Linda's Summer Slaw (sugar free)

1 medium savoy cabbage chopped
1 box of golden raisins (more or less if you prefer)

Dressing made in food processor:

1/2 cup of sour cream
1 cup of lite mayonnaise
1 tbsp plus a few drops of lime juice
3 tbsps of dijon mustard
pepper to taste

Mix it all up and let it chill!!

Making Transitions the Best Way I Can

I need to make some changes at work due to grant limitations and new projects.  In order to have time to do so I have to tell at least five people whom I have been counseling long term that they only have three more visits with me.  Not all of them know this yet and the ones that do are choosing to ration out those three visits in ways that mean I have no idea when we will actually be finished.  However, I hope to work with them in ways that help them know that they are strong women with plenty of support around them.
In order to make the transition a little easier for them I have spent the last few days making them each a painted rock that reminds them of something that came out of our visits together.  I had so much fun doing this that I plan to go to the river later today and find more rocks.

This first set of rocks was courtesy of my friend, Joyce, in Maine.  Years ago her children had gathered these rocks at the seashore and left them on a large boulder in the side yard of Joyce and Roland's mountain home.  Joyce graciously allowed me to pick as many as I wanted.  I thought it would be easy but thanks to a swarm of mosquitoes, I had to make a blood sacrifice in order to take these away.

After washing and drying them I covered them with Martha Stewart acrylic paint from Michaels.  I love the colors.  The red took two extra coats but the blue and green only required two.  This took me two days.

Yesterday morning I signed the bottom in order to have them ready for painting today.

I used Craft Smart paint pens, but mostly used Pigma brush pens.  The brush pens are perfect for fine lines and Sumi-E type strokes.  I think the bamboo one turned out quite well.  Next time I will use a darker background for the photos.  It was also hard not to get the glare from the camera.

You may not be able to tell but there is cabin at the bottom of the mountain and a dock and boat on the lake.  

Unfortunately, the Mod Podge coating did smear things up a little.  I may have been too eager.  But after a most excellent cello practice I found I could go back and touch them up with the paint pens and they look pretty good.  I have a couple of favorites and one that is not so much but I won't point them out.  I will let you decide which ones you like.  I hope the women I was thinking about while I made them like them, too.

Oh, and, of course, Boo helped by just being there.  She is my therapist.

Finding What's Missing

I just got back from spending a couple of nights and a full day in Maine.  I s.Spent most of my time sitting on the glider rocker on my friend’s sun porch getting my feet licked by Macie, one of the two dogs that provide companionship to Joyce and Roland.  Some people like to sit on the beach and stare at the ocean.  I like to sit on a chair and gaze at the mountains.  I was well rewarded with a beautiful sunset last night.  I also like to walk in the woods, but the mosquitoes in Maine are well known for being blood sucking denizens and the couple of times I ventured a few feet away from the house I ended up flailing my arms wildly in the air trying to keep them away.  We took the dogs down to the lake for a quick dip, but before I was able to take my sandals off and get in the water, one of those freakishly persistent insects had flown up my nose.  It was best to stay indoors. 

This past week was pretty hectic.  Besides the usual stressors of working with domestic violence and sexual assault survivors and their advocates, things had gone awry on a conference I am planning.  Thanks to team work it is going to work out, but for a few days I was feeling a little pressure.  At times like that I tend to think that there is something missing in my life and try to fill whatever that space is with whatever is available.  Mostly food.  Used to be beer, wine, cigarettes or unhealthy relationships.  This week, however, I stayed more present with my feelings and was able to keep from diving into a pint of Chocolate Therapy ice cream. 

I thought about how I had managed that while I was gazing at the mountain.  I realized that when I think there is something missing in my life, what’s missing is me.    Stress puts me in the past, the future, but rarely in the moment.  I was more in the moment this week.  I stayed the course through my feelings.  I didn’t push it all down with food. 

Sometimes I talk about the committee in my head and the difficulty I have in making decisions.  One of the committee members is all about the quick fix.  Another likes to structure me within an inch of my life so that I can’t mess up.  Then there is the committee member who doesn’t play well with the others and prefers to run rampant until things get too scary and then she defers to her best friend, the one who likes the quick fix.  There is another who resists structure and prefers to go with the flow.  Fortunately, I also have a wise inner woman who manages to get them all to compromise or allows them to take turns in appropriate ways.  None of these committee members are the real me.  That’s a good thing.  But they all exist and if I am not present, the wise woman has a harder time managing the malcontents.  That is when I feel like something is missing.  When I feel like that it is an alarm letting me know that the wise woman is about ready to let the wild things run amok because she can’t do it all herself.  Glad I was there to help her this week.  I think it also helps that I have friends who are available to keep me grounded. 

Some Thoughts on the World

I have not been able to stop thinking about a post a friend of mine put on Facebook yesterday. 

“When the Obama 2012 sign appeared on our street, so too did the Confederate flag in short order.”

This is just two miles down the road from me, here in New Hampshire.

I used to say that the racism here was subtle as opposed to the in your face racism of the south where I lived for 26 years.  However, it seems that the hateful rhetoric of the past four years has encouraged people to use their freedom of speech in threatening ways.  As a liberal pacifist, the last time I felt threatened was right after the start of the Iraqi war when everyone but a few were believing Bush’s claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  My values were considered traitorous at that time.  There were actually a couple of times when people tried to run me off the road and the only reason I could ascertain was that they didn’t like my bumper sticker that simply said “Peace.”

I feel more threatened now.  The far right wing has become more verbal, engages in less critical thinking, and has guns.  There are certainly many conservatives with whom I could engage in open discourse who have not been spoon fed their politics by FOX news and the Tea Party.  I think that we could agree that we are of different opinions and would be respectful of each other’s viewpoint.  However, when I see Confederate flags and hear of calls to do unspeakable things to our President, and see bumper stickers and comments on news items (i.e. the death of Andy Griffith) that are spewing hatred I retreat further to the left.  When did this minority of the far right become so loud? 

I was born a liberal.  How do I know I was born this way and not indoctrinated?    I remember early on questioning the teachings of the Catholic church I attended from first to fourth grade. Also, my parents did not discuss politics so there was little chance to be indoctrinated. My sister and I were dismayed to find out many years later that our father voted for Richard Nixon.  I think I understand his decision, though.  My father was a Korean war vet who firmly believed in the cause of fighting against communism even though a lot of his thinking would have fallen into the ideals of socialism.  Like many people of his generation, he did not grasp the difference between the two.  If he was alive today, I hope he would do everything he could to understand Obamacare so that he could defend it and would not be hindered by the socialist label that so many conservatives have tagged onto it in order to raise fear. 

That is where the dividing line falls for me.  Not between conservatives and liberals, but between people who choose to carefully study the issues and make their decisions based on fact rather than the sound bites of FOX news and the color of a person’s skin, the origin of one’s name or their immigration status, and whether or not one has a vagina or a penis. 

If you are willing to stop yelling at me with your rhetoric, I am glad to listen.  Those of you who prefer to wave your Confederate flags and hide behind your guns – well, you make me fear for this country.   It doesn’t matter, though, because you probably aren’t reading this. 

In the end, whenever I am feeling discouraged, I remember what Anne Frank wrote in her diary shortly before being found by the Nazis:

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."