on eating mindfully...

hello, my name is victoria and i am a foodie.
there, i said it.

I. Love. To. Eat.
I love to experiment with tastes, combining foods in ways many would not think of, lest they were pregnant. ;-)
I love the entire experience: selection. anticipation. presentation. blessing. consuming. digesting.

However, one of my cousins stole my metabolism prior to our incarnating here.
This is the reason why she's nearing fifty, a mother of three - and can still fit into a SIZE SIX! She can exchange clothes with her daughter freely! (I curse her heartily in my shadow moments...lol)
Additionally, I am a daughter of the Earth: dense and curvaceous.
So I need to be mind*full and aware of what I eat, when I eat, and how I eat.

I was not always mindful.
Many were the years where I simply found things to eat that would fill the Void Within me, at least for a little while.
Then I was introduced to an herbal system called Sunrider towards the end of 1994. (They're still around if you wanna check them out. Google 'em.) I dropped two dress sizes, but more importantly, my sense of taste was cleansed, healed, and resurrected.
Suddenly, food became fascinating, and I wanted to experience it.
Or maybe it was simply my dad's genetic legacy finally waking up within me. He was a foodie, too. :-)

For many years, I was a practicing vegetarian. Diet for a New America convinced me to give up red meat for Lent - and far beyond! - while research helped me bid adieu to factory poultry. But the seafood, ah! the seafood! I could never leave it behind; I would always come back to my tuna, my salmon, my shrimp and scallops! Even a bit of "krab" meat now and again!

As for the vegan route...um, no. Soy yogurt doesn't do a thing for me. I'll stick with my dairy yogurt, thank you very muchly!

I still drool when I catch the smell of meat cooking on the barbie, though... :-p

Within the last few years, there were more shifts in my eating:
Gluten had to go; it was messing with my system too much. So buh-bye to bread and pasta. Flour tortillas were my lifesaver! (lol)
Meat began to creep back into my life...a turkey sandwich here, a chicken casserole there...and even some red meat at a funeral, soul food style.
I purchased organic where I could, and avoided processed foods where I could.
I also crossed fast-food pizza and donuts off my list.

Then came Conscious Convergence...and the consumption of mostly raw, all organic (and tasty!) food for the days on end.
I emerged from the retreat even more mind*full of what I wanted to put into my body.
And I've shifted again: my tastes for meat? gone. Even the seafood! :-o
Many things I would have gladly eaten just a few months ago (french fries, onion rings, milkshakes) make me feel terribly "icky" these days.
If something has significant gluten in it, I get bloated.
And my watchword is "fresh" - the fresher, the better!

I found rice-based, gluten-free pasta the other day at Trader Joe's. I did a happy dance.
Once again, they rock the casbah! (lol)

But...I am interested to see how long this vegetarian movement in my awareness lasts. I am looking forward to lotsa salads in the summer. And I'm wondering if I'm going to need to get a belt in case things start slipping off my hips - hey, it happened once before! ;-)
In the meantime, I'll be drinking my water from my new "good" plastic bottle - I just kicked the disposable bottle habit. Yay me! :-D

being single on the day of love

Okay, here I am, taking one of my veils off and tossing it aside...
I am a single woman.
Unattached.
Uncommitted.
Unfettered.
FREE.

Yes this day is marketed towards couples, with romance, roses, and rich chocolate. Maybe even a ring or two. Yes, there was the odd year when I felt like the odd woman out.
Not today. Not this year.

Today I visited a dear friend of mine in San Diego. I met her on the Net and we've since cultivated a friendship IRL. Her new year also started with a bang - in a different, not so nice way.
So today I took her some prezzies and went to sit and share with her for a couple of hours.
We took tea together and chewed the fat, with a little lean for variety. ;-)
Then I did the "outrageous" thing one can do as a single woman on a day "meant" for couples:
I took myself out for lunch.
Table for one, so I could enjoy my own company without interruption.
A lovely mushroom swiss veggie burger was the choice for lunch, with potato salad and broccoli to accompany it.
(What? Having a burger without french fries?? Yes, I'm eating healthier these days - din'cha know? Oh, maybe not. I'll have to discuss that next time...or the time after that...) ;-)
Then I went home, after a fashion. Well, there was the fact that I was in the wrong lane, and I had to get on I-5 first...but I-8 was very close at hand! (lol)
Madonna was my co-pilot there and back again.

The takehome lesson for single peeps on days like this:
Go schmooze with a good friend or two.
Then take yourself out to eat.
If anyone asks, say you're just getting to know yourself better. :-)

PS - give yourself complete and total permission to get one of those lovely boxes of chocolates!

Spring Quickening

Did I mention earlier that I had enrolled in an online course provided by one of my succulent Net friends, Miss Leonie?
In case I didn't, I have. Check her out at www.goddessguidebook.com

I've been bringing some much needed juiciness back to my creative center. The promise that the Universe whispered into my ear is being fulfilled.
I've been working out my creative muscles and stretching gently out of my comfort zone:
~Artwork in three dimensions, a place I'd visited only once before.
~Putting a lot of effort into manifesting a work of deep spirit and meaning...and just letting it go to be gently dissolved in the wilderness.
~Painting. On a canvas. With adornments waiting to be added.
~Collage with layers and overlapping bits.
When I am Creating, there is no difference between the secular and the sacred. They are one within me, one around me. Perhaps it can be said that I pray through my art. (Ooh, deep!)

The challenge will be carrying this wave of creativity out beyond the course; I'm halfway through it now. I suspect that it won't be a big of a challenge as I think.

I'm also setting up my online store to sell my CD through. One thing: first I need to get the music into my computer so I can upload it! (lol) Okay, a spot of trial and error to come. The graphics will be super easy, as I already have the cover and text ready to shoot off.
And then there's my RL offerings...get a bulk run of covers or microbrew them myself as I need to? Hmmm...
Then there's the marketing of my*self. Once the e-course ends, space will be freed up for me to start pulling on some of the strands of my web to see who will let me come and play with them. Start loading up the van, dude, for the Magickal Mystery Tour! ;-)

The pulse of rebirth and renewal has gone out, and I feel myself quickening within in response...

Two Years Old.

The thought flashed across my awareness today...it's been two years since I began this blog.
Wow.

First, it was Starting from Scratch, because that's where I was in my life. I felt I was taking the reins in how I made my way through the world, from merely reacting to what was thrown at me to taking an active role in Co-Creating my life with the Universe. It was time, as I write in my explanatory little blurb about myself, to heed the Call and DO something about it!
This road has taken many turns, going off into the bush, as my Aussie friends like to say, and coming back to the main again. There have been magickal moments, trying times, daring detours, and simply instances where I've called time out to try to answer the question, What Just Happened?!? (lol)

I will admit, I thought I'd be farther along my projected path than where I am right now. Gradually, I have come to the realization that I'm moving forward at exactly at the pace I need to. Sometimes, I feel like I'm moving behind a turtle, who is leading the way in this mysterious labyrinth of life, painfully slowly at times - or so it appears - but always making progress.
The clincher came for me at the end of an episode of Heroes, as I watched Parkman literally following a turtle...now moving forward a couple of steps, now waiting, now moving forward a couple of steps more.
Hence, the new and current name of my blog - Following the Turtle.

I'm getting there, slowly and by degrees, but I'm getting there.
If you've come this far with me, thank you for your patience & support!
If you're just joining me, merry meet & welcome! You'll have to bear with me now and again, but I think the payoff is going to be SO worth it! :-)