let's cheer up!

It's my favorite time of the year!!

yaaaay!!!!

The Popeye diet...

I don't like spinach...in fact I hate it! I don't like it cooked in any way, not even in pasta or with cheese, I pure and simply hate the taste of it! And I'm not really a picker, but spinach is one of the few things I really don't like to eat. In fact, there are so few, that I currently can't remember anything else that I would never eat....
So, like I said, I hate it, but if you receive a sac of spinach what do you do with it? you boil it a little, mince it and freeze it. That's exactly what I did with mine....but I left some...for an experiment...

...that looked like this:

...and tasted surprisingly awesome!! my first sip was hesitant...then I drank it all quickly...because it tasted very very good!

And so my breakfast for every morning of last week consisted of 1banana+ 1 full fist of spinach + a little bit of water....and I didn't feel the need to eat anything by 12.00 o'clock! On the right is M's smoothie...banana + I don't remember.....he's not really curious about that "greenish stuff"

I do believe that if I hate cooked spinach, but loooove green, leafy and crunchy one...then it must have an especially good taste, right?

...really missed this one, right?

I hope everyone has a wonderful time during this wonderful autumn!

On our addiction to pain...

As stated in my last post, I'm currently reading "Augustine, a mother's son", and I'm close to the end. What impressed me and practically left me bouche-be like a French would say it...
There is a concept there, that I've been reading about in Eckhart Tolle's book, Quietude, that left me thinking for a while ...

 Augustine said:
"The grief itself is what one enjoys-what madness!"
in the context where he realized he enjoyed being made miserable by tragedies.

             Eckhart Tolle states quite the same thing in his great short book, which got me thinking alot about the sweet pain I sometimes feel, and I think I am not alone here in saying that; nor are poets the only ones that braved this feeling.
Among so many other things in his book, E. T. says "Ce sont vos pensees qui vous rendent malheureux, dont vos interpretations, les histoires que vous vous rancontez" (my translation: It is your thoughts that render you miserable, in your interpretations, the stories you tell yourselves)...." ....l'égo a besoin d'énnemis pour definir ses frontieres..." (m.t: the ego needs enemies in order to define its borders) and "Bien de formes de souffrance, subtiles et moins subtiles, sont si normales qu'on ne les recconait pas habituellemennt come etant de la souffrance." (m.t: A lot of suffering shapes, subtile and less subtile, are so normal, that we normally do not recognize them as being suferings).

              Preety much the same thing, but from a different point of view. While Augustinus, when he said this, there was simply the recognition of that sweet pain we all feel at some time in our lives and enjoy it, be it crying at a theater play, or enjoying self-pitty; Tolle is speaking about our general addicton to any kind of psychological pain, pain which can be good for some reasons, but only to a certain degree.
Pain can make us understand ourself and our brain's functions better, helps us see how we react to problems, and by reading this in one book we might even realize that we are self-pittying ourselves for some thing or another.
            Different from Augustinus' pain, and more scrutinized, Tolle's "malheur" is the manifestation of our ego, who feeds on it in order to grow and overcome our true nature, which should be anchored in the real present moment at the time of the speech, and not relenquish in some past experiences.
It is neccessary to suffer in order to understand that suffering is useless; this is the main idea Tolle highlights in one of his books, fragment from his great success "The power of now". This is an easy-written book, although in order to grasp some of its ideas you need to read it over and over again, and you will surely understand something more each time.
I doubt it that Tolle read Augustine, and I really have no idea about what further thoughts the latter had on pain, but I am planning to read his masterpiece, "The City of God" and maybe after that I will be able to develop  this post more, but I thought this first aspect important in both their views, and as I've already promised to talk about the books I'm reading; I just had to share this idea.

Lucky me I have it borrowed from my friend and highschool colleague, Andy (yet again one more book to add to my huge pile of borrowed books, as if I was in need of any more material....) in exact the edition seen above!

As a conclusion, one must think of the fact that our own minds take us sometimes for fools, play with us and really transform this so called mental pain into literally physical pain; and it is somewhat appealing and calming to know you have the answer to resist it in one book. The only problem is that, in order to be able to listen to this book, a long and thorny way lays before the reader, as self-contentment is not something easily reached... Yes, we might try to fight it by anchoring ourselves in the present, but sometimes it is so hard that we just let ourselves be taken away by guilt, despair, self-pitty or dissapointments.

I hope this made some kind of sense, and I will be trying to comment on the books I'm reading more, especially trying to be more positive than this time....

little pleasures...

I am not a great cook, a great raw vegan dieter, nor even a great photographer, less so the awesome writer I dream of becoming, for which I still have a long time to go and ink to spend...but I do like taking photos, documenting my life and keeping journals. I've been writing journals since I can remember...I remember having one in my third grade, writing about my life back then and my experience, and most of all beliefs. I regret not keeping them, I had my crazy periods also when I burned them all down, because at that time I thought these journals were stupid and childish...and now I bitterly regret my denial teenage period. It would have made a great reading today, my vocabulary at 7-9 years....should have kept them!
As I've grown up I forgot about that passion, but somehow managed to get back on track, and I must say documenting everything I do keeps it in my memory and keeps me on my right track....
So here are my recent adventures, with some of the technology of the XXI st century, even though not the latest...
I've been making apricot and prune jam....

....and just for the purpose of bragging about it...I've set up a photoshoot at my working place...on my balcony :D

...and I am modestly but trully happy with the result....in my humble opinion it looks awesome, at least these photos are eye candy for me :D...

I'll be having enough prune jam for the whole winter...and probably more...since it is yummy, I've been using the traditional method of boiling it, but only with a little amount of sugar, compensating with boiling it for about 12 hours...I think it will hold....I am so happy I received the bigger part of the prunes from one of my work colleagues, who had a rich bounty this year...and the other half, just as tasty, came from M's mom and directly from her garden...I was so happy to receive all these fruits!
This year was a really good one for prunes...and apples, I will be making apple jam very soon. Aaaa, and I haven't used any preservatives, in case someone wondered...I never use, not even aspirin, as some do, because if you boil it long enough, it will hold anyway.
Part of the apricot jam was made with the classical method, and part I've made by boiling the mashed up fruit already in jars, practically boiling the jars. I couldn't help it and opened one..It tastes awesome, refreshing as I used the smallest amount of sugar and the color is just as if I had just mashed the fruits...awesome!
I'm thinking about using this method on all the aples....

In yet another order of ideas, I've documented a little this flower's life...here she is at just a few weeks after I stole the branch from my friend, Alida's home....while talking care of her cat and watering her flowers when she was on a short one week vacation....

Romanians call this flower "muscata" and I have no idea how it's named in English, but we believe it brings prosperity to your house, especially if it flowers...and mine did! She did so 2 months ago...and today she looks like this:

...heavily burdened with flowers...should this mean something? who cares if I'm being superstitious, 'cause I don't!
My flowers will be a problem very soon, as it's getting chilly, and I will have to find them refuge, somewhere away from my flower-vore cats...
And I have plenty of them, and many not just cacti, which can escape the cat-menace...
My last idea comes to say that I'm currently on an easy reading diet....

..simple, quiet, deep enough and history- loaded just enough to protrude through my brain's anti-sapientiae shield....
...and this is my proud- inducing working space I've created all the above in, except that my really nice neighbors are unfortunately not in a vacation to a far far away land.....:(

...one last thought and I'm off for good...I tried to eat carambola last evening...

and I've come to the conclusion that I should probably stick to my prunes and apples. Call me an enemy of the new, exotic and interesting if you will, but that's just what I believe!

Until next time!

May all the goodness in the world be upon us!

back from vacation...

I don't know about you, but my vacation meant lots of unhealthy food, or at least that's how I see it. A lot of cheese and a lot of meat don't make for a good meal, thank god I was eating it with garden tomatoes and bell peppers, onions and cucumbers! And I have to say the ratio was inclined towards the vegetables, that doesn't however make an excuse towards my body for the fact that I still had a lot of meat.
As I've mentioned in the beginning, this is my journey, my ups and downs, and it should be taken as my life's story, and not some rule to follow. We all choose our own path, I hope mine will lead me to being raw and happy with myself. I did notice that my head is lighter, I think much better and I am significantly more creative while I eat my kind of healthy food; and I think the best diet is the one that suits ourselves.
I have to mention the fact that during the last two weeks I've been riding my motorcyle alot, and I've been working alot in my beautiful garden back home...so that connection to nature was my top priority. That is why I've come back with new positivity and fresh forces, ready to stand up to my job and any bad energy, which I totally intend to block out. My first thaught when coming back was having a detox, and so I used this recipe for gingerade. I loved it last summer, but I don't know how I totally forgot about it this year, but I am going to make up for the lost time.

I just have to mention here the fact that Mrs Ligia Pop is the first person on this planet that opened my eyes towards this totally different way of life!
I've made my gingerade with the same ingredients, I only used quantities that suited my taste, and I came up with a great detox for today. After blending little pieces of ginger in water with my hand mixer, I poured the juice separated from the pulp and lemon juice into my lovely green glass bottle, and brought it to work with me:

...and turned into a whole 2 liters of goodness:

...and it still is a little bit too concentrated. I've shared this recipe and a glass of fresh gingerade with one of my colleagues, the one I've already mentioned is interested just like me in living healthy, and she loved it!
I have to say I miss my home back at Raca, but I'm not totally sad about coming back here, as I have quiet and an organized rythm, like making a smoothie each morning before going to work:

banana and pineapple for today

I've seen some amazing places this vacation, connected to the nature in my garden, spent a lot of time with my wonderful two nieces, played with my cats and dog, in total having a wonderful quiet time. Here is a wonderfull cool little river close to the Danube:

just for the meaning of refreshing your eyes, as I think even just looking at nature photos cleans our polluted brains a little bit.
And for more beauty,

I hope our lives will be as wonderful as this flower!  

Let's give nature the chance to gain us back!

Abundance weekend....

I decided last evening, while I was reading in my bed, that today morning I should go shoping for food, but not at the supermarket, like we always do, but at our local market. I found out about this market from a work colleague, friend and healthy food enthusiast (we often couple for e-orders, so that we can split the post taxes...:D), and today I got up earlier than M and got on my way. The market is like 3-4 minutes bike ride away, so I was there in no time. When I saw what an abundance of healthy, bio food there was, I did some shopping but called M to come and take the bags...as I had bought so much that they wouldn't fit into my motor sattlebags.
Thinking that I've spent all my money, which was 100 lei (22.6 Euro or 29.6 UDS); I think I made a bargain, for various reasons.
First of all; just watch here what we came home with:

...and with a melon, which didn't fit on the table:

....and these looked so fine, that I just had to make some more pictures...

 those are real carrots, my friends, are not that red, don't come washed out of the earth and are not kept in a refrigerator.....

 ..the peaches to the left are half the size of normal ones, both are local, as I asked the sellers... and are yummy...

 ...the tomatoes, as well as the aubergines are from a nearby village, an old gentleman was selling them, and he made me a discount for the tomatoes!

 these flat peaches are the only fruits that are not local, but I just couldn't help myself...

 the prunes and carrots, basil and parsley all come from an old lady who was really adorable....I was looking for this kind of sellers, the ones with only a few products, and usually older people are definitely selling from their own garden!

I made a concession with those yellow beans, but they really looked ok, and the onions are also from another old lady :D...

Well, if you take your time and look close enough, you will come to realize very easily which ones sell for themselves and which are hired sellers, who won't make discounts and have no idea where their fruits and veggies come from!

...just look at these...they look awesome and smell like tomato heaven!

...these taste just as good as they look!

...this is what I call abundance!

The basil doesn't look so good, it's from the lady with the prunes, but It smelled so good, I didn't see it on her table but said I wanted it! and I was so glad, because it also has roots! I'l plant one of the stalks!

I got then to organizing things so that they would fit into my fridge....

M always asked why do I keep the plastic boxes from cherry tomatoes, and this is the answer! Everything is much more organized, and these plasic boxes have holes, so the fruit breeths!

ready to be cooled.... the prunes I kept in the blue pot are for jam...I heard about another method, which when I started reading the article I remember my grandma used to use it for compots. I'll try it on 4 jars of jam and see what comes up...anyway I will make more prune jam later! (It's my favorite!)

...the cucumbers are from M's mom, they were much more, but I ate them all alone! I'll have to convince M to eat more veggies!

 ...and this is my breakfast.....

...together with some boiled corn I bought yesterday from Kaufland.

 The Romanian corn and zucchinnis were the only things that appealed to me yesterday in that supermarket...I started looking only for our products..... I love the way both taste...I boiled the corn in this:

...which is a very practical thing to have in your kitchen, I must say I've used it alot!

Well, that would be all for some time, I'll be back with some ideas for food to take on vacation, as mine is coming soon, and when riding a bike through the country, you have to be sure what you take with you, as the space is really really limited!

Until next time, I wish everyone a green and happy life, enjoy green because it will make you happier, and give you this wonderful photo I took last weekend, with the comment that my bare feet were on the grass while snapping it!

Having a glass o' wine...

 I've finally discovered how important light is to a photo...

 ...and this is my "wine"...raspberries and banana! delicious!

.....and since I was in the mood for snapping photos:

..... and here's my all time fave occupation in the morning:

....and what I'm currently reading:

The power of now!I'm only a quarter of it through...but it really is worth reading! I know I'm already in debt with a few reviews...I'll make them this weekend, ok?
Here's my latest buy, at the advice of Mr. Marko Pogacnik, who wrote about Paracelsus in his book...

...and here's the flower we gifted our colleague yesterday with, for it is her birthday tomorrow! Happy Birthday Lore! And a happy weekend to everyone else!

May the green power inspire us to do good deeds!