Category: Feeding The Pastor

Hello, darlings!

I’m going to Washington, DC for the weekend and loading up my iPodTouch with podcasts I’ll never listen to but like to have for security purposes (as in, there’s still a little kid in me who actually thinks she might get bored on a short plane ride. Never happens anymore. I barely listen to anything or read even on intercontinental flights any more).

Remember last month we talked about device management and shared podcasts we love? I just found one called The Snap Judgment that looks terrific. This episode featuring people’s stories on Losing Your Religion looks like something of special interest to me and my pigeons. I can’t wait to listen.

I love the health of summer. Me old bones don’t ache in the sultry heat, I swim a lot, I am outdoors a lot, I eat fruit and veg without thinking about it. I take vacation, I visit with friends, I sleep. I read. I lie on the grass and watch the clouds.

It’s good for body and soul.

This summer, for the first time in nine years, I am doing another big summer musical that will run eighteen performances in August. Rehearsals are creatively fulfilling, the production team and cast are wonderful, and I love my character. I am thrilled to be part of creating an original musical and to play a role that no actress has ever played before.

What I do not love is the after-rehearsal meals that inevitably involve something fried or slathered in cheese (our cast “place” is a pub that serves really good food, but it’s definitely pub food). In fact, all of summer seems to be one big opportunity to eat absolutely delicious fried foods – oysters! onion rings! wings! — and desserts (ice cream! pie with ice cream on top! red velvet cake!). I’m not much of a drinker but there’s also a lot more opportunity to have a beer or a cider or a cocktail.

Dern it all! I’m trying to make healthy choices: skip the fried stuff or have a few bites, stay with the raw bar, have one cucumber martini (YUM, by the way), and avoid the bread and butter (which is my favorite thing in the world so let me tell you something, babies, if that’s good bread I am EATING SOME).
But it’s the late night, hangin’ with the kids, post-rehearsal (or post-performance, which is worse because you’re really hungry at 11pm) socializing that I cannot seem to work with.
Continue reading “Would You ~Really ~Like Fries With That?”

As soon as the weather gets warm, PB starts her romance with iced coffee.
Oh, I love my iced coffee! A day without iced coffee is a day not worth living. The first thing I do in the morning is set myself up with a big ole iced coffee in a big sippy cup with a straw. You know those things, right? The washable, non-BCP cups you get so you can pretend you went to a Designer Coffee Shop drive-up window?

I make myself my big sippy cup full of iced coffee, take the dog out, have a smoothie, then sit down with my coffee to check e-mail. I have lots of those sippy cups and I use them all day long: usually for plain water or sometimes sticking an herbal tea bag in the water for a bit of flavor.

WELL. Some of you will see immediately where this is going.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was constantly full of painful gas. There is no delicate way to say it, pigeons. If this post WASN’T FOR YOUR OWN HEALTH AND WELL-BEING I WOULD NEVER HAVE BROUGHT IT UP.

The gas pressure made me constantly uncomfortable and of course I imagined the worst. “I’m sure it’s just stress,” said I. “But there is also the possibility that I’m dying of some terrible disease and I have an enormous tumor that’s putting all this pressure on my stomach or lungs or heart or whatever and I’m sure I’ll be dead soon, so maybe I shouldn’t worry about filing all these papers. My bereaved friends can do it for me after I explode from this build-up of painful gas.”

I cut spicy foods from my diet. I took organic charcoal pills. I did yoga. I cut out carbonated beverages (which I don’t drink much of in the first place). I blamed wheat. I blamed dairy. I blamed the Red Sox.

I practiced my 4-5-8 breath every morning. That one where you breath slowly in to a count of four, hold it for a count of five, and then slowly exhale to a count of eight. That really did help. That always helps: it is the best free medicine I know of, that breathing technique. I do acknowledge that I’ve been running around a lot and find myself gulping air rather than breathing deeply from my diaphragm.

Then it hit me. This all started when I switched from drinking from mugs and glasses to drinking all day from a straw, starting every day with the acidic iced coffee!!

No wonder I’m pumped full of air like a bicycle tire! That’s what happens when you drink from a straw — you take in tons of air along with your beverage! Wotta dingbat!

I cut out the straw 24 hours ago and I am feeling relief already. This isn’t to say that I’m not still gulping air, but at least I’m not also taking in tons of air with my liquid.

Oh, and by the way? This is the best post on how to make iced coffee that I’ve ever seen.

My guts have been having way too many technical difficulties lately for me to continue with my iced coffee habit, but I have found that I can tolerate iced tea (and I rarely drink anything literally iced — I prefer room temperature). So at least I can still worship the caffeine gods in some measure.

This, too: you know what they say about slowing down and chewing each bite? That helps, too.

Here’s to healing and to healthy tums, darlings.

We are still a work in progress, pigeons! Thank you for keeping your comments and feedback coming. It seems obvious that we need to create custom font colors for better contrast (this theme doesn’t offer a lot of choices for a non-tech savvy girl for me, but I am confident that my Web Master will be able to tinker with it). It is obvious that the Archives need work, which will be a longer-term project I’ll dig into this summer. I will definitely investigate design options for better ability to peruse archives. Do remember that there’s a keyword search widget you can use, too. In fact, will some of you try that and see how you like the Search options on this theme?

I’m off to another meeting — lots and lots of them lately– and looking ahead to a very busy next two weeks. In addition to the regular Sunday service to prepare, I am preaching at a mid-week prayer service on Wednesday, and presenting a keynote address and workshop in early June at the 2030 (age, not year!) United Church of Christ clergy conference, “Shepherding the Shepherd.” I just got cast in an original musical that will run this summer through the month of August. I’m thrilled about working with this theatre company again but it is a major time commitment. I am taking a deep breath, cooking up lots of healthy foods, starting every day with a nutritious smoothie, and loving the warm weather and sunshine. I am going to make a commitment NOT TO EAT IN THE CAR. I find that a throroughly depressing and upsetting development but it happens too often when I get wrapped up at church and miss lunch, and then have to make a 3 or 4pm appointment somewhere.

My poor doggie hasn’t been walked at ALL lately, and he’s in the living room right now making Frankenstein monster noises, which is my cue to take him out. Ta for now, sweetlings. How is your ministry going? Let’s have a Pentecost check in, where everybody talks at the same time but everyone understands each other perfectly.

P.S. I liked my hair today:

You all just cracked PeaceBang up with your rants about misused or overused expressions in the previous post here on BTFM. Thank you for entertaining me, darlings! I have needed some good belly laughs!

I’m in one of those periods of time where I look up and say, “Oh hello, self! How are you? My, we certainly have been on the run lately, haven’t we? And we’ve been living from the neck up, doing lots of thinking and praying and dreaming and visioning and talking but treating the rest of our bodies as a mere vehicle to tote the head around!” My left shoulder is so stiff I can barely use it any more, and I’m sure I’ve packed on yet another few pounds of buttah as I turned to food in the past months to comfort, entertain and delight my senses. Food is SO GOOD. I love food! And as I know that it does ZERO good to treat food as the enemy in this quest for health and balance, I’m not going to “go there” (Did anyone identify that expression as one that is overused and obnoxious? Oh, let’s DO!).

One thing I have tried to do every day is to make a nutritious smoothie in the morning. I put supplements galore in there, plus no-sugar almond milk, flax seeds and some sort of berry. Whey protein, greens red antioxidant stuff… and now I am going to add kale and herbs and lemon, and mix it up a bit. I figure this: if I can get a blast of green, living stuff into my bod first thing in the day, it won’t be so horrible if I have herbal popcorn for dinner. It’s just where I’m at right now. Reasonable expectations.

Just as, if I cannot seem to force myself to work out, I can do stretches. Short walks with the dog. Try to be compassionate and understanding of this creature as we near the end of a very demanding year in parish ministry. One of my parishioners always asks me, “What are you doing for fun these days?” I visited her yesterday and she asked me that question and I said, “Ummmmm….” That’s when I knew that I really had to get out on that date to the piano bar last night and sing and try to have a good time. It is going to take some effort and sunshine for me to return to my usual bright spirits but we know that weeping may endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Also a nice, nutritious smoothie.

No advice, please. I would love to hear your own reflections on your well-being and on your favorite nutritious meals.