Imagine breathing

I tried to reimagine this cold I've had for the past week into something else. I did decide I could reframe it as a much needed rest, however inability to breathe or sleep didn't allow for much actual rest. One thing age may have taught me is to not ignore an illness and just press on with your life. That works well in your 20's where it's possible to push past it. In your 50's you just push yourself into pneumonia. I did go the doctor on the second day, get a shot, some good sulfa drugs and some codeine laden cough syrup. Turns out I am allergic to the syrup but didn't discover it until my cough settled down enough for the OTC stuff to take over. I honestly have to confess-I was disappointed in myself for getting sick. I've been rocking the clean eating and I actually believed I'd be immune to all the crud going around. I know.....but I had that notion. I'm still eating clean and will just focus on how rapidly all the fruits and veggies will combine to rebuild my health. So, for re-imagination purposes, I am not recovering from a bad upper respiratory infection, I am doing an early spring cleaning of my lungs!

Re Imagine That

I couldn't wrap my head around a really good way to use Reimagine this month, so I came up with this....Whenever I am stressed about something I ask myself how I can reimagine it. I think it's a little bit like the old cognitive therapy shtick where you challenge your self defeating thoughts. But, it does seem t work. I usually think of some solution, or sometimes I just think I'll think about it later. Tonight I wanted sushi. I'm doing a weekday vegetarian diet, but on the weekends I eat a little meat or fish. (I got THAT idea from watching a TED lecture.) Back to the sushi. My budget does not afford weekly 20 dollar dinners and I had sushi last week. I KNOW I can't make sushi, but then I thought about reimagining something I had on hand. So, I took some nicely smoked salmon, topped it with a little sour cream, and then spread that on some nori (dried seaweed snacks.) It's not pretty rolled sushi, but it tastes delicious and that's what I wanted tonight, something in my stomach that tasted like sushi. When I'm at the store, considering a purchase, I ask myself if I have something else at home that would serve the same purpose. I'm pretty good at reimagining household stuff and rigging up dog training equipment from what I have on hand. I'm pretty sure making it all a game rather than a resolution or a task has helped me stay with it. I'm working on reimagining my hatred of grapefruit. I'm doing it not because I think grapefruit is essential, I'm just curious to see if I can really change my mind and tastebuds about something. So far the grapefruit is sitting on the cabinet and I've worked up to speaking to it in a pleasant tone of voice. Baby steps.

Happy New Year!

It's been over a year since I've posted. Blogger has changed a bit. I considered starting a new blog, more focused and less free form. Instead, I think I'll just take this blog in a new direction. One of the themes of the season is renewal. I love new beginnings. I love them so much I'm afraid I begin new things all the time, often without finishing something else. I am easily seduced by possibilities. Possibilities are untainted by reality, hard work or sub par results. My mindset lately has been on incremental change. So, when my mind turned to New Year's resolutions I got the idea for a monthly resolution rather than something for the entire year. (Fear not, I have my year long list as well, but that is not for this.) Since I also have wanted to return to blogging I decided to combine the two. So, my focus for this blog for this year will be centered around the monthly theme. I'm not going to back myself into quota for posts or a format beyond that. For January, my theme is "Reimagine" In a few minute I'm going to hop on my exercise bike and ride a 5k. Why? Well, because my leg isn't up to a 5k running or walking at the moment, but I want to support a friend who has cancer and is running 5k with her husband since she can't go to a group run as she would like. She can go to the group, and I can't run more than 100 feet, but by reimagining what we want, we'll be able to do something that is life building and sustaining. Reimagination (apparently not a real word) is a powerful thing. It can turn a picture frame into a shelf, a bathtub into a planter, and it can turn what you can't do into something you can. I am exciting about exploring this idea this month.