Primal Blueprint Days 2 and 3

I stopped eating grains a few days ago, and one thing I can say with certainty is that I feel hungry a lot.  That does not make me feel weak, however, as it would if I were eating bread all the time.  Normally, when I am hungry, I feel like the only choice left is the sleep since my brain feels so completely drained of energy.  When I got hungry before, my stomach wouldn't bother me.  If I didn't follow a schedule to eat, I could go hungry and not feel a thing until I was miserable with headaches.  Then I would stop and remember that I had nothing to eat in a while.

For the past few days, I have eaten meat, vegetables, fruit, and dairy.  When my stomach empties, I know it right away, and I have to drop what I'm doing to find some food.  I also fill up faster, though, because I eat a lot of meat and plenty of cheese with the plethora of veggies I consume.  Being full doesn't rob me of energy now.  When I would eat cereal, bread, or pasta, I would get very tired afterward and creative thinking was off the table.  When I don't eat grains, I don't feel the blood rushing out of my head and into my abdomen.  There are still times when I feel tired, but my energy is more accessible than it used to be.  Mark Sisson talks about insulin a lot in the Primal Blueprint.  Eating too much grain can cause an insulin spike and crash which just becomes a cycle when grains are treated as the staple of every meal.  It's only been 3 days, and I am already experiencing what it is like to not be a part of that cycle.  Now, when I need energy I have it.  When I want to rest, I feel calm.  I don't feel like my energy cycle is controlling me like a bus schedule.  My energy is more like a bicycle now and I can get moving when I need to instead of waiting for the next energy spike.

I'm also in a good mood more of the time.  There's something about having readily accessible energy that can lift the spirits of a person.

Primal Day 1 Recap

Reviewing my activities yesterday, I say I followed half of the Primal Blueprint laws.

1. Eat lots of plants and animals
2. Avoid poisonous things
6. Get adequate sleep
9. Avoid stupid mistakes
10. Use your brain

The diet part is most of the challenge for now.  The others were pretty easy.  Recently I've been playing the Star Wars MMO which would be a challenge for law #6 except that I lost my attention span for the MMO formula when I played Warcraft.  Sure it's a new story and the profession mechanics differ, but the combat is essentially the same: find items, kill things, and balance your group with the proper mix of class roles if you want to complete the hard content.  This game still leads you down a predetermined path, although it tries its heart out to make you think you have a hand in the storyline by giving conversational choices.  I've written about choice before and how it can be arranged so that the choice you think you are making is really not a choice at all.  In the case of the Star Wars MMO, my perception of truth leaves with only the choice to stop playing because this is a road of distraction I've been down before, and I know it leads to a dead end and lack of sleep.

These laws I did follow, but they could use some real work.

3. Move frequently at a slow pace
4. Lift heavy things
7. Play

I don't walk enough at work.  I sit at a desk and work with a computer.  There's no denying how sedentary that is.  I do walk around some, but only short distances.  I went shopping so I got a bit of extra walking there.  When I got home yesterday, I decided not to walk my dog, but later I changed my mind.  I felt tired, but it was more mental fatigue than physical so walking was more fun than sitting down playing computer games.  Walking my dog felt more like play than exercise.  It's his favorite thing to do.  I'm just glad that I'm well enough to walk him on a regular basis again.

Then the laws I did not follow:

5. Sprint once in a while
8. Get adequate sunshine

I have not done much running since fall when I used my running app at the river trail.  I have plans to return to jogging soon, and at that point I may throw in a few sprints.  As for sunshine, I work in an office all day.  The only sunshine I get is when I drive to work in the morning, and that light is filtered through my car windows.  Lack of sunshine is my biggest irk about winter.  I almost wish I could switch to a night shift at work just so I could have some sunshine hours to spend in my yard.

I plan to keep up with law #1 for at least 2 weeks.  At that point, if I'm still doing well, I will continue for a full 30 days.  I'm mostly doing this to increase my energy.  If that is what I have at then end of 30 days, then I will commit longer.

Primal Blueprint Day 1

Today I start eating according to the Primal Blueprint.  I cooked a giant turkey this weekend and still have plenty of meat leftover.  That leaves me plenty of time to experiment with vegetable dishes.  Last night I cooked cabbage for the first time.  I've eaten cabbage before but most of the cabbage I've eaten has been in the occasional egg roll.  I waited until the holidays were over to attempt this eating plan because communal meals with family and co-workers can make it very hard to stick to a plan as different as paleo diet.  Grains and beans are extremely difficult to cut out of a diet.  I've heard that the first two weeks will be the hardest.  I plan on stuffing myself full of things I can eat, like meat, fruit, veggies, and delicious fat during this time so that I don't feel hungry.  The body takes a while to adjust to getting energy from fat instead of carbohydrates.

I'm also breaking out the barefoot shoes for running again.  Last year I participated in the Little Rock Women Run Arkansas clinic and 5k in Conway.  This year I volunteered to be a group leader in the clinic.  There's also the Little Rock Marathon to train for.  I have no plans to train for the actual marathon this year, but they have replaced the relay with a 10k so that is my goal.  I have the Couch to 10k app on my phone.  Early this fall was running that program twice in a row three days a week along the river.  I stopped when it got too dark to see other pedestrians on the trail and too creepy to walk to my car at the end of the run.  The river trail is a real spoiler since there are not many hills (only one section forces an incline because it's a quick and dirty detour around construction).  My neighborhood is very hilly, and when I run near home I take my dog which adds an additional challenge of having him dart in front of me occasionally.  To train for running, I will start running and walking multiple laps around my neighborhood instead of just the one I usually walk.

Merry Christmas from Medical Billing

All I want for Christmas is to pay back my student loans.  Instead I get a ton of medical bills.  I just love how everyone waits until the last week of the year to send out bills.  Thank you, Medical Billing Establishments, for procrastinating so thoroughly!  I can't say that I'm surprised, but I can say that having a health savings account with a high deductible medical plan is a real P.I.T.A. when everything than can go wrong does.  I budgeted for this by holding off on paying extra on my student loans.  There's a difference between planning for unknown expenses and actually paying them when it comes time.

I will pay my medical bills with a forced grin: forced because the timing is lousy, and grinning because I should still be in one piece by the time my student loans are actually paid since I did not put off important dental surgery.

Merry Christmas!

Oh that's right, I'm a programmer

While it's fun to spend a lot of time designing gardening schemes and plotting a healthier lifestyle, I feel that can wait until Spring is closer.  In the mean time, I'm going to focus on my bread and butter.  Right now, programming pays the bills.  Developing my coding skills is an investment in the long haul, even though it doesn't directly improve my overall health.  Programming only feels like work when it becomes repetitive.  I'm more fascinated by how computer languages work than what they do.  Learning new languages satisfies that curiosity and keeps boredom away.  Boredom leads to burnout.  Anything I can do to prevent burnout is a good thing for job security.

At my job, I've had many different computer languages thrown at my head.  I've also had a management change up which was confusing for a while.  My last manager wanted us to be a Microsoft shop, working only with Microsoft development products.  My new manager is very much a fan of Linux for any small project that isn't big enough to need customer support.  I like the new approach because it's very old school, and at my work place, I have been deemed a "legacy groupie".

I installed a virtual machine with Ubuntu and then heard that they recently fired Java.  Last time I programmed in Ubuntu I was using Java a lot.  I see this as an opportunity to pick up a new (to me) language to work in.  Using Microsoft Visual Studio the obvious choice is C#.  The first programming language I learned was C++, but I like Java for it's modularity.  C# is like coding in C++ with Java's sense of organization.  The catch with working with a new language is that other people have to know it, too.  Otherwise I would spend 10% of my time writing code and 90% of my time explaining what I'm doing.  Either that, or I would just have to scrap all my work and rewrite it in a different language anyway.  I work with a lot of legacy code, so now is a good time for me to pick up an older language like Perl since I have a few coworkers that work with that language already.

Build a Budget with Google Docs

I graduated college with a hefty pile of student loan debt.  As soon as I got a job, I built a spreadsheet to manage where my paychecks would go.  Google Docs is my preferred spreadsheet because it's free, and I can access it from anywhere.

The first step is to make a summary sheet.  On this page, I calculate my net income and list out each category of expenses.  I designed my budget before I received any paychecks so I estimated how much of my check I would get by taking out a conservative percentage.  At first I assumed that I would only get 2/3 after FICA.  Once I got paid, I saw that it was closer to 3/4 so I adjusted the budget.  As benefit contributions roll in for insurance and retirement, I continue to adjust the net estimation.  It never has to be exact.  I just have to keep it realistic so I'm not budgeting money I don't actually have.

My sample budget template can be found here on Google Docs.  The budget is comprised of the basic layout that I use.  I left in some sample payments just to show how I use it.  The summary page has several breakdowns with the useful ones color coded.  There's the monthly budget and the bimonthly paycheck budgets.  Then there's the balance list that shows each category amount and the total amount for all funds.  These totals are taken from the transactions listed on each category sheet.  Every time a new transaction is entered on a sheet, the balance on the summary sheet is updated.

The category sheets are pretty basic.  There are columns for date, description, amount, and balance.  The balance column adds the previous row's balance with the current row's amount.  To update it I just drag the formula down.  The buffer category tracks income that is over the budget amount.  Extra money like gift checks or odd job payments go here.  I don't track gift cards since they have their own balance.  The student loan category can just as easily be labeled as any other debt such as credit cards or money you owe to someone.  The car category is where I put all car expenses including gas, insurance, and oil changes.  Food is any food expense.  Personal is anything for me that is not food like hygiene products, house cleaning supplies, pet food, books and whatnot.  House is mortgage, utility bills, and repairs or maintenance.  You could replace mortgage with rent.  I could estimate a tighter budget for house, but I like to leave lots of slack because unexpected repairs are rarely cheap.  I also use the slack to save up slowly for remodeling projects.

Installments is something I added a few months after I made my first budget.  I use it to track purchases that take many payments or purchases I save up for a little at a time.  It's easier for me to make this a separate fund than Personal because it gets too messy trying to keep up with it alongside regular expenses.  Installs are also a good way to transition out of using credit cards by treating savings as credit.  This takes two sheets to track properly.  The first sheet is just tracking expenses.  The Install Plan sheet is the goal sheet which lists the total cost of the item, the number of payments planned, and the size of each payment.  There are also dates tracking when I started payments, when I finished payments, and when I actually purchased the item.  I like to color code the dates when they are not finished just so I keep a close eye on those items.  I can make as many payments at a time as the installment fund allows.  Payments made on no interest credit plans don't have any rush so I calculate when the last payment will be and fill it in ahead of time, highlighting it in yellow so I won't forget it's not finished yet.

This budget template is very detailed because it is based on one I use it frequently.  I tinker with mine often based on varying needs.  I used to try to design a database application for a budget, but a spreadsheet is more flexible.  Flexibility is more useful when working with a new budget.  Feel free to copy this budget template for your own use.  That's why I made it public.

Winter + Illness < Motivation + Resolve

After baking through a 102F fever for 3 days, I found motivation a little hard to find.  What a great time to get into the early release of Star Wars: The Old Republic mmo.  Yes, I took it easy on the weekend and did nothing that required motivation.  As the new year closes in, I'm reminded of my gardening goal in 2012.  Nothing is going to keep me back from that.  I'm going to grow vegetables and possibly fruit and eat it.  New Years is my favorite time of year because I like making big resolutions and planning out how I might achieve them.

This year I have a budget in my favor.  I've been working like a dog trying to keep tabs on my spending, and so far I have been successful.  Budgeting takes practice and creativity.  As much as I want to garden this year, my ultimate goal is to pay off my student loans.  That is a goal that will take longer than one year.  In fact, it will take 2 years, and it should be paid off no later than the end of 2013.  My loans were not small, but they weren't Ivy League huge either.  Every semester of college was funded almost entirely through loans.  I could easily pay them off slowly over 20 years, but I despise debt so I am paying them off in 2 years, hence my shoestring budget.  Being able to build up a functioning garden while scraping by on half my income is a feat of strength which keeps motivation in mind and keeps my chin up.  Even if I fail at growing edible food, I will have less debt when I start over with growing a garden.

Illness is a forced vacation

Monday I spent the whole day moping in my office because I fancied the thought of being able to work from home at least part of the time.  Later that evening, I found out I had a fever.  Then I spent the next three days in fever and pain.  All I could do was lie in bed and wait for time to pass.  That is a forced vacation.  I am more than happy to return to work in my office today.  I'm pretty sure I was already sick on Monday, I just couldn't tell I had a fever because I'm always cold in my office.  What's sad is that with all that time off, I couldn't do much pondering about life because my feverish mind was telling me the most awful lies.  I knew I could not trust my own mind to bring any useful enlightenment so I even had a vacation from thinking.  I had a vacation from life.  I'm glad to be back in life today.

When a Choice isn't a Choice

Lately I have become fascinated by the animated videos from the RSA.  I like this video about choice.  

I agree with the point made about how choice breeds passivity and how too many choices can numb a person's mind.  But one thing that choice has in its favor is truth.  The more you know about what you really need, the narrower your choices are.  This is a good thing.  Advertising is designed to confuse the issue about why a product is worth buying.  Advertising is not totally worthless.  Sometimes it carries truth or at least sparks an idea that can lead to a truth.  Knowing more about what you need allows you to resist marketing that caters to the fool.  Advertising is simply truth plus persuasion.  False advertising is illegal, but if the facts cannot be proven, then that leaves a giant loophole to focus solely on persuasion.  That's why every car insurance company says it can save you 15% over the competition: because they expect the consumer to just accept biased research and not question its truth or validity.

A good practice to get past a product's marketing in the case of food is to read the ingredient label - the actual ingredient list, not just the nutritional facts.  Often times food packaging boasts claims of what is not in it.  I laugh every time I see a pack of Twizzlers stating that it is fat free.  Of course it is! It's all sugar!  That doesn't mean it is healthy by any stretch of the imagination.  The body metabolizes excess sugar into fat for storage, so even though the candy has no fat, your body will still store it as fat.  Another clever deception is the claim of no trans fat.  The nutritional facts label of a product can show zero grams of trans fat if there is less than half a gram of trans fat per serving.  Serving sizes can be a trick, too.  Read the ingredient label: partially hydrogenated oils are trans fat.  Sure you can pick apart the definition of trans fat and partially hydrogenated oil and say there aren't exactly the same, but in the end, their contributions to cancer are equivalent.

By making a choice, you are holding yourself responsible for your actions.  No choice is ever automatic, but a choice can be a no-brainer if you look at all the facts objectively.  Most of the time, difficult choices boil down to one choice: feel good now and terrible later, or feel okay now and good later.  Marketing is designed to make you change your mind for the betterment of sales and cares nothing about your long term wellness.  The goal of marketing is to make you believe that their way is the right way, and that everyone is doing it their way because it is the right way (by "they" I mean whichever company is doing the marketing).  Overwhelming social pressure is the driving force behind marketing.  Even individualism can be twisted into a tool of social pressure.  All the marketers have to do is make you doubt your own choices long enough to make you vulnerable to suggestion.

Ultimately, your choice comes down to what you believe is true.  Freedom exists to let you make the right call, not for you to choose between modes of slavery to the corporate marketing schemes.

Solstice Blues and Spring Dreams

Around the winter solstice, my home is always in the dark when I'm there during the week.  I wake up in the dark, I come home and it's dark.  Even on the weekend, I wake up in the dark because getting up at 5am is not something that just stops because it's a different day, especially when my OCD cat decides I should not miss her morning attention time.  I'd like to believe that waking up with the sun is the way to go, but then I think about all the stuff I can get done that doesn't depend on sunlight.  I used to sleep in all the time, but I find that I enjoy my morning time because I have both energy and solitude, qualities that help me finish tasks I've been procrastinating.  

What really gets me down after a while is the fact that all my winter daytime hours are spent in a windowless office at work.  I can get things done outside during winter, but what keeps me inside all the time is the complete lack of light in my yard.  The past few weekends have been cloudy, rainy, and freezing.  The weekend is the only time I can refill my quota of sunshine.  

While I dream of having more sunshine, I spend a lot of time designing my greenhouse.  I want to build it myself from basic parts so that for the price of a small prebuilt kit, I can build a bigger greenhouse with my own custom tweaks.  I've done the same thing building computers from parts.  I prefer building my own computer to buying a store model because I can spend very little on basic parts so that I can splurge on things like video cards.  So far my greenhouse design process involves going to the Home Depot and Lowes websites and pricing materials I can use.  I thought at first about building a hoop house, but after comparing prices to a more sturdy structure, I think I can build a more permanent structure and have more fun with the engineering of it.  I found a clear polycarbonate roofing panel which would allow plenty of light into the top.  Poster sized acrylic sheets are available in a 12 pack which would be enough to provide windows around all sides.  I could frame them in with wooden posts and line the bottom half of the greenhouse with plywood.  Then it's just a matter of finding the right parts to piece it all together, and laying a foundation.  The location is on a slight slope, but I plan on having a sloped roof anyway so I see the shape of the building as a parallelogram.  The greenhouse will be housing big terracotta pots and raised garden beds.  

Ultimately, I would like to add a heater so that I can operate a garden year round, but I'm not ready to add electric devices to the picture just yet.  My goal is to keep my garden area off the grid by using all renewable energy generated in my own yard.  If I can't make the power myself, then I don't use electricity.  I understand it would be easy to just have an electrician run a wire from my house to power the area, but I've always been interested in off-grid living.  Finding a way to power an urban farm solely on renewable energy fulfills a greater purpose for me than just growing food on grid power.  Enough dreaming for now, I've got sunlight to enjoy!

2 out of 3 Exercise Plan

I really like variety for exercise options.  Lately, my favorite things to do are yoga, walking my dog, and working my way through my Pilates video.  During the week, I usually only have time for two: one in the morning and one in the evening.  Having more options than time slots allows me to switch up my activity so that I don't feel stuck in a routine.  The options also give me an alternative when it's raining outside during my normal walking time.  On the weekend, I try to do all three each day since I don't have to spend nine hours a day chained to a desk.  I would try to do yoga at work, but my half-hour lunch doesn't give me time to change AND do yoga.  My office attire doesn't afford me the flexibility needed to do the poses, either.  Sometimes I manage to get all three activities done on a weekday, but that's a rarity.

I am an expert slacker.  When my goal was to do one activity every day (usually walking), it was much harder to stay motivated over a long span of time.  If I skipped the walk one day, I could wind up not going for a walk for the rest of the week.  I also felt glued to one time of day to go for a walk.  It takes about 45 minutes for me to walk around my neighborhood, so if I had less time than that (or perceived that I had less time), I wouldn't bother.

Now I have more flexibility in my workout schedule since I added activities that don't require a set amount of time.  My Pilates video is about 45 minutes long, but I only go through 5 to 10 minutes of it at a time.  Yoga takes only about 20 to 30 minutes for all 12 core asanas.  I can shorten that time by focusing on areas where I need more flexibility.  I can also draw out the time and do extra poses in between asanas.  With these other activities available to me, I don't feel I have to push myself to do a full length walk around the whole neighborhood.  I sometimes take shortcuts which offer steep climbs that are just as challenging as the full length endurance walks.

One thing that helps about the variety of the 2 out of 3 plan is I don't focus as much on the physical change progress.  I don't watch the scale and fret when it shows a number I don't like.  Time seems to pass by much more quickly, so progress just falls into place with or without my attention.  Clearly this method is more fun than obsessing over one activity!

Tactile Mnemonics

Last night I was reading up on web development.  I currently work a lot with C#, but I like to stay current on web programming for my own projects.  I'm still learning a lot of new information at work about several upgrades we are getting in the near future.  My attention span is minimal at best, so when I get interested in a topic, the interest only lasts until I find something else of interest.  Concentration is hard to build up when the best I can do is skim a topic quickly for fear of imminent distraction.

This time I decided to blast my way through all the anxiety.  I chose determination over random trails of thought.  I found that if my hands are fidgeting, I can distract myself just enough to get re-interested in what I'm already doing.  When I focused on the tactile sensation of my hands held together and moving slowly, I felt my attention center as though I were redirecting my energy and focus back to my current task.  It felt as though I were physically grabbing my attention and holding it in front of me.  This contact and motion kept my mind from wanting to follow every train of thought and random thing that popped into my head.  In a way it was like desk chair yoga or Tai Chi.

I realize that holding the palms together is the same gesture as prayer, but there may be more to that pose than mere tradition.  It is a pose that channels thought into a state of controllable desire.  By focusing on what you want and forming this tactile sensation of a prayer pose, you can concentrate more on what you intend to focus on and hold off distractions.  When I do yoga, I am able to empty my mind and think only about the current pose I attempt.  Tactile sensation has the same effect, but if I read while doing this, I am able to take in more information and remember it better.  That's where the mnemonic comes in.  Because I am aware of the effect of a simple action like tapping my fingertips together while reading, I can use this subconscious distraction to draw out my reading and read more thoroughly.  I can also visualize the subject matter with more clarity.  I can put more critical thought into what I read because I think about it in more than one way and imagine it from more than one viewpoint.

One other advantage to tactile mnemonics is that I can read a sentence, sit back and ponder it, read it again, and continue to the next sentence.  Normally, I either get distracted and don't fully focus on what I'm reading, or I get really excited about the subject matter and try to skim to the good parts.  Logically I know it makes more sense to read the passage in full so that I don't miss important detail, but sometimes my desire to learn quickly overrides consideration of what it takes to keep the new material in long term memory.  By slowing down, I am able to mix new ideas into my subconscious.  If I read too quickly, I can remember it long enough to understand the full story, but sleep can easily wipe it from my memory.  Essentially, I'm just learning to ponder ideas more effectively, but I find that I ponder better when I'm fidgeting.  I can directly tune my ability to ponder to the speed in which my hands are fidgeting as though I were playing a video game and focusing on precise movements to operate a controller.  That is probably one reason why I concentrate better on video games than passive reading.

Cooking really is an art

I was cooking eggs the other morning, and some of the egg whites spilled out to form a dolphin shape (at the top).  At least that's what it looks like to me.  The eye is an air bubble.  I was so shocked that I knew I had to take a picture.  This was totally accidental; I did not purposefully engineer this design in any way, nor is it photoshopped (except to orient the picture correctly since my camera took it sideways).

Yes, I ate a dolphin - one made of eggs.  It was delicious.

Beets - The Candy Vegetable

Beets are fantabulous (fantastic + fabulous).  Prior to this year I would never have eaten them on purpose.  My only experience eating beets was many years ago eating them at a farmer's house.  I did not like them, but it was not until recently that I considered they were pickled.  I don't enjoy pickled anything.  The vinegar and salt overwhelm the flavor of the vegetable, mutating it into something it shouldn't taste like.  What made me decide to try beets again was a recipe from Spark People, a diet plan website that I subscribe to occasionally that creates meal plans based on healthy food and recipes.  I was challenged with the recipe of a beet salad.  It was actually the recipe that broke my resolve to stay on the plan.  It called for fresh beets, but I could not find those in the grocery store.  Reluctantly, I bought canned beets even though I thought they would be pickled.  I kept finding substitution recipes to eat instead of the beet salad.  Eventually I gave up on the salad idea, and the beets became just a can taking up space in my pantry.  Several times, I considered just donating the can to various food drives, but I always forgot to get around to it.

Finally, I decided that I was going to throw out the can, but before tossing it out, I would try one.  Beets have a very unique flavor.  The first thing I noticed was that these beets were not pickled, so I kept eating them.  They were very sweet, but they still tasted weird to me.  The odd flavor was too interesting for me to stop trying it.  I have since bought several cans of beets.

The other day however, I found some fresh beets in the organic section of produce.  I decided to bake them as opposed to boiling.  The outside was very rough so I scrubbed it with a veggie brush until it turned red all over.  I cut off the leafy top and the root end.  I found this recipe for baking instructions online and baked them at 400F for an hour.  I stuck them in the fridge to cool.  Once they cooled down, I rubbed off the outer layer of skin to finish them.  They taste so awesome!  They taste (not surprisingly) even better than the canned beets.  The fresh baked beets taste good enough to eat hot or cold, and they are so much sweeter.  I already knew that I would be growing beets in my garden this Spring, but now it's double guaranteed.  Beets are more like dessert than just a vegetable.  I look forward to trying them in more recipes.

The Awesome that is Slow Cooking

Imagine if all it took to have a delicious, savory dinner was to put meat in a pot, add some spices, push a button, and let the meal cook itself.  This is all completely possible with a slow cooker, also known as a crock pot.  I have tried this myself on whole chickens and pairs of Cornish hens with great success each time.  The meat is far more moist than if it were roasted in the oven.  It comes out so tender that the meat is falling off the bone.  Instead of carving the meat off with a knife, I can use a spoon.  My favorite method is to use two wooden spatulas to pry the meat from the bone.

Once you have acquired a slow cooker big enough for a whole chicken, there are 3 things you need to make amazing food.  The first step is to chop up some vegetables.  One onion is sufficient, but you could go further and add some chopped carrots and celery.  I cooked a turkey breast yesterday and had no onions, so instead I used chopped leeks.  It was still very delicious.  The chopped vegetables are the first thing to go into the slow cooker, enough to mostly cover the bottom.

The second step is the seasoning.  Mix it up before getting your hands dirty with the meat.  Paprika is a good start to the herb mixture because it adds a lot of color to the mix.  Garlic powder and onion powder add lots of concentrated flavor to the mix.  Cayenne pepper is good both for color and flavor.  Also add a bit of black pepper and salt just to round out the flavor.  Beyond that any herb would be a great addition.  I enjoy thyme, rosemary, sage, and ginger, usually only one or two per mix, but sometimes I go crazy and add everything.  You could even add cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, or chili powder.  Whatever floats your boat.  If you enjoy slow cooked meat, you'll likely be doing this a lot since it is so easy.  Try out different combinations each time you cook and see what you like.

The last ingredient is, of course, the meat.  My rule of thumb is to use a whole chicken or something else of equivalent size.  That way I don't have to fiddle with changing the cook time or amount of other ingredients, and I also know how much food to expect.  Clean it, rub it down with the herb mixture, and put it in the slow cooker.  Add the lid, and set the cooker to high power for four hours.  Bon appétit!

Water is the Best Drink

Water is my favorite drink.  It's free and readily available.  It's easy to store and will last much longer than other drinks even after the container has been opened.  It doesn't need any additional ingredients to be drinkable (unless you are camping, then I would recommend adding tiny amounts of chlorine if the water is from a natural source).  It's no calorie (in fact it burns calories to drink it if the water is cold) and goes well with any food.

During my week trying polyphasic sleep, I had to drink lots of water just to stay awake since caffeine would have interfered with my ability to nap on time.  Getting less sleep caused me to be even more dehydrated since I didn't have my nightly hibernations to warm up under a blanket.  I found that once I started eating more fruit and vegetables, I was able to stay better hydrated.  

About a week after returning to monophasic sleep, my skin started breaking out.  I was also really tired all the time.  It finally occurred to me that I had stopped drinking much water at all.  The same day I noticed the break out starting, I began drinking lots of water.  As soon as I noticed that my glass was empty, I would refill it.  I noticed a difference by the end of the day.  The blemishes stopped getting worse, and I did not get any more of them.  

Winter is a very dehydrating time of year.  For starters, the cold and wind dry out my skin.  My muscles get stiff from shivering.  The idea of going outside is unpleasant.  The idea of drinking a cold beverage is not much more appealing.  During the warm months, it is easy to drink all the water I need because it feels good to cool down.  I get really lazy in Autumn because I lose all motivation to exercise and eat right.  I just want to curl up under a blanket and go to sleep until Spring.  

It is not until I decide to feel warm in spite of the cold that I feel able to exercise and drink lots of water.  I find that by drinking cool water, I actually feel warmer.  The warmth is caused by burning calories to heat the water to body temperature.  Once I make the conscious choice to drink more water and follow through on that choice with action, the rest is easy.  The cool water warms me up, improves circulation, and makes me feel ready for anything.  

Support Your Local Dog Park

Little Rock has a fantastic dog park.  I feel lucky to live in a city where I can take my dog to a public park where he can socialize with other dogs and run as much as he wants.  We frequent Murray Park which is along the Arkansas River.  It's down the road from the Big Dam Bridge.  When I do a lot of running, I take my dog with me along the river trail, although the trail bridges have caused some controversy this year.  Big Dam Bridge is a pedestrian trail built over a lock and dam.  I have often been annoyed at the amount of dog waste I see there despite there being doggy bags at either end of the bridge.  I don't like litterbugs, much less people who allow their dogs to defecate on paths meant for foot traffic (sometimes even bare feet).  To me it is a no brainer: pick it up and throw it away!  If nothing else, at least discourage the dog from squatting until it finds some grass or shrubbery.  It's easy to do this by tugging him when he starts making the motions, and if you pause for a while in a grassy spot before getting on the bridge, it may encourage the dog to go before polluting the trail.  

I realize that I am going off on a tangent about the inappropriately located dog waste.  When I started reading newspaper articles stating that the mayor was going to ban dogs on the trail bridges, I was upset.  A new trail bridge recently went in near the Big Dam Bridge that connected to a peninsula jutting out into the river.  I was excited to be able to explore more in that direction and be able to take my dog on my long walks.  Then I was faced with the possibility of not having this privilege because so many other people don't clean up after their animals.  If you are a dog owner, and you don't clean up after it, just find it a new owner, because you don't deserve to be in charge of caring for another being.  Dogs have needs.  They have to be trained to follow the rules of our society in order to coexist with humans.  In return, their owners are expected to leave public areas as they left it before they brought their dogs there.  It may feel silly to carry a bag of dog waste around with you, but it sure beats contributing to a disgusting world.  The joys of keeping a dog far outweigh the inconvenience of acting as dog janitor on outings.  If you're really against carrying it yourself, train your dog to wear a dog pack and make him stow and cart it around.  The waste is in a plastic bag, so it's contained enough to get it to a trash can.  

At the dog park, the dogs have free reign to use any place they want for their own personal bathroom.  Murry Park's dog area has bag stations all over it so that even if the owner forgets to bring bags, there are still bags available.  The dog park also has lots of gravel so that even the messiest messes can be quickly cleaned up.

Don't make someone else step in it - clean up after your dog so we can all still enjoy local parks.

Self Made Existence

This morning I enjoyed French toast made from bread that I baked myself.  I made that bread when I was experimenting with polyphasic sleep which gave me the time to bake it.  Essentially, I gave up sleep so that I could enjoy delicious homemade French toast.

Next year, I plan to grow a garden.  Gardening takes a commitment of time that I previously have not expended.  What activity will I have to give up to accommodate that change?  I could give up sleep, but really there's not much point since my work schedule requires me to burn daylight.  I'm not going to garden at night because it's hard to see.  I could give up television.  That is something I've given up for periods of time in the past.  It is completely possible to do it again.  I could also take a good look at everything I do and every distraction and question whether it is important enough to keep me from investing time in homegrown food.

Opportunity cost is a part of every decision.  If I focus on what is truly important to me (growing wholesome food while keeping a day job), then I can start to tune in to opportunities to encourage that goal.  The goal is a statement: I will do this.  Focus is the belief that the goal is important.  In order to focus on my goal, I have to keep two realities in my mind: the reality that results from my completion of the goal, and the reality that results from my failure to do what is necessary to complete my goal. By comparing these two realities, I can make decisions with clarity instead of doubt.  I can overcome fatigue and boredom to reach the success that is waiting on the other side of perseverance.

I can.  I will.  I want to.  That is all it takes to lead a life that I choose instead of the life I am handed.

Polyphasic Sleep Conclusions

Polyphasic sleep is not for the weak willed. I've been trying the Everyman 4 sleep schedule where I take 4 naps roughly every 4 hours and then have core sleep that is longer than individual naps in the early morning. I have succeeded in failing. I could not get a handle on the midnight to 4AM stretch of time. I can get up at 5AM just fine, but when my body wants sleep, there's no reasoning with my brain that 4AM is not too early.

I was really on a roll after the first day. The novelty of being awake at times when I am usually asleep was all the motivation I needed to stay awake those extra hours. But my plan to slowly migrate toward the Uberman sleep schedule was flawed. I am able to motivate myself to do something that I know is difficult, but when I'm asleep, I am in an entirely different context than reality. What I decide is urgent in reality had no impact on the motivations of my dreaming mind. When I am woken from a pleasant or urgent dream, my only goal becomes to stay asleep so I can continue to chase my dream quest.  Reality loses all importance.

Here are some other problems I encountered. My household consists of my spouse, cat, dog, and me. Everyone was accustomed to being in a certain place at certain times. The cat hates the dog. I had to let the dog stay out of his crate longer at night because my late night cooking and cleaning woke him up and made him noisy. When he was allowed to roam the house, he used his freedom to sleep peacefully on the couch. Even with him being practically comatose, the cat refuses to occupy the same room and protests by using inappropriate places for a litter box. This in turn made my husband cranky. Dealing with this much chaos while undergoing sleep deprivation is not fun. Granted, those problems can be solved with patience, something I had in abundance.  However, with so much time spent at work and so much  at home time spent with everyone else being asleep, I can see the dissonance between my perspective of reality and others' perception of my chronic napping.  I can see that it may seem like I was abandoning trouble at every turn without a care since I had more time to for leisure.  The polyphasic adaptation would be a lot easier without the stress of daily obligations.

Another issue I had was a problem with dehydration. My hands can get do dry in winter that they crack and bleed. One of my remedies is wearing moisture gloves at night after caking my dry patches with Neosporin. I found it hard to do that since I never stayed down very long. I had to drink lots of water to stay awake which resulted in more trips to the bathroom, hence more washing my hands. My eyes were always extremely dry, too. I see this as more of a problem with my diet than the sleep schedule. However, cutting back on delta stage sleep does seem to increase dehydration. I believe that's part of why we sleep so long at night - it's a daily hibernation to cut down on resource demands.

I do not regret trying polyphasic sleep. I gained a massive amount of insight from this trial about myself and about existence. I also found time to jump start some other habits which I intend to keep, even if it requires that I miss out on a little sleep to keep up with them. I find that a few minutes of Pilates in the morning, a long walk in the early evening, and yoga just before bedtime is very rewarding. I found it easier to eat healthier since high sugar foods and caffeine would make me crash before my scheduled nap time.  Really the past week of polyphasic sleep was like a boot camp that pushed me to extremes so that I had to consciously make every choice instead of just following a routine.

I do not consider the experiment of polyphasic sleep to be over. I am not going to try to sleep deprive myself in the near future. I can already see reasons that my current course of action will not get me to the goal of a 22 hour day. I will try this again in the future after I work on developing my self discipline into a less flabby state.

Night Bread

Now that I'm operating on a polyphasic sleep schedule, I am following my instincts on what to do in the late hours formerly filled by sleep.  I find the easiest thing to do is clean and organize.  My attention is more focused on what is at hand as opposed to what I'll be doing tomorrow.  I notice things around me and things that need attention much more than I used to when I only slept once a day.  While cleaning out the pantry the other day, I found a yeast packet with a bread recipe.  The recipe was very simple, and I already had all the ingredients.  Last night I made bread from scratch.  Cooking is very easy to do in a clutter free kitchen.  My problem before was I never had time to both clean up the clutter and prevent new clutter from immediately taking its place.  Now that I have lots of time and the patience to deal with clutter, I could clean up my kitchen and have space for baking.  Baking the bread gave me something to concentrate on so that I would not get bored and then tired.

I used the extra activity to try to push past midnight and reduce my core sleep.  I stayed up an extra two hours from what I've been doing, but then I slept an hour later than I planned.  The problem with waking up during time which I previously only used for sleep is that my mind does not recognize any pressing need to stay awake.

When I did awake from core sleep, I tried the bread, and it was delicious.  I know that eating bread (especially wheat bread) is not part of the Primal Blueprint plan to eat mostly meat and non-grain plants, but the fact that I made it myself is enough reason to enjoy it.  This bread was much thicker than bread from the store.  It is something I can eat over a long period of time instead of within two or three days as meat and vegetable dishes require.

Even though I overslept a bit (no Pilates this morning), I still feel like I made progress toward the Uberman sleep schedule since I found something to do in between midnight and 2am.  The challenge I face with the sleep reduction is not fatigue, it is finding a use for the time.  I started this plan to see if I could manifest more time for pursuing my interests.  Bread baking is certainly something I would do more often to increase my homemade food supply.

Polyphasic Sleep

Polyphasic sleep is a brain hack.  The goal is to spread sleep out into naps throughout the day while decreasing the time of the nighttime core sleep.  The pinnacle of success is the Uberman sleep schedule in which you only sleep for 20 minutes once every 4 hours for a total of 2 hours of sleep a day.  I had heard about the ability to sleep a mere 2 hours a day from various sources such as history (Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo Da Vinci, Ben Franklin) and yoga which claims that meditation and proper diet can reduce the need for sleep.  It was not until I found Steve Pavlina's blog about his experience with polyphasic sleep that I thought it was either possible or practical.  He stressed that starting a polyphasic sleep schedule would be easiest on a vegan diet and a schedule more flexible than the standard 40 hour work week.  I became intrigued by the benefits like having more time and being better able to focus waking time.

I first thought about the time gained from trying polyphasic sleep.  What would I do with an extra 6 hours every day?  Would I be able to find enough worthwhile activity to fill a 22 hour day, or would I be better off working on my standard 16 hour day time management?  The real first step to sleeping polyphasically is to assess how you spend your current waking hours.  I started becoming more conscious of how much I really could do with my time.  I often fall into the trap of becoming anxious about running out of energy.  It frustrates me that I consistently get sleepy throughout the day even after getting plenty of sleep at night.  Just by changing my perspective to imagine life from a polyphasic view, I gained incredible insight on how I could take conscious control of my time and make it work for me instead of just being an obstacle to pass through.

I have been working my way through an adjustment period of polyphasic sleep.  I started by napping in the day time.  I set my watch timer for 20 minutes and give myself the freedom to check out of consciousness for a while.  At work, I worked harder during normal working time and used my lunch break to try napping.  I can close the door to my office for privacy, but the thought of sleeping at my desk still seems wrong.  However, the alternative of getting so tired that I spend about an hour a day just staring into space seems a much greater waste of time.  I have since learned that I can easily spend my half hour lunch break on a 20 minute nap and 10 minutes of eating.  I always bring my own lunch since I view going out for lunch every day as an excessive waste of time, money, and gasoline.

My sleep schedule is a cross between Uberman and Everyman schedule.  Everyman is the warm up to Uberman that allows for a longer core sleep at night in addition to multiple day naps.  I set up times to sleep every 4 hours: 4, 8, and 12 o'clock intervals, give or take a half hour.  At midnight, I stay asleep through the time of the next nap, but if I wake up early, then I stay awake and continue the same nap-wake cycles.  I go to work early to account for an afternoon break nap and stay until my regular time.  So far, I feel really refreshed by the naps and miss long sleeps less and less.  A good set of adjustment schedules can be found here.  I don't feel constrained by an adjustment deadline so migrating from a siesta schedule to Uberman seems a feasible plan.

One of the advantages to more time awake is that I no longer have the excuse that I don't have time to exercise.  I can do a few minutes of a workout video in the morning, take a walk in the evening, and still have time to do yoga at night.  The exercise keeps me alert and makes me feel better about being awake.  I plan to continue this sleep pattern for a while longer, and maybe break up the core sleep into 2 distinct naps.  I find the challenge of controlling my sleep invigorating and feel that I am learning so much about myself and existence in the process.  I have had a huge leap in creativity, and I take advantage of that by spending a lot of time writing.

Yoga

Yoga is something I've enjoyed doing ever since I learned I was doing it already.  My favorite yoga poses are from the book Yoga Mind and Body from the Sivinanda Yoga Vedanta Center.  The shoulder stand is a pose I have been practicing since childhood.  I would do mock headstands by leaning back, kicking my feet in the air, propping up my back, and trying to get my feet as far up as possible.  This book fascinated me by its simple yet challenging poses.  Also, there are lots of vegetarian recipes that are very delicious.  After a few weeks of practice, I had gained tremendous flexibility and mastered the true headstand pose along with the other 11 asanas.

I don't practice yoga often.  My number one excuse for not practicing was lack of space.  The second reason was lack of time.  One reason I find it hard to start doing yoga after taking a long break is that the headstand (the first of the 12 asanas) is so challenging.  The headstand is not for the faint of heart.  It is hard to get into the position and even harder to stay there for long.  For the past few years, when I try to complete a headstand, the furthest I can get is halfway.  This is discouraging since I used to be able to do it consistently.  The problem is I don't do yoga consistently enough when I start it up again.

I went through the 12 asanas last night and did not feel bad about the balance failures.  When  I finally figured out how to do the headstand years ago, I did not succeed the first time I tried.  Nor the second, nor the third.  In fact I had to pace myself and work up to a full headstand in stages.  Remembering that helps me get through the yoga workout by focusing on getting a workout habit going.  I can't get better if I never start.

Oatmeal Pancakes from Scratch

I love cooking from scratch.  When I really want to satisfy a particular craving, I can make it even if I don't have the exact ingredients required.  I searched online for oatmeal pancakes, but all the recipes called for buttermilk.  So I looked up how to substitute for buttermilk.  The solution was 3/4 cup of yogurt and 1/4 cup of milk.  I followed the Oatmeal Pancake recipe on allrecipes.com and substituted the buttermilk for a 6 ounce serving of strawberry yogurt and a quarter cup of milk.  I also substituted whole wheat flour for all-purpose.  The batter was thicker than regular pancakes because of the oats so when I put it in the pan, I spread it out evenly flat.  I cooked it at a lower temperature than non-oat pancakes because it took longer for the bubbles to rise through the pancake.  When there were several bubbles, I flipped the pancake and then put a lid on the pan.  Since the pancakes turned out so thick, I used the steam to ensure the inside was cooked.

The result was fruity flavored, delicious, and filling.  I prefer this recipe to a store bought pancake mix.  As an added bonus, I made these pancakes with a local chicken egg.  My husband received some eggs from a coworker who raises her own chickens.  

Habit Forming

I used to think that forming habits was something that I could just brute force my way through.  It was a strategy that worked for some time.  My most effective way of breaking a habit is quitting cold turkey.  The problem is that cold turkey doesn't hold up on its own.  Breaking a habit leaves a void in both time and emotion.  It's difficult to keep justifying to your mind the reasons why you quit doing something because after a while, you will miss the positive effects that weren't as obvious with all the negative effects present.

I used to smoke cigarettes.  I quit countless times.  I tried to quit even more than that.  Normally, I would smoke half a pack a day.  When I quit cold turkey, I would be very motivated to squash the habit for a month.  After a month, I was so focused on thinking about not smoking that I forgot why I quit.  The time I normally spent smoking was replaced with a time void of boredom.  There were many reasons why I quit, and they varied each time I took a break from it: expensive, stinky, inconvenient, impolite, unhealthy.  When I finally did quit for good, it was because I was sick and I intentionally focused all my hatred of the sickness on the smoking because I knew it made me equally miserable.  Constantly having to clear my throat was not my idea of pleasant living.  What made me stay quit was adapting my thinking at each stage of clarity.  Nicotine takes a week to fully leave your system.  I've heard that breaking or starting a habit takes 21 days.  I took note of these time frames when I quit the final time.  I used my initial motivation for the first week, then after that I started spending more time thinking about what I honestly wanted versus what I was doing.  I thought about the negative effects like the terrible smell.  I surrounded myself with pleasant smells to remind myself what I would not be able to smell if I smoked.  I focused on healthy living - what it's like to be healthy as opposed to just avoiding causes of bad health.  A person can be healthy by just not drinking and smoking and eating too much junk food, but someone who chooses to take action in the positive direction instead of staying neutral has more stake in staying healthy.  I eventually replaced the habit of smoking with the habit of being healthy.  I may not always be living as healthy as possible, but I am far more resistant to actions that would harm me.

Starting a habit is just as hard as quitting one.  Instead of leaving a void that would need to be filled, you give up time on something else that you used to do.  Walking my dog is one habit that I strive to keep going.  I normally watch TV all evening.  My favorite mode of entertainment is watching TV shows on DVD.  It's hard to stop watching when the stories are so compelling and available.  I realized that I was just making excuses for not walking on a daily basis.  Then I thought about what I would gain by walking my dog everyday as opposed to watching TV.  I gave it a week of just trying to walk him every evening.  Now he is more calm all the time and doesn't behave like a spaz as often.  I still get to watch the same amount of TV, but now I pace myself and find that I like it better that way.  Now even if I feel exhausted I go for a walk anyway because I know that I will feel better afterwards.  By keeping that expectation in mind, the habit becomes easier to keep as time goes on.

Habit forming is more about anticipation than getting a specific result.  If you put a stigma of exhaustion on the thought of performing the habit, you are only conditioning yourself to quitting.  There are more effects tied to a repeated action than just the ones you think about.  Doing something once has a different effect than doing something multiple times.  Unhealthy habits can take years to show the consequences, but small signs of danger can show up sooner than later if you pay attention.  One habit I'm trying to quit at work is eating all the free sweets they give away; donuts, cookies, and hot cocoa are freely available.  When I think about what all that sugar does in the long run - diabetes, heart disease, obesity - it makes it easier to resist.  It's hard to eat a doughnut when thinking about having to stick myself with a needle every day to test my blood sugar levels as a diabetic.  I don't have diabetes, and don't have a family history of it, but it's still possible for me to acquire the disorder.  Additionally, every time I say no to a doughnut, I am openly advocating that it's okay to say no (just say no to the dough!), and for someone more prone to diabetes, it may be all the encouragement they need to say no as well.

Knowing more about the effects of a habit can save you time in the long run by improving your resolve and cutting out your temptation to give up.

Going Green - What does it mean to you?

The phrase "Going Green" gets tossed around a lot these days.  It is especially noticeable in corporate advertising.  Every company wants the public to know that they are doing everything they can to be more green and friendly to the environment.   When I was growing up the popular environmental catch phrase was "Reuse, Reduce, Recycle."  It baffles me when I hear the word "recycle" being used where one of the other two words would be more appropriate.  A lot of people say they are going to recycle their grocery bags by repurposing them as trash bags or disposing of pet waste.   It's not recycling if it winds up in the trash. That drives me crazy!

Going green for me means more than just a display of affection for the planet - more than just showing off. I think about the big picture and look for ways to make improvements one small change at a time. It's not enough to make sporadic gestures. Habits make a bigger impact due to repetition.

One habit I work hard to keep going is using reusable bags when I buy groceries. The hardest part about that habit was starting it. It felt weird to carry a bag into the store and even weirder to stop the checker or bagger to switch bags. I had previously tried requesting paper bags, but I found I was no more likely to reuse those than plastic bags. Week after week of putting both kinds of bags into the recycle bin, I realized I had to do something differently. The reusable bags are a dollar and are very sturdy and easy to carry. Not only can the bags be reused, but they also hold a lot of food.

Reusable grocery bags are a small contribution to protecting the planet and also affordable. Going green often gets confused for impractical because of the expense of recycling and redesigning products. It's easy to go green and save money at the same time. Don't worry if you try to start this habit and find you forget the bags 90% of the time you get to the checkout. Start slow: buy one bag and use regular bags for what doesn't fit. Over time, if you remember to keep bring the bag and still need more bags, get one more. Rinse repeat. I have 2 bags that I use at Kroger. When I bought the second bag, I went through another forgetful phase before remembering to take them on every grocery trip.

The best thing you can do to go green is to keep going. Once you establish a green habit, you'll find it easy to create another one.

Omnivore by Choice

I used to think that going vegan was the ultimate way to live harmoniously with the planet.  I tried this philosophy (it really is more than just a diet), but it took more self-discipline than I had at the time.  The Primal Blueprint has a very interesting viewpoint.  I stumbled upon this philosophy when searching for ways to keep my energy levels continuously up.  The trick to this method is to train your body to live off your fat stores instead of a constant stream of carbohydrates.  It's very efficient in theory: just think of fat cells as tiny camel humps that can be filled during times of abundance and drained as needed by the body.  It is not a no carb diet.  Yes, there is a lot of protein consumption going on with all those animals being eaten.  Yet there is also a strong reliance on fruit and vegetable intake.  The key element is it cuts out grain.  I thought cutting out cheese for a vegan diet was challenging, but cutting grain out of an American diet sounds impossible.  It's not necessary to completely go without, just cut back.  It's a tricky transition, one that I have yet to make, but I believe it's possible.  Of course it also helps that the plan only requires 80% compliance, so an occasional birthday cake is completely fine.

But what about the animals?  Aren't you hurting them by subjecting them to a fate of slaughter?  No.  Factory farming is the real enemy of the vegan.  Factory farming is the enemy of the human race.  The real danger of meat consumption is the poison being dumped into the food supply by unsustainable practices such as factory farming.  Plants honestly don't fare much better.  Big Agra (industrial agriculture) poisons the food supply to kill weeds and pests and to preserve the food for global trade.  That's one of the main reasons why I advocate backyard farming: eat what you grow, and you know what goes into your food.

Backyard farming is not limited to plants.  Many cities have ordinances that allow for chickens and rabbits to be kept in the yard, given enough space is kept between the livestock and their human neighbors (including the owner).  The Little Rock ordinance allows for the keeping of hens as long as they are at least 10 feet from the owner's house and 25 feet from the closest neighbor's house.  I have measured my yard, and I do qualify for this.  I can keep up to four hens, but I think three will be a good maximum for me.  Each bird requires three square feet of space, so the bare minimum for three birds will be one square yard (or meter for those metrically inclined).  From my perspective, a chicken coop sounds like an exciting opportunity to meld engineering with artistic design to create more of a chicken "resort" while making the best use of limited space.  Essentially I can't haphazardly add rooms to my own house, but I can design a comfortable home for chickens to lay their eggs.  Little Rock does not allow roosters within the city limits, so the eggs are all cruelty free and the hens live a long happy life.

Rabbits are allowed in town as well.  Rabbits are useful to keep whether or not you decide to cull them for dinner.  They are the perfect garden companion since their waste can be added directly to soil without the need to compost for any length of time.  However, it is not so terrible to eat them either.  A rabbit provides the same amount of meat as a chicken.  Rabbits are easy to breed, take up little space, and are in fact quite healthy.  Before factory farming, rabbits were a common dinner in the average household.  Rabbits can be raised as humanely as chickens (fenced in rabbit resort), and if you should decide to cull them, that can be handled in a dignified manner as well.  If you do it yourself, at least you know how they are treated, unlike the mass slaughter that occurs in the factory farming industry.

If you are unable to keep small livestock on your property due to city ordinances or Home Owners Association rules, you can subscribe to a CSA (community supported agriculture) which allows you to join with others nearby to pay a farmer near town to grow crops and raise bigger livestock.  That way you can have eggs, milk, cheese, and even meat from a local source.  Some CSAs allow you to pay your share with time spent working on the farm.  Either way you pay, you can likely get to know the people growing your food and learn about their practices so you know what is going into the food that will be going into you.

My goal this year is to build a rabbit hutch for one so that I can have instant compost for my garden.  If the rabbit keeping goes well, I will build a chicken coop.  Breeding rabbits is the last stage of my ultimate urban farm, so until then I will try to purchase organic or natural meat from the grocery store.  For now I'm focused more on producing the plant base of my food chain.

Cold Weather Workouts

I tried jogging in the morning for a while, but the morning is not a good time to test my endurance.  In the morning I fly on autopilot through my routine, but cold and wet weather cut through my subconscious resolve.  If I don't have something to do indoors at those times, I often get bored and go back to bed.  Then even on the days that the weather is perfect, I feel no urge to get up early.

One way to take advantage of the cold weather indoor time is to do workout videos.  The main goal of working out is not to sculpt my body, although I'm sure that will be a result eventually, but instead I am exercising my stamina.  The video I'm currently working through is Gaiam's Cardio Pilates.  The real trick to exercise videos is to start out by doing small segments at a time.  There is no way I could do this entire video all at once in the current state of flab I live in.  I'm not that out of shape; I just don't exercise my core enough.  Pilates is an excellent way to work your core muscles.  Last year I worked out on the Total Gym for a few months and only went jogging sporadically.  When I did jog, it felt far easier to endure longer distances than when I just tried to jog without regular exercise.

Primal Blueprint law #4 is to lift heavy things.  I consider myself heavy enough (at 140 pounds), at least when I lift and hold as Pilates tends to encourage.  I don't need to add external weights to my workout because all I have to do is extend the time I balance myself to increase the difficulty.  Chronic cardio is a big no-no in the Primal Blueprint, but I do around 5 to 10 minutes of the Pilates video at a time.  Even though the video is Cardio Pilates, it's still just strength training for me.

One of my goals for 2012 is to run a 10k.  Fortunately, the Little Rock Marathon has replaced their relay race with a 10k.  There are lots of 5ks and half-marathons in Arkansas, but not many races are 10k.  I like the idea of stepping up in my endurance challenges.  I have run a few 5k races, and it is challenging.  But without the idea of a reachable next step, it's difficult for my mind to find the motivation to either continue 5k running or train up for the half-marathon.  I realize this is a mental crutch, but I'm trying to grow at a sustainable pace.  I could probably make it through a half-marathon at this point, but I would rather go into such a race having the experience of making it to the halfway point alive.  The marathon is in March, so I am making the most of my winter time with core training.

Catnip

Catnip is the easiest plant to cultivate.  All you need is dirt and patience.  I planted some catnip seeds in a container outside last Fall, and the catnip survived the winter.  What it did not survive was August and its 114°F temperatures.  It started dying in July and when the heat wave struck in August, I just pulled the whole plant out and tossed it in the compost.

I was really surprised in October when the catnip started growing again.  There are weeds growing in the same container, but I am not going to remove them because they are pretty.  The only weed I go out of my way to destroy is dandelion, but mostly because the leaves are very prickly.  I really can't stand thorns and anything else that will stab me.  The only exception is roses because they are very pretty and get more pretty when they are trimmed a lot.

I was able to harvest the catnip by cutting off a stem at the base and hanging it inside to dry.  I tied a string to the stem base and tied the other end of the string to a hanging lamp.  When all the leaves where dried, I pulled them off and put them in a jar.  The smell of fresh catnip is very different from the smell of dried catnip.  My cat was very excited to try some.  I let her play with the stem for a few days after taking the leaves off.  She loves it.

Catnip is in the mint family and it smells delightful.  I have not yet tried it in tea, but I will be doing so soon.

Leaf Composting

The trees are getting naked and dropping free mulch all over the yard. Driving around town today, I saw enough leaf bags to build a Great Wall. I am going to corral my leaves in the back corner of my yard over the winter so that they'll be ready to mix into garden beds in the spring.

My house is at the end of a circle drive and the backyard narrows down to a wedge on one side. There is a Crape Myrtle in front of the corner and a lot of trees overshadowing the area, too.  It's a terrible place to grow anything, but an excellent place to store some decomposing leaves. I had some wire fencing left over from a previous yard project so I used it to close in the corner to make a leaf bin. I nailed the wire to the wood fence by tacking in nails about halfway in, then bending them over the wire like a staple.  I don't have a staple gun for the job, but I do have plenty of nails and a fondness for using a hammer.  The fence took all of ten minutes to install.

Unused corner of the yard

Same corner with wire nailed in front of it.

Ta-Da! Leaf composting!

The wedge part of my yard used to be the dog pen, but my dog is bigger than the dog who previously resided here. My dog stays in the main part of the backyard. The wedge is my reserved garden space where I can build prototype contraptions and not worry about the dog going Godzilla on them. Also, I value a duty-free zone for my food crops and the ability to farm with clean shoes.

10 Reasons I Garden

1. Having something to do outside keeps me from wasting the day away inside.

2. Gardening is good exercise.

3. I feel a spiritual connection with the earth by working with it instead of just existing on it.

4. It's fun to experience the full seasonal cycle of the year.

5. I create something from nothing by multiplying what I sow. In fact I can even make use of once useless kitchen scraps by composting.

6. I get to eat what I grow.

7. I can see the whole lifespan of my food. I know what went into it so I know what I'm putting into my body.

8. I can grow vegetables I can't find in the grocery store.

9. Extra food can either be canned for later, sold, or donated.

10. Gardening provides useful survival skills. It's nice to know if I were left in the wilderness, I could cultivate food instead of just wander and starve. Also, I'd rather not resort to eating ants. :)

Best thing about Winter

I have to say the best thing about Winter is that it is followed by Spring!  As I watch the leaves fall and begin to see through the trees, I think of springtime and the new leaves that will form when it gets warm again.  Looking forward to Spring is what will get me through this Winter.  Last year I adopted my dog and enjoyed many challenging walks with him in the snow and ice.  I look forward to that challenge again this year.  If I had the garden I wanted already then around this time I would be canning vegetables to make it until the first Spring harvest.  Visualizing how I would spend my time working towards my goal of an epic food garden is good fuel for motivation.  After all, every change for the better starts with the dream to see it through.

Winter planning

Every year I want to plant a garden.  Every year I start too late and wonder why nothing produces.  I am an expert at creating excuses for not going outside.  Too hot. Too cold.  Mosquitoes.  Getting used to a 40 hour work week (after spending 3 months between graduation and employment leisurely enjoying my own schedule).

By the time Fall comes around, I wonder where the time went.  My favorite time to go outside is when it's not too hot or too cold, so Spring and Fall.  Getting a job was extremely important this past Spring, but I had recovered my energy by Fall and felt like starting a garden again.  Of course, that wouldn't work because Winter is just around the corner.  However, I can still use the drive to take action to give me the energy to learn about what action I can take and when to take it.  My birthday is in September so I asked for big terracotta pots.  Container gardening is much more viable in my yard.  I have sandy soil and am downhill from my neighbors which is a disaster in April rains.  I have read a lot online about urban farming, but I wanted more detail.  I bought Urban Farming by Thomas Fox.  I really enjoy that book because not only does it tell how to backyard farm, it gives compelling reasons why backyard farming is the right thing to do.  The scope goes far beyond trying to save money on tomatoes.  It feels more like a revolution.

Given that this is the holiday season traveling to visit family is inevitable for me this time of year, I have decided to hold off on gardening action until January.  Until then I can budget my time and resources and plan for action.  I've got a head start on the terracotta pots.  I don't want to start using them until after the freeze so they don't break.  I plan on building raised garden beds out of wood in January.  February would be a good time to start seeds indoors.  In between now and then, I have plenty of time to pack my brain full of ideas on what do grow and how to grow it.

Is your backyard working for you?

When my husband and I decided to go house hunting, my first priority was the gardening potential of the yard. I had lived in apartments for several years before we bought our house. Not only did I lack yard space, but I did not even live in the same place for more than a year. I was so excited to be getting a sizable yard with plenty of growing potential. I was happy to just maintain the plants that were already established since my initial focus was to finish my degree and find a desk job.

Once I found a job, I made a budget to pay off my student loans at a vigorous pace. While my husband had supported me in school, I didn't worry about finances because school was stressful enough. Once I started getting a paycheck, my self-reliance kicked in and I wanted to hold up my end of expenses while improving the efficiency of my budget. I started getting frugal. I started going without things I didn't see as neccesary to surviving. Mowing the lawn, for example seems like such a waste of energy for the reward of...looking nice? I would rather have food and keep some grocery money in my pocket. Besides, I consider fruit and vegetable plants far more aesthetically pleasing than a field of unused green.

My first garden project was growing a tomato plant in a topsy turvey planter. The whole reason I planted it was because I didn't like paying $2 for a tomato at the grocery store.

Unfortunately, I didn't give my plant quite the attention it needed. It didn't produce any fruit, though I didn't expect any the first year. I would have been overjoyed just to have it survive the blazing hot summer and my overgrown Shepard/Rottie pup. I had thought I trained him not to chew on the plant, but I noticed one day that half the plant was gone. I started to get mad at the dog, but then I saw the great big Tobacco Horn Worm (pictured in their plastic prison).

After dispatching the worm twins, I made a commitment to myself that I would put in a whole hearted effort to grow food in my yard in 2012. I am intrigued by the Primal Blueprint. I have tried vegan in the past, but the only thing that concerns me about meat is the toxins poured into animals by Big Agra. I found also that I can't sustain a vegan diet on a low budget and keep my energy level up high enough to want to continue trying. I've looked up my city ordinance and found that I can keep hens and rabbits.

I find this path as the challenge I have been craving my whole life. I spent the last decade wasting this drive on video games which crumbled my creativity, zest for life, and health to dust. I used to spend so much time wanting to live virtually that I forgot how amazing it feels to actually live my life and how empowering self-sufficiency can be.

Now is the time to test myself and see if I can truly survive what the future brings. Urban farming seems the most sensible way to spend my free time and creativity. Neccesity is the mother of invention. If I could create methods of running a backyard farm that I could sustain for many years, is humane, and good for the earth, then that knowledge is worth all the hardship of trying. And since I'm impatient, I'll be doing this while holding down a day job to pay off my existing debt.