“A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.” ~ James Allen

Taxes: check.

Gym Workouts (3): check.

Dentist follow-up: check.

Update resume: check.

Dealing with bank-related business: check.

Countering adult responsibility by eating playful food: check.

Spaghetti with Beanballs

This was a grand experiment, undertaken because I had almost a full can of diced tomatoes leftover from indian food (spinach, chickpea and potato jalfrezi) I made a couple of days ago.

The tomato sauce: amazing. (You can find the recipe here.) The trick: grated onion. I replaced the butter with a combination of Earth Balance and coconut oil, but otherwise followed the recipe as written.

The beanballs were… OK. They’re made from cannellini beans, onion, roasted red pepper, an egg, breadcrumbs, garlic, and a few other things. I threw in some chopped spinach for color and texture. It was a case where I like all of the ingredients in a recipe, but the finished product didn’t do as much for me as I would have liked. It’s not that they were bad; they taste fine and I’ll happily eat the leftovers for lunch. What they were missing was a little bit of umami, and the texture wasn’t quite right. I’ll probably be trying some vegetarian “meat”ball recipes this week to see if I can find one that I really like. Next up: one made from lentils and mushrooms and walnuts… could be delicious.

“Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement. ~ Alfred Adler

All in all this week has been way more productive than amazing. Doing taxes, banking, mortgage business, a visit to the dentist, a visit to the vet for Lilo (who is feeling much better, thankfully), an Audubon meeting, a dance class (that’s still amazing, and I still suck), and tomorrow, a hair cut.

All stuff that needs to be done, for sure, but most of it decidedly not amazing.

Sigh.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Last week I came upon a very interesting item in the grocery store:

It was sitting between a vodka sauce and some other traditional-ish Italian pasta sauce, but the “masala” intrigued me. That’s Indian, not Italian. What is this odd sauce? Going over the list of ingredients I was even more intrigued: tomatoes, coconut milk, ginger, garlic, lime juice, rice vinegar, lemongrass? Lime leaf?

Fascinating.

It was not, ahem, inexpensive, but as a splurge I decided to check it out. It’s not something I would think to make on my own, and I like all of those flavors. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with it if I kept my options open. I tasted it when I got home, and it’s good — quite tangy, but the tang isn’t exclusively from the tomatoes as it is in traditional tomato-based pasta sauces. And it’s a really pretty color. But I have to say those are definitely not flavors I associate with pasta. (That’s not to say they’re not delicious with pasta, just that my associations don’t go there on first taste.) Maybe my next meal with it will be a pasta dish, but last night I decided to play with it in a more traditional flavor profile, so I tarted it up with some onions, chickpeas (for sweetness) and spinach (for bitterness) and served it over basmati rice (for yumminess).

Delicious!

P.S. Yep. Also good with pasta… definitely one of the most versatile sauces I’ve had in a while.

“rowing: the only sport you can win sitting on your butt going backwards” ~ unknown

It’s early in the year, so it’s a toss-up at the gym… you may get a treadmill, you may not.

The treadmills were occupied when I got to the gym yesterday, so I went back to the erg, something I haven’t done in a while.

Photo by wikipedia user Johnteslade.

Too long, actually. I’d forgotten a) how much I like rowing, and b) what a great workout it is. My legs are going to be sore tomorrow, and I can feel the muscles of my upper back pulling my shoulder blades toward one another.

Nice.

“Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” ~ Michael Pollan

In general I would agree that you should limit your intake of food your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize, but for this I make an exception:

Actually, plenty of great-grandmothers would recognize it as food, even though mine wouldn’t. It’s (vegan) kimchi. I made it about six weeks ago and, at this point, it’s kind of stinky and very sour… a little too sour for my unused-to-it tastebuds. Even though it’s a little too far gone to be consumed on its own (unless you like sour kimchi, which I hear lots of people do), it’s very good incorporated into things, like fried rice, which is what we had for dinner last night. (My one amazing thing yesterday: making a Korean-style meal that D and I really enjoyed.)

The menu last night: kimchi fried rice with sauteed mushrooms, grilled zucchini, steamed broccoli, bibimbop sauce (gochujang, sesame seeds, sesame oil and rice vinegar). I had a fried egg with mine and I made a bulgogi (ribeye in a sauce made from vodka, soy sauce, soda, sesame oil, onions, garlic, pepper and shiitake mushrooms) for D. It was really delicious.

The bulgogi is significant. I’m a vegetarian, and have been for the last couple of years. I’m comfortable with it. I feel good and I like the food.

But my better half isn’t at all interested in being a vegetarian. He is a very good sport to eat the way I want to eat most of the time. (Disclosure: I’m the one who does all the cooking; even though he’s free to eat whatever he wants at home, he most often chooses to eat what I make so he can avoid having to cook.) Every once in a while I like to meet him halfway by making him something he really likes to eat.

P.S. The kimchi goodness continues for Super Bowl Sunday. One of our snacks this evening is going to be bindae duk, mung bean pancakes. The batter is going to be spiked with kimchi, scallions, and red bell pepper. Yum…

“A little insomnia is not without its value in making us appreciate sleep, in throwing a ray of light upon that darkness.” ~ Marcel Proust

In 2007-2008 I went through an extremely stressful phase where I worked. I was grinding my teeth. I got sick and couldn’t shake it. My allergies and asthma kicked in and I couldn’t kick them out (which lead to an increase in the number of antihistamines I was taking, which in turn dried out my mouth, which lead to the development of two cavities). I lost my short-term memory. My digestive system got so turned around that I lost my ability to digest heavy food. And I lost my ability to sleep more than a couple of hours a night.

Stress is a bitch. And a vicious cycle: stress ==> bad things ==> stress ==> bad things…

I left that job, and things are much better now (including, thankfully, my ability to set boundaries at work). I am active and well. I don’t grind my teeth. I can remember where I put my keys/parked my car/set down that potholder. I no longer eat meat or batter-fried food; my stomach has settled nicely and I enjoy a greater variety of meals than ever.

One thing that has remained spotty is the sleeping. Part of that, to be fair, has to do with my age (middle). Even so, despite going to bed at the same time every night, and sleeping in a cool, quiet, dark room, deep sleep is pretty rare for me. To have a shot at it, I have to exercise both my body and my brain during the day and stop eating pretty early in the evening.

Yesterday I had an hour in the late afternoon after one of my projects was finished so I finished a book I had been reading. I walked about 3.5 miles and took a dance class (yay!). I ate a giant salad for dinner at 7:30 p.m.

Last night the stars aligned and I slept for about 9 hours.

Heaven. Pure bliss.

Even though it wasn’t a conscious action or decision (and it probably won’t happen again for a while), I would go so far as to call it amazing.

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” ~ Unknown

I’m not stupid. In fact, I’d say that on most days I’m smarter than the average bear… at least when it comes to some things.

But money matters? Financial planning? Not so much.

I pay my bills and deal with day-to-day household financial management, but I haven’t done my own taxes in years. It’s not that I think I’m too dense to understand the tax code. I think I could eventually wrap my head around it, but between my self-employment and our home ownership, our taxes are complicated enough that I’d rather pay someone who is comfortable with how the system works to navigate those waters.

Same thing goes for financial planning. Sticking money in a savings account doesn’t even count as savings anymore — it’s more like storage — so what’s a person with an outmoded sense of money management to do?

See an expert, that’s what. That was my amazing thing for the day yesterday: to meet with someone who has been navigating these waters for more than 20 years, someone who is willing to work with me to understand whether I can get from here to where I want to be, how to do it, and if it’s not possible, how to modify my expectations.

I feel like a grown-up, in a good way. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem amazing, or even all that noteworthy. But when you used to put financial matters on the same level as visiting the dentist, it’s a definite, giant, step in the right direction.

“Where there is a sea there are pirates.” ~ Greek Proverb

For the longest time I wanted to learn to draw. Now I want to learn to render.

I’ve been stuck on the wrong stuff. I can draw. Not perfectly, but I can get the job done. My weakest skills come after the drawing, and those are what I need to spend the most time on now.

So yesterday afternoon I took a couple of hours and drew a Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens). I worked from a photo in a bird calendar (because we don’t have Frigatebirds in the Inland Northwest). I started by using a (non-repro) blue pencil to do the initial drawing and then worked with a ballpoint pen and colored pencils.

I chose the ballpoint pen because it’s unforgiving. If I screwed up (and I admit that this isn’t a great doodle) I had to own it.

Frigatebirds are known for stealing food from other birds… they’re pirates.