Single Mom – On the Road to 60

There are Some Walks You Have to Take Alone

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the quote ‘Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.’ He was a man ahead of his time, for he believed that all things were connected to God and therefore divine. A notion during the 1800’s that was a bit radical; today it would be embraced by many.

I saw this quote recently and it’s timely appearance made me think about my current circumstances for I believe that this is my next, and quite possibly, my hardest life lesson to learn. I was with my husband for over 23 years and after that I had a boyfriend for 5, but that is over now and I am without a partner.

I remember a conversation I had with my dear friend Channy when my husband and I broke up and I immediately went online to find a replacement. She chided me for moving so quickly, telling me to concentrate on other areas of my life. When I told her that I just wasn’t that person, that I didn’t feel whole unless I had a partner in my life, she was astonished. She couldn’t fathom a strong, independent woman such as myself needing a partner to feel fulfilled while at the same time she applauded the fact that I knew myself well enough to be honest about it.

As life does, this has changed. I know at this time in my life that I need to be at peace with myself, by myself. Just saying this is not going to make it happen of course, there is work to be done. I have that part of myself that feels like a total failure in my relationships. I have other parts of me that go to war with that feeling, pushing it down and telling it to go away. However, I believe that I must embrace that feeling, comfort it and say, ‘why yes, in some ways you did fail, but what did you learn?’ I’m still working on that, and will continue to do so, and that is why I’m choosing to be alone and find peace with myself for the first time in many decades.

I’m changing things in my life so that I can learn to love myself by myself. I’m doing that by embracing my metaphysical side and doing daily meditations. I’m also working out, but this time not just for my weight and trying to look my best for someone else, but for me and my overall health. I’m taking classes in things that interest me and enlighten me. I’m taking the moments when I’m sitting alone on the couch watching Hell’s Kitchen and not having anyone to laugh at Chef Ramsey with in stride, trying to enjoy that laughter with myself. It’s going to be an interesting journey and I look forward to learning more about me and enjoying what I learn.

Until next time, enjoy your alone moments to their fullest.

Recipe of the Day – Zucchini Pasta

There is no pasta in this recipe! Yep, Zucchini is the pasta and it’s AMAZING! But first things first, go out and buy yourself a Spiral Vegetable Slicer

You can get this on Amazon (I found mine at Home Goods for $29)

Ingredients

3 large zucchini
1 yellow bell pepper
1/2 onion chopped
6 cloves of garlic chopped
2 cup of chicken broth
2 TBS butter
1 TBS olive oil
2 Tsp: Salt, Lemon Pepper, Cumin (combine and make two portions)
Parmesan Cheese (shaved is best, but any will do)

-Clean and cut bell pepper into 4 large pieces, rub with olive oil and salt/pepper to taste.

-Put bell pepper on a cookie sheet and bake at a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes (until brown on edges and soft)

-While the bell pepper is cooking, using a potato peeler take the dark green skin off of the zucchini and cut off both ends

-Put a plate on the end of the spiral maker so your zucchini goes on to it when when making your ‘pasta’

-In a saute pan, put in 1 TBS of butter and saute your onions and garlic with half the seasoning until cooked through and set aside

-When your bell pepper is done, put into a blender with the cooked onions and garlic and 1/2 cup of chicken broth and the rest of the seasoning and puree until smooth

-In a wok or big skillet put in your sauce and the rest of the chicken broth 1 TBS of butter and heat

-Once the sauce is heated put in your zucchini and cook until tender (not mushy)

-Once cooked (yes, test it!) top with Parmesan Cheese

In the pot (you can see that I didn’t take off all the green skin my first time around, it wasn’t bad, but better with it off)

On the Plate

(with roasted potatoes and pork chop…yum!)

Thoughts are Things – Make Them Good Ones

How many thoughts do you think you have in a day? What is your estimate – a thousand? Two thousand? Experts estimate that the mind thinks between 60,000 – 80,000 thoughts a day. That’s an average of 2500 – 3,300 thoughts per hour, or 41 – 55 thoughts per minute! That’s a lot of thoughts! How many of our thoughts are positive vs. negative? Some people have estimated that upwards of 70-80% of our daily thoughts are negative. This of course depends on the person and their thought process.

When my children were little and they would say something negative, I would say to them ‘that’s not very nice, let’s change that into something nice.’ I would work with them to help them develop a way to change their thought patterns. These lessons grew as they grew and eventually the ‘thoughts are things’ lessons became a regular mantra between me and my children. My son, who is now 23, and I were talking the other day and he was iterating to me a conversation he was having with someone who said to him ‘Thoughts are things, make them good ones.” He said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and told the person he was talking to “You know, one of the first things I remember my Mom teaching me was ‘Thoughts are Things.’ I was happy to know that he has carried this into his adulthood, because it has served him well.

Thoughts are a form of energy, so they are things. Really! Has this ever happened to you: You have to be somewhere at a particular time and you are rushing around trying to get there on time and are constantly thinking ‘I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late,’ all the while you are going as fast as you can, but those thoughts persist and you end up being late? It’s happened to us all, but have you ever stopped to think that maybe if you had said to yourself ‘I’m going to be on time, I’m going to be on time,’ you could have changed the outcome and been on time? I’ve done this more times than I can say — and it works! Case in point: My car’s engine light came on the other day and it was making strange noises, and just like you I instantly thought ‘Oh, goodness how much is this going to cost me?’ I quickly caught myself and then started my mantra of “The problem with my car will be affordable.” I kept this up until my mechanic called me and told me it was some corrosion and the cost was something I could afford.

There have been times in my life when I was worrying over something and my thoughts turned negative. I catch myself, take a deep breath, and say at least 3 times ‘It’s going to be OK, everything will turn out the way it should.’ Not only are you changing your thought pattern and possibly the outcome of the situation with this positive thinking, it also makes you feel better internally, because you are cleaning out the negative thoughts that were making you anxious.

Is it possible to have 100% positive thoughts? Oh, that would be nice! However, it’s quite the challenge when you are thinking 41-55 thoughts per minute. But, you can make the percentage of positive thoughts increase over negative by being cognizant of your thoughts. When you are being negative, stop yourself, and change it into a positive. The more you practice this, the more you are changing your thought pattern into a more positive one vs. negative. Pretty soon, you will not be catching yourself so much, because your thoughts will already be positive without the effort.

I’m positive you can increase your happy thought patterns. Now all you have to do is believe it and practice it. 🙂

Recipe of the Day – Quiche Bites

Ingredients

-10 Eggs

-1/2 cup of milk

-1 cup of pepper jack cheese

-1 cup of Monterrey jack cheese

-1/2 cup of diced ham

-Spray oil (olive or coconut)

-One small muffin pan (24)

Recipe

>Preheat oven to 350

>Spray muffin pan with oil

>Combine eggs and milk and whisk well

>Pour egg mixture into a glass measuring cup or other cup that has a pour spout

>Fill each cup in the pan 2/3 of the way with the egg mixture

>Fill each cup with a portion of cheese & ham and press into egg mixture (if you don’t the cheese will burn instead of melt into egg mixture)

>Bake at 350 for 20 -25 minutes (until egg is a bit golden on top and toothpick comes out clean)

Note: When cooked the mixture will puff up like a souffle, and that is fine, because when you take it out of the oven, it will go back into place, giving you a perfect little Quiche bite

Connections

The other night I was sitting in bed writing, in an actual book, with an actual pen, no phone or computer in sight. Sounds crazy right? In my musings I wrote ‘The more we connect through technology, the more we disconnect from humanity.” I do believe there is a lot of truth in this. As technology gets more advanced (I mean we do have the Apple iWatch now), the more we are going to connect through a device rather than with each other.

I’m sure you’ve all seen these scenarios: A table at a restaurant with a bunch of people who all have their heads down over their phones. They are not interacting with each other, they are interacting with their devices. How about this one: you are walking down the street and you see someone, again head down looking at their device, and they are so enthralled that were you not paying attention they would have ran right into you? This is happening more and more, and I think that it’s making us less human.

I’m not saying throw your smartphone away and unplug your computer for life, what I’m suggesting is a balance. I read an article today about a woman who put her phone away whenever she was around any other person for a week. She only took it out when she was alone. This was a policy a co-worker of hers had and she decided to adopt it to see what would happen. You can read the article at the link given, but basically people interacted with her more because her nose wasn’t in her phone; they smiled more, asked more questions, and she was happier for it.

There are a lot of great things about technology: I can keep up with friends through social media that I don’t really hang out with, but still care about. I can video chat with my daughter when she is traveling. I can connect to new people through an online service and discover new things and make new friends. I can write a blog and reach people and hopefully give them a smile. I just believe it’s important to connect in real life as well, because technology will never be able to replace a hug, and hugs are important.

My challenge to you: For one day do not use any mobile device when you are around people, only when you are alone and see if it makes a difference. If you live through the day, try it again the next day and so on. I would love to hear how it goes, so leave me a comment, and I will write about your experiments in another post.

Until next time…make some real connections.

Recipe of the Day: Vege Pasta

Ingredients for Sauce:

-12 Cloves of Garlic

-1 Red Bell Pepper

-1 Onion

-1 small head of cauliflower (cut up in flowerettes)

-1 large yellow squash

-1/4 cup of olive oil

-1 TBS salt

-2 TSP of Lemon Pepper

-1 TSP of dried oregano

-1 TSP of dried basil

>Preheat oven to 375

>Chop all vegetables into large pieces and put in a large bowl

>Include Olive Oil, Salt, Lemon Pepper, Oregano, Basil in the bowl with veges and coat well.

>On a cookies sheet or shallow pan pour the veges out and make sure they are flat and separated and cook for 1 hour in the oven

>When veges are done put into a food processor and puree while streaming in 1/2 cup of olive oil until the sauce is smooth

>Transfer sauce into a saucepan and add:

-2 TBS Butter

-1/2 TSP of pepper flakes

-2 TSP of salt

-2 TSP of Lemon Pepper

-2 TSP of Oregano

(taste after it cooks on low for 10 minutes, and adjust seasoning to your liking)

>While sauce cooks on low, make your pasta

>When pasta is done mix with sauce and sprinkle shaved Parmesan on top

And this is what you get:

In the Pot

On the Plate

Change Happens

I was thinking about the old saying ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same.’ And thought: Who came up with this saying, and what did they mean by it? Taking advantage of the fact that I literally have all answers at my fingertips, I looked it up. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr was the author of the once much quoted saying, which was published in 1849 in Les Guêpes, a satirical toned publication in Paris. It seems Jean-Baptiste was known for his sense of humor and shared it through his writings. So, the saying isn’t a serious, thought-provoking epitaph that one must intellectually dig deeper to understand. It’s a joke, sarcastically saying that ‘the more things change…the more they are going to friggin’ change!

What can we learn from Jean-Baptiste’s wit, other than writing a random quote can be quoted by others not knowing what it means for hundreds of years? Maybe that laughing in the face of change might just be the best way to handle it and make the best of it. We all go through changes that are tough, but if we can enter into those situations with an open and positive heart, don’t we insure that at least part of the outcome of those changes is positive as well? I believe that any positive thought or gesture is never wasted, so I say yes.

Case in point: This Valentine’s Day was the first in many years in which I didn’t have a significant other to share it with. This is a bit tough because I was married on Valentine’s Day, and ever since my split with my husband I’m particularly sensitive on this day of love. This year I was looking at being alone on what would have been my 24^th wedding anniversary. Now, I could cry, I could crawl into bed for the day and just let it pass me by, or just be plain miserable. Or, I could look at this in a positive way and celebrate the day love differently. I chose going positive and decided to spend the weekend with my best buddy Channy and our friend Kelly.

We decided we would spend the long weekend at Kelly’s house which is up in the country. There was quite a bit of driving involved because I had to drop my daughter off at her Father’s house which is two hours away and then drive to Kelly’s. Now, there were some deviations; Kelly was running late, traffic was getting bad and we had to switch up our plans. She decided to pick me up at my house since it was on the way, and then we were in the car for over 3 hours due to said traffic. But, as I said to all in the car ‘We are going to have an awesome weekend, so all this traffic will be worth it!’

Kelly lives by two cute little antique towns and we strolled around in the cold looking for somewhere to eat. After passing many places that were packed, we ended up at a quaint hotel that had a live band of three that played Credence Clearwater and other similar covers that were right up our ally. We sat in the dining room next to the bar and ordered up some yummy “we are not on a diet this weekend’ appetizers, some cocktails and happily munched away while tapping our feet to the music. Channy enjoyed chatting up the singer while he was taking a break, but that’s a whole other story. The next day, Valentine’s Day, we got up at our leisure, ate some leftovers from the night before, and then headed out to see where the day would take us. We ended up at this amazing little place called Pilot Peak Winery. This beautiful piece of heaven up in the hills is family run and because they were so busy that included two 7-year-old adorable grandsons. The family was wonderful and friendly, the wine was very good (bought three bottles) and they also served little appetizers to taste with the wine. It was a beautiful day, good wine, fabulous friends; a great start to our Valentine’s Day. As we were finishing up, the owner asked what we were going to do that night, and we said we would go out and have some dinner somewhere. She looked at us and said ‘It’s going to be packed out there tonight.’ And that’s when it dawned on us that of course it was going to be crazy, what were we thinking? So, we needed to change our plans. Back home we chatted, set the table up with candles and flowers, grilled up a couple of steaks and paired them with some of the tasty wine we had just bought. We ended up having a relaxing evening with great food, better company and a few extra bucks in our wallets. It is probably one of the best Valentine’s Day nights I’ve ever had, and it was just us girls.

It just goes to show you that even when the best laid plans get changed, you can make the best of it. The finest way to do that is to begin on a positive note, see how you can make the best of the change and see where it takes you. You never know, you might end up having one of the best days of your life.

Check Out Pilot Peak Winery: http://www.pilotpeak.com/

Food Tip of the Day: Kelly used olive oil and balsamic vinegar with seasoning on the steaks. I have never used balsamic before on steak but I will in the future, they were awesome!

Wine Tip of the Day: Don’t drink wine out of a glass with a lip on it, it changes the way it tastes.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I was on the phone with my dearest friend the other night and we began an interesting conversation about where we would be in 9 years. Screw the whole cookie cutter “5 years” which you constantly hear when you are starting out in life and asked in every single job interview. When you are our age, 51, you have to look at the even bigger picture because you’re old and your children are no longer young and in 9 years you are going to be 60.

When you are over 51 (When you are 50 you are thinking “that’s ok, 50 is good,” then all of the sudden you are 51 and you’re screaming: “I’m OVER 50!”) This is when your brain starts doing and thinking things you haven’t thought of in over half a century. It’s the mindset of course, you are over 50, so what have you….accomplished? Really, is that what it comes down to? Accomplishment is something you’ve done right, if I’m not mistaken. Which means that you should only look at those things in the last half century of your life that were perfect? If I only had the lessons that life gave me that were based on things that went well, I would have learned very little indeed. One of my greatest life lessons is knowing that my fails, falls and almost accomplishments have made me the person I am today, and will continue to shape who I am.

It is my vision to write this blog every nine days. I will be writing for the purpose of sharing our journey as we approach 60. This should prove to be interesting, as she has two sons, one that is possibly going into the Coast Guard at 20 years old and one that is still figuring out his path at 22. I have a 14 year old daughter that lives with me and is my payback. I don’t say that in a bad way, it’s just my Karma for being a pretty challenging kid. I also have a 23 year old son who cooks for a living in the city, and is so much smarter than I will ever be, its scary. Let’s not even get started that Channy and I are both divorced and I just broke up with my current boyfriend who is moving out in a month. And, that is just the tip of the proverbial ice berg of our lives.

Together, we do have some things to figure out, life challenges to meet head on and who knows what else. It promises to be a bumpy road with lots of switchbacks and precarious bumps. The good part about the next 9 years is that Channy and I will be together through it all, as we have been for the past 2 decades. We will support one another, give each other painful truths, cry on each other’s shoulder and most importantly laugh at it all and move on. Though sometimes, the crying and the laughter get all intermingled, because sometimes when you are crying the hardest, you just have to laugh.