hard week

This has been a difficult week in lots of dimensions, personally and professionally. I had a hard time adjusting to springing forward an hour with the end (or is it beginning) of daylight savings time. My sleep cycle has been off this week, leaving me really tired. Both work and personal life have been very roller-coastery this week; a lot of ups and downs. I'm left today feeling "what am I doing with my life?!" I want to be of benefit to others, and yet I'm having a hard time seeing how I'm doing that in my job these days. There were some good things in my job this week, including some meetings that I thought would be depressing turning out to be good, but after several unexpected depressing (to me) meetings, I'm left feeling confused. I want to be happy, and I want people in my life to be happy. Yet I find that significant people in my life aren't feeling good, and I'm feeling pretty helpless. I have multiple people in my life that I haven't found time to call back and I'm really sad that I keep doing this.

Blah.

On another note, I've done a great job of spending less than my weekly budget this week, so I'm proud of me for that :) Those extra pennies are being saved up for things I want to do...including travel and therapy! :)

Pumpkin, Chickpea, and Banana Curry

Tonight I made a lovely curry. I got the recipe from theppk.com there were some things I modified and comments I have to add, so if you want the original recipe go to the post punk kitchen.

Pumpkin, Chickpea, & Banana curry
prep time: 20-25 minutes | cooking time: 30min-1 hour | makes 4-6 servings

Equipment:
large pot with lid

Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground coriander (I forgot to add this, and it was fine without)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 lbs pumpkin, peeled,seeded and cubed (about 2 ½ cups) (you can also use yams or sweet potato or other winter squash)
1 tablespoon hot curry paste (I used 1.5T thai green curry, and found it to be so spicy that I added a can of coconut milk after eating my first bowl)
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped (I substituted a 14oz can of diced tomatoes)
1 1/4 cups vegetable stock (I omitted and instead used the liquid from the can of chickpeas)
1 3/4 cups canned chick-peas, drained (see above, I drained, but used the liquid in lieu of veggie stock and used the whole can of chickpeas)
1 large banana, peeled, sliced 1" thick (could omit, could also use a plaintain)
optional:
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro or parsley (yay for cilantro!)
1/2 cup pine nuts, to garnish (I omitted)
1 can coconut milk

Directions
1. Heat 2 tbls. of the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic, ginger and ground spices, and fry over a medium heat for 5-6 mins until the onion is lightly browned.
2. Add the can of tomatoes and liquid from the chickpeas to the onion mixture, and bring to the boil, simmering gently for 15 mins. (I'm not sure why this is 15 min...seems worth a try to reduce the time, or just bring to a boil and proceed to next step)
3. Add the pumpkin, curry paste, and chickpeas to the tomato sauce, cover and cook for 20 mins, or until the pumpkin is tender.
(At this time, if you are making rice, start that going!)
5. Five mins before the end of the cooking time, stir in the banana, and/or the coconut milk, if using.

Stir in the optional chopped cilantro or parsley, and sprinkle the pine nuts over the top.
Serve immediately. Eat served over rice, couscous, or just by its awesome curry self.


Note: the original recipe calls for mixing the curry paste directly with the pumpkin in a bowl, and then frying the curry paste coated pumpkin in a skillet--this was a disastrous idea, and I'm still trying to get the vaporized curry out of my lungs. I don't see any reason to torture self or others with curry vapor, thus my suggestion of adding un-fried pumpkin and curry paste directly to the tomato/onion mixture.

money

For the last week or so, I've been thinking a lot about money. Money is a resource that I have to use as I want, and I frequently forget that it is MY resource and MY CHOICE how to use that resource. I've been feeling tight and controlled by money issues lately, and maybe some of that is legit since there was that whole ugly snafu with the evil former leeches living in my house. But I still have choices.

I got a great idea from my girl dol who said that she categorizes all food expenses together (groceries, eating out, even those cups of coffee she buys). And all the food expenses together have a budget--here's how much I spend a week. If I eat out a lot, I have less for groceries. If I buy a lot of fancy high-end items at the grocery store, I have less for going to get coffee out.

I've used Quicken since I was a freshman in college, and I love it. It is a tool my Dad encouraged me to use. It is great, because it is a way of tracking expenses, it can make graphs and charts and pull summaries of data for you. Even with this amazing tool at my disposal, I am terrible at budgeting. I hate it. I hate trying to track a bazillion little categories of expenditures in my head as I spend money. So I don't do it, and spend money mindlessly. So I took a look at the last few months and was SHOCKED to find out how much money I've been spending on food every month. I knew it was going to be high, but not that much.

So all the various things I've been saying I can't afford to do, or the things that I want to save for, etc. I have the choice to continue to spend haphazardly on food, or become more aware, more awake and choose to do something different. So I'm choosing to do something different and give myself a guideline of an amount I'd like to try not to exceed each week. I decided that my week starts Saturday morning, and ends Friday night. This helps split up weekend going out, and fits along with the work-week, too.

This week I did ok, especially since I didn't do this money figuring until part-way through the week. I went a little over, but not by much, and I feel good about the choices I made.

I debated a lot about putting actual numbers in here, and I'm not afraid to share that if people are interested. I decided not to, as a way to not get caught up. The real learning here is about choice and putting my resources where my values are.

lessons I’m still learning

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks, but as of March 1, my house is again rented. We're getting less that I'd hope, but it is house only, and they have no livestock, so they can't screw up the pasture like the last 'tenants'. The security deposit check and the first months rent check were taken to the banks the funds resided in and turned into cash, and the cash was taken to my (and Michael's) bank and deposited! A neighbor is going to be leasing the pasture, so we don't have to worry about irrigating, burning and pulling ditches, etc.

New knowledge: there is not such thing as a bill larger than $100. Somehow my silly little brain thought $500 bills existed. I guess only in monopoly...

I'm a caretaker...I do things for others before I take care of me. This is a long, long, old pattern. This isn't new. And I do go through phases of being better about taking care of me first before taking care of others, and I go through phases where I'm terrible about taking care of me first.

Knowledge: old habits are hard to break! and they're MY habits, and I can't blame others when I'm unhappy with my own actions

Mistakes

This week was a week of making a lot of mistakes, and hopefully learning from them. Mistakes can come in many different ways, from forgetting to sign a form that will impact someone's pay to hurting a friend to drinking too much juice in too short a period of time. Each mistake has its consequence. 

It is said that "time heals all wound". Perhaps this is true. For the mistakes I made this week I hope that not too much time will pass for each of the wounds to heal. For each of the mistakes I made this week, I am able to look back and say "I should have known better; I could have prevented this outcome" and that is true. What is also true is that I have my blind spots, I am human, and I am not perfect. I hope that those people that I impact will forgive me, an I'm working to forgive myself. I also hope that I am able to remember the things I learned this week. 

giggly, goofy, giddy friends

I've had a goofy 24 hours, all thanks to my friends John and Jess. Miss Jessica came over yesterday evening and again today, and John, Jess, and I had a giddy, giggly, goofy time filling out surveys and reading personality reports about ourselves.

I got to learn all about what the computer thinks of my 'agreeableness', 'openness', 'emotional stability', 'conscientiousness', and 'extraversion'. Surprisingly, a lot of it feels on target. Some of it doesn't sound like me, but, well, it is a computer program telling me about me.

I feel the need to record some funny things that were said so I can remember them later and laugh and laugh again.

What three things am I most thankful for?
Yummy food, good friends, and warm socks.

And what am I most passionate about?
Cheese, cooking, and scifi.

I did some hardcore knitting today...this scarf is coming along nicely. I am learning that complicated patterns take a long, long time. This scarf I'm making is reversible (same pattern appears on both sides of the scarf, and has 5 cables (fat cable, skinny cable, fat cable, skinny cable, fat cable). Very complex, but oh, so lovely. I hope Lu will like it :)

angry rant

I am angry and I am sad. If you don't want to read an angry rant, just move on.

This morning I got a call from some people who saw the ad for my house to rent, and are interested in renting. When I spoke with the guy, he said it would be three men renting the house. We scheduled a time for later in the day to meet there so they could see it. I already had another family coming later in the day, so it felt good to get so much interest all at once. 

After I got off the phone, I started thinking. I thought about my house, how it is in a rural community where the houses aren't close together. I thought about how my body is perceived as small and weak, and that makes me vulnerable. I was thinking about what I should wear--baggy jeans and my baggy, thick hand-me-up sweatshirt were on the list. I thought about calling my neighbors to let them know I'd be at the house. How I was already planning out which pocket I'll have my whistle in, and which pocket my phone will be in. That I hadn't thought about any of this when I was going up to meet a family (husband, wife, and two young girls) popped into my mind. I thought that if I was a man, I wouldn't have to think about any of this, and I am angry. 

I am angry that I do have to think about these things. I am angry that I have friends that have been sexually assaulted. I am angry that I have to put on my extra-tough masks when I'm going to meet 3 men that I don't know. 

I am angry that my physical appearance puts me at risk. The fact is, I am strong, and a lot stronger than many people would guess. I am physically stronger than many women I know. I lived on a farm for a bunch of years, and now I go to the gym to maintain the strength that I hadn't even realized I gained. And even so, I am still a small woman, and so I am vulnerable. 

I am angry that in order to feel less vulnerable, I put on baggy clothes to hide my curves, I build up myself image and show off by talking about carrying hay bales and other physical feats. I keep everyone at a distance. 

I am angry that I get ignored and I don't get respect because of my small, female body. There is an angry, strong, beautiful, smart woman in this body who doesn't like being ignored. An angry woman who is fed up with all misogyny. 

Feminism ain't about equality; it's about reprieve.