Meditation week

     Meditation week was a big success. I tried several different kinds of meditation: zen, smiling, guided and free form. Zen was the hardest for me because during practice you have to sit in a specific posture and keep your mind clear of all thought. I set a timer for 30 min (which was the minimum meditation time each day). I made it 17 before getting too antsy and checking my phone.
     Smiling meditation was my favorite because it is so uplifting.  The basis is that you smile with every part of your body. Smile with your liver. Your heart. On  top of smiling, I went through and thought of WHY everything was smiling, too. This did me a lot of good because I have been struggling since surgery. Certain organs are not wanting to do  what they are supposed to which leads to frustrating side effects. It was exhilarating just to smile and be glad about what is good in the moment.
     At the end of the week I dropped my sitting pulse from 110 bpm to 80. I really had to work at it, but I got it there. My heart is not exploding this week. I think it would be good for me to continue practicing so it continues not exploding. Plus peace of mind, relaxation time, clarity of thought...'n stuff.
     This week: Cartoon week. Drawing, not just watching.

Chocolate week: not as satisfying as hoped

     What is made from a mixture of cacao parts and coco butter, originally drank by Mayans, and made me gain two pounds in one week? Chocolate. All of these things are true. It was a learning experience, however. Did you know that the difference in Hershey's milk chocolate that is good and Lindt's milk chocolate that is amazing is largely the amount of time that they "mill"  the chocolate concoction before hardening? Hershey only uses 4-6 hours of "milling" because it is cheaper that way. Higher quality chocolates do it longer which makes the chocolate smoother. Ta-da!
    I have not mentioned the effect of the caffeine. I had a little trouble sleeping for the first few nights because of all the caffeine I ate that I don't normally eat. Eventually my body got used to it. Now, I'm pretty sure my love handles are at least 33% chocolate.
    During this experiment I ate chocolate from Puerto Rico, Switzerland and the U.S.A. I ate it with 31%, 64%, 77% and 99% cacao. Don't eat 99% cacao- I died a little on the inside.  Plus I ate it with strawberries, potato chips, bacon, filled with caramel, toffee and chilies. It still amazes me that chocolate goes with almost every type of flavor: sweet, salty, sour and spicy. Would bacon count as salty or umame?
     My advice is not to try this. Do a small tasting. Enjoy occasionally. Don't fill a week with it.
     Next week, well, this week is meditation week. After a week gaming and another eating chocolate, I need to try and calm my heart rate. I don't want this year to result in my untimely end because of high blood  pressure. So off I go to get in a few Oms before work.

So ends video game week.

     This week I spent way too much time with Mario. I am now seeing bricks and coins in my head. I dream of castles where you have to escape the rising lava while avoiding flying turtles. Plus, I'm pretty sure that I need glasses and blood pressure medication now. Despite all that, I enjoyed the week. I could come home, veg out and play games without shame. Ben (BF) helped by also playing video games. His game of choice was Worms. He is more skilled than I am at games.
     In the middle of mad gaming I had to take a day off. I was getting so frustrated at being stuck that I had to take a day and cool down. My thumbs were sore and I was jumpy in real life. It  was like an owl was gonna come out of nowhere and kill me in real life.  I had to be vigilant. After my day off from Mario, I got much better. I easily beat the level I was on a progressed several more.
     So did I beat the game? Sadly, no. I got to world 8-6. I had one more world, one castle and then the big end battle to complete. So i feel overall good about my accomplishment. I hope that it helped my hand eye coordination (but I doubt it). Will I finish the game anyway? Yes, after a week or so off. I'm afraid that my brain would explode if I tried it now.

Next week: In honor of upcoming Valentines day it is going to be chocolate week.

Van Gogh week a hit.

    Van Gogh week was better that hoped. I read a ton about him, tried to sketch wherever I went and painted. I kind of wish I would have gone step further, though. Painted outside more. Maybe got into character AS Van Gogh. But I didn't... so maybe another time.
     The biggest challenge I took was to make a self portrait in his style. I titled it "A Portrait of the Artist in Summer." I worked in acrylic instead of oil because I wanted a faster drying time than the weeks it took Van Gogh's to dry. That created the problem of it drying too fast. So the resemblance is not the best. Actually it looks more like me at 16. Plus the paint kept drying a little darker than I wanted, hence the "in the summer" part. As a side note: I was a terrible model. I kept moving my head and changing the light source. Will opt for someone better next time.
     This painting took me approx four hours. I wanted to keep it quick and not linger because Van Gogh was a speed demon. Over his ten year career in painting he completed over 900 paintings.  During one of his "crises periods" (his mental breakdowns were characterized by hallucinations, anxiety and extreme lethargy) he was institutionalized for 70 days. He was not allowed to paint the first two weeks. He still finished 70 paintings and many more drawings. Wow. So I worked hard and fast. Here is the result-

    Next week I am giving myself a break from the intellectual and my goal is to complete a video game. It will hopefully be Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo DS.

Note: I still had a whole red snapper left from my initial start to the week of learning to prepare fish. Ben (bf) and I stuffed it with artichokes and crab, covered it in herbs and baked it. It turned out delicious, but of course the bones were a problem while eating.

Change of plans

Fish week has been cancelled to to exorbitant fish prices. It is now Van Gogh week. Enjoy.

The end of crafts week

    I really thought this week would be more fun than it was. I gave myself time to work on whatever projects I wanted to. In the end it was good to get some things finished, but it was not the week of inspiration like last week was. I did make a few new things that I like. The first project I worked on were bookmarks. You know I read a ton, often several books at a time so I made bookmarks that really wedge in the book and don't fall out. Also they don't have dolphins or fairies or anything corny like the ones at the bookstore. Here are my faves.

     I also made card books. I was fortunate enough to recieve lots of cards over Christmas, so I decided to bind them together. I just made a cute cover, laminated it, lined up all the cards and cover and then hole punched them. On the back cover I put information like where it was and important things I want to remember when I look back on Christmas. I like it so much I went back and made card books for my 21st birthday, graduation and surgery.

     Next week: All about fish. Cleaning, cooking, et. al.

Glad that's over...

     So... write a novel week went as well as it could. I did not get close to finishing. But here is a a little excerpt.

     I never thought that donkey meat would be a treat. But, after all these weeks of nothing but the thinnest meal mush and the occasional snake, the wild burro will taste better than steak. My husband, Manuel, was a few campfires over sharing a bottle of tequila with his best friend Paulo. Although tequila would do me some good right now, I have to keep stirring our little stew pot. If I burned this special meal I am sure to be sent away but I have nowhere to go. When I decided to follow my husband into the army, I turned my back on my village and my family. Now all I have left is the uncertain life of a soldadera.



     I have been traveling with the army for eight months. When I say eight months it sounds like such a short time, but in my heart I can hardly feel the person I was before. I used to live an unexceptional life like any other girl in the village. My mother was preparing me for marriage in all the traditional ways. As a child I was taught to obey. As a young girl I was taught to cook, sew and care for children properly. When womanhood neared I was taught to manage a household and a husband.


     My marriage has had no call for these skills. I needed to learn how to march for days on end and how to shoot as straight as the soldaderos. I needed strength and courage not motherly gentility. However, it is no use looking at what should have happened or who I should have been. There is just Manuel and I in the desert, sharing a pot of burro stew.

This week: Craft a day week. You'll see them soon.