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Butternut Squash Soup @ Tuesday Mornings in My Office – Webster, MO

by ErinLeave a Comment on Butternut Squash Soup @ Tuesday Mornings in My Office – Webster, MO

I took Tuesday mornings off through Thanksgiving to give myself a little buffer and a mild taste of freedom. I have all sorts of interesting things to write about these days… There is this towel mystery going on in my house (a real page turner) and I continue on my journey of transforming little random pieces of resentment that pop up into compassion. That actually is really an interesting bit.

We are working on a new allowance plan to roll out to the kids that will focus less on them being helpful and more on them being human. Ya know, with screen time goals and bonuses for how they spend their leisure time.

But, for now, I want to share with you a little recipe I put together yesterday. I didn’t take any pictures so you’ll have to use your imagination.

I really love how the soup turned out and it is pretty great for your immune system per my expert nutritional analysis. I am especially thinking about this because a couple of my readers have little babies and this is totally something I would imagine they would absolutely love cool or warm or even in a little frozen treat if they are teething.

Here you go:

Ingredients: Butternut Squash, Carrots, Apples, Celery, Onion, Yellow Curry Spice, Garlic, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ginger or Ginger Tea, Chicken Boullion, Honey, Coconut Milk, Simply Nutritious Mega Antioxidant Juice or Lime Juice and Peaches, Pumpkin Seeds.

  1. Half a butternut squash and put it in the oven to roast. I had it at 375 maybe for 40 minutes. I also used a well seasonsed cast iron skillet. Do the whole bit where you scoop the seeds and prick with a fork over the skin that should be facing up when the halves are laid down.
  2. Peel and roughly cut up 4 or 5 carrots, roughly cut up 4 apples (honeycrips, medium -ish), cut up 2 or 3 celery stalks, cut up a medium or large yellow onion. Put all that in one giant bowl and toss with some oil, 1 T yellow curry spice, 1 T minced garlic, 1 tsp Cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg. I happened to be fortunate enough to have left over oil from when my oldest daughter made donut holes over the weekend so I used that to toss it but anything works. Roast the fruits and veggies until they are smelling good and a little brown.
  3. In a large pot, put 4 cups of water, 2 ginger tea bags (or some minced ginger – I was out so I used ginger tea and just taped the tea bags to the outside so they would not slip) and a little chicken boullion (optional) and 1 T of honey and bring that to a boil then turn off the heat. This should smell like something you want to drink / soothing / comforting. Take the tea bags out.
  4. When the squash is done, pull that out and spoon the squash out and add to your ginger chicken broth. Use an immersion blender to get that going first.
  5. Add 1 cup of Simply Nutritious Mega Antioxidant juice. It’s apples, carrots, peach and lime – I suppose in theory you could always add peaches to your fruit roast and some lime juice.
  6. Put all your roasted fruits and veggies in and use the immersion blender to get it smooth.
  7. Add yellow curry, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg , more juice to taste. I drank about two glasses of this from a wine glass while I was cooking. This soup is truly a labor of love and this antioxidant juice is a little treat while you are giving.
  8. Add a can of coconut milk and blend
  9. Garnish with pumpkin seeds

David and I are doing a little bit of reclaiming our health this fall. There are so many different ways we are considering changing things up in our life. I have been finding a lot of joy in my morning routine and eager to spend some energy on some writing and yoga stuff I have on my mind.

I am also starting to think through our ofrenda and how I want to celebrate Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) coming up. We have lost some really lovely people in our lives, whose energy and vibrations are still very much a force in our day to day. I am thinking of putting a little emphasis on the celebration of them this year.

Plus we have Maddox’s 8th birthday hot on Halloween’s heels. The kids start phasing back into in person learning this fall which I am hopeful is not only healthy and safe but also gives them a little taste of normalcy and community.

Okay – time for the weekly BYOD (Buy your own drink / donut) Dunkin run. If only there were a way to make me feel better about the single use plastics…. maybe containers for water for painting the ofrenda…..

:)

So Sick and Tired @ Front Steps in the Sun

by Erin1 Comment on So Sick and Tired @ Front Steps in the Sun

My belly has been in knots lately and I know it is because I am back to regularly consuming news media.

I have also recently been exposed to first hand Trump thinking via several people in my immediate orbit and it honestly makes me want to cry.

I am so sick and tired of the evolution of our society being at the mercy of “dems” or “republicans”.

I am so sick and tired of elected officials obviously not understanding the dictionary definition of “public” or “servant” in regards to their role.

I am so sick and tired of narrow minded views trying to cast a lens on the whole of society.

I am so sick and tired of watching my neighbors work upwards to 3 or 4 jobs and have to pay $8 to cash a check at Wal Mart.

I am so sick and tired of fees and charges being passed on to entrepreneurs for services to launch their small business. Services of which the founders are in the top 1%.

I am so sick and tired of fees and charges being passed on to people doing the right thing and ordering groceries through Amazon to avoid risking their health due to a global pandemic when the founder of Amazon is in the top 1% and could care for their delivery personnel easily.

I am so sick and tired of women’s reproductive rights being summed up to “abortion”. Period.

I am so sick and tired of people being ignorant to the fact that our country and ways of living are largely built on racist principles. Facts that you cannot ignore or spin.

I am so sick and tired of people justifying murders because of what the murderer was wearing. I am so sick and tired of people thinking all lives matter when only black lives were enslaved in America, only black lives were discriminated against in America, only black lives were taken, limited and scrutinized. Get over it. GOD. Get over American ideals of pursuing the dream being accessible for everybody when they simply were. not. Were not. Are not. Oh that one really gets me.

I am so sick and tired of being the wealthiest nation in the world and believing you really can make it in America yet being afraid of pursuing my own dream because my corporate job gives me health care.

I am so sick and tired of the middle class not having free and informed tax consultation. I am sick of not seeing the whole of my tax dollars. I am sick of loopholes. And I am tired of our President.

I am so sick and tired of the media not having accountability and the Associated Press not offering fact accuracy percentages on mainstream media articles. I am tired of media not being required to denote what are facts and what is opinion. I am tired of misinformation in advertising.

I am so sick and out right tired of the lack of community revolutions in order to change the country from ground up.

I am so over it. I am over all of it. I am tired of knowing immigrant families who work back to back and pay their taxes and be scrutinized.

I am so sick and tired of people thinking that because they believe homosexuality is wrong or who subscribe to their assigned gender that people who are homosexual or gender fluid *do not deserve the same rights*. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

So much of right wing propaganda is on par with a statement like “because we don’t like peanuts, we do not offer grocery stores”. I am so sick and tired of living in a society where people do not even know they are slaves to media and marketing.

I am so tired of people being media illiterate and not knowing how to question the news.

I am so tired of people not being able to focus and be fully present on the real and painful realities in their own lives because they are afraid and preoccupied with the people governing and their incompetencies to serve the public.

I am so sick and tired of single use plastics. I am tired of the lack of choice in recycling. I am tired of fast fashion and the cotton wars. I am tired of how much people consume. I am tired with how much people throw away. I am tired of major leaders in industries not realizing that innovation should not be only about the middle and upper class but about interconnectivity and opening doors.

I am tired of all of it. I am tired of poison in our water and in our food. I am tired of how advertisements reflect my digital profile. I am tired of my data being used and sold. I am tired of nobody informing the public on how this works. I am tired of small seemingly insignificant tweaks to make life better for the whole of America be overlooked for profits.

I am tired knowing that mental health is misunderstood and that holidays are about spending and not resting. I am tired of the grind people go through to do something they are programmed to do.

I am tired of the people who don’t understand their vote for Trump keeps so many oppressed. I am tired of people who don’t see what Mitch McConnell is doing as disgusting. I am tired of hearing that liberals are ridiculous and naive and stupid when a progressive agenda is actually moderate and on par with the rest of the modernized world.

I am tired of people ignoring human trafficking, connecting the dots between homelessness and the opioid crisis, and continuing to sexualize women and exploit feminine beauty. I am tired of people excusing the President for his misbehavior and for their double standards of what they expect from the men in their homes and in their lives from what they expect from the highest office in the land.

I am tired of the women who do not expect more from the men in their homes and in their lives not realizing they should.

I am tired of protests not hitting our country’s biggest wallets where it hurts. I am tired of business as usual when we have serious work to do. I am so sick and tired of the moderate white woman who doesn’t influence with her dollars. I am tired of the chardonnay white woman who doesn’t even realize the world needs her. I am tired of the educated being ignorant and the ones with the best views being blind.

I am tired of white middle class or white rural people not realizing the benefits of the democratic platform are *for them too*. I am tired of the lack of diversity in news media.

I am tired of everybody being so opinionated based on click bait and news bytes and holding tight to that rhetoric and never sitting with a person at a bus stop, never mourning with a family when their black son was killed, never looking into the reality of what is going on at the border, never sitting with the command to love the foreigner, never sitting with the command to love your neighbor – not even seeing all of the diversity in America AS their neighbors.

I am tired of white people thinking America looks just like them and missing the bigger picture. I am tired of not feeling proud of our country. I am tired of things that should be in place and well-running being debatable, back and forth and unfinished.

I am tired of seeing the poor and the weary giving up. I am tired of the NRA, big pharma, wall street and every other organization holding the health and safety and well being of America hostage.

The current day Republicans have shown nothing to say to me they will help me stop being sick and tired of any of these things. Fox News Republicans are an irrelevant cancer.

I think that will do it. I just had to get it off my chest.

one certain thing @ my yoga mat in webster

by Erin1 Comment on one certain thing @ my yoga mat in webster

If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that one of these five kids is going to be talking to their therapist at some point in their twenties and will experience a major break through when their therapist smiles and says, “Honey! YOU *can* get a medium concrete!” all thanks to my sincere commitment to the belief that a small really is enough.

And I do think that. David has ordered mediums for me a couple of times and I never finish them. I have been generous and gone against this belief before to find my daughters’ forgotten half eaten medium concretes and slushies in the freezer “for later”.

Part of the reason they will be in therapy about this is because it is the true battle of what you believe (small is enough) and what you want (a medium).

I believe they will also believe that smalls are enough (on some level) because my belief, in its affliction upon them, has proven itself to be true.

Life updates seem a little mundane these days. I struggle writing about the day to day because I am not really sure how it will translate. I am learning a lot about grace and forgiveness and am back studying some yoga phenomenons that I have been witnessing in my regular-ish restorative practice.

It has been well over a year since I have taught a slow flow as restorative, meditation, yin and gentle yoga have been more of my immediate audiences’ appetite. With that, I woke up on Thursday unable to move my head in a complete circle and have been experiencing major pain for a couple of days.

Part of this is because I have miles on the car and my body is my body and it is crooked in places it used to be straight. But I also am victim (like many) to weakened muscles in the neck and shoulders due to screen time and those weakened muscles, when shocked – jerked – or strained unhinged tend to kink up.

I am also extremely tight in my shoulders and back. I would say this probably is related to two years of lots of cross country travel, airplane rides and road trips as well as day to day life stressors relative to change, automatic bill pay and working for the man.

Yoga Nidra teaches there are the “threefold tensions”: muscular tension, emotional tension and mental tension. As forementioned, I have (although less now than 5 days ago) all three in my body. Likely, so do you.

Normal relaxation is understood to be closing the eyes, resting back and taking a break from the things you are plugged into. However, yoga nidra (yoga sleep) goes a little beyond this. Google it. It’s a life changing experience using revolving awareness of 61 points of the body to basically rock your consciousness to sleep while your awareness transitions to your subconsciousness and (if you’re lucky) your unconsciousness. AKA your motherboard where all your wiring and habits and beliefs (like how a small concrete is enough) live.

The first successful (although any yogic sleep is successful in that you will at least play with the consciousness) experience I had, I woke up to the image *and sensation* of a skeleton becoming dislodged from the center of my chest and relieving my body of its stagnant bony complex.

Incredible. I was hooked.

I started up nidra again last night, with my neck in shooting throbbing pain supported by a sandbag. Yes. A sandbag. Although I am pretty sure my attention got off at the exit before entering my subconsciousness, my body relaxed and I fell asleep. I woke up with full movement and a little cold nerve hangover.

I am committed to resurrecting a slow flow practice at home, even if I am not teaching. Today I got into an inversion – though shaky – and I played a lot with shifting my weight into my arms. I also heard that pulling your head back so you have triple chins for 20 seconds ever hour or so during the day is super good for you. I am hoping my slow flow practice builds up some strength and evens me out a bit. I am hoping my nidra continues to release the tension in threefold manner.

I am studying nidra again to go a little deeper into sankalpas. Rumor has it that use of sankalpas in your yoga nidra practice can actually re-wire some of that motherboard program… call it karma… archetypes… religious beliefs that won’t go away…

And I need that right now. I am getting quiet in my days and – though nothing is wrong – my heart is aching a little bit. I am thinking the shedding of the muscular tension is letting me get into some emotional tension that can be released. I want this to transform my generosity and my service towards others. AH! OMG – honestly? I’m flow of consciousness here… that may just be my sankalpa. (They say it is usually a courser, broader, directional thing than a “quit smoking” thing.)

Ok. WISH ME LUCK. Anybody out there tried yoga nidra with sankalpas??