Petulance and Purgatory

Much of my mental state at the moment can be summed up in this statement:

I don't wanna.

How I feel...often.

I don't wanna eat right. I don't wanna exercise. I don't wanna do laundry. I don't wanna clean the house. I don't want to write notes.  I don't want to sit at the computer doing the job I get paid to do. And I certainly don't wanna keep WAITING.

Recognizing the wisdom in all the standard adages about patience (good things come to those who wait, a watched pot never boils, etc), this particular brand of suspense has run it's course. When you get down to it, I've been waiting for the next phase of my life to start for a year now. And I am soooo over it.

The lovely C pointed out (as she is an excellent therapist and an even better friend) that in a mere 10 days, some big changes will be set in motion. And at this point, I have absolutely no control over them. In mere months I will move to an entirely new part of the country - alone. I will have to leave the strong supports with which I have been blessed here Baltimore. And. For the first time in my career I will have the opportunity to do what I love every day. I will considerably expand my knowledge, skills and network, setting the tone for the next phase of my career. February 22, 2013 and all the machinations set in motion by it will be thrilling, and bittersweet in some real ways. And it cannot come soon enough.

After two solid days of tantrums unbecoming of a grown ass woman, I was inspired/guilted into some exercise by friends near and far. I ran jogged for 3ish miles, then indulged in a very belated issue of Vogue on the stationary bike for 4ish miles. And as much as I hated it, as much as I still feel whiny and annoyed by the state of my life as it stands at the moment, the movement felt good. Plus it gave me the willpower to drive past the pizza place in favor of healthier (and, frankly, yummier) leftovers at home.

Small victory for today, but! it's better than pouting and wishing for things to be different. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Purple Pride

Sports do not come naturally to me. (I know, you're so surprised, right?) I only learned to understand football as a devoted marching band member. That said, as a boisterous, enthusiastic, and (above all) LOUD person, I am a very good cheerleader. And I am very indiscriminate in my cheerleading -- I will be just as enthusiastic for bocce as for basketball, as fervent for football as for foosball  .

Purple skyline, purple soup.

It is a lovely coincidence that the team color for my adopted-home-town team here in Baltimore is purple, as purple is my favorite color. Makes it very easy to get dressed up in support of the Ravens. Even more awesome is how fired up this town gets about its sports teams. Os, Ravens--there are a lot of birds in this town, and people love the shit out of them. I'm ok with that. I like the enthusiasm. I also like purple. Pretty much everyone in this town is busy decking themselves and their surroundings out in purple paraphernalia in preparation for tomorrow (there's this game happening, perhaps you've heard?).  In tribute, I wore purple pretty much every day this week and painted my nails a lovely shimmery dark plum hue (shout out to the MIL for an excellent stocking stuffer). But...it's me we're talking about, so naturally I was searching for a purple-tinged food to make for this weekend as well.  Cupcakes? Cookies? Something with eggplant?

Lo and behold, when getting creative in the lunch-making department today, my purple food found me.  And! Because it's delicious and healthy, I shall share it with you all!

Purple Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 15.5 oz can chickpeas
• 1 (ish) cup frozen green beans
• 1 c forbidden rice
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 6-8 cups water and chicken or beef bouillon to taste OR stock.
• several handfuls of chopped fresh kale
• Za'atar, salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Brown beef in the bottom of a large pot or dutch oven. Remove from pot and drain. Saute onion and garlic in the same pot on medium high so they pick up the flavor from the beef. Use a little bit of water to deglaze the bottom of the pot and infuse the veggies with the meaty flavor. Return beef to the pot. 
2. Drain and rise chickpeas, add those to the mix. Season with S&P. Let these hang out together about 3-4 minutes.
3. Add stock/water+bouillon. I used chicken bouillon and lots of water, because that's what I had. It would have tasted great with beef broth/bouillon too. Just be careful not to add so much that there's no room for things to boil.
4. Add the green beans (straight from frozen). You are now permitted to add the forbidden rice.
5. Dump a whole bunch of za'atar in there. I'm guessing 1-2 tablespoons. Honestly, I have no idea what's in it. The illustrious N introduced me to it way back in our first year and I've been using it to season soups, sauces and dips ever since.  Check out the wiki article, very informative!  
6. Add some cracked black pepper, probably 1-2 teaspoons worth. Bring the whole thing to a rolling boil, then cover and reduce heat to medium low. Let burble for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. Add chopped kale, stir into soup and let bubble away for another 5 or so minutes. Voila!

As the rice cooks it turns the soup this lovely deep purple color, which contrasts with the bright green kale.  It's a hearty soup; the flavors are subtle but interesting and cohesive. To be real, I'll probably add even more za'tar next time. An unexpectedly purple treat to prepare for tomorrow. GO RAVENS!

A Taste for Travel

When I was growing up, we never ate fast food.  Ok, not never, but very rarely.  In fact, the only time we stopped at a McDonald's, Burger King or Taco Bell was on road trips, and long ones at that.  Usually to the UP to see my paternal extended family, which was in and of itself a treat. The trip took at least 8 hours, and that's a long time for two sisters to sit next to each other without devolving into fits of rage and tears. So my parents plied us with delicious, salty, foreign food, often accompanied by an attached playground/ballpit.

To this day, when I'm traveling, I crave fast food.  Big surprise, that's how conditioning works.

Now, under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a problem. What's a burger and greasy fries between the occasional airport? But in the past few weeks (erm, Thanksgiving maybe?), I have been traveling a LOT.  An abnormal amount, all in the name of Internship Interview Insanity. From January 1st through 25th, I will be home with my beloved exactly 5 days. Woah. On it's own, this is ridiculous. But in the context of Fit Anniversary, this means lots of time on the road, not a lot of funds or perishables, and lots and lots of airports. These facts, combined with my early association of travel with treating myself to fast food, have made things quite...well, fattening. Add the emotional stress of interviews and missing my hubband on top of that and my resolve against fat and carbs has all but disintegrated.

But, here I am, owning up to it...that counts for something, right?

The truth is, on non-food fronts, I feel good.  Like, really good. I feel comfortable in my skin when I sit with the parade of psychologists and training directors I have met in recent weeks.  I know what I'm talking about, and I can communicate that adequately, if not eloquently at times. I have as vision for what I want to do with my life, I believe in it and in myself, and (so far) it seems I can make other people envision that as well. This biatch is bringing it from Baltimore, and it feels good.

And the places I've traveled have been pretty amazing too. I've gotten to catch up with some really great people, and I've been warmly embraced by pretty much every town I've been to, thanks to lovely folks scattered around the country.  Almost all of the sites I've visited feel like good fits; some more than others, but pretty much all of them are places where I could be myself, the atmosphere more than conducive to learn and grow and blossom into a full-fledged Docta. And after almost a year of bullshit, that feels really, really good.

I'm not sure what else I can say about it. As I write, I'm sipping a local brew and munching on even more carbs. I'll probably eat poorly for dinner too.  And when traveling tomorrow.  And then on Sunday when I leave again, this time to play with the Magnificent M, whom I haven't seen in forever and am SO looking forward to hugging, chatting, and catching up. There we are, reasons to celebrate, AKA: reasons to eat poorly.  So Fit Anniversary is not on track at the moment.  I'm flubbery and full in the face. And while I don't want things to stay this way, for now...I'm ok with it.  Because I can honestly say that, by in large, I feel good about myself. Truly, genuinely good.

And that will have to be enough for now.

Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri. AKA: potential new home #9

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Happy season of overindulgence, everyone!  Or at least that what it usually feels like to me this time of year. My apologies for the prolonged period of silence. There is much news to go around! Typically I like bad news first so as to end on a positive note. I'm sure my psychology friends can quibble over what that means about me.

The Bad News:

Why can you get your ass in gear, A?

As you may have expected from the lack of communication here, J and I have fallen off the Fit Anniversary wagon. For the most part, anyway.  There were some positive strides and silver linings, especially in the midst of National Day of Eating Too Much (went for several runs and walks while in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday). Since then I've been trying to make good food choices...but not that hard.  The worst offence is that I haven't been to WW in waaaaaaaaayy too long. It's the same cycle as always: I fear the scale and what that means --> I avoid the scale and thus also responsibility for what I'm putting in my body --> continue to live in guilt-laden ignorance of the number as well as the need to do something about it. Oy.  Though this behavior is not defensible, I have been varying degrees of ill since before turkey day, which hasn't helped in the whole getting-to-the-gym department. And frankly, I'm just not into it lately.  It's not an excuse, it's just true.  Given the choice to be healthy or do...quite literally, anything else, I've been choosing the latter.  My beloved goddaughter has the hilarious habit of screaming/crying/pleading the words "No thank you!" repeatedly and with increasing volume and hysteria when she is made to do something she doesn't want to do. We all know how she feels, and I in particular with Fit Anniversary as of late.  Gym? No thank you. Low fat/cal/carb? No thank you. Weigh in? No thank you. But! There is some good news.

The Good News:
Internship interviews are under way!  A few down, and more to go after the new year.  January is a busy travel month, a problem for which I am very, very grateful. So far the nuttiness includes visiting at least 7 different states, 1,000+ miles on my Old Man Mobile, and a 6-legged flight from DC to St. Louis and back, with stops in Georgia and Chicago in between. The illustrious N recommended I laminate a detailed itinerary including flight numbers and time changes. Mostly I've wanted to string up a map of the US and star new places that I've visited as a part of this process, to get a full view of where I have been and where I've yet to go.  It's been fun getting to know parts of this great country that I've never been to, and appreciate some very different ways of being across the board. Not to mention how great it has been reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

This does not look very tasty.
And certainly not as tasty as bread.

But, as is inevitably the case, there's some ugliness that accompanies these two categories of goings-on. Ok, so I have these interviews - yay!  But my suits are TIGHT - boo. Found another suit which suits my needs (harhar), namely that it's not boring, and with the help of some trusty Spanx I seem to be good to go. Truthfully, I was hoping to have to option of wearing my other suits in time for the January interviews, as I am very close to being able to wear them...but not without spilling out everywhere Pillsbury Dough Boy-style. I figured some intensive exercise and juice-fasting would get me on track, but as January is only a few weeks away, it's not looking like it's going to happen, which is disappointing. Also because I haven't actually done any intensive exercise or fasting.

Really, this latest bout of stalled progress shouldn't be that surprising. Like many others in this boat, I've struggled with weight/exercise issues for the majority of my life.  Not sure why I'm disheartened that it's a struggle now too. Reminds me of that good ol' Einstein quote about insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the meantime I am plagued by waves of anxiety, which do not help either in the eating or focusing-on-anything-that's-actually-important departments. Said waves fit mostly under the umbrella of "internship shit," but also about money, family, Christmas, health, friendships and other rather important or looming topics. The combination of anxiety, illness, and legit dog-tiredness from all the running around that has been happening recently make it very difficult for me to do anything constructive. Part of me wants to throw up my hands, run away from work and continue engaging in my favorite self care activities of the moment: sleeping, reading, painting my nails and watching RHoA. This is of course knowing that doing so will mean even more to do the next day.  But perhaps that's ok for now.  At some point it won't be, but for now, there's not really a whole lot else to do.  Refreshing my email every 30 seconds waiting for news, worrying about things beyond my control, and fretting about the future of those near and dear to me are not helpful. And frankly, it's breeding a lot of ugliness in my world at a time when I'm trying hard to enjoy what beauty I find.  And to that I say: no thank you.

Sun and Soup

The dropping temps and crisp air are getting me excited for two things: soup and Thanksgiving.

Yes, I recognize that these are both technically food-related.  However, this year, I am particularly excited about Thanksgiving because we will be spending it in Florida with family.  This means I will be lovingly surrounded by some of my favorite S-words (not swords, as Sean Connery might say): sun, sand, sustenance. 

"Sustenance" for me is both physical and emotional.  Delicious food and being taken care of.  It's amazing how that can be so important as an adult. Sometimes all you need is for someone else to make decisions. And I, for one, am looking forward to going with the flow as one of the chitlin, so long as there is some beach time in there.

My love for the beach is a bit odd considering my genetic makeup. I'm pretty sure very few of my ancestors ever saw the sun on a regular basis. My body was built to withstand hard Scandinavian winters and Baltic farming duties. And yet there are few things that bring me more joy than playing in/around water and in full sunlight.  Despite my pale as all get out alabaster complexion, I actually don't burn that badly...mostly I turn into one big giant freckle and must avoid too much time sans SPF due to relatively predictable rashes of sunpoisoning. And yet, all I ever want is sunshine. Given the stress and uncertainty of the last few weeks, I can't even begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to this trip. I am actually day dreaming of beaches and flip flops as we speak.  But I am also at work, so I would be better suited to get back to the present and try to actually earn my keep.

Which brings me to another welcome S-word: soup.  This time of year, soups are perfect one-pot meals to feed a lot or a little and freeze the leftovers. Plus they're (usually) easy to make and (often) oober healthy. I've made a couple of nice ones so far (the marvelous M was especially fond of my recent potato-leek experiment), and today I'll share one that I think is filling and fun (or, at least as fun as flavors can get).

Butternut Ginger Soup

Makes about 8 servings.

4 Points+ per serving.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium butternut squash
• 1 small onion
• 2 carrots
• 1-2 stalks celery (optional)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• a 2-inch piece of raw ginger (yes, I actually mean that much)
• 3 cloves garlic
• crushed red pepper flakes
• 6 cups +/- water or stock (veggie or chicken would work best; I used chicken bouillon) 

Directions:

• Peel the squash with a very sharp vegetable peeler or with a paring knife. Discard seeds and cut into 1.5-2 inch chunks. Be warned: the skin of the squash is extremely drying, and will dry out your skin something fierce if you don't scrub real well after peeling/chopping. No joke, it's uncomfortable.  Thanks to the illustrious N for this tip!
• Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, carrots and celery and cook until onions are translucent.
• Add finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper and saute another minute or two.
• Add water/stock and squash chunks. Season generously with salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes (a few good shakes, the ginger is spicy too).  
• Grate fresh ginger with microplane/other finer-toothed kitchen implement directly into pot.  Yes, it seems like a lot of ginger.  You'll just have to trust me.
• Bring to a boil. Once boil is rolling, cover and turn heat down a bit to simmer for 20 minutes for so, until squash chunks are tender. Once tender (e.g., once you can easily squish the chunks with the back of a spoon on the side of the pot), turn off the heat.  
• If you have a fancy-pants immersion blender, now's the time to bust it out. If not, use a large coffee cup to ladle a few mugfuls into a blender. Cover and puree for about a minute, or until it's as smooth as you like. Important Note! the heat from the soup will want to expand in the blender and blow the top off, so make sure you are holding it down tight with an hot pad or towel before hitting that puree button.  
• Pour pureed soup into a separate pot while you repeat that last step with the remainder of the soup (or if you have a fancy-pants immersion blender, don't worry about it).  Return the whole thing to the original pot on the stove to reheat and check seasoning.  Fun fact: if you're looking for a bit of extra creaminess, add a dollop of sour cream before serving. 

Any other treasured soup recipes you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them! 

If Wishes Were Fishes

Hello friends.

Firstly, my apologies for abandoning the internet adventure of #FitAnniversary (hashtag, see how hip I am?) for the last couple of weeks.  It was touch-and-go for a while, particularly in the "dealing with life like an adult" department.  That is to say, I spent days on end in my sweats, diligently plugging away at internship applications, while wholly ignoring other would-be important bits. You know, things like laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, showering, answering the phone, etc.  Combing the coping strategy of ignoring the to-do list (and, I'm sorry to say, my husband), with managing the emotional freak out that comes with trying (mostly in vain) to control what little is realistically within one's grasp led to consuming food that came from either the phone or the pantry (read: all the carbs). At one point last week I was so anxious that all I ate was popcorn, as it required grinding my teeth against airy kernels instead of each other.  Going to the gym was out of the question, as that would require time, of which I felt I had none. Furthermore, that whole concept of inertia was working in full force.  Meaning that, since I was primarily an object at rest, I was perfectly willing to stay at rest, and not particularly enthused by the idea getting myself in any kind of motion.

Needless to say, last week's weigh in was not pretty.  Up 1.4 lbs.  Ugh.*
*Note: when I weighed in yesterday, I had lost that 1.4 and an extra 0.2. Woot!

(c) National Geographic. Effin love those guys.

Amidst my anxiety, I was also plagued by wishes.  Many of which are old and tired and definitely never coming true.  After last week's abysmal weigh in I found my brain returning to that old standard:

I wish to be thin.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I wish to wake up thin.  Or even more basically, I wish that being thin were easy. As a red-blooded American, I can easily fall victim to the desire for instant gratification. Obviously I know weight loss takes time and hard work, and I'm doing my best to make both happen (er, or at least getting back on the wagon). But this has been such a long-fought battle that sometimes the wish to be thin comes unbidden. I find myself bargaining with God about how good I would be to my new body, how well I would take care of it, if only I could skip over this hard part of actually losing. The worst part is that I know better. I know better than to waste time and energy wishing things were different, and yet, I still do.  I find this to be true in my clients as well; wishing for things to be different. We all have unfulfilled needs and desires, and wishes do nothing more than exercise our fantasies about them. Which has its merits. But for me, right now, wishing to be thin does nothing except discourage and frustrate me.  Def not things that are helpful to Fit Anniversary.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across this article by xojane.com favorite Emily. Her irreverent and revealing stories have resonated with moi before, but this article shot straight through me, first with the title:

"There will never be anything effortless about my body."

Hrmf.  Oh, Emily.  Why you gotta be so full of truthiness.

When I think about it, being human generally means being a work-in-progress. Foreva. Whether this be about your weight, your relationships, your management of internal or external strife, we're all working on something (or should be, at the very least). We make mistakes.  This will always be true. We can always do better, but not in the disapproving-because-you-need-to-be-perfect way. More like an it-is-what-it-is sort of way.

When he was in seminary, J and I used to have this argument about whether God loves us because we are flawed or in spite of this fact. It comes down to being worthy, I think.  Either we are worthy of love because of everything we are, including all the brokenness, or we are worthy of love despite the fact that we are broken. He of course argued that the fact that we are eternal fuck-ups is what God loves about us humans. At the time, I thought of God more like a parent, who is supposed to love you no matter what, even if they don't particularly like it when you fuck things up. So he took up the side of because and I took up the torch of in spite of.  Looking back on it, it makes sense that I would have felt that way; at the time, I could not conceive of being loved because of all the ways you fall short. It's a very hard thing for humans to grasp, or at least for this one it is. But I'm working on it.

And I'm working on viewing my body in this way too. I'm trying to love it because it is mine -- flub and all. The effort extends to the exercise world; I can end up talking myself out of any physical activity because it's not what I feel I should be doing. So I try to accept what I am able to do, period.  Yesterday I hated everything about going to the gym, especially the idea of running.  I'm not sure why I was so furious with the treadmill, but instead of avoiding the gym altogether, I forced myself out of bed and onto an elliptical machine.  Hey, it's cardio. And I get to watch Frasier reruns on the miniature TV fixed to the top of it.  And you know what? I'm ok with it. My body gave me a solid 40 minutes of elevated heart rate and calorie burning, and I love it for doing so.

Perhaps the wish to be thin, or for this body and existence in it to be effortless, hearkens back to the in spite of mode of thinking.  Wishing to be thin separates the me that is lovable from the me that is fat. But they are one and the same. And certainly I am not one because of the other.

Tonight, when I am watching the election result pour in over the latest CGI maps of blue and red, I will make every effort to love my country because it is flawed. It makes me think of that Winston Churchill quote: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." I love my country because it is mine, red, blue and in between. Not in spite of the fact that there are people with whom I vehemently disagree, or practices to which I am wholeheartedly opposed.  I love it because I am blessed with the chance to live in a country where both can be true. That I have the right to speak my mind and have my voice be heard, along with all the minds and voices that grate my nerves.  I love this country, not for what it should be, or what I wish it was, but because of what it is -- failings and fortitude alike.

Rs and Reminders

A few weeks ago, we explored the immense and gorgeous FDR memorial in DC.  Turns out that the FDR memorial is awesome, in the truest sense of the word: awe-inspiring and extremely powerful. The lovely C suggested that all our representatives in Washington should regularly be made to experience the gardens, the paths and the words planted there.  A homework assignment to remind those in power of what's important.  Which is brilliant, of course.  Somebody legislate that shit el pronto.

The memorial itself is very tactile, and designed so that people of all ranges of physical ability can experience it. Which I also love. There is stone and greenery and water and art aplenty.  But the most striking pieces of the memorial are the words.  Quotes from the 32nd president adorn nearly all of of the erected structures.  Lemme tell you, whoever selected those words did a really amazing job.  I was continually floored by the honesty of those words, and how accurately they seemed to capture a number of very complex human sentiments. Basically I wanted to come back every day and sit in the gardens, read books and do homework with FDR. The hope being that if I surround myself with greatness I too shall be great, or at least produce something great, like say, my my personal statement for internship (now in its 15th iteration). Or a great neuropsych report.  Because who doesn't want to write a great one of those.

Near the end of the memorial, this quote appears large, stretched out on granite against a backdrop of trees.

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be out doubts of today.  Let us move forward with strong and active faith."

I was floored.  I'd never heard this quote before, though the sentiment has been presented to me so often that you'd think I'd get it through my thick skull.  Standing in front of this stone wall, amidst the trees and the Potomac, I felt grace, gratitude, and frankly, God, rip through my heart.  Sometimes even I know when the universe is trying to send me a message. In that moment, all I wanted to do was sit on the stone floor and stare at the wall until all the gravity of the sentiment and its meaning had been absorbed, assured that when I moved from that spot I would go forth into the world free of doubt and forged in faith.

But we had been walking for like, eight hours.  It was time to go home and play Rock Band.

Believe me, I am self-aware enough to know that it would be advantageous to have that quote permanently inked on my arm as daily reminder to get out of my head and over myself. But since visible tattoos are not on the table for moi at the moment, I alone am responsible for reminding myself to let go of doubt in favor of faith, and push forward in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, despite my inability to predict it or prevent it from happening.

This week I've been doing the same Couch to 5K run over and over again, because it's been killing me every time.  Yesterday, after being bolstered by my ability to make an incredibly arcane and stupid stats program do what I wanted it to, I took to the treadmill and ran it yet again.  And just like before, it got difficult and I got tired.  Usually I find myself trying to anticipate the little voice that tells me it's ok to "slow down and walk." But until it comes, the conversation in my head usually goes something like this:

I can't do this.
It's too much.
Why can't this be easier?
I hate running.
Eff you, skinny biatches for whom this is the "easy" run.
I suck at this.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.

When it gets tough like this, at least in the workout world, I try to channel my dear friend, the redoubtable R, who recently biked across the entirety of the US of A to get to internship in Tacoma, WA.  I recognize that we are very different people (and that he's just a little bit crazy, which I love about him), but I can't help but think of him when that anti-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine shite comes rolling through my mind.  If R can bike 100 miles a day with a bleeding arse and a busted knee, I can put one foot in front of the other. So I do.  And every time a thought like that came through, I just crossed it out. I can't do it. Nope, not stopping there.  Moving on.

And low and behold, it was the first time all week that I got through the run without needing an extra break and without conviction that I would keel over at any given moment. Thanks, R. ♥ And FDR.