Christmas

Christmas means:

Luke 2 - Jesus humbled himself and came to earth as a little baby so that we might live freely, we can feel joy even amongst sorrow.  These things especially bring joy to me at Christmas time:
Charlie Brown and the Grinch
Cocoa by the fire
spending time with family
singing old favorite christmas songs
christmas lights! 
christmas tree
ice skating

What brings joy to you at Christmas?

CHI

So we live in a tiny apartment.  It amazes me though how different arrangements can make it seem so much more livable.  I've been kind of interested in the idea of Feng Shui the last couple of years.  Basically Feng Shui is the idea that you want the energy (the chi) to be able to flow freely through the space.  Now I don't necessarily know what I think of the energy thing, but I do think it really makes a difference on how a room is organized and what kinds of items and colors you have surrounding you. Here's a website I started with, if you want to check it out: http://hubpages.com/hub/feng-shui-apartment.  It has more links to other websites as well.  Basically you want your life to be balanced.  So you want balanced furniture on all the sides of a room and calm vs passionate colors, and the areas of the house separated.  For example you want your desk to be in the knowledge area, surrounded by books, not by other distracting clutter.  Getting rid of clutter is a large part of this, which is really hard to do when you live in such a small apartment. 

Anyway, its kind of fun to think about how things are arranged.  Plus I like rearranging.  Not everything is feasible for us, but little things help.  We have a tapestry separating our "bedroom" from the rest of the apartment, and an area rug denotes where the living room is, the t.v. is at an angle because corners supposedly resemble a knife or pointing finger which are bad. We've been a little less of a mess the last month too which is good.

vegetarian? low iron? hm.

After dog sitting for some people who were vegetarians, we started thinking about it more.  Chickens are very cruelly treated, they are stuffed in these little wire cages all stacked on top of each other with their beaks shaved off (see http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/chicken.html for more info).  I’ve been to dairy farms and the conditions are not as bad for the cows, but the cattle industry produces way more CO2 than all the cars in the world.  It is possible to capture gasses and refine them and sell the product back to the grid, but this is not very common yet.  Another problem though is that cows are fed artificial hormones, which is a little unsettling as well. 

Solution:  Eat only cage-free chickens
Problem with solution:  I’m in debt and cannot afford cage-free chicken
Solution: Don’t eat chicken
Problem with second solution: I’m really low on iron, and meat is a great source of iron
Solution: be vegetarian and know what you are doing and make sure you have all your nutrients
Problem:  I’m a grad student and have no time to do that

My solution for now, buy cage-free eggs at whole foods, they don’t really cost much more there.  Try to come up with one vegetarian meal a week, making sure I have all the right nutrients.  Might have to eat more red meat though to get my iron back up (less chicken), I could really notice the difference in college when I didn’t eat red meat for a long time and then had some, energy was way up. 

So anyway, I know I’m not stopping the industry with my half-ass solution, but it’s a start I guess. 

Last week we made sweet potato enchiladas with black beans.  They were really good.  If anyone has suggestions for meals, I'm all ears. 

Last day of classes!  Presentation.  Then finals. 

Track!!!!

I just have a few minutes before class, but I just wanted to tell the world (or the 3 people that might be reading this) that I'm cleared to run indoor track for the CU Buffaloes!!!!!  I'm going to practice on Friday.  So excited!   I don't know what else to say, so I guess I'll just leave it at that for now. 


--Lizz--