Bigger Picture. Preserving the Harvest.

Food.

1. Buy it with thought
2. Cook it with care.
3. Serve just enough
4. Save what will keep.
5. Eat what would spoil
6. Home-grown is best.
Don't waste it.

Food for thoughts!

 

 

One of the biggest challenges that Saucy Roots has afforded me has been to seriously look at is the "bigger picture" what does that look like now, what does my future shaping up to look like, and what did I miss out on when looking in the past. One could stop and think about what life has been like, hell we can sit and look through the digital files of .jpegs that fill our computer hard drives of memories and flick through images upon images of tears and smiles gone by but there seems to be that emotional attachment that drives us to look back. A comfortable spot that looks almost the same as the couch we are sitting on to run through memory lane.

 

Some memories make a warm cozy feeling well up in our hearts such as a baby being born, the smell of that new skin and the smiles that little one puts on when he or she recognizes someone for the first or third time. Other memories traumatize our very souls because we were put in situations we know little about but leave us hurt in bigger ways then we can imagine.

 

Time, for some people, is measured by experiences and emotions felt. I admit I am one of those people. Photos can stir up memories of the past but the emotion will tie me to a disaster or two in no time. Experienceing an emotional disaster this morning as I type this. ( Gotta get it out one way or another. )

 

 

There tends to be a protective power force shield that wraps around each of us. I blamed it for a long time on the fact I was born under the astrological sign of Cancer and my crab shell was the safest place I could be and by gawd, no one was allowed into my shell.

 

Stay out! Beware!

 

The perfect signs that were stapled to the hard shell and that's the way I wanted it to be.

Leave me the frick alone.

 

When stuck behind this shell I had no idea the true vulnerability that this shell really had. When looking at a crab shell in real life they are seriously not that strong nor are they as thick as the creature thinks they are. This leaves the creature vulnerable but still fearless and willing to fight any battle that leaves them scared and afraid. Personally, I felt that my shell was so thick that nothing could ever penetrate and of course I was completely safe from the outside, thank you very much.

But the truth lies in the reality of the what made up that shell coating in the first place.

I can conjure up so many images and memories that trapped me inside my shell. There wasn't a balance of happy moments where I wouldn't need my protectiveness.

 

 

The biggest challenge it left me was a small vision of what life was. Trapped in the everyday activities of life or habits that kept me safe from straying outside the house, or my protective shell, when I would venture out. Looking at the "bigger picture" or plan for my life was not an option. NOR WAS IT IN MY RADAR SCREEN.

 

There was no direction, there was no purpose, there was no point.

It truly feels amazing today to be writing in a past tense.

 

Recently, I have been reading through books that talk about Soul Ties and what types of relationship are created when we  live behind a protective shell and a narrow point of view. Looking at was is created turns out to be a very mundane day to day life that rolls along in an unassuming way. Leaving no room for adventure or excitement unless it's very controlled and in a very safe place not only physical but mentally and emotionally. Sorry but this also leaves no room spiritually.

 

So what does the bigger picture look like? Is it as simple as planning out what to preserve from that garden and how much a family of three could eat within a month? Well, honestly I thought so! Transformation was the key to everything!

 

Change your mind! * Change your attitudes! * Change your habits!

 

These could be the biggest phrases any life coach can cheer about but it really isn't as simple of a change as laying out your dinner menu for the next month or the next week. It's even a little more complicated then laying out a food preservation plan for the entire year or what to stock up on in case SHTF!

 

 

Cases or cans of beans and rice can be calculated and measured for any number of people in a family for a single year or over multiple years. There are plenty of websites that have built in calculators to help you figure out the cost per weight per family member including whatever animals that reside in your care.
 

We are talkin about a preservation of the soul, the body and the heart of you and me. Figuring out the numbers and weights of rice or pasta to store under your house for the zombie attacks is grade school addition and subtraction compared to this!
 

Preserving the harvest from your garden can be looked at in a different way. It's the preservation of who we are meant to be as humans, what are purpose is and the whole point to our existence. When we plant a new seed we have big hopes that each seed will grow up, produce fruit, set out new seed and then die back to the ground when it's life cycle is complete. Yes, we have all heard this same analogy, I only rehash it to show you the same concept in a different light.
 

Our parents planted seeds, one of those seeds took roots and started to grow. We grew into living beings that roll through the predictable stages of life, high school graduation with the basics under our belts, college graduation with great jobs and money income for our futures, marriage to who we think is suited for our future mates, producing more fruit by having kids, helping the next generation grow into healthy plants just like we have done, setting seeds by our actions and decisions we have made then eventually coming to our end when we reach old age. See, our lives can be measured and weighed. We can be found lacking. But is there more?

 

We can plot our lives on a timeline.
We can measure our movements to the outcomes we have produced.
We can settle for our created lives that bring us satisfaction but leave us empty.

In the eyes of others around us our accomplishments can be on a scale set by where we live and the standards that have been set by others and their measure of perfection for us.

 

So .... how do we take that comment and show it in a different light of preserving the harvest for ourselves and future generations? When we are setting strategic outcomes based off what others say is perfection will we truly measure up to who we are meant to be a humans? We won't! We can't! It's impossible. Standards will always change, scales will always be tilted one way or another and we will constantly be chasing one dream after another in hopes of truly measuring up to the publics eye.

 

So what then ... we have come to a point in the conversation with our selves that looks a little like this. Do I maintain the stays quo or do I change? What does the bigger picture look like?  What do I have as a purpose? What truly is the point to my existence?

 

It's easy to follow the crowd to go along the timeline of life that everyone goes through and on some level every single person follows that timeline. Don't get me wrong, I know I am on that timeline myself and can see the scary half way mark right up head.

 

 

Life really didn't start happening until I started asking that question for myself. To many moments in life left me holding too many carpet bags of shit that were really heavy to carry nor where they really moments or emotions that I wanted to carry any more. My little crab shell of a house was filling up and the hoarder in me was overflowing with visual impact. Here I was thinking my two bedroom, one and a half bathroom was quiet and cozy perfectly built the way I wanted it.

 

2 bedrooms and one and a half baths all crammed into less then 1,000 square feet was and is very limiting. To some, living that small is perfect its freedom its a dream life!

 

Don't get me wrong I would give anything to downsize my physical life to less the 400 square feet and write all day being debt free, but my emotional life and baggage needed to hit the road in search of something else. So that's where my questioning started to reshape my entire life. Each space of the shell was perfectly designated for the specific task of each room and the walls instead of being lined with wall paper was lined from floor to ceiling with bags. Each bag had a label and I am not talking Coco Chanel or Louis Vitton types of labels ... I am talking single words that would perfectly described the contents of each bag. Shame. Lies. Addiction. Fear. Anxiety. Pressure.

 

 

Preserving the harvest of fear, anxiety and troubles left me with self-doubt and so  much hurt that every relationship that was created was seriously doomed from the beginning. Ugh. Some relationships were tied together with unhealthy needs. Just simple needs of love that really could not be found with the person that I had just tied myself to. That is really hard to say and yet even harder to type. Being such damaged goods ( in the eyes of everyone ) I could have easily looked like any homeless woman walking any major city streets with 17 shopping carts somehow tied together with black trash bags covering all my beautiful precious carpet bags. The carpet bags of emotions that I lugged around because they were precious and what made me who I am, even though it was all created from my own fear and ignorance.

 

Little did I know that I was more then that. My life was bigger then what I was seeing. but then again, I never wanted or imagined looking out from behind the shell to what was really out there and what I had been creating for so long. All that was built was solely built on fear, anxiety and the intoxication of never having or never being enough.

 

Where are you in the conversation with yourself? Leave a comment below. Would love to know where you are on your journey. Thanks!

To see or read more posts from Saucy Roots please head over to SaucyRoots.com! We do publish other posts that don't always make it to our Blogger page.

Choices. Resistance. Peach Butter.

 

 

Here it is the first part of the middle of July and the morning skies are dark and dreary. The humpies or pinks are running thick as thieves is the waters that surround our home, the garden has doubled in size from the heat we had over the fourth, but today the rains have moved in. All for the better my pretty!

As I lay here and ponder my morning and trying to figure my plan for the day this hanger over feeling is coming over me in swells! I start kicking myself for not reading the Cherry Coke Zero label sooner and continue beating on myself for finishing off the entire plastic bottle of aspartame ladled Cherry Coke. Bingo! Instant or in this case delayed reaction hangover. Those damn sweet nothings lined with fairness gets me every time. Damn Cherry Cokes, I just can't resist you.

Yesterday in our Saucy Kitchen (literally) we gathered around the stove and canned up peaches. An entire box of big fat juicy peaches turned into Peach Butter, Peach Pie Filling, Peach Jam and of course we dove into the first attempt and making Peach Pit and Peeling Jelly but the important part of the day was the company of a dear friend. Over and over the conversation was a battle. Not a battle of wits - well at times it turned into a battle of who could come up with a better solution to the other persons problems - but more like a constant battle of emotional outbursts. Luckily, this time my emotions and concentration was on the open flame and the gooeyness that was oozing out all over the stove top!! Yummy! The house smelled amazing with its new perfume of ripe-cooked-down-sugary-peachy-ness. We were in heaven. Not only with the smell but with the conversation. Strawberry Shortcake couldn't come close with here fruity smelling friends to how we smelled at the end of the jar happy session.

"Choose Your Battles"

That comment came up more times then not. Relationships of all sorts can be a struggle. You can be friends with someone or be a lover to someone and still not understand what the heck is going on and why the communication just absolutely sucks at some points in life and how three years later things can be spectacular. The mind boggling thing is when the crumbles start crashing to the floor we don't get why nor do we really understand what the hell happened to the good days. Believe me when I say this ... I AM NO RELATIONSHIP EXPERT!! I Repeat: I AM NOT A RELATIONSHIP EXPERT!
BUT I do like to dive into the workings of the human mind. With that said lets move back to choosing your battles.

We have all heard the saying "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" its probably some from famous guy who wrote a famous book that eventually turned into a favorite saying from a famous movie, right? We really don't know where the good sayings come from and we really don't care half the time, we just say them. We use them in the right moments when the the gettin' is good! Yet, then again we are told to "Sweat the Small Stuff". Could they make life more confusing? (they being anyone we really don't know who to place blame on, the universal THEY).

Yesterday we encountered an emotional battle that raged through our tiny kitchen. I will say this, I am so glad that our friend had a space to come so she could unload and I am so glad that she was able to focus on stirring the peach butter. Peach Butter requires endless cooking to thinkin' up perfectly and appearantly plenty of stirring. Amazing how one emotional upheaval, 2 pounds of blended peaches and 3 drops of vanilla could have been the perfect mixing medicine for the battle that was raging. The energy that was put out all over the kitchen yesterday was energy well spent but also energy well wasted. It's energy that will never get back but it is also energy that will bounce back. Plus, was it really an emotional battle that needed to be fought? Not my place to judge or say but you know there were really good points on both sides that came out as truth but then there were points of stubberness that also reigned supreme.  So when it comes to the energy of "sweating the small stuff" in this case, the emotional energy that was splashed on the walls and floors of the kitchen, this energy was taking up prime opportunity to be building a stronger relationship between the three of us that were spending a few hours canning. Instead we were bound to solve a problem. Yes, as the wallflower I learned from the conversation as well as everyone else for that matter.

Like I said it was good for her to be monitoring the stir stick so that I could concentrate on the details of "Sweating The Small Stuff" details like the cooking times and the amounts of ingredients for each batch of deliciousness.

Life is really kind of a funny thing when you look at what we let in to our lives. Resistance is a huge factor in building up rants in a combat zone of any relationship. The resistance to cleaning the kitchen after hours of canning. Oh yes, I have a little of that going on currently, while I sit here in bed still resisting the urge to get up and clean them there dishes but instead writing about it. Resistance to washing the dishes on a daily basis is sometimes a huge chore. If you live alone you can suffer the resistance a little easier, you can let things slide for a few days because it boils down to you and your own consequences but when you live with more then one other human being we must somehow be aware that the resistance to doing the dishes will affect the others in the same place. When we don't understand that it affect the others our resistance becomes their resistance to doing the dishes because they, in turn, don't think they need to be cleaning up after the person that left them in the sink in the first place.

Fair argument in my book. Just like no one is going to get in to my canning mess and clean it up - ohhhhhhh, how I wish they would. My resistance will soon have to be put aside and I will have to go and clean it up and I will have to "Sweat the Small Stuff" by making sure every piece of peach skin or peach meat gets cleaned of the pots, pans, stove top and walls! Let me tell you when I am canning there needs to be a swat team of cleaners in with plastic wear to clean up! Feel like a mad scientist at times.

We allow the resistance but it holds us back from learning more then just being the monitor for the stir stick. Instead focusing our energies yesterday on the troubles that she was resisting to we could have focused our energies on the task of peaches and realized that the jelly didn't set because we didn't put the pectin in. Ooops my bad. That detail was missed.

Our resistance can be a one-time-shot-in-the-dark-emotional-roller-coaster kind of decision. Case in point: a moment of anger leading to peeling out of your rock driveway spreading gravel like a giant fishtail out the back of your car while waving goodbye with your middle finger in the air! hummm .... how many times have we all done that!? When really we could have just smiled kissed our loved ones good bye and left with a smile on our faces and all of our fingers waving in the wind! Yes, we could get angry and "fly off the handle" and totally be justified in our own minds that we are right, but will it do any good in the long run? Will it really bring the others closer to us when we show them how great we are by spewing extra energy that makes us really look ugly? This is something that I like to type the word we with simply because ... well ... I have to admit. I could very easily be the woman with the bitch streak a mile wide! Easssily. The daily struggles of picking my battles and letting go of the little things I find are not only daily but they are hourly almost exhaustingly all the freakin' time! (said with an exhaustive drama effect and the back of my hand laid across my forehead for flare) Just want to make this one thing perfectly clear: This is a choice. You are making the choice in that split second to be all irate , irritable or annoyed all on your own. Make no mistake it is all your choice and your choice alone so you do have the ability to choose to react differently. Remember it takes 90 seconds for an emotion to run completely through your body. If that emotion or that energy last longer then 90 seconds then you are allowing it to continue to run until you think you need some closure that will make you satisfied whether its good for you or not.

Keep stirring the Peach Butter isn't quite thick enough.

There was a brief two years of my own life when I went back into the publishing world and work for two outstandingly bad women bosses. Both of them were controlling bullies that treated everyone like they were her footstool. They reminded me of that "Alice in Wonderland" with Johnny Depp. You can see her, right!? The Queen of Hearts when she would yell for her footstool and in would run her pig! Well, that is exactly what working under these two women turned out to be, more or less.

More times then not I would be angry, pissed off at the world and by the time I got home from work every night I would be tied in knots. My stomach would hurt my brain would be fried and not to mention the infections that I endured. Finally, the last publisher (who in my book had no right to her job and only got the job on false pretenses saying she was a motivational speaker) fired me. The greatest moment in my life, one of the most freeing moments so I thought at the time. Little did I know she would continue to make my life hell for the next year after that, I take that back the next 10 years or $100,000. Long story short. My resistance to bad and poorly run management, though it could have been justified, used up so much emotional energy and left in the mind of a few others that I had seriously gone crazy. Thought so my self at times. I became a woman that used that bitch streak on more then one occasion and I can proudly say my loud voice closed the doors to many of the other businesses that were in the same building on the same floor.

Lesson learned.
Huge lesson learned.

Experience has shown time and time again that if I allow the battles to choose for me my energy will come out swinging, my fist will be up and ready to fight, I will cower in a corner for only so long before the wild beast rears my ugly head. I will go into a survival mode like no other and it not only frightens me but others around me. If I don't catch the anger and stop immediately (or after 90 seconds) I can and will obsess on it to the point of ruining relationships then my emotions are wasted and not focused on the betterment of others. I get emotionally hijacked! Damn demons!

So what have I done to make a change? Lesson learned: let go. Lesson one: I don't work well for others. This blog has turned into my rant space so that I can type out issues, think things through and re-read older posts to see if I have grown or helped others through tough situations. Canning peaches or pulling weeds give plenty of times for me to evaluate the battles that lie before me. The quiet gives me a chance to figure out if the battles are worth moving me in the direction of where I want to go vs. being the angry self-righteous bitch that I used to be.

The moments of quiet make things simple, breaks things down to consider my options, to consider the bigger picture and to really take that closer look at the goals I have laid out in front of me and focusing on the better person that I am becoming. From now on the emotional energy that comes out needs to be of building people up, empowering their healthy choices and celebrating the small and huge wins that others can achieve. For me (as I tap in my heart with my right hand) this is my hearts song this is what makes me happy. This is my bliss.

Happiness, joy, contentment these are a few of my favorite things! When the dog bites, when the bee stings ... oh wait. Sorry.

Squirrel!

Happiness, joy and contentment are the good emotions that drive us all towards personal productive and creative moments. Emotion is energy that needs motion get it e-motion. uh oh that's a song to! Come on sing it with me now EEEEEEEEE-MOOOOOOOOOtion! EEEEEEEEEEEE-MOOOOOOOOOOOtion. Emotion will power all kinds of motivation whether its good or not for us. So when choosing your battles which emotion do you want to feel? Happy, productive or Angry, defeating?

In watching my friend yesterday spewing all over my kitchen, ugh which I better get in and clean, it became clear to me that her problem could be simply solved by changing her state of mind. It is not that she had a lack of good ideas. It is not that she has tried everything in her power to make things happen it is the fact that the one last tool that she hadn't tried was the biggest tool in her toolbox. She just needed to switch from being a hammer over to being a silky smooth cloth that could smile and wave good bye to her family as she left the house.

She just needed an emotional attitude adjustment!

She chose anger instead of happiness. So many times we all do this in those nano-seconds that could change the world. Gawd, knows I have done this a few times.

When I find myself in a state of confusion or an emotion that I don't think is good, STOP, for a second, consider what this looks like in the mirror, what does my facial expression look like what is my body doing? Are my teeth clenched are my hands cramping because they are tightly bound in a fist? Are my shoulders slumped over in a motion of ready to kill? Do I look like Wolverine?

Expressions can be everything! If you look in a mirror, I mean really look at yourself when your angry are you damn good looking? Sexy? Ready to meet the world head on with all you happiness? DROP the mood, take a time out, walk away, journal, clear your mind. Fixing a problem with angry thoughts will only breed a get-even kind of solution. Take a nap. This helps me, read a book, pull weeds until you can't cry anymore or jar up every bit of food in your freezer for the sake of clearing out at least one thing you can control.

ROLL out new words. First in you mind, through your prayers and then from your mouth. Words opposite then the feelings you were just experiencing. Time wasted on angry words will never come back. The way you make people feel will never heal. They may forgive but the will remember how you made them feel.

Take the time to be quiet and rethink your moments and really ask yourself if you are just stirring the Peach Butter or are you learning how to make the other recipes that are cooking in the stove top. Nothing will ever stop you from learning and growing quite like a bad mood or a bad attitude.
Are you making Peach Butter in your life right now?