The Pre Years – a Fandango Flashback Friday Challenge

For Fandango’s Flashback Friday Challenge – a tidbit about life back in 2018, pre-brain surgery, pre-pandemic, pre-hailstorm.

3/18/18 It’s All About Balance

When you’re a spoonie with a family of 2 with chronic and autoimmune diseases, kitchen work can be a considerable challenge. We follow two similar yet different diets at our house. I follow WFPB (Whole Food Plant Based) diet, Superhubs is primarily pescetarian. He eats fish, generally once a day, egg whites as an ingredient and occasionally chicken if we eat out. He’s extremely particular about the type and preparation of fish, hence the occasional chicken and eschews all forms of dairy. We eat LOTS of beans, tofu a couple times per week. Since we are in “travel mode” right now, we eat simple and rather more “packaged” food than we normally would. Today we’re not moving but still follow the same principles. A quick look at our menu for today.

Breakfast: Museli for SH, quick oats for me.

AM snack: SH – 1/2 banana, 1/2 sheet graham cracker, 1/4 cup nuts

Me – 1/2 banana, 1 rice cake

Lunch: Soup with toasted cheese sandwiches, veggie sticks, chips

PM snack: Both – homemade oil-free hummus, crackers, cuties

Dinner: Saag Aloo with chickpea curry

Dessert: Fruit plate, 1/2 spelt muffin w/almond butter (homemade pumpkin butter for me)

As you can see, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It equates in spoon usage to a part time job. I’ll also do some writing (fiction project) in addition to this and some housework. Trying to figure out how to fit in some exercise since it’s snowing and blowing and too cold outside for my lungs. If the roads clear enough, we may try some “walmart walking” after lunch.

It’s always a challenge, to balance everything, enough rest, enough exercise, nutrition and convenience. The scale moves both ways and every day is different. I tell my yoga learners that balance is not a static thing. Stand in any one leg pose and feel the tiny adjustments your muscles make, especially your feet. Life is like that, balance isn’t something you just find, it’s a thousand tiny adjustments every day that give us the feeling of solidity. Life is always in motion and you have to roll with it. Nowhere is this more true than in the life of a spoonie. A healthy recipe for Saag Aloo (spinach and potatoes) in the slow cooker and a pretty picture for you my friends. Namaste ~oep

Saag Aloo — Serves 2

Ingredients
2 medium to large potatoes, well scrubbed (or peeled if you prefer), any “eyes” or brown spots removed.
1 cup reconstituted broth (I used Better than Bouillon vegetable)
1 to 1 1/2 Tablespoons dehydrated onion flakes (or 1/4 Cup chopped onion or 1/2 cup sliced onion if you have it).
1/2 teaspoon each of: cumin, ground corriander, hot chili powder (I use ancho), and graham masala
ground black pepper – a few good shakes

As much spinach slightly torn as you can fit into your slow cooker. Feel free to use a mix of greens, I threw in some collard greens that I needed to use up and a few handfuls of baby spinach. You can add more spinach as it cooks down.

Directions

Cut the potatoes into 1 inch or smaller pieces. I, personally do not peel my potatoes, I use organic and the peel is full of nutrients. The smaller the pieces, the quicker it will cook.
Add the broth
Add the spices and onion and stir in.
top with greens, firmer greens on the bottom, spinach on top
Cook on high for 3-5 hours depending on your slow cooker and the size of your potato dice
Add spinach as desired.

There you have it, quick, easy, yummy and slow cooker friendly, especially important on a low spoons day.

My view this morning

street lights cast a blue glow on the snowy branches in Richfield, UT

Til next time ~Duuuuude that’s COLD! ~JP

Rest Stop … Last Stop

The sokudu bike puttered slowly to a stop as Keziah held up a fist, the signal for the group to stop. Her wary gaze took in their surroundings. Flat lands for kilometers in every direction, good spot to make camp. They pitched their tents in the lee of the collapsed buildings. This land hadn’t been much before the war just a tiny oasis surrounded by kilometers of empty desert. Now they called it the “Never Never.” The saying was “Never go out there or you’ll Never come back.”

The Dead Lands

The Dead Lands

The stacks still spewed their poison into the air, the barrels of deadly poisons lay unbroken on the ground. A beleaguered Lady Earth had ripped away her own skin to be rid of the invading humans, leaving naught but scorched rock. The Dead Lands they were called.

The Feast

Xerina surveyed the dining hall. All was ready, the buntings draped, chairs assembled. Xerina was not entirely pleased with the look, it was some how cheap and tawdry with the folding chairs and tables, no matter how expensive.

Meeting at the Bistro

Meeting at the Bistro

She sat in the bistro looking out at the scene on the sidewalk, taking in the wild cacophony of sound and color that was the energy of this city. Her latte sat untouched, next to an empty notebook as she played the tourist. Solanj looked around, she would have preferred a more private setting for this meeting but the man claimed to have information about her sister’s attackers so she hadn’t tried too hard to change the location of the meet.

The Road Ahead – Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge #6

For Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge # 6

While there are no definitive style or word limits, I suggest trying to keep your posts to under 300 words.

The Road Ahead – Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge #6

There it was. The road that lead to Avonlea. Siofra gazed down at the long, long black line through the wastelands. Just last year the old road had blazed it’s trail through the prairie grasses. Lush and green, dotted with wildlife, it had been a beautiful drive. But that was before the Two Day War. Most of the world’s population had perished in two days, millions more in the aftermath. Then had come the nuclear winter and the holocaust summer. Savage wind storms had ripped through the world turning grasslands and forests to deserts.

Wired – a mostly true story

For Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge

Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a relatively short flash fiction piece inspired by the photo. While there are no definitive style or word limits, I suggest trying to keep your posts to under 300 words.

Wired – a mostly true story

He was only seven when the monsters came. Whispering to him late at night, telling him stories, telling him … things. I sat and watched as he stood open-eyed, staring off into the distance, talking to someone I couldn’t see, in a language I’d never heard. He was only seven.

A Jolt for Volt

For Fandango’s new Flash Fiction Challenge (yeah)

A Jolt for Volt

“Volt! You get back here right now!” Yelled Mother.

Volt just laughed as he ran in the opposite direction.

“You are too little to power yourself up now GET BACK HERE!”

A Wild Lament

A Wild Lament

She always came out in the late morning. Bathing in the little creek that ran near her cottage. They said she was a witch, but the animals didn’t care, a few of them came every morning to listen as she played her flute. Her song lilted through the crisp morning air, then turning to a slightly mournful score filled with quiet solitude and, perhaps, just a touch of loneliness. It was her offering to the day, a wild lament of the beauty and loneliness of a girl alone with nature. The littlest deer came closer and closer gazing up at her with brown eyes filled with adoration.