A Marriage Made in Nail Polish Heaven

Esse "Catch Me If You Can" + Milani "Disco Lights" =

if nail polishes could wed, i think these two would. but not a quicky-style Vegas wedding. they'd go real deal. with dark red peony bouqets and crushed velvet draped table settings. you see, Esse "Catch Me If You Can" is the strong, silent type. he's very supportive of Milani "Disco Lights." he's the base and lets her shine and sparkle and dance in the sunrays. they're the perfect match! they could probably use the protection of Clear Polish (because what couple doesn't need the protection/aid of an invisible higher power?)

leave it to me to get philosophical about nail polish. jeeze louise and it's only Monday.

Innerpeach-berry Pibbler

just *some* of the many ingredients you'll need...

recipe based off of Gluten-Free Girl gluten-free cherry crumble pie

innards

crumbly crumb top

what do you get when you cross a pie with a cobbler? a shoe-maker with a pie in his face! haha just kidding, you get a pibbler of course!

originally this was supposed to be a peach pie but the white peaches we got from the market were soooooo good that i decided to eat them whole.... which left us shy 3 or 4 peaches. so instead, i got crafty and added some blueberries, hence innerpeach-berry. i understand baking is scientific and requires a certain level of "exactitude" but lets be real... life is everything but exact. i also based this recipe off of Gluten-Free Girl's Cherry Crumble Pie and instead of cups and teaspoons shes uses grams (how European of her!) so since i don't have a scale (anywhere. not even in my bathroom. never have, never will. those things are eeeeevvvviiilllll) i went online to a conversion calculator website and got everything in tablespoons. which is funny because there are a lot of tablespoons. so if you plan on making this, you've been warned. you also should be warned that none of this is "exact" so don't freak out or anything when your crust starts to fall apart a bit (like mine did.) and if ANYONE gives you smack about it, laugh while cocking your head back ever so slightly and flick your hand nonchalantly and say, "well. that is what a pibbler is supposed to look like, didn't you know? oh, you don't know what a pibbler is? that's a shame because they are really all the rage in the Scandinavian foothills." and before they can ask you what or where the Scandinavian foothills are, you stuff your mouth with pibbler and walk away.

by the way nothing goes better with anything innerpeach-berry pibbler than Handel's homemade Dulce de Leche icecream. my dad decided this and off we drove to get a pint of the delicious nectar of the gods. *interesting fact: my dad loves to pretend he is Latin American (even though he is 100% Irish, bless his heart) and loves to say "dul-chay de laaaaaayyy-chay" like he is some suave Latino who can salsa. (he wishes.)

usually the line is 20+ deep.. (p.s., note the brave man wearing the pink shirt and toting his girlfriend's hot pink purse on his shoulder. um, that's love.)

where the magic happens

gluten-free pie crust

15 tbsp. brown rice flour (i use Bob's Red Mill)

9 tbsp. potato starch

5 tbsp. almond flour

5 tbsp. cornstarch

1/2 tsp. salt

9 tbsp. organic coconut oil (this stuff is da bomb. i use this kind and i put it on everything. i will dedicate a whole post to it later)

6 tbsp ice cold water

inner-peach berry filling

2 cups sliced peaches

1 cup blueberries

3 tbsp. dark brown sugar

1 tbsp. Agave

1 tbsp. honey

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 tsp. Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1 tbsp. applesauce

crumbly-crumble top

3 tbsp. brown rice flour

3 tbsp. potato starch

3 tbsp. almond flour

8 tbsp. packed brown sugar

7 tbsp. cornmeal

4 tbsp. steel cut oats

1 tsp. cinnamon

9 tbsp. coconut oil

you can follow the instructions of how to put this all together via Gluten-Free Girl's website (only difference is some of the ingredients.) you could also just go ahead and use her recipe even though, um, it's not a pibbler. so the choice is really yours.

inside of everything sweet there is always *innerpeach*

All I Need's a Greaser, a Hula Hoop and a Coonskin Cap

(play music while scrolling through the pictures!)

tiger lily

red hot poker/johnny rocket

Dress: Bad Girl Vintage, Shoes: Charles David leather/wooden platforms

ummm how cool is this two piece 50's dress? i got it from Bad Girl Vintage's Etsy Shop. i mentioned to a co-worker in passing that i liked vintage clothing and she told me about Linda Wink's Bad Girl Vintage store in Willow Grove. i haven't been able to get to the store yet but i did spend about an entire day going through Linda's Etsy shop practically drooling with puppy dog, googely-eyes the entire time . when i saw this dress, i knew right away that it was for me. the dress came a few days after i ordered it (for a very, very good price of $75.00 with free shipping!) the dress is in near perfect condition with no weird smells or anything. the fabric is breezy and comfortable but also quite delicate especially around the metal zippers (which lets you know it is authentically 50's.) please excuse the many recurring photos of my backside but i kept saying to my mom (and dad) who were taking the photos, "didya get one of the cute bow in the back?!?! didya didya?!?!" also please excuse the many recurring pictures of the side angle of my face. i'm really going to need to start working on my glamazon model techniques if i keep doing more of these outfit pics.

Discipline and Freedom



photo courtesy of desinzzz.com

a good friend shared something with me recently that really struck a cord and i wanted to share it with you. it's a piece written by Matthew Kelly, author of a book called "The Best Version of Yourself" which i have not read but i could definitely use since lately i feel like i've been operating as the best version of oh say - a paperclip - instead of the best version of myself. *warning: this piece contains a story about Jesus. but whether you dig the guy or not, you have to admit... he had some pretty awesome hair. am i right???

"The Role of Discipline

Jesus said, "I have come that you may have life and have it to the fullest" (John 10:10). The path that leads to "fullness of life" is discipline. There are four major aspects of the human person - physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. When we eat well, exercise often, and sleep regularly, we feel more fully alive physically. When we love, when we give priority to the significant relationships of our lives, when we give of ourselves to help others in their journey, we feel more fully alive emotionally. When we study, we feel more fully alive intellectually. When we come before God in prayer, openly and honestly, we experience life more fully spiritually. All of these life-giving endeavors require discipline. When are we most fully alive? When we embrace a life of discipline. The human person thrives on discipline.
Are you thriving? Or are you just surviving?
Discipline awakens us from our philosophical stupor and refines every aspect of the human person. Discipline doesn't enslave or stifle the human person; rather, it sets us free to soar to unimagined heights. Discipline sharpens the human senses, allowing us to savor the subtler tastes of life's experiences. Whether those experiences are physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, discipline elevates them to their ultimate reality. Discipline heightens every human experience and increases every human ability. The life and teachings of Jesus Christ invite us to embrace this life-giving discipline.
Many people consider Jesus irrelevant today because he proposes a life of discipline. Is discipline then to be considered the core of Jesus' philosophy? No. Christ proposes a life of discipline not for its own sake, and certainly not to stifle or control us; rather, he proposes discipline as the key to freedom.
In the midst of the complexities of this modern era, we find ourselves enslaved and imprisoned by a thousand different whims, cravings, addictions, and attachments. We have subscribed to the adolescent notion that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, without interference from any authority. Could the insanity of our modern philosophy be any more apparent? Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the strength of character to do what is good, true, noble, and right. Freedom without discipline is impossible.
Is freedom then to be considered the core of Jesus' philosophy? No. What then, is the core of his philosophy? Well, as it turns out, the people of his own time were curious for an answer to this very question.
One day, while Jesus was teaching a large group of people in the synagogue, a man asked Our Lord a question from his position in the multitude. He was a learned man, one of those doctors of the law who were no longer able to understand the teaching revealed to Moses because it had become so twisted and entangled in the ways of men. He questioned Our Lord, saying, "Teacher, which is the greatest of the Commandments?"
Jesus opened his divine lips slowly, with the calm assurance of somebody who knows what he is talking about and replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul. This is the first and the greatest of the Commandments. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two rest the whole law and all the prophets" (Matthew 22:34-40). (Continued on page 5)
Love is the core of Jesus' philosophy. But, in order to love you must be free. For to love is to give your self freely and without reservation.
Yet, to give your self - to another person, to an endeavor, or to God - you must first possess your self. This possession of self is freedom. It is a prerequisite for love, and is attained only through discipline."

now i dont care if you believe in Jesus or Buddha or rutabegas or whatever. it doesn't really matter. the message is what matters, and i find this story to have a very beautiful message. and though this may ostracize me in some ways from certain people, i actually dig Jesus. i dig what he taught about love being the most important thing of all. i dig that he wore sandals and hung out with people with lepresy and challenged the status quo. i also dig Buddha and if i ever had a rutabega, id probably dig that too (like out of the ground. haaaa, ya see what i did there?)

anyway, after reading this piece i thought, "pffff i have the whole loving my neighbor thing down. but discipline? i can't discipline myself!" discipline is hard for me. not only because the word itself evokes images of my Catholic school kilts but also because i want it all. i dont want to deny myself. i want to get everything out of life, i want to suck life dry, i want the whole cake, i want to sleep for 10 hours a day.... i'm afraid if i don't have it all RIGHT NOW then it will go away, that someone else will take it and i won't be able to enjoy it. (hmmm i'd say i have some abundancy/scarcity issues, wouldn't you?)

at the same time that discipline is hard for me (because i don't want to deny myself of anything,) i am also exceedingly cruel to myself for no reason whatsoever. (it's ok if you're confused here, the whole business of "worth" and "worthiness" is confusing to me too.) i told my friend, who shared this piece with me, that loving my neighbor as myself wasn't the hard part for me. i can love other people, no problem. in fact, i love other people WAY MORE and WAY BETTER than i love myself. but Jesus didn't say "love your neighbor more than yourself." he said "love your neighbor as yourself." well, whoa. i am much, much kinder to my friends when they are upset over an issue than i am to myself when i am upset over an issue. with them, i tell them not to worry, that everything will be OK, that they are bigger than any problem they could ever face. but with myself? not so much. i treat myself like a human whipping post at best. and the real question is how well am i actually loving others when i am treating myself so cruelly? probably not as best as i can be. (so pssttt hey mom, i know you're reading this. this means i can only get BETTER at loving you!)

so, hm. loving myself. disciplining myself. these seem like contradictory things don't they? but in order to love ourselves we must be free and freedom comes in disciplining ourselves. good discipline that is self-generated and from a place of self love (not punishment) is discipline that Geneen Roth calls "if love could speak" guidelines. if love could speak it would say, "do you really want that entire cake? won't that hurt your tummy, love?" if love could speak it would say, "why don't you spend 20 minutes cleaning and organizing so that later when you're rushing around and stressed out, you will be able to find things and you won't get upset." discipline is good when we disclipline our minds from NOT thinking negative thoughts about self (uh, that means no more treating the self like a whipping post) and discplining our time by using it productively with things that we realistically need to get done (work, cleaning, etc.) so that we can actually enjoy the time when we get to do nothing.

 in my post about moderation, i talked about moderation being an art form that we must cultivate - an art that the French call "l’équilibre" which means to keep one's balance. it's related to the english word equilibrium which is defined as "a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces." equi = equanimity, equality, balance. libre = freedom. there is freedom in balance. there is freedom in recognizing and holding the opposing forces, the yin and yang, the light and darkness, in each of us. oh and one more thing. i promise this is your last vocabulary lesson of today.... the word discipline? did anyone else notice that it's related to the word disciple? well disciple comes from a Latin word meaning "learner" and discipline comes from one meaning "instruction, knowledge." so that means discipline = constantly learning. practice, practice, practice.  yes, Iverson, we talkin' bout practice, man. practice? yeah, practice. which is good because the past few days have not been too "balanced" for me. in fact, i lost my phone somewhere in a mattress store because my mind was so out of it. but - and here's the kicker - i'm learning as i go. i stumble, i get back up. i stumble, i get back up. i stumble, i get back up. rinse and repeat.

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us." ~ Iris Murdoch

blood red dahlia

tulips

stargazer lily

i stumbled on this quote via "internet trail of crumbs" as i like to call it. internet trail of crumbs: (n) when you sort of leap frog from one website to another and find something interesting there so then you wikipedia it and then find a link through wikipedia and off of that link you find another interesting thing. it's really very fun, i play internet trail of crumbs every single day and it always amazes me what little treasures i find. this particular trail looked a little something like this:

Bleubird Vintage ---> books, paper, scissors ---> Iris Murdoch wikipedia page --> Iris Murdoch quotes

i recommend visiting all of those sites, particularly "books, paper, scissors" which is a site i could quite literally spend whole days on just soaking in the illustrations like sunlight. speaking of soaking in sunlight, do you like my pictures of flowers? a few are taken from the Philadelphia Flower Show that i went to in March, one is from the terrain booth at the Devon Horseshow and the last one is of a hanging flower in St. Croix. for some reason flowers always remind me of my mom and my nana. i think it's because my mom loves and my nana loved to grow flowers, to tend to them and to foster their little development - however short their lives were. to mom and nana it didn't matter how long the flower bloomed but rather how beautifully. before my nana's stroke, she dutifully tended to her small house plants which she would call "the infirmary." my nana grew and tended to nature the way she tended to her daughters, to her grandchildren, to strangers, to each and every soul she touched - with consistent waterings of kindness and beams of fierce love warmer than sunlight. she was also hilarious, my nana. i realize everyone thinks their grandmothers are special, but mine was truly an examplary woman who i think of daily especially when i see flowers.

The First Rejection: Are You Over Your First Love?

photo courtesy of tumblr

today at lunch i walked to the river to eat my avocado, chicken & asparagus sandwich underneath one of those tunnel bridge things (they always remind me of Europe and men in striped shirts and berets rowing couples romantically in a gandola ...) anyway i had the unfortunate - or fortunate? - pleasure of sitting right near two young tweeny-boppers in the middle of a break up. the girl, (the dumpee) a cute blonde, was holding her knees to her chest and curled up as small as possible, tightly hugging her flowy flower dress to her mouth. her white high heels lay toppled on the dirt cobblestone. the boy (the dumper) was a long-haired sk8er boi with a black tee shirt, jeans and some vans. the girl sniffled away quietly as the boy talked in hushed tones. for the entire length of my lunch this girl sniffled. i was so tempted to hand her one of my napkins. i was also tempted to go over there and say this to her (and sk8er boi):

hi sweetheart. here, use this napkin to blow your nose. no, it's not embaressing to blow your nose in front of this guy. i know how hard you are trying to remain perfect, but perfect doesn't exist. (in fact, your desperation to be perfect might actually be the root of the problem here.) i know from personal experience.  i know because i was here too, crying at age 15, being dumped by the guy who i thought was my one true love. only, he did it to me over instant message. and instead of crying to him like you are now, i cried to my mom. deep, guteral screams that couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the guy who dumped me - they had more to do with the scorching pain of being rejected. but kudos to you, sk8er boi, for dumping her in person and for having the balls to sit with her while she cries. and kudos to you, girl-who-is-trying-so-hard-to-be-perfect, for letting him see you cry. you guys are already way ahead of my 15 year old self. but look at me now, i got through it and i'm still here. life goes on, life gets better. you'll meet someone who loves you like crazy and who makes you feel worthy. and don't think for one second that hes dumping you for any reason you could possibly understand. its not because your hair is too frizzy, or because you are too 'fat' (whatever that means), or because you don't wear the right clothes. its not because you chose to wear a flowery dress today - it's not about any of this stuff. it's about him and his complicated inner-world and the fact that he is a messy human being just like the rest of us. so go ahead, girl, cry your eyes out to him. tell him you are angry, upset, disappointed, sad - whatever. just use your voice...and let him hear you! you're entitled to be loud, to say what you feel and to get good and angry. and sk8er boi, just listen. listen to her story. both of you, be honest with eachother. you may get back together, you may not. but the point is that you two are being present with eachother through a sensitive human encounter and it takes guts to stay with ourselves during these kinds of moments. the good news here is that they are just moments, meaning they don't last forever. the good stuff will come back, i promise.  and after all it's only teenage wasteland. 

Yoga Therapy: Backbends and Emotional Release

photo courtesy of fitsugar.com

camel pose or ustrasana (ustra meaning camel in sanskrit) is one of the first backbending poses i ever learned in yoga. my first yoga class was 7 years ago in a Bikram or hot yoga class and let me tell you, it kicked my ass. i was soaking wet in sweat and i felt like every cell and muscle in my body had been wrung out like a sopping rag. it was the most difficult 90 minutes of my life but the only thing that got me through it was focusing on my breath - something i had never done before.  although i don't practice Bikram or hot yoga anymore for reasons i'll get into later on, my first class was a blessing because for the first time in my life i learned how to breathe. (breathing is something we vastly underestimate.) it was also the first time in my life that i stretched certain areas of my body.

camel pose, because it stretches the entire front of the body (abdomen, chest, throat, thighs, groin) and stimulates the organs of the neck and abdomen (our "guts" otherwise known as our second brain), is an intense pose that can open a floodgate of emotions for many people. actually, any pose in yoga can be intensely emotional because our body stores memories and emotions deep within the tissues and cells. stretching the stomach in a way that we've never stretched before can bring up a flurry of icky feelings or memories we may have suppressed. backbends are also intense poses in yoga because they leave the front of our bodies completely exposed. the front of the body is home to our most vital organs (heart, lungs, guts) and back in caveman era, if we were attacked from the front we would die instantly. therefore, exposing our frontal body is extremely vulnerable since our primal instinct is to protect ourselves. the reptilian brain (closest to our spinal cord) is hardwired for self-defense and fight-or-flight mode and so practicing backbends is extremely beneficial because they help us overcome the fear of being attacked or the fear of being vulnerable. 

it is important to learn backbends slowly. they can be both problematic but also hugely beneficial (when done correctly) for those with back issues.  i would not recommend jumping into camel pose if you have not yet taken a beginner's class with a skilled teacher. i learned backbends the hard way - like a toddler who is taught how to swim by being tossed in a lake. the intensity of emotions i felt after my first camel pose was insane. i remember feeling like i was going to pass out immediately, like the ground was no longer steady. the instructor recommended we go into child's pose after coming out of camel, a good counter-stretch to camel because it is a forward fold and a safe position where all of our internal and frontal organs are protected. oddly i don't remember how i got from camel pose into child's pose (i literally blacked out), but i do i remember laying there on top of my sticky, wet thighs thinking "holy shit. what was that?" whatever i had been storing was being released and the emotions came flooding out of my cells in tsunami-like waves. connecting back to my breath was key because the breath is the anchor. the breath is the only bodily function we can consciously control. we can't think "ok, i'm going to get my heart to pump blood to my veins now..." but we can consciously take in a full belly breath and exhale that breath out slowly. when we are focusing on our breath it means we are not focusing on anything else. we are not letting our silly, fearful minds take over. we are simply focusing on the breath and letting the body do its thing because the body is miraculously good at healing itself - so long as we aren't getting in its way by amping up our nervous system all the time by listening to irrational, fear-based and untrue thoughts.