Flirting With Summer

Today the temperature got up to nearly 80 degrees!! It was definitely a tease though; the temp is dropping already and the next few days are supposed to be considerably cooler. Isn't it amazing, though?? Just when you can't take ONE MORE DAY of stepping into your freezing closet, the temperature rises and all is right with the world again. By the same token, when you can't take another day of sweating in the closet by the end of August, the temperature drops. As though Mother Nature knows exactly how much you can take before you blow your stack. (note: Perhaps your closet is not located over the garage and against two outside walls, leaving it vulnerable to the whims of Ms. Nature. You get my drift :-)

Anyway, the warmer weather has most definitely whet my appetite for the foods of summer: salads, fruits, vegetables, grilled food. It all sounds great to me! Those gigantic zucchini, the ones I couldn't bear to look at by last September? Oh, I canNOT wait!! Spring is a time for new beginnings, for trying new things, for opening up your heart and mind to the possibilities. So, I will tell you about my latest journey into open-mindedness.

I received an email from my new friend, Marcia. (Hi, Marcia!) Okay, we've never actually met in person, but we've exchanged intimate info online, so we are now friends. Anyway, she invited me (and anyone else who was interested) to a class about raw foods. I responded that I would love to go, but couldn't make it to that particular class. I added that I just wanted to learn some more recipes; I am not actually interested in "going raw." I took a raw foods cooking class a couple of years ago in San Diego. It was fun, the food was great, it took the "experts" all day to cook an entire meal. They brought in laundry baskets full of greens which were quickly blended down into nothing. Seriously. There was just no way I would have the time, energy, money or refrigerator space to feed my family this way.

Marcia agreed, but asked me if I'd ever read a book called The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose? No, I had not. She told me to check it out, so I did. I borrowed the book from the library and it was endlessly fascinating to me. Natalia says that you don't have to eat a completely raw diet to gain the benefits of raw foods. She has tons of information about "detoxing" your body, adding a few raw foods at a time, food combining, easy recipes, and so much more. Okay, stop rolling your eyes at me!! I know, I know. BUT, I have to say, I have recently developed some digestive problems. Nothing is really "wrong" with me, but I just seem to be having bad juju in the digestive area. Okay, I was desperate to try something, anything. This was interesting, new, fun, and perfect for warmer weather food.

I bought a juicer and I started drinking the green lemonade in the morning. This is good stuff; almost addictive! You simply juice romaine lettuce leaves, kale leaves, a lemon, 1 or 2 apples, and a chunk of ginger root. Tastes yummy and feels healthy! Mike held his nose, but he likes it, too, and seems disappointed if he misses his opportunity and I drink it all. The other thing I do is just eat fruit/fruit smoothies until noon. It's not hard and I get to eat fruit!! Am I detoxing? I don't know, but it's fun! Everyone loves smoothies!

The snack the family LOVES: Take a romaine leaf. Spread about 1 tablespoon of almond butter on one end. Squirt a little honey on top. Roll it up, like a spring roll. Man, it is delicious! It's got to be better for you than a bag of chips! (Hey! I'm not dogging the chips! I'm just saying....)

The salad dressings are really, really good. You can make the lemon dressing and then put it on grated cabbage with a few raisins and have a delicious coleslaw. I could go on, but I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to share before I start breaking some laws!

Bottom line: check out the book. I ended up buying it online for about $10. I don't know about the science or the detox or the weight loss, but I do know you'll find some fun, different recipes, perfect for this time of year.

As a natural segue, we will move from summer eating on to sweater knitting. (Sorry, but it must be discussed!) I'm talking about the cabled sweater I have been knitting (or not knitting) since last August. Okay, I found the pattern, I had the yarn, I loved them both, I started knitting. I knit the back, got a bit bored, moved on to other projects. Back to the sweater, knit one front piece, started the other side, hit a major snag: when knitting in the buttonholes, some beautiful, one row buttonholes I learned from Candace Eisner Strick at a knitting workshop, I screwed up. I knit one buttonhole on a purl row of the buttonband, and one on a knit row. I was only thinking about perfectly spacing them, NOT about the mechanics. They ended up not lining up. Obviously not lining up. Well, I was frozen. Could I live with the crooked buttonholes? No. Could I bear to rip out all that work? No. So, I did nothing. I ziplocked the baggie and moved on to other projects.

The sweater has been haunting me! I love it, I want it, I want to wear it. I don't know what happened. They say time heals all wounds, and I guess it's true. I just made the decision to rip out the entire piece of the sweater with the buggery buttonholes and start it over. I haven't actually ripped it out yet, mind you, but I've made the decision, so that's a start.

Springtime, starting over, fresh starts, open mind, open heart. (I knew I could tie it all together in the end!)