Our Journey to England - Part One: The Passport Debacle

The girls and I will be spending Christmas in England this year.  We're so thrilled to be going and are counting down the days!

The first step toward our journey was getting the passports. I've had mine since 2010 but the girls have never needed one until now.  I thought it would be fairly simple but it turned into over a week of what I now refer to as The Comedy of Errors.


Wednesday, October 30th - 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm

We needed to get the kids' pictures taken for the passports so I picked them up at their dad's house at 8:00 and headed to CVS.  The girl at the photo counter didn't seem to know what she was doing and it took us at least an hour to do what should have taken ten minutes.


Monday, November 4th - 9:30 am - 10:30 am

The kids went into school late this day so we could get to the Whitney Point post office first thing in the morning to turn in the applications.  I get the applications from the clerk at the desk and proceed to complete them.  Social security numbers?  Ugh!  I don't know what their numbers are!

We drive home (luckily we're only 2 miles from the post office) and I dig the social security cards out of my safe.  I complete the forms and go back to the post office, girls in tow.

I hand over the applications and all the documentation to the clerk who takes one look at Sydney's passport picture and declares it too blurry.  She said they will reject the application if the photo is blurry which will slow down the process.  

Not wanting to slow down the process further, I told her to proceed with Melanie's application.

"Where's their dad?" she asks me.

"I am custodial parent," I reply.

"Do you have a signed and notarized affidavit from him?"

Of course I didn't so we decided to come back the following Saturday when I knew their dad would be able to meet us at the post office.


Thursday, November 7th - 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

I drive home to get Sydney to bring her to CVS to get her picture retaken.  The closest one is 20 miles away from Whitney Point so by the time I get there, I've been in the car for 50 minutes.

The man at the photo counter is happy to retake Syd's picture at no charge.  The first one he takes is blurry and I insist on him taking it again.  The second one is not great but better and we settle on that.  

Saturday, November 9th - 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Syd gets dropped off at the Whitney Point post office by her friend's dad and the girls' dad meets us there.  As soon as I walk in, I notice the sign on the counter:

No passport processing today.

Are you kidding me?!  At this point I'm ready to cry.  The clerk senses my impending meltdown and calls the Binghamton post office to see if they are busy.  She confirms they are not busy so all four of us make the 25 mile drive into downtown Binghamton.

We waited in line for an hour before being waited on by the most patient civil service worker I have ever encountered.  She assured me the passports would arrive in time for our trip which avoided my having to pay an additional $60/person for an expedited processing.

Part One of our journey is now complete and all I need to do now is not fixate on if we'll get them in time.  And hope everything else goes smoother than this experience.

Don't Postpone Joy

The other day on my way home from work I was driving behind a car with the above sticker on its back bumper. 

It made me smile in the way those "not so coincidental coincidences" always do.  This little message sent to me exactly when I was supposed to see it was so apropos and timely. 

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how we put things off and patiently wait for the perfect moment to arrive before experiencing what makes us happy. 

So much of our time is spent waiting for the next thing to happen, waiting for the next deal, the next pay raise, for conditions to be just right before we experience our bliss.

I have one dear friend who has a terminal illness and he has learned to embrace life understanding that it all could change in the blink of an eye. I, in turn, have learned a lot from him. I have two dear friends who have in the past year unexpectedly and suddenly lost their spouses.  In your arms one night, sleeping alone the next.

Life so short and no one should postpone feeling joy nor allow anyone from finding theirs.  It's good to have goals and dreams but don't let the destination keep you from enjoying the journey.  Grab joy whenever you can and you will find your life overflowing with more of it every day.

90 Days

Yesterday marked 90 days since my first date with Dr. D. I read somewhere last year that you should always wait 90 days into a new relationship before committing, making any major changes or planning too far into the future.  

The theory behind waiting for 90 days is that within that time, both of members of the relationship can see the others' idiosyncrasies, incompatibilities, shortcomings and serious faults.  It's hard to make a good decision when you're swept up in the chemical storm that happens at the beginning of many love affairs.

There were many times in the past when I wish I had followed that advice. I had good intentions but always knew in the back of my mind that I was moving too quickly; that I really should give it 90 days to see where it's going.  However, I dismissed the 90 day advice, told myself it was different this time and ended up with a broken and disillusioned heart.  I found myself discovering a dealbreaker 70 days into a new relationship or my last one which got to around 88 days before realizing we were not compatible.

It didn't take long to learn Dr. D. and I were very compatible and that may have something to do with the fact that we were friends for several years before pursuing a love affair.  Even though we knew each other, I'm learning new things about him all the time and the sweetness of this discovery thrills me.  

We can talk about spirituality, history, books. He can recite poetry, he's introducing me to the opera and live theater, he cooks me wonderful vegan meals and bakes me homemade wheat bread. He makes me laugh all the time.  He is compassionate to those less fortunate and generous beyond belief.  He cuts hydrangeas from his garden and wraps them in newspaper and twine just for me. 

He encourages me to dream at a time in my life when I thought I was fresh out of dreams.

He tells me he sees miracles in me.

Happy 90 Days, sweetheart!  I'm looking forward to many more!

The Born Again Vegan Blog

Please visit my new blog.  I will continue to use this one for general writing but The Born Again Vegan Blog will be specifically for vegan related goodies. 

It's a labor of love and I hope you'll take a look.

Living authentically

If you look back on my New Year's Resolution post of earlier this year, you'll see I resolved to adapt to an entirely plant-based diet by the end of 2013.  I had been a vegetarian since early 2011 after watching the movie Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives.  To be more concise, I was a ovo-lacto-pescetarian consuming eggs, dairy and fish.  

By the middle of 2013, I assumed my resolution to become a vegan would go by the wayside as so many resolutions do (see the one I made about writing in this blog more often) and I was okay with that.  After all, I was still sticking to not eating meat and it seemed to be working for me.

But was it working?  In March of 2013, my cholesterol was 274 and my doctor was being patient with me.  He gave me another six months to get it under control threatening to put me on medication if it didn't happen.  The thought of having a stroke lingered in the back of my mind but it wasn't enough of a threat to give up the eggplant parm pizza I adored or the cream cheese on a bagel I'd treat myself to now and then.  I resigned myself to having to add another pill to my pill sorter and was assured by many friends who had also resigned themselves to the medication that it really wasn't that bad.  One simple pill a day and you could eat whatever you wanted.

Then I got sick.  Really sick.

I'm never sick.  In almost 9 years of employment at my current job, I had only taken two sick days.  The company would hand over a big check every year to pay me back for the personal/sick time I hadn't used.  With this illness, I depleted my sick time from 33 hours to only 30 minutes.

I had a fever, body aches and extreme fatigue.  I went to the doctor but the strep and flu tests both came back negative.  On top of this, I developed thrush which resulted in painful mouth blisters that made it almost impossible to eat or drink.  I couldn't even brush my teeth.  I stayed in bed for five days.

During this time, I thought about how I had been neglecting my health and I thought about my relationship with food.  I came to the conclusion I had been heading down a bad path of overeating and worse yet, overeating unhealthy foods.  I knew going to a completely plant-based diet was how I wanted to live but I just didn't make the commitment to do it.  I also knew that the dairy and egg industries were just as cruel to animals as those that slaughter them for their meat.  Yet, I didn't make the change.  My beliefs and my actions didn't match up.  I wasn't living authentically and I believe my body knew this.  It was time to put my money where my mouth was and live what I believed.

When I was finally feeling well enough to eat, I made the decision to go completely vegan.  My brother and sister-in-law had been vegan for over a year and I knew I'd have their support and advice.  I had every Happy Herbivore cookbook Lindsay Shay Nixon had written but I hadn't made an effort to actually incorporate any of the recipes in them but now I took them off the shelf and pored over them for meal ideas.

My brother started a blog this summer which has been very useful to me.  Meaty Vegan is his story of going from a gravy lovin', chicken wing eatin' omnivore to a committed gluten-free vegan.  His blog led me to a book I cannot recommend highly enough.  Victoria Moran's Main Street Vegan: Everything You Need to Know to Eat Healthfully and Live Compassionately in the Real World not only tells you why you should be plant-based but how to do it easily!  It even includes recipes which make it so simple to made this huge lifestyle change.
 
After only three weeks of being vegan, my cholesterol went from 274 to 169!  My HDL (the good cholesterol) went up and my LDL (the bad cholesterol) went down.  My pants fit better and my overall health has improved.  Most importantly, I feel like I'm finally living authentically.  My belief in cruelty-free eating is in line with what I choose to put in my mouth.  I did it for the environment, the animals, for myself as well as for those I love.

It's not always easy.  Eating in restaurants is a challenge.  No more stopping for a Filet O' Fish at McDonald's when I'm in a hurry.  Now I'll stop at Moe's and get a vegan burrito or better yet saute greens in olive oil and throw in a can of black-eyed peas.  Vegan fast food, baby!  And even though he's an omnivore, my boyfriend has been an amazing supporter of my decision and loves to create delicious vegan meals which he enjoys as well. 

The unexpected bonus to all this is that I feel my life is finally in balance.  I'm living what I believe and it feels good.

169 feels real good too.

Pain and joy

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, 

your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.

 Kahlil Gibran

This quote by one of my favorites appeared in my inbox this morning.  Divine intervention, perhaps.  But it led me to think about what I've been through and where I am now.

It's quite a miracle that my life has taken the path it has.  I've met a wonderful man who has walked his own path of pain, suffering and heartbreak but now we share joy.

This joy would not be as wondrous as it is if we didn't have to go through the pain.  I had to be in an emotionally abusive relationship.  I had to be lied to and betrayed.  I had to learn to let go of the past and the people who hurt me.  He had to be feel the pain of sudden loss and both of us had to feel the despair of loneliness. It is the ying and the yang which makes up the fabric of our experiences.  Pain must be felt in order to fully appreciate the joy. 

Joy that will never be taken for granted.

 

A Gardener's Confessions

Time in the garden is a thrill for me! The delicious anticipation as the weather warms and the day finally arrives to plant the seedlings. Hauling buckets of water up the hill is like presenting a sacrifice to the gods of good harvest. The pure joy that comes from picking, cooking, eating and sharing the bounty is almost spiritual in nature. Bring on spring!

It was almost two years ago that I put in my raised bed garden.  My landlord gave me some space near our back field and I spent a full day digging and hauling nutrient rich soil into a 4 by 4 foot plot.

I'm a firm believer in the Square Foot Gardening method of gardening. Square Foot Gardening uses raised bed plots carefully delineated into 12 inch by 12 inch squares.  Each square contains a specific number of seeds, seedlings or plants depending on the plant.  For instance, you can plant 16 carrot seeds in a square but only 1 cauliflower plant.  I first learned about this method when I was a bored stay at home mom back in 1990 after my son was born.  Mel Bartholomew, on his PBS series made it look so easy and it was!  I felt like I'd invented gardening when I proudly presented my first broccoli harvest to my family.  What a sense of accomplishment!  I was hooked.

The first plants go in!

The garden at its peak (and a photobomb by Willow)

Just a small portion of the summer of 2011 harvest

This year's garden is already being planned in my mind.  Kale, arugula, endive, cantaloupe, jalapeno peppers, swiss chard!  Parsnips!  My boyfriend doesn't know it yet but he will be putting in another bed for me next to the existing one.  What I don't use will be donated to the Lisle Community Garden to feed local families.  Nothing like taking a passion and using it to help others.

So as I sit here listening to the winter wind howl outside my window and eagerly anticipate the thaw that will allow me to return to my daily walks at the lake, I dream of colors of carrot orange, mint green and squash yellow and a chance to once again indulge myself in the feel of rich soil between my fingers; a communion with nature.

My Beekman 1802 gardening gloves hanging on for spring!

I Can Choose Peace

 Wise owl.  And a very fitting quote from the Dalai Lama today.

Peace can come in many forms.  For me, it originates in solitude but may come through time spent on an open road and no agenda; time in a good used bookstore or a meal by myself in a strange town.

But I have found that peace can be shattered so quickly by the simple pettiness of small-minded people.  People who disappoint me and hurt me for their own personal gain.  It's times like this that bad memories float to the surface and I'm once again alone in my little boat fighting the demons that threaten to push their way back into my life.

Where do I look to regain that peace?  I find it through time spent alone in communion with the Universe.  If I allow myself to fall into a spell that comes from a Holy Spirit until my equilibrium is reestablished, I will once again be whole.  Meditation focusing on all the things for which I am grateful including my new life that is free of all the anger, resentment and bitterness that plagued me in the past will restore me.  At times, I need to remind myself how close that restoration is and how easily I can tap into it.

Or maybe a simple mantra from A Course in Miracles that says, "I can choose peace instead of this."  Indeed, I can.