I’m sad when the wood stove shuts down for the season.  I’m losing an old friend.

“Bye,” he says.  “I’m packing up, going South till fall.  Gonna grow a few oranges, ruin some lawns, cause heatstroke during school break…”  His ideal summer.

“Have a good vacation.  See you when you get back.”  He grabs a matchbook and shoves off.  The last seven or eight logs sit in a pile, half country decoration, half awaiting his return.

It’s May, almost June.  Windows open.  4AM.  I sit down to write.

Coffee.  Couch.  No silence.  Loud, loud, loud!

Bird season.  Hitchcock’s creatures have woken the boy.  I put him back to bed.  “It’s my writing time,” I say.  “It’s too early for you to be up.”

Coffee.  Couch…  I can’t focus.  It’s too loud.  “What’s going on out there?”

I go to shut the windows.  It’s noisy, sticky, damp.

I stop.  I listen.

There are at least a dozen different chirps, tweets, whistles, crows, and calls.  Each bird sings it’s own solo in morning’s chorale, oblivious of the others competing for the spotlight.  It’s an orchestra tuning, getting ready to play, with every member on a different page of the score.

Thwap.  A bird flies into the window.  He does this every day, sometimes twice.

“Percussion section,” I think.   Kamikazi bird shakes it off and takes his place, waiting for Mother Nature to raise her baton.

I sit.  I drink coffee.  I try to write.  The boy returns.

“Go back to bed.  It’s 5 AM!”

“It’s too loud!” he says. “And it’s light out!”  The sun plays tricks on us, I tell him. It’s been getting light earlier and early each day.

“Back to your room!”

I sit.  I drink coffee.  I try to write.  He’s right.  It is too loud.  I can’t get a decent thought on the page.  It will be a nonproductive morning, nothing to show on the page.

The lights flicker.  The orchestra’s finished tuning.  The first chair crow caws.  The morning dove coos.  Mother Nature taps the podium twice.

The first movement of Hitchcock’s orchestra has begun with me in the front row.

I listen to the best of the best in all their glory, playing a symphony never to be repeated, written just for me, with an option for an encore. Tomorrow.

Same time.  Same place.  Open the windows.  Open the heart.  Enjoy the show.   Sit and enjoy or let it be a score for the 4AM stories.

I am blessed.

I wonder how the wood stove is holding up.  Record heat?  I haven’t checked.  I peel one of his oranges and sit back down to enjoy the show–HItchcock’s orchestra is the miracle of spring.

[Photo credit: Joel Sheffield “How to Draw Angry Birds.”  via YouTube]

The post I Won Free Tickets to Hitchcock’s Orchestra appeared first on Café Casey.

When the sleigh’s empty, he doesn’t return to the North Pole.  He does two things to prepare for next year.  He goes straight to the gym, then relaxes for a few weeks at the beach, deep undercover.  No one suspects Santa’s in the sun, so he’s safe from “I wants” even with his distinctive brand and beard.

Meanwhile, the elves get busy cleaning up for next year.  Decluttering is a major issue in the North Pole, as it is for us all.  Scraps of wrapping paper, last year’s models, and trending items pack the workshops.  Everything must go to make way for next year.

Many people don’t know this, but that’s how major retailers like Overstock.com, Amazon, and 6PM.com get their after-Christmas sale items.  Elves clear out this year’s models and firesale them to discount sites, switching warehouse codes and making back some of the cash they otherwise would’ve lost.

This way they can buy what they need to start production on things you’ll love when Black Friday rolls around next year.

How do they know what you’ll want this far ahead of time?

Easy… with today’s market surveys, it doesn’t take an elf to predict.  Google is the biggest help of all.  Ever think of something really obscure and put the first letter in the search window–and it appears?

Aardvark, for example.  I know very little about aardvarks, so I search.

I type “a” in the window.  Nothing more.  Just the letter A.  Magic!  Aardvarks everywhere!  The window autofills.  I get pictures, videos, songs, and images.  Before long, I’m an aardvark expert.

It’s not difficult to see what people will want next year.  Google ranks searches so the most popular rise to the top.  I know what fashions will be trending and what people are searching for way ahead of the curve.

How do you think Santa knows what to make and how much of everything he’ll need?  Google’s data goes straight to the Big Man himself.

How does he know what to get you specifically?  Easy.  If the NSA can monitor your web surfing, don’t you think St. Nick can, too?  Spies and governments are only human, but Santa–he’s magic.  So you’d better be searching for something nice.

Once the elves get rid of the overstock and start compiling reports for next year, production can begin. The Naughty and Nice Departments can base their numbers on last year’s trends to finalize next year’s gift list.  Every once in a while there’ll be peak niceness–more kids than ever earning gifts.  Santa has to be ready.

I heard a rumor the Naughty Department made a change–Santa’s not leaving coal anymore.  He’s bringing kale chips to the unkind and thoughtless instead.  Coal’s too valuable.  Kale teaches lessons and promotes healthy eating, a win-win for Santa and children everywhere.

After a few weeks, the elves are done organizing and Santa comes back from the beach and gym a few pounds lighter and healthier, jollier than ever, ready to deal with the world’s nonsense and to streamline operations for the upcoming season.

In honor of Santa’s gifts and generosity, I’m decluttering, too.

It’s never easy for me, but once in a while, I get in the mood.  Because I’m an adult, I can have fun with this.  I don’t get grounded and have to “finish the job right” for everyone else.  My goal–to make progress for me.  That’s a whole new ball game, but the way it should be.  When I feel forced to do things, they don’t always stick.  When I improve for me, it’s like charging a beacon the world can see.

I threw away boxes of things I don’t need, dug out the cellar, started sorting clothes, and refilled the ingredients in my spice cabinet, and started preparing for a healthy new year.  I threw out foods I don’t eat and stared down literature, asking “Do I really need those books when Google and Kindle are my best friends?”

It’s a process, but it’s critical to clear away the old to make way for the new, in our physical lives–and our mental and spiritual lives as well.

As I declutter, I think about everything that touches my life–people, jobs, processes, knowledge, attitudes, patterns, and habits.  I ask myself “What purpose does that serve?”

If it lifts me up, makes me smile, or makes me a better human being, it stays.

If not, it goes.  Some things go immediately.  Others must go gently–maybe even not today.  Those, I pack in a mental bin because I’m not ready and I know I’ll need to do more work on myself before they can leave forever, but when they do, I’ll have a brighter light to shine and more space in my heart for the world.

That’s how decluttering works in the body and the mind.  I get rid of what I can now but I prepare to get rid of even more.  I really don’t need very much when I stop and think about it.

When I get rid of the excess, the clutter, and the nonsense, my life becomes better, filled with space and freedom to treasure new things, habits, people, pursuits, and ideas.

Santa knows this.  So do his elves.   This is how he runs his operation.  It’s how I seek to run mine, too.

Rest, regenerate, and remove… These are the secrets to a successful new year, and every day in between… May you be blessed with those things this year. 

[divider]

Resources That Inspire

Physical Decluttering:

There are a thousand books out there on decluttering.  My favorite is The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up:  The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. It turns decluttering into something between hobby and zen.  I now love to fold clothes.

Flylady.net.  I used this site all the time the first time I decluttered.  It gives the overwhelmed a new lease on planning, financial wellness, and getting rid of stuff, broken down into 15 minute challenges and small tasks.  Most of physical clutter comes from a sense of the memories attached to items and a lack of knowing where to start.  FlyLady is part motivation, part cheerleader.  She definitely makes the process fun.

Mental and spiritual decluttering

These are a few of my favorite resources.

The Power of No:  Because One Little Word Can Bring Health, Happiness, and Abundance by James Altucher and Claudia Azula-Altucher.  Should you be saying “no” far more often?  I bet you should.  “No” is one of the most magical declutterers of all.

Live Your Truth by Kamal Ravikant.   “Live Your Truth” reminds me how to make life beautiful and leave some of the things that must go.

Get off your “But”: How to End Self-Sabotage and Stand Up for Yourself by Dr. Sean Stephenson.  Sean Stephenson’s life is textbook inspirational.  Dr. Stephenson overcame mountains to live.  Tony Robbins wrote the foreword to this must-read, that teaches readers they can survive and thrive in any situation.

Anything by Tony Robbins.  Here’s the link to “Awaken The Giant Within.” but I prefer to listen to Tony Robbins’ motivational speaking. Listen to this TED talk  “Why Do We Do What We Do” today.

My book: Don’t Sniff the Glue: A Teacher’s Misadventures in Education Reform.  It’s not fair to put my book on this list of truly inspirational declutter books… or is it?  Teachers are hoarders and clutterers.  It’s not our fault.  We’re trained to keep things because we work in systems that don’t give us what we need.  When I started decluttering at home, I was able to let go much more easily–in the classroom, too.  I saved mountains of money–and space.

I’d love to hear your favorites.  Please reach out to me on Twitter @runningdmc or by email: dawn@cafecasey.com or comment below.

The post Santa’s After Christmas Secrets Will Improve Your New Year appeared first on Café Casey.

Holiday dinners are highly orchestrated events.  They requires the skills of a top chef and the timing of a miracle.

“Why are we having turkey again?  We had it for Thanksgiving.”  Truth?  Because Bob Cratchit got the last Christmas goose, and turkeys are on sale in the fall.  I buy two.  When the beer fridge in the garage was alive I bought four–in-season turkeys cut my annual grocery bill in half.  If we must have meat in the house, let it be on sale or local.  My mom used to stockpile chickens until my dad told her he was going to start clucking.

Turkeys don’t cluck.  They gobble and walk in front of my car while I’m rushing to work, so the more I have in my freezer, the safer my morning commute.

This year it’s sixty degrees in New England.  I’m eating out of my garden for the holidays. I have Swiss chard, parsley, dill, cilantro, sage, rosemary, carrots, onions, and a few odds and ends that risk their life peeking up–no freeze in sight, just herb scissors.

New Year’s guacamole, here we come!

The key to not ruining holiday dinners is simplicity.  I used to try making something for everyone.  Half gets wasted.  Now, I pare it down to the essentials.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, yams, my friend Cheryl’s famous spinach and artichoke dip, my famous New York cheesecake with some blueberry sauce from berries I picked this summer.

Planning is the key to good food.  I ruined my vegetarian dinner entrée–stuffed mushrooms.  I rushed them.  I knew I was cutting corners but I wanted to sit, rest, and have tea.  “Tea now, crappy food later.”  That’s a tweetable quote.  Never rush mushrooms.  Nobody wants a bad mushroom.

The day before, I ruined Martha Stewart’s gluten-free shortbread.  I was curious as to whether gluten-free shortbread could replicate the real deal.  The answer is no.  Since every holiday dinner requires one sacrifice to the Gods, it’s best to get the sacrificial dish out of the way early as possible, no harm no foul.  Martha would not be pleased it was her recipe but she might not notice because she’d be busy pointing out it’s not proper to use paper plates for holiday dinners or serve Merlot with turkey.

Turns out, Santa doesn’t like gluten-free cookies, so Declan and I whipped up some chocolate chip.  It was the only cookie we baked.

The key to having a successful holidays is simplicity.

I can’t say this enough.  Simplicity.  Cookies are half the headache of holidays.  I made none.  I realized something.  I’m the adult.  I can make and eat as much junk as I want any time the idea surfaces.  I don’t,  but I can.  Why suffer making fifteen recipes that’ll go stale on my counter?  The Law of Cookie Attraction says cookies will come to you during the holidays whether you make them or not.  Therefore, I can relax and let everyone else go insane with their mixing bowls.

I don’t eat many sweets, but in the spirit of the holidays, I ate a couple pieces of Liz’ Grandmother’s Famous Caramel for dessert, waxed paper and all.

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

The secret to a successful Christmas dinner–or any big event–is planning backwards–knowing what delicate operations must be done last, and what can be prepped ahead of time.  I know how many burners must be reserved for what stage of cooking and when things must be at that certain point in their preparation.  It’s a symphony of food.  I learned that working in restaurants.  If I plan well, I don’t end up with slimy green beans or vats of extra potatoes.

That said, unless I chart out a menu on paper, I mess something up.  When it happens–and it will–the key to an enjoyable dinner is not to worry.  No one will starve if I run out of egg nog.  Relax more, clean and worry less.

This is how we got our horrific tablescape.  My parents gave me a lifetime supply of Thanksgiving paper plates when they moved.  We’ve used them for holiday dinners for three years now.  I never buy paper products, but since I have them through no fault of my own,  I get an environmental pass and can rationalize their use.

Cleanup done, cheesecake out, dinner success.  Except for my mushrooms, which I hated and left on the plate.

How many hours have I spent worrying about the dip, whether prime rib’s going to go on sale for New Years or whether there are spots on the glasses?

No more:)

These days, my goal is to relax, have tea, and give myself the gift I want most–time and sanity, so I can save up patience for when I have to figure out the directions to Declan’s new toys all week long.

That’s a story for another day…

The post Simplicity is the secret to holiday sanity (Why cookies make you crazy) appeared first on Café Casey.

“Hey Mom, did you know you can cut your hair with paper scissors?”

“Why yes, I did.” I say.

The trick is not to overreact.  This isn’t some random conversation.  It’s a revelation.  “But I don’t recommend it.  Your hair will stick straight up and you’ll look goofy.”  I look him in the eye.  His hair is sticking up and he looks goofy.  He has a handful of brown hair in one hand and a pair of dull scissors in the other.

“Would you like me to fix it?”

“No! I’ll fix it.”  Who doesn’t love to aim scissors at their own head?  I get my haircutting scissors and turn the reverse Mohawk back into a little boy.  He gets demanding.  “Give me a spiky cut!”

I don’t take requests during tea time. “Go buy some hair gel.”

Moms don’t get a lot of time to sit and relax.  My mistake–I made myself a cup of tea and sat down while people were awake.  It required a disaster–happens every time.  Children sniff out yoga, meditation, relaxation, and tea.  They seek to destroy them.  It’s why they were put on this planet.  They are our mortal enemies in the quest for peace.

Problem solved, I return to my tea with one eye open.  One point for Mom, but Declan’s clever.  There will be no relaxation on his watch, and he’ll go to any lengths to win in the end.  I keep both ears ready to detect and head off the next attempt to ruin my sanity.  You should, too.

These are some things to watch out for–things you never want to hear a kid say.  If you do, act immediately!  Your peace–and possibly your very existence–are in peril.

Danger and Disaster Category:

“There’s Play Doh in the electrical outlet.”  This happened during graduate school.  I had a paper due the next day and a neighbor’s kid was over playing.  Lesson learned: Don’t try to pick flaming Play Doh out of an electrical socket.  It’s highly conductive and will end badly.  All’s well that ends well–the fireman was hotter than the Play Doh.  Note to self: burn dinner next week.

“I think my science experiment blew up.”  I try to teach that science is about study, not randomly mixing chemicals and products… but sometimes I’m not paying attention and “science” just happens.  Anything that explodes, burns, chemically changes, transforms, evaporates, leaks, or expands will be blamed on science.

“What’s the matter, you don’t want me to learn?” “Learning–” the get out of jail free card for punishment.  That, they learn early.

“I think I used too much toilet paper.”  You haven’t experienced fear until you’ve lived in a one bathroom house and heard this.

“Hey Mom, there’s only a little water dripping through the floor.”  That’s the rationalization that comes after the toilet paper confession.  I also hear this after I say “Go take a shower, NOW!” It’s bad karma for my being impatient.

Art Category:

“Look, I made you a picture.”  On the wall with Sharpie that is.  This has happened to me a few times.  The first time was crayon on the wall, the second was a Sharpie Michelangelo on the underside of the kitchen farm table, and the third, a beautiful picture of me on the brown wood siding near the door.

“They’re beautiful,” I say every time.

Grades:

“This ‘D’ stands for ‘delightful.'”  The paper has big X’s all over it.  In fact, many of them do.

“No, it stands for you didn’t read the story before you answered the questions.”

“It was boring.  They need new stories…like something about zombies or Dan TDM.”  Good point.  Luckily, I have zombie books, so I can take him off the computer and make him read.

“Is that the principal?” when the phone rings.

“Why?”

“No reason.”  There never is.  I’m sure it’s the principal’s night off and he wants to say hi.

Nuissance:

“I stepped in dog poop.”  That, in itself isn’t bad.  It’s only when he says it from the rug-end of the house as far away from the door as possible that it packs a punch.  Then, it’s too late to do anything but spill something else on the rest of the carpet and hope the carpet cleaner coupon comes around soon.

As long as he sticks with these categories, I’m okay.  He’s 8.  How much trouble can an 8-year old cause?

It’s when they get to be teens we have to up the ante.  Somewhere after the dog poop and before they move out is when they’ll start to say things like “I got fired,” “That college only costs $50K/year,” “I flunked out” (of that $50K college) or the granddaddy of them all, “You’re gonna be a grandma.”

So, if I have to suffer a little bad hair, explosion, clogged toilet, wall art, or bad grades now, so be it. It’s training, so when the real parenting comes, I’ll be ready.

The post 9 Things You Never Want to Hear a Kid Say appeared first on Café Casey.

Every year I kill half. It’s a cycle. I’m okay with that–I’m getting old enough to do what I want to do in life, no questions asked. I have a system–I project out for harvest and compensate for my incompetence by overplanting.

I get in trouble for wasting. “You don’t need to plant all that stuff.”

“Yes, I do.” Why else would they have put 500 seeds in the envelope? That’s what spring is for–putting seeds in mud.

“But you’ll waste…”

It’s not waste. I’m planting enough so my friends can come over and take what they want. It’s a CSA in my own mind.

“But you don’t really have that many friends…”

I do…somewhere. Maybe I’ll mail a CSA box to San Francisco, Connecticut, Australia, or New York. Or I can dry the four rows of self-seeded cilantro and make everyone a nice taco spice. There are possibilities.

Every year I get The Late Summer Syndrome–I’m defeated by weeds.

In spring, the place looks good. Professional even. I weed. I arrange. I replant. I rotate. But there’s one magic day around the summer solstice when the sun calls forth the army of crabgrass to attack and invade. It crushes my will to fight. Game. Set. Match. Weeds win.

I’ve tried to combat this. I’ve mulched, put down newspaper and straw, I’ve planted tighter rows. It’s useless.

I let the weeds stay. Weeds, after all, are simply flowers nobody appreciates. How sad for them. Many have a purpose–some are edible, some medicinal, others pretty. I’ve eaten them, made them into tea, made flower bouquets with them.

I find rogue purslane and eat a bit. It’s lemony. I feed dandelions and clover to the chickens. The rest, I leave alone. In return, the weeds agree to remind me of the perfection in imperfection–garden wabi-sabi. It doesn’t have to be perfect–it just has to be. Like life. It’s a zen moment in the chaos while I hunt for my dinner. I could easily miss such moments. I often do.

“Find and eat season” has arrived. There’s plenty here between the weeds. If it weren’t for the fact I can’t grow toilet paper, I’d avoid the store completely. New potatoes, kale, herbs, salads. It’s Garden Where’s Waldo combined with the card game Memory. If I could just remember where I planted things… I stand very still, training my eyes.

The zucchini I wanted has been claimed by blossom rot, the rest of the strawberries bitten by a chipmunk. I have a Plan B, but of course there’s always kale. I find a ton of green beans and some broccoli that’s about to flower. Yessir–it’s going to be a kale free night!

This is my favorite time of year–when I walk outside and see what nature’s gifting me for dinner.

I go with no predisposition, no craving, no mood–open to whatever’s jumping up through the weeds shouting, “I’m ready!” It’s the best way to eat.

It’s the best way to live when I think about it–fluidly, taking each gift from life, each experience, each opportunity and converting it to something delicious.

“I told you that, dummy,” says the purslane. I eat some more. It holds its tongue. It’d better–I’m hungry. I’ll eat it–and all its little friends, too.

If I can only find them…

What I made for dinner:

Georgian* Green Bean Scramble:

(This Georgia is the country, not the South. How can you tell? Georgian and Russian food is farm-fresh in season. Tasty. US Georgian food is fried. A different kind of tasty.) 

Chop and steam some green beans. I added broccoli because it was there. After steaming, sauté in a little butter. Add a few cloves of chopped garlic. Measuring’s a pain. Add a few eggs, scrambled up in a bowl. I got my eggs from the chickens down the street. Mine will be laying soon. If you’ve never had a farm-fresh egg, go on a pilgrimage and find one. You’ll be glad.

Add the eggs to the garlic and veggies. Salt to taste.

This is one of the best dinners known to man.

The post Country Zen: Seeing the Dinner Through the Weeds appeared first on Café Casey.

So, we end up with this useless chunk of time at the bitter end. Exams are done, kids come anyway. I feel bad for them.

“Go to the beach.” I say. “Or the mall.” That’s where teens belong. Enjoy life before it starts sending you bills.

If they don’t go to the beach, I hope they get an awful summer job–one with a 16-year-old pimply boss that’ll mistreat them. They’ll realize the value of education, because all too soon they’ll be with me for another 180 days–one step closer to overpaying for college.

I look around my June room. “I’ll deal with this in August,” I say. It’s what I always say before I flee. This year will be different.

It’s purge time. At home, I’ve found my sock drawer, tool bench, and half the cellar. I’m ready to excavate my classroom.

Teachers are hoarders. Clutter’s been weighing on my soul. When was the last time I opened that drawer? The cabinet? Looked into that crevice? It’s mental constipation. A blockage long in need of a good, solid purge.

I started with stationery supplies earlier this year.

I gave away pens, pencils, and notebooks until I ran out–an entire cabinet–gone. “Sorry, I’m out.” A kid gasped.

“You don’t have…a pen?”

“Only my pen.”

“Can I have it?”

“No.” There are things a teacher doesn’t share. My own pen is one. Phone chargers are another. These are things–like loans–that never come back. I offer the kid a crayon. He declines. His friend donates a pencil. I say someone should buy a million pencils and sell them. They’ll make tons and won’t need that summer job.

Who uses pencils these days, anyway? Kids have phones and tablets. And no one wants my xerox copies from 2001.

I start tossing. Four filing cabinets, storage areas, the shelf.

I clear out a drawer. I find the key to the closet. No skeletons. Just dictionaries and old books. Dictionaries? We use Google. Gone!

I put two filing cabinets in the hall so paper can’t return. I’m gaining momentum. I call for another bin.

In two days, I’ve reduced fourteen years of junk to a few files of one copy each, “just in case.”

Thai and Chinese Buddha applaud. I’ve placed inspirations around my room–Buddha here, lotus there, an elephant, some calligraphy ink, Lord Ganesha on my desk, a couple of teapots, a Celtic cross, a windmill, a not-so-zen bell. I took the clapper out. Bells aren’t zen when students find them.

“Stay sane!” says Lord Ganesha. He’s near the Chinese scroll that says “Work first, relax later.” I asked the artist to paint “Do your damned homework,” but he was too polite.

Organizing’s hard for teachers. A day of teaching’s like playing dodgeball with your hands tied and twenty-eight kids tossing balls and a few rocks at your head.

“Throw it away!” says Chinese Buddha. “You don’t need that pile of papers. Freedom from clutter brings serenity to your soul.”  He knows I’m about to save something “just in case.”

I obey. I throw out the pile. I feel better already. Energy pulses through my room, my mind.

“Simplicity is the heart of education. It is in being we learn about life, not things.” Thai Buddha chimes in. “Everything you need is in your mind.” He’s right. I can teach without a single handout.

“Empty your glass so it can be full,” says the teapot. I enjoy talking with the Buddhas and Lord Ganesha, but a teapot? It’s time for this day to end.

“You’ll write a new story next year.” Shodo ink speaks, too?

I think of schools where kids really do walk miles for their education, and learning occurs without supplies. Socrates didn’t have the Internet.

Bad papers and textbooks don’t make people passionate to learn. We had a text that dedicated two columns to World War I–approximately .0002 of a character and a few pixels for every human death. No kid learns that way.

Everything must go.  I toss most of my grad school papers, keeping only my original research. That’s the stuff students love. “You can write about anything–and it counts. Just back it up!” I say.

I’m holding a baseball history paper written by my advisor. He’s the one who taught me history’s ours, not just about battles and victors of wars.

The real story’s in every one of our hearts–if we choose to write it.

I toss my “Philosophy of Education” paper. It’s something every new teacher is forced to write. I like what I’ve written. It’s about relationships. Connection. Making the impossible possible, proving everyone’s got a gift and a place to use it in the real world. Education is a magician taking the cape off the flowers.

Old me would’ve said, “You might need that.” New me knows I don’t need it, I’ve lived it. Thai Buddha gives me a high-five.

Two full recycle bins later, I feel the flow. Blockage from years of paper constipation is gone. My soul begins to rejoice. The custodian is not rejoicing, but I’ve apologized. He appreciates my efforts to be a better human being.

Still, I’m feeling guilty–I made two Buddhas happy, but I’ve killed half the rainforest.

I’m not sure I’m a better human being after all, but right now, I feel pretty darned good.

That, and a cup of coffee, makes me ready to hit the road.

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I went on another yoga retreat.

This one was special. My friend Claudia Altucher gave it, calling it “Portable Yoga.” Claudia promised to give a thousand yoga tools to take away. I’m loyal. I would’ve gone even if she called it “You’ll Never Attain Enlightenment,” or “Yogis Study for 1000 Years, What Makes You Think You Can Get This in 2 Days?” but “1000 Tools” is a gift. Who can pass that up?

I asked for this retreat for Christmas. “I’ll pay, you just have to watch The Boy.” Watching Declan is no small task–it counts as a meaningful gift even though it’s early. If Pandora Christmas can start after Halloween, I can plan a Christmas present before Thanksgiving.

I’m glad Claudia called her retreat “Portable Yoga.” It made me feel I had a shot–that I, too, could learn to “engage my bhandas” or even find them. That I could point my tailbone to the ceiling by myself and remember some things to practice, even though I’d be going home to a seven-year old who sniffs out yoga, destroying it with the efficiency of a guerilla warrior.

Claudia collected most important yoga postures, putting them into a flowing routine for anyone to practice daily even without a yoga teacher. That was her yoga selling point to me almost two years ago. “Yoga is personal. You can take it with you anywhere.”

I told her back then I couldn’t take it with me if I forgot, so she made me some videos and put them on her website. She probably made them for everyone, but I like to think the world centers around me on occasion.

I like yoga retreat.

I get up early and write while watching the sun rise over the mountains. I take the same mountain pictures every time. I get ideas. I decompress my brain. I enjoy peace.

A little child walked by with her dad as I wrote. I thought I’d like to bring my boy one day. Then I remembered mine is the Yoga Guerilla. The types of boys and girls that come on yoga retreat are ones that walk around quietly, little lamas in training. They don’t scream and interrupt enlightenment.

I interrupted enlightenment enough breaking retreat rules.

“I want you to look within, not be all over the place, on Facebook, email. We will observe ‘functional silence’ tonight.” said Claudia. I lasted six minutes exactly. I made a new friend and had tea with her immediately. I talked all weekend with my yoga soulmate, Marianne, who came for a weekend of rest and relaxation herself.

I felt paranoid about talking and rule breaking. I expected Claudia to pop out from behind a pole and say, “Ah HA! I see that phone. I told you to eat a light breakfast and you Instagrammed a picture of two frittata slices and a bowl of quinoa. Then you checked your email. And you are TALKING! THAT IS NOT ‘FUNCTIONAL SILENCE.’ I told you to turn within!”

Talking in functional silence is for important things like “Excuse me,” or “your hair is on fire” not “So, how was your weekend in Florida, Marianne?”

Last retreat Claudia gave me an “In Loving Silence…” badge. I called it the “shut up badge.” It frightened me. If I’m quiet too long, I explode. This time, no badge. Claudia trusted us. I felt even more guilty.

I was trying to get one step closer to inner peace and still have fun with my friend. Yoga multitasking. If I could do all that in a head stand, I’d be golden. “Yoga” and “multitasking” should not be a forced marriage.

I didn’t really “turn within.” My brain races when I’m silent, the echo of a thousand ideas speeding through the wind tunnel that is my mind. It’s okay. I was happy.

I’m not a very good yogi.

“I want you to sit in silence for one hour,” Claudia said one day, x-raying my wind-tunnel mind. I laughed–I can’t sit in silence for one hour living with The Yoga Guerilla.

“Okay, twenty minutes.” She gave in like a doctor who knows the patient won’t obey, so she has to issue the next best prescription. That’s why she developed Portable Yoga–I really should do the full hour but she’s prescribing me something I can handle.

I tried sitting for twenty minutes one day and lasted 3.5 minutes exactly. “Mom! I neeeeeed you.”

Getting away for retreat meant that I could sit in silence for the required amount of time. Because I felt guilty, I escaped and meditated for an hour, but I became depressed so I broke functional silence again with my friends, new and old, finding my happy once again.

I hoped I’d be better about my practice when I returned home. 

“Even if you get to the edge of the mat every day for five minutes…that’s a practice,” said Claudia. She always takes time to remind me when life takes me away.

The thing I’ve realized is this–life takes us all away. We’re all the world’s worst yogi in our own mind. It’s how wind-tunnel minds work. One thought gets in and swirls and swirls until it’s all-consuming. Then something brings it back to mindfulness, good habits, and our practice.

The entire secret of life is having a small group of good friends who know this and who never stray at exactly the same time. This way, there’s always someone on the path to say, “Come back.” We all end up a little better.

I left retreat deciding I was never going to be enlightened. It’s too hard. But I left happy, with a thousand tools to take with me. For that, I give Portable Yoga an A+. That’s a pretty high rating from the world’s worst yogini, but Claudia deserves even more gratitude for not yelling at me when I broke the rules.

I wonder if yoga teachers are allowed to yell, anyway, or whether they can just tie people in pretzels and leave them there to meditate for all of eternity?

That’s a question I’ll ask on the next retreat.

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“Our billing systems aren’t integrated.” This is an IQ test more than a phone call.

Mistakes happen. I lived in a city that always credited my taxes to the wrong accounts. One year, I couldn’t register my car. “You didn’t pay your taxes.” I always pay taxes, plenty of them. I dug deep, discovering I was a year and a half ahead on my sewer taxes and equally behind in motor vehicle tax. Clerical error. Paying in person or writing CAR TAX in red on the memo line didn’t work, and God help me the time I used online banking. That resulted in a six-month research debacle.

And now, I’m trying to sort out why my communications company has two distinct divisions that don’t communicate. I’m faxing them receipts, papers, bank records and notices. It seems odd to be faxing anything to my 21st century email provider, but I obey.

“See?” I say after a lengthy time on hold, “I sent it to the right division of you.”

“That rep’s not in right now. I left her a note to call you.”

I inform the call center girl every time I call again I re-explain the situation a person who reads the notes again and is mystified. All I want to do is pay my bill if, indeed, I owe anything.

“Let me take a quick look.” “Quick” is relative. “Those payments have been applied to the other account, too.” I’m having sewer flashbacks. Recently, I’ve reverted to showing up in person to deal with these accounts. In a normal world I simply cancel and find someone with customer service I could understand without Google translate. Unfortunately, this is a quasi-monopoly and a service I need to do my job. I’m going to have to suffer through.

The idea of sitting by a pond with no internet sounds better with every phone call.

She asks me why I don’t just use the website. I say I get kicked off and “that feature is not available.” My students are coming back, I’m at school. My allocated time on task is gone.

She resets my account and sends me an email. I go home and try again. I get kicked off. I call three layers of customer service. I must be being recorded for a reality show. The prospect of fame lifts my spirits.

I’m on the phone for an hour. I assure the rep she’s trying hard. She probably gets a ton of angry phone calls. No need to ruin her day. I remember why I started driving into the physical store, something so 1995.

Even in the store they ask, “Do you have your twenty-seven digit account number and the two-thousandth digit of pi?” If I guess I’ll get locked out of the account until leap year.

I get into the site, one step closer to figuring this out. I’ve decided to pay again and let this sort itself out later.  I feel like I won Jeopardy.

The I-won-Jeopardy feeling evaporates. There’s no credit card button. I can only pay by paper check. Who uses paper checks? My communications company is very close to achieving something a room full of students can’t accomplish, even on a bad day, annoying me.

I scrounge for, and find, a paper check. The last one I used was for dress-down day at school last year, where cash is no longer king.

“We have your last check on file for your convenience.” I want to use this account not that one. I look for the “use another account” link. Up pops a box. “For changes to your payment method please call 1-888–…. ” I look at my notes. It’s number I’ve been calling all afternoon.

I take a deep yoga breath. Challenges in life make us better. Dealing with taxes, idiots, saboteurs, mean people, inefficiencies, it’s what makes the world go round. We do our mental push ups and learn to let things roll off our backs. Then, when we are in a position to help others, build systems, or just go through daily living, we remember that pain and try to cause joy to others.

What’s the worst that can happen if I give up? My internet gets canceled and I call people on my phone? Hashtag Firstworldproblems. I take another deep breath. I need internet to do my job, so I resolve to make one more call and push through to the end. Besides, there’s still a chance this is my error. I just need to navigate the Witness Protection Program to find the right person to resolve it.

I call the number. “Our hours are from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time…” It’s now 6:03.

Two hours. I haven’t accomplished a thing.  What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Is there a lesson here? I’m not sure.

I said a quick prayer but I got an autoresponder–the Lord can’t answer because he’s trying to pay his cable bill. I suspect he’d tell me to simplify–that if I can’t figure it out in one or two clicks, it’s probably something don’t need anyway. He’d say take the boy on a hike in the woods and enjoy the beauty he created for me instead. I obey.

Perhaps these past two hours were a reminder not to let life get to complex.

If so, it wasn’t that big of a waste after all.

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The prize? There’s always a prize for a game show. The prize–you get to eat it!

What? You can’t eat it because it doesn’t come from a frozen dinner box and there are no GMOs? Give me a chance here! Most of this stuff’s good. Ignore the jar with green fuzz on top. The rest is truly amazing.

I know, you think making stuff yourself is hard, but it’s not. It saves you a ton of cash, and you’ll be a food snob before you know it…you need to learn a few simple tricks… First, just open a jar and dive in…

If you open my refrigerator, you see wall-to-wall mason jars. Everything from pickles, jams, mayo, salsa, iced tea, prepped ingredients, soups, leftovers from dinner–even a salad or two. People mock me. Their loss–this food’s good. I’ve become my own celebrity chef. I make food from scratch most of the time. I date it, store it, and my food week’s set.

Once in a while I forget to date something. I want to eat it.

Did I put that in recently? Doubt creeps in. I open the jar and sniff. Bacteria and mold are funny things–I might have created a new pathogen but maybe I’ve cured a disease. I can’t tell if the food’s good. My ER copays just increased–near death experiences must wait, as good as the peach salsa looks. I don’t like waste. I don’t like painful deaths either. I’d rather get hit by a truck not killed by botulism. Into the garbage it goes.

Did you know the average American kitchen wastes over 25% of its food?  That’s just the food that gets into our kitchens. The food that never gets in–tomatoes rotting in the field, for example, brings the total to nearly 40%. Terrible!

Years ago, I set out to do better –to waste less and to cook entirely from scratch. It started during the Great Recession, a time that sucked for me and everyone else (otherwise it would have been called “The Great Block Party). I struggled, joining the nation in fear and frugal. Then, I took action. I decided I’d try to eat for nearly free. I’d grow my own food, waste zero, and make everything from scratch.

I didn’t want to suffer–I wanted to replicate the restaurant food I loved. I started shopping at ethnic stores which had the ingredients I needed nearly free. I studied cookbooks, Google, and watched TV chefs who never burned their food. I brought my dishes to my chef-colleague who’d say, “Casey, get that $#!^ out of my face!”

Step by step, cuisine by cuisine, I improved. There isn’t anything in the American processed food aisle that can’t be made healthy and fresh at home by studying just a bit. You can learn, too. When you do, you’ll hate processed foods and restaurants with chefs who use microwaves just as much as me. You might get a little snobby, too…

“I can make that better in ten minutes for a dollar fifty.”

I confess I went to the extreme, peaking in people’s grocery carts and judging students when they ate Pop Tarts and Lunchables. I wished Jamie Oliver would come in and take processed foods away while smacking kids with rhubarb stalks. Meanwhile, students laughed at my desk full of tiffen boxes, mason jars, bento, and coffee. A few brave kids tried something new. Although some spit it in the garbage, many got hooked on food.

“Miss, bring in more of that apple butter!”

“Can you make another loaf of bread?” Bread, you see, does not grow in the grocery store.

It’s easy to get started in food insanity. Make one thing you love–if it’s ice cream, then it’s ice cream. Whatever it is, you’ll be doing it yourself, saving money, and getting rid of chemicals and preservatives. Once you’ve mastered your first loaf of bread or soft cheese, you might just go crazy like me. Eating clean and natural foods–even homegrown or seasonal foods–isn’t about depriving yourself. Just the opposite. You gain the power to make anything in the universe and eat better than before.

Food expert Michael Pollan said something to the effect of (I’m misquoting his classic Food Rules) “You can eat junk food–if you make it yourself!” Pollan never met me. I can make a stack of candy with two simple ingredients. I took that to heart in the beginning, making organic homemade toffee, ice cream, muffins and pies. Now, I eat well. I’m eating homemade hummus with homegrown zucchini now.

It’s funny how a food quest started in economic fear gave me gifts–the ability to be a creative and frugal gourmet, the ability to waste less, and a way to see nature’s miracles in action as they grow in my garden which is finally producing enough food to give away. Nobody who visits leaves without fresh food.

All this makes me think about community, not only food.

Learning to make simple foods frees my soul and budget. It isn’t that I can make mayo instead of  spending $8 a jar. It’s about the eggs from two doors down and learning the skills our grandparents knew, then sharing results.  I think of prior generations going through tough times, planting victory gardens, and creating communities from scratch. Those are skills we need now.

Sometimes the worst experiences bring out our best selves. Then, we stand back, smile, and enjoy the bounty life provides.

Today, my bounty is still cucumbers and kale. A lot of both.

If you happen by, yours could be, too.

The post Had Enough Processed Food? Be Your Own Celebrity Chef appeared first on Café Casey.

I wrote for a good long time. I drank coffee. I watched a bird smash into the window over and over again.

It’s nice to see birds up close, but this feathered friend wants to join me so much he bashes his beak into the window repeatedly. I feel bad. I call him Hitchcock. He’s been coming for about a week now.

After some time, I finished watching Hitchcock suffer. I went for a run.

I ran six-miles or so in the middle of the day, because that’s when my brain was done writing. Ninety degrees be damned, any time is a good time for a run.

You might ask, “What if you ran first when it was cooler, then wrote?”

My mind doesn’t work like that…logically. So, I ventured out in the hottest part of the day, and ran way too far. I didn’t hydrate properly. I suffered.

All that happened yesterday. Today, I ran a couple quick miles and hydrated. Life couldn’t be better…except…it’s garbage day.

If you’ve never run on garbage day, give it a try. You can pick out every neighbor who should be composting.

If you’re an optimist, you realize running on garbage day isn’t always a bad thing. It helps increase my time and flow as I speed past rotting bins baking in the sun. That is, until I realize the whole strip has these bins and escaping the stench of one only puts me in range for the next. To improve matters, the garbage truck itself caught up with me, stopping, going, stopping, going, pulling ahead enough for me to enjoy the refuse of the entire town.

There is a moral to this story: Life stinks, but there’s always a positive takeaway. I increase my mile time exponentially on garbage day, and I have fun with fitness regardless. Then, I get back to writing sooner.

As for Hitchcock, who’s back to banging into windows while I write, I have a lesson for you, too. Stop banging into windows. If you look hard enough, there’s always an open door. Use it. Life will be much easier in the end.

Maybe that’s true for all of us, not just stubborn birds.

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