Welcome to our new blog, where we will come together in being separate! Becky has moved to California to pursue her dream of being a French teacher and I am six months away from joining her. Look here for updates on what we each are doing in our separate states of being together!
This year Becky and I are going to California for the holidays and now, all of a sudden, she's not coming back! It's a little sad for me because we just recently got our house kind of decorated for Christmas with lights and a few ornaments. Well, I didn't want my sadness to get in the way of sharing the beautiful lights with you, so here are some photos.
The Living Room
The Loft Area
Our special glowing red Christmas ball! (This is Beck's fave)
I'm allergic to trees so we could not get a Christmas tree, so
instead, we have a Christmas cart! The trains are salt dough
ornaments that I made with the kiddos.
Ok, well, that's it! I know, it's small, but we plan on growing the collection just a little bit each year...;-)
Well, Adi and I have written a bit about alternative gift giving and approaching the holidays with the idea of community, sharing and love as our central focus. And while it is not yet Christmas day, I have already received the greatest gifts anyone could give me.
The first gift was an opportunity - a job opportunity. It felt as though it came too quickly and I spent the weekend feeling overwhelmed and confused. Yesterday was no better. I was asked to give an answer by yesterday afternoon and managed to buy myself one more day. Unfortunately it seemed to make little difference. One minute I was sure it was the wrong timing, the next I knew that I couldn’t pass it up. And in the process i looked to every important person in my life for advice.
Gift number two - the people in my life. From my sister who said, “remember that no matter what, just getting the offer is really exciting,” to Adi who put up with my stress and reluctance to let myself feel scared and insecure, to my mom who was a mixture of analytical reasoning and intuitive advice, to my dad who was so simple and clear “go for it!” to Eliz who said I can live without a car, to Irena who is willing to be there for me even though we don’t often talk anymore, to my brother with his “Totally! It’ll be awesome!” Clearly, these are some wonderful folks. Each one had something a little different to offer me and while I felt like I was getting nowhere, the overall effect was helping.
So today I took a deep breath and thought “everyone is leaning towards telling me to do it, and they all have confidence that I can, so I guess I just need to have faith that this will work.” And since I can convince myself of pretty much anything, I felt convinced.
Then there was the third present. The one that made it hard not to cry at my desk. The actual present itself is a car. Well, the loaning of a car from my brother’s childhood best friend. But the real gift was two fold. Fold one - generosity in such an easy, humble, “I have it and don’t need it so I should just share it” kind of a way. Fold two - the validation that what everyone kept telling me is right; if I am open to possibility, if I put good energy out there, if I take a leap of faith and a bit of a risk, I will be ok. I can create the life I want and can help bring into my life what I need. Simply by being open.
The decision to take the job means a quick move. It will mean being apart from Adi for six months. It means leaving the home that we just really settled into, leaving the UU community here, and that is heart breaking. But, it is part of life and a new adventure. And I am so grateful to have the holiday season to spend with Adi.
Anyway, I already feel perfectly fulfilled in terms of Christmas presents. I was given opportunity, support, love, encouragement and generosity. What more could I ask for? I just hope that I can find ways and opportunities to offer the same gifts. While I feel torn in half and a sinking feeling at walking away from the life I just finally felt at home in, I am called back to the ways in which life will both ask of and offer you more than you can ever really expect.
Here's an online driving tour of the downtown area of my soon to be home! It's to the tune of Wanted Dead or Alive. California is so rockin!
And you can take a look at the beautiful nature of Northern CA! I will
only be about 40 mins from the beach!
I am not Buddhist. I am nothing that ends in -ist. I belong to nothing that ends in -ism. I am not comfortable with indoctrination. Oh, but I do follow the Buddha's teachings...well...some of them...the ones that work for me. I also do take part in the Unitarian Universalist church that Becky goes to here in Santa Fe...precisely because they don't indoctrinate. They include all faiths, which includes one of my faves...Buddhism.
Why am I talking about this? What has any of this to do with the holidays or the holiday spirit? Well, maybe it's a loose connection, but maybe not. It remains to be seen as I continue to write.
This holiday season has gotten me to thinking about community. No. More than that. It's gotten me to really contemplating community, endeavoring to understand the true nature of community. It's obscene really that I've never contemplated it before. I've barely even thought of it. How, in the midst of such a populated nation, growing up inside of one of the most densely populated areas of that nation, can one be 32 years old and not yet have really thought about what community is? Well, one can be from an extreme individualist society, that's how.
Buddhists don't celebrate Christmas. But I realized something today. Having come to the understanding that Christmas is not about mass-produced merchandise and spending oneself into debt, but instead is about community, I realized today that Buddhists act as if every single day is Christmas. Now, there are many levels of Buddhism in the world and I've only experienced a few in person, and yes, I've met a Buddhist here and there that deviate from the norm. But, the prevailing spirit of Buddhism I've experienced in person is that of giving and of community. It is a life value, not a seasonal value.
Where am I going with this? I'm not sure...;-) I suppose here: at the end of this holiday season, let's all keep the spirit of giving and of community. Let's make it more than a seasonal thing. Let's make it an every day thing.
We are part of the most powerful nation in the world. What each individual one of us does will make a VERY big difference. So, this holiday season I say never mind to my request for books. Psha! I'm ashamed I asked for that! I don't want books. I want a community oriented nation.
Since I often can't spend all that much time at home due to indoor allergies, I spend a lot of time in bookstores. Unfortunately, since I moved to Santa Fe, my only option is Borders. There are some used book stores, but I'm terribly allergic to them. Santa Fe is not necessarily the cleanest. Businesses are not held to the same standard here as they are in the Bay Area. Even the least kept up bookstore in San Francisco never smelled as musty as the cleanest one here. But, I digress.
As you already know, I'm entering the interesting journey of Low-Impact Living. This means I've committed to not shopping at large corporations as much as is possible. Since I can't buy used books, that means I can only buy new books. This presented a problem to my new low-impact philosophy. For a while, I just suffered. But recently, I thought of a way around it. Since I spend so much time at Borders already, I thought to myself, "Well, get yer arse off the internet and read some books!"
Since the time of that revelation, I've read about 5 Philip K. Dick books and a Chuck Palahniuk book. It's not a bad plan. Once in a while I'll find myself wishing I owned a book I have read so I could refer to it for one reason or another, but all in all, I'm surviving just fine.
Today, as I sat in the brown faux-leather chair at Borders, I realized something. I could ask for new books for Christmas! It's true it will create an impact, but not nearly to the same degree as going willy-nilly all year long with new book buying. So...here's my list.
Well, today I feel icky. It's gotten me to thinking about the holidays and what they are really about. Actually, I was already thinking about that, and you know this if you read the very first blog, but, feeling icky got me to thinking about it in a different way.
At first, I had the thought that since I feel icky and don't have a ton to say other than - I feel icky - I shouldn't write in the holiday blog today. I thought, "Holidays are happy times, community times, spreading joy times! I should not do anything but spread joy." Then I thought, "Wait, that's kind of fake. Are the holidays supposed to be about fake happiness?"
I had to really think about that. Turns out, I had to get past some conditioning I didn't even know was there. Luckily, after about one minute, I left that musty old conditioning in the dust, and I thought, "No, the holidays are not supposed to be about fake happiness." I mean, who can force themselves to be happy or in the mood to spread joy on command? Ok, it's true. Some people can, but it's not believable. You know what I'm talking about. Those times when you walk away from someone who has just puked ingenuine happiness at you and you think, "Well that sure was transparent, and slightly uncomfortable."
Anyway, I think the holidays are really about intention. Since we are so lucky in this world to have many levels of reality all occurring on top of one another, it may be one level of reality that one feels icky, but on an entirely different level of reality there could be the intention to spread joy and create community and send love out to everyone.
So, here I am, writing this blog, about feeling icky, because that's what's going on. But, also, that other level is going on. When a good friend of mine called and left a message this evening, instead of doing what I'd usually do, which is not call while I feel icky, (which sometimes means I don't call for days) I called, because this holiday season has taught me something: my friend doesn't care if I feel icky, she just wants to be my friend and hear my voice and connect, and maybe even be given the chance to spread some joy my way on an icky feeling day...;-)
Well people, the holidays are here and winter is upon us and my body is adjusting it's food needs. This is something, as a Californian, that is quite new to me. In California I could eat salads all year long and it felt great to my body. Not so in wintery, snowy Santa Fe. As you can see from the banner at the top of this blog, winter in Santa Fe is cold. That jumping/smiling sequence of images you see...10 degree weather. That's right folks. 10 degrees. This here Californian is getting tough!
This here Californian also can't eat salads through the winter. First off, now that I've sworn off corporatism (as much as is possible in this town with few grocery shopping options) and shop at the local co-op 98% of the time, the produce section is about as big as my pinky finger and it's mostly winter veggies. I've never made a raw butternut squash and kale salad and I'm not about to start. Instead I'm transitioning into eating the things my body wholeheartedly asks for: meat! butter! cooked things in general!
And this has lead us to the real point of this post: Ravioli stuffed with sage seasoned buffalo, caramelized onions and pinon nuts, topped with a butter-lime-tomato sauce, homemade, by moi. I'm excited to share with you photos of this experience. Becky took the photos and, since there really isn't enough light in our kitchen to be taking photos at night, they lack quality, but not art!
I actually didn't just make ravioli. I made giant ravioli! My body doesn't take super well to carbs (and Becky doesn't like how they make her fat), and by making giant ones, it really cut down on the amount of pasta we ate!
Ravioli making station
Tomato Butter Lemon Sauce
A random picture of the lemon I used, courtesy of
the artful Becky ;-)
Adding caramelized onions to the sage seasoned
buffalo with peas and pinion nuts
Folding over the sheet leaving 1/4 inch at sides
to fold and press
Putting a little water around the edges and pressing
them closed with floured fork
Pushing the stuffing in with a spoon so there is room
to fold and press
Still pressing sides closed. This is a big ravioli!
Almost finished with the second ravioli, which looks
much nicer than the first
The finished product!
At this point, the Becks, otherwise known as The Photographer, went to write an email, so there are no photos of it cooking or being plated, but I'm sure your imaginations will suffice! For those of you who will use this to make your own ravioli, I'll let you know that the boil time was about 7 minutes, but the amount of time will depend on how big your ravioli is, how thick the pasta is, how wide you make the edges...so...the best way to do it is to just check the ravioli every few minutes until it's done.
Since the two giant raviolis were all we needed to fill our tummies to maximum capacity, I have a ton of the pasta sheets left over. My next ravioli experiment is going to be: Herbed Beet with Beet Greens, pecans and Cream Cheese (tofutti) Ravioli with Marinara.
Merry almost-Christmas! This is the season of thinking of others, doing for others, creating community and having an intention to love our people and our world. Honestly, it can be a lot of pressure. This year, we are trying to relax into it and do things that are full of intent and consider the community of humanity as well as the individuals we love.
With what is happening today with our economy and our environment, we've become aware of just how non-community oriented the idea of Christmas has become, with the sole goal of large corporations being to get people to spend as much money as possible on their products. I believe we should all be saying, "Hey! That's not the point!" Furthermore, it's not helpful to the Earth, the environment or each other.
What's my point? Well, since this is our Holiday Blog, my point is that we are making an impact this holiday by NOT making so much impact! We just found out that our winter bill from this last month, snow and freezing temps and all, is $13.85. How can that be? Well, we haven't been using heat. Is it cold? Yes. Is Becky really unhappy about it sometimes? Yes. But she's on-board anyway! What a trooper...
Some ways we are trying to be low-impact is to give our gifts differently. Buying locally is a good way to avoid the corporate trap, so we are keeping an eye out for local goods that would work well for our loved ones. Becky works on a Native American Reservation where local jewelery makers come around selling their wares, of course we can't say whether or not she bought any for fear that someone might be clued into their present from her !
Also, it would be a consideration to make a donation to a humanitarian or ecologically friendly organization on behalf a friend or family member.
Last but not least, a great way to give a low-impact gift this holiday season is to MAKE one! No, it's not a joke. For a long, long time that's what Christmas was actually about...making things to give to others. Nowadays, no one makes anything anymore. We have to admit, thinking of what we could make is really stretching our brains! But, we think it's important to do, and so we'll work it out, because, what could be more thoughtful and Christmas spirited than giving something born out of your own elbow-grease and contributing to a healthier planet to live on?
Would you like to get into it with us? We would LOVE to hear your ideas for low-impact gift giving! Just comment below.
