F l o w e r

Three weeks late...

2009-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am posting this three weeks after it happened. I hope you’ll forgive the choppy copy and missing details. I want to keep it in the flow of events so my historical record is in order.

July 20
Monday
Beth arrives to stay with us.

Switching from obsessive spiraling negativity to gratitude is lurching; like suddenly stopping a falling elevator just before it hits the ground.

Diner: Cheeseburger with fries. Yum.
Harry Potter movie

July 21
Tuesday
Nyack with Beth and Katie who wander and eat at various restaurants while I rewrite last week’s angel column, which has been returned again—and put final touches on this week’s column, due at end of day.

Drive Katie to five-hour class.
Great fun playing cards with Max and Beth.
At 9, beth asks, “Who’s picking up Katie?”

July 22
Wed
Driving to the Lodge which Beth and Emily have secured three rooms as a gift to my family. On the way, we stop at Starbucks in Suffern. A few bites of Katie’s pasta salad
Iced tea

Emily! At Starbucks in New Paltz where I get a feta spinach wrap.
Lovely place. Beautiful rooms. We hike to the cliffs where Max spots a bright orange salamander. Francesca picks it up and cradles it in her hands. Photos are snapped. It’s returned to the damp, leafy forest bottom where it scampers away, a slash of color.

We kick a rubber ball around the lawn.

Dinner:
Lovely dinner for six at Italian restaurant where they make their own pasta. I gulp as my kids order the most expensive things on the menu (after I’ve privately asked them not to) and as we all agree on the 30 dollar bottle of wine.

I pick up the check feeling both generous and devastated by my gesture—we absolutely do not have enough money to do things like this! But I do it because I insist on believing and acting as if we can live our lives the way that we want to.
Back at the hotel we play that game where you try and guess what words mean… balderdash, I think it’s called. As we’re having a ball, I keep slipping out of the moment to wonder: Why can’t we have fun like this without beth and Emily? What would it take? And then to despair that, really, with the kids both in college now, it’s too late. That opportunity has passed.

July 23
Thursday
530 am
Hot tea with 2 creamers while waiting for continental breakfast to be served. The night manager, who has informed me that it is much too early for breakfast, sweeps his broom right over my feet as if I am not there. When he signs out at 6am, two teenage girls arrive and slowly but surely they set up the food. As they work, I am so hungry that I drink two creamers.

710
2 hard boiled eggs, hot tea with two creamers

Lunch in town with Beth and Emily and Katie

July 24
Friday
I drive Max and Francesca to Kennedy airport at 5:30 am.
I arrive at work in Englewood Cliffs at 715

So grateful...

2009-07-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

That Matthew's mom will be okay. What an incredibly strong woman. Two weeks in a neck brace, fractured vertebrae, laughing. (Well, now she's laughing.) What a beautiful family--every single day, all day, one of her three daughters is with her, advocating with hospital staff, feeding and bathing her. So touching.

That my Dad loves his nursing home. I've never been happier, he told me last time I visited.

For my beautiful children, my husband who keeps loving and supporting me. How blessed I have been.

For my work, which keeps me inspired, day after day after day.

For this body, that breathes and senses and feels. That still looks good naked! That has carried me along my twisting path for almost 52 years.

For my sisters, each a blessing.

For coconut sesame oatmeal with unsweetened organic soymilk.

For iced tea.

For you, reading this. Thank you.

This week I am grateful for

2009-07-25T07:18:00.001-07:00

If the past twelve weeks have taught me anything it's this: What we focus on expands. what we pay attention to brings more of the same into our lives.

That's why I'm shifting my focus to gratitude. I will still happily regale you (and me) with records of what I am eating and doing--cuz that's alot of fun--but with the rudder of my intention set to look for the joys and miracles of my life, I'm resetting the course away from complaining and fretting (which feels off purpose and out of alignment with who I am) toward light (which feels just right).

Some of what I ate this week

2009-07-23T04:01:00.001-07:00

There's a lot going on this week so you will excuse me if I am not remembering what I am eating.
A friend's mother is admitted to the hospital with brain cancer. I call for three days, leaving "I am totally here for you if you need me," messages on her cell phone. On the fourth day, I still haven't heard from her and, concerned, I call again. A man picks up the phone. "Why do you keep calling here?" he snarls at me. "YOu have the wrong number!"

Matthew's mother falls from a ladder, and is hospitalized with a possible broken neck.

Max and I develop Swine Flu.
-------------------
Monday
I don’t know

Tuesday
I wake with a scratchy throat. I must have picked this up from Eliza, who was sick when she visited Max last week.

Meeting my sister, Beth, who's in from California at Dad's nursing home--with Mom, Katie, Max and his girlfriend, Francesca.
While sitting under a beautiful shade tree, Dad tells us about a white pigeon that's been visiting him.
“Remind you of anyone?” I prompt.
He blinks at me.
"Oh, David," he says, telling everyone the story of his brother, David, who used to raise homing pigeons on the roof.

My throat is getting worse.
After visiting Dad, we go to diner and I order a cup of hot tea and a BLT on rye toast.

Wednesday
Really sick/FLU
Nothing helps.
Matthew also, doesn’t feel well.
I force myself to work all morning until I simply collapse back home and sleep.
Later, Max comes over, also not feeling so well and watches ESPN while I sleep on the sofa.
Max leaves. "Don't get Francesca sick," I warn as the door closes.

Thursday
Oh, this is not good. Swine Flu?
I am making myself chicken soup when Max comes over.
I have a fever, he says. When I check it, the thermometer reads 102.

8:00 pm
Max and I are playing cards in the back yard. We so rarely spend time like this, just the two of us talking and laughing. Which of course, distracts me and I forget to call into my radio show and poor Janet must soldier on alone for 35 minutes before I show up.

Friday
This morning, I remember that I know herbal medicine and mix up a feel better brew.
KAtie comes downstairs to remind me she has to get to the city this morning.

Where is my brain?
It’s as if everything I am, everything I know is sifting out of my ear like sand.

I put Katie on the bus and spend an hour mucking about the co-op, buying groceries. 120 dollars.

Later, my angel column is returned and must be replaced. I can't deal with this right now.
It’s payday and, upset, I go to Legal Seafood and order a Cobb salad with salmon instead of chicken and an iced tea. I eat two small crusty rolls with butter and ¼ of the salad. I sit there, working on my book about Second Blooming, about being 50 and the incredible transformation that I have been experiencing-- for five hours. (from 11:30-4:30) The servers don’t know what to make of me. But the manager, who remembers me from the other Legal Seafood, the one that used to be in the Palisades Mall, where I showed up once or twice a week and did the same thing, is not surprised. She stops by my table to discuss writing, and books and the new Harry Potter movie.

For dinner, Max requests “real food,” the steaks he spots defrosting in the frig, and potatoes, please. “Francesca’s mom makes the best potatoes,” he tells me. “She cuts them up and leaves them in the oven with a roast chicken. She puts onions in, too, and it all gets really crispy and soft in the middle.”
“That’s how I make them,” I remind him, thinking of all the chickens I’ve roasted and the potatoes, and the onions crisping in the fat with the soft round carrots and yams I learned, later, to add to sweeten the meal.
“No,” he says. “You’ve never made a chicken with potatoes. All you make is soup—and chili.”

Dinner
Sliced sirloin, roast potatoes (which Max changes into hash browns), green salad

Saturday
5 am
This morning I wake feeling almost completely better and spend an hour looking at myself naked in the mirror, contemplating liposuction. Then, I get dressed and practice new hairstyles.

7am
Panera – egg sandwich with iced tea

11 am
I pick up Julie R and drive to city to meet Janet. We meet Janet at THE DINER for brainstorming lunch. I am so congested that I can barely eat the wonderful chicken burger with guacamole, cole slaw and a green salad that I've ordered. I leave half on the plate. As usual, Julie picks up the check. We walk over to the High Line and walk through the garden space they've just opened above the city street.

Dinner
Brown basmati rice, yellow split pea dahl with butternut squash, greens and leftover steak
2 chips ahoy cookies (I have got to throw these away. Bought for Francesca to eat while she nursed Max after his surgery. Now that she’s gone I am eating them one at a time.)

Sunday
Panera
Sausage egg and cheese on whole grain miche
Iced tea
Writing from 930-130

Matthew and Katie go to visit his Mom, who’s still in the hospital after her fall.

Some of what I ate this week

2009-07-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

This was actually last week, a blur.
I remember very little about the last two weeks but a picture of an Amy emerges that disturbs (and enlightens) me.
When my son comes home, I disappear. I devote all of my attention to pleasing him and that has created two unwanted results:
1) he becomes demanding and judgmental which makes me feel inadequate and small
2) I respond to these feelings by over compensating and exhausting myself.

The result is, I get sick. As you will see when I post the second of this two week series, I wind up with the flu.

Monday
I cant remember
Katie is driving back from Florida.

Tuesday
Katie is still driving back from Florida.
I can’t remember what I ate.
No radio show. I just can't focus enough to be of any use to anyone else.
Stopped by office on the way to the city for Janet’s birthday party: One glass Malbec, salad, Roast chicken, pureed squash and dessert (60 bucks!)
Katie returned from Florida and Matthew took her out to dinner along with Max and Francesca.

Wednesday
This morning is all about Max, who had four wisdom teeth out at 11 am. It is also all about Francesca and making her feel welcome in our home.

It is also all about Katie who arrived home, very tan but wiped out. She said, "When Daddy told me who was picking me up I sat down on Jake's driveway and sobbed." Exhausted after two and a half days of driving, she wanted to go home and just sit quietly in her room.

So she needs my attention, too. Tomorrow is her college orientation.
"Don't worry," I say, hugging her. "There is enough mom in me for both of you."But as the day progresses, I feel painfully pulled between them.

After the surgery, which takes only 40 minutes, I drive Max and Francesca, his girlfriend and personal nurse, home to rest.
Then, Katie and I drive to A&P to stock up on food. Feeling strangely guilty about something I can't quite put my finger on I offer to take Katie to Panera for lunch.
YES! She says, throwing her arms around my neck.

1130
Caesar salad with chicken, Iced tea.

I can’t remember much of what I ate for the next three days. But I remember what HE ate: Smoothie made with Fage 0% yogurt, whole banana, ½ cup strawberries; Another Smoothie made with fresh peaches, strawberries, 1 banana and the other ½ cup fage yogurt. Chicken vegetable soup with whole grain couscous; Milkshake made (by Francesca) with vanilla ice cream and strawberries.

For Dinner I made: Beef Bolognese sauce over couscous and I know I ate some.

Thursday
8 am
On the way to Katie's orientation, we stop at Starbucks.
I have no money so I don’t order anything. Katie uses her last five bucks to get a grande vanilla latte.
On the way back, I dig up two dollars in coins from assorted pockets and under the seats of the car.
I have an iced tea on the way home.

As I make lunch for Max and Francesca, I stuff a few slices of salami and turkey into my mouth.
I think that's all I ate until...

430 when I go to Panera to get away for a couple of hours.
Reading "Cash in a Flash" by Mark Victor Hansen, I realize: Hey, if ten percent of the people on my Email list purchase my book--which I can self-publish for only 25 dollars--I will do better than if Hay House printed it!

I go home and make dinner: Lamb and chickpea and potato curry over brown rice.
“I love lamb,” Francesca smiles. “I know,” I say. “That’s why I made it.”
I really like this kid.

8pm
Radio show with Janet: Angel Open Mike. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/angel-salon/2009/07/10/angels-and-archetypes-the-amy-and-janet-show

Later, I make everyone tea and lose badly at late night Monopoly in the kitchen. Even when Max and Francesca help me... alot.

Friday
Drive to pick up Katie after orientation where I get a small serving of tuna salad and a hardboiled egg at the salad bar in the Student Union.

Francesca has scotch-taped herself to Max's body (not really, but she may as well have done.) She holds his head in her lap as he sleeps on the sofa. She helps him up and supports his weight as he walks to the bathroom. In the middle of the night, if he gets up, she leads him down the stairs. What an incredibly gentle, caring young woman.

430
Panera for tea and catching up on this blog.

Saturday
I don’t remember

Sunday
My sister is here from California!
I don’t remember what I ate

What I ate last week

2009-07-10T13:32:00.001-07:00

Monday
800 am
Gorgeous sunny day. On my way out to Panera, I eat:
½ peanut butter and blueberry jam on men’s bread toast.
Water with supplements: DHA, folic acid, ALA

820
At Panera, the A/C is turned up so high that I need a sweater AND a pashmina shawl and my fingers go numb. Warm tea, plain
Completely distracted by social networking—facebook, twitter, AOL. Getting nothing done. Yesterday was so productive. Today, nuthin’.

1149
I escape out of doors where it’s HOT. I take off my shawl and sweater and eat the other half of my pb and j sandwich as I, addict, continue surfing facebook, twitter and aol on a remote connection in the car… oh, will I ever get anything done today?

Tuesday
Brililant gorgeous weather. Absolute perfection.
7am
Sitting beneath a green umbrella reading. At 10am, I look up, so inspired, so powercharged that I pick up the phone. “I need to talk to you,” I tell Julie R., who is very good at business startups. “Let’s have lunch.”
“How about dinner tonight, and a free movie?” She counters. “I have these tickets.”

I walk about a mile through the corporate park near Panera. Then, at 1 pm, I go home for lunch.
In the driveway, Matthew and I start talking… then arguing. Then talking. Max comes home from his GFs house and plants himself on the sofa and clicks on the TV. The living room, which is, technically, part of the one large room where I have my office, is a family space and I never want anyone to feel they aren’t welcome here.
I can't do my radio show like this, I tell Matthew. I go outside. he follows me.

I’ll do the show from the car, I tell Matthew. I’m not upset. I just want to make this point: I have no private space. It’s not a problem you have to solve or feel bad about. I just want to say it. There is no place in the house that’s mine, where I can close the door and work. It’s very distracting. But I’m not asking you to do anything. Just acknowledge this.
What am I supposed to say to that, Amy? He asks.
I don’t know, I say. Think of something.
He walks inside.

4pm
I start the show from a remote connection.
"Today we’ll be talking about Healing the Heart of the Family,” I say, and BOOM, a slash of lightning cuts through the sky. It's so close the car shakes. It starts to pour.
Wow! I say, as rain clatters down on my little car studio.
I say, “When we release the energy that’s been suppressed in family wounds, enormous energy is available to the family to create, to move ahead, to love.” The rain streams down the windshield for a solid hour, the sky flashing and booming.
As the show ends, the rain stops as suddenly as it began.

When I listen back later, the show sounds underwater and mysterious. It also sounds awful.

5:20
Julie and I drive, in her newly leased red Volkswagen bug, to a nice restaurant near the movies. “One of the perks,” Julie explains. “We lease the car through the company.”
We share a salad with candied pecans and an order of white flour pasta with Bolognese sauce. Julie helps me sort through my pile of ideas like beach glass.

Start with one thing, she counsels. The smallest thing. Build a strong foundation from the bottom up. She has given me thousands of dollars of beautiful supportive coaching. But she wont let me pick up the check. We go to the moves and I see “The Proposal” for the second time.

Wednesday
9am
I pull into Panera and realize I've left the file I need at home. Though I know jus t where it is, I search the car one last time, and wind up locking my keys in the car. I can see them there, on the back seat, through the window.

I spend some time trying to open the tamper-resistant locks with a fat plastic hanger which I squeeze, along with my arm up to the elbow, through a narrow crack in the windows of the back seat. Finally, I call the police and they send a nice young officer to free me.

As he drives away, I realize: I left my money at home. What I mean is, now i have to go home.
When I get there, Matthew is up and circling the kitchen table the way he does every morning to get the kinks out of his spine. We talk about my meeting with Julie R. last night until Max wakes up and walks through the kitchen.

1230
While Max showers, I finally eat breakfast: Roast Beef on Men’s Bread toast with a little Nasoya mayo.

130
While working on my column: Banana; hot tea and cream

4pm
How is it that everyone I know named Julie or Suzi?
Julie S. comes by and I eat two slices of Men’s Bread toast with Cabot’s Creamery butter while discussing her empty nest. So much of letting go is regretting what we didn’t get to do with our kids, for our kids. “She’ll come home,” I tell her. “You can teach her to make a grilled cheese over Christmas vacation.” A few minutes after she leaves, it starts pouring again which brings Max, a lifeguard, home for a little while.

He and I discuss dinner: Pasta with meat sauce? Patty Melt?
I’ll have both, he says. I teach him to make a grilled cheese and slide a turkey burger inside of it.

I am going to another movie: Away We Go, written by Dave Eggers and his wife.

Before we leave I eat: One cup each Turkey meat sauce and brown rice.
I pack a movie snack: One banana, cut in half in case Julie wants some. Two apples and some nuts.
You're so good, Julie remarks, when I show her the snack.
I just don’t want to eat crap, I say. I don’t want popcorn and a coke.
I do, she says.
At the movies: I eat one apple; Julie, who hasn’t eaten dinner, has popcorn and a coke which I pay for because she has no money right now.
Afterwards, at Barnes and Noble, I have an iced tea, plain and buy Julie a Vivanno shake.

Thursday
Tonight, I am going to the city for the weekend to apartment/cat sit for my sister's friend, Sarah.
But first, I have to meet Robin at Temptations.

Robin was my very first childhood friend and we've just discovered, through my mother's friend, that we live ten minutes apart. We laugh when we both order the same thing: Portobella Salad with chicken and goat cheese. Hot tea with cream.

She’s brought her service dog along and it rubs against me all through the meal. When we get up to pay the check my black tunic is covered, but only on one side, with dog hair.

We decide to take a hike by the river. There, while wildly laughing and turning my head at the same time, I throw out my back. Really really badly. Humiliated by my out of shape-ness, and unable to turn my head in one direction, it’s a trial to walk back to the car.
As Robin pulls me toward her for a hug goodbye, pain shoots all the way from my shoulder blade to the roof of my mouth. I cant go to the city tonight.

Friday
I wake up thinking: I need the city. The cats need me.

Breakfast
Oatmeal/almond/sesame/flax/coconut hot cereal with unsweetened soy milk

940
Max's girlfriend's mother is a chiropractor. I arrive for my adjustment and Max, who slept there last night, comes down to watch. "You've popped your top rib out of place," she says, gently popping it back in.

Afterwards, we go to Didier Dumas for a crepe.
Then, I drive to the city and move in with the cats.

In the city, all day, I walk.
One mile, two miles. It's amazing how far I can walk when there's shopping involved. At Barney’s Coop, I try on ridiculously expensive clothing--filmy camisoles that cost 160, a pair of 700 shoes, a Marc Jacobs jacket which has been marked down from 600 dollars to 98. It is really very nice but I can do MUCH better at Goodwill.
On the very next corner, I purchase, from a street vendor, a white cotton India imports tunic for 20 bucks.

I pass an electronics store with big SAMPLE SALE signs in the window. I stop. Peering in, I see the GENTLE SOULS shoes I have been coveting for a very long time. I buy them for only 50 dollars.

Im getting tired.
Is there no place to sit in this city without spending money?
I slip into a fresh juice place on 72nd near the park and order a watermelon, berry slushie with agave nectar.

Refreshed.
I walk another hour until, hungry, I head "home".
According to a friend, Big Nick's, which is right on the corner of 77th and Broadway where I'm staying, is "the best kept secret in NY." Entering the place, I am anything but convinced. The archetypal greasy spoon, its walls plastered with signed headshots of celebrities since the 1940s, Big Nick's looks more like a divey coffee shop.

I set my packages beside me on the red vinyl bench.
"Can you put that stuff on the chair, please?” she says, reminding me that, in New York, space is at a premium.
It's hard to adjust after living wide and full on the farm. I

At Big Nick’s the single co-ed bathroom is accessed through the dishwashing area, across a wet and greasy floor. On the door it says, This bathroom is for employees only. Do not pass. Do not enter. “Go on, honey,” a waitress tells me. “That’s it.”

I order a cup of tea with cream and a burger with fries. I can taste garlic powder and MSG in the burger.
I leave the bun, which, if you eat buns, is probably great, toasted and lightly glazed with butter
As I climb to the fifth floor (did I mention Sarah lives in a fifth floor walkup?) my tummy ache tells me that Big Nick's is a secret best kept to myself.

After I catch my breath, I find a basket of organic cherries in the frig and French blue flowers tea.
Sarah has several pounds of it, in canisters, big bags, teabags…

The TV doesn’t work so I go up some more stairs (two flights) and type “watch TV” into Google, not expecting much. But what do you know? I watch the beginning of Supersize Me” on HULU. When the guy starts throwing up his Big Mac, I turn it off and search Vegan restaurants: Josies, Angelica Kitchen, Pure Food and Wine.

I obsessively plan my entire day tomorrow around the restaurants I find which makes me hungry again.

10 pm
2 Scrambled eggs with ¼ oz cheddar. I fall asleep in Sarah’s white cotton sheets to the buzz of a NYC evening, the cats locked outside the bedroom scratching at the door.

SATURDAY
It's the Fourth of July.
My entire body hurts, especially my back.
I lock the cats in the bedroom the way Sarah showed me.
Then I open the gate to the rooftop.
I stand out there, taking in the view of the sides of brick buildings, the tops of peoples heads, a clothesline extending from my roof to the one next door. I don't know what to do out here.
I go back inside and lock the gate and let the cats out.

I eat a handful of almonds and clean Sarah’s apartment. I try to write but I dont know where to sit. Plus the cat keeps bothering me.
I go out. I will write in a coffee shop like I do at home. But my laptop is heavy and I dread having to climb five flights of stairs later, just to bring it back.

There’s a nice enough coffee shop on the corner of 79th and B’way
The man at the next table says, "Oh, a book person. What are you reading?"
I show him the cover, Cash in a Flash. "It's better than its title," I explain.
He reminds me of Matt's Dad. Turns out he's from the same neighborhood.

He's an old time journalist; She was a teacher. They’re visiting their son from San Francisco.
I haven’t even opened my laptop.
I order two poached eggs in a cup with turkey sausage, potatoes and no toast or orange juice.

When the couple leave, I get up to go to the bathroom I leave two five dollar bills on the table with the check. When I come back, someone has stolen five dollars.

I take the 1 train to 14th Street and locate Angelica’s Kitchen, on 12th.
It's too early for lunch so I stop in at Liquiteria: A whole fruit juice bar where I order a Pineapple, Pear, Mint, Apple, Melon slushie.

I could live on these slushies.

While I’m slurping it through a fat straw, a pretty brunette pulls a coconut from the refrigerator case and hands it to the girl behind the counter. A few minutes later, she’s slurping a cup of creamy white froth. “What’s that?” I ask the countergirl. “It’s the meat and water from a young coconut blended together,” she says. “If you want we can crack one for you and you can take it home… we’ll give you the juice, too.”

I keep walking. I notice that my body no longer hurts and I have a very different level of energy today, only the second day of this activity. Matthew suggested I pace myself, stopping when I tire—eating or drinking something and then, starting again.
It works and in this way, I could walk all day. I could even, like Robin, walk the Appalachian trail… perhaps. Walking, resting, eating and drinking, walking again.

I take a breather on the stoop of a brownstone facing 40 Bond Street, a fascinating, marvelous building. It takes up about half the block and is surrounded by a “fence” of sculptured forms… a wall… I don’t know what to call it. It’s stunning. Here, I found it. http://www.40bond.com/home.html

I keep walking. I pass The Noho Star--a restaurant that, for some reason, I always mistake for a newspaper office. I pass Steve Madden and Kenneth Cole. I go into Sephora and spend ½ an hour trying on makeup that makes me feel old. I don’t buy anything. I proceed to Angelika Film Center where they show remarkable films: Indies and the kinds of films I love but which rarely make it into theaters.

I ask for one ticket for Whatever Works, Woody Allen’s new film starring Larry David. The ticket seller says, “If you wait an hour, you can watch the next showing in an air conditioned theater.” I wait.

At the Angelika they serve every kind of espresso drink, tea, pastries and croissants from Balthazar Bakery down the block. I order an iced tea and collapse into a chair in their beautiful sun-drenched lobby.

Dinner
500
I walk back to Angelica Kitchen.
I order the special: the Indian Thali Plate, a sampling of small mounds of several different tastes. There is mild, delicately flavored curry of tiny cubes of tofu, rounds of zucchini, yellow squash and carrots with little squares of nettles. There is a dairy-free cucumber mint raita, usually made with yogurt, this somehow tastes creamier, better. How do they do this with tofu cream? A little cup of yellow spilt pea dahl rich with salty-oniony flavor, two stalks of steamed brocolli and a mound of perfect white basmati rice. Finally, in a small ramekin, chutney of apricots, dates, apples and currants. Matthew would have loved this chutney, I think.

I love it all—so much that I don’t want it to end. I eat half and ask them to package it up for me. I order a chocolate mousse parfait, curious about a dairy free mousse. This dessert is delightful, too, although I do taste the tofy this time, in the dollop of tofu cream on top. But digging my spoon down deeper, I find a tofu cream that is grainier—richer, like ricotta, it’s rich and creamy and complements the chocolate “mousse”, which is, to be accurate, more like a chocolate pudding but nonetheless delicious. (Too sweet for me, it is packaged and I carry my vegan treasures home.

635pm
I stop at Starbucks for an iced black tea, tall, unsweetened. Maybe I will finally do some writing. And I do try but I’m too exhausted. As I am adding half a packet of Sugar in the Raw as a homeless man walks over to the display of packaged coffees. Looking me straight in the eye, he quietly slips two one-pound bags into a Duane Reade shopping bag and walks out.

915pm
I am watching Iron Man when there is a loud explosion outside. The people on the rooftop across the street start cheering. I’d forgotten: It's july 4th.
With Woody Allen's movie swirling in my mind and heart, i wonder how I ended up so solitary, so alone all the time. I always thought I'd have an artistic, traveling life. Like the woman in the movie who comes to the city to find her runaway daughter and winds up living with two men in a menage a trois.

I take a couple of sips of Sarah's nice French cognac and whip up an omelet with Boursin cheese. I watch Iron Man with the cat, admiring the way Robert Downey, Jr. can turn a silly role into something so powerfully moving.

Later, I dream that Katie is seven years old and that she and I spend every moment together. I dream of a rainstorm with tornados spinning on top of the rain clouds. Katie is scared but I sit her in the corner of a soft velvet sofa where she feels safe.
I wake up realizing: Katie is gone. I'm not sad--not yet. But it makes me realize *again) how I use other people to fill my emptiness. I like my solitude. But this weekend would be a lot more interesting if someone else were here to share it with.

Sunday
I love my body. I love how it bounces back to me with so little effort.
I dance down the stairs to feed the cats, and make myself a cup of gorgeous Mariage Freres Rose Himalayan Black Tea. Inhaling the perfume, bliss. Sipping it, close to bliss. No sugar no cream. Just bliss.

Writing, writing.
The apartment buzzes, the street buzzes. Planes buzz overhead, helicopters buzz toward the river, two blocks away. Up this high, the traffic sounds become a mesh of one sound. Occasionally, a siren or a shout breaks through the buzz, then fades back into it.

I log onto the Internet to stalk the wool challis scarf I have wanted since before last Christmas.

Its on sale!
I order it.

Yesterday, I saw the preview for Coco. When we return here in August, for my birthday week, I hope that one is playing. If it is, I will wear my new shoes and wrap to see it.

What I ate THIS week

2009-06-29T08:47:00.001-07:00

Monday
It is a new week with new wonderful things happening every day.
Energy times 5. (This is the estrogen effect)

For Katie today was pure angst.
Angst angst angst, she joked, hitting her head against the wall like the Harry Potter puppet in THIS VIDEO.

I made her a tuna/salmon salad melt on Men’s Bread.
In food processor, pulse together: one can Genoa tuna in olive oil, drained and one can Trader Joe’s Red Salmon. Spread mixture on lightly toasted Men’s Bread and sprinkle with shredded LF cheddar cheese. Place under broiler until cheese melts.

I made an extra sandwich and took it to Max to eat beside the lifeguard stand at the pond.
Katie came along but stayed in the car with her angst.
I got into a chat with Bonnie, another mom from Katie’s old class who also runs the pond, about kids growing up and out. And Then, Marcia, another mom from Katie’s class, came along and joined our chat.

Katie was still in the car with her angst so I had to go.
I took her to the diner and we shared a slice of cheesecake and she asked me, “Tell me stories about when you were in college so I can stop wishing I was away already and start imagining myself there.”
It must be so hard to be almost there, on the edge of the next step of her life but not quite out the door.

I told her about the time when my college roommates and I frosted our hair. The frosting kit came with a plastic cap with little holes punched in it. What you did was you put the cap on tightly and then, you took this plastic crochet hook that also came in the box and pulled thin strands of hair out through the holes in the cap. I told her about Michele, a girl down the hall who had the most incredible eyes that were way too big for her face.

Did she have a thyroid problem? Katie asked.
No, she just had these really big, beautiful eyes like yours but her face was very small.
Oh, keep telling me stories. She said.

I told her about the time when Cathy, Hilarie and I put our phone number—3582—in the window of our dorm room. We wanted to meet boys, I explained and figured it was the quickest way.

I told her about how Hilarie decided to streak across the quad (naked) and how a mob of boys started chasing her and how frightened she’d been and how this beautiful boy she was friends with suddenly appeared, like a knight in shining armor, and caught her. He wrapped his coat around her and told the other boys, “She’s mine. Party’s over,” and took her safely inside.
Wow. Katie said. Was he gay?
LOL. No, I said. I think they actually had quite a steamy affair after that.
Oh. She said.

Tell me more stories.

I told her how we went dancing every single night and how I liked vodka gimlets then.
What are those?
Vodka and lime juice, I said. I think… in a little glass.
I liked anything that disguised the taste of alcohol. I said. Tequila Sunrises, White Russians…
I love those, Katie said.

I ignored the fact that she is only 18. I think the new drinking age law is stupid. I think kids should be allowed to drink at 18 and drive after 21.

Not that drinking is more important. Just that drinking becomes more important when we outlaw it… college kids kill themselves guzzling too much booze up in their rooms cuz they can’t drink more slowly in public. Then they get into cars and drive drunk. So what good does this stupid law do?

I remember when the changed the law, my sister Jenny had just turned 18. She was allowed to drink in Europe but not the US. She was on her way back from Amsterdam and enjoying a drink when they crossed the US dateline and they made her give her drink back. Weird.
Weird and stupid.

When Max went to France at 16, he learned how to drink and didn’t have to guzzle anymore. he got it out of his system.
Tell me more stories.
I told her about how our whole dorm got crabs and we all had to wash our bedding and take a KWELL shower at the same time so it wouldn’t reinfest. I have pictures.

For dinner, I made leftover turkey Bolognese sauce (adding lots of veggies to stretch it) and served it over whole wheat cous cous.

Tuesday
Sun!
Last night, I wrote myself a note: Caffeine=hot flashes
So this morning, instead of tea, I had this new Muesli I invented:

Rolled oats, shredded OG coconut, oat bran, chopped walnuts, sliced almonds, sesame seeds (And any other whole grain dried cereal without wheat)
To prepare: In a small bowl, cover ½-¾ cup dried cereal with equal parts boiling water. Let soak for a couple of minutes until water is absorbed. Add OG unsweetened soymilk or OG cream or a little maple syrup to taste. You can also put a little bit of ghee in the cereal before adding the hot water.

Then I drove Katie to the bus stop to meet Abby for a day in the city.
Abby’s mom, Julie, invited me to coffee at Panera. We talked about letting go of our kids. About the crying. “It gets so bad sometimes that I can’t breathe,” Julie told me. “I have to pull the car over.”
I remember that, I said. I felt that way when Max left.
She said, The only time I’ve felt anywhere near this was when she was a newborn and the enormity of the responsibility and the love… it was so overwhelming… “

That was the forming of the mother body, I said. This is the pain of letting it go. Letting Abby take it and wrap it around herself now. It’s a gift—a last mother gift—we give to them. And they need it. They must have it. They need to form their own, independent etheric body using some of what we built for them and then, as they grew, built with them.

Where does this come from? I wonder, as I’m saying it. I have never thought about this before but somehow, I know it’s true.
I can SEE it, energetically, psychically. I am fascinated with what I am seeing.

930
Panera
Iced tea, plain

1100
Marjorie showed up—as she has been doing a lot lately. I think we are becoming friends. I tried to fix an Itunes app on Facebook that she got from a friend in England. I don’t think it works in the US, I decided after REALLY trying.
We talked about how to make money without getting a JOB. She told me about ESTY.com; and how much she loves being a grandmother

As we were talking, the clouds rolled in.
What the ? What is this, Seattle? London?

12:00
Light Drizzle.
Cobb Salad
Water with lemon

330
I ate something but I can’t remember what

630
Brown rice; shredded kale; swordfish with papaya/corn/cilantro relish

744
Max shows up and asks, “Is there any food in this house?”
I serve him dinner. This is good mommy.”
He goes to the gym and says, “I’ll be back later.”
Later, while I'm watching The Rachel Maddow Show, Max sends a text: Obviously, I am not home but I would still like to meet you for breakfast tomorrow. Call me.

Wednesday
Rain.
Big sigh.
Column is due.

I order an ice tea, waiting for Max.
I text Max. I will be at Panera til 11. Call me when you wake up.
A man at the next table says, “I just heard that we’ve broken the record for the most rain in history… in June.”

954
I text Max. you up?

1000
Getting in the shower, he texts back. Be right there. Is this good?

1002
Yes, I text back.

1027
Waiting for Max

At the office, there is an intern at my desk.
I move to the window desk which I don’t mind at all
When I leave the office it is pouring, teeming rain.
On the way home, I learn that the Governor of South Carolina has turned up. He wasn’t hiking the Appalachian Trail like an eccentric loner, he was in Argentina, outside the range of US cell phone signal, with his mistress.

These people fascinate me. What does this say that we keep electing people like this—people who live double lives (family values advocates with mistresses), people who peddle influence and seem interested only in how much money they can pile up (selling obama’s seat), people who go to war against prostitution and sleep with call girls, people who sleep with interns.

Thursday
Sun
I pay for my egg, sausage and cheese on whole grain miche with quarters.
I sit outside at Panera and groove on the beautiful English accent of the man at the next table.

I get Katie and she has an interview with Pier One so we come back to Panera and I wait at an outdoor table in the sun while she goes in. Joe Adler stops by my table and wows me with a discussion about energy releases through chiropractic.
She’s surprised that they’re willing to hire her and transfer her to the Pier One near her college.

Friday
I have an appointment with Franca today.
Reading a wonderful book for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit: Cash in a Flash by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen. The writing is a little hokey but the concepts are brilliant. Love their work. IN fact, this is the third or fourth product of theirs I’m reading.

This one arrived, for free, the day after I wrote, on Twitter, about having no money.
A little miracle.

How you do anything is how you will do everything.
This statement resonates so strongly with me that I find myself thinking about it all day.

In that spirit, I do all the dishes in the sink, scrub down the counters and clear all debris from the kitchen. I wash down the stovetop which, in Althea;s absence, has developed some crust.

I haul out the vacuum cleaner and plug it into the outdoor extension cord. Then, I vacuum out my car. I take out the mats and scrub them with carpet cleaner and a strong spray down from the hose. I rotate the laundy. Pick up junk all over the house.

Then, I start clearing out my closet. Anything that makes me feel fat, old or ugly goes into a bag. Anything that I haven’t worn in a year… in the bag. Anything that’s the wrong color, stained, damaged, or missing buttons… in the bag. I make a separate pile for things that need repair. And things to give to Katie, like my beautiful, kid-glove leather jacket. It’s too small for me but would fit Katie perfectly. It’s cut exactly like all the jackets she wears and she looks great in black. I am going to make her try it on. If she hates it, I am going to sell it on EBAY.

My mind is whirling with ideas to make money with. I’ve got SO much writing, such beautiful work (IMHO)—work that could be out there helping people live better lives—that is just sitting on my computer waiting for me to get inspired to find an agent. What if I packed it into ebooks and simply sold it myself?
How would I do that? This book has really got me thinking…

They answer every question I have.

1:00
On the way to my new chiropractor, I eat:
1 cup Fage 0% yogurt with coconut, sesame seeds, flax seed (crushed), flax oil, and sliced almonds.
8 oz. Water

my new chiropractor is magical. She’s also the mother of Max’s girlfriend. She gives me the best chiropractic adjustment I’ve ever had—a combination of massage, ultrasound treatment, cranio-sacral work and the usual crunch—but ever so gently.
Wow.

2:30
I packed a whole mess of food in a small white Chico’s bag to take with me to the mall so I don’t have to spend all my money on food and can see a film if I want to.
At barnes and noble I spend 1.57 on a small cup of English breakfast tea (with skim milk). With it, I eat half of a banana and some blackberries from my Chico’s bag.

330
Sharing my thoughts via Twitter. You can follow me if you like

335
I’m craving the white bean/turkey casserole I packed but I think that would be pushing it. Will eat that in the movies.

358
Losing steam. It’s normal, of course, at this time of day. That’s why the English have tea at pm. I’m just saying.

415
I am going to see Sandra Bullock in The Proposal cuz I promised to see Away We Go with Katie. The company where she’s interning this summer produced it.
Maybe we’ll see that one together later. When she gets home tonight. Maybe Matthew will come.

Loved that silly movie. It has SOOOO many holes in it but Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds have a lovely chemistry that made a rainy, icky Friday afternoon just … sweet.

After much angst in the morning, Katie is already a pro at the NYC transit system. She texts me: Im taking the bus to Nyack instead of coming home.
Great idea! I text back
My little bird flying solo.

Dinner
Merlot
Broiled salmon over greens with sheeps feta and balsamic vinagraitte
What not to Wear
Sleep

Saturday
Not going to the intro in the city. Just not into it today.
Katie is going to Florida this noontime. Driving there with three friends. Only one of them is a licensed driver.

Sarah’s for tea later.
How did I never notice that a Cobb Salad is really breakfast on a salad. Eggs, bacon, cheese over greens. What the?

7 am
Cobb Salad ice tea. Apple.

Experimenting with the idea of ff yogurt for one meal each day. Either as a creamy sundae “treat” with seeds and nuts and coconut or in a smoothie of some kind.
I hesitate to make proclamations cuz I crave variety and never stick to one thing for long… except this tea/Panera combo which seems to work.

Im reading a very good book by Mark victor Hansen and David Allen called, Cash in a Flash. It’s all about using E-commerce to make fast streams of cash. I know that sounds completely NOT fascinating but it is. Written in a punchy, inspirational speaker voice, it’s really giving me ideas. And I am going to get back to it now… excuse me.

630
Katie leaves for her two week car trip to Florida with three friends. The summer between college and HS trip.

Sunday
Gorgeous Day. Up so early I can’t yet buy a NY Times
Writing at Panera at 7am
Write write write til 1130

Katie is driving south. She calls from North Carolina.
Walk with Max talking about new business venture
While we’re talking about something Max is really excited about, he sees the number 66. I am always seeing that number… etc.
I hand him three books: This is the book that all the great money gurus read early in their careers. This is the one they all quote from. And this is the book that Michael Melia, who is pretty wealthy now, says changed his thinking.
And this is the book that Doreen says made her wealthy.

I visit Dad. Max’s email in his drawer.
I read him my cousin’s email about her dad.
He talks about his brothers… Vernon helping him drive…
Our parents were so young, and so uneducated, such simple people. They were peasants who escaped from eastern europe. They didn’t know what they were doing. They were under so much stress: They had to deal with the depression, with the business, with my physical disabilities. They worked long hours, were leaders at Shul. They were under a lot of stress.

My mother didn’t know how to love, he said. Instead of loving, she criticized people. It was her way. Maybe it was the stress. I don’t know. She criticized my father, who was so weak. Aunt Ruth was always after him about it, “Stand up for yourself,” she used to tease him. He was a quiet, gentle man who just let himself get pushed around.

That’s what I do to matthew, I said.
I know, he said.
It’s what I did with your mother.
But we’re unlearning it. One generation at a time, I said.
I know, he said.

Katie texts me from Georgia. Then calls: We stopped for ice cream, she says.

What I ate this week

2009-06-23T04:17:00.000-07:00

Monday
Rain.
I am down from a tight 14 (aka 16) to a comfortable 12.
I have noticed that since my hormones are balanced I have no more cravings (at all)

Last week, Matthew called me up to the second floor where the kids have their nests of bed and clothing and various electronics. He had asked me several times, to come up, the day before—when I’d noticed him standing outside cutting things up with his power saw--but I was working really hard on finishing a book proposal and kept forgetting to look. When I came up today, he showed me that, in Max’s room, he’s installed a sliding door and several shelves.

The sliding door is an old door from another part of the house which slides, evenly and silently (for the most part), open and shut along a track he's installed on the ceiling and floor.

We'd taken the doors off of Max and Katie’s rooms when we first moved in. The children were little then, and they told me they were scared up there, all alone at the top of the house, when I was sleeping downstairs.

Once they were teens, they mentioned (several times) that they might like to have doors. But I never got around to it—nor did Matt—both of us tending to respond to the things that get brought up again and again like bills that only get bigger if you ignore them, or teeth that decay and later, crack, requiring root canals.

Anyway, the door is really nice and one night last week, when his girlfriend was away for the weekend after her prom, Max slept in his old room. I didn’t know he was home but when I went up to wake Katie, I saw him there asleep in that huge new bed that I bought for him when we were about to move into the new bigger house we almost bought last year. I saw the way he still kicks the sheets down to the end of the bed and how he sleeps curled on his side, with his mouth a little bit open.

I stood there for a while before I noticed that he hadn’t closed his new door. Then, I woke Katie and we went out to write.

730 am
Egg and bacon on whole grain miche
Tea

Katie refuses to go to her math class.
She says, I passed the GED, I shouldn’t have to take that class anymore. I don’t need it for college. I’m done.
I tell her that until she discusses it with her father, I am going to keep driving her there.

12 ish
Smoked salmon
0 % yogurt with honey and sesame seeds

1:15
It has stopped raining long enough to run into the mall from the parking lot
At the movies I had an iced tea and gluten-free orange cake from Starbucks
We saw, My Life in Ruins. A terrible, pathetic, stupid badly written movie. The only good things about this movie are Richard Dreyfuss (who always does his best) and Nia Vardalos holding the whole universe together with her goofy smile. Don’t see it.

315 pm
It starts raining again when we pull into the parking lot at the diner.
I order only tea.
Mommy, are you getting anorexic? You haven’t eaten since breakfast, Katie says.
Of course not, I say. I’m just money anorexic. I’m going to eat half of your crepe.
Oh, okay, good, she smiles.

Tea with ½ and ½
¼ of Katie’s ham and swiss crepe
and later… after we talk for another hour,
½ a plate of French fries

6 pm
We return home and Katie (who has not, in fact, gone to math class) takes a shower.
“Go talk to your father,” I whisper.
“I will,” she promises.
While she’s showering, Matt saunters in. Doesn’t she have math tonight?
I look up.
Why don’t you talk to Katie about it?
I’m talking to you.
Well, I’m not talking to you about it. She wants to tell you.
Oh, I see. He says. So this is about dropping the class. I figured she’d do that when she passed the GED last week.
I am neither confirming nor denying this, I say and we both laugh.

630
Katie emerges.
She goes up to her room. Matthew follows, knocks on her door and they discuss the math class.

While he is up there, I open my email and there it is: A message from the publisher I sent my books to. It reads: Im afraid your two books are not what we’re looking for at this time. Good luck finding the perfect publisher.

I don’t mind the rejected manuscript but I am hurt by the formulaic response. One that I’ve sent out many times myself.

I thought I was special.

8:00 pm
Dinner with Matthew who is very kindly NOT trying to make me feel better about the book thing. (at least not too much)
Turkey and zucchini) Bolognese over whole grain fettucine, green salad with sheeps feta, sunflower and sesame seeds and balsamic/EVOO

830 (530 California time)
I email the publisher asking, Would you still want to see the other two books I mentioned or do you think it’s time to seek out a real editor and an agent and submit elsewhere?

9pm
Marielle collects Katie for a sleepover.

10 pm
After checking my email obsessively for an hour, I go to sleep

Tuesday
Rain. My towels wont dry. Everything is getting moldy.
No return email.

Up at 4 am. Inspired to work on my two remaining proposals. Working and working until 605 when I collapse back into bed sleeping until 815

830 Back to work

10 am
Breakfast
Tazo Darjeeling tea with cream (kinda strong for me but yum)
Egg white omelet with ½ oz cheddar; sautéed leftover green salad from last night.

This is a new trick I’ve invented. If we don’t finish the salad, I sauté it in the morning with eggs. If you use mesclun mix, this is fabulous. Doesn’t work with iceberg lettuce, obviously.

While Im working, Matthew slips out for an appointment in the city. I don’t notice until 11:18 when I look up, hungry for a snack.

1118
½ cup 0 % yogurt with ¼ tsp honey and ½ tsp seed mix (unsalted toasted sesame and raw sunflower seeds)

1132
No return email but I am working on book number three anyway.
It really doesn’t matter anymore whether the publisher wants these books. They’re out of the closet now and pushing through the birth canal. But it would be nice to have some place to send this.

It’s just dawned on me that Katie isn’t upstairs sleeping. She’s at Marielle’s. I get my cell phone so she can call me when she gets up—and there is a text message asking: Where R U? along with several missed calls in the queue.

1240
Katie calls to tell me Matthew picked her up and they went to cancel her class together. They come home and I keep working

For lunch, I make us veggie burgers on one slice men’s bread toast with avocado and chopped grape tomatoes

Katie and I take a long walk through the woods behind jake’s old house, down through the fellowship to Indian Rock where we sit on an old log, surprising a family of birds. They flutter around trying to scare us off.

Back home, Katie says, “Wanna see my other woods?”
She leads me down behind our house, behind the barn, behind the riding ring, behind the corrals where Dorothy’s horses used to graze before the fire. Way back at the bottom of the hill, there’s a break in the rock wall. Katie scrambles over it.

I hang back. There’s poison ivy in here, she says, but you can avoid it.
I hang back. She says, Come in. I say, No, that’s okay.

She says, It’s beautiful—like a tree cathedral.
I say, that’s okay.
She comes out. We walk up the hill and she breaks off a piece of honeysuckle for me to plant in my garden.
We decide to go get some ice cream.

330
I cancel my radio show.
I have nothing to say today. I know this is residual effect of the feelings—disappointment, humiliation, hurt—that I have about the publisher’s email but have managed, so far, to repress.

Katie drives us to the A and P where we buy matches and little cups of different flavors: Haagen Dazs Dulche de Leche, Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Brownie, Ciao Bella Blood Orange and Starbucks’ Java Chip. On the way home, I take a little taste of the Haagen Dazs chocolate and close it back up. “I don’t have cravings anymore,” I realized again. But when we get home, I open it up and finish the whole thing.

430
½ cup chocolate ice cream (See, this is what I do when I am stuffing feelings: I eat things I don’t even want.)

630
While cooking dinner, I eat a few chunks of raw cauliflower, a large handful of organic red grapes and a cup of Lipton tea, with cream.

I am almost finished with my third proposal. I am going to just send it and see what happens.

Wednesday
Finally sun
Banana
Tea

Two days to payday… finally.
It’s not like I’m going to go on a shopping spree. But I would like to take some cash up to the Eileen Fisher outlet before I send the rest to two of the fine colleges of the State University of New York

630am
Panera
Bacon egg and cheese on whole grain toast
I need to come up with a new place and a new meal for breakfast …. Way too much pork is getting in my body.

Interviewed angel subject
Spent all morning composing an email to max about how much I love him and how I want to include him more in the family and, I have to admit, giving him too much advice.

I send it.
I should be writing my column.
Email from Jenny: Rosy is home and recovering well. She’s very tired. Chemo begins in three weeks.

930
Matt calls with car trouble. I follow him to the car repair place.
On the way home in my car, we start arguing about what is going on with Max and how to handle it.
I tell Matthew, your constant arguments are tearing the family apart.
He says, your constant apathy tore it apart long ago.
What apathy?

1230
Katie talks me out of going to Goddess Yoga group. She has her period. I feel a little ick myself--hot flashy and slightly headachy.
I lie down on the couch and say, Oh, all right.
Which sucks because then I get up and find an email from Max, which basically says: Fuck you, Mommy. I hate you and Daddy.

I really thought I was special.

I cry a lot and write back… I love you. Stop breaking my heart. Which may look like apathy. But it takes a lot more work than slapping him

230
While I am eating 2 cups of couscous salad with fresh cucumber, grape tomatoes, poached chicken in a lemon cilantro dressing (1 T. mayo) Matthew and I talk about Max.
I say, he’s treating me just the way I treated my mother.
Whereas I sobbed when I read Max’s email, Matthew was howling with laughter.
Matthew said, “Don’t you see how beautiful this is? He’s finally letting it all out. He’s showing us the way he thinks—which is really twisted—and now we can work with him. This is great.”
He turns to me and I am crying again.

I say. I love him. Why can't he see me?
I wouldn’t mind… I could handle these things one at a time but they are all coming at once.
What things? Matthew asks.
My book will never be published… rosy has cancer… my son hates me… my daughter, the only friend I have, is leaving home.
“Oh,” he says. He walks toward me.
“You were—and are—a wonderful mother. He’s just going through some shit,” Matt says. He is holding me and patting the top of my head. But I am feeling around inside my heart right now—it’s kind of comforting, like putting my tongue in a missing tooth socket-- and I can’t really hear him.

a little while later…
I am all plugged in about how I deserve this and how I miss Max and how I need to talk to someone… while I’m talking to Matthew and missing that I have this very nice person right here in front of me talking.

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I love anyone? Why can’t I feel my life?
Why can’t I finish school? My books? Anything?
Was I a terrible mother?
What apathy?

230
Katie needs more Kotex.
Matt says, Don’t tell Katie about all of this, okay? Let’s let the kids have their own connection about this.
Very wise.
I clam up.

430
I waste all kinds of precious time on Facebook trying to feel better.
I send in my invoices so I can get paid in two weeks.

530
I drive Matthew to pick up his car and even though he has alot of things on his mind, too, we talk about me. He helps me go all the way down into the deep dark scary places in my soul and I see how I hide from my life and how I am just ordinary and not all that special and how I seem always to be trying to get some special deal (half price, workstudy, tuition assistance) before I allow myself to just take the damn class and how, even when I get there, and I’m sitting in the class, I’m already thinking, This school isn’t good enough for me. I could teach this class.

And here is where the sobbing returns and I see that this is as good as it will probably ever get and I am not special. I am just a regular human being like everyone else trying to get along and no one is going to swoop down and discover me.
I see that I am going to have to do the work of making myself seen and, since that is not in my nature, I am going to just be ordinary.

Because letting my light shine is so fucking painful.

I say, “I poured my entire life into these two kids and now one is a dud.”
And we laugh a little bit.
Ok, he’s not a dud.
We laugh some more.
He’s just trying to be special, too. And now we are the parents who must be pushed against to escape the family pattern.
And Matthew just listens and nods. And then he says things that I wish I could remember here because they are so beautiful. He carries me back up and out of the icky place and I say, Thanks, I wish I knew how to love you. And he laughs and licks the tears off my face.

750
Dinner
Turkey Chili with kidney beans and greens served over pan roasted corn kernels

Katie is flipping between The Rachel Maddow Show and My Big Fat Greek Wedding and So You Think You Can Dance which is annoying at first but becomes, over time, oddly soothing.

There is Rachel Maddow discussing the silent demonstrations in Iran, and then there is Nia Vardalos in a ridiculous wedding gown, and then there are people doing a hip hop number where the women is supposed to be the shadow of the man. She lies on the floor and reflects his every movement. It’s fascinating. When the judges begin their commentary, Katie flips the channel and there are the Greek bridesmaids in their silly lavender gowns.

My phone rings at 945pm but I don’t pick up--if it's max, I think, it's too late for this.

Thursday
Rain. What a surprise.
Maybe I’ll have some tea for a change of pace. And a bacon egg and cheese at Panera.

I check my phone messages. It wasn’t Max. It was my cousin: Her father, my uncle, is dying.
So many things happen all at once.
So much life, death and learning in such a small windowpane.
Sigh.

I need to cancel the radio show. I am not going to be able to sit on my radio throne and help other people tonight.
Tonight I am heartbroken, raw and not special.
I need to be out prowling.
I need to go see Blame Sally with my sister.

I buy a ticket and get into the car.
On the way to the city, I realize: My heart knows who this boy is.
I go to his girlfriend's house to just hug him. I know that if I just hug him everything will be okay.
I walk in and he stands and his face is lit up with love as if telegraphing, “You came for me. You aren’t abandoning me. You love me.”

I hug him and he holds me for a long long time.
Hey, I say. Wanna come with me to the city?
Sure. He smiles.
On the way to the city, we talk about everything.
And I see how he really just wants us to love him and help him grow into the person he's trying to become.

We find an Indian restaurant and order dinner. But though we order mild food and eat lightly, we both get stomach aches.
At the Blame Sally concert at Joe’s Pub we share an enormous five dollar coke and feel better.

On the way home, Max tells me everything he's been thinking and feeling. I keep falling asleep as a headache begins banging its percussion section over my left eyebrow.

Friday
Rain.
Payday.
I wake up with a migraine.
Which does not work at all with my life. Today is the first day of Katie’s internship and I’d been planning to drive her in and spend the whole day knocking around the city.

I force myself to eat a rice cake and I open up the little bottle of Coke that Matthew hid in the frig under a paper cup marked: Mommy’s emergency Medicine do not drink.

I slap a smile on my face and take Katie and my migraine into the city. I drop her off at 930 and find a parking spot on 11th street, a sweet little hamlet I discovered while driving around and trying not to throw up in the car.

I have to wait until 10:30 when we’re allowed to park here. Which is good, cuz I need to go to close my eyes.
I push back my seat and immediately fall asleep but every time a car goes by I wake up. It’s NY City so this happens a lot… like every 30 seconds. How can I make this underwater/nauseous/hot flash/headache feeling go away?

At 1030 I lurch around a the block a couple of times. I see a nice Day Spa—and, thinking a massage might help, I ask for their rate sheet. A 60 minute massage is 210 dollars. I laugh. They look at me. Thank you, I say.
I walk to East West Books on FIfth Avenue at 14th St. It’s closed until noon.
I walk back to the car.
I check my emails.
I take a few 30 second naps.
I put on a tiny drop of estrogen cream. I get out and walk around some more.
I feel like crap
I have to eat something.
I go into French Roast Restaurant, which is really nice. I ate here once with Janet. They seat me in the exact same spot I sat with Janet. I order a cheddar cheeseburger, the only thing on their beautiful menu that appeals to me.

Can the waiter tell how sick I feel?
If so, what does he think I have: Swine flu? Cancer? I imagine I look as if I've just started Chemo--kind of sweaty and exhausted? I force myself to take a bite of the cheeseburger.

This is the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life.

I feel better with each bite.
Was I just hungry?
Weird.

I feel just short of a million dollars.

I sit on the floor at East West and make a huge pile of books about God and energy and Jung and dreamwork and shamanism. I get up and seriously consider spending 75 dollars on a carved rose quartz angel. When I find out it's on sale for 50 percent less, I consider it some more.

I buy one book: You Are That, from Gangaji

I pass one of those Korean manicure/pedicure places and go inside. I get a pedicure. While the beautiful Korean woman (who looks about 14) is massaging my toes, I remember: Oh, wait. I have a broken… ouch. It doesn’t hurt that much.
Really. Maybe I will still be able to walk.

The headache starts again. I eat the first thing I think of: A Balthazar almond croissant and an iced tea (it is VERY hot today). I don’t feel too much better. I try a dab of estrogen.
It works.
No more headache, nausea or blurry underwater feeling.

Wild.
Something works! This is like discovering a vein of gold in the front yard, an oil gusher in the backyward, the cure for cancer. Do you know what this means?

Three hours later: symptoms, estrogen, better.
Eureka!

PS I can walk.

Saturday is a blur of graduation parties—Hannah’s, then Jake’s—and estrogen dabs.

Sunday (Father’s Day and Dad’s birthday) is a blur of driving people who, for one reason or another can’t drive themselves, to far away places—Riverdale, Brooklyn, White Plains and estrogen dabs.

I don’t remember what I ate.
Except for this

Saturday: The inside of a grilled chicken mozzarella sandwich (no bread); a slice of the strawberry shortcake I brought skipping the cake part; twenty or so red grapes; an apple;

Sunday: oatmeal with butter; 2 poached eggs; one slice of rich, dense, chocolate hazelnut birthday cake; one half roast beef on a roll with tomato; one tea with cream; half an iced tea with one sugar in the raw.

And here's what I ate this week

2009-06-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

Note: I don’t think I mentioned that last night we watched Big Night, with Stanley Tucci. It was great.

730 am
Monday
Breakfast at Panera
One egg with bacon and cheddar on whole grain miche
Iced tea, water with lemon

1130
pick up Katie for Goddess Yoga writing experience.
I eat (very quickly) 1 cup of brown rice with kale shreds
And water

I bring a sack of organic Macintosh apples I got at Trader Joe’s to share. Suzanne puts them out in a big wooden bowl. I eat one while writing and drink water.

2:30
Afterwards, Katie and I drive to Woodbury Common. I eat another apple on the way.
KT goes to American Apparel where she has the money she’s earned helping matt write his book. I wait in the food court, charging my phone and working on Marla’s last story.

I call and remind Matt about the grocery money.
I don’t eat anything at woodbury common.

5:00
Katie and I share a chicken and cheese quesadilla at the diner before her class.

550
Drop KT off at college for her do or die summer math class. If she does not pass the GED she must take this class or she cannot go to the college she got into

630
At Costco, I eat: one grape tomato, three cherries.
At Costco, I call and make sure Matt’s transferred the grocery money. Then, I call him back and ask him to increase the amount of money to 200 so I can get what we really need: Frozen salmon portions, chicken tenders, organic/nitrate free chicken sausages, sheeps milk feta, 5-pack of avocados, a melon, a pineapple, cherries, raspberries, smoked salmon, Genoa tuna in real olive oil, a huge box of oatmeal, salmon burgers, organic soy milk, chick peas, canned tomatoes, grape tomatoes, organic spring mix and garbage bags.

8pm
Marla’s last story submitted. Whew, glad I'm done with that. It was really fun but didn't pay enough.
1 cup black tea with cream (Yes, I bought some cream…)
two handfuls of cherries

Tuesday
Up at 2:45 listening to fat raindrops plop in puddles
Up again at 6:15 ready to write

Organic brown rice cake with marvelous smoked salmon
Tea with cream

I should be leaving now, 730, 830, but theres a big thunderstorm and I don’t want to go out in the rain.

I pack up my lunch/snack for office or car: Fage 0% Greek yogurt (the best invention in the universe) with small handful each: Sliced almonds, toasted sesame seeds, raw coconut shreds; a little cinnamon, and some fresh raspberries.

While prepping snack I eat a handful of fresh raspberries and some sliced almonds

(This snack is inspired by katie’s friends, 18/yo twins maya and eliza. Recovering from anorexia they’ve become healthy food experts and have the most inspiring and heartbreakingly beautiful blogs:
Here's Eliza's
Here's Maya's

Cobb salad at panera
On the way home, Jen sends text: Rosy is in surgery

Raspberries;
Tea with cream
Prayers

530
Dinner
Nitrate free chicken sausage with brown rice and kale
Tea with cream
Water
Water
Water

730 I get up to check my cell phone for text about rosy and walk smack into my son Max’s huge 40-pound weight sitting right in my path on the floor. I think I broke my toe. Wondering when we will hear about rosy’s surgery.

830
P/u Katie at math class

Wednesday
My toe (the little pinky on my left foot) is bright purple.

Breakfast
Smoked salmon; honeydew melon
Tea with cream

I don’t want to go to the dentist with Max. My third book proposal is almost ready to be sent to publisher. I keep losing my place. My column is due at 12:30

Dont forget Client call = 5:30

1200
Lunch
Trying to get my column done by 1230 deadline but Max and Matthew start one of their big “discussions” about money and accountability right in the middle of my office.
Max needs to borrow money for prom corsage and prom weekend. Matthew wants him to make a spreadsheet. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Take it to another room,” I say. They do, one room away and I can still hear every word since they’re shouting their “discussion”

Shut up! I scream. I have nine minutes to get my column in. Shut up!
They both look at me. Blink. Max gets up and walks out to his car.
I run after him.
I’m not angry at you, I say. I’m upset with Daddy. He’s …
I know, Max said. I was leaving anyway. It was a good excuse to get out of there.

Handful of sliced almonds
Apple
Water

Max calls me: Mommy, he says. Here’s the thing: I am not going to have one of those arguments again. I’m tired of this. I’m taking over my own finances. I’m taking out a college loan. I don’t want to be stressed about money again all semester. I don’t want to have to ask daddy for money every two days. I’m saving my money and I’m going to have a job at school. I’m going to be 21, Mommy. It’s time for me to be in charge of my own money.

I agree. It is.
After I put in my column, Katie and I decide to go to Panera—but just for Iced tea, I tell Katie. Eat something here.
I have a salmon burger, sliced avocado and something else I can’t remember. But there were three things on that plate.

Handful of berries
Handful of cherries

We have some errands: Isabelle’s, Bank, Gas.

Pick up a text book for Katie’s math class at isabelle’s house where her father, Kevin, shows me the new extension he’s building. It's a gorgeous room, surrounded by French doors that open onto Valerie’s lush organic gardens and her little midwifery cottage behind that, with a new kitchen brand new stainless steel appliances… it’s so understated, slate floors, cabinet’s that Kevin, a carpenter, built himself.

Every time I come here I can't help feeling as if Valerie is living my life. It inspires me to paint something, to move the furniture around again.

As we’re leaving, Max calls and asks us to bring him a sandwich at the pond, where he just started his summer lifeguarding job. At the deli, I pick up a little bag of Planter’s Peanuts. I’m starving!

Katie runs Max's lunch to him while I get tangled up and trapped in the pond’s tiny parking lot. When the white truck pulls out, I am finally free to exit.

Katie and I go to the bank, popping handfuls of peanuts along the way.
Five minutes later, I say, “Oh no. Am I going to be allergic to peanuts now, too?”
“What?” KT says
“I have a headache. I didn’t have a headache before I ate them.”
“That’s okay, Mom,” KT hugs me. “You don’t have a headache now either.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay. Thanks.”
She knows Im afraid of my headaches. This helps.

Katie says, I know we were only going to get iced tea but I am sooo hungry. I don't have enough money to buy two meals so I eat all of the croutons from Katie’s Caesar salad and lots of iced tea; 1 cup with lemon and sugar in the raw (which helps my headache, too)

Dinner
Green Salad with sliced grape tomatoes, Sheeps feta; red chard and brown rice with coconut shreds and sesame seeds

At 715 we go to the 12th grade play: 1001 nights. What a wonder it is to see all of these fully grown kids I've known since nursery school.

Back home, I eat one cup of 0% Greek yogurt with honey. When I go on Facebook, my sister, Beth, sends me an IM: Wanna talk on the phone right now?
Yes!
I get in the bathtub and we have a lovely talk—except that our connection keeps dropping cuz… well, cuz Im in the bathtub, surrounded by walls and pipes and the cell signal is having trouble holding. I get out and towel off while she’s on speaker phone and I sit by a window talking with her about god and rosy and mom and jenny and back pain and matt and the kids and her life and god some more and she says, “Hey, it’s just getting dark here (in CA) but it must be really late there.
It is.
we hang up

Thursday
I should never stay up past 11...
I am so tired but I cant sleep once the sun comes up
Just one more week to payday. But I’m doing fine. Lots of clients this week are making everything work out fine.

I pull out the scale for the first time in at least a week: I’ve lost six more pounds! Thirty to go to first goal. After that, we’ll see.

Uh oh. I keep forgetting to write down what I eat. I am sure it was healthy and delish.

Dinner
Broiled salmon, brown rice, greens and black beans while watching, Son of Rambow. RENT THIS MOVIE! Absolutely wonderful.

Friday
Running around for prom day. Katie's friend invited her only three days ago so we didn't have time to pick up a real prom dress for her. She's going to borrow one from Katrina.

9 am
As I sit down to enjoy my egg and sausage and cheese and iced tea at Panera, Julie comes in all teary-eyed. I just came from the rose ceremony, she sniffs and my eyes fill with tears.
Other parents from Kate's old class come and I get to hug people and feel like part of things again. It's like being a grandmother. I get the hugs and emo and they have to do all the planning and decorating while I write about angels.

Noon
Kids came and each had lunch and now I have no money.
Katie goes to Antrhropologie and, with her own money, buys a white stretchy beaded headband that looks like a priestess queen crown—and suits her perfectly.

2:00
Back home, Katie is playing with hairstyles and makeup, Max is trying on his suit; and after the prom club wear. “Too sloppy,” Katie and I edit his choices. Its fun and feels like family again.

3:00
Max leaves for Francesca’s prom and KT and I drive ½ an hour each way to Katrina’s house where she picks up a loaner gown. It’s green satin, floor length. I don’t like it. The top is cut in that weird way that tries to be v-neck and sexy while also being modest and showing nothing. It makes her breasts look saggy and her size 4 body look a little chubby.

But Katie seems to like it and this is a HIGH SCHOOL prom and everyone will have a weird dress on. I zip my lip and we head home. On the way back, she says, “I don’t like the dress that much. I don’t like the top. I want it to be sexier. Let’s see if we can fix it.”

Back home, we attempt to make it work… but it doesn’t. I make her try it on backwards, which, as I suspected, causes the weird bra cups to flatten against her back and looks much better. But now, it’s too sexy and we don’t have time to sew it.

“I’ll just wear the brown one,” she says, cheerfully, opting for chocolate lace mini dress she wore last year. In it, she’s a different person—flirty, animated, ready for fun. “I kind of knew I was going to wear this,” she says. “I think I just wanted to see Katrina.”

While she takes a shower and creates a “smoky eye,” with layer after layer of eye shadow and plum liner, I mix ups some leftover brown rice, greens and black beans and make her sit down and eat something. I have some (about half a cup serving) as I’m re-sewing the straps onto Katie’s dress.

When we get to prom photos at Rochele’s EVERYONE is in short dresses. I am SO glad she didn’t wear that gown. She looks amazing.

Matthew and I meet there and snap lots of pics.
Then, we come home and he says, “Hey, we’re alone.” The house is so quiet. If he hadn’t said anything I wouldn’t have noticed. But now, my eyes fill with tears. “We are alone,” I choke a little, trying to catch his sexy mood. I make turkey Bolognese sauce (thank Heaven for that Costco run) and some whole wheat bow tie pasta.

After we’re “alone” for awhile, I come out of the bedroom and click on What Not to Wear where I watch Stacy and Clinton bully a perfectly delightful Texas woman out of her signature style—and hair—into their weird, everyone looks the same "rules": Dress, jacket, straight pants--one solution fits all.

“I liked her better the other way,” I tell Matthew, when he walks through the room in a towel. He sits on the other sofa and watches with me. “Me too,” he agrees.

At the end of the show, the woman is so upset about her hair that she has it dyed white blonde and spends a fortune having hair extensions. With her big Texas hair and the new clothes she looks so happy.
I’m glad they showed that, I say.

I eat another serving of dinner and fall asleep on the sofa.

Saturday
Back on bioidentical estrogen cream to address the night sweats and hot flashes. The compounding pharmacist says, “You need the estrogen but you react badly to it. Try using a small amount on days 12-25 and only with progesterone, never alone.”
This should also help with the vaginal dryness (pardon the oversharing but some things need to be put right out there) and a couple other things.

(By the way, these are by prescription bioidentical hormone creams I’m experimenting with, under the supervision of my midwife and an experienced compounding pharmacist.)

6 am
Whole Fruit Smoothie: Chunks of papaya, honeydew, a handful of blackberries, raspberries, one whole, peeled orange and 1 T. crushed flax seed and 1 T. flax oil in blender. Drink with fat straw. Yum

9 am
1 egg, 1 slice whole grain bread, 2 strips bacon, ½ oz cheddar

130
Janet in city to discuss angel salon newsletter and everyday miracles zone and zine
Janet made me an egg white frittata with one ounce of cheese and zucchini
Black tea

It's drizzling as we walk the High Line, an abandoned elevated subway track the city has converted into a green space--it's lovely, like a long boardwalk surrounded by lush plantings and overlooking the river. As we walk, we talk about what to call the new Ezine.

5-530
On the way home, I stop in fort lee for a small coke and a hand ful of walnuts

Dinner
Salmon, brown rice, green salad with sheeps feta, grape tomatoes and sesame seeds, olive oil and balsamic dressing

Sunday
One egg, nitrate free sausage, 1 oz cheddar and one slive wholr grain bread

11am
Katie’s ex class graduation
With three grad parties to attend, I basically ate all day but… the good news is that, except for one slice of cake (of which I ate only the icing) I had only good things: No cheese, no wheat at all, lots of salads and some roast chicken. 6 oz. of red wine and tons of water. It was HOT out.

Back home at 930 pm
Suddenly starving… 3 T heavy cream whipped with 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa and 3 drops Agave syrup. Yum but ick about five minutes later.

What I ate last week

2009-06-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

Monday

5:00 am
As I wake up, God says, “Go read the Torah now. Begin at the beginning…”
I get the Torah and set it on the kitchen table and circle it several times while preparing my breakfast.

Bioidentical Hormone check-in:
No Period: 3rd day

6 am
Breakfast
Two hardboiled eggs; 3 strips bacon. Black French blue flowers tea

9:30
Snack: brown rice with sesame seeds and unsweetened organic soy milk

12:00
Starbucks: Tall unsweetened iced tea, spinach feta and egg in whole grain wrap breakfast sandwich

2:00
At our Goddess Yoga writing group today, it was just me and Suzi. She read a poem by Mary Oliver and we practiced yoga for half an hour. Then, Laura, Delia and Jeanne came and we wrote strands of pearl words for an hour and a half.

While writing, I ate:
Six organic (OG) cherries from a big wooden bowl in the center of suzi’s table

3:45
Back home, a big handful of “The Baker” Pecan granola; which is really just crumbled cookies, isn’t it?; OG Tea with cream

4:30
I have to call our car insurance broker (my dear friend) about why we are not making our payment but I keep getting interrupted by this and that…

Scheming about how I can both all the bills on time; pay for my college education; travel all over the world and buy two houses—one in Montauk, Long Island and one in Nyack or Piermont.

530
As we’re having dinner--Arrugula salad with tomatoes, turkey breast and balsamic vinaigrette – our insurance broker calls us.
“Oh hi Amy. This isn’t about your bill. According to our records you’re all paid up. This is a personal call for Matthew. I have some work for him.”

6:30
After dinner, just to get out of the house (which happens when it is light out until 8 pm) Katie and I go to Barnes and Noble. I purchase a book of RAW recipes; on the way back; KT uses some of the money she earned from helping Matt write his book to stop us at McDonald’s. She had a grilled chicken sandwich and I had a handful of her French fries and ½ of her Coke

Note: I have trained my children to prefer restaurant food to cooking. Must remedy that.

Tuesday
Bioidentical Hormone check-in:
No Period: 4th day

7:34
I wake up thinking about God and some other things I can’t remember that were pretty cool. Went into kitchen to make a RAW FOOD breakfast but I can’t because we have nothing in the frig but eggs, bread and leftovers. Once we can afford to buy food again, I will stock up on almonds, cashews, Thai Coconuts, and Agave syrup. Til then…

While I am making my tea with cream, Max comes down the stairs. Hey! What’s he doing here? He gives me one of his morning hugs that are more like being pulled into dreamy sleep and pats me-his mother—on the head. Then, he goes back to bed.

The tea gives me another tummy ache and I finally pour the %$&@ cream down the drain. Done with that. If I haven’t mentioned it, Katie and I are both being guided pretty strongly to give up dairy and eat more raw food.

9:15
With both kids, and Matthew in the house, knowing I have a lot to do—Two interviews for Marla and my column has to get to Doreen today (plus I am preparing my third book proposal to be sent to publisher--I have to leave the house if Im going to get anything done today.

I go to breakfast at Panera to write: Iced tea, one egg with nitrate-free sausage and ½ oz cheddar on ½ slice whole grain miche; iced tea (plain)

Got angel column in to D
Calling last two subjects for Marla’s Summer Camp Romance story. Left messages.
Working on third submission to publisher now.
After lunch, I’ll read and answer angel mail which is piling up like crazy. Tomorrow I must work on my mailing list.
Send an email to Dan who’s helping me with my new E-zine

10:35
snack
½ slice whole grain miche plain
tea plain

Driving Katie around doing college-prep things

1pm
Lunch outside in the sunshine at Art Café in Nyack: How I have missed this place where I used to eat every day when I had my little office across the street. Sigh.
iced tea with a Picasso salad: Sublime

4pm
Great Radio show about Story Alchemy and Illuminated Experience

Dinner
RAW zucchini “pasta” ribbons with cooked chicken bologneses sauce (raw tomatoes), a raw beet and sweet potato salad. Water. Red wine.

2 am
Pouring ½ bottle of red wine down the sink: I am no longer interested in wine, tea or dairy

Wednesday
Breakfast
1/3 avocado; water; while I agonized over what pants to wear. When I finally just gave up and wore the same khaki chinos Ive been wearing all week, all went right with the world.

Iced tea at panera
no food there – having no money might just make me skinny!

Apple

Lunch
2 Amy’s Jalapeno/jack sausages while Max, Matt and Katie sit at the table discussing Matthew’s book project

a little raw salad

Snack
Honeydew melon while discussing the bills (again) with matthew.

Dinner
Lamb and lentils with assorted chopped veggies over raw salad from last night (though I think that leftover RAW food is probably not particularly healthier than cooked since the enzymes start to break down the moment a veggie is cut)

11pm
Dairy free Chocolate frozen coconut milk ice “cream”

Thursday

Breakfast
French blue flowers tea

930
iced tea plain with 1 rice cake; 1 egg, nitrate free sausage patty, 1 oz white cheddar

1pm
1 rice cake and some water
Honeydew

The house smells like garbage when there is an open melon around.

3 pm
Lunch
Leftover brown rice with lentil/lamb mixup

Katie and I are at the mall. She is seeing UP, I am working on my third book submission: Wise Old Bird. When she comes out, we’ll go home and I’ll make something light for dinner—fish with stir fried leftover raw veggie salad and brown rice.

Dinner
See above

8 pm
Amy and Janet Show

Snack: Berries

Friday
This is the day when I am not getting paid because I didn’t know I was supposed to put my timesheets in a day early two weeks ago. Now I have to wait two more weeks.

Raw Chai cereal with raw coconut oil

12:00
Small Cobb salad at panera
Ice tea

Water with lemon on the way to work

At work, I printed up my last two book proposals and sent a lot of angel letters; called a woman in Quebec who’d sent a letter in French I couldn’t understand. In broken English, she told me she loved me—and D—and she had our book and she thinks we both look like angels ourselves; and could we please help her; her husband is dying and they don’t want to leave their 12 children with the bills. I said I would add her to my prayers, and I did, and I do. She asked if D could send her some more books. I sent the message on the D’s staff. I wonder why the 12 kids don’t just step up and pay some of those bills. 12 kids… that’s all Im sayin.

3pm
Slice of lovely banana cake with white icing that the food department left in the kitchen to tempt me personally. About five minutes after I thoroughly enjoyed eating it, my eyes swelled up and my belly distended and I had to put my head down on my desk. Oh, my, oh, my, cake is just not good for me.

Feeling better about an hour later.

6 pm
Driving home, I eat an apple. I call Matt on my cell phone. He tells me that KT is driving to Philadelphia and back with her friend, Adam, in one evening.

730
Dinner
Shredded chicken and aduki bean soup with a little kick of Chipotle pepper and cinnamon
Quinoa

Exhausted, switching between “What Not To Wear” and “Almost Famous” I had a nice hot cup of French blue flowers tea, which I brewed very strong, but was still not as satisfying as a nice glass of merlot would have been

Saturday

8:05
Breakfast
One egg with 2 strips bacon; iced tea
Trying really hard not to eat the bread and cheese part of the sandwich but I haven’t yet gotten the will to toss them in the trash.

Writing my last two proposals to package up and send today or tomorrow or Monday, latest. Today, for the first time in several weeks, I looked up and thought: Hey, what about my OTHER book, the one about Dad, and Paris, and my marriage… the one I was working on for three years, every day, until I was suddenly inspired to contact that publisher… and I got VERY suspicious, wondering if this was all just a big distraction from finishing THAT one???? And I know that, in a way, it is. But I also see that, in a way, THAT one was a distraction from finishing these. So in my weird, disjointed, hand over hand way, I’m making progress.

I toss the bread and cheese in the trash.
Katie comes to meet me

1200
Lunch
We each have a small cobb salad while we talk about a dream Katie had and write side by side.

2pm
We take a walk down behind the Hilton, talking. Later, in the car on the way to Trader Joes, Katie observes that all of her friends have a best friend. “I am always the third, never part of a pair,” she says. “That’s because you’re independent,” I say. “You don’t need a second half.” “You’re my second half, Mommy,” she says. “That’s true,” I say.

3pm
At Trader Joes, we notice some things we really love are missing from the shelves. There’s a song about this on YouTube, Katie reminds me. (It’s funny. Here, you can watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB7GDZY3Pk You might like it too.) We spend 61 dollars on groceries, buying not nearly enough for the week.

515 pm
We come home and unpack the groceries and Katie’s friend shows up and Katie eats the whole trader joe’s pizza (It was a really small one—made for one person) that we were going to share while Im sending DV our column for next week.
I say, Hey! Where’s mine? And Katie apologizes and I say, well did you at least offer Soli some? and Soli says, I don’t eat wheat and that reminds me that I don’t eat wheat anymore either now. And I thank Katie for eating my pizza.

530
I eat: 2 brown rice cakes with avocado and CABOTS Fat free cottage cheese which tastes better than any other FF brand.
(By the way, for FF Ricotta, nothing beats CALABRO, which I can only find at Whole Foods and sometimes, Stop n Shop)

I wish I had some nice OG cream for my tea. I know I poured it out… Im just saying.

Matthew is on Long Island doing that job for our friend, the insurance broker, and he wont be home for supper.

615
½ a block of firm tofu sliced and marinated in toasted sesame oil, bragg’s aminos and fresh ginger and garlic.

645
Should I go to Mr Kotansky’s last dance at Green Meadow? Maybe I will go at the end and just hug him. It’s too early and full of third graders.

Sunday
I have to visit Dad today… a nice long visit by the river. Hooray!

Yesterday, Mom left a long message on my cell phone about all of her friends who are having surgery this week/month. She’s worried about Reena, in hospital from angiogram gone very wrong and Esther, in recovery at home from an angiogram and stent placement that went well; and Nancy who was in hospital last month. Now, Rosy to hospital with cancer.

I am still trying to locate Bernie and Sherman, Dad’s friends.
Dad’s bday is June 21. I am planning a surprise party at the nursing home.

As I was writing this, Katie showed up at 615 am, dropped off after her late night out. “We slept,” she said. “Can I come write with you?” I was suspicious cuz I didn’t want her to get sleepy half an hour into breakfast but she looked wide awake and okay. So off we went.

Breakfast
1 egg, bacon on whole grain miche
ice tea

We wrote in the glorious sun washed outdoor seating area until noon. Then I drove KT to Maya and Eliza’s house and went to pick up Mom. (She’d called and asked if she could tag along to see Dad.)

When I picked up Mom, Esther gave me a little green bottle of Pellegrino from the refrigerator in the garage. (I love how people have refrigerators in the garage… Freddi’s mom had one when I was growing up. They’re always stuffed with soda and overflow food and the freezers are all packed with meat and frozen veggies) visit Dad, stopping at Dunkin Donuts on the way. Brought Dad an ice cream milkshake, mom got coffee and I got ice tea and a tiny container of their tuna salad (no bread) the trouble started with the donut holes mom brought for dad. I ate one—ick. I ate another flavor-ick. Then I felt ick… all day. Those things are ick to my body. I tried to wash it away with water, water, water and must have peed ten times (seriously) while at Dad’s room.

Dads hearing aid was broken so I ended up translating everything Mom said (she’s soft spoken) into shouting and we all got a little frustrated in a laughing, shrugging sort of way. But I started to get a headache on the way home, which always scares me cuz if it develops, I can lose two or three days to a migraine—and because of the bioidentical hormones I don’t know what to expect.

Drove Mom back to Esther’s and then back home. There is great potential on this route for mega traffic jams but there were none, thank you angels.

Back home I took a bath with lavender oil and felt much better.

Had a lovely dinner
Basmati brown rice, shredded kale with raw coconut shreds and nutmeg (no oil or fat added—just steamed in water for a minute), red snapper broiled in butter, lemon and Homa’s seasoning (paprika, ground cumin, good mild chili powder and Adobo)

What I ate this week

2009-06-01T03:27:00.000-07:00

Monday
5am
Breakfast
Brown rice with Silk organic unsweetened soy milk (really good!)
Working all morning on submission to publisher

When Matthew and KT wake up I make them David Ayers pancake with whole wheat flour but I don’t have any. Im trying to be as wheat free as possible

Wiriting writing writing
Madly meeting deadlines

2pm
Lunch
I need a break so I get inspired and start cooking:
Basmati Brown Rice with sesame seeds
Ground turkey mix up with beans, veggies in Italian seasoning

Still writing writing writing
Madly meeting deadlines

430
I send my first proposal to the publisher: Story Alchemy-Interpreting Illuminated Experience

6pm
Dinner at diner before movie: As we are waiting for our Bison Burger with coleslaw and FF Katie and I agree that we want to be vegetarians. As we eat the burger, we look at each other... this tastes a little gamey, I say. She says, It tastes like dirt.

745
Movie with KT
Every little step: the story behind the remaking of A Chorus Line
Brilliant! Rent it, see it. Wonderful.

Tuesday
630
Panera writing all day; working on Marla's Summer of Love project and my second submission to publisher.
Interviews and finals to Marla

Matthew worries about money at me.
I sent an email around looking for a job.
I cancel my radio show to keep working

Max comes by and we have a long walk in the drizzle talking about why he’s become so defended, so angry… Im just working some things out, Mommy, he says. You have to realize that Im not the same as I once was. Im going to be different from you and Daddy and you both have to get used to that.
☺

Dinner: Lamb Mix up
Ground lamb, onions, garlic, zucchini, celery and black beans in my own curry seasoning (because we are out of curry paste) and basmati brown rice from yesterday lunch

We have absolutely zero money left. I ask Matthew to check the email im writing to my boss asking for my FT job back. We toss ideas back and forth. He thinks I should say, “We’re really struggling to make ends meet,” and so forth, I say: “I can’t sound needy. It has to be about how I love and miss working there and how, now that the kids are older, I need something to keep me busy.” (Which, by the way, is exactly the truth of the matter... I know we will have money again soon either way.)

I send it just before he says, Maybe you should wait until you have your books all done and submitted.
We argue for a while which makes us feel better.
We sleep in the same bed (if you know what I mean)

Wednesday
8am
There's nothing open at this time. (Work wise I mean--that's what everyone I asked yesterday about a job told me)

Breakfast
1 brown rice cake with almond butter
tea with cream

10:00
At the office
Leftover Lamb, black bean mix up with brown rice
24 oz water
2 cups of lipton black tea plain

Reading Angel Mail –and trolling for good stories. Got some! Oh, why doesn’t anyone put their phone numbers in their submissions? Tracking people down on whitepages.com

Lots of emails… all the billing I haven’t done for a few weeks.
Column in to editor, finally

2:00
Apple

4:00
Starving because I ate my lunch for breakfast
One the way home, I stop at Starbucks-- Iced Tea/I sugar in the raw; they have no healthy egg sandwiches left so…
White Pizza with ricotta, broccoli, sliced tomato and chicken at the pizzeria next door

Race home to do client call at 5

5:00-6:30
Long walk while doing a counseling session – lots of uphills. My cell phone dies in the middle. Luckily, I have Katie’s phone in my pocket. We switch phones and keep talking

8 pm
Dinner
Amy’s Jalapeno/Jack sausage (KT said, “I absolutely love these!)
Polenta with butter, cream and parmesan
Black eyed peas with onions and greens

I have been moving all day at such high speed that when I sit down to eat, I am so suddenly tired that my eyes close at the dinner table. "I had no idea I was this sleepy," I say and lie down on the sofa under a fluffy down quilt. The problem is, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert keep me awake laughing and then there is Rachel Maddow...

930
Rachel Maddow explains the world to me; men’s bread toast with butter and hot water with lemon and honey

10pm
zzzzz

Thursday
1 Poached Egg, 2 strips bacon, 1 oz white cheddar, 2 rice cakes
Iced tea

Column went in yesterday, Marla has extended my deadline on Summer of Love so I am free to work on my e-newsletter but the publisher is sitting there with his mailbox wide open to me and I MUST SEND MY SECOND PROPOSAL…
Which one shall I do?

And which book should I focus on. With a little tweaking, theyre all ready to go.

Your Sacred Story? or Expect Miracles: The amazing call and response universe? or What would your best self do? Tuning into your inner core of wisdom Or Free Light Organic Whole: The Flow Lifestyle? Or Living As if?
See, I can get a little bit caught up in spinning my wheels obsessively wondering what to do?

I spend an hour doing THIS blog and finally buckle down… I’ll let you know which book I took up.

2pm-3:30
Client call
330-430
writing client email

Exhausted, I take the grocery money and take Katie to pizzeria: small coke, chicken eggdrop spinach soup, a few bites of katie’s pizza and of chicken arrugula salad.

Rush home to do radio show about patience

8:00
Amy and Janet show

Friday
7-1130
writing at panera; working on YOUR SACRED STORY
ice tea ice tea ice tea
lemon water
1 egg, 2 rice cakes, sausage patty, 1 oz cheddar

Grocery shopping with 70 dolalrs for the week.

1-3
Goddess yoga and writing group

Dinner

Decaf Soy Chai
Mathew buys me red wine and buys a bottle of champagne to share with Katie and her friend. I fall asleep on the sofa after one and half lovely glasses.

Saturday
My friend has invited me to dinner at Mohonk Mountain House where she’s given herself spa weekend. It’s an hour and a half north of here and I won’t go unless someone will drive up with me. Buffy is busy; Julie is busy. I really wanted to go but it’s too much driving…

Bacon egg cheese no bread/ rice cake
Banana
Water
Iced tea

Brisk walking through the corporate park behind Panera for 30 minutes up and down hills while talking on cell phone; pinecones. I walk behind the Montvale Hilton where I discover they have an outdoor pool. Though it’s pretty cold out, people are sunbathing as if it’s St. Tropez.

2:00
Lunch
Black eyed peas, greens, arrugula and grape tomatoes with balsamic and olive oil and a sprinkle of sesame seeds

Rearranged my entire office, pulling up old carpet, moving out all the framed artwork I no longer feel connected to; reoriented desk so my office, which is in the sunporch, open to the living room, can be used by other people, too. Put Matthew’s faux-stained glass in the living room window where it sits, glowing beautifully all day (and blocking us from the view of passers-by). Plumped pillows, didn’t get to vacuuming but now you can see the floor so I will do that tomorrow.

Tea with cream

Then, I….
Washed two days worth of dishes left in the sink; why will NOONE else do dishes? Clearned the bathroom, did the laundry, weeded the garden, rearranged the lawn furniture…

Anyone seeing a trend here: Energy much?

Oh, and I sent out my second book—a whole book, not a proposal: Your amazing, extraordinary, magnificent, exciting Sacred Story (Yes, yours!) and how to read it

Sleepytime tea with Katie and teenage angst
Apple

"Let's watch a movie," I say, to take her mind off her worry-beading. We put on "Postcards from the Edge" the perfect film to get her mind off her own troubles. A real mother-daughter flick.

Max and Matthew come home midway and start moving max back into the house from college. Matthew make disapproving faces about the TV being on. "Is she sick?" he asks, seeing Katie under the down blanket on the couch.
"Yes," I say.

8:15
Double cooking brown rice makes it super plump: Brown rice with sesame seeds; angus beef chili with aduki beans, zucchini and many spices. Really good.

Katie invites friends over. Max joins them for a while, jumping up every three minutes to respond to a text message. He’s like a jumping bean. Up down up down. They quietly take the champagne from the frig and sit around the firepit under the stars. End of angst.

Sunday
Tea/Banana/Rice cake with avocado

Going to visit mom for breakfast and then go to Dad; with max and Katie. Max has a lifeguard class at 330 so we have to really be efficient with our time.

Max arrives and starts telling me that, last night, by the firepit, Katie said some things that really hurt his feelings. He spent the whole night crying in his girlfriend’s arms.

All the way to Mom’s the kids talk things out—I help where I can (when they let me.)
By the time we get to Mom’s, at 11:00 we’re already behind schedule. By the time we leave 130, we’re already an hour late. That’s okay, I think. It only takes 20 minutes to get to Dad.

At mom’s apartment: I made vegan omelets for me and KT and cheesy versions for max and mom. They eat cranberry walnut toast. I have tea.
1 hydrox cookie on the way out.
I leave Mom my NY Times because she was so excited to see it. “I always mean to get this,” she said. “But I never remember to and by the time I think of it it’s Monday.”

Race toward Dad. Sit in traffic. Turn around. Go all the way back to mom’s to pick up alternate route. Finally arrive at the nursing home. I send KT and Max up to Dad’s room so we don’t waste minute. When I find a parking spot, I get out of the car and there is Dad, right in front of me, sitting in his wheelchair beside the river, reading The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies.

I walk over. “Hey!”
He looks up.
“OH, hi, Amy. I’m having the most wonderful week because of this book you gave me.”
Max and Katie come down and join us. We tell Dad that, because of the traffic, we have to leave in 30 minutes and he nods, “Well, we better start talking fast!”
I go up to his room and unpack the cookies Mom sent and the notebooks I (finally) brought to him.
Then, I go back to the river and we all say goodbye.

We drop off Max at class. Katie is fast asleep in the back seat. She has a sore throat and feels “ick.” We come inside and she heats up some brown rice, sprinkling her new favorite spice—thyme—on it. She and I talk about what happened with Max. Matthew joins us and adds his four cents. Katie says, “See this is what you do, Daddy. You walk into the middle of a conversation and take it over. This is not what we were talking about at all!” Now his feelings are hurt. I try to help and wind up arguing with Matthew. “This is not an argument,” he argues. I start laughing. Katie goes to lie down.

At 4:30
Matthew and I polish off the leftover rice and chili from last night.
This really is good, he says. I have two helpings. It really is… was.

At 5ish, I drive to pick up another NY Times. Nothing is open except in Monsey, the orthodox Jewish community nearby where the Sabbath is celebrated on Saturday. At the 7/11 there, I purchase the Times and a fountain Coke in a paper coffee cup instead of a thick plastic BIG GULP cup—what a waste! “The paper’s going up to five dollars next week,” the man behind the cash register tells me. “Wow!” I say, then, “I would pay ten if it kept them from going out of business.” I muse. “I know,” he nods. “I know.”

I would. I don’t know what the world would do without the New York Times—the magazine section, the week in review, the book review, Arts and Leisure. Just thinking about a Sunday without it makes me get a little teary-eyed. Really, it’s been part of my whole life: Sunday bagels and reading Joyce Maynard’s Domestic Affairs column to Dad; my mother, checking the gallery showings, the museum shows; Later, on the beach at Fire Island with my second serious boyfriend, a big shot wall street lawyer. Wrapped in blankets as the sun came up over the quiet sea, we sipped sweet coffee from the market on the corner and called crossword puzzle clues to the other couple—whose names I’ve lost track of; and all thinking we were smart enough to do the puzzle in pen. I knew so much then. Later, much later, reviewing Arts and Leisure with Katie… I still remember the day Max first said, “Can you pass me the Sports section, Mommy.” And how Matthew thinks the crossword puzzle is a big waste of time.

I would pay ten dollars. I mean it.

Anyway, I take the paper and sit outside the house where max is taking his class. I read about President Obama’s face, and how it’s the most common image on the internet. I read about summer travel books; summer gardening books; I pull out the puzzle (which is what I’m really after.) I pull out a mechanical pencil, lovely inventions these, with their nice white erasers that don’t go all smeary; and I begin. Two down; 29 across…

When Max comes out half an hour later, I’m content to set it aside and drive him home.

While he prepares to leave for his GF’s house. I go inside and make Katie some chicken soup.
”We had a good day,” I tell him. “I’m glad you came.”
“Me, too,” he smiles.
“Want a carrot?”
“No, thanks.”
A moment later, he comes up behind me and kisses the top of my head and pulls me into a cologne-cloud hug. Then, he steals a carrot and heads out the back door.

“This is the best soup you’ve ever made,” KT says.
“I put thyme in there for you,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “Thanks.”
Then, “So how do you make chicken soup. Do you just throw all the ingredients into water?”
“No,” I begin… and I tell her my recipe for the best chicken soup I’ve ever made: Brown an onion in olive oil; add a little garlic; add one pound of chicken thighs and brown them, skin down, until the skin peels off; discard skin; add ½ bunch of celery, chopped into little bridges; two carrots, cut into circles…
“When do you add the water,” she interrupts.
“After all the vegetables have had a few minutes to cook. You want the chicken to be seared against the bottom of the pan and the vegetables to do some cooking in the oil. Then, you add enough water to cover the chicken plus about an inch.
“You add the vegetables in order from hard to soft. It goes: Onions, garlic, hard vegetables like carrots and celery, a little later, cut up potatoes, sweet potatoes, if you’re using them and things like tomatoes or anything out of a can—corn, beans—next and then, if you’re adding frozen veggies, they go in last.”
“What about spices?”
“Seeds first, with the oil; then, dried herbs like the thyme, with the chicken; and fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro, at the end; and only cook one minute more.”
Okay, she says. Got it.

And just like that, the best chicken soup I ever made is passed along.
Today was a day of generations…

What I ate this week

2009-05-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

This project may be the best thing I’ve ever done to make myself stick to something. Though I don’t know many of the people who read this blog, I feel accountable to you. This makes me think about each lifestyle choice I make. It makes me question behavior that, until now, has felt intractable, and I can feel shifts happening in the very foundations of my life.

I’ve been exercising more, listening for and following guidance about food and beverage choices and experiencing, overall, a shift from victim of my body’s cravings and cycles to that of a conscious inhabitant of a body that is seeking balance.

Now, lately, when I crave something, I don’t feel overwhelmed by the craving, I feel curious about it. What triggered that? Did I eat something earlier that created a glycemic response? Or do I actually need more carbs to fuel my brain and muscle function? If I discern the need for carbs (as opposed to the need for a large order of fries at the drive through window) I can reach for an apple or a banana. Or just take a spoonful of lovely honey in a cup of hot water with lemon. When I do, I feel my whole body sigh: Thank you.

And the scale responds, as well. I’ve put it back in the closet but I can feel, again, my body slimming down. Belly flattening, legs toning up.
It’s all good.

-----------------------------------
Monday
Progesterone cream
Women’s Herbs
Reading: Frequency by Penney Pierce

Long conversation with self about how cold it is and how the backs of my legs hurt from sitting all the time and how I really should go out and exercise this morning;

7 am
Breakfast
Hot water with lemon and honey
2 eggs over medium, served over lentil soup
1 thin slice ham

1130
Black tea (plain); I ate something with this but I can’t remember what it was. Probably whole grain toast with butter.

1230
Our first “We’re not sure why we are drawn to gather but we all feel it” meeting at S’s house. Each woman who participates has told me the same thing: I feel like I’m being drawn to do something, to gather, to join with other women in community about something but I’m not sure what it is.

S has a big, beautiful new home, built tongue in groove (without nails or screws) from renewable forest (there is sap on some of the untreated beams). This house is doubly precious because just two years earlier, just before they’d finished building, this house (an earlier version of it) burned to the ground. The day after it happened, I stood with S and her husband in the ruined site and recited blessings. D brought a pitcher of milk with honey and rose petals to pour over the ashes, to cool the earth, in native American tradition.

Today, I step inside the light filled space with deep reverence, knowing what it took to rebuild. In every room, every corner is infused with an almost fierce sense of HOME.

We practiced yoga in S’s studio (she’s a yoga teacher) and moved up to the kitchen to write together for an hour. S serves us water and a thin slice of carrot cake with raisins; S invited me to invite another group to take a yoga class with her. I’m so excited. I miss yoga so much.

3 pm
Home after Goddess group/Lunch/snack
One slice men’s bread toast with butter

¼ cup Kozy Shack rice pudding
1 square dark chocolate (70%)

Long walk through the farm across the road with Max and Katie. We found a baseball game in progress at the field of their old school and met so many people we love! Lovely walk back, snapping photos, laughing.

6pm
Dinner
Turkey meatsauce over Barilla PLUS pasta
Tea
Tiny sliver of Katie’s chocolate cake

To unblock the flow of money into our lives, we are all playing a “thousand dollars a day” game that we learned from Abraham Hicks. This is the second night. Each night, you pretend that the Universe has given you a sum of money, with no strings attached. The first night, you get 1000, the second, it doubles, the third, it doubles again… and so on. By the fourth day, you’re getting 8000. The fifth, 16,000… keep doubling it.

Anyway, you’re supposed to take a piece of paper and write down exactly how you’d spend the money. You’re supposed to spend every penny, every day. You can put some into savings if you want but it has to be accounted for. It works best if you use actual amounts. Like if you have a 328 dollar cable bill, you don’t write, “300”. No guessing. If you don’t know the price of an item, go to the internet and find it.
And that’s it.

Matthew made a little “checkbook” in which we are each placing our accounting each night. Before we put our “Statements” into the checkbook, we read them to each other… “I’m having a massage, an oxygen facial and an acupressure pedicure,” I say. “I’m buying the jeans from Urban Outfitters and the white embroidered sheets from Anthropologie,” Katie says. “I’m paying the phone bill and the rent,” says Matthew. We laugh. “What?” he asks. “Someone has to pay the bills.”

We’re having a ball with this. If nothing else, it is loosening us up about our fear around money… especially Matthew. He feels like KT and I are participating in “the money situation” and he’s a little more relaxed.

Listening to This American Life on podcast.
No TV night in honor of Matthew who said that if we watch TV tonight he would shoot himself—or us. He hasn’t decided.

Asleep in the big bed. I wake up very cold. I wake up and Matthew is prowling the kitchen. He says, “I turned the heat back on.” Otherwise, he’s not feeling talkative. He goes up to sleep in Max’s room where we’ve finally set up the new bed we purchased at a yard sale over a year ago, when we were about to move. When we didn’t move, because the seller had a half million dollar lien on the freaking house, we had to pull back into the smaller house, adding in all the big new furniture. Nowadays, the economy being what it is, Matthew is thrilled we lost the house. I have to admit, though I’m not thrilled, I’m not as sad about it as I was.

I go into the bathroom and draw a bath.

I climb into the hot water and reach for the Sunday Styles section from the NY Times and open just anywhere… there is a story written by a man who has asperger’s syndrome. He writes that his wife, a psychotherapist working with autistic and ADD kids, was losing her mind with his off-key behavior but she didn’t know why until she began noticing correlation between his behavior and that of her clients. Not making eye contact when meeting someone… talking and talking even when no one is listening… missing social cues… obsessing about one thing even when no one else is interested… unable to drop a subject unless certain rituals are observed first.

Tuesday
Early to Delia’s for beautiful new meditation technique from CAPH
WW – to office today

8am
Tea with a little cream. Ick.
Apple

1030
1 egg, cheddar, bacon, 1 slice whole grain bread
iced tea
water with lemon

1:42
Lentils with last night’s turkey artichoke meat sauce and millet
Water with lemon

4 pm
I arrive home from the office just in time to reschedule my radio show for 5pm. Not ready!

4:10
½ cup of Kozy Shack Rice Pudding.
Apple

4:40
I’m cooking along, in the radio show groove, getting ready, when both of my kids walk in and start banging through the house. They’re cooking, calling to each other, to me. My radio show is recorded in my home office, in the middle of the house—just off the living room and requires silence.

I hate having to say, “”Listen, you have to be silent and go outside or something for the next hour.” It makes me realize how often I’ve set myself and my own work aside for their needs. I resist the temptation to do just that right now. I could cancel the show altogether—who cares?—and join their cheerful chatter, maybe take a walk. But instead, I remind myself: Your work is important. People are tuning in to listen to you. you’re a teacher now. There’s responsibility in that. SHOW UP FOR YOUR OWN LIFE!

4:59
I look up and there is one minute to showtime. I log in. Center myself.
GO!

5 pm
Radio Show: More Miracles: Amping up your intuition; Reading energy. This was a good show. Really good. I’m getting better, understanding the medium, feeling my way for what listeners want. Developing a format for the show, a combination of extemporaneous commentary from my experience, stories that illustrate the points I’m making, and readings from wonderful teachers.

Doing this, I realize, as I type this, I can write off the books I am always buying now. I can link each one to a radio show. Delightful! I feel like a professional again… after 20 years of mothering, this alone is a thrill.

7:25
Dinner
Omelets with Omega 3 eggs, organic cheddar and deli sliced ham; I slice of men’s bread

Because American Idol is about to come on, we “forget” to do our thousand dollars a day game. We’re up to 4000 today. “We’ll just carry it over to tomorrow,” we agree.

I log onto AOL and I have another new client. Wow. Getting energy to flow really does work.

9:30
Organic Peanut Butter and Jelly on a potato roll which tasted amazing but made me feel kind of allergic.

10 pm: Asleep on sofa while Matthew works in the back room.

Wednesday
Up at 3:45, can’t sleep; worried about stupid things: Those poor kids at the end of James Frey’s new book; that I forgot to vote for Adam Lambert who should, by all rights, win American Idol but might not because the producers decided to frame it as a run-off between good old American values and men who wear “guyliner” (code word: gays).

I’m also worried about not stupid things. Money. I’m always thinking about money—and making ends meet—but this is different. This is a deep worry, the kind that puts furrows in people’s foreheads.

But it only comes in the middle of the night. During the day, I’m all, “This is a cycle. Money always flows when we need it.” But at 3:45 am, I’m all, “Oh, dear. What will we ever do?”

I go online and take the “Do you have Asperger’s? test”. I pretend that I’m Matt and answer as he might, taking into account the things that I can see in his behavior that he’d deny. I answer as if denying them and even so, my score (his score) is deep into the “You probably have Asperger’s” scale. I take the test again, softening my responses from “Absolutely agree” to “sometimes agree” and he still has Asperger’s. And I still don’t know what to do.
And then I think, well, maybe EVERYONE has Asperger’s and I take the test a third time, this time answering the questions as myself. “You probably don’t have Asperger’s,” I read on the screen.
Sigh.

4:30
I take a bath and do the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle, in ink (badly). I get sleepy and crawl back to the sofa. Fall asleep for… ten minutes. Wake up worried again. This has to be hormonal. Two nights in a row. I’ve never had this issue before. Suddenly, I’m taking bio-identical hormones to STOP my symptoms and they’re all back. What the?

I go online: From bhrt-resource.com
…. Without ovulation, less progesterone is produced, which can cause estrogen imbalance in some women.
Some other causes of estrogen dominance include...Exposure to xenoestrogen consumer products such as creams, soaps, shampoo, and lotions.   Adhesives found in paint removers, nail polish, and glues along with car exhaust, petrochemically derived pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides solvents are all sources of xenoestrogen.   Industrial xenoestrogens are a family of chemicals called solvents. Industrial xenoestrogens enter the body through the skin. They are commonly found in cosmetics, fingernail polish, glues, paints, and cleaning products.

I knew this but reading it again, especially in the middle of the night, makes me cringe… holy crap!

Commercially raised cattle and poultry  are fed growth hormone and estrogen-like hormones. People that eat these animals may have the hormones passed on to them.   Antibiotics used in livestock can contribute to hormone balance problems. The use of antibiotics is especially prevalent in poultry farms.   Livestock feeds contain a myriad of toxins that disrupt hormone balance. Toxins such as pesticides, antibiotics, and drugs are used to fight the potential for disease from over crowding farms.   Deep sea fish and smaller fish (such as sardines and cod) are far superior to beef or chicken in terms of hormone load

But of course, then you’re dealing with heavy metals, mercury from commercial factories dumping into waterways.

Pesticides from fruits and vegetables disrupt hormone balance.   Pesticide residues have chemical structures that are similar to estrogen which are eventually passed on to humans.

Yup! Eat organic…

Obesity The higher the fat intake, the higher the conversion of fat to estrogen.

Yup, 40 pounds of conversion going on in here.

Stress causes adrenal gland fatigue and reduces progesterone output. Excessive estrogen in turn causes insomnia and anxiety, which further compounds the taxing of the adrenal gland. This cycle leads to a further reduction in progesterone output and even more estrogen dominance.   After years of this cycle, problems worsen and can lead to blood sugar imbalance, hormonal imbalances, and chronic fatigue.

Uh- huh. Breathe…

Liver Disease from drinking excessive alcohol reduce the breakdown of estrogen. Taking drugs that impair liver function also contribute to a higher level of estrogen.

Though I rarely drink—and if I do, it’s a glass of red wine, which is okay—my liver needs constant support, according to my acupuncturist, because of a lifetime of anemia and low blood volume.

Deficiency of Vitamin B6 and Magnesium Too much estrogen also tends to create deficiency of zinc, magnesium and the B vitamins. These all play an important role in hormonal balance.

OK, then. Though this information is out there, and I’ve read it all before, finding it in the middle of the night while unable to sleep and having hot flashes and after two migraines in a ten-day period… I am humbly PAYING ATTENTION.

5:00 am
Breakfast
Two Omega 3 eggs with organic cheddar; ¼ organic avocado
Hot water with lemon and honey. It’s fun, each morning, to reach for that tea and feel the tug of intuition asking, “Are you sure you want that? Check again.” When I check in with my body, it always wants the lemon and honey more than the tea. I can feel it, very specifically and distinctly.
I write a bit on my angel column and go back to sleep until 730 (thank God!)

730
Working on angel column while everyone sleeps. Sun is out. Gorgeous day.

825 am
Black tea, plain. Halfway through, I am switching back to hot water with lemon and honey. (yea!)(Isn’t this weird how it’s like I am not making these choices? Like I have some inner cheerleader going, “yea!” when I take care of myself and some outer grumbler going, “Fine then!”)

I’ve got a freelance thing to do today. My friend, who edits a local paper, is letting me some interviews for her, four people who met their “intended” at Jewish summer camp. What a fun idea.

I also have to finish my WW column and do a client reading at 3. Tight, busy day. I’ll need to keep the stress level down… so, probably should get out of the house.

1030
Hot water with lemon and Honey
Feverishly working on angel column. Let’s go out, Katie says.

1230
Angel column submitted.
Katie and I took my big jar of coins to the bank and cashed it in and went to lunch at Panera.
You pick two: Chicken Caesar Salad and tomato soup; iced tea; water with lemon

2:15
I am walking back from the bathroom, the name of that publisher comes to me again. That’s when a beautiful white haired woman, sitting by the iced tea machine, catches my eye. She looks so familiar, I think, as she smiles at me. I smile back. Turn to look at Katie. When I turn back to the woman, she’s vanished.

This feeling rushes over me. I sit down and pull up my email to the publisher. He hasn’t responded, I think, because he thought it was SPAM and deleted it. This time, I type a clearer subject line (which I am keeping to myself) one that he can’t mistake for spam, invoking the name of his best selling author. I re-send the email, after adding the story about the white haired woman.

3pm
Client call about the trickster archetype, money and relationships

4:30
CVS for toothpaste
With our last five dollars, Katie and went to Dairy Queen
1 scoop mint chocolate chip; brought matt a scoop of coffee ice cream

5:30
I open my email and there it is: A reply from the President of the publishing house. I am not nervous. I click on it: Send me the book by email and I’ll review it.
Now I am nervous.

5:35
(after happy dance is complete)
I type back: I don’t have a finished book, I have three books almost finished with complete outlines, and great first few chapters.

5:45
Great. Send me those.
Now I am really nervous.

Angel column sails through. I loved loved loved this, my editor writes, putting me on cloud nine.

I will do the freelance interviews tomorrow. I have already tripled my extra income this week.

6:15
My sister calls. Her ex partner has colon cancer again. Crap. It’s spread to her liver. Crap. Surgery, Chemo… crap crap.

7:45
Dinner
Wild Alaskan Salmon; brown rice pilaf with sesame seeds; broccoli rabe; arrugula salad

Day four of our thousand dollars a day game – we all decide that, instead of doubling the sum each day (we’d be trying to spend 12,000 each today and Katie, at 18, is barely able to spend her 1000), it’s more realistic, and more effective, to just get paid one thousand dollars a day.

“I am going to lunch at Legal Seafood… “ I begin. “I am buying the jeans from H and M,” Katie says… “I am paying the car insurance,” Matthew says. “I am paying the taxes.”

American Idol. Great show. But…
OK, well, Kris then.

Thursday
Up at 4 am
Tea with cream and 20 minutes later, a big stomach ache. This is over.

5 am
1 cup brown rice pilaf and hot water with lemon and honey

Working on my book proposals so intently that I forgot to record anything until Saturday night. But I remember that Friday I took some bright Gerbera Daisies to Francesca, who has just had her tonsils out and sat, sipping herbal tea with her, my son, and her parents talking about their six cats and encouraging the normally loquacious Francesca to whisper. Ouch!

Saturday
Progesterone
820
Plain black tea

940
Breakfast
Sausage egg and 1 slice whole grain bread
Ice tea; water

1255
Lunch
2 Omega 3 fish oil; 1 multi with B
greens with lentils and brown rice
1 square 70% organic chocolate
water

3:30
Snack
Gluten free almond cake from Starbucks – too much sugar but otherwise good and no reaction; Awake tea with cream

510
Movies: Summer Hours – really bad film. Don’t see it. ½ small buttered popcorn; water

740
Dinner at the diner:
Omelet with cheddar, tomato and green peppers; 10 french fries
Tea with ½ and ½

Sunday
Breakfast
Working my head off on the book proposal and driving myself crazy about it. I have to settle down. This is not the absolute only chance I will ever have. It’s a beginning, an opening, a chance for the president of a big publishing house to look over my work. If he likes it, great. If not, there are other places—and perhaps he’ll give me good feedback so I know why not.

My sense is that he’ll like my writing and the only real issue is which book to send. I’ve been debating with myself for three days about this—finally decided to send synopsis of the three most developed ideas (or even four) with outlines and a few chapters of the best one. (I hope I don’t overwhelm him!)

Hot water with lemon and honey
One egg, nitrate free sausage and 1 oz cheddar, 1 slice whole grain bread
Iced tea

Water with lemon

12
Lunch
Panera: Little pastry wrapped cheese thing with artichokes

Long walk, two miles around the corporate park. Beautiful day, talking with my angels about the book proposal—they calmed me down and gave me more pinecones and showed me an apple orchard, hidden at the back of the parking lot.

330
Snack
¼ of a slice of amazing quiche at the patisserie! Worth every calorie. And a bite of Max’s chocolate croissant
Ran into Maya, an old client of mine
Lovely tea in a white porcelain cup
Lovely children talking about life with each other, with me

530
Tea with OG cream

640
Dinner
Turkey/portabello Bolognese and brown rice with salad
Everything is organic except the turkey

1030
apple

up too late working on book
goodnight
See you next week

What I ate this week

2009-05-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Monday
Breakfast
Greens drink
I/2 slice liverwurst; ¼ slice muenster; 1 egg with homemade chicken sausage (ground chicken, fennel seed, onions, mushrooms); ½ slice of men’s bread toast; 2 slices blood orange

10:15
½ cup Tea with 1 tsp ½ and ½ (ick)
Am I finally getting tired of tea?

12:00
Writing angel column; sending it to Doreen
Small tomato soup and small chicken Caesar salad no croutons, ½ slice whole grain baguette; Water with lemon

Driving to city: ½ iced tea; water

2 miles walking in city while KT takes part one of the GED Exam (Science, History, Reading) at the Manhattan School on West 52nd Street, NYC
Starbuck’s Earl Grey Tea latte/skim/unsweetened while waiting.

Dinner at diner: ½ omelet with avocado and cheddar (I ordered a completely different thing but it was good so Katie and I shared it) and about ten French fries;
Water with lemon

Bedtime snack: 2 pieces of liverwurst; hot water with lemon

TUESDAY
Water
Greens Drink
Yoga (20 minutes)
Reading James Frey’s new book: Bright Shiny Morning (about Los Angeles: it’s amazing but disturbing as hell)

630
Breakfast: Lipton tea with a soupcon of cream
1 Scrambled egg with a little white cheddar and grape tomatoes in olive oil

10:00
Big water with lemon
Gingerly applied 2 ml. estrogen cream (per prescription) afraid to re-trigger headache. It shouldn’t but I can’t help feeling concerned.

1030
Composing angel column for submission to Andrea
Sleepytime tea and… 2 oz fresh mozzarella; 2 slices liverwurst…

11:00
Small apple, 1 egg, God, I’m hungry! maybe I need fat: 3 walnuts… maybe I should just eat lunch…

11:30 black tea with cream

12:30
Lunch: BIG Arrugula salad with tuna, white beans, artichoke hearts, 2 olives,
hard boiled egg

1:15
Finally writing when Robin, an old childhood friend, calls. What a lovely surprise! We arrange to meet up in Nyack.
1 apple; 1 square dark chocolate (70 %); water
Tea with teensy bit of cream

2:50
Pick up Katie/tomorrow is her last day of high school!

3:10
Prepare for radio show; water

4 pm:
Radio show: More Miracles: GRACE and GRATITUDE and cultivating a relationship with GOD

Dinner:
Whole Grain pasta with Buffalo Bolognese sauce with zucchini, celery and carrots; Broccoli rabe.

American Idol and Fringe. Voted 4 times for Kris Allen. Voted 1 time for Adam Lambert who doesn’t need our help as much.

WEDNESDAY
KATIE’S LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL …. Ever.
Estrogen cream

Last night, at midnight, my son came in from his girlfriend’s house and fell asleep on the sofa. This morning, I put on the dishwasher so he could sleep—white noise, ever since he was a baby, helps.

Angel Column due today.
Breakfast:
Tea and one bite of muesli as I am chased out of the house by my husband shouting about money, I drive KT to school and sit in the parking lot until she comes out, an hour later.

Katie and I hide at the diner, sharing one omelet with cheddar/bacon/tomato/peppers and fries

2:00 pm Katie and I leave for the city for part two of the GED (Math and Writing.)
Walking one mile in city.
Starving, I stop at Starbucks but they have no food only cakes/treats. I order a tea latte (unsweetened) and a cookie that’s much too sweet, loaded with dried fruit (which I’d thought was nuts) and triggers a glycemic reaction. Now I’m starving. I move to the diner and order a Cheeseburger with fries.

I feel weird and over caffeinated. I am never having tea again. I order a glass of water with no ice. Why do they always put ice in the water? It’s not good for the body…

A big man, over 6 feet and at least 300 pounds, dressed in a tee shirt, baseball cap and sunglasses sits at the next table along the banquette. He pulls out a folded paper and begins to read. He orders his meal quietly. It comes. He doesn’t bother me. I don’t bother him.
A man approaches him. “You were great in the show today,” he says.
“Thanks,” the big man mumbles.
I look up.
I am sitting beside John Goodman! Roseanne show, West Wing, love him, John Goodman. He’s in costume for his role in “Waiting for Godot” which must have just done its Wednesday matinee. I just read about the play in the NY Times. The theater is just around the corner.

Too much caffeine… I don’t want to bother him. I’ve tried talking with celebrities and I suck at it. I get all weird and sweaty so I give him his space. But now that I know he’s there, that entire side of the room is off limits to my eyes. I sit, trying to look natural, but its as if I have just sprained my neck and am unable to move it to the left at all. But is HE looking at ME? Weird. Maybe he thinks I’m attractive. Maybe he’ll talk to ME! Maybe he needs a ketchup and I have one! He looks away. Probably wondering what’s wrong with my neck….

I give up being weird and get back to writing my book… I forget JG is there until he gets up and pays his check. But my neck won’t move in that direction (you know, injury…) and I don’t watch him leave. As the waiter engages me in a lilting conversation about how fast I can type, JG slips into the flow of the sidewalk and disappears. For a fleeting moment, I imagine him turning to gaze at me one last time…

My cell phone rings. Thank God. Something to distract me from my nonsense. Somehow, picking it up heals my neck. A miracle!

I am completely out of money after paying for parking and gas and now these two meals. Today is the 13th and I wont be paid again until the 22nd. No savings. No reserves. Bills looming including two shiny new college tuitions to pay.

Uh oh

I drop Katie off at Jake’s house for a LOST party. Jake’s father is a world-class storyteller who’s been touring the country with his latest show: The Frog Prince. “Where are you back from?” I ask, hugging him.
“Alaska,” he grins.
“Wow. So the show’s going well?”
“The frog has legs!” he laughs.

They invite me to dinner, “We’re having Russian!” he says. “Smoked salmon, a single shot of chilled vodka, hardboiled eggs, and toast.”
It all looks great but I need to talk with Matthew.
When I get home, Max is camped on the sofa again. Matthew and I, once again, don’t talk.

No Dinner: Not hungry after the burger. Toast with cream cheese. I am not drinking tea anymore so…. Water.

Two hours of LOST, switching back and forth with American Idol. My husband keeps walking in the room and shouting, “You people are LOST!” Then, he gets pulled into the story and sits on the couch, on top of my laundry. When LOST is over, he says, “I can’t believe I let you people pull me into this shit again.”
He goes to get Katie at 11 pm while I fall asleep on the couch watching President Obama’s commencement address at Arizona State University

THURSDAY
Estrogen
Raining. 162 pounds. The weight loss has frozen. I need to exercise. Every single day. I know what I need to do—yoga in the morning, gym in the afternoon and a long walk at least once each day. Otherwise, the weight sits there—especially when I eat French fries twice in one day.

I will not have tea. I will not have tea. I turn on the kettle. I will not have tea. I open the tea bag (lipton) I will not have tea. I observe myself having tea even though I have chosen not to have tea. I decide that this observation process is more interesting than the question of whether or not to have tea. I pour the water into the cup, dunk the teabag a few times.

I am sipping the tea, black and plain from a white ceramic HOFSTRA university mug. Nice that they give the parents a mug to remind us every morning that our son is in college now. (Though mine has transferred to New Paltz, I like this cup). The tea tastes boring and it gives me an instant headache/stomachache. I keep sipping it. Why? I observe this obsessive behavior with interest but little will.

Why don’t I stop drinking the tea?
It’s 7:35 am. No one has to be awakened for school…. Ever again.

What in the world will I do with myself?

I go to the bathroom. I take a shower. There is a weird burn on my right ring finger that I didn’t have last night and I don’t know where it came from. Did aliens kidnap me in the middle of the night and etch a brand onto the tip of my fourth finger? Did I touch something hot in my sleep? What the…?

Egg on whole grain baguette with bacon and cheese. Iced Tea.
(By the way, THIS, and French fries, is why I am not losing weight.
If I am gong to lose weight, it is going to be with lean protein and mostly vegetables.
And exercise.)

Today, I sent an email to the president of Hay House publishing asking for a brief, email conversation about my work. Wish me luck. I also sent Doreen an email about a dream I had a year ago about Archangel Michael and which I should have sent her then, when she was collecting his stories for her book.

I have also just noticed that estrogen cream makes me really hungry and kind of obsessive.

LUNCH:
Vegetable curry with coconut milk. Basmati brown rice.
One Kashi chocolate chip cookie

330
My friend, Delia, comes over for tea with strawberries. I slice and put them out; with a pot of French blue flowers tea and we talk about art and God and 20-year-old men (our sons).

6pm
Dinner; lamb/mushroom/mint meatballs in tomato sauce over brown basmati rice

8 pm
Radio Show with Janet: Willpower vs. Angel Power (one of our best shows)

Two hour Grey’s Anatomy Season Finale Snack: Two squares 70% chocolate; water, oatmeal with cream

Matthew keeps me up talking and arguing until 1:30 am

Friday
NO MORE ESTROGEN – It has given me a &^%%$ headache.
I wake up, back aching as if I have a kidney infection, with a little headache

Breakfast: We have no eggs, no bread, no money to get more. Matthew, who is not good under pressure, starts a fight with me about nonsense.

Tea with cream; 2 hard boiled eggs from yesterday; Some leftover rice

My headache is getting worse. I take a ¼ of a decongestant tablet. If this headache is sinus related, that’s all I will need. Matthew picks another fight with me

Lunch:
Katie and I go to Didier to get out of Matthew’s house of pain. I pull out my overdraft card. 20 dollars that I will owe when the next paycheck comes and we each have a lovely turkey/avocado baguette sandwich and tea

My headache is REALLY getting worse. Eyes swollen, face puffy, a little queasy and so thirsty I can’t stop drinking.
We drive the the river and I sit in the car, sipping water and trying to sleep while Katie goes outside, sits on a bench and writes in her journal. She comes back and says, “You look baaad. Let’s get you a coke.”
We get one each at McDonalds, paying in quarters: $2.17.
I drink it on the way home. I feel much better. WHY? WHY? WHY?

At home, I eat a handful of pecan granola and collapse on the couch. Sleep.
Matthew calls, he got paid—we can buy groceries! But I can’t walk so I sleep on the sofa some more and Matthew goes to pick up Chinese food.
I wake up and eat 8 wontons, sip some soup, a little bag of Chinese noodles and some broccoli with tofu and rice

Saturday
Feeling a lot better.
My compounding pharmacist gets back to me: STOP THE ESTROGEN! He writes. (I stopped it yesterday)

Woman’s healing BREW: Combine DRY ½ cup nettle leaf, ¼ c. each: red clover blossoms, spearmint leaf, sage leaf, dandelion leaf; red raspberry leaf.
Measure out 4 T into a mason jar, fill with boiling water. Steep.
Sip all day to build blood and heal all womanly ailments.

You may ask, “If you know how to work with healing herbs, why don’t you drink this every day?” Good question.

Breakfast:
Nitrte free sausage with one egg (no cheese, bread crusts)

When I’m all done, and have written all I can; I go to car. I’ve left the lights on and must wait for Matt to come and jumpstart my car. He comes in two hours. This is the 10th time this has happened since January. It always happens after a headache when I have no brain.

While waiting, I order an iced tea and a foccacia sandwich with turkey and artichoke spinach spread and eat half, reserving the other half for Matthew, who is driving to the city. I eat it while reading FREQUENCY, a book about how the universe works, how we can create anything we want using the law of attraction if we also understand the science and the spiritual principles behind things. Basically, it’s an explanation of why law of attraction, when used just to get stuff, doesn’t work very well. It works at first, but soon falls apart… leaving us wondering why and what we are doing wrong.

When I get home Katie is in bed, watching “About a Boy.” I climb up next to her and we watch it together. Later, I make a grilled cheddar sandwich on raisin walnut bread. I eat an apple while preparing dinner.

Dinner:
Black lentil soup with greens, cauliflower and tomatoes.
Steamed Millet with ghee

Later, I try and drink a cup of tea but it tastes bad and I pour it down the sink.

Sunday
I seem to have gained 100 pounds!
My belly is distended. I look like a whale. What the…?

6 am Hot water with lemon and honey
8 am Panera sausage and egg and cheese (no bread)
Hot water with lemon and honey

Grocery shopping – at the checkout I have to put 30 dollars worth of items back when my debit card is refused. When I check my balance it’s lower than it was an hour earlier. Huh?

12 30 Tea with cream – banana/ Client call
2 pm woman’s herbal brew and leftover lentil soup
4 pm Katie is baking a cake – we spend my very last penny on sugar, butter and chocolate; I have one little taste, like 1/8 tsp. of icing and get dizzy from the sugar
6 pm Dinner/Salmon burgers on potato rolls with dill havarti arrugula, mustard and tomato; tea; tiny slice of katie’s lovely cake.

Max is coming over tonight (He heard there was cake.)

What I ate this week

2009-05-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

What I ate this week
After a day-long fast when I had a migraine, I am sure that I lost some weight but I am keeping the scale in the closet for a while. All of my pants are looser.

Monday
2 Black tea with OG cream
Nibbles of chicken soup which Im preparing for Dad who has a cold
2 scrambled eggs with cheese and ham.
2 stalks broccoli

As I was writing, I burned Dad’s chicken soup. But I repaired it by adding more veggies (corn, peas, and more squash—I am going to puree the soup in the blender so he can sip it through a straw as he has no bottom teeth now.)

Snack: 1030
At WW: small apple; black tea (no cream or sugar)

I've reconsidered Dad's soup and flushed it down the toilet (we don't have a garbage disposal). It tasted like smoke, totally burnt.

Lunch: 12:00
Leftover Lamb Mix up
steamed Broccoli
Water

Snack 230
Tazo Black tea with cream
Yogurt with sesame seeds, sunnies and crushed flax seeds. (excellent)
½ Banana

Snack
Reading angel mail
I chocolate square while making dinner

Dinner while watching Finding Forester with Katie (We love our new HBO!)
Tuna melts on 1 slice balthazar rye toast with mozzarella and artichoke hearts (yummy)
Tea

Snack: while watching HOUSE and writing my angel column
Katie baked cookies and I ate too many (6 tiny ones) and got a tummy ache from the wheat flour
(For some reason I can eat whole grain wheat but not white flour)

TUESDAY – period/1
Reading angel mail

Breakfast:
2 small wheat-free rye toast with coconut oil; 2 eggs with cream cheese
tea

herbal tea; chicken Caesar salad.no cheese at panera; later, I switched to iced black tea (plain)

Snack: French fries and gravy with Katie at diner; tea

Dinner: My son and his girlfriend came for dinner. I made a meal to build her blood and mine (and Katie's) as we are all menstrual or pre-menstrual. I ate: 1 lamb chop; brussels sprouts; polenta with parmesan; beets; chopped kale with nutmeg and cream; 6 tiny (one-inch) cookies (I know, but they are so good! And no tummy ache this time... )

WEDNESDAY – period/ day 2
Water
Tea/French blue flowers

7:00
2 eggs, cheddar, chopped kale (I don’t recommend this/kinda weird)
2 rice cakes/cream cheese (Id rather have avocado)

lunch 11:30
Panera: tomato soup/chicken Caesar salad, no cheese

Snack: Rice/black bean chips

Dinner - Brown rice and black beans - very yummy.

THURSDAY – period day 3
Breakfast: Rice cake with avocado and goat cheddar

Lunch: Panera: Chicken caesar salad, iced tea

Snack: Kashi chocolate chip cookie; apple

(Katie got into the film program! Happy Dance…)

Dinner: Leftover Mixup with Lamb, onions, lentils and creamy kale

8 pm The Amy and Janet Show

FRIDAY – period day 4
Headache coming in… kinda nauseous.

Breakfast
Apple; 1/2 a rice cake with avocado
Tea (plain)

Haircut 1115
Walk one mile by river looking for my kids… cell phone died. Migraine looming…

Warning! When I am getting a headache I try to cure it with food:

Lunch:
Cheesecake factory: Burger with cheddar on brioche bun. French fries. Whipped cream
Iced green tea (unsweetened)

Late Snack/dinner: Artichoke hearts and chocolate chip cookie… Buckwheat Kasha with butter…

5:30 pm Applied estrogen cream (turns out I was doing it all wrong… Will it make the h/a go away?) No, it makes everything worse with lots of crying and suffering that even Sense and Sensibility on HBO cannot quell.

Blackberry banana protein smoothie (whey protein powder, water, berries, 1 banana and ½ cup sheeps milk yogurt but I don’t like it and drink only 1/4 before falling asleep in front of the TV at 9pm

Saturday – day 5
BIG KICK ASS HEADACHE with throwing up and a nail through the side of my head. Sleep all day. No food at all until 3 pm when my husband brings me a bottle of Coke which miraculously makes me feel totally better. Can ANYONE explain this to me?

4 pm - I can walk. I toast two pieces of Men’s Bread (French Meadow Bakery) and gingerly eat them with teensy bites
a little more Coke and mots more sleeping

Dinner/8 pm - Feeling okay, if a little loopy. I get up and make plain ground chicken burgers on potato buns with a little manchego cheese (Would anyone in this family eat anything if I did not make it? I'm just asking...)
1 cup of tea with a tiny touch of cream which tastes like heaven
Asleep at 9pm

Sunday
Mother’s Day
I wake up feeling perfect which, as we all know, feels double perfect after being sick!
But I still am not that hungry...

Breakfast
One egg with 1/2 a slice of cheese and 1/4 avocado
David Ayer’s pancake ½ serving (egg, milk, flour, butter, lemon, brown sugar) which I made when everyone came by for mother's day.

Lovely Lunch with my Mom at Citrus Grill:
Green salad with sashimi
Beef ravioli in ginger/lemongrass/coconut milk sauce with short ribs
1 pc. of baguette with butter and a few bites of mom's ricotta gnocchi in pesto sauce

We all go to the movies to see Star Trek, which I totally recommend. I have one tall Starbuck’s Tea Latte/unsweetened

Dinner: 8 pm
Salmon and arrugula spinach salad with sautéed, beets, onions and tomatoes

What I ate this week

2009-05-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

This week I lost six pounds.
This remarkable event seems to have occurred because:
1) it's finally warm out and I automatically MOVE more. Parking farther from the supermarket. Walking a little each morning. Doing Sun Salutations and finally, they are not triggering hot flashes!
2) it's finally warm out and I feel better about life in general. I noticed that just feeling better results in an automatic weight reduction... do feelings of "heaviness" actually have physical weight, I wonder?
3) I started bio-identical hormones. (Hence the uplifted mood and lack of hot flashes.)
4) I wrote down everything I ate. This is a trick I learned in Weight Watchers (and Atkins) and it has always worked for me.
Maybe/probably because it makes me mindful of what I am cooking and eating; and knowing that I'd be posting it on the blog makes me feel more accountable. (So Im much less likely to grab a bag of chips or a cookie if I know I have to write it down and confront it.)

I've decided, with your indulgence, to write down every thing I eat until I reach my goal weight of 135.
Here we go:

What I ate this week
Starting weight: 168

(OG= organic)

MONDAY
Breakfast
1 cup black tea with OG cream
Omelet: 2 Omega-3 eggs with 1 oz. OG cheddar (full fat) and a handful of grape tomatoes sautéed in olive oil

1-hour nature walk with long steep hill (1.2 miles)
five-minute stretch (NEED TO DO SUN SALUTATIONS)

Snack
6-10 grapes
1 oz brie

Lunch
Lettuce wraps with zucchini slices, mayo and avocado
½ mango sliced
3 oz. smoked salmon

Snack
Four slices organic turkey bologna, 2 oz mozzarella; I apple

1-2 mile (45 minute) walk up and down steep hills in city

Dinner (Italian restaurant):
Freshly brewed Iced tea with lemon (no sugar)
WATER
Salad with arrugula, beets, chicken
2 slices pizza with fresh mozzarella, garlic, broccoli and eggplant

Evening Snack – after lecture at 92nd St. Y (Ursula LeGuin and Alan Lightman)
2 slices turkey bologna
Tea with cream and no sugar

TUESDAY
No exercise – KT’s early day; rushing to get there on time; early deadline at WW (Kristin going on vacation and I have to pick up Janet tomorrow for DR appt when I’d normally do the column)

Breakfast
Black tea with French blue flowers
1 brown rice cake
2nd breakfast at Panera - Freshly brewed iced tea and water (no lemon or sugar)
2 eggs with 3 slices nitrate free bacon and 2 oz cabot’s white cheddar (no bread)
Small fruit cup (cantaloupe, honeydew and red grapes)

Note: fruit cup immediately started food cravings cycle-too sweet (I suspect it had added sugar. I need to make this myself or eat whole fruit)

Snack/at home: 4 slices turkey bologna
Small handful walnuts
Iced tea

Lunch/At home
Chicken Salad made with chicken breasts poached with 1 onion, four cloces garlic, black pepper, 1 sweet potato, and 2 stalks celery
Hellman’s mayo, sliced blackberries, cilantro and salt.

Snack/at home
Tea
Water
2 squares Lindt 70% chocolate

Dinner
Lentil Soup: Black lentils, poaching broth from chicken salad; zucchini, beet greens and ½ potato
I brown rice cake
Black tea with ¼ tsp heavy cream

Snack: Mozzarella and more lentil soup

WEDNESDAY
No Exercise: Had to leave at 745 to Pick up Janet at 930 in city (kinda hectic day)

2 eggs scrambled in olive oil
black tea with ¼ tsp OG cream (didn’t finish – ick)
1 cup honeydew

Snack (1030)
In car: Powdered Greens (Green Vibrance) drink with ¼ tsp. psyllium husk
1 cup honeydew

mini lunch (noon)
At WW: brown rice cake with almond butter (1/4 tsp)
Water
Iced black tea (unsweetened) from Starbucks

Lunch (1:20)
Water
Diner: Mozzarella portabella grilled chicken salad with cukes, sundried tomatoes, tomatoes, roasted red papers and lettuce and red onion

Big fight with matthew, lots of shouting. Headache getting worse: Upper back pain between shoulders (some yoga eased pain and headache)

High tea (Snack):
2 squares 70% chocolate
Banana
Black tea with cream

Dinner:
Lentil soup with shredded chicken (mixed chicken soup with lentil soup)
Water
Black tea with cream

THURSDAY
Note: Weight this morning 162
No exercise
PMS: headache; Big emotional breakdown. Matthew held me while I sobbed out all the things the headache seemed to be "saying", basically: I can't make decisions about anything; I never finish my projects; I am always completely convinced that both sides of every choice are right. Matthew said, "Maybe you don't have to choose. Why don't you try holding both options in your consciousness at the same time. Just holding them there and NOT deciding." And when I did that, the headache disappeared.

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs in olive oil
Tea with cream
2 romaine lettuce leaves, rolled up and crunchy

Snack:
2 brown rice cakes (one with cream cheese, one plain)

Lunch:
Salmon salad made with salmon filet broiled with olive oil and Homa’s spice rub; two stalks celery, aduki beans, grape tomatoes
8 blackberries and 1 cup fruit (melon, pineapple, grapes)
Honest Tea/Black Forest Berry (caffeine free/some sugar)

High tea:

Dinner:
Beef short ribs braised with onions, celery, crimini mushrooms, thyme, 3 cups water, 1 cup grape tomatoes; 6 cloves garlic
Braised Greens
Butternut squash with butter and cinnamon
(Matt and Katie can have rice)

Skipped radio show tonight. Janet can’t make it.

Snack with grey’s anatomy: Chocolate almond torte and whipped cream

Friday
Breakfast
2 small pieces of rye toast with avocado and goat cheddar
2 eggs fried in olive oil
black tea with cream

Note: About twenty minutes after eating the toast, I feel weird and fizzy. MOre evidence that wheat is not good for me.)

Lunch: Salmon salad from yesterday, rice cake with avocado
Small handful nuts

Snack: Apple

Dinner: Not so hungry
1 ½ red potato with butter; beet greens; while talking with Matthew about Katie and college.
water

SATURDAY
Breakfast:
Ravenously hungry
Rice cake with cream cheese
Maison Freres Black tea with French blue flowers

Panera: one poached egg, 1 ½ strips bacon, 1 oz cheddar (no bread)
One rice cake
Black iced tea
Water

I was writing about the heart chakra and ahimsa, the principle of non-harming from yoga when my daughter called to invite me to join her and friends at the patisserie in Nyack. I did not practice Ahimsa. I said, "You always invite me when you jsut want me to pay for everyone." She said, "What the F*&%! I have money. I am calling because I love spending time with you. Forget it!" I called her back and apologized, telling her that I was mean because I was studying Ahimsa. Somehow, she knew what I meant and she laughed. "You're so funny, Mommy," she said. Then, my son called and met me at panera and we talked for a while about girls and life. Then, we sat at adjacent tables, quietly writing together. Nice.

Lunch: Came home with Max and found Katie painting the ugly dark brown living room furniture white, which I’ve wanted to do for months! Hooray!

Chicken salad made with papaya, aduki beans, walnut pieces, cilantro and cucumber in an olive oil lime dressing with cumin and chili powder
¼ avocado
black tea with cream (1/2 tsp)

Snack: I cant remember; probably nuts and fruit

Dinner:
Quinoa and Turkey Pasta Sauce
Romaine lettuce Salad

Turkey pasta sauce: Saute onion, garlic, chopped celery and 1 zucchini fennel seed and basil/oregano; add ground turkey; 1 OG tomato (diced); 1 jar Trader Joe’s OG Vodka Sauce; when sauce is almost finished, add 3 cups of spinach, chopped into chiffonade ribbons, stir together until spinach wilts down.

Evening/Party at Sarah’s apartment in the city where I spoke French and had 1 glass red wine; sliced ham/cream cheese rollups; 2 little potatoes; and on the way home, 1 small amazing, buttery, incredible brownie that Sarah’s friend from Paris baked—and which Sarah packed into a little ziploc bag for me. And Jenny made me French flowers tea in a little glass jar which I sipped as I drove home (1 hour/no traffic)

Sunday
Pouring so no walk.
Breakfast: I smuggled a cup of Starbuck’s tea into Panera; then, felt guilty and bought a cup of tea from Panera, into which I poured the Starbuck’s tea.
Panera: One egg with nitrate free sausage and 1 oz cheddar (no bread)
(I put the cheese on the rice cake and eat it later)

2 small apples

Late lunch at Dad’s room:
I always bring him a Frappucino and a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies or Oreos
Today, Dad had a cold and looked miserable. His favorite aide, whose name I cant remember, said, "Oh, you're here! It's been a VERY long time...." I reminded Dad that Id been there last week... but we realized, I hadn't. It's been two weeks. And even though I told him that a Frappuccino was NOT good medicine, he said, Let me have it anyway.

I was really hungry but there was nothing to eat except what I had in my grocery bag. I'd purchased some things Dad used to like: Liverwurst, ham, pumpkin seeds, nuts. He's been complaining that the food at the home is getting worse every week--"it's the budget cuts," he says. "Food is the first place they cut--food and staff.") So I thought he might like to taste things he doesn't get anymore. You better not let THEM see that!," Dad gasped when I pulled out the ham. The home where he lives now is Kosher and even though he's never been Kosher, and loves ham, he wouldn't eat it.) Next time, maybe I'll bring him some Chinese food. he used to like Egg Foo Young.

When I came home Katie was painting the living room walls “art gallery white”.

Sunday Dinner: Ground Lamb Mixup
Quinoa; Butternut Squash; Broccoli

Ground Lamb Mixup: Sauté one diced onion, 4 stacks celery; six cloves garlic, rosemary, thyme and oregano; 1 lb. ground New Zealand Lamb; in a separate pot, boil 1 cup green or black lentils until al dente; stir into lamb mixture; add 1/2 cup sheep's feta cheese (diced)

Evening Snack while watching The Savages with Katie (we have HBO now!) 2 squares Choc-o-Love 70% chocolate and, of course, tea. (This movie made me want to go right back to visit Dad tomorrow with chicken soup.)

Detoxing without Pain

2009-02-25T05:40:00.000-08:00

For the past three years, I've been struggling, on and off, with my weight and with migraines. All along, I've been receiving clear, insistent guidance to clean up my act in terms of diet and exercise. I know what to do--and I have tried, hard and often. But every time Ive launched a cleansing/detox/exercise program I'd trigger a migraine and, after two or three days of torture, I'd vow, never again.

The result has been a softening of my entire body and a couch potato inertia that has left me collapsed, most nights, in a listless heap on the sofa.

Though my pants wouldn't close any more and my hips had begun to spill into love handfuls, I wasn't willing to risk another headache. But today, I woke up with the thought: Surely this isn't the only choice available to me: between excruciating pain and toxicity (fat/inertia/lack of energy/icky skin/disease). There must be a way to create vibrant health gently and painlessly. (And by painless I am not saying that I'm not willing to work hard. I'm saying, surely there's a way to get my body back without triggering a migraine.)

It's amazing what can happen when you just change the questions you're asking. As soon as you do, you start getting new answers. Suddenly, my psychic "in-basket" was filling with hints about raw foods, about whole fruit shakes, about gentle yoga, about walking (vs. running). It seemed that EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE was talking about the skin-drenching, cell-nourishing, gently detoxifying benefits of raw foods.

So, I'm going to try it... a little at a time (what a concept!)

Today, I've had a green shake and I'm completely satisfied without my usual egg and chicken sausage breakfast.
Recipe: In a blender, puree 1/2 peeled and pitted avocado, 1 whole peeled orange, 1/2 apple, 3 dark green leaves (chard, collards, kale), 1 cup warm water (my shake also included a large scoop of greens powder and a banana but ick--I liked it better without these last minute additions when I could taste the lovely, REAL flavors of the whole foods)

For lunch, I'll order a diner salad with grilled salmon and I'm packing a ziploc bag of nuts and seeds to secretly sprinkle on top and try to resist the fries on my son's plate.

For snack, I'll probably have rice cakes with almond butter or avocado (the raw foods website recommends smoked salmon on a sprouted bagel spread with raw coconut oil, which also sounds good)

For dinner, a shredded RAW beet/zucchini/carrot salad with sesame seeds and EVOO, couscous and vegetable curry.

I'll keep you posted. I'm giving it one week. If I feel better at all, I'll keep going. If I get a headache, well, you know the pattern...

But I'll keep looking for what works for me. That's what this work, this life, and this blog are really all about.

Going Raw?

2009-02-25T04:02:00.000-08:00

Anyone eating raw right now? Want to share some tips...
My guides are poking at me to add "raw" to the free, light, organic, whole lifestyle plan...
Any thoughts? For example, what would that do to the word FLOW?

How about FlowER?

Free (fearless, flowering... flowing)
Light (lean, living, loving)
Organic (open)
Whole (wild, willing, worldly)
Energy (as in chi, as in living, as in everything is made of energy)
Raw (real)

Quick Black Lentil Kale Salad

2008-10-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

1 cup uncooked black (beluga) lentils
1 T. dried basil
1 bunch kale (dinosaur or regular variety)
2 T. EV Olive oil or to taste
1 T, Balsamic Vinegar or to taste

big handful crumbled Sheeps Feta Cheese (about 2 T or to taste)

Cook lentils in 2/12 cups boiling UNSALTED water.
While lentils are cooking, process kale through food processor. YOu want to come out with coleslaw sized shreds of Kale. I use the shredder blade.

Drain beans in colander and rinse in cold water until the lentils are just warm. Pour into large mixing bowl. Add basil and olive oil and stir. Add shredded kale. Add Feta cheese. Toss together and serve as a carbohydrate side dish with grilled chicken or fish or sliced steak.

To transform this into a one-dish flow meal: Omit Olive oil from recipe and stir in one can Genoa Tuna in Olive oil, drained and flaked with a fork before adding to lentil mixture.

Three simple steps to try:

2008-07-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

For one week

1) Eliminate all sugars, or if that feels too radical to you, try replacing white sugar (and brown sugar) with whole sugars like honey, maple syrup and agave syrup. Agave is the closest in flavor to white sugar, try it in your tea or coffee--a little goes a long way. (Do not replace with sugar substitutes.)

2) Eliminate white foods: White rice, white flour (breads, cakes, pastas), ice cream and dairy products. Enjoy whole grains and breads that contain sprouted grains and at least 3 g. fiber per serving.

3) Eliminate all sodas, fried foods and chips (including corn chips and "baked" chips).

At the end of the week, ask yourself: How do I feel? If you feel better, consider continuing to eat this way whenever possible.

Try this: Wind Sprints

2008-07-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

For the past few years, as I’ve developed this program, I’d been trying to run. But I don’t like it. I’d take off and soon as my heart started pounding, I’d panic, slowing to a brisk walk. Most of that running was down hills. For years, I thought I was “cheating” I thought that “real” athletes ran up hills. I felt like a faker. But this is what worked for me. I would watch other women run run run passing me each morning. As long as I keep going, I would tell myself. I don’t like sweating. I’d break a sweat and stop.

I learned to push past that moment, a little. But I don’t like it.

I invented my own kind of exercise. I called it Walk/Run. I would walk briskly, building up my speed and my heart rate and then, when the spirit hit me (or I hit a downhill stretch) I’d take off at top speed. At the bottom of the hill, I’d slow the pace and run a few more yards, then stop, walking briskly as my heart caught up with the rest of my body. Winded, sweating, I’d feel the endorphins flooding my body. I loved it. But still, I kind of beat myself up about it. Then, one day, I was reading Ultrametabolism and there, to my amazement, was my walk/run.

Wind Sprints! All this time I was doing something right. Now, I run down hill proudly. And when I stop running, I understand the science behind what my body innately knew and guided me toward. Listen to your body’s wisdom. Follow its lead. Don’t go for the burn unless the burn feels right to your body. Don’t raise our pulse rate beyond your comfort zone. Shoot for the balance point that your body knows. Remember that, over time, the more you include regular exercise in your day, the more endurance, stability, flexibility and stamina you’ll build. Eventually, wind sprints will lead to longer runs and maybe, one day, uphill sprints. You may find yourself in a marathon or you may discover that your body is a body that likes to swim, do yoga, attend pilates classes. Find your own way. Listen to your body.

Easy, incredible Low-Carb Wheat Free Pancakes!

2008-02-10T06:00:00.001-08:00

I got the basic pancake recipe--which made a stack of perfectly fine, tasty pancakes that even my picky teens loved--from Clean Eating Magazine.

But, as usual, I wanted more "bang" for my breakfast so... I started to play until I came up with these: Sublime, low carb, fluffy light... delicious.

Enjoy!

Sweet or Savory, Low Carb Wheat free Pancakes

In food processor add:
1 small zucchini, cut up. Pulse until coarsely shredded. Set aside

To blender, add, in this order:
4 egg whites
1 whole egg
1/2 c oatmeal
1/4 c fat free cottage cheese (or low fat)
pinch salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg (optional)

Blend until batter is smooth. Stir in shredded zucchini.

Heat up your non stick griddle/skillet
Add enough butter or olive oil to just coat the pan's surface(optional)

Pour batter onto hot griddle in pancake size rounds
When edges begin to look solid, flip pancake. Dont worry if middle is still wet or if some batter slides onto griddle.

Cook second side. Serve with grated pecorino romano cheese. Or your favorite all-fruit (no added sugar) preserves.

The Four Keys to Flow

2007-12-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

WHOLENESS
All is one. You, me, and every other person, creature, plant and stone are part of one wholeness. This wholeness encompasses all that is – past, present, future; body, mind, spirit - which many call God/dess.
The FLOW connects all things to each other. Our organic, built-in gesture (our nature) seeks community, connecting us also to the Earth and all her creatures, plants, minerals and waters. When we understand this, when we feel and experience ourselves as an integral part of this wholeness, we naturally and easily make choices that support the health and well-being of every cell in our body, every living creature and organism, every living system on the planet. We feel and experience ourselves as part of the FLOW of life, in the same way the water moves through a stream, we, infused with light/energy, flow through the world of form.

ORGANIC UNFOLDING
The natural FLOW of movement of All That Is is expansion. Each day our minds, bodies and spirits are adding new experience, learning new skills, generating new ideas. All of life is constantly expanding--and it does this without artifical stimulation, and it did it before we ever understood HOW it was accomplished. It was an organic process, seeded by the generation before, unfolding naturally and creatively, balancing itself infintely.

In the same gesture, the natural unfolding of human beings is expansive, creative and unfolding--without the interference of artificial stimulant or suppressant. This is the true meaning of the word organic.

LIGHT/MOVEMENT
FLOW is vital life energy, moving to us and through us at all times. Eastern cultures often refer to FLOW as "chi"; in Western texts, FLOW can be eqated with "light". FLOW requires a lightness in body, mind and spirit. When our spirits are heavy with worry, our cells clogged with toxicity, our minds fragmented and stressed, the FLOW meets resistance, just as if the pipes of our home or arteries were clogged, it becomes increasingly harder for this energy to flow.

FREEDOM
Freedom from worry, toxic sludge, stress and fragmentation releases the FLOW into our lives. The opposite of FLOW is fear/Fear creates resistance/blockages that lead to illness and breakdown of all of life. These blockages can always be reversed/cleared, no matter how advanced the progression, if the conditions that caused them are removed and/or reversed and the organism is supported through healing and rebalancing.

Free: Body

2007-11-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

A free body enjoys the full range of movement, and expresses its creativity physically. Whether threading a needle, doing yoga or participating in group dance, a free body moves easily, without pain or blockage. A body that is free is "owned", we are proud of the package we come in, understanding its strengths and limitations and always challenging the edge without competition or self-hate.

MOVE
Freedom of Movement - Joint flexibility, arthritis, muscular flexibility, cardio-vascular flexibility, What defines a free body?
Whole body liberators: Dance, drumming, yoga, tai chi, tennis, biking, skiing, skating, swimming, juggling, running, any sport that you love to do.

Many forces inhibit this body freedom.
Media Images inhbiit body freedom

WALK
Free walking engages us in the natural world, allows it to speak to us through the rustling of the wind through the trees and our hair, we feel more alive as we experience the sun on our skin (scientifically, we ARE more alive!) We are more connected to the earth’s subtle energies, more attuned to her rhythms and cycles. This attunes and aligns our bodies to those rhythms, making us part of the wholeness. A simple daily walk brings us into alignment with the earth, the tides, the cycle of the seasons.

Walking encourages us to look around, to engage with the natural world and with life itself. After a few days, the colors seem brighter, the light filtering through the trees more lovely, the ripples on the puddles glitter in the sun. Everything inspires us. The earth is a beautiful place, Even the most urban areas have beauty to spare—color, texture, the weed sprouting against all odds through a crack in the concrete. Make it your job to find the beauty. Expect to find it and you will.

Feel into the stiffness and numbness that collects in a body that sits all day at a desk in an air conditioned office, standing and moving only enough to move us from desk to coffee station, to rest room and back to desk again.

In the magazine office where I used to work, I found myself day after day sitting all the way through lunch. At the end of the day, I moved only enough to get from my desk to the car. I drove home, walked the 25 feet from car to back door, entered the house and collapsed, exhausted on the sofa, too tired to do anything but watch TV.

How could that be? I’d wonder. I haven’t done anything all day. In contrast, once I started walking and later, running, I woke up energized and wide awake. I looked forward to my daily walk (not every day, sometimes I groaned and wished I could stay in bed) At the end of the day, I had more energy than in the morning.

The more I exercised my body the more energy I had. The more I moved the LESS tired I felt.

TEN THOUSAND STEPS
A healthy body takes 10,000 steps a day or more. Invest five dollars in a pedometer and track your steps. Make a game out of getting your daily 10,000 and then, doubling that number. I park my car at the farthest spot from shopping entrances. I walk up and down the stairs at the office. At the mall, I walk up with the escalator and make a point of walking end to end at least once each visit.

USE YOUR HANDS
Create a quilt, paint a self-portrait, sing in the shower, sew, knit, beading, drawing, pet your cat, write in a journal. Arthritis?

DETOX
- Reduce/eliminate caffeine (coffee, tea, soda, chocolate). Replace with herbal teas, water with lemon (hot or cold), fresh juices (made by you, in a juicer, out of whole fruits and vegetables).
- Give up all carbonated beverages (soda and mineral water)
- Replace over-the-counter drugs (antacids, anit-inflammatories, cough and cold medicines, pain killers) with homeopathic remedies, healing herbs* and acupuncture/acupressure.
* Healing herbs work best as decoctions, tinctures and teas. Herbs are more effective when combined in specific ways with other herbs. Consult a trained herbalist or look for information online. Check resources section/links.

Eyes clear, ears clean, allergy-free, clean air, water, lungs free to breathe, joints free to move

What is a Whole Life?

2007-10-19T06:57:00.001-07:00

A whole life is integrated. In a whole life, every choice is made toward resonance with who we really are. We test this resonance at each choice point through our inner guidance system or intuition.

Everyone has this sixth sense. Though most of us have been trained to discount it. I’ve even caught my clients (and myself) treating their intuition like a nagging parent and doing just the opposite of what it suggests. But the more we trust this good idea detection system, the stronger it gets.

An example of this kind of choosing is what I call Intuitive Eating. You choose the foods that "feel" right to you. You go into a restaurant and, instead of scanning the menu to see what they're offering, scan your body, asking: What food would support my continued alignment with health, alertness, vibrant energy? When the server comes, ask for that food. Even if it's not on the menu. Most restaurants will accommodate a special order if they have the ingredients.

In his book, "A Hidden Wholeness," Parker J. Palmer writes, "We live in a culture that discourages us from paying attention to the soul or true self--and when we fail to pay attention, we end up living soulless lives." As such we create a world without a soul.

"The soul wants to keep us rooted in the ground of our own being, resisting the tendency of other faculties, like the intellect and ego, to uproot us from who we are," Palmer writes.

What strikes me about this is the phrase "the soul wants to keep us"." This implies that the soul has intention, in keeping with my own picture of the soul as an organizing field of energy that literally "keeps us", holding our molecules together. Then, once we are kept rooted and connected to our life and our body, we can hear the soul's whispers and gentle urgings--its constant presence as the membrane (and interpreter) between ourselves and our world and the cosmos.

The soul wants to keep us connected to the community in which we find ourselves.

The soul wants to give....
And what it has to offer is life itself.

For it is my sense that it is the soul which intends (forms the intention of) our incarnation.

As Palmer says, "We can reclaim our lives only by choosing to live divided no more. It is a choice so daunting--or so it seems in the midst of depression--that we are unlikely to make it until our pain becomes unbearable, the pain that comes from denying or defying true self."

Principles of FLOW

2007-10-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

1) All that exists is interconnected and interdependent, including you.

2) Your body is part of a larger system, a universe of patterns within patterns. By understanding your body's unique patterns, you can become healthier. Any illness can be reversed. All pain can be eased. Wounds can be healed. You can lose weight and keep it off.

3) The interconnective “tissue” of All That Is is energy. Everything is composed, also, of polarities--darkness is balanced by light, heat by cold, up by down. But remember this: The opposite of love is not hate--it is fear.

4) Your mind is part of a collective mind with unlimited potential. The interconnective “tissue” of the mind is intution. We access it through focused attention and meditation.

5) Your spirit is part of a collective spirit, the interconnective tissue of which is love. We access this collective spirit through prayer, awe and reverence.

6) You are a precious, unique part of the whole (and so is everyone else).

7) You are never disconnected from the FLOW, though when you are afraid, you may feel separated from it.

8) The FLOW is constantly guiding you to become your best self--the full expression of who you really are.

9) As part of the FLOW, your thoughts and deeds make a difference in the collective. You are powerful beyond measure.

10) The FLOW guides us to tread lightly on the earth, and makes us grateful for her gifts. We want to give back, plant beauty and cultivate life.

11) The FLOW guides us to take care of what is ours, to tidy up, cleansing and cleaning, reversing toxicity and inflammation (of our body, mind, spirit and space.

12) When we are in the FLOW, we forgive the past and move on, forming better, healthier relationships. We seek compromise, not dominance.

13) When we are in the FLOW, there is always enough--enough food, enough money, enough love, enough time. We do not experience lack or scarcity so we use only what we need, trusting that more will flow to us. We hurry less, experiencing less stress.

14) Where once we were fragmented, now we FLOW toward wholeness.

15) The FLOW guides us to invite and deeply listen to the stories of other people and cultures.

16) The FLOW is eternally learning, growing and expanding and so are you.

What would your best self do?

2007-10-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

Life is always flowing to us and through us. Life is energy, light, God. Pain is an indication of blockages in the flow. This is the principle of all alternative healing methods, and of healing prayer.

Blockages can occur in the body, leading to pain or illness.
In the psyche, blockages cause symptoms, too. And much research has proven/corroborated what healers have long known, that psycho-spiritual issues cause symptoms in the body—symptoms that become diseases and chronic physical conditions.

The principle of FLOW, if you take nothing else from this program is this: Choose in the direction of the flow. Practically speaking, this means choosing in alignment with your own highest values, preferences, intuition—and choosing in alignment with the “intention” of the highest values of the environment, society, community, family and home. In other words, making choices that are, as close as possible to free, light, organic and whole.

In order to do this, we pull out the simple question: What would my best self do? Christians ask themselves, What would Jesus do? Which is a way of asking this question, too. This is one of the reasons we follow spiritual leaders like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Martin Luther King, Gurumayi, Gandhi, St Francis, and others. It is why we want our political leaders to be, in addition to good politicians and capable managers, good examples. We want their lives to be squeaky clean because we want to look up to and emulate their examples.

If you are uncertain what your own best self would do, it can be helpful to choose a spiritual mentor, a master like Jesus, Buddha, or a guru or teacher, and meditate on their energy, letting it fill you before asking yourself again: What would my best self do here?

Learning to recognize “the small, still voice within” brings us closer to our best self. We become familiar with its presence and welcome it. When we ask for its guidance, we recognize the source as our best self.

Going with the FLOW

2007-09-28T05:52:00.001-07:00

Two things:

Back in the 1980s, I worked with Robert Fritz (Technologies for Creating), a pioneering spirit who used to say, "Don't go with the flow. You'll end up smashed on the rocks." The trick is to set your canoe in the stream and set your course. Then, learn to navigate the currents that carry you where you want to go." (www.technologiesforcreating.com)

More recently, Esther Hicks, an inspirational speaker, began her dialogue with a group of spiritual teachers who call themselves Abraham. Abraham, "the secret behind The Secret", is a collective spiritual energy that teaches about the stream, too. Abraham explains that everythign we want is always flowing toward us, that we are always flowing in the direction of our best outcome. What complicates things, they explain, is when we start paddling upstream--thinking we have to work harder, paddle faster, get a better job, be more beautiful, thinner, smarter, less impulsive... whatever story we tell ourselves about our imperfections.

Abraham suggests that, instead of paddling, we simply relax and let in all the wonderful things that are trying to come to us.

more on this later...

2007-09-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

Memory "Sandwish"

2007-09-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

I call this a "sandwish" because... well, because I made a typo. But the name fits. It reminds me how much I love the beach and brings me back to the summer (more thn 20 years ago) when Matthew and I rented a little cottage in Sag Harbor, Long Island with two friends, Jourdan and Raffi. Jourdan was an amazing artist, great with interior design, and the minute we walked into the little log cabin she was rolling up the carpet, stashing it in the attic and rearranging the furniture.

Every day, I would take a walk into town where I'd sit at PROVISIONS, a lovely health food restaurant, and enjoy an avocado, cheddar sandwich with sprouts and a cup of English Breakfast tea while I scribbled in my journal. I was writing a novel that summer. I still have the editor's notes and the letter from my agent, accepting it-along with the unfinished manuscript--in my files.

This is my best attempt to duplicate that sandwich.

Two slices Ezekiel or French Meadow Men’s bread, toasted
½ avocado
alfalfa sprouts
lettuce
tomato, thinly sliced
1 oz goat cheddar or low-fat cheddar(optional)
cilantro mayo

Spread one slice of toast with avocado, layer on cheese, sprouts, lettuce, tomato. Spread mayo on other slice. Close and slice into four pieces. Indulge!

Cilantro Mayo
In a food processor, combine 1/2 cup safflower mayonnaise (or other mayonnaise) with a handful of cilantro and a sprinkle of salt.

Tomato Salsa with Black Beans

2007-09-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

1 can diced tomatoes
or 6 large ripe plum tomatoes, diced
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 can black beans or black soybeans
1 handful cilantro, chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1/8 -¼ tsp. powdered chipotle chili, (optional)

Mix together in a bowl and serve.

Try this as a side dish to sliced steak, chicken or fish or as a dip with freshly cut veggies: carrots, celery, sliced raw zucchini, broccoli, etc..

AMY'S HUMMUS

2007-09-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Hummus
This garlicky, creamy, middle-eastern spread is delicious on whole grain crackers or as a dip with sliced vegetables. Try it stuffed in a pita pocket or on toasted whole grain bread with sprouts and shredded carrots or place a dollop on a dinner plate with roast chicken, in place of mashed potatoes.

If you've made hummus before, you'll notice that Ive exchanged most of the oil, adding water instead. The water reduces the calories without taking away the richness (which is maintained by adding just a small amount of oil) and makes the hummus much more creamy.

1 28-oz. can chickpeas
1 T. EV Olive oil
2 T. Tahini (sesame paste)
Juice of ½ lemon
1-2 cloves garlic
¼ c ground flax seeds (optional)
water added very slowly until desired consistency is achieved

Optional Add-ins: ¼ c. Roasted Red pepper or ½ tsp dried dill or add a little more lemon juice

In food processor: Pulse together all ingredients, adding water in a slow trickle until thick, smooth consistency is achieved. (Should be the thickness of mashed potatoes.)

As a FLOW SNACK: Serve as a dip with three raw veggies.

ATLANTA ICED TEA

2007-09-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Atlanta Iced tea - When I was 20-something, before I was married, I visited my friend Gayle in Atlanta. One night we went to a fun restaurant where I sat at the bar and flirted with the bartender, a cute blonde guy named Greg. He served me Atlanta Iced Tea, a delightful surprise. When he showed up in NYC to visit me—and stay in my one room apartment--that surprise was not as delightful. To make it, just brew up a quart of decaf black tea and run a peeled orange through your juicer, adding juice to tea. Keep it in the frig as a quick thirst quencher.

FLOW NOTE: Caffeine is a diuretic and irritates the bladder, causing increased urination. Because hydration is so important to the FLOW lifestyle (and to your continued good health), when you consume a beverage with caffeine, have a glass of water, too. This will help replace any water lost.

Spritzers - Seltzer or sparkling mineral water with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice or try mixing sparkling water with herbal tea.

CHAI CEREAL WITH GHEE

2007-09-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Last spring, my friend Lisa, invited an Ayurvedic Chef to teach her family a healthy way of eating. After his visit, during which time he prepared all of their meals for one week Lisa lost 15 pounds and felt healthier than she had in years. Her son also lost weight and looks amazing!

Every morning, they enjoy this delicious and very FLOW breakfast which keeps hunger pangs at bay until lunch time. I’ve incorporated it into the FLOW meal plan as a key to vibrant heal. Great balance of good carbs, whole grains, and healthy fats.

This recipe has many ingredients. But don't worry, it's a snap to make--simply empty bags into a bowl and stir together. Plus it makes enough for a month of healthy breakfasts. So once it's made you can simply store it in the freezer in a Ziploc bag. Consume up to one serving per day.

In large mixing bowl combine:
3 c. Bob’s Organic Five-Grain Cereal or
1 c. oat flakes or rolled oats (not quick oats, not Irish oatmeal)
1 c. quinoa flakes
1 c. rye flakes
½ c. oat bran
½ c. ground flax seeds
1 c. coconut shredded (unsweetened, organic)
1 c. sliced almonds
½ c. sesame seeds
1 c. chopped walnuts
2 T. turmeric
2 T. cinnamon
1 T. ground ginger
1 c. CHOPPED dried fruit (choose from blueberries, cranberries, apricots, apples, pears) (Try different flavors to see what tastes best to you.)

Stir together until all ingredients are well mixed. To serve: place ½ cup to 1 cup in cereal bowl with 1 tsp. ghee* or extra-virgin coconut oil, and, if you like, ¼ tsp. fruit preserves. Cover with boiling water, stir and let sit for three minutes.

FLOW NOTE: One serving of Chai Cereal makes a perfect FLOW snack. If you use it as a meal, add 4-8 oz. almond milk or plain soy milk.
----------------------------

*GHEE - Clarified butter

All you need is ½ lb. organic sweet cream butter and a saucepan.

Melt butter over low flame, uncovered. In a while (15-20 minutes) you'll notice solids rising to the top of the golden oil. Skim these off and pour the golden oil through a fine strainer or cheesecloth into a Pyrex container. As it cools, Ghee will thicken into a soft paste. No need to refrigerate.

Ghee is nice on other foods, too. Try sauteeing veggies in a tsp. of ghee or spread it on a slice of whole grain toast. Yum.

ANY MORNING SMOOTHIE

2007-09-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

REPLACES ONE MEAL OR ONE SNACK

I first tried this delicious, healthy treat at my friend Susanne’s home. I’d never tasted anything like it. Made with gentle goat’s milk, it was the first smoothie, shake or creamy treat that didn’t leave me with a stomachache. And it tasted so fresh and light, I had to reproduce it. This recipe is adapted from Susanne’s recipe and from the book, Patient, heal Thyself.

In blender combine:
8-oz (1 cup) goat's milk yogurt or 2% Greek Yogurt
Blueberries (add other fruit to taste. ie: banana, other berries, frozen peaches)
1 T flax seed
1 T Virgin Coconut oil or flax seed oil
1 T raw honey (add less if you use a banana)
½ c crushed ice

Blend until smooth and creamy. Enjoy.

One note of caution: This is a meal, not a beverage and should not to be consumed with other food.

EVERY MORNING JUICE

2007-09-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Every Morning Juice

All ingredients must be fresh, not frozen, dried or canned. Scrub fruits and veggies before processing.

In juicer process: handful fresh parsley, 3 celery, 2 carrots, 1cup (large handful) leafy greens (kale, dandelion, collards), 1 apple with skin, ¼ small raw beet, ¼ chunk fresh ginger (optional)

FLOW LEMONADE

2007-09-26T11:14:00.001-07:00

FLOW Lemonade
16 - oz filtered water
1 Lemon peeled and passed through juicer
1-2 T. Agave syrup/nectar or raw honey

Mix together and sip before morning exercise. Note: Do not drink with meals. Allow 1 hour between FLOW lemonade and any protein or grain meal.

INTRO: The interconnectedness of all creation

2007-09-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Just as every cell of your body is part of one living, breathing organism, that organism—your body—is part of a vital, living tapestry of life. Just as every thought you think affects your life, every thought you think affects everything. Just as every action you take has an impact on your life, it also has an impact on your family, community, workplace, and the world. In fact, your every thought has an impact on the Universe!

How would knowing this, really experiencing it as the truth change the way you conduct your life? What would you do?
Would you change the way you treat people? Would it change the way you expected to be treated by others?
Would it change the way you conduct your business or schoolwork? Would you hand your work in on time, without resentment?

If you knew that your attitude affected the way the service you received was delivered, would you behave differently?
Would you pay your bills on time, writing your checks with gratitude?

If you knew that it mattered to the entire planet, would you recycle? Would you insist that your local deli used paper cups instead of Styrofoam? Would you start a compost heap?

If you knew that it mattered to everyone and everything, would you choose a different breakfast today? Would you tell the truth today? Would you get up an hour earlier and take a walk? Would you forgive someone who's hurt you in the past, knowing that your simple act could change the world?

This is a blog about how that works.

HOLISM

In February, 2007, a strange story began to appear in news reports around the country, “Mystery Bee Disappearances Sweeping U.S.” reported the National Geographic News.
"Without a trace, something is causing bees to vanish by the thousands. But a new task force hopes to finger the culprit and save the valuable crops that rely on the insects.
Pennsylvania beekeeper Dave Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report to bee researchers what's become known as colony collapse disorder (CCD).
In October Hackenberg had delivered honeybees to a Florida farm to pollinate crops. The bees typically return to their boxed hives when their work is done. But this time was different.
"I came to pick up 400 bee colonies and the bees had just flat-out disappeared," Hackenberg said. "There were no dead bees, no bees on the ground, just empty boxes. In almost 50 years as a beekeeper, I've never seen anything like it."CCD has spread throughout 24 states and ruined hundreds of thousands of bee colonies. Hackenberg has lost roughly 1,900 of his 2,900 hives. Other operators have lost up to 90 percent of their hives. Researchers are scrambling to find answers to what is causing the commercially important honeybees to abandon their hives and disappear.The epidemic could put a strain on fruit growers and other farmers who rely on the insects to pollinate their crops. An estimated 14 billion U.S. dollars in agricultural crops in the United States are dependent on bee pollination."A lot of people think honeybees are only important for the honey they produce," entomologist Maryann Frazier said. "But much, much more important are their pollination services." he Pennsylvania State University professor is part of the 12-person task force looking into the crisis.

Reprinted from The Courier-Journal, May 16, 2007
Near Centerfield in Oldham County, orchard owner John Adams said the bees in most of his 11 hives are gone without a trace. "I've got double hives that should have 50,000 to 60,000 bees in them that look like you've taken an air hose and cleaned the hive out," said Adams. "There was plenty of bees out there last October. This thing is weird."
Among the hardest hit nationally are commercial beekeepers who transport thousands of hives across the country by tractor-trailer to pollinate orchards and crops, sometimes at rental rates of more than $100 a hive.
"I know of one beekeeper who lost 9,000 hives out of his 10,000," said Webster. "Since there's a shortage of strong, healthy hives, some crops are not getting the pollination that they need, or the person growing the crops is having to pay more money to rent the hives from the beekeepers."
The result may be higher prices for certain produce, and perhaps less availability, but not an overwhelming food crisis, Webster said. Melons and squash, some vegetables, sunflowers, almonds and many fruit and berry
crops need bee pollination. Alfalfa grown for seed also requires pollination by bees, though pollination may be shared by other bee varieties.
END QUOTE

What was causing this?
My intuition tells me that the heart of the matter will be found in the principle of HOLISM or the interconnectedness of all things. The disappearance of the bees, seen through the lens of symbolism represents the interdependence of all of nature.

Without the bees to pollinate them, our crops will not grow.

“Bees represent not just communication, language, and thought, but the potential of creation. But not just any creation — ORGANIC creation, creation as it is usually found in Nature — not by fiat, but by simple things interacting in simple ways that somehow, evolutionarily, emergently, create something entirely new,” writes TK in his article, “The Plight of the Honeybee,”

Possible causes posited by research scientists include: disturbance of the bees’ communication by cell phone signals, an overdose of agricultural pesticides, varicola mites. Scientists aren’t sure which of several scenarios explain the bees disappearance. But they are sure that it was caused by the bees' dependence on other systems. I tell you this story now, at the beginning of this book, because it’s a metaphor for what is happening to every living organism on this planet. Not in a terrifying, doomsday scenario. The disappearance of the bees mirrors the erosion of human health and so forth.
Your body, your mind and your spirit—the story of the disappearance of the bees is a metaphor for your life, my life and the lives of every other living organism on this planet. Colony Collapse Disorder, this mysterious vanishing of entire hives, is a metaphor for our survival.

As I wrote these words, the man at the table beside me stood and whacked a bee with his notebook.

FLOW DETOX: Quick, healthy weight loss

2007-09-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

You can stay on FLOW DETOX until you reach your goal weight. All necessary nutrients are present if you follow the plan

WATER: Drink at least one gallon of water each day at intervals. Don't try to drink more than 16 oz at once.

On waking: Drink 8-ounces water, hot or cold, with fresh lemon juice. Add 1/2 tsp or less agave syryp, if needed.

BREAKFAST - REVVED UP MORNING JUICE (See archives for recipe) If you usually start your day with coffee or tea, wait one hour before consuming your Morning Juice. The coffee/tea is acid-forming while the fresh juice is alkalinizing. Many of hte benefits of the juice will be lost if you combine them in your belly.

MEAL 1 - When you feel hungry or maximum two hours later.
Green tea or organic coffee, if desired
Lean protein and three veggies, optional: one small potato or 1/2 sweet potato or yam
Two Omega 3 eggs prepared with three veggies (one veggie should be greens: collards, kale, broccoli rabe, dandelion greens)
(eg: omelette with zucchni, tomato and broccoli rabe or scrambled eggs with the veggies on the side)
Note: If you think you'll feel hungry without toast, stir a cooked, cubed sweet potato or small baked potato into your eggs.

MIDMORNING SNACK
Two veggies with beans
(eg: cooked cauliflower and broccoli with kidney beans in olive oil and balsamic dressing; or, Grilled zucchini and eggplant with chickpeas); or, homemade hummus with baby carrots and cutup raw veggies like red peppers, celery, zucchini...
or
Melon salad with berries

MEAL 2 - LUNCH
Big green salad with lean protein and 2 other veggies (ie; tomatoes, string beans and Salad Seeds*

AFTERNOON SNACK - HIGH TEA
Green tea or organic coffee, if desired
Handful almonds or walnuts with one serving fresh fruit - apple, pear, cantaloupe, honeydew, berries

DINNER
Lean protein with three veggies
1 serving whole grain
green tea or organic decaf coffee

After dinner snack
1 cup 2% (or less) Greek yogurt or Goats milk yogurt with either 1 tsp Salad Seeds or 1/2 tsp honey or unsweetened, all-fruit jam (Try Fage 2% yogurt with honey or strawberries for a quick version of this)
or
Fresh fruit or berries with 1-2 oz. 85% dark chocolate
-----------------------
* Salad Seeds - in a zip loc bag combine equal parts unsalted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and roasted pumpkin seeds. Add sea salt to taste. Shake up and serve over salads or in yogurt

FLOW MORNING JUICE

2007-09-21T10:14:00.001-07:00

This is the recipe that started it all. To make it you will need a fruit and vegetable juicer. I like the Juiceman Juice Extractor. It's affordable, you can find it at Target for about 60 dollars and it gets the job done really well. And so far, I've found it to be the easiest juicer to clean.

1) Choose fresh, organic RAW produce whenever possible, remembering to wash and trim each piece before juicing. Note:Someone asked me whether organic produce needs to be washed. The answer is YES! Absolutely.
2) Melons digest differently than other produce. Juice them alone or with berries. They don't mix well with vegetables.
3) Anything taken to excess can become toxic. Pure beet juice ,for example, will overwhelm the body, resulting in loose bowels and other unpleasant side effects.
4) It is not FLOW to use FLOW JUICE to lose weight while ignoring the other principles of the FLOW. In other words, if you consume only fresh juices and then gorge on French fries and cheeseburgers you are throwing your body out of FLOW--out of balance and compromising your health. Please use good sense.

---------

FLOW MORNING JUICE
I drink one glass of this a day, in place of morning coffee and wait until I get hungry before eating my first meal.
It's satisifes me so deeply, I can hear every cell in my body saying, "Aaaaah!" and Im usually not hungry again for at least an hour.

This is also the recipe to use for quick and easy FLOW DETOX, when you want to lose a few pounds quickly and safely, without compromising your health. The truth is, this juice will enhance your health.
Using a juicer, juice 1 handful fresh spinach, 1/4 of a small beet, 6 sprigs parsley, 1 red delicious apple, 2 carrots, 2 stalks celery, If you like the zingy taste of fresh ginger, add a very small slice before juicing the other ingredients (their juice will wash the ginger into the glass).

Drink up!

--------------------
REVVED UP MORNING JUICE: During Detox Plan or anytime (to rev up your morning juice, adding super-nutrition and vital fiber) : Add 2 T. Greens powder and 1 tsp. fiber powder (psyllium or Benefiber or other fiber powder)

---------------------
FLOW VEGGIE JUICE
A not-sweet alternative to FLOW JUICE. On FLOW DETOX, I use it to replace one of my afternoon snacks

Juice of 1/4 lemon (with peel), 1-2 plum tomatoes,. 2 stalks celery, handful spinach, 6 sprigs parsley, 2 carrots, 1/4 beet

FLOW RESTAURANT SUGGESTIONS

2007-09-21T05:25:00.001-07:00

Restaurant selections that meet the FLOW criteria (lean protein, three veggies, good carbs)

Please feel free to add your comments when you find a FLOW MEAL OR SNACK in a restaurant that you'd like to share

STARBUCKS
Chicken Curry with Couscous - Im eating it now. Not too much dressing but what's there is quite good. Very fresh, no chemicals. Three veggies, a generous portion of chicken, diced apples and a little couscous. Yum

PANERA BREAD
Salmon Salad - While the salmon is almost certainly farm-raised, the filet is tender, and the rest of the salad is FLOW perfect - mixed greens, red onions, roasted red peppers, and a small sprinkling of wheat berries. Panera even offers the choice of a "side": choose the apple or the whole grain baguette. Note: The dressing is awful--too sweet--so I ask them to serve my salad with a different dressing--balsamic or caesar--on the side.

LEGAL SEAFOOD (Many selections at this lovely themed restaurant meet the FLOW criteria . But it can be pricey. I've found a few reasonably inexpensive options for LUNCH, when prices are a bit lower:)

Rasam Seafood Soup - an Indian inspired red broth with seafood. The "cup" costs 3.95(I think) and is served in a pretty square bowl with 1 shrimp, 1 scallop and two slices of a tender white fish. The bowl is much pricier, but includes more seafood and some basmati rice. I order the cup with a blue cheese salad which includes greens, sliced pears, walnuts and a light vinagrette. Without the soup, I ask the waitress to add grilled chicken, shrimp or salmon to my salad. There are several other good salads to try here.

FLOW SHOPPING

2007-09-19T06:34:00.001-07:00

Choose free-range, organic, whole foods whenever possible.

FLOW GRAINS: Any brown, red or black rice, quinoa, millet, kasha

FLOW BREADS: Sprouted whole grain bread like Ezekiel or French Meadow Health Seed or Men's

FLOW PROTEINS: Wild caught ocean fish (avoid farmed salmon), free-range chicken, turkey, free-range, grass-fed beef or lamb (lean cuts),

DAIRY: Goat or sheep's milk products like cheese and yogurt; all cow's milk products should be organic 2% or less

FLOW SWEETENERS: Agave syrup, honey (raw is best), maple syrup (To sweeten baking, try: pureed raisins, applesauce or zucchini)

FLOW NO-NOs: Caffeine*, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, white rice, sugar, trans-fat, chemicals, excess salt.
* You may have one cup of coffee or black tea in the morning and with one snack.

The Simplest Diet on the Planet

2007-09-19T05:58:00.001-07:00

Following the FLOW GUIDELINES, enjoy THREE MEALS and THREE SNACKS each day

FLOW MEALS
Three veggies and a lean protein (Aim for at least one serving of fish per day)
One of these meals should include a whole grain
One of these meals should include a serving of beans.
(Grain and beans can be consumed at same meal if desired)

FLOW SNACKS
One serving of whole fruit (apple, pear, berries, melon) and handful of nuts or seeds or one glass freshly squeezed FLOW MORNING OR VEGGIE JUICE

That's it

---------------------------
SAMPLE MEALS:

Breakfast
- Three veggie omelet prepared with onion, zucchini and tomato, with 2 eggs and one ounce sheept's milk feta cheese.
- Whole grain sprouted burrito with scrambled eggs and avocado, tomato and shredded lettuce
- Spinach, red potato, zucchini frittata

Lunch
- Mixed greens with grilled veggies and grilled chicken, shrimp or salmon
- Greek Salad with feta, tomato, onion, cucumber and grilled chicken
- Amy's Chicken/Bean Chili with brown rice and a small tossed salad
- Amy's Chicken/Bean Chili in a corn tortilla with shredded lettuce and FF cheese
- Lentil soup with Griled chicken caesar salad (dressing on the side - use very little)

Dinner
- Grilled Salmon with three veggies: zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and a tossed salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
- Roast chicken with sweet potatoes, carrots and celery, served with quinoa or kasha
- Kasha prepared with onions, celery, carrots and zucchini, served as a main course with bean soup
- Veggie Stir Fry with Tofu and edamame
- Chicken meatball soup with many veggies

and so on... the possibilities are endless.

RULES I USED TO CREATE THE FLOW

2007-09-19T05:45:00.000-07:00

1) It had to be easy.
It had to fit into a normal person's daily life. A normal person who had a job or a couple of kids at home. It had to be easy to understand and maintain. It could not involve trips to obscure speciality markets for weird ingredients. Everything had to be easily available at the neighborhood grocery store. It had to be uncomplicated and meals had to be simple enough to prepare quickly, without needing chef's training.

2) It had to be vitality increasing, enhancing the immune and digestive functions of my body. It had to enliven my life with more energy, less inflammation (aka less pain), and increasing beauty and wellness. In other words, I wanted the diet to prove my theory that the better we eat, the better we feel, and the less sickness and discomfort we experience.

4) It had to taste amazing.
Let's face it, plain celery is boring--so is lettuce in a bowl with lemon juice. And I HATE the taste of fat-free dairy (except skim milk, which is okay.) Dieting shouldnt mean eating cardboard in a bowl (aka high-fiber cereal out of box). In fact, I dont even think we should call FLOW a "diet", it's a lifestyle. It's about choosing the best-tasting, highest-quality, most bang for the buck nutrition we can find. And then preparing it in ways that satisfy even the pickiest palate... including your kids!

5) It had to be... normal.
Maybe it's me but it was important to me that the foods I ate (especially at the office or in a restaurant) did not require me to be one of those weirdos (or pains in the ass) who redesign the menu at the restaurant or who carry around little bags of strange, stinky foods that no one else understands.

6) It had to represent good science combined with data from the field (my readers).
It had to be well-researchd and thought out. People had to try it and give me feedback on how it was working for them and I had to adjust it to work better.

The flow diet comes from my love for delicious, healthy food

2007-09-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

It's part of a whole lifestyle--that began with my obsession with food and the commitment to live my life as fully as I possibly can NOW--not tomorrow when the bills are paid and the kids are grown. NOW, this minute. In fact, living in the FLOW means living each moment as a choice point, fully engaged and fully present in body mind and spirit.

It comes from my years as a restaurant lover, a mother and magazine editor. It comes from deep down inside of me and from my intuitive (and educated) sense of what the words "good food" should and can mean.

I've been studying nutrition for years. At first, I was looking for a way to optimze the nutritional value of my children's meals. But as I spent many MANY hours studying cookbooks and magazines, I started learning about my own body's needs, too.

As I learned to hide green food in cake and macaroni and cheese, I learned that dairy wasn't all it was cracked up to be and that the stomach ache I always got after dinner wasn't normal. I consulted a nutritionist/herbalist and, after blood work, learned that I was gluten sensitive and that dairy was the likely culprit behind the dark circles under my eyes were characteristic (often diagnostic) symptoms of food allergies.

Throught experimentation on my (patient and adventurous_ family, I learned to use the healthiest possible food choices to make really delicious meals that were also deep-tissue nutritious.

I could write a cookbook (and maybe I will) but I wanted to share what I've learned this way, too. I have no shortage of ideas and I realized that while sitting around waiting to be published, I could be getting the word out on a blog. So that's why I started this one. I have several blogs, each covering a different fascination of mine (they're all listed in my profile and in the sidebar of this page) but this one is my favorite. It's the one I keep coming back to, the one I am most at home with. Because, frankly, when it comes to food, I really know my stuff.

Still, when offering advice, it's important to have "real" credentials. Last year, I enrolled in a Masters of Holistic Nutrition program where I'm learning all about the science of nutrition. And I'll share what I learn with you over time.

FLOW EATING

2007-09-04T15:26:00.001-07:00

Whenever possible, I choose Free, Light, Organic, Whole foods
That's where the name of my diet comes from: F,L,O,W

* When I am hungry I load my plate with delicious water-based foods (fruits and vegetables) and eat as much as I want. To that, I add a small serving of lean protein and some healthy carbs. (Note: If you think you don't like vegetables, you haven't tried my recipes. I'll post them as we go along but if you want some now, just ask.)
* The only rule with this is to try to eat fruit alone or with nuts/seeds.
* I drink a gallon of water a day--that is 64 oz and includes herbal tea but nothing with caffeine. I only use Agave Syrup or Turbinado sugar.
* I exercise whenever I can. I try to walk at least twice a day for half an hour or more. Then, I look for ways to add exercise to my daily activities. I park as far from the grocery store as I can, I walk the mall, I climb the stairs.When I'm waiting for an appointment or sitting in traffic, I'm doing isometrics.When we took our son to college, I asked for a campus tour--now THAT was a lot of walking! Everywhere I go, I ask myself: Can I add a little exercise to this?
* I eat three meals and three snacks a day.
* Each meal includes: 3-4 oz. lean protein, 3 veggies (I eat at at least one vegetable and one green leafy like spinach or chard, and I try to toss some beans into salads and stews) and 1 serving of whole grains like a bowl of oatmeal or muesli, or some cooked quinoa, brown basmati rice, millet or polenta or a slice of whole grain bread
* Each snack includes: Fresh fruit or veggies with a handful of nuts or seeds or a serving of hummus OR one serving low fat Greek yogurt with honey (not fruit)
* I try not to mix fruit with protein or carbs because it causes the food to putrify in the gut... ick.
* When I have a craving I have a serving of Anytime Juice, Anytime Soup or Anytime Sorbet*
* I outsmart my cravings: When I want something rich or creamy, I reach for hummus*, tofu, peanut butter which have the same mouth feel as whipped cream or Tiramisu but are better for my health and my figure. Mashed cauliflower with a little butter replaces mashed potatoes. Broiled veggies and potatoes, replace french fries. When Im craving pasta, I cook up a huge pot of my Famous Pasta Sauce* and enjoy it over cooked, crumbled cauliflower or zucchini ribbons... I've served it alone, as a stew or over sauteed, wilted greens or even over broiled fish. Yum!
* I notice: Which foods make me feel energized and which make me feel crummy? For example, butter, low-fat or fat-free cheese doesn't bother me. Even a small serving of Brie seems fine. But one tablespoon of whipped cream and I'm on the sofa with gas pains and a foggy brain. If I use artificial sweeteners (any brand) my joints start to ache. If I use Agave syrup instead, no problem. If I eat French fries from the golden arches, I get a sore throat and tummy ache (probably the oil?) But if I make roast potatoes at home, no problem. Another example, I simply can't eat white bread, french bread, white flour pasta. I can't eat most whole wheat pastas either--except for Barilla Plus, my Godsend, and sprouted, whole grain bread in small quantities. It's a matter of trial and error and when I respect my body's own boundaries, I feel better and I lose weight.

The problem of appetite

2007-09-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges ive faced whenever I "go on a diet" is fear that I wont have enough to eat... that I'll be hungry. This is more than just a concern, it's FEAR - and Im sure theres a good psychological reason for it, something complicated and juicy like a glitch in the family psyche caused by by scarce resources during the depression when my mother's parents were struggling to put food on the table or when my father's mother and her siblings were racing out of Russia on a haywagon (with nary a crust of bread) when their village was attacked during a pogrom (think Fiddler on the Roof).

It has everything to do with "emptiness" and the feeling of being unsatisfied by everything, by my marriage, by my home, my car, my body, my friends, my clothing, my education... insert anything here and I am unsatisfied by it (and envious of what YOU have that I dont). This emptiness is so pervasive, and is "fed" whenever I open a magazine or switch on the TV.

This emptiness is the cause of all addictions--booze, drugs, sex, pornography, gambling, cutting, anorexia, excessive internet surfing and TV watching, video gaming, stealing, (even envy is a form of addiction) and, in the context of this discussion, addiction to food. We are all addicts, each stuffing our emptiness down in some way. (And I plan to discuss this in another post soon)

But rather than spend years on an analysts couch figuring out why Im afraid of starvation in a world where I can get literally any food I want with the swish of a little plastic card, I decided to focus on what to do when that fear comes up...

Also, I want to remind myself that on the FLOW diet, my appetite has gradually decreased to reasonable proportion--for example, before I started this diet, I could easily consume three helpings of pasta and meat sauce for dinner. Now, one small portion REALLY satisfies my hunger. In fact, I am lately surprising myself by acting as Dolly Parton once suggested (in her getting skinny phase) and "leaving a little something on the plate for God."

A typical day with FLOW

2007-09-01T07:54:00.001-07:00

This is based on my schedule but you can tweak it to make it fit your lifestyle.

FLOW Morning
- Body/Mind/Spirit - This time of the day is priceless "dream time" and I do my best to maintain my "dream mind" as long as I can. If I read, I choose something spiritually uplifting. No newspaper and absolutely NO TV. Sometimes, I write in my journal. Sometimes, I sip my juice in the back yard, breathing in the natural world.
Spirit

- Free/Light/Organic/Whole

5:30 am: On waking, I drink one or two cups of hot (or cold) water with lemon. It's okay to add Agave syrup. I don't worry about the carbs. 15-20 minutes later, before exercise, I enjoy a tall glass of Morning Juice - In a juicer, process 2 handfuls spinach or other leafy greens, 4-5 sprigs parsley and a small sliver of raw ginger. Add 3 stalks celery, 2 carrots and 1-2 apples. I add 1/4 raw beet (no more than that--beet juice is powerful!) (Recipes for other juices are available.)

During Detox Plan or anytime (to rev up your morning juice, adding super-nutrition and vital fiber) : Add 2 T. Greens powder and 1 tsp. fiber powder (psyllium or Benefiber or other fiber powder)

6:15: Exercise - I wake my daughter for school, and go down to the living room where I do some stretching. If I have time, I walk/run (walking with interval bursts. In other words, I run down hills as fast as I can. If there are no hills, I break into a run every 5 minutes or so, running at top speed for 30 seconds, then, I return to a steady, brisk paced walk). Sometimes, I do yoga on my sticky mat for 1/2 an hour. In cold weather, I go to the gym. I am planning to start taking yoga classes again in the fall. Taking a fitness class in the morning would also work.

7:00: I drive my daughter to school and then head to my Nyack office or the Art Cafe to write. As I drive, I listen to upl.ifting or educational tapes. I am currently studyijng for my Masters/PhD so I am studying with tapes from the Learning Company (www.teach12.com).

FLOW AT WORK

Twice a week, I go into the Woman's World office to read mail and post my column. During this time, I drink green tea or I make lemonade (hot or cold) with lemon and Agave Syrup or honey. If those sweetener's aren't available, I use turbinado sugar. Even this sugar is better than sugar subsitute of any brand. Remember: On the FLOW plan, we always want to reach for the most free, light, organic/natural, whole option available. With sweeteners, that means: 1) Honey or Maple Syrup, 2) Agave Syrup, 3) Stevia or Evaporated Cane Juice, 4) Turbinado Sugar. I will post something about sweetening baking and cooking. This is just for sweetening beverages.

9-9:30: The juice is so satisfying to my body that I am really not hungry until about 9:30. That's when I have a snack: Some melon salad with berries or an apple, perhaps, and I always have a handful of almonds or walnuts
BUT... if I AM hungry, this is the time to eat a MEAL: An omelet with some veggies and maybe a little goat cheese with a slice of whole grain toast. Or I might order a salmon or chicken salad at Panera (dressing on the side), where I write (yes, salads can be eaten in the morning!)

This is THE most important principle of my program: If I am hungry, I eat. There is absolutely no starving allowed. My body tells me when it needs food and that changes from day to day.

The ONLY RULE is to choose the healthiest, most Free, LIGHT, ORGANIC, WHOLE food available.

1:00: Meal - Usually I have a big salad with Salmon or grilled chicken for lunch. If I've eaten that earlier, I'll have some chicken veggie soup or even eat my snack here. (Remember, I eat when I'm hungry, not on a schedule. But I NEVER skip a meal. So, what if I'm not hungry and I'm supposed to eat a meal? I eat one, but I eat lightly, including all the elements of the meal.)

Before lunch, I try to walk to the restaurant if Im out or, if I'm home, I do a little yoga or maybe bounce on my mini-trampoline while watching the Food Network (I love to cook!)

3:00: Snack - Anytime Soup*, perhaps, or some herbal tea

5:00: Commuter Snack - Apple with some nuts (or Yummy Apple Berry Crumble*)

7:00: Meal #3

After dinner, if I am still hungry, I might have a bowl of Anytime Sorbet" or a fresh juice: Pineapple-Coconut or Tomato-Veggie. When it's chilly, a belly warming bowl of Anytime Soup* is really nice or even one serving of Yummy Apple Berry Crumble* with herb tea

10:00 pm: Bedtime

* RECIPES WILL BE POSTED (or just ask)