Gifts

For the first time in my life, I woke up all alone on Christmas.  And it wasn’t horrible. There were some good things about it.  I knew all my loved ones were with people who cared about them.  I was in my own home – safe and peaceful.  I had presents to open, kitties happily fed and sleeping in warm spots, and “A Christmas Carol” (the Alastair Sim’s version) on my DVD player.  And I knew every penny I saved by not traveling this Christmas would help us reach the Lavender Festival & Canada this summer.

Safe and Warm at Home

I got some lovely gifts this Christmas wrapped in pretty paper, some handed to me by students and friends and others delivered by mail.  The ones that seemed to be especially chosen for me touched me.  There was a lunch bag that came in a “Cat” bag with a “Cat” card because a student remembered I liked cats & bring my lunch to school every day.  To remind me of my goals, I received an “Animal Sanctuary” calendar and a lavender sachet from a dear friend.  And there were handmade gifts, special cooking herbs, and a Barnes & Noble gift card (Is there anything better than starting a new year with a new vegan cookbook?) from my Mom.  But not all my gifts came in boxes.

Like my colorfully wrapped presents,
the trees at the gardens have been "wrapped" in amazing colors.

This gift didn’t come in a box but on the phone.  There was a “Merry Christmas” message from a friend left on my phone on Christmas Eve.  I knew she was having a special Shabbat dinner that night and she took time to call me and send her love.  She had already given me a beautiful crystal heart for Christmas but it was the gift of her own heart that has meant the most to me.

It isn't the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it. 
~Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

This gift wouldn’t fit in a box.  It was a walk in the gardens with my housemate before she left to spend Christmas with her family.  The rain had stopped but it was a cool and crisp morning.  Everything glistened with droplets of water.  Amazingly, after days and days of rain, there were still roses and other flowers, but there were also gorgeous mushrooms, colorful leaves, and stark branches making patterns against the grey sky.  Spending time in a beautiful place with a true friend is a perfect gift.

Delicate Beauties

Strangely Beautiful

Beautiful Bare Branches

Translucent Beauty.

This gift would go bad in a box.  It was spinach dip I actually made myself – a veganized version of a family recipe.  And it wasn’t really the dip that was the gift, it was the connection to my family.  I thought of everyone of them.  I pictured them opening presents, eating comforting food and treats, laughing and playing games.  And yes, it made me a little sad that we weren’t together but it also gave me great pleasure to be reminded of how much I love them and what amazingly wonderful people they are.  I don’t have to be in the same house with them, for my family to be a very special gift.

Vegan Spinach Dip

Vegan Spinach Dip Recipe

1 container of Follow Your Heart Vegan Cream Cheese

1 cup Follow Your Heart Vegan Sour Cream

1 Cup Reduced Fat Vegenaise ®

2 bags fresh spinach (chopped)

3 cloves garlic + 1 TB olive oil

1 package dry vegetable soup mix (vegan)

1/2 small red onion (chopped finely)

1 can water chestnuts (chopped finely)

Directions:

• Mix vegan cream cheese, sour cream, and vegenaise (use any brands but these are my favorite) with the vegetable soup mix, chopped onion and water chestnuts.
• Sauté the spinach with the oil and the garlic (you can use frozen spinach but I think fresh tastes better).  Allow garlic/spinach to cool and mix with other ingredients.
• Best if allowed to stay in refrigerator for at least 2 - 4 hours (or even more!)  

The great thing about gifts that don’t come in boxes is you get them all year.  I get them from my students, my family, my friends, my pets, my life, strangers, and even myself.  There will be that student who takes extra effort to create a science poster so beautiful I will want to frame it.  There will be Sunday phone calls with my Mom where I get to hear all the “news” of our family.  There will be lunch with a friend who loves to talk about education and improving our craft and never seems bored by my plans and discoveries.  There will be a warm, purring cat snuggling next to me on a cold night.  There will be the admissions lady at the garden who smiles and waves me in the gate because she “knows” me now.  There will be the companionship of watching “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory” with my housemate.  There will be tap dancing classes starting in January and continued efforts to getting stronger and healthier.  And this summer, there will be a road trip with people I love to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.  So, even though I am not spending Christmas in the same house with my family this year, (and even though I’m more of a “cultural” Christian than an actual Christian), I am still filled with gratitude, joy, and peace on this Christmas Day.  My gifts are plentiful this year and the best are yet to come.

As for updating my goals, with all the celebrating and treats, I think that I'll save that for the new year.  But I will add more pictures from the garden.

"A Spoonful of Sugar"

This was not a good week.  It was long!  It was difficult!  I was tired!  And grumpy! And things went wrong!  Not big things – just a bunch of little things.  And since I was on edge and tired and often running late, the little things were really annoying and very stressful.  

I asked at the gardens and they said this was a California Buckeye.  I looked it up and it seems to be poisonous.   Oddly enough, it reminded me of my week.

 Really, it was just life.  Nothing horrible - and I'm grateful for that.  Just a "common case of everyday reality"  Like the country song Darryl Worley sings:

“Sounds like life to me it ain’t no fantasy

It’s just a common case of everyday reality

Man I know it’s tough but you gotta suck it up

To hear you talk you’re caught up in some tragedy

It sounds like life to me” (Darryl Worley, Wynn Varble, Phil O’Donnell)

  My week was just annoying but sadly this 300 year old, beautiful oak tree had to be cut down because it was so unhealthy.  The asphalt around it had damaged it and even though the gardeners tried to save it - it was too late.

Last night I watched Grey’s Anatomy (saved on my DVR) and one scene made me laugh so hard and vicariously feel tremendous relief from my week of stress.  The doctors were being trained in trauma, and the requirements were not set in their favor.   It was a “Kobayashi Maru” (for those of you familiar with Star Trek) or a no win situation.  Finally, after hours in the rain with “patients” losing their lives, one spunky gal (Dr. April Kepner played by Sarah Drew) picks up her remaining patient dummy and puts him/her in the emergency vehicle.   Dr. Owen is shouting that she can’t use the vehicle.  And she basically says,  “I’m taking this patient to the hospital.  So get out of my way or I will run you down!”  I’ve watched that scene about 4 times.  That’s what I want to shout sometimes, to all my negative thoughts, and negative people, and difficult situations, and stupid useless paperwork, and the lady who wanted cuts in the grocery store line because she had fewer items than me even though I’d been waiting a long time for my turn, (Do you ask for cuts in the movie line if you have fewer people in your group?), and every other annoying and stressful thing that makes me feel like a failure – “Get out of my way or I WILL RUN YOU DOWN!”  Of course, I don’t actually yell – at least not out loud, but it was fun to see Dr. Kepner win the “no win scenario”.

Last time I wrote about work but I’ve also been thinking about fun.  The idea that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” seems like a good philosophy to me.  Well, maybe not literally using sugar – too many empty calories, but I do think it is important to find those things that make work and life more fun.

So here are a few of my “spoonfuls of sugar” hints.

I love most vegetables but there are a few I just sort of tolerate.  However, I have found that you can roast just about any vegetable and it tastes great.  When I think about eating boiled Brussels sprouts or steamed green beans, yuck.  But roasted Brussels sprouts or Green beans.  Yummy!  Or if that doesn’t work, put it a soup.  Vegetables always taste good in soup.  Not fond of kale? (But it’s so good for you!)  Make a “creamy” (using vegan alternatives, of course) spinach and kale soup and it is delicious!

Truly Delicious! - Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I don’t like mopping floors or cleaning cat boxes, or washing dishes, or dusting, or… well, you get the idea.  But listen to Pandora Internet Radio or a great audio book on my IPod, and cleaning house and doing chores becomes much less of task and more of a treat. 

http://www.pandora.com

And then there’s exercise.  I think we all realize that I’m not a fan.  It takes a lot of “sugar” to make this “medicine” tasty.  Of course right now, I have Sam and Dean to keep me company.  No, they are not my trainers – they are the Winchester brothers from “Supernatural”.  I recently discovered this demon-fighting duo and ordered the DVDs.  While I exercise to the “Walk Away the Pounds – 3 mile Version” DVD (on a little TV next to my big TV), I also watch a favorite show using close captioning and listen to “happy” music (mostly country, but any of my favorite music with a fast beat) on my IPod.   I know it sounds complicated but my feet start moving when I listen to music with a beat and I actually look forward to exercise so I can watch another episode.   

I get to look at something beautiful when I exercise indoors.  (I got the picture from this link: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/sam-winchester/links/3633418)

Of course, I also love to walk in the Descanso Gardens, but since most mornings I exercise very early when it’s still dark – walking outside is not really an option.  However, when I get the chance to walk in the gardens, I not only get to exercise my muscles, I also get to feed my “spirit”.

And something beautiful when I exercise outdoors.

And then there’s food.  Food has always been fun to me.  I like buying it, and preparing it, and feeding it to other people, and feeding it to me.  For me, food is life, and comfort, and love, and fun.  So why do I include it on a page about making things that are “not-so-fun” more fun? 


I think to understand my challenges with food you need to know about my recipe for macaroni and cheese (a pre-vegan recipe).  It had butter in it – lots of butter!  And cream – real cream!  And 4 kinds of cheeses!  People talked about my Mac and Cheese.  Just recently, a friend I don’t see very often asked if she could pay me to make her my macaroni and cheese.  When people ate my macaroni and cheese, they sighed, they gushed, they asked for the recipe.  Yes, it is true that if you ate a lot of this sinfully delicious, almost rapturous food, you would die of heart attack, but while you were eating it, it was blissful!  

Unfortunately, my former favorite foods are the cause of my weight problems, and my high blood pressure, and my health issues.  Blissful or not, they have to go!  And so I need to find a way to make healthy foods, not just healthy, and not just eatable, but delicious and satisfying and maybe someday – blissful!  Healthy Food Hint #1:  Make healthy versions of unhealthy favorites.  Hint #2:  Try substituting a new ingredient in a familiar favorite recipe.  Hint #3:  Add vegetables when ever possible to recipes – you get to eat a lot more without a lot more calories.

Tempeh, Lettuce, & Tomato Sandwich

Stir Fry "Chicken" & Veggies

Here’s a new favorite recipe:  Spinach Salad that follows all the hints.  It is a healthy version of spinach salad.  It uses new healthy ingredients like flax seed oil, miso, & jicama.  And you can eat a lot of spinach for very few calories.  It isn’t macaroni and cheese but it is a great way to start a meal and it really is a delicious way to eat spinach.  I have made vegan versions of Mac and Cheese and I’ve enjoyed them but they aren’t really Mac & Cheese.  I’m still working on the perfect macaroni dish.

Simple Individual Spinach Salads w/ Healthy Garlic-Herb Dressing

Salad Ingredients:

Spinach

Red Onion

Mushrooms

Tomatoes (Optional)

Jicama and/or Cucumbers (Optional)

Soy Bacon

Dressing Ingredients (Plenty for 1 Salad)

1 Tb red wine vinegar

1 TB water

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp flax seed oil

Juice from ½ of a lemon

Pinch of salt

¼ tsp of Agave Syrup (or sugar)

½ tsp Mrs. Dash Garlic-Herb Seasoning

¼ tsp Mrs. Dash Tomato-Basil Seasoning

¼ rounded tsp Miso (Red or White) or Dijon Mustard

Directions:

1.     Sauté mushrooms with cooking spray until brown. (Because mushrooms go bad so quickly, I cook the mushrooms on the weekend, store in fridge, and then just heat them when I want a spinach salad.)

2.    Cook bacon until crisp.  (We cook in the microwave but you have to be careful because it burns easily.)

3.    Thinly slice red onion and cut into bite size pieces.  Dice tomatoes, cucumber,  and jicama if using.

4.    Assemble Salad.  I didn’t put ingredients for amounts of spinach & vegetables.  Put as much as you like.

5.    Mix dressing ingredients and pour over salad.

And now for an update:

It hasn't been easy to keep up with my goals - going to the gardens, writing the blog, eating healthy.  I haven't totally failed but I haven't totally succeeded either.  Life circumstances - holidays, preparing grades, and grading lots of papers make it more difficult.  (I don't know what it is about grading papers - but within 10 minutes of grading I'm so hungry.  I have to find a solution to this problem because grading papers is definitely a part of my job!)  I know it sounds like I'm making excuses but I haven't given up.  And I've had some success.

Weight at end of Oct.

Weight 11/7

Weight 11/14

I didn't visit the gardens one week.  I just felt so tired, discouraged, and depressed that I didn't go.  I realize visiting the gardens might have helped but sometimes I don't always do the things that would actually help me.  However, I did go back the next week and the gardens are beautiful right now.

Beautiful View

Falling Leaves

Red Leaves

From Green to Bronze

Outdoor Cathedral

White Camellia

Beautiful Rose

Golden Trumpets

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work. (Horace)

Lately I’ve been thinking about work and success.  When trying to be a successful teacher, and a success at eating healthy and exercising and losing weight, how much work do I need to do to be successful?

As a teacher who cares about her job and her students, I feel an obligation to grade papers, and plan, and teach, and provide support, and keep organized and do all the other things a teacher has to do.  And because I do all these things, during the school year I never check everything off my “To Do List”.  There is always something I should be doing or something I haven’t done yet.  I skip household chores or errands or time for myself because I’m working.  I see other teachers who seem to go home without bags of papers to correct and don’t seem to spend hours planning and don’t seem worried about not getting things done. (I know I don’t go home with them so I don’t really know what they do but I get the feeling they don’t spend the majority of their weekends working.)  Am I working too much?  Or are they working too little?  Or do we just work differently?

And it isn’t just teaching.  What about eating healthy and exercising and losing weight?  Can you have a treat once in awhile and still be successful?  Can you skip a day of exercise here and there and still lose weight?  Is it obsessive to worry about every bite you take or is it necessary if you want to lose weight?  Again, I have to ask, am I doing too much or too little?

Life shouldn’t be just filled with work but without work nothing gets done.  I don’t know how to be a good teacher without spending most of my weekend working.  And I don’t know how to lose weight without spending a lot of time preparing foods and exercising. Is there a way to get what you want without working at it? 

I get the feeling that some people think I work too much, and sometimes I think I work too much too, but I can’t figure out how to work less and feel good about what I’ve done.  This week I went for a walk in the gardens on Tuesday after school.  Someone was filming a scene for a movie there.  The whole left side of the parking lot was filled with white trailers and trucks.  The place where they were filming was filled with people, and equipment, and trucks, and wires, cameras, lights, and a generator, and a young man with a walkie-talkie – who needed me to walk quickly so I didn’t get in the way of the filming.  So much work had to be done to film a scene or two for a movie.  If it takes that much work for a single scene in a movie, I guess it isn’t really that surprising that it takes a lot of work to teach 175 students the complexities of science.  

I know I wanted to find balance this year but I’m not sure I know what that means to me.  I know it isn’t possible to have equal parts of work and play.  The more I’ve thought about the importance of my work, (at least to me and maybe to my students), the more I realize it isn’t really balance I’m hoping to achieve.  I do want to make sure my life is the best life I can make for myself and that it is satisfying and joyful and not JUST filled with work.  However, I’m not exactly sure what that life looks like.  I guess that’s what this year is about – figuring out what I want my life to be.  I have realized that a big part of my life is going to be my teaching and that is going to involve a lot of work.  I have also realized that it is going to take a lot of work to get healthy and get to a healthy weight.  And when I really think about it, work is a good thing.  Lots of people right now wish they had a job and I'm lucky enough to have a job I love.  And there are people who are wondering when they will have their next meal, and I'm lucky enough to be able to prepare healthy foods on a regular basis.  I realize now, that the kind of success that matters to me involves a lot of work and that's not a bad thing.

It's been several weeks since I've updated so here's how I'm doing on my goals.


I've struggled with eating healthy.  I got sick and I wanted comfort - and comfort to me involves food.  I ate healthy foods but too much of them.  However, I did exercise most days even when I was sick (however the exercise wasn't too energetic).  I have lost weight but I've been losing it more slowly.

10/10

10/17

10/30

I've really been cooking simple comforting recipes.  Here is a super quick and easy sausage wrap I like for breakfast or lunch.

Quick and Easy Veggie-Sausage Wrap

Sausage Wrap

1 whole wheat tortilla (fajita size - 110 calories)

2 ounces Gimme Lean soy sausage (60 calories)

1/4 c. (or more) cooked veggies (I used leftover zucchini, corn, soy beans, red onion)

2 TB Daiya Cheddar "Cheese" (40 calories)

A few dashes of your favorite hot sauce (mine is Cholula)

Fresh Salsa or Pico de Gallo

Directions:

1.  Spread the soy sausage down the center of the tortilla.

2.  Top w/ the cooked veggies, Daiya, and hot sauce.

3.  Fold the tortilla to enclose the veggies & sausage mixture.

4.  Place on a microsafe dish and cover.  I cooked mine in the microwave onion for 1 1/2 minutes and everything including the sausage was cooked.  (I imagine the time depends on your microwave.)  

5.  Top with fresh salsa or toppings of your choice.


I've been to the gardens at least once every week.  It's been fun to see the fall decorations.  And there are still so many beautiful flowers.

Amazing Color

Early Morning Dew

Fall Pumpkins

Mystery Flowers

Sherbet Rose

Colors of Fall