If *I* Can Cook, *You* can &%$#ing Cook

Isn't it lovely? This is the egg & spinach quinoa back I mentioned in my comments last post. I made this last week to some great success. I wasn't aware I had ever eaten quinoa (KEEN-wah, I think....) before, but, now that I've seen what it looks like cooked, I may have been served some as a side dish at some hoity-toity restaurants before. Basically it's considered a grain.... but somehow related to a radish... I'm not entirely sure. If you want to learn some actual facts about it, not just remnants floating about in my addled memory, check out the "whole grains" product page on the Whole Foods site here. I just bought some millet-based gluten-free bread today, and will let you know how that experiment turns out later. It's actually frozen, which is interesting. I guess harder to keep fresh than wheat bread? Has less preservatives? I don't know.

Anyway. So, last week I was trying out a few recipes. The quinoa bake turned out pretty well - I think it was sort of fool-proof. But it raised my cooking confidence. As a rule, I don't cook. In fact, the pilot light was apparently out in our oven for the first few months Jason and I lived in our new apartment, and I had no idea. I substituted some pre-cut green, yellow, and red peppers for 1/2 the spinach and some egg whites instead of using 8 eggs. I didn't have the right sized pan so mine turned out thinner than in the photo, but it was a nice easy thing to cut a slice of and eat either as lunch or a snack at work. Sadly, I have to take milk and eggs out of the mix for the next week+ so I won't be making it again soon, but will be able to again once the restrictive part of my nutrition plan is over.

The next experiment did not go so well. It was the Turkey Meatloaf, also from Whole Foods. It was actually more labor intensive and satisfying to make than the quinoa as there was all sorts of chopping and mixing and finally, after very carefully washing my hands, mushing the whole mixture together with my hands. That was really satisfying. I think I mixed it very well. Perhaps too well. So I put it in the dish (again, not the right size; didn't really read past the ingredient list when I went shopping.... ) and this is what it looked like:



Yes, it looks oddly pink... I realized later that was partly from the tomato paste. But then I put it in the oven, for LESS time than the recipe called for, I might add, and it came out looking like this:




Hmmm. Still, oddly pink. But now, also, oddly black on the edges... hmmm....

So, we ate it. And, well, it was gross. Kinda dry, and we had no ketchup to mask the dryness. Oh well. At least I got to squish meat with my hands. Jason has a great chili recipe he thinks he can put it in. :)

It's the new Jan Brady!

Hi, friends! Welcome to the new, nipped-and-tucked Blog 'O Shannon. Not only have I usurped the latest and greatest blogger background, but I'm making some changes and will be cataloguing some new adventures.

First of all, though the blog is titled "But I Digress," I am not going to focus my posts so much on the ADHD stuff. At the time I started the blog, I had just recently been diagnosed with the, uh, "Set of personality traits" and was dealing with how that affected me and integrating this new information into my identity. Don't worry - if I put my car keys in the freezer or the dog in the washing machine, you'll be the first to know. But it won't be all "Forsooth! What is-eth this thing that they call ADHD? Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? Whyeth must I know no focus and when shall I finally be.... shit, what was the rest of that sentence?"

Cuz that's lame. I'll also try to update more and write shorter stuff cuz, hey, if a magazine article is supposed to be as long as the average human bathroom visit, then I think the average time it takes to read a blog should be "quick enough I can be sure the boss doesn't catch me at work." Or I guess, average bathroom visit, if you have an iPhone (now go wash your hands, you filthy bastard).

Finally, my new adventure. Perhaps there will be other adventures soon, but, right now, my focus is on eating well and getting into shape. I am lucky enough to say that most of the things in my life are going pretty great right now; I have a job I like, I'm writing most weeks, my dog doesn't bark as much as he used to, I have a parking spot, and I'm in love with a super hunky, dorky, smarty-pants man who loves me lots and lots. But this one thing, knowing that I'm overweight and knowing that I'm not so healthy, has plagued me for a while. So, I have embarked on a 6 month long, hopefully lifestyle-changing nutrition adventure. It's a lot of baby steps so I'm not even thinking about the exercise part right now or counting calories. For the last few weeks I've been trying to eat good stuff -- lots of berries, some leafy greens (as much as I can handle), organic meats and cheeses, almond milk, greek yogurt, almond butter and apples, and my daily, super-awesome smoothie.

So come along, children, and join me on my antioxidant-filled jaunt down the path that leads to cardiac health and hot and sexy jeans. If nothing else, I promise it'll be funny.

I was going to write a blog, but I can’t remember about what

My latest post was a bit misleading as I actually wrote it a month ago and just posted it. So now I am actually at the END of my bootcamp. I have to say, it went really well and I would recommend it to AD/HD peeps and anyone just trying to get some stuff done that they can’t quite make happen. A few highlights:

I had four categories to work on – cleaning/organizing at home, developing a daily writing practice, organizing my work day, and finding a new job. Well, at the end of the first week I received an email for a job interview and had that job by the end of the next week. So, hooray, I got to get rid of a whole category. More importantly, I have a new job. Hoorah! I really like it a lot. I’m getting to do more, you know, interacting with humans and so on, and less interacting with, like, paper. I could talk about it a lot but I don’t want to say too much publicly about my OLD job, just that there are several people there that I already miss very much.

So, hoorah – no 4th category! So more time/energy to work on the other categories, right? Um, sort of. I would say that I am well on the way to developing some good habits. I get up early almost every day to write, at least for a half-hour. That is really huge, because I was very worried that I wouldn’t write once my screenwriting deadline had passed. (I’ll need to start working on it again in a few days, but that’s another story)

I also have started “picking up” around the house for a mere 10 minutes most nights. I wouldn’t say it’s a habit yet, and I wouldn’t say that I still don’t dread it. However, knowing that I only have to do it for 10 minutes makes me actually do it, so that’s another 50 minutes of cleaning a week that I might not have done at all otherwise. Our bootcamp director talks about “paying off the interest” rather than “making payments toward the balance,” which means that, if you’re only spending 10 minutes a day either cleaning, organizing, filing, dealing w/paperwork, etc., while you are building a habit, you are probably just dealing with what’s new that day and not getting to the Big, Scary Pile that made you sign up for a procrastination boot camp in the first place (see last blog for photo of Big Scary Pile, with dog). So ultimately I will need to up the time spend a night to 15 or 20 minutes, but right now I am “being kind” to myself and still trying to just build the habit.

I would say that, ultimately, the thing I learned from the boot camp is that I really do have the power to make small changes in my life that make a big difference. I realize this sounds extremely trite, but to someone used to looking at her disorganized, chaotic life saying “I don’t even know where to start,” it is a big deal. It’s sort of like the first time I did Weight Watchers and realized, “Oh my gosh, I can really do this.” I just didn’t really care to do it that long. But THIS change is easier – there’s lots of rewards, lots of self-kindness, and lots of baby steps. As someone used to taking big bites and having eyes bigger than her stomach (and known for mixing metaphors), learning that I can take baby steps and still be successful is pretty huge.

The next step is maintenance, which I will have to get back to you on…

Hey folks. As you can see, over the last year or so, I have been toying with several different ways of approaching my blog. Originally I tried posting once a week, and then later I thought it would be better to write shorter, more “off the cuff” blogs and post more frequently. THEN I thought, hey, what if I just go like five months without posting anything? That’s a good idea, too.

Somehow the last approach has not increased readership so I’ll need to start from scratch again. Luckily, this time, I have help. Woot! I’m currently in the process of a month long AD/HD “Boot camp.” Which means, right now, I am using my daily 30 minutes uninterrupted writing time. Yay! The idea is that a month is enough time to build habits, and we’ve been focusing on “effort, not results” (which I like, a LOT) so that it is more about putting structure in your life than to see magic changes. I won’t go into much detail about the program itself because Kim, our coach, describes it much better anyway. Here is her site if you’re interested: www.kensingtoncoaching.com. She does one-on-one ADD coaching as well, and she’s really, really great.

So, I’ve run into quite a few obstacles so far in my journey. After our kick-off phone call, I was pumped to get home and start my first task: set a timer and just “pick-up” around the apartment for 10 minutes. The idea is to try to pick up around the apt for 10 min a day to just keep it looking nice, rather than going “OH MY GOD, I need to clean for like 4 hours!” and either a) not doing it (who the hell wants to clean for 4 hours?) or b) doing it and then hating cleaning so much that I never clean again. So cleaning for 10 min: totally manageable. Since we have (notice I say HAVE, not HAD, and this story takes place in the past…) lots of dirty dishes, I thought that would be a good place to start because it’s a nice, self-contained task, but would make a visible difference.

Of course I get home and the water has been turned off. I knew the water was going to be turned off earlier anyway, but apparently they, like, broke something while trying to fix it and now it’s really really off. I am told by a neighbor that it’s supposed to stay off for the next 24 hrs. GREAT. (It turned out it was turned back on like 2 hrs later.) So I go inside, set my timer, and look around. Where the HELL do I start? The apartment looks like a sty. Every flat surface (including floors) is covered with clutter. The kitchen is a mess. I have a pile of clothes sitting in front of the closet that is some dirty, some clean. And of course my dog is like “Hey dude, what’s up? Time to play with me?” I ended up having to chain him to his little dog bed because everything I picked up to clean he thought was a toy, which slowed things down considerably.

I decide to start by clearing the Xmas lights and ornaments off the coffee table because that’s the most embarrassing thing to still have out. So this means finding places for the Xmas stuff, which means finding other parts of the apt that are messy, and thinking I need to clean that, too. In the end, I clean about .01% of every part of the apartment, but not any one part to any degree that another person could tell when looking at it. Effort, not results, right?

Obstacle #2: I’m supposed to get up and write for 30 min in the morning (as I am now). Unfortunately, I left my laptop, keys, and wallet in my friend’s car last night. But still, in the effort of habit building, I get up early, shower, walk dog (in rain), and then get ride from lovely, helpful BF to work. I was planning on writing with a pen on a blank page of computer paper while I sat in the school cafe until I remembered that my co-worker gets in to work early and would have unlocked the office by now.

Aside: Did I mention that we had a fire (or a non-flame fire, just a lot of smoke) in our elevator last week and now neither of our elevators work, AND I work on the 8th floor? And that the 8th floor is really the 9th floor if you count the mezzanine? (I do.) You know, you would think, having to go up and down nine flights of stairs every day would make you BETTER at going up and down nine flights of stairs. So far, not happening. I now look forward to going to work even less.

Anyway, co-worker had come in so now am using office computer to write blog. Because that’s what office computers are for. So I’m glad I came in early after all.

It’s been interesting so far – I will keep you guys posted on the further ups and downs.