I have been using this "Dream Month" to write, relax, walk, meditate, reconnect with my heart, and reconnect with this city that I love so much (it's Washington, DC, for all of you first-time readers out there). I am currently in the third week of my "Dream Month", and I'm discovering the joy of another activity --> cooking.
I'm not turning this blog into the movie Julie & Julia (which, you need to see if you haven't already seen it), I'm just discovering something new and joyful to do with my new-found free time. Free time. Why don't we all make more time for free time? Beautiful insights and new experiences are often only discovered during free time. Even if you don't want to take-off a whole month from your job, I highly recommending taking the time for free time, even if for only a few hours a week. Free time. It does a body good.
So every day, of this "Dream Month," I've tried to write a little, read a little, exercise a little, and I've even started to cook a little. I've never taken the time to do that before. But these days, I wake-up while Eric is getting ready for work, and I make us a little something for breakfast. Some days it's avocado on English muffin, and some days, it's plain Greek yogurt with honey and banana. Look at me, making breakfast! I've never made the time for a healthy breakfast, ever before in my life. For the past few years, I've had to be at work so early that I would wake-up just in time to shower, leave the house, and grab a fast-food breakfast sandwich on the way to work. I've been doing that since 2010, and the health results have been devastating. Ugh.
But now, I'm making breakfast! Like a grown-up. Or just like any human being at any age who doesn't want to die of heart disease at the age of 40.
Not only am I making breakfast, but I'm also taking the time to actually cook dinner. And I love that I have the time to make dinner! Again, back in my old 9-to-5 office life, I used to come home from work and immediately feel grumpy, starving, and tired. So I would make whatever was quickest and easiest to make. But now that I have this time, and now that I have someone else to cook for (for the first time in my life), I'm enjoying the process of learning to cook.
I'm not making a Beef Wellington any time soon, so don't get too excited. (Beef Wellington, pictured below.)
But I'm starting with pasta salad. Today is the second time that I have made pasta salad since the start of my "Dream Month." The first time, I bought a box from Target that came with the dried pasta and a packet of spices. I just mixed-in some mayonnaise and a couple packets of tuna, and dinner was served. Today I was more adventurous. I bought pasta, but then I added my own spices, mayonnaise, some ranch dressing, and then I got really adventurous and added edamame, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. So I mixed it all together and put it in the fridge to cool. (Confession, the image below is not a picture of *my* pasta salad, but, eh, it's close enough.)
But here's where I'm getting out of control. As soon as I finish this blog entry, I'm going to deep-fry some cubes of tofu, then I'm going to cut up an avocado, and I'm going to add that to the pasta salad as well!!!!! I must be insane!!!!
I must also be the most boring individual you know. Pasta salad. That's all I've got to write about today. Pasta salad. The most exciting and unique insight to the universe that I have today is pasta salad.
And I couldn't be more grateful. Thank goodness I don't have anything more dramatic to write about today. No drama, no disease, no fights with friends or loved ones. I have a really simple life these days. The highlight of my day has been making pasta salad. You may call it boring. But I call it the time of my life.
I wish all of you a beautifully boring and peaceful day.
~Leila
P.S. The Sherman House Webisodes, plus extras and downloads, are all available and free to watch at www.shwebisodes.com.
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