Unusual Way to do a Character Study

I discussed how housework acts like meditation for me and often leads to bursts of creativity on Tuesday. Today I want to talk about an instance that helped me come to the conclusions I reached.

A couple weeks ago my grandparents asked to look after the girls for a while, so I had the afternoon to myself. As I often do on days like these, I decided to get ahead on my tasks for the next day. So since we sold our stereo along with some other things and furniture when we moved, I set up the computer to use for music. I found a Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural play list on YouTube, set it to playing and went about my work.

I went through the pantry, cleaned out the refrigerator, and tended to lots of other chores while the videos played. Finally it started playing this video. I'd seen it a few days before. It's set to "Animal I Have Become" by Three Day's Grace, and it's about Angel with and without his soul intact. The inkling of an idea niggled at the back of my mind since I'd seen the video the first time, and it came to the fore while I was cleaning that day. Then the following video came on, and I was struck by a connected idea. This one is set to "I Hate Everything About You" once again, by Three Day's Grace and is about Buffy and Angel's relationship.

Both ideas were for character study/promotional videos centering around Ralic Virchow from the Yekara Series. "Animal I Have Become" suits Ralic's life perfectly. I'd never thought that much about his fall from grace before this idea, and even if I never get the chance to put together the video I plotted simply to get the notion to leave me alone, I've gained a valuable insight into his character. (Yes, the idea stuck around, nagging at me with an obsessive passion until I had a storyboard written out and tentative cast made up of friends and family. Thankfully it's left me alone for the past week.)

The second idea looks at the relationship between Ralic and Chantal. The wording isn't exactly right for their story, but the line, "I hate everything about you, so why do I love you?" sums up Chantal's sentiments rather nicely.

Will the information I've come up with because of these ideas be included in the books? Some, I'm sure, but I doubt all of it will be. Will it influence my characterizations? Yes it will. Will I say exactly what all I came up with? No.

I said this when Rowling let slip about Dumbledore's sexuality, and I'll say it again. If it's not in the books, it's not important. Well, not really, but the beauty of art is its ability to mean different things to different people. I'll keep my Yekara world book to myself, and you can have your interpretations unsullied by unpublished "cannon."

Spring Break? More Like Spring Cleaning.

As I mentioned Monday, this week is spring break in our neck of the woods. In our household, this means spring cleaning time.

The posts for this week were all actually written on Monday and scheduled for automatic publication. This was done, not so I could forget about the blog for the week, but so the mornings could be free to concentrate completely on tackling those tasks we usually only get to every few months. We're going through closets, dressers, shelving units, and even the attic while there are two sets of hands to accomplish the job and tend to the girls.

Then Hubby and I tend to our paperwork, grading, and lesson planning or writing, editing, and networking respectively while the girls nap in the afternoon, and we spend the evenings together enjoying the time. We've planned to let Boo Bear start her first science project, sprouting seedlings for our summer garden using some old egg cartons, potting soil, and a couple packets of seeds. There's a brand new four pack of play dough to open and strawberry jam to make, books to read, and bread to bake. If the weather holds, we have new beach balls and jars of bubble solution, the local park is calling our name, and Boo Bear is due to get her first library card that's all her own.

Hopefully this will be the last year this week long cleaning frenzy will be necessary. I've been incorporating the ideas I've garnered from Hannah Keeley and The Flylady, but there are still some areas left neglected while tending to the urgent things in life we want to conquer before the girls' birthdays roll around in a few months. Why not get what heavy lifting we can out of the way now, and maintain the balance with the skills I've learned this past year, so there is less to concern ourselves with those first few weeks of summer break?

* The picture is of Hubby and Sneak the first week of summer break 2009.

Meditative Creativity

In college, I tried working on a paper on the connection between extended boredom and creative blocks. I never found enough material on the subject to do the research paper, so I chose a different topic. I forgot about this old thought until I realized similar times now produce my best bursts of creativity, and I was surprised to discover the difference between my mindset then and now.

All those years ago, when I was doing housework, stocking shelves, or anything else I found less than fascinating yet engaging enough to require my attention, I spent my time thinking just enough about the job to get it done well while mentally complaining about how boring the job was. It's not surprising after a few weeks of going from basic classes to a part-time retail job to cleaning up before bed, I had difficulty shifting gears in the limited time I had for pleasure writing. Yet, as I've matured, tasks such as housework have become so automatic, my mind can almost completely disengage from the work at hand without hampering how well I do the job, leaving my thoughts free to drift.

Housework has become my meditation time. Some days I actively brainstorm. Others, I let my mind blank. Those are the days when the bursts of inspiration come. Sometimes it's a whole new idea. Some days it's a new thought regarding an old idea.

I've come to realize I'm never bored unless I waste time meditating on how much I dislike a task. If instead I turn my mind to a subject simmering on the back burner or let my thoughts go quiet, I find myself thinking of something new, in a new way, or just refresh and tidy the mental workspace, even if attention is divided between the task at hand and meditation.

So what about you?

Weekly Weigh In

I'm not too happy with the scale this week. I'm back up a half a pound, so week two of the contest, and I'm only one pound down from my starting weight.

I'm disappointed but not really surprised. I broke a lot of groundwork rules last week and fell victim to the pitfalls they're meant to cover. I didn't make out a meal plan. I didn't keep my gallon pitcher full of water in the fridge. And I just put away the fruits and vegetables when I came home from the grocery store instead of washing and cutting them.

My yearly tormentor struck Tuesday. I spent the remainder of the week exhausted, aching, and struggling to breathe. So, given that it would take fifteen or twenty minutes, with a toddler and preschooler clambering to see every move I make, to prep dinner and another half hour to hour to cook it, it's not exactly surprising that I gave in when Hubby came home wanting pizza or canned soup. All in all, the last half of the week wasn't good.

I do learn though! I took a couple hours while the girls napped Saturday afternoon to wash and prepare our fruits and vegetables for the week as much as I could. I plucked the grapes from the bunches, washed, and bagged them. I washed the blueberries, apples, and lemons. Carrots, celery, bell pepper, and broccoli were washed, cut, and bagged. And the peaches I'd forgotten about last week were washed, cut, baked with spices and one sliced apple, and then blended into an unsweetened peach butter for oatmeal or whole grain toast. And I made a simple vegetable dip using lentils, onions, spices, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. I left the potatoes, onions, and apples uncut since they turn or are odoriferous otherwise, and we have tomatoes, green beans, peas, rice, and corn either canned, frozen, or dried.

Once this was done, I made up the meal lists for the week, filled the pitcher, and put it into the refrigerator. With snacks ready to grab and meal preparation cut in half or more, the temptation to have Hubby pick something up on the way home or turn to some junk stashed in the pantry is diminished. I know this. I used to do it all the time, but somewhere along the way, I got out of practice. I've paid the price for it in my continued size. I'm surprised it took me this long to remember how I'd made so much progress before.

This week is spring break in our area, so the house if full all the time. If I can manage to loose this week, I have no more excuses.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Vegetable Broth

Today's post really isn't so much a recipe as it is a general guide. Vegetable broth is extremely easy to make, and there are several reasons to do so.

1. It helps get the most mileage out of vegetables.

Instead of tossing out the scraps you trim from veggies when preparing them, put them into a freezer bag and freeze them until you have a gallon sized bag stuffed with leftover vegetable scraps. Any vegetables will do. We usually end up with celery leaves and ends, bell pepper centers and veins, onion and carrot ends, odd chunks of potato, and broccoli stems just because those are the vegetables we eat most often.

2. It can add a lot of flavor to you dishes without adding fat.

You can replace or cut chicken broth by half in recipes that call for it to cut calories while retaining taste and maintaining texture. Remember the spaghetti dish in Wordless Wednesday a couple weeks back? I made a thickening agent with a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil and flour, and used that to reduce a pint of vegetable broth with garlic, basil, oregano, and rosemary to make a flavorful and lean sauce. It works well in risottos, beans, soups, and dips too.

3. Add a nutritional punch to starchy vegetables.

Nutritionists and cooks on talk shows are always talking about how the vitamins leech out of vegetables when you boil them. This is a big advantage of making vegetable broth. Cook rice in it or cut the amount of cream in mashed potatoes in half with the broth to lower fat, keep taste, and add vitamins and minerals.

So, how do you make vegetable broth? Save up those cutting board scraps until you have a full gallon sized bag. Fill a large pot with the vegetables and water and let them simmer for two or three hours on medium high heat. Toss in some herbs if you like, but it's not necessary. Then simply strain, bag, and freeze.

I like using pint freezer bags just because it's a good size to use for our family.

Wordless Wednesday: And it's started....

* from March 2009.

Experiment in Variance Eating

As I've said before, one of my biggest issues in dieting is the fact I slowed my metabolism to a crawl during my first pregnancy through poor nutrition decisions, and it's just now starting to pick back up. I could go through the laundry list of everything I've tried to get it back to normal, but that'd keep us here half the day. Suffice it to say the only things that have had any impact at all were resistance training and finally getting a bit of uninterrupted sleep.

I've heard this theory that in order to keep your metabolism running at it's peak, you need to keep your system guessing as it were. Our bodies are programed to run to its best advantage no matter if we're living through feast or famine, so it will speed and slow based on how we are eating. Yet, it requires a day or two to switch gears. The idea is that if you change up your diet every two to three days, your body will not have time to slow your metabolism before you crank up the calories just enough to make it say, "Never mind."

Makes sense right? I'm not expecting miracles or anything, but I figured why not give it a shot? Cutting back on the more calorie dense foods like lean meats, pastas, and breads four or five days out of the week can't hurt, and the girls don't care much for meat anyway. We'll see how it goes.

I thought I'd mimic the diets of our ancestors for a while, if perhaps giving it a modern twist in the way of preparation. Before the industrial revolution meat wasn't on the menu all that often for a lot of our forefathers because of its expense. It's not exactly cheap today, but comparatively speaking, it's at least affordable. If you look at the common man's diet from before the 1800s, and even after, you'll find mostly grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, milk products, and eggs with meat included just every now and then.

This gives an opportunity for our family to not only save a few dollars on our grocery bill each week cutting back on the amount of meat purchased, but it forces us to include more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into our diet. Plus it opens the door for trying recipes we've never tried before and discussions regarding the history of our family and other cultures outside our own heritage as we try new dishes. If they're going to ask, what's for dinner half a dozen times, why not give them some new information every time the question comes around again?

So what does today's menu plan look like? Breakfast was plain yogurt flavored with vanilla and cinnamon with an apple and a nectarine with a slice of whole grain toast. Lunch was a big spinach salad served with a slice of whole grain bread with two ounces of pepper jack cheese melted on top. (What do you know, two servings of fruit, three servings of dairy, and two servings of vegetables already!) Dinner will be steamed sweet peas and carrots tossed with garlic and basil and oven roasted potato wedges with the skin on and served with a vinaigrette for dipping.

For those of you with picky eaters out there, it's amazing how much dipping "yucky" foods in anything magically makes them delicious. A half cup of cheesy grits to use as a dip got the girls to take that first taste of broccoli, and now they could eat their weight in it, even without the grits, if we'd let them.

Tomorrow's another vegetarian day. I'll bake some chicken Thursday, and then Friday and Saturday will be vegetarian days as well. We'll see how variance eating works for our family, and I'll let you know.

Thoughts on Old Work

Sunday evening was singing night for our congregation, being the first Sunday of the month, and one of the songs sung was "How Great Thou Art." The song has never failed to drag "Oh What a Grace" from the recesses of my memory. Not that I compare the songs but because I had a tune similar to its melody running through my head when I penned the first draft.

It's hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago now. I don't remember exactly which Sunday it was, but I seem to remember it being sometime in late spring or early summer of 2000. I was listening to our preacher speak on a particular Psalm one Sunday morning when the words started nagging me. By the time we were heading home, I was desperate for a piece of paper and a pen. The lines came tumbling out, and a half hour later, I had the first draft.

I spent a few weeks trying to put music to it to no avail. I asked a friend for help, but nothing seemed to work. So I asked the congregation's preacher if he knew of anyone who could put music to lyrics, thinking he might be more familiar with local talent considering the years he'd helped organize The Musical Explosion. He gave me Mr. Stevens' name and number, and the rest is history.

Looking back on it, it feels like ancient history. I was barely out of high school, only in my second semester of college. I was still smarting over having to swap a chemistry major for English because I was having these uncontrollable shaking spells that nearly resulted in a big accident in the labs. I had yet to meet Hubby and was just starting to seriously consider writing as a career.

Even then there was a surreal feeling about this piece. It came quickly and with an ease I rarely associate with any bit of writing, let alone anything outside of fictional prose. I'm not a poet. "Little Eyes" (pg. 13) and "A Day in the Mind of a Child" are flukes. I found it difficult to believe I'd written this one then, and I find it next to impossible to believe now. I barely remember it, and what memories I have are more impressions of where I was, the need to get my hands on paper now, and the scratch of graphite across the page. I don't remember the writing of it at all other than the occasional feeling a word was off and counting the measure.

Maybe that's why I was so embarrassed when song leaders would make sure to point me out when they'd lead it. What did it matter I happened to be there? What did it matter who wrote the words or the music? The song was meant for the praise of God.

There are three things these three works have in common. First is their form. These are the only poetic pieces I have ever done and not immediately destroyed. Second, they come from a different place. I don't know how to describe it, but I was in a different head space when I wrote these poems/lyrics than I'm typically in when I write my stories. Instead of brainstorming, painstakingly building them up a concept or a word at a time, I saw or heard something and they seemed to spring fully formed onto the page. And finally, they have a different purpose. While I did feel the need to share them through publication, I haven't seen them as work to be sold. The poems were published in nonprofit college journals, and the song was spread from hand to hand. As far as I know, it's never been put into a songbook, but it's not like I'd ask for payment if it was. That's not why I asked for Mr. Steven's help finishing it. I just want it to be sung somewhere by someone, by congregations or just someone going about their daily work, I'm happy either way.

I've heard it's still sung at some congregations around the Tennessee Valley. Personally I haven't heard it in years, and I doubt I will. Mom told me years ago song leaders find it intimidating to lead a song when someone that wrote the words or composed the music is sitting on a pew. I suppose she might be right, though I find it disheartening to think they'd believe I'd be insulted or something if they didn't get it note perfect.

Though remembering how much of a nitpicking Grammar Nazi I used to be, at least when it came to pet peeves like double negatives and subject/verb agreement, before I grew up and learned to control those knee jerk reactions, I can see where they might think I'd be a little snippy. But really, as long as it can be followed, it's good.

Weekly Weigh In

Okay, so I made a little progress this past week. I'm down 1 1/2 pounds from where I was this time last week. I was hoping for a little more since I was starting over after having been sick or injured for the two weeks before, but oh well.

I'm still keeping my portions small and eating a low fat, low sodium diet. I did horribly with my water throughout most of February, so I'm trying to improve there. I'm trying to keep it to a max of two cups of coffee, one 8 oz. glass of cranberry juice, and either water or caffeine free herbal tea any other time I'm thirsty throughout the day.

Between a preschooler who wants to be picky, a toddler still trying to master the use of a fork and spoon when it comes to drippy foods, and Hubby and I needing nearly opposite diets, dinner preparation can be interesting at our house. You see, a couple years ago Hubby had some health trouble that left him 20 lbs. underweight while I was 60 lbs. overweight. So while I've been trying to loose, Hubby's been under doctor's orders to gain. Additionally, our ENT put me on a low sodium diet for what was originally suspected to be Meniere's disease but was eventually discovered to be a slightly odd, usually painless migraine symptom. Still, sticking to a low sodium diet has helped keep these painless though thoroughly disruptive migraines under control, so I keep it up.

Well, Hubby was just told this week that his medicines can strip his body of sodium, which could be why he's been feeling a bit off these past few weeks. So I suppose I'll need to keep the salt shaker full for him.

Normally when it comes to weight control for the two of us, it all comes down to portion size. When I do the pictures for the recipe posts, I usually either take one of the entire yield or Hubby's portion. Yesterday's Ultimate Cream of Chicken Soup picture was of Hubby's plate. Here's a picture of my plate from the same meal for comparison. Instead of a regular bowl, I use one of my great-grandmother's old coffee cups to keep my soup proportion under control, especially since it's a cream based soup. I took one biscuit and split it instead of taking two and doubled the amount of spinach since it's only about ten calories a cup without dressing and packed with vitamins and minerals. Both of us walked away from the table satisfied, yet one plate held twice the calories of the other.

(Hubby has the metabolism of a humming bird while mine is nearly comatose, so it takes this drastic of a difference for him to maintain his weight while I slowly chip away at the number on the scale.)

There were a couple of places where I ran into trouble this week. First I was dumb enough to try scrubbing out the stove, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, and cleaning the kitchen baseboards all on Tuesday morning. Given the fact I injured my back the summer after graduating high school, this was really stupid, and I spent the remainder of the week on the verge of throwing my back out. So while I did workout throughout the week, they weren't exactly the all out routines I needed. Then we had a birthday party/date night combo on Saturday. I tried to watch my caloric intake overall, but I know I got way more sodium than was prudent on the date with Hubby.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Ultimate Cream of Chicken Soup

I have a two for one for you today. I mentioned the fact we use the pairing of our version of cream of chicken soup and herb biscuits as a cold remedy and just to keep our immune systems running at their peak when I posted the biscuit recipe this morning. Now I'd like to pass along our cream of chicken soup recipe.

Like the biscuits, it started as an experiment with the old chicken pot pie recipe, trying to thin and crisp the crust. The crust never did get as crisp on the bottom as we would have liked, but we've found we rather like crumbling a biscuit or two into the soup.

I originally chose the herbs used because we enjoy their flavor, but when we started noticing colds tended to clear up in a day or two as opposed to a week when we'd make a big batch at the start of the symptoms, I realized I'd filled both recipes with herbs commonly used in medicines throughout the ages. I suppose I ought to add sage throughout cold and flu season for it's purported use as an antiviral, but none of us are that fond of the taste.

When I was researching ancient herb lore for "From the Ashes," I supposed a lot of what I would find would end up being mostly superstition; however, science is proving the validity of several old remedies. In any case, cooking herbs tend to be packed with antioxidants and micro-nutrients, which not only add flavor but a nutritional punch to your dishes.

Ultimate Cream of Chicken Soup

1 Can Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
4 oz. Low Fat Sour Cream
1 1/2 Cups Skim Milk
12 ozs. Low Fat Chunk Chicken (flaked) or 2 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts (baked and shredded)
2 Cups Frozen Mixed Vegetables (thawed and drained)
1 Cup Frozen Sweet Peas (thawed and drained)
2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp. Basil
1 Tbsp. Oregano
1 Tbsp. Ground Red Pepper
1/2 Tbsp. Ground Rosemary
1/2 Tbsp. Thyme
1/2 tsp. Dill

In a large soup pot, combine condensed soup, sour cream, garlic, basil, oregano, red pepper, rosemary, thyme, and dill until blended. Pour in milk and whisk until smooth. Simmer on low heat as you add in the mixed vegetables, peas, and chicken.

If you decide to use skinless baked chicken, you may want to add a teaspoon or so of salt. If you use the canned chunk chicken, that should add enough salt, but you can salt to taste. This recipe is designed to work well for a low fat, low sodium diet as is.

Once all ingredients are added, raise heat to medium and simmer until heated through.

Makes approximately 6-8 servings as shown above. It will keep, covered in the refrigerator for up to three days, but it does not freeze well. Reheat on the stove for best flavor and consistency.