Terra Mater

She was beautiful beyond belief wearing Azure Blue,
Carmine Red and Viridian Green providing and caring for all

Man came and claimed her for his own stripping her
of her majesty leaving her barren, scarred, and wearied

Yet, she stood silent against his assaults hoping
one day he would understand her importance and restore her to her
throne ...if it is not too late

Sleeping Rituals

If you do not suffer from insomnia, OCD or some other mental illness you might not understand this post. Since as long as I can remember I have dealt with sleep issues, I have been to a sleep clinic, tried several medications and have even had sinus surgery all in my search for that illusive night of perfect sleep. So, here I am now 45 and I have amassed an amazing amount of rituals that I do every night.

Here is sampling of what I do every night just to ready myself to chase the dragon called sleep:

1. Make sure all exterior doors and windows are locked.
2. Make sure there are no knives laying out on the counters (why would anyone ever use a knife block!)
3. close the blinds in the living room
4. close the blinds in my room, close the drapes, and pin the drapes shut with a cloth pin.
5. Make sure the black underwear are still covering the LED clock numbers (Why black underwear you ask? They were handy and dark enough to drown out the light.)
   
6. fill my water bottle up and sit it on my dresser
7. turn on the humidifier or ceiling fan or both
   
8. close the two doors that lead into my room
   
9. Make sure there are NO wrinkles on my side of the bed or anything else that might drive me nuts (Did you ever read "Princess and the Pea"?)
10. make sure I have no razor stubble on my legs, if I do shave them
    
11. place two pillows on the edge of the bed and one at top for my head
12. spray my pillow with Lavender spray
13. put chamomile essential oil on pillow ( I think I will stop this it stinks!)
    
14. rub calming oil on my feet
    
15. put 5 drops of Bach Flower sleep remedy under my tongue
16. Rub Icy hot or Ben-Gay on my knees unless I just shaved them (learned from experience!)
    
17. lay down and read for awhile
18. turn off the lights
    
19. stick one leg out from under the covers but make sure the rest of my body is covered up to my ears
    
20. take several deep relaxation breaths
21. Say my prayers
    

Then I lay in my bed and hope I will fall asleep on my own with out taking meds. Last night I listened to my husband do this snore-poof thing. He would snore than blow out his mouth with a "poof" sound. I started laughing and woke him up. I wonder if he would like to use my calming oils?

Bologna Wonder Food

My Mom wasn't very adventurous in her cooking (or very good at it either!) and had a repertoire of maybe ten dishes that we consumed ad nauseum. If I lost the calendar I could tell you the day of the week. On Fridays we had Pizza or McDonald's, On Sunday it was some type of roast, On Saturday it some type of Swanson's TV Dinner the latest and greatest culinary invention. During the rest of the week it was some type of casserole or my mom's idea of a nutritious meal: meat, canned vegetables and instant potatoes. One of my mom's favorite meats to serve was Bologna.

I swear my mother thought Bologna was food from the heavens. Somewhere in her kitchen must had been a book titled "1001 Ways to Serve Bologna". I guess Bologna was cheap and a fast meal. We ate it fried, cut up into chunks and sauted with tomato sauce and green peppers, served as hors D'oeuvres: bologna, cheese and crackers, ground into "ground bologna salad" and of course served on wonder bread with mayo and crushed potato chips, we even had a song to sing while eating it!

My bologna has a first name, its O S C A R. My bologna has a second name it s M A Y E R. Oh I love to eat it every day and if you ask me why I’ll say: cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B O L O G N A.

The weird thing is as much as I dislike bologna every once in awhile I have this nostalgic desire to eat it. Last week I was in the meat market and I saw 100 % Beef Bologna and I though about the times I helped my mom grind the Bologna for ground bologna salad and decided I had to have it! I asked them can you please grind it for me and the women said, "yes how much would you like," and I said, "I will take that chunk right there." What I did not realize was it was a three pound chunk! Do you know how much ground Bologna salad you can make with three pounds? Oh, about the size of a small mixing bowl! I ate this stuff all week long and I think I have now fulfilled my desire to ever want to eat this stuff again for the rest of my life!