Saturday, August 23, 2008

a lazy saturday at home...

a little sneak peak of what is sitting in front of me right now....



i came down with a yucky virus a few days ago after running my body through the ringer, I'm notorious at pushing my body without giving it any rest, so joe and I have spent the entire day at home lazing around on the couch today. it's been exactly what I needed. we woke up around 8, no rushing off to the gym our out the door for my usual saturday morning run. In fact we moved from one resting spot to the next! Had some peanut butter and banana toast for breakfast and then took a nap until about 10:30. I've spent the rest of the day reading a book I have been wanting to read for a long time...The Essential Rumi---a book of poetry by a persian poet. I got inspired to bust out the paints that Joe gave me as part of my bday present and did a little doodling in my journal.

unfortunately joe threw his back out yesterday, so we are a sickly and injured lot, but it has given us the excuse to be absolute lazy bums today which I can't complain about.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

a couple of recent meals made with my love...


Summer linguini with squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and olives.



Our very own peanut sauce. We call it Mr. Peanut goes to Thailand. Chicken Pad Thai.



Joe's specialty and now mine too!! Homemade pizza! I made the right side and Joe made the right side.

just feeling grateful...


Just finished reading a great book called My Stroke of Insight by a woman named Jill Bolte Taylor. I first heard of this lady from my sister when she recommended I look at a blog posting by John Mayer with you tube footage of a woman talking about her experience surviving a stroke. Then just a couple of weeks ago I was listening to NPR at work and Terry Gross, the host of one of my favorite NPR programs, Fresh Air was interviewing the same woman. I told my boss about the program and she enjoyed it so much that she went out and bought Ms. Taylor's book. When she finished reading she passed it along to me.

Taylor gave some really great insight into the way our brains work. Although I do not have any in depth understanding our our brains, after finishing this book I realize just how much I take for granted the amazing functions that my body and brain carry out each day, each hour, each second. After reading about Taylor's experience, I can't help but feel incredibly lucky to function as normally as I do each day....I can express myself with language, I can read, I can understand other's attempts to communicate, I can call on the thousands of files in my brains to make sense of the world around me.

In addition to a detailed walk through of her recollection of her experience during her stroke, Taylor offers some great life advice at the end of the book---the lessons that she has learned as a result of her experience. She talks about choosing everyday the way that she will react to the things that happen to her. She talks about choosing emotions of compassion and gratitude over emotions of anger and general unhappiness.

I kind of consider myself to be on an ongoing quest for happiness and fulfillment and so much of what Taylor had to say resonated with my efforts to develop an inner peace in my life. Not that I am unhappy with my life right now, but I do feel as though I still take a lot for granted and have a lot to learn in shifting my life attitudes to fully appreciate all the beauty that surrounds me every day.