Back in August I talked about the need for Accolan and I to get back on the wagon. Let me simply say, in the vocabulary of my children, it was an epic fail.

Not only did we return to our former ways of eating (and pretty much our former weights), but we each fell right back into old destructive habits. Buying junk food, ordering take-out, watching hours of mindless TV.  The holidays didn’t help.  But then, do they ever?

But now with Accolan’s birthday behind us, and only a bit of cake to finish off, we both look forward to starting fresh as of Monday.

I have managed to cook ahead for the week to come for the first time in weeks.  I’ve missed the convenience of my once a week cooking, even if I didn’t necessarily miss the labor involved.  My hope is to by this time next year invest in a chest freezer so that I can start setting aside a portion of my kitchen marathon sessions for weekends when other obligations, fun outings, or illness would otherwise tempt me (or cause it to be necessary) to resort to take in or other forms of convenience food.

The original plan to sign up with our local YMCA today (pricey, but for less than the cost of Accolan and I signing up for a gym membership, the whole family can belong (plus our medical insurance gives us a free month)) this weekend.  But, Sephoni spent this morning obtaining a thoracic and lumbar MRI, and went right back to bed after coming home as (between getting up early and a pain spike triggered by lying on a flat metal surface for an hour) she was simply miserable.

Instead I am spending time today on small, easily tackled, de-cluttering tasks.  Instead, especially with my dad out of the house for the day, I am focusing on a quiet day, with time to relax and recharge and get myself ready for another week at a job I hate (but am grateful for nonetheless).  Instead, I am doing little odds and ends around the house so that when Monday dawns I will be ready to hitch the horses to the wagon, and move on down the road that hopefully leads me and Accolan (and the girls as well) to a healthier life.

Blessings

Jia

image: americanholistic

While most people start working on their New Year’s resolutions or goals on January 1, we here at Blade & Cauldron decided to hold off until mid January for ours.  The reason was two-fold.

• We have a holiday dinner on New Year’s Day and then (as with any holiday I cook for) have leftovers for a day or two afterward.
• Accolan’s birthday falls just about 3 weeks after Yule and that involves (just like every other birthday in our house) dinner out and a cake.

With both of these now behind us, this weekend marks the first steps of working on finding ourselves closer to our dreams come 2012 than we are as of this writing.

I spent the bulk of the day cooking for the week ahead.  Two dinners and a lunch dish for feeding Accolan and I for the week.

Entree #1 – I made a batch of beef lentil soup.  I tweaked the recipe a bit adding more carrots, a potato, and some bagged frozen spinach.  It will be served over ditalini pasta and topped with grated cheese.  There is only about 1 lb. of ground beef in the whole pot, a lot of vegetables, and so it is both frugal and nutritious.

Entree #2 – 3 separate dishes (recipes to come) from a Thai recipe book, Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking, I got for Christmas (beef & broccoli with rice noodles; a pork & mushroom dish; and curried beef with sweet potatoes)

The third entree for the week will be pasta sauce with lentils which I will put up on the stove before I go to work on Sunday.

Lunches – curried ground beef with vegetables which will be served over jasmine rice

Breakfasts – I wound up buying too many sweet potatoes for the Thai dish I made and so I boiled the rest of them, tossed with some butter and brown sugar and will be eating these as a way to both start my day with a sweet treat and a burst of nutrition.

The original plan was to spend tomorrow working on de-cluttering and purging.  But, the girls’  great-grandmother is in the hospital and this may necessitate a trip to Staten Island.  If this turns out to be the case I intend to spend time every night, even if only a half hour, on some of these tasks.

But this isn’t only about what I need to do.

Blade & Cauldron Blog needs a thick layer of dust cleaned off of it.  I need to get the family to contribute their fair share.

Blade & Cauldron, the business, needs to get off the ground.  We have lots of ideas, but little in the way of wares to sell.

Accolan and I both need to get serious about his writing related goals.

Accolan and I (and Reya as well for that matter) need to get serious about losing weight and getting in shape.

I am going to have to be quite the harsh task-mistress I think to get things moving in the right direction. I have given everyone fair warning.  Here’s hoping they don’t stage a mutiny.

Blessings

Jia

image thanks to kairi1474

What has happened in America that has made violent rhetoric in politics not only acceptable, but main stream?  Where are the leaders of the right-wing in this country (like William F. Buckley did from the sixties until his death in 2008) who are supposed to stand up and push back on the crazy and violent things that are being said on a daily basis? Yes, there will always be fringe elements who will say (and believe) almost anything in order to gain the spotlight, but there was a time when these people were marginalized by their peers instead of being given a bigger soapbox to stand on and spout their conspiracy theories.

Rather than rationally debate the issues, the talk radio personalities, right-wing blogosphere, and Fox News have turned our civil discourse into a battle of us vs. them and good vs. evil. This is the inevitable result of the Karl Rove-style of win at any cost, scorched earth, demonizing your opponent type of campaigning. If it is acceptable in a political campaign for you accuse your opponent, or someone who does not subscribe to your ideology, of trying to “destroy America”, or advocating “second amendment remedies”, and “Don’t retreat, just reload”, is it really that surprising that a mentally unstable person will hear that type of rhetoric and act upon it. Did we learn nothing from the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh, the anti-government discourse and right-wing militia groups in the 90′s?

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that personalities like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. ever wanted a gunman to walk up and shoot a member of Congress and innocent bystanders. But, they must recognize that their over-the-top demagogy has a big role in the hateful discourse in politics today. You cannot day in and day out instigate hate and distrust of a group of people who disagree with you and then be shocked when someone acts upon it.

We have to get back to a point where we as a people can disagree without being disagreeable. Our political leaders have to reign in the fringe of their parties and point out when they go too far.

Rationality and respect need to be the norm once again in American politics.  We need to leave the war and gun metaphors out of our national debate.

We are all Americans who want to make this a better country for all of us, not bitter enemies who have to be defeated at all costs.

It’s time we act like it.

Accolan

PS  We here at Blade & Cauldron convey our condolences to all those who have suffered at the hands of this mentally disturbed man on 1/08/11.

image thanks to agtBobPhillips

Its been a crazy few weeks.

Sephoni is still dealing with the back injury she received during Tae Kwon Do class in mid-December. She is moving better than she was originally, but is still in enough pain that it is interfering with both play and sleep. She spends a lot of time curled up with a heating pad and is undergoing physical therapy as well. I am not sure when she will be returning to gym class or sports at this point.

Reya turned 16 without any pomp or fuss. In fact, short of the presents (which were a laptop from us and a drawing tablet from PopPop) it was pretty much a bust. Why?

Sephoni woke up in the wee morning hours of Christmas Eve with what turned out to be viral gastroenteritis. How can I be so sure that what she had was viral you ask? Simply put, over the course of the 48 hours that followed her first episode of vomiting, each of us came down with it.

By Reya’s birthday Sephoni felt fine, but Accolan, PopPop, the birthday girl and I were all sprawled on couches or in bed, moaning, with buckets beside us. Luckily, Accolan and Reya shook it off as quickly as Sephoni did. My dad and I were less lucky. We both dealt with lingering viral fatigue, aches, and dizziness until New Year’s Eve.

Unfortunately, I have come down with one of my semi-annual upper respiratory infections right on the heels of all of this. I missed work today and very likely will be out again tomorrow.

Anyway, as a result of all of this (and the holiday season itself) I am way behind both here on the blog and in real life as well. But, I continue to hold on to my dreams and hope that Blade & Cauldron can help us bring them into reality.

We hope that your holidays were happy.
We hope that 2011 brings you closer to your own dreams.

Blessings

Jia

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net