Favorite Snacks

Favorite snacks come and go. I took stock this week of what I am eating as ‘mini-meals’ between the three majors. These are all very easy prep and not too high in calories…generally high in nutrition too.

Carrot chips and hummus. At one time I thought I would make my own hummus, but my grocery story has their own brand of hummus that is reasonably priced. My favorite seasonings are roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, and lemon/dill. My grocery also stocks carrot chips so I buy them when I don’t have a big supply of carrots from the CSA. This snack works very well as a component of a picnic lunch as well!

Smoothie. As the weather gets cooler this one might come off my list but on warm days it is a favorite. This morning it included some frozen watermelon, frozen lemon wedges and sweet potato leaves.

Fruit. I always try to have seasonal fresh fruit on hand. Earlier this month peaches were at the top of the list. Now I have some nectarines and oranges….and lots of apples.

Popcorn. Since I bought the Nordic Ware bowl for popping corn in the microwave, this is again on the ‘healthy’ snack list. I use pumpkinseed oil or lemon infused olive oil on it rather than butter.

Kale chips. This snack is the one that requires the most prep. I cook a lot at one time and store the chips in a plastic container. I keep thinking that they will last a week or so but I always eat them faster than I anticipate. My favorite seasoning is salt….somehow it just seems right for ‘chips.’

How will things change for when it is colder? I’ll have to decide and then stock the ingredients. Snacking wisely requires some planning ahead!

CSA Week 15

Week 15 of the Gorman Produce Farm CSA - it’s another week of great food!

There is a little bow wave of garlic, potatoes, and winter squash from previous weeks - but those foods keep for weeks and months. I did make a fabulous custard with leftover baked butternut squash this past week; mixed up in the smoothie maker with just a little honey, baked into a light consistency custard, and then drizzled with maple syrup just before being eaten. Yum! I’ve also enjoyed the small purple potatoes in stir fries (only 2 at a time to not get too overwhelmed with calories. We made a bit batch of spaghetti sauce to have made good use of some frozen tomato sauce I’d cooked when I was overwhelmed with tomatoes a few weeks ago.

The big surprise to me this week is that sweet potato leaves are edible!  Evidently they can be used raw or cooked.  I’ve going to try them both ways and, if I like them, go ahead and cut the leaves from the sweet potato on my deck to enjoy; supposedly it is a good thing to do a few weeks before the sweet potato harvest.

I traded the poblano pepper for an additional bundle of Dinosaur Kale since I enjoy kale chips so much.

Notice that I got all yellow tomatoes too!  They’ll look beautiful with the red leafed lettuce.

Note that I’m using my own bags rather than bringing any plastic produce bags into the house. It feels good to avoid items that will become trash (or recycle if they stay clean).

Rhythm of Days

School and then my career set the rhythm for most of my days for almost 60 years! The clock was a driver for when I got up in the morning…when I left home…when I did things all during the day…when I got home. It was quite an adjustment when that ended. What would the new anchors be? Did I want to rejoice in wild variety every day? It took me over a year to settle into the rhythm that fits me best (for now). The ‘anchors’ are very basic: sleeping and eating!  I re-discovered very quickly that sleeping and eating at about the same times every day made is easier for me to feel healthy and ready for just about anything I wanted to do for the other times of the day.

Waking up. I don’t use an alarm clock any more (unless I have to get to the airport really early) but I am definitely a morning person. My rule is that if I wake up and it’s after 5 AM - I get up. Usually that happens between 5 and 6. I am dressed and going down for breakfast within about 30 minutes. The house is generally very quiet while I eat my breakfast and read…another 30 minutes.

Morning activity 1. There is a lot of variety in the activities during the day….but not so much the first one. Usually it is at the computer - meal planning, starting online coursework, checking news headlines, responding to email. Groceries stores open early enough that sometimes the weekly grocery shopping gets done in this time….or I may leave for a volunteer gig.

Snack. Since I don’t eat a big breakfast, I almost always have a snack between 9 and 10….a piece of fruit is probably my favorite.

Morning activity 2. The activity times before and after lunch seem to be the most variable of the day - house cleaning, gardening, volunteer gig, course work, reading or writing, or exercise.  I do a lot at the computer but it is not sedentary time - I bounce and lean on my Swopper chair all the time I am in front of the computer.

Lunch is always around 11:30. I am realizing that I rarely cook involved meals. A big salad, stir fry or soup are all quick meals if all the ingredients are already in the kitchen!

Afternoon activity 1. Add to the list of morning activities the possibility of a nap. This is the time slot if I take a nap…not a frequent occurrence but it does happen.

Snack. Hummus and carrot chips about 3PM - yummy and it fuels my afternoon.

Afternoon activity 2. In the winter time this may be the best time for outdoors exercise to catch the best warmth of the day.

Dinner. I like dinner between 5:30 and 6. It’s early enough that most of the year we have sunlight to see food we are cooking on the gas grill.

Evening activity 1. I am always trying to finish the blog for the next day or the videos for a course during this activity period….so it is usually in front of the computer again.

Reading/going to sleep.  Reading is my way of winding down for the day. Sometimes I can tell my metabolism is slowing down and I wrap myself in a small blanket to be warm and comfy in the easy chair…and then about 10 I am sleepy enough to go to bed.

One of things I’ve gotten better about over the past few years is preserving the basic “wakeup --> snack --> lunch --> snack --> dinner --> sleep” rhythm even when I am traveling. It takes planning but is well worth the effort to sustain the good way I feel physically at home when I am away.

CSA Week 14

On the morning before the pickup of the week 14 share, I had a few things left.

• I made a slurry of carrot tops and poured it into an ice cubes tray. The cubes will go into soup makings this fall.
• The butternut squash was something I completely forgot about. I decided to cook it for dinner; I’m sure I’ll have left overs to use in soup…or maybe I’ll make a small honey laced custard.

The week 14 share was very colorful: 2 pounds of tomatoes (I got yellow ones!), 2 snack peppers, 2 Japanese eggplant, 1 bunch of Swiss chard, 1 bunch parsley, 1 head Napa cabbage, 1 head lettuce, 1 pound of green beans and an acorn squash.

What a wonderful amount of color! The stems of the Swiss chard are my favorite.

The oranges and yellows of the peppers and tomatoes say ‘summer’ - maybe even more than the traditional red tomatoes (that I have from my own plants on my deck).

And the purple of the eggplant nestled in the greens of beans, lettuce, cabbage and chard leaves - the deepness of the color always surprises me.

I’m thinking stir fry (chard, green beans, cabbage…garlic and onions from earlier weeks), salad (tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, green beans, a little parsley). I am already planning for the parsley to be processed into a slurry and frozen like the carrot tops; I don’t want to go over the top on vitamin K!

Coursera Experience - September 2014

September is going to be a lull in terms of Coursera courses. For most of the weeks I will only have one or two courses. That is probably a good thing since I am attending classroom-based volunteer naturalist training during the month as well.  There is no shortage of learning opportunities!

The Globalization and Social Psychology courses are ended…although there is still some reading to do. Both of them were among the more thought provoking classes I’ve taken.

The Camera Never Lies is providing another insight into history and historians. I’ve appreciated the lectures which have included interviews with history grad students. I have considerable reading and video to view for this course as well.

The Symmetry course has been enlightening on several levels. I particularly enjoyed the references to tiling. The segment of the course that focuses on crystals is just starting and I expect it will be as challenging as the Systems Biology or Volcano courses earlier this year.

I am looking forward to the American Poetry course starting soon and am anticipating that I’ll be celebrating how different it is than courses I have been taking recently.

October is going to be overwhelming. There are 4 courses I added to my list….and now that I am looking at the list again, I still want to take all of them!

CSA - Week 13

Wow - the warm days are flying by! We are in in week 13 of our CSA’s season. I don’t have much left from week 12: half a jalapeno pepper (which I will use in a stir fry tonight), garlic, and potatoes. The last two will last for a long time so I’m not worked about any waist.

I discovered that I like carrot tops both as an added green in salads and in stir fries. They are not as strong tasting as parsley more a bit more than spinach. Since carrots were included in the share again this week, I checked the tops as much as the carrots!

The small purple potatoes are being savors two or three at a time - diced and used in stir fry. It’s a great color addition to already colorful food.

I managed to get to the CSA pick up early enough to get some yellow tomatoes! Four pounds is a lot of tomatoes and I ended up getting red ones too. And then there were the roma and mountain magic tomatoes too. My plan is to eat the yellows ones sliced for a snack (maybe with dabs of garlic hummus), the mountain magic in salads, and the rest as tomato soup or sauce that I may end up freezing.

Hurray for the inclusion of pac choi again! It was in a share early on but it’s been too long. I like it it both stir fry and salads. The kale will work well in the same things….and I can’t resist making kale chips again.

Butternut squash is one of my favorites too. I usually just prick the skin and put it in the over for an hour….then cut it after it is already cooked (i.e. soft) and scoop out the seeds. If I have enough left over, I might make butternut squash custard (using the pumpkin custard recipe).

This is going to be another great week of good eating.

Still in the Trash

My last post on the topic of trash was back in January.  I decided to do another inventory.

What is changed from January?

Composting fruit/veggie parings and eggshells. The old joint compound buckets we have left from our basement finishing are great for loading up about half full then moving on to fill the next one. I have enough to hold the compost until it is ‘done’ and ready to go on into the chaos garden. I think my strategy will work even during the colder months!

Small pieces of paper and clean foil. I’ve become expert at collecting small pieces of paper in small boxes and putting the whole thing in the recycle when it is full. When I get pieces of foil that are clean (like on dark chocolate), I collect it into a ball of foil until it is large enough to go into the recycle.

Package avoidance. We have made an effort to stop buying food in packaging that is not recyclable. Microwave popcorn is probably our biggest change. We used to eat a lot of microwave popcorn but buy the plain popcorn now and use a Nordic Ware popcorn bowl to hold it in the microwave (this is healthier too). The CSA has also help reduce packaging - clamshells and plastic that sometimes is too messy to recycle.

So - what is still in our trash?

Packaging from food. Messy plastic or clamshells from meat purchases are the most significant food trash right now; we aren’t buying as much meat but the packaging is always plastic/foil shrink wrap or clamshells that are messy with meat juices. There are small items that are made of recyclable materials but are not allowed because of their size or sharp edges; these include the flip tops from canned goods (the most numerous in our household is from cat food) and straws. I am using up the straws I have on hand then won’t buy more.

Kleenex and paper towels. I am going to try using less Kleenex when I am around the house; I’ve dug out handkerchiefs I’ve had for years to put in strategic places and then into the weekly laundry every week whether they are used or not. I’ve already dramatically reduced the paper napkins we used by keeping a stack of cloth napkins on our table. We don’t use a lot of paper towels; mostly they get used for spills on the floor in the kitchen.  I’ve made the old towels more accessible so maybe we’ll forego the paper towels more often.

Used cat litter. This will always have to go in the trash. It probably already makes up a sizable portion of our trash.

Good to be Home

I enjoy travelling….but I am always glad to come home. It takes me a day or two to recover from being away. This time I got back in the late evening so about all I did before sleeping was drink water to recover from the dehydrating effects of the plane flight and the time it took to get through the traffic jam all around the airport even though it was 10 PM at night! 

Getting back to ‘normal’ at home started the next day. I was pleased that my husband had managed to water the deck garden enough for the zinnias and marigolds to be better than when I left….and there were new peppers and tomatoes growing.  A hummingbird came up to visit the plants while I looked through the kitchen window. What a good ‘welcome home’! After breakfast, a trip to the grocery store was the first priority.

Then I tackled the normal ‘after traveling’ chores of unpacking, laundry, and putting the luggage away. I sorted the laundry and put the bag of birthday presents I had purchased for our cats on the table.  Evidently the smell of catnip from the toys had pervaded the dirty clothes because the cats enjoyed messing up the piles!

Now that I have been home for 2 full days, things are settling back to normal. I am catching up on Coursera videos and have gone through most of the snail mail. There is a pile of reading waiting and plenty of CSA veggies to eat before the next share is picked up on Wednesday. I’ve got some volunteer work scheduled for this week. The situation is just the way I like - at home.

Coursera Experience - August 2014

Quite a few courses ended in July:

• Diversity of Exoplanets (University of Geneva)
• Preventing Chronic Pain (University of Minnesota)
• Paradoxes of War (Princeton University)
• An Introduction to Global Health (University of Copenhagen)

I enjoyed all of them but there were times I thought I had started more than  I could possible finish. It is incredibly difficult to forego a course on a interesting topic; I need to develop more will power!

As I start August, only two courses are in session and I am enjoying the reduction. It is challenging to keep up with the classes while I am traveling….but I have succeeded in listening to the lectures. I’ll have to catch up with the discussion forums and assignments later. The two courses are:

Globalization and You (University of Washington). I just finished the module on Money last week. The history of monetary policy and outcomes was very well done. It may be the best module of the course!

Social Psychology (Wesleyan University). Every week there is something that surprises me....and quite a lot that is very applicable to everyday life. The forums are lively in this one ---- worth the time to peruse and participate.

I have one course that will be starting up in August after I am back home!

Beauty, Form, and Function: An Exploration of Symmetry (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). I am looking forward to this course for several reasons: it is a very different topic area from other courses I’ve taken, it is offered by a different university that other courses, and I anticipate that this topic will benefit from the cultural diversity what will be part of the MOOC students.

CSA Week 8

The pickup and initial handling of our eighth week share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was totally up to my husband yesterday! He is not a big veggie eater so he grumbled a bit when first presented with The Plan. The Plan was for him to simply put everything in the crisper until I returned from my travels.

I turns out that there was something he can truly enjoy in the share before I return: a yellow flesh watermelon! When I was a child the yellow watermelons were always special; most of the time they came from a grandparents’ garden rather than a grocery store.

CSA Week 6

This is the first that my crispers were totally empty by the time I went to pick up this week’s share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture. The last items to go were a leek I used with some scrambled eggs for breakfast and a cucumber that I diced to fold into yogurt for lunch.

The two new-to-me veggies this week are Japanese Eggplant and the Sun Jewel Melon. I may need to do some web surfing to decide how I want to eat them. I’m already planning to make Fruit Beety with the beets - probably tomorrow.  I am missing leafy greens so have added them to the list for the grocery store.

The Grand Cleanout - July 2014

I am making slow project on my goal

To be ‘move ready’ by June 2015

since my post in June. The pile of clothes to donate and electronics to recycle has grown. The grand cleanout will be finished for 2 rooms with another couple of hours of effort. It is hard to let go of items I’ve had for a very long time but know that I will never use again. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Travel books. I have quite a collection that I’ve kept because I reasoned that I would reference them as I planned trips. But I’ve noticed recently that I am more likely to do research on the web than in the books. The web is more likely to be up-to-date. So not I am getting rid of the books unless they have really good pictures!

Thread. Years ago I did a lot of sewing and I bought thread when it was on sale. The spools are at least 25 years old at this point (so may be deteriorating a bit) and I can’t imagine that I will ever need that much thread for the few sewing project I might undertake.

Office supplies. There is a closet full that have accumulated over the years. I used to take notes into blank books --- but now the notes are electronic. I send emails rather than writing snail mail letters so the box of envelopes and specialty papers are orphaned. Even a ream of plain paper and laser printer cartridges are lasting for a very long time at the rate I use the printer now! It’s hard to give up the security that all those supplies near at hand has provided but at least half of it needs to go.

There is a lot to do before the August post.

CSA Week 5

I had a few things left from the 4th week share from Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) when it came time to pick up week 5: a couple of carrots, one leek, an onion, a few cloves of garlic and 1/3 of the cabbage. All the more fragile veggies were consumed before they were spoiled. I have discovered that I can enjoy a whole cucumber in one sitting made into a smoothie with pineapple salsa and water on a hot afternoon. The vines on my deck have a lot of small cucumbers right now so the cucumber + salsa smoothie might become a summer afternoon tradition!

The share for week 5 includes:

• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 bunch of leeks
• 1 head of magenta lettuce
• 2 onions
• 2 small heads of cabbage (from at 3 types!)
• 2 kohlrabi
• 1 pound squash (yellow and zucchini)
• 2 pounds of cucumbers
• 1 bunch of kale (my choice instead of chard or collards)

I already made most of the kale into chips! And we’ve made a start on the magenta lettuce and purple cabbage as part of last night’s salad.

I am most thrilled about the kohlrabi since I discovered how great it tastes in stir fries when it was part of the week 3 share. They are such an odd looking vegetable but have become my favorite new food so far this summer (although the beets in Fruit Beety are a very close second!).

On Grocery Stores

Going to the grocery store has been part of my weekly routine for over 40 years. Recently - I thought about how it has changed over that time.

The stores have always been box like - with aisles. They have gotten physically larger over the years and many of them now have exposed structure in the ceiling, polished concrete floors rather than frequently scrubbed linoleum, and pallets of merchandise stacked on some of the aisles making the store take on the appearance of a warehouse. There displays that expand into the aisle and cluster in front of the cash registers have increased over the years. The refrigerator units with soft drinks in front of each aisle are relatively recent additions.

It’s not just the refrigerator units near the checkout lines that are new. Forty years ago, soft drinks were most frequently in glass although the ring top aluminum cans were becoming available. There was already almost a whole aisle dedicated to them. Much of the produce was locally seasonal - except for things like bananas which were always from far away. I lived in Texas in the early part of the 40 years, and lots of the fruits and veggies came from the Rio Grande Valley - now the sources for the produce section are worldwide although some stores are realizing that people do equate locally grown with fresh. Many stores have sections in their produce section for ‘local.’ 

The basic configuration of the checkout line may not have changed much but the advent of the scanners to the cash register made it possible for every checker to be as fast as the really good checker in the pre-scanner days. It was always amazing to me that some checkers in grocery stores 40 years ago knew the price of everything and could enter it very rapidly. The hiccups these days are caused by things that don’t have bar codes (usually produce) or the computer going down.

The types of products I buy at the grocery store have increased over the years. There are more non-food items. There are many reasons. Early on things like toilet paper and shampoo were available at the grocery store but they were more expensive so I always bought them elsewhere. Grocery stories have expanded to include what used to be in a drugstore: a pharmacy, first aid supplies, over-the-counter medications, and toiletries…..and the prices are often comparable.  They carry more cooking supplies now too: Pyrex and stoneware casserole plates, smoothie makers, and grill accessories. There is a seasonal aisle as well - coolers for summer, Christmas decorations in November and December.  I did my a glass bowled bird bath at the grocery store last year when it went on sale….and a peacock stake for a pot in my deck garden this year. I don’t remember when stores started having greeting cards and school supplies and magazines. The space allocated had increased over the years. Now the space for greeting cards is decreasing. Last week I noticed a display of earrings. Is that a trend?

Even the carts have changed. For a long time they were big metal almost rectangular baskets with a front section that flipped back to make a seat for a small child. There were some small changes: seat belts were added for the child and sometimes much of the basket was plastic rather than metal. Recently a new style of basket has been introduced: shorter in length with two tiers and no seat for a child.  The cart holds almost as much as the old style cart but is more maneuverable….and I notice just about everyone that does not have a child using the new style.

Bags have changed too. Starting out there were the square bottomed paper bags. Then the thin plastic bags came along and stores defaulted to use them although the paper bags were still available. Once recycling started, I would periodically get paper bags to hold our recycled paper at home and bring bags of the plastic ones back to the store for recycling there. In the past few years I’ve started using my own bags. I tried to make the switch for produce but that was tougher; the stores don’t have an alternative for the plastic bags in the produce section. I’ve solved the problem for this summer by going to the Community Supported Agriculture...but will probably accumulate the plastic produce bags again in the winter.

When I started writing this post, I had only thought of a few changed….but now I realize that quite a lot has changed in grocery stores in the last 40 years!

Clothes for Hot Days

The summer temperatures have arrived and I’ve done some slight rearranging of my closet. Most of the jeans and slacks are put away until fall as are all the long sleeved tops. The favorite items in my closet right now are skirts/tops and dresses. I am enjoying the T-shirt dresses I made last summer.

The skirts work even better for me because I can wear them for several days with different tops. And I’ve been very successful finding skirts I like at thrift stores! I like print skirts in filmy fabrics that are just below the knee or almost ankle length. It’s a plus for them to be washable too.

Sure - I still have shorts and capris. But I’m not wearing them as much as I used to since rediscovering that dresses are cooler. I do have a pair of skinny capris that end just below the knee that I wear in celebration of the weight I finally lost last year (they used to be tight….and now they are not…maybe they are even a little loose!).

Previous post: Clothes for Warmer Days

CSA Week 4

I managed to have empty crispers by the time I picked up the 4th week share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Drying most of the parsley (cutting it up coarsely with kitchen scissors and just leaving it out on a cookie sheet for a couple of days…now it is stored away for use in other cooking) and making collard green chips (same technique as kale chips) cleared the overflow condition within 24 hours of picking up the share!  Then I alternated between salads and stir fries and green smoothies to finish off everything except the beets - which I used for the special treat: Fruit Beety (see picture in yesterday’s post, recipe in CSA Week 3 post)

There is a shift in week 4 - it not as overwhelmingly leafy green! Can you find all the items on the list in the picture below?** (Hint: I chose the kale rather than chard or turnips). The cucumbers will make excellent smoothies with plain yogurt and pineapple salsa (and maybe I’ll use some leek too). The lettuce and cucumber are the only two items that are not candidates for stir fry. I’m trying to decide whether to use the kale for chips…or save some leaves for stir fry and salad - there’s really enough for all three!

** Starting at the upper left and moving clockwise: red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, kale (lower right), summer and zucchini squash, garlic, carrots, and leeks.

On Cooking

I’ve been cooking for over 4 decades…and today I started thinking about how things have changed in that time period.

Microwave ovens are the biggest technology change although the majority of times I use it these days is for popcorn (the Nordic Ware Microwave Popper has allowed me to go back to the same kind of popcorn I bought 40 years ago rather than the popcorn packaged with lots of additives).

Less meat. I eat a lot less meat these days because there are so many other sources of protein: yogurt, soy nuts, and peanuts are my favorites.

More vegetables. The CSA has increased by veggie consumption this summer but even before that I eat more vegetables now than I did 40 years ago…..and more of them are fresh rather than canned.

Less bread. I eat grains in different form than breads. Commercial bread was easy to give up. Sometimes I make muffins or scones but I am more enthusiastic about grains that I didn’t consume at all in the beginning of my cooking life: quinoa and chia.

Food processors make it easier to grate and puree in large quantities. I had a blender than I used 40 years ago but it was primarily used for milk shakes. I have several concoctions that are produced by putting everything in the food processor and just running it for several minutes (Fruit Beety is the most recent).  I also have a smoothie maker (a specialized blender) that I use with frozen fruit or veggies.

The menu has changed a little too over the years. Most of our meals take 30 minutes or less and even for the longer prep times there is a ‘get it started’ (like putting potatoes and meatloaf in the oven) and then going off to other things until it is done. Stir fry meals didn’t start until the last 10 years or so; I have a technique where I cut up the longer cooking items, start them cooking while I cut up the other items, then add the quick cook items (like leafy greens); it forces me to work fast!

Overall - I think the way I cook now produces tasty - and healthier - meals and is often easier than it was 40 years ago but not due to technology improvement.  It’s the learning through experience and focus on nutrition that has made the difference.

Coursera Experience - July 2014

Following the general schedule of the brick and mortar universities that offer courses through Coursera, there were a lot of new starts in June. It made for a grand total of 5 courses on my ‘to do’ list by the end of the month:

The Diversity of Exoplanets (University of Geneva) - The course has provided a good framework for me to understand the news items on the topic….and there are quite a lot of them these days!

Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach (University of Minnesota) - The Systems Biology course I finished last month prepared me for the most technical module of this course!  Since I don’t have chronic pain at this point in my life, I am truly focused on the ‘preventing’ aspect of the curse. The biggest action I’ve taken so far is to broaden the amount and kind of stretching I am doing.

Paradoxes of War (Princeton University) - This course has been thought provoking both from a historical and more general societal context. Since there has been some time sequence to it - we are now in the years of my life and I am appreciating the different perspectives of what happened in the 60s and 70s.

An Introduction to Global Health (University of Copenhagen) - There is so much to be done and, while there have been strides, there are set backs too. The people that are the most vulnerable are in the least healthy situation and their pliant is often impacted by disasters (floods, earthquakes, wars). At the same time, we are facing the reality that many in the developed world had chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that are sapping medical resources too (and now the NCDs are increasing in the developing world too).

Globalization and You (University of Washington) - The course divides Globalization (political) from globalization (interconnectedness) and encourages students to research how each impacts them directly. I am already behind in the reading and the participation! Strangely enough - a lot of what I’ve been learning in some of my other classes seems feed into this one (the ones that come immediately to mind are Global Health, US Food System, How to change the world).

By the end of the month I should begin to recover. Several courses will end and the only one that will start in July is:

Social Psychology (Wesleyan University) - The course is advertised to focus on ‘research findings that are easy to apply in daily life.’ What a great course to enjoy with air conditioning in August!

On Trends in the US

There are quite a few news items about trends in the US. There are some that are appealing to me - and that I feel part of my life:

• Buying locally grown food
• Taking advantage of free online courses (Coursera is the one I’ve enjoyed)
• Reading online books (most of my reading these days is electronic rather than printed on paper)

There are other trends that don’t jive with my life right now:

• Watching television. I was an hour of less of television per day (there was an article about hours per day trending upward with the average being 4 hours per day)
• Interacting via social media. I do occasionally look at Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest….but not daily. The content can too easily be overwhelming rather than helpful.
• Moving to ‘senior’ housing. I have no desire at all to live in an area that is not age diverse. I like have children in the area where I live.
• Exercising as part of a class or club. I’d rather formulate my days to exercise as part of the way I live my life.

Now that I’ve started thinking about trends….I’ll do the ‘next step’ thinking when I read or hear a news item about a trend in the US.  I’m feeling a little rebellious these days so I anticipate that I’ll be bucking more trends than following.

The Therapy Bush

Back in 2012 - I wrote a post about the therapy bush. I still feel the same way about it:  the trimming job is an opportunity to do some thinking about just about everything. Here’s the report from the first 2014 trimming.

The bush had needed a trim for at least a month. Every time my husband backed out of the garage, the branches brushed the side of his car. Maybe I noticed them more from my vantage point in the passenger seat. We had been having a lot of rainy days and I learned to not trim the bush when the tiny flowers were open (too many insects) - one morning this week was my opportunity to spend some quality time with the bush.

I thought the morning would be a good time since the temperature was the lowest it would be for the day. I neglected that the bush gets morning sun. The sun felt like it was burning my exposed skin almost immediately but I was determined. Working fast became a goal.  Random thoughts percolated:

• There is always something more that needs to be done in the yard. I made a mental list.
• I liked that my daughter was trying to grow tomatoes on her patio --- wishing I could be around to see the positive results. She is on the other side of the country and I’m feeling the separation more these days.
• Moving is going to be wrenching when it happens. I like the big trees and the walls of green they make. They hide a lot of potential ugliness. I was thinking about what my perfect house would have but then decided that people I live with are more important than the house.
• The melding of tangent thoughts to the Coursera courses I am taking. It isn’t obvious that such diverse topics as Nubia, Global Health, Chronic Pain, and Exoplanets would have linkages but they somehow do. Ancient Nubia and Global Health are a lot about Africa. The image of obese royalty in ancient times is also another link between those two courses - and to Chronic Pain course as well. One of the connections between Chronic Pain and Exoplanets is the understanding of diverse skillsets needed to make progress in many fields.

It took about an hour to finish the job. I was hot and itchy by that time but snapped an ‘after’ image. I carried the trimmings - and some rotten parts of the bush that fell away as I was trimming - back to the edge of the forest. Going into the cool of the house afterwards felt very good!