog chain' and found a post about a blog chain here. There I found a link to The Great Blogging Experiment. It sounded way too interesting to pass up so I clicked on it and discovered what the experiment was, but more importantly that 1.) I can blog about whatever I want to, and 2.) I should have a Blog Plan if I want to be serious about writing.

I'm not sure how serious I am about making a Blog Plan, but I followed some of her links and found an amazing list of amazing blogs. At least that's what the blogger named the list. After looking it over, I'd have to say it's probably an accurate name - it's a list of writing blogs that would be amazingly helpful if I ever decide to get serious about writing. (*Bookmarking right now.) 

One of the blogs in the amazing list caught my eye: Quick and Dirty Grammar Tricks. Who don't want better grammar? While looking at the recent posts, one jumped out at me: How to make family names plural.

You see, before I was a Bickle, I was a Winnes. And every time somebody addressed something to the Winnes' it drove me just a little bit crazy. If you want to address something to more than one Winnes, you should address it to the Winneses. I can forgive people whose name ends in a B or T or N that mistake, but if your name ends in an S or X or Z then you should get to know this rule.

I also found out that you eat one blackberry and two blackberries, but you text on one Blackberry and two Blackberrys.

And just like that, I found some useful information for when I want to blog about the Winneses' Blackberrys.

It's interesting reading what's out there, as I jump from blog to blog. There's such good stuff that sometimes I feel like my blog is pointless.

Well. I guess it is.

A while back, when someone I knew was asked if he had a blog, he said he wasn't important enough to take up space in cyberspace. Initially that made me feel arrogant for daring to take up space in cyberspace with a blog because I'm not an expert on anything. Who would want to read what I have to say anyways?

Right now I have no purpose to my blogging other than to get some thoughts and ideas out of my head and onto paper cyberspace. Even if no one reads it, at least it's no longer locked up in my head. Right now I'm just blogging my raggedy thoughts.

That's the point.

My forever reminder

I've been thinking about butterflies lately.

I've been thinking about the pupa stage in particular. This is when the caterpillar is in the chrysalis. From the outside it doesn't look like much is going on. But on the inside the caterpillar is being transformed into a butterfly.

Within the chrysalis the old - and let's face it, ugly - body parts of the caterpillar are undergoing a wonderful transformation called ‘metamorphosis.’ The tissue, limbs and organs of a caterpillar are all changing, turning into the beautiful parts that make up the butterfly. By the time the pupa is finished, it emerges as something entirely different, entirely more beautiful, entirely more able to fly.

What joy that ground bound raggedy caterpillar must experience the first time it spreads it's wings!

Potato chips and redemption

My grandma is 95 today. A while ago, when my kids and I were in Minneapolis for something or other, my son John said, "Hey, we should visit Great-Grandma."

It was around lunchtime so we decided to bring lunch with us. Before we arrived at her place, we picked up some deli sandwiches and potato chips at the local grocery store.

Grandma was especially excited about the potato chips. During the course of our lunch together she must have said no less than six times: "Whoever invented the potato chip, they really knew what they were doing!" The kids and I still wonder about the potato chip inventor and relish Grandma's enthusiasm for the treat every time we have potato chips now.

So, in honor of Grandma's 95th birthday, I present:
The story of the invention of the potato chip:

George Crum

In the summer of 1853, Native American George Crum was employed as a chef at an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. On Moon Lake Lodge's restaurant menu were French-fried potatoes, prepared by Crum in the standard, thick-cut French style that was popularized in 1700s France and enjoyed by Thomas Jefferson as ambassador to that country. Ever since Jefferson brought the recipe to America and served French fries to guests at Monticello, the dish was popular and serious dinner fare.

At Moon Lake Lodge, one dinner guest found chef Crum's fries too thick. Crum cut and fried a thinner batch, but these, too, met with disapproval. Exasperated, Crum decided to rile the guest by producing French fries too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork. The plan backfired. The guest was ecstatic over the browned, paper-thin potatoes, and other diners requested Crum's potato chips, which began to appear on the menu as Saratoga Chips, a house specialty.

In 1860 George opened his own restaurant in a building on Malta Avenue near Saratoga Lake, and within a few years was catering to wealthy clients including William Vanderbilt, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Henry Hilton. (For more information visit this site where I got this story. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm)

Interestingly, Grandma's comment that whoever invented the potato chip really knew what they were doing is not accurate, though it is a fine expression of the joy she had eating them. George Crum did not know what he was doing.

I find it fascinating that the potato chip was born out of frustration and became a culinary sensation.

What a fantastic redemption.

my art history - learning to fly again

There's this great place one block from where I work: it's Crossings at Carngegie, a gallery of all things creative: art, music, poetry - if it's creative it's there. 

Please understand, it's not a craft store, it's an art gallery. Craft stores are great; I love them. I spend a lot of money at them. They make me feel crafty. But they are not art galleries.

Marie, the owner, is serious about art - visual arts, musical art, and written art. And she's serious about exposing people to good art and making it available to the people of Southeastern Minnesota. It's a genuine Cultural Arts Center in the heart of Zumbrota, population 2,000.

They also have classes there. All sorts of classes. Clay classes (I'm in one right now, a custom tile making class), painting classes, weaving classes, drawing classes, yoga classes, Spanish classes, dance classes. Every weekend they have concerts. Good concerts. Concerts that make me wish that I lived in Zumbrota.

And Crossings at Carnegie has a clay studio. It is at the clay studio that I spend my lunch hours and Tuesday nights with my other peeps. My creative soul peeps. Who accept me as if I really belong somewhere creative.

When I was an art major in college, I felt like I didn't belong in the art department. I wasn't one of their peeps. There were some pretty talented artists that I went to school with and I'm sure that my professors sifted the chaff from the wheat and knew where to focus their efforts. I helped them by believing my false assumptions and relegating myself to the second class art major distinction. 

I felt like I wasn't esoteric enough, I didn't push the envelope enough, I wasn't angry enough, I wasn't artsy enough. Or fartsy enough. Really, I realize now that I didn't know who I was enough.

on raggedyness

Why on earth embrace raggedyness? Isn't that the opposite of what we're inclined to do? Aren't we encouraged to embrace greatness and strive for improvement? Shouldn't we embrace the opposite of raggedyness: spiffyness?

I don't think so. Or, at least I don't think so anymore. Here's what I've discovered: I can't be perfect.

I'm sure some of you have arrived at this conclusion about me before I did, but it's a fairly new discovery for me. I mean, I knew I was not perfect and I would not let me forget it. I would get discouraged with myself if I messed up. Somehow I thought I should be perfect. I thought that if I wasn't perfect I would be letting people around me down. Not to mention letting God down. Implicit in the assumption that I should be perfect is the notion that I could be perfect. Of course I know that is not true, otherwise I'd be God. 

fly again

Around the same time of The Crisis, our church had a concert. The band Salvador came and rocked the house (of God). For those of you not familiar with Salvador (as I was not before that concert) they are a "latin jam band" according to their website. And they are very good at what they do.

Oh geeze, the scandinavians in the crowd didn't know what to do with Salvador's brand of funkyness. By the end of the extremely musically amazing jam session, the audience began to warm up and clap along (while seated, don'tcha know). No wonder no one chooses to make live album recordings in Minnesota. You betcha they don't.

my peeps

Since the end of December I've been working as an assistant property manager of a subsidized apartment complex for seniors and people with disabilities. So far, I love it. The only thing I'd rather be doing right now is staying at home with my kids. But if I have to work, I love working with these residents.

So far I've really had the best of it. I'm the assistant property manager, so the buck stops with my boss. But since she can't be in two places at once, I get to be on the property full time, so I get to interact with these people. And drink coffee in the morning with them.

There aren't many colorful characters here like there was at Fontaine - the other property my boss manages where I helped her last year. At Fontaine there were pole dancer wannabe grandmas and fall down drunk grandpas.

These people here, they're your typical midwestern farmer grandmas and grandpas with an occassional small towner. They speak with swedish accents and their eyes sparkle and shoulders shake when they silently laugh. Their morning entertainment is waiting for the postman. Their afternoons are spent napping or playing cards. These are my peeps.

r&r at the b&b

I stayed in the Gypsy Room on Friday night.

This last weekend I spent some time by myself at a bed and breakfast in Red Wing, Minnesota. I admit that I felt a little awkward being the only single in a Victorian house full of couples. But it was wonderful to get away and be surrounded by old and beautiful things.

It was an assignment, actually: to get in touch with my 'little girl.' When my counselor told me that I had to spend a weekend alone at a bed and breakfast, I was thrilled for the get-away but I was scared of being with myself for so long. I have successfully avoided being with myself for many, many years. I've avoided thinking about myself for a long time, too. After thinking for so long about doing what other people want to do, I had to think about me - and not feel bad about it. Boy, was that tougher than I thought.

I can't drive 95

It all started with this.

I like to feel like I'm driving when I'm driving. Perhaps it goes back to when I learned to drive. I learned on a VW diesel van, a stick shift because that's all they had in Germany. My dad taught me on the little farmers roads. I cried many times trying to start on a hill, but I got the hang of it. Eventually I even got on the Autobahn. It was a thrill the first time I accellerated onto the entrance ramp, expecting to exceed speeds that I'd never achieved before. Except our diesel van was, well, slow. So I hugged the right lane and only dreamt of the far left lane where there was no limit to acceleration bliss.

Unfortunately there are no Autobahns in America and these days it's only automatics sitting in our garage. I no longer get to feel one with the car as I push in the clutch and slide the shift into the next higher gear. My one connection with the car has been the gas pedal. A dangerous connection given the limiting speed limits, but one that I have managed to successfully maneuver. So to speak.

My husband likes cruise control and usually reminds me of it's benefits when we pass by speed limit signs along the highway. (Or a patrol car.) I have managed to steer clear of relying on cruise control and losing another connection to the car. 

facebook fiction

What is this hold that Facebook has over us? Frankly, it scares me. As of July 2010, Facebook estimated over 500 million users. That's 500 million people who are connecting over cyberspace. That is kind of cool, but it can be costly. It was for me.

I first learned of Facebook when we had a college student living with us for the summer. At that time Facebook was just for college students. We worked with college students in our ministry, and I learned from him that it was a popular way for college students to communicate, even more than email at that time. When Facebook expanded to let more than just college students join, I joined in an effort to learn more about how the kids we were working with communicated. I wanted to be relevant.

I soon found out that many people that I knew were already on Facebook. People who I hadn't seen for years. Suddenly I could find and communicate with people that I'd known in the other places we'd lived. We had just moved to our current location and I was finding it quite difficult to connect with anyone. I don't know if it was my hesitation to get close to anyone lest I have to move again - this was my fourth city in ten years - or the stage of life we're in - everyone is busy with kids, no time to make new friends - or the climate of the city: cold, both in temperature and personality.

In any case, I suddenly found friends on facebook that I already had been friends with, people who I knew I liked, people who I had a history with. This was easy. Much easier than picking up the phone to call someone I hardly knew to have an awkward conversation. (I am not a phone talker.) Not only did I suddenly have friends, but I could write to them. I much prefer writing. You can edit your writing before you post it. You can delete something you didn't mean to say. Not only did I have friends that I could write to, but I could pick and choose what they knew about me. I didn't have any bad hair days in the photos I posted. (Well, except that one.) I cropped out my bulge. I posted witty statuses and comments that got 'liked.' It was like a drug for me. I didn't have to be fully there to be liked from people all over the world. "People really do like me," I told myself. Except I had to be on Facebook to feel the love. The Facebook love. In real life I wasn't feeling it.

In real life I was not able to get out of bed. In real life I was depressed. I was imagining ways I could escape my reality. Facebook was a more acceptable form of escape. I escaped my marriage. I escaped my overwhelmingly energetic and demanding kids. (Did they really need to eat?)

I made myself a fictional facebook character with a supporting cast of hundreds. But one day my fictional world collided with my reality and I saw Facebook for what it was: an unhealthy escape for me. I deactivated my account and haven't had a desire to get back on it. That is until New Year's when I thought it would be interesting to see my statuses from the past year which included many of our kids' clever sayings as well as the story of our year. When I reactivated my Facebook account and read through my statuses, I was struck by how excessively preoccupied I was with letting my Facebook friends know what I was thinking and doing every day. How much time had I wasted investing myself in my fictional fantasy instead of my family and making friends here where I live? It kind of made me sad. Especially since only a fraction of those Facebook friends that I sacrificed my family for have sent me an email to find out how I'm doing now that I'm not on facebook.

Not that I'm surprised, or even expect it because frankly, I'm sure that people have disappeared from facebook and I haven't noticed or if I did, didn't say anything. Because let's face it: facebook is fiction and the social connections on there are nice, but they're not real life.

I have a greater appreciation now for non-fiction. Real life rocks.