Hopping into the New Year

I'm all set for the New Year: I've had my Hopping John today. I like this year's recipe better than last year's, and it was easier too. It's at the end of this post, for those who are interested.

I'm fascinated by the fact that the one ritual in my life is this annual meal, and recently acquired. I did not grow up eating Hopping John EVER, and the idea of eating it for luck on New Year's Day was new to me when I moved here to SC 12 years ago. This is maybe the third year in a row that I've fixed it myself.

Do I really believe it will bring me luck? Probably not, but preparing it makes me think about the New Year, and what's to come, and what exactly do I really want anyway? Which seems appropriate today.

And I was amused to see that a friend of mine just posted some information about the Year of the Rabbit. I quote:

"A placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger. We should go off to some quiet spot to lick our wounds and get some rest after all the battles of the previous year."

Sounds like just what the doctor ordered AND it fits with the lucky New Year meal.

Here's how I made my Hopping John. Note that I rarely measure ingredients unless it really matters, like in baking.

1 lb bacon (I used uncured turkey bacon from Earthfare)
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
olive oil

2 cans black-eyed peas
1 C chicken broth
3 bay leaves
thyme

Chop the bacon, onion, and bell pepper, put them in a heavy-bottom stock pot and cook over medium heat until the onion is transparent. Add the broth, black-eyed peas, and seasoning. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, cover, and simmer for at least half an hour. Stir occasionally. I let mine simmer while I cooked rice to serve it over. Yum!

Mom's Visit

My mother just left after a week+ visit. She is 86, and still pretty healthy. She lives with my sister and her husband in Ft. Worth, TX. They have a large house, and Mom has a separate apartment. They share the living and kitchen areas.

It's been a few years since Mom came here to SC, and I took most of the week off from work to hang out with her. We get along great - I am very like her in many ways. We knitted together (she makes prayer shawls for the children's hospital) which was fun. We also shopped, ran errands, ate out (a LOT) and watched football. I am not a big fan, but she is, and she & my husband talk sports.

What really gets me is how emotional I am feeling about the whole thing. It was really fun being with her, but I am highly aware that we may not have many more opportunities for this. She is more childlike now, more in tune with what she likes and dislikes, and WAY less concerned about what others think she "should do". I was surprised by the overwhelming tenderness I felt towards her. This is a new emotion in our relationship.

I also was aware in a whole new way of how others responded to her. Not so much young people, but middle-aged & older. I saw over and over again that someone would look at her, and shift just a little. Like my friend Judy from work who was extra sweet to her. And the American Airlines employee who offered to let me go to the gate with her this morning to wait for her plane to depart. And the security screener who helped her with her things in the line. That little bit of compassion and kindness, that awareness of how precious our parents are, that hint of our OWN mortality.

And inescapably, I am keenly aware that I have no daughters (no children at all) to be with me when I am old. My niece jokingly offered to eat pizza with me when I am 86, in response to a tweet about this. I'm holding her to it.

My Life with Bright, Shiny Objects

I've been focusing lately on how to make room in my life for all the things I love to do. Given that I work full time (and then some) and need to sleep every day, this is a challenge. The really frustrating part is that I have a tendency to spend lots of time and energy on the fun new thing, and then sort of forget it as I move on to the next. Then I remember it later, and how much I enjoyed it, and cycle back around. Or at least think wistfully about it.

I was chatting with @luminousheart about this, and she called it Bright Shiny Object Syndrome. Perfect! My life is a room full of Bright Shiny Objects, most of them littered about me on the floor. They are just as bright and shiny, but somehow less enticing than they used to be.

I've been using Dance of Shiva to try to work through this pattern, and a few things have surfaced:

• I would like to take a broader view when setting priorities. I am playing with some visual reminders to see what works.
• I do better when externally motivated. How can I help myself be more self-motivating? Still working on that one.
  
• Keep writing. Here, and in my morning pages. Writing is a great tool for self-awareness, probably my best one.
• Find little niches where I can fit things in. Example: I found an audio podcast of A Course in Miracles, and I listen to each day's lesson on my way in to work
  

Most of all, I look forward to retiring from my job so I have more time for all the other stuff I want to do. That's still several years away, though, and I will NOT live in a holding pattern until then. So I keep on with the juggling act, pray for balance, and do the footwork to make it happen.

Keeping It Real

I have noticed a tendency to shy away from writing here when I am in the middle of dealing with something in my life. What's that about? What I tell myself is that no one wants the messy details. The truth, however, is that this is a tool to help me, and I have a long history of amassing tools that I do not use.

The downfall is that when I write about it later, there's no immediacy. Looking back does not have the passion that the moment does. The bloodless recounting is boring.

So. Today, I am upset about the fact the my fabulous new eating habits are making me put on weight. To make a very long story short, I am constantly vigilant about this because otherwise I would weight a LOT more than I do. I know this, because I used to, with all the concomitant effects: high blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.

This means I have to step back into the practice of logging food and exercise, and get myself back where I want to be before 4 pounds turns into 8. And that I have to balance my new eating habits against calorie intake. This is a big part of what threw me into the frenzy I just wrote about.

I'll try to spare you the tedious details and instead keep this blog focused on what matters more: how I feel and how I manage the spiritual side of being in my body.

Chaos in the Wake of Change

Obsession!! What's not to love?

I get wrapped around the axle so easily. I can take a good idea and turn it into an obsession without even pausing to blink. Next thing I know, I am off and running, caught up without knowing quite how I got there.

This time? I am tinkering with my eating habits.

It started simply enough: at Atlanta Mania at the end of July, I attended a lecture by Paul Chek. Quite frankly, he blew my mind. I had a lot of fun rummaging around his booth, and I came home with two books: How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy! by him and Nourishing Traditions (a cookbook) by Sally Fallon.

I had already been thinking about trying some different eating patterns, e.g. smaller meals more often. And I have been concerned for a long time about the contents of what I eat (yes, I read labels). I avoid crap like high-fructose corn syrup. Fast Food Nation changed my life.

So this all was very timely. Chek's basic message: check in with how you feel, and eat a balance of foods that help you feel your best. He provides clear tips on how to do that and what to watch for. The cookbook has great recipes and a lot of information about the food-like substances that make up the modern Western diet.

Based on what I read, I decided to try putting more protein in my diet and see what happens. Seems simple, doesn't it?

But no.

I have a little computer program that allows me to track what I eat and put in specific nutritional goals. So, by God, if Chek's book says that X percent of my calories should come from protein and Y percent from carbs and Z percent from fat, then you know I put those into my little program and started logging all my meals. Seriously obsessed!!! Worse: I became afraid I'd end up eating WAY more food than I should just to make the numbers right.

However, these days it's hard for me to maintain that level of insanity for long. And you know, when I went back and looked at the book again, he specifically addresses NOT getting all caught up in that kind of mental contortion. Really, it's more more a matter of watching the basic proportions of each meal, and observing the results and adjusting accordingly.

I managed to retreat back to sanity after about a week, and make reasonable tweaks without getting carried away. And I'm liking the results.

It's an old pattern

Getting caught up like this is an old, familiar pattern for me. I'm really glad I saw it, recognized it, and was able to fix it so quickly.

It gives me hope that the next time, it will be even better.

That's all for now.

SOLI 4 Love and Kindness to the Jerk Contractor

Last weekend we had the final meeting with the contractor who has been remodeling our house. Not the whole thing, three rooms & the screen porch. I wrote in an earlier post about how the stress of the whole process was affecting us - that was a month ago, so you can imagine what we were like by the end.

Warning: Next several paragraphs are venting.

Especially my poor husband, who had to deal with the contractor (henceforth known as G.M.) way more than I did. The project that was supposed to take 6-8 weeks took 12. And along the way, it became clear that G.M. was not putting our interests as his first priority.

Problems

There were some little warning signs, but the big one was over the granite vanity in the master bath. Instead of subcontracting the whole job, which is what we were expecting, he had the granite place cut the slab on HIS measurements instead of coming out to do it right. He then hired one of their guys to come out and help him with the installation. The slab did not fit the corner due to walls being out of true, the holes for the sinks were too small AND off kilter, and one of them was in the wrong place. So what do you think he did? Reject it to be re-done??? Oh no, instead he tried VERY HARD to get us to accept it as is. We are still not sure why. But in the end we got him to replace it.

More Problems

The list of other stuff that's just plain wrong or sloppy would bore you, so I'll just mention a couple more. He installed a new screen door on our screen porch, one that swings open instead of sliding. However, he used the wrong kind of hinges, so the edge of the door is positioned half an inch from the frame, leaving a giant gap for bugs to come freely in. He also fixed the leaky roof on that same screen porch. But he discarded the hooded gutter that was there, and when we reminded him that the gutter needed to be replaced, he bought a cheaper non-hooded gutter. And the tile floor of the new shower doesn't drain properly, leaving puddles that don't go down the drain, even after the second try to get the slope right.

So. By the time we were FINALLY "done", we figured we have at least $2000 worth of rework to do to fix his screwups. At that point there was $455 left on the contract balance at that point, due to extra draws since he kept pleading poverty every week.

WTF??

So imagine our surprise when we got an email where he laid out all the things NOT included in the contract or any change order that he "expected" to be paid for. Even though HIS contract says everything like that has to be agreed on ahead of time. The add-on total for the extras came to almost $4000, about 20% over the contract amount.

This list included a few items that we would have agreed on had he asked. But most of it was outrageous bullshit. Like when he converted our old shower to a closet, he had originally planned to put in a sheetrock wall, which would have left a space between it and the new shower. There was a reason for this, but I don't know what it was. But he decided at some point NOT to do that, so it was less work for him and gave us a bigger closet. Fine. But on that final list, he included a $325 extra charge for that bigger closet, even though it was less work and materials!! This, and some other things, were just confusing.

Vent Alert Over

So we divided the list of "extras" into things we thought were OK (totaled $1000) and things we said "no way" to. When he showed up on Sunday, we were ready. The first thing we did was let him know that we were not satisfied with a number of items, which by his contract meant we didn't owe him anything more. Plus there was the little matter of the part of his contract where we don't have to pay for anything we didn't agree to. Then we veered onto the topic of the shower, where my husband got so angry he had to leave the room. G.M. and I continued to talk. One of the things that emerged was that at some point he had learned that I make very good money at my job, so he felt we could afford to pay him what he was asking. He pleaded poverty several times and tried to make me feel sorry for him. He seemed stunned when I told him it wasn't about what we could afford, it was about how we wanted to spend our money.

The LovingKindness Part, Finally

Now, I have been using G.M. in my metta meditation - first as the neutral person, then later as the disliked person. During this whole emotional conversation, I found myself in a very interesting space. I was not angry. I was able to listen to him with an open heart and mind, and feel compassion, but not get drawn in by his manipulative tactics or emotional outbursts. And I was able to make my points calmly and decisively. I felt bad for him, but I was able to stand my ground with no real effort. I have to believe that the metta meditation is what enabled me to do that. How cool.

In the end, we gave him a check for the contract balance and the extras that we felt were justified. Even though we weren't satisfied with a number of items, it seemed to me like the right thing to do, and my husband went along (unwillingly). G.M. accepted that amount and left, hopefully forever.

In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that he sat down & thought of everything he could to charge us for, thinking that since I make such good money it shouldn't be a problem. Which pisses me off, now. I might not be so nice if I ran into him at this point. But I'm pretty pleased at the way things went last Sunday.

View from a (bigger) Cubicle

That's right, I have a new cube and it's HUGE by cubicle standards!! By far the biggest and nicest I've ever had.

This is my old cube. It is 6 ft by 9 ft, but 3 of those 9 feet are shelves. As you can see, the desk space is pretty limited and all the space is right there on the aisle.

This is my new cube. It's basically a double-wide, 12 ft by 9 ft. WAY more usable desk space, AND you can walk in and move around. I can have little meetings in there, which is really convenient.

Plus there's room for all my toys and pictures, the things that make life in a cubicle bearable. This move is also significant because for the first time in a couple of years, I have just one cube. I've had cubes in more than one building for a while, and hardly spent any time at all in my "home" cube. I felt a lot like a hermit crab, especially for the last few months. So it's nice to be all in one place. Although I am secretly afraid that it won't last, I am truly allowing myself to enjoy it in the moment.