Out! Out with you, thoughts!

For the sake of being, I am being. For the sake of living, I am living. Negative thoughts be out, positive light be in. Make it go, stop, bring, let live, and all that is in between.

When I put my hands to paper, the things that spew fourth are too quick for even my nimble fingers to put in the right order. Letters rearranged, misspelled and misplaced. But the thoughts are in order; the breaths are taken in strides, to give me enough oxygen to keep my mind going. But my mind works on an unimaginable scale. It never stops; it breaks down even the simplest thoughts into a thousand sections. Am I blowing up these small thoughts into more than they are, or am I truly giving them the justice they deserve?

It doesn’t make sense. It makes perfect sense to me. Steve is my daily ear, the large funnel I pour everything into where my thoughts are sifted and strained through his ears and his eyes. I think non-stop, which leads to the assumption that I should be a genius, with all these wheels and cogs spinning in my brain. You see, I don’t channel my thoughts; I let them run a muck, wander, infusing every micron of useful space with thoughts. I wish my metabolism worked on such a rampant scale, but that is another thought, for another day.

Meditation, calming of the mind? These words sound wonderful, just saying them makes me think…….. and those thoughts lead to more thoughts. Like links given on a web page of interest, if you click and follow enough of them, you will find yourself on a completely different subject.

I fight my mind on a daily basis. Not the good thoughts, I love those, I feed on those. Sometimes those good thoughts make me stop moving, make me tilt my head back and absorb the moment. I take a deep breath, I look around, and a smile comes over my face. I mean to say that, even with all these thoughts running like rabid gerbils’ on a wheel, I am still able to stop and hold a thought. Like pulling the winning ballet out of a box and knowing instantly that this one should be paid attention to. I hold down a full time job so I must be good at paying attention and focusing right? Maybe, who knows, ask my boss.

The fight I am talking about is with the thoughts that do me no good. The thoughts that I can identify as being useless. Think of thousands of fruit flies mulling over scraps in the compost bowl on the counter. Those scraps used to be whole, and useful, and you used them, enjoyed them to their fullest and wish to never see them again. But those fruit flies appear out of nowhere and soon there are thousands of them. But when you remove the source of their attention they disappear. My no good thoughts sometimes control me. They hold the strings and I am their puppet. Nothing I do can help me take hold of those strings. If it sounds like quite a fight, you’re right.

Caffeine is my personal enemy. It ruins my nails, the inside of my mouth… I chew, a lot, when my heart is racing. But my mind, races along for the ride as well.

What do you say to someone who thinks too much? I hear it a lot. “Don’t think about it”, Let it go” Coming from someone who is not in the exact same mental space as me, this sounds like fun, but not something realistically attainable. Like right now, while I am typing this, on the side, I am thinking about how I can pull big words out of my butt and type them in a matter of seconds, but when I am forming simple sentences, I can’t seem to spit the words out I want to say. I roll my eyes around in my head, hoping the word will come, and when it doesn’t I retreat from trying and use a less fancy word, and then brew over how that word did not properly portray what I was trying to convey.

I look pretty normal to the outside world. But on the inside, that’s where the crazy party is. Sometimes I will start talking and Steve won’t have a clue what I am talking about because the first half of the thought occurred only in my mind, and by the time my lips caught up with the cue to speak, I was half way done saying what I wanted to say. I am not a ‘fast talker’ though, I am not a jabber box, and I am not a chatty Kathy. I’m telling you, I seem normal. What ever that means!

Bah, sounds exhausting eh? It is. It is.

I have a deep plummeting witch’s brew of inherited genetic information from my parents that has given me all these complexes, I’m sure. I am even now, still figuring myself out, and trying to separate who I really am, from who I was born being. The ultimate study of Nature vs. Nurture. If you are not familiar with this concept you could look up my Grade 12 English teacher and he might make you write an essay on it. But basically it is the comparison of two theories. The theory of Nature being that we are born who we are. And the theory of Nurture being that we are who we are based on our upbringing and society itself. Cool eh? I think I am 50/50 or 40/60. There are a lot of daily contributing factors to my opinion on this topic.

The thoughts I have, though plentiful, are organized. They don’t sound like static, or bump into each other in my mind; I am too organized for that to happen. I think the strength of my organizational skills stems from almost a quarter century of colour coding and filing my thoughts and memories like ‘areas of interest’, and ‘thoughts on the go’. I wish I had a mental recycling bin, that with a click of a button, I could empty at will. Because I never forget, anything, ever. Don’t judge, it’s got me this far and if I could stop it, I would. I am tough, because I have learned from all those things I have never forgotten. I probably mull over those old thoughts once and while, debate over the results, and then tuck them back into their folders to grow dusty while a new days worth of thoughts and memories floods in.

You wonder how I get anything done. Me too.

What was I talking about when I started this?

And yet with all this mental yammering it is clear to me what things are most important in my life. I make time for the small things. I take time for things. I feel no guilt for putting my time where it is needed. I think about the people I love more than anything else. Sometimes even, the thoughts I fight give me a greater appreciation for the thoughts I love. The thoughts I love are my own. They are not in a file; they float, behind my eyes. So when I look out into the world, the thoughts I love tint the world a sunny shade of goodness, which guides me through my days with ease.

Maybe I have an odd balance, and maybe that odd balance makes me who I am. Maybe is all I need. Because there is still so much more to think about.

Shiny new things!

Stainless steel is my best friend, its shiny, sleek, sexy and clean! This Mothers day my Mom surprised 'me' with a gift of this great electric mixer (which also comes with a whisk attachment). Its funny because I have been making alot of merigune lately and groaning over the fact that whisking fluffy peaks by hand is probably as energy consuming and exhausting as climbing Mt. Everst! And then BOOM, my Mom hands me a mixer! Its a sign! I must be destined to master the art of whipping egg whites, and this is the tool I shall use to accomplish this great goal!

#1 Read instructions
#2 Turn on to see how fast speed level 1 is
#3 Get scared at how fast it is and hang mouth wide open at the fact that it can get even faster!
#4 Mix brownie batter
#5 Turn mixer up to speed level 5 and SCREAM at how fast it is!
#6 Unplug, lick batter off mixers and smile at my new toy

I usually fold all the ingredients together gently until just combined, which help them cook up all fluffy, but I HAD to use my new toy!

I will add the recipe for these brownies tonight!

I love my Ontario!

Fresh & Locally grown, Asparagus and Sweet Potatoes!

I have been secretly envious of everyone who has been eating fresh local asparagus but couldn't seem to find some for myself. On Mothers day Steve and I drove by a little sign saying "Fresh home grown asparagus" but it was raining so we didn't bother. While driving away I felt the longing in my tummy.

Today, I found some. At a little road side building in Ancaster. Hand written signs on the door, say 'Cash Only Please', and once through the door, I found a little sign saying 'Press the button for service'. I pressed the little button twice because I didn't hear anything the first time, then was distracted by the produce. It is still early in the season, here in Ontario, so there were the basic root veggies, and potatoes, but also what I was looking for... ASPARAGUS. I swear I whispered it under my breath, to excited to contain the thought, it slipped out. The button must have donged somewhere because an older man, clearly a farmer himself, walked over to help me. I had to tell him how amazing the asparagus looked, and he began to tell me a storey of when he was a kid he'd bite the tops off all the asparagus in his Mom's garden, without picking them, making her believe rabbits or some other critter was to blame. He just loved the tops!

It felt good, to see vegetables still a little dirty from the garden, piled on a simple table in an open building also housing a tractor and other equipment. Hand written signs, $4, $3, no calculators or cash registers, no sales tax or middle man to pay off. The money I paid went straight to the farmer.

I am going to cook these veggies, only enough to soften them, because I want their freshness
to linger in our mouths, while we absorb the greatness they contain.

EAT LOCAL. EAT FRESH. EAT GOOD

meat machine

I stumbled across this image while surfing the net today, and It struck me as hilarious. It seems to be a helpful guideline on food styling a burger. And I bet this is supposed to be a "fast food" burger, because there are some pretty perfect looking fries tucked into the background of the bun.

I think these guidelines would be more useful in the future when robots are working behind the counter at Mc Donalds. They can look at this photo and see what a burger should look like for human consumption. "Beep... sprtiz water... grill marks... click... beep"

or

Maybe you will just walk up to an ATM type machine, press in your order, quick swipe of you plastic card of choice and boop bleep beep beep, your meal with drop into a handy tray for your consumption. That means the computer will need this photo as part of their 'make man food' software package.

Sometimes i scare myself

Magnum from Outerspace

I bought this painting this morning, at 7:45am, while at work, while shopping for a friends birthday present. I bought it off etsy.com

This painting and I... we made contact! You could say "first contact" And I didn't buy just a print of it, oh no, I'm receiving the ACTUAL PAINTING!

The title of this post is the name of this painting. It is only 4"x4" and yet, it is one of the greatest pieces of art I may ever buy.

The apartment I share with Steve is filled with colour and life and items that are "ours". They don't all match up like lines on a page. But each item makes us smile. Steve has a carved wooden monkey face with earrings that watches me cook, mounted under the clock, next to the stove, and I now have a green alien staring down from space!

I say pashaw ( with a mocking hand flap) to those poor souls who mindlessly shop at places like pier-one imports for those "in style" decorating items... Matching striped vases for the end tables, wicker balls piled into a large bowl for the coffee table... BLAH!

We have paintings in odd places, paintings that don't match, posters in large frames that may as well be paintings. We have masks, and statues and photos. And the kitchen, if I described it to you, would sound like a flea market. But our apartment is very minimalist, but cozy. No clutter, no useless items. What little furniture we have is used to its fullest every day. Our love seat couch is on wheels, so we can roll it to where it is needed, and that is not at all weird to us!
The things we have collected go everywhere, we don't feng-shuai our living room, we hang and place items where we like to look at them. A staue of a woman in lotus pose on the kitchen window sill. A ceramin 3-D sign of the word LAUGH, hung at chest level on the wall behind the sink. I look at it, and smile, it has served its purpose!

And do you know what this painting did to me, that made me buy it, snap it up, so to speak?

It made me smile and 'awe' with childlike wonder.

It stood out, and made me giggle, and smirk and laugh. It is a green alien in space! It looks like an illustration in a children's storey book.

This summer I will be 25 years old. And for once I finally feel the meaning, of "young at heart". No matter how many years your body ages, your mind stays as young and fresh as you want it to be.

My lesson of the day, Be yourself and buy the alien painting if it makes you smile! :-)