Travel - what else?

Travel is as much the journey as the destination.  There is the preparations: first the research - the history, the geography, the myths, the acceptable behaviour, travel options, hotel reviews, the best route - the one that offers the least connections, best price, shortest transit time and perhaps the most interest stopover option.  The the packing - what are the weather patters for the period, temperature, rain, sun, acceptable attire, dress up occasions, sun screen? umbrella?  a little black dress?  shoes, camera, lenses, extra memory cards, which hand bag to take that will hold all the gear and still look good and weigh reasonable.  The question of which books to take is somewhat solved with ebooks.  Now I just don't have to choose. I can take them all and have no more than the weight of one book added.  Once the decisions are made and the packing is done, next comes the question of what to wear to and from.  Finally the day arrives and you are all packed and ready.  the cab comes and you load up, heart pounding you are on your way.  The vacation has finally started and I have already had the time of my life just getting ready. 

When you are traveling through a destination whether it is the next state/province or a country half way across the world the experience of your five senses and the learning and growth that comes with it can never be replicated in any brick and mortar school.  It takes skill to keep your auto pilot mode at home and to really observe and experience to make the most of your travel experience.  Learning a few words and customs will help make you more attuned to what is going on around you. 

Questions:

1. What was the most memorable experience you had getting ready to go on a vacation?
2. What was the worst experience you had on the way to your destination?
3. What was the vacation that blew you away by exceeding your expectation the most?
4. What is the destination/destinations that you would go back to?
5. What is your dream travel plan?
6. What was the strangest custom you had to practice when travelling? 

More on keeping resolutions

Getting to where you want to be is like turning one of those giant cruise ships.  Every one degree turn in the right direction will ultimately get you there.

Keeping true to your New Year Resolutions

Charles Lamb said New Year's day is every man's birthday.  Every year we try to use this milestone day to remake ourselves - to be reborn in the image that we think we should be. 

Ogden Nash said "Every New Year is a direct descendent isn't it? of a long line of proven criminals. 

While the New Year resolutions are that milestone chance to change it seems we find comfort in rituals and revert back to our ritualistic - chip/chocolate binge eating, watching TV from dinner to bedtime or not writing daily. 

According to a psychologist a habit is a combination of psychological and physiological aspects.  People repeat behaviour.  Dr. Joe Dispensa autho of Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself says that "by the time we are 35 years old we reach a point where our personalities become a set of memorized behaviours and emotional reactions that runs like an automated program."  So his suggestion is to
reprogram yourself in the form that matches your intentions.

So what is the solution?  Be clear about your intentions every day and try to match your behaviour to them.  He advocates a daily practice of reprogramming your behaviours and thoughts, techniques like mediation during which you mentally rehearse how you want your day to go.
The neurologial hardware installyed during the process will start changing the behaviour.

One pitfall is that when we start changing we may no longer feel like ourselves and revert back to the safe and soothing automatic behaviour.

So the advice from Dr. Dispenza is:
Make a plan by:
Identifying what you want to change,
specify how you will achieve this change making sure of the practicality of the plan,
implement.
Make sure the goals are incremental and practical for yourself rather than lofty and distant.

Each morning ask yourself "What do I want to be today?"
Then yesterday's non-compliance won't matter so much.

Starting Wheat Free

So I decided to give it a try even though I have some reservations about the writing in this book.  For example of an instance that created doubt in my mind include the fact that he is stating that upto 1970s women did not engage in physical exercise the way they do now but were thinner.  Well based on my limited knowledge, the availability of mechanical devises for regular housework as well as eating out were not as easily available.  There were gardens to maintain, houses to clean, families - large to mid-size ones to feed three times a day plus other activities such as church, school or gathering of friends requiring contribution would have resulted in much larger expansion of energy from all the muscles in the body vs.  than sitting in an office burning engergy in your brain and may be hands.  The fact that the good doctor just omits mention of this makes me think that there were other omision that happened when those facts did not suit his theory.

The reason I thought I would give it a go comes from reading experiences of people that had followed the diet.  This tells me there are some people that can benefit from this irrespective of how the author went about putting his theory to print.

I do have to figure out what to make for my meals from tomorrow. 

Wheat Free?

I started reading the Wheat Belly book.  So far it goes like this - Wheat that we eat now has been radically changed in the interest of low cost high yield production by the industry in the early to mid 80s.  Around the same time, the dietary recommendations by FDA and other similar bodies came out with higher whole grain diet recommendation.  As a result a whole processed food industry explosion of products happened.  Around the same time the obesity levels started escalating in unprecedented numbers.  While sedentary person with bad eating habits becoming obese was the conventional thought there are many very active to athletic individuals also becoming fat to obese.  The culprit seem to be the 'new' wheat or the chemical reactions triggered by the newly created product.  Then the book goes on the examine the negative impact on each of the different areas - the usual suspect insuline resistance and adult onset diabetes, the viseral fat and the increased inflamatory reactions in the body as a result creating artharitis, plaque in artaries etc., the fact that then new wheat can move across the blood-brain barrier influencing  lethargy, foggy-brain to higher negative reactions in those with schizophrenia etc/ 

I would like to test out how my body will react to no wheat intake option but the question is what do you replace it with?

After the changes

I have been away but now I am back.  Looking back at the posts I see my vision board session happened in early March.  Since then a lot has changed in my life.  When I went to that session, I was not sure exactly what I was looking for.  I had heard and read about vision boarding but I had not taken part in it.  So I took a generic approach.

Here's what I did - the previous week I had been to my dentist's.  I asked my dentist if I can take some of the older magazines that she has at the office and she said to help myself.  Being respectful of the offer, I look for mangazines older than 6 months and picked a variety - Good housekeeping, Chaterlain, National Geographic, Time, Economist etc.

During the session, I went through the magazines and picked imagaes that I found most striking.  There was no theme as I didn't have a specific focus.  I just went with what I found most appealing due either to colours, contuors or subject matter.  I cut them out and then took out the large sheets provided and started pasting the cut outs further culling them in the process.

The final result showed some themes emerging.  That was March.  Since then I have a new home that has a lot of positive energy around it.  Through out the day this home is drenched in sunshine.  You enter the house and the heart skips a beat for the energy of the place.  We are still in the process of organizing the furniture etc.  Once everthing is in place it is going to be absolutely great.

The move has also made me de-clutter so that a lot of unnecessary things are being taken out leaving only those that require my attention.  This also creates a lot of positivity.

At work I am more focused in the destination than the pleasures in the journey although this is important.  Earlier there was no destination in mind but just a journey to enjoy. 

I am also much more focused in eating healthy and also interested in cooking.  All things that will lead to more positive things.

Peach Blueberry Cobbler from Globe and Mail

Looks soo good I have to try making this.

Filling

3 pounds ripe peaches (about 9)
2 cups (280 g) blueberries
¼ cup (54 g) white sugar
¼ cup (54 g) packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8teaspoon salt
2 ½ tablespoons flour

Topping

1 ½ cups (225 g) flour
½ cup (85 g) cornmeal
1/3 cup (70 g) sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter chilled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 ½ (210 g) cups blueberries

Method

Preheat oven to 375.
Wash and dry the peaches to remove a bit of the fuzz and any dirt. Cut each peach into 8 equal slices and place them in a 9x13 dish along with the two cups of blueberries. Then sprinkle the sugars, lemon juice, cinnamon, salt and flour on top. Carefully stir with a large spoon until the ingredients coat the fruit evenly. Set aside.
To make the topping, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Use your hands or a fork to squeeze and scrape the chilled butter pieces into the dry ingredients until you get a crumbly mixture. Whisk the vanilla into the buttermilk and pour it onto the flour mixture. Use a fork to gently mix it until it just comes together (try not to over-mix it to avoid tough biscuits!) Fold in the blueberries.
The dough will be sticky and slightly wet so use a spoon to make three rows of three biscuits each (nine total) on top of the fruit. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 50 to 55 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown on top and the fruit mixture is deep purple and bubbling. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 to 25 minutes to allow the filling to set slightly. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap and store in the fridge to enjoy cold or warm over the next three days. Serves nine to 12