July 24th Adventures

Good morning, or as my Cherokee grandfather would say osda svhi ye
Today's Peak flow was an awesome 400. Very nice for a 6 am reading.
Today's meal plan looks like this:
breakfast 1/2 grapefruit and 1 cup of green tea. (yes, I'm already hungry, no I have to wait till 11:30)
Lunch paleo friendly veggie beef soup, small salad
Dinner stirfried beef and broccoli. No rice.

I one or two things to comment about here:
Thing #1. How to eat a grapefruit without sugar.
If you buy the ruby red grapefruits you'll find that they're naturally sweet and dont really need anything at all. After eating the pulp I add the juice to my green tea.
If you buy the regular ones, cut one in half and store it in the fridge. The coldness brings out the natural sweetness.
If you're weird like me and enjoy the taste of something sour, just eat it at room temp and dont worry about it. You might have to do this once or twice to get used to the tang but afterwards you'll be able to eat them without any trouble.
If you cannot stand the thought of a sugarless grapefruit, chop up a couple of dates or organic raisins and toss them on top. Or eat your grapefruit in conjunction with other sweet fruits like grapes or kiwi.

Thing #2 Green tea. I have contradicting feelings about green tea. Green tea is chocked full of antioxidant goodness. The problem with it is that most of these nutrients are destroyed in the digestive process which makes it rather pointless to consume the tea at all. yesterday I read and posted an article showing how to get around this simply by adding citrus products in the tea. Lemon, orange, and yes even grapefruit squeezed into it keeps the antioxidants in tact. How you ask? frak I don't know. Im not entirely sure researchers know either. But when they find out I'll let you know.

Thing #3 green tea and caffine. I was surprised to learn my green tea has caffine! Oops, Im not supposed to be drinking anything with intoxicants in it, and despite whatever health benefits, caffine is a drug and an intoxicant and screw around with my meditation. Although I havent' noticed (I admit I haven't really paid attention) any difference in how I feel after my morning cup, I will have to ask Lama whether I should continue. True the tea has a nominal amount, but still it's there, I'm hoping that the benefits of green tea outweigh the downside.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, I skipped my estrace dose. And I woke and found that the Apocolypse hadn't occured. I hadn't spontaneously combusted, zombies aren't roaming the neighborhood. JW was still sleeping peacefully beside me. He hadn't gone on an extended fishing trip and I have no desire to scalp anyone. Well maybe the neighbor who had his rolling ghetto blaster at full warp at 2:30 in the a.m. but even still.
I'm happy, feel good. All is well.
But of course this is day 1. Lets see how I behave after day 30.

Namaste Yoga today was a challenge. The Riding the Wind sequences were all about strength and balance. I learned today that I have very little of either.
I also came to the conclusion that my body doesn't always conform to the will of my mind.
It's like a 19 year old driving a vintage car.

Take is slow and easy. Give it lots of good fuel and an occasional wax job and all will be well.

During my 7 am practice I recieved two gifts from Lama Chenrezig and this time I scribbled down the essence of both of these before they floated away. I'll post those later on.
Today is tsa-tsa day and I'll be doing some of those this afternoon. I have one beaded bag nearly complete, and I need to go to town in August for more supplies. I'm using a comanche stitch and letting my mind create the mandala designs on the bags. I find this to be quite an interesting meditation practice.
And fun!
Meditation should never ever hurt!
I am also inspired to create a portrait of Chenrezig. I think the error I committed the last time I tried this and it didn't come out well was because I was focusing on repeating someone else's art. I think it would be much better if I meditate on His face, then come to my own conclusions, create my own portrait. We'll see how that goes in the coming days. But I do have to admit to feeling very inspired by it. I'll post that as soon as I get it complete. I still haven't finished Madonna of the Cosmos yet, which was supposed to be my Davincian inspired masterpice. I pull out the renderings, grumble at my lack of prowess and find something else to draw.
I have a surprise for Lama soon. I need to finish that up so I can send it.

Guitar practise is slow. I'm up to knowing three chords now. I can play Marley's Three Little Birds with a minimum of string screeching.
The secret, I've found, is in trimming my nails :D

And thus goes my day. I have one writing project to complete, a blog aside from this one to post and sometime during the day I'll even get around to doing some housework.
Ya'll have a good 'un.
om mani padme hum