Follow your Dream

Follow your dream.
Take one step at a time and don't settle for less,
Just continue to climb.
Follow your dream.
If you stumble, don't stop and lose sight of your goal
Press to the top.
For only on top can we see the whole view,
Can we see what we've done and what we can do;
Can we then have the vision to seek something new,
Press on.
Follow your dream.
   ~ Amanda Bradley

Waffles, Gluten Free

Gluten Free Waffles:

Dry mix: (I recommend mixing up 2 or three of these to save time and effort later - dry mix fits in a pint size jar)
1/2 cup Sorghum flour
1/2 cup Potato starch
1/2 cup White rice flour
1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon  cinnamon
3 Tablespoons sugar

3 eggs
1-1/4 cup milk
5 T oil
fruit [optional]

Start waffle iron heating.  Separate the 3 eggs, putting yolk into a two cup measure, and the whites into a mixing  bowl.  Whip the whites.  In another mixing bowl, stir the dry mix ingredients together.
In the two cup measure, add the oil to the eggs.  Pour milk nearly to the two cup  mark.  Holding two cup measure over the dry mix, whisk the wet mix, then combine with the dry mix. Add fruit if desired.
  Fold in the egg whites.
 Cook in preheated waffle iron.

Move it!

I've fallen behind on my blogging - in part because I've invested a little more time in myself.  It's important to take care of your own health and happiness - or soon enough you won't have the energy to assist and inspire others.
  A few years ago, my health was declining, and I was finding myself in rather dark and dreary moods all too frequently.  As most people can, I could point to several contributing factors - some family related, some work related, but the long and the short of it, was I was hitting near bottom on my personal energy supply.  With my trusted doctor, I explained my concerns, and this sage woman offered me some of the best advice anyone has ever given me.
Get up and Move.
She pointed out that much of my situation was indeed due to various stresses, and that taken individually, all of them would eventually resolves themselves.  However, the one thing that I did have control of was my personal health and fitness.  Never one to love exercize, my normal day had grown more and more sedentary.  She advised me to take note of my moods, and whenever I felt blue, I should simply get up, take a walk, dance, or find some other physical activity that would literally get the juices flowing a bit faster.  She did not prescribe a specific schedule, or set of exercizes - simply find something you like to do, and DO IT.. 
For the past few weeks, Dan and I have attended a series of healthy living classes called "Move it and Lose it"...which have reminded me of that talk with my doc so many years ago.  All of the insurance and fitness advice we are getting now agree - 150 minutes of cardio-activity per week is all you need to ward off a wide array of physical issues.  Simply move it.
If you are feeling down - or simply feel the need to wallow in your grief or grey mood, I recommend that you do so - while taking a walk.  Acknowledge your feelings - but don't let them take over your health, as well as your emotions.  Find 20 minutes here and there that you can reserve for you, and repeat as often as you can...that 150 adds up very quickly with a regular daily habit or two.

Connected Etiquette

When we first learned about e-mail, I was taught correct "netiquette".  I'm sure I can find the details out there on the internet, but they involved savvy advice like
DON'T USE ALL CAPS - PEOPLE DON'T LIKE BEING SHOUTED AT

In time, these advice tidbits turned to conerned articles regarding the use of proper punctuation and grammar, and how the use of email is causing these wonderful life skills to erode.

Now, in the fullness of time, we all have cellphones and email, and nearly half of us have email on our phones, so that we can be connected to friends and family anywhere, anytime, with no effort at all.
All this communication is wonderful, and there are many positive aspects to the abilities these devices bring to our lives and our relationships.

However, with these devices comes a certain responsibility toward those around us.  Each day, I find myself astounded, and even downright insulted at the behavior of coworkers, clerks, and others that pay no heed to those around them. Almost every meeting or group event I've been to recently has included at least one cell phone going off.  Some don't even seem to be embarrassed by their phone's insistent rudeness in disrupting the speaker!
On the other hand, I was very impressed by one speaker who invited everyone in the room to remove the cellphones from their pockets, and shut them all the way off.  The next 45 minutes were hers, and she would brook no interruption whatsoever.  I was amazed at the shock and grudging acceptance to this demand.  This should be standard etiquette, not something we do because we are told!
This week's news included a tragic story of three young people who were sent to the hospital with serious injuries, after using a crosswalk to cross the street. They had been hit by a young woman who was so busy texting, she saw the pedestrians too late to stop. Really?  Important text, was it?  Just how important, I wonder?
There was a counter clerk who quite politely stopped, in the middle of our transaction,  with "Excuse me", so that she could answer her cell phone, text someone back for a few seconds, then resume my checkout procedure.  Really?  It couldn't wait?  Apparently my time is less important than whatever was on the other end of that call.
A co-worker relayed multiple frustrations with other co-workers who use these annoying techniques to both read and answer a text on their phone, despite being in the middle of a work conversation when their phone alerted the owner to a fresh text:

•   turned their back with a wave of their phone "I'm listening, keep going".  Just how good are your listening skills when you are unable to read my face, my body language, and likely are more focused on the written word now in front of you, rather than the words spoken to the back of your head?
•   reading out a texted answer that just came in, on a personal topic, as if related to the work conversation.  Here's a clue - your personal information is not so important that it can't wait until a more appropriate break in our work-time.
•   stating "just a sec, hold that thought" and taking the call or text, without exiting the present conversation, making you feel obligated to stay and listen.  If you just have to take that call, at least have the decency of releasing me from the current one.  Try "Excuse me" or "I apologize", "but I really have to take this call, can I get back to you later?" or "I have to catch this guy, but our conversation is important, can we pick this back up later?"
• The ear bud talkers, who stroll along hands free, loudly continuing their cellphone conversations while walking to and from their office, or through the breakroom, disrupting everyone along their path.

   How can we encourage better respect for our fellow human beings?

Caesar Dressing

We learned how to "coddle" eggs today, and made our own Caesar dressing.  The coddling step helps to make the dressing creamier.
We will likely be modifying this recipe to suit our tastes, but our first go was quite tasty:  We used a blendar, but I think chopping up the anchovies and garlic, and then using a small food processor or a very brisk whisk would do the trick just fine, and the amount of dressing could be reduced.

2 coddled egg yolks
4 spoonfuls of minced garlic
1 spoonful dijon
1 spoonful worcestershire sauce
1 spoonful lemon juice
4 anchovy fillets
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
salt

Mother's Love

Yesterday, I read a forwarded posting from another blog "A Mountain I'm Willing to Die On".
First of all - the title grabbed me and pulled me right on in...really?  what mountain might that be?
I still don't know the answer to that first question, because I found her writing so very moving, and appropriate, and just plain wonderfully supportive of life, that I guess I simply joined her on that mountain.

The piece I read was at:
http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/22/a-mountain-im-willing-to-die-on-2/

In case the blog disappears one day, the takeaways for me are:
"Children are not cruel", they practice what they see and interpret from around them, and it is our job, those of us who are no longer children, to demonstrate for them what we most want to see in them.
"People are heart-breakingly sensitive", and receptive to even moderate criticism.
"I don’t know much. But I know that each time I see something heartbreaking on the news, each time I encounter a problem outside, the answer to the problem is inside. The problem is AWAYS me and the solution is ALWAYS me. If I want my world to be less vicious, then I must become more gentle. If I want my children to embrace other children for who they are, to treat other children with the dignity and respect every child of God deserves, then I had better treat other adults the same way."
The rest of the blog is a lovely letter to her child, in which she pledges her promised embracement, and indeed, celebration, of all that her child is, and will be, no matter what path her child takes.
This particular woman has strong faith, and normally, I don't  make it through writings like this one, but there is a lovely reward in reading the entire message.  She ends her letter of love to her child with this simple statement:
"You are okay. You are a child of God. As is everyone else. There is nothing that you can become or do that will make God love you any more or any less. Nothing that you already are or will become is a surprise to God. Tomorrow has already been approved.
And so baby, your father and I have only one specific expectation of you. And that is that you celebrate others the way we celebrate you. That you remember, every day, every minute, that there is no one on God’s Green Earth who deserves more or less respect than you do, My Love."
Simply. Beautiful.  That is a mother's Love.

Hands of Time

If the hands of time were hands that I could hold,
I'd keep them warm, and in my hands, they'd not turn cold.
Hand in hand we'd choose, the moments that should last;
the lovely moments that should have no future and no past.
The summer from the top of a swing,
the comfort in the sound of a lullaby,
the innocense of leaves in the spring,
but, most of all, the moment when love first touched me
All the happy days would never learn to fly
until the hands of time would choose to wave "Good-bye"
       ~ Unknown