Do good, feel good

[Y]ou don’t get healthy self-esteem from constantly telling yourself how great you are, or even from other people telling you how great you are. You get healthy self-esteem from behaving in ways that you yourself find estimable.

For instance, you feel better about yourself when you keep a difficult resolution, meet a challenge, solve a problem, learn a skill, or cross something unpleasant off your to-do list. And one of the best ways to feel better about yourself is to help someone else. Do good, feel good.

I had a friend who went through a period of tremendous rejection: she was fired from her job, she didn’t get into the graduate program to which she’d applied, and her boyfriend broke up with her. Everything worked out fine, and I asked her how she got through such a tough time. She said, “I was practically addicted to doing good deeds for other people. It was the only way I could make myself feel like I wasn’t a total loser.”

—Gretchen Rubin

Stay in the present moment

Certainly, life brings real and inevitable sorrow. But when I ask myself, am I okay today, I find I usually am. It’s tomorrow I’m unhappy about. Or something that happened yesterday. I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to stay in the present moment, when it’s often such a good place to be.

—Kyran Pittman

Project 366 – Week 9

57/366
click-clunk between songs.
someone is listening to
a mixtape. flashback.

58/366
freedom to read week
annoy a conservative
go read a banned book

59/366
snowfall warning at
night—will it be a snow day
tomorrow? crap shoot.

60/366
giant fluffy flakes
snow on Burnaby mountain
a leap day surprise

61/366
putting the final
touches on the March issue
of Toasted Cheese. woo!

62/366
it’s pouring down rain
echoes of backhoe digging
against heavy sky

63/366
approaching the end
of a long-term project is
always bittersweet

Scooped Again

A few days ago I saw an ad for chocolate cream cheese. Damn. Another missed opportunity to get rich.

You see, I’ve always had the habit of snacking on chocolate chips when I don’t have any other dessert items around (doesn’t everyone?). Sometimes, I’d take a spoonful of peanut butter and a spoonful of chocolate chips, stick it the microwave for a few seconds, swirl it together, and voila! poor man’s peanut butter cup. (Actually better than the real thing if you find the real ones too sweet.)

A while back, I didn’t have any peanut butter, but I did have cream cheese. Hmm, I thought, chocolate and cream cheese = chocolate cheesecake. So into the microwave with slice of cream cheese and spoonful of chocolate chips, swirl it together, and yes, poor man’s chocolate cheesecake. That you can eat with a spoon.

So yeah. Someone really needs to hire me to be an ideas person.

Project 366 – Week 8

50/366
lying on the grass
at Queen Elizabeth Park
a dead black squirrel

51/366
who is voting for
Rick Santorum? he is a
genuine nutbar.

52/366
one more thing to do
or is that two? just want to
go to bed right now

53/366
my first memory
eating licorice all-sorts
in a backyard fort

54/366
the old house across
the street was torn down today.
gentrification.

55/366
why is it snowing?
doesn’t the weather know that
it’s flower count time?

56/366
the wind, the wind it
blows and blows, shaking, rattling
rolling over me

In which I make quiche

So last Sunday (not yesterday, a week ago) I decided to make a quiche. Weirdly, I’d never made one before. I remember in the ’80s, they were a trendy thing for a while, a fancy-pants food item that people would make for potlucks and such. They were the kind of thing you’d sneak a piece of off the buffet table while the grown-ups were in the living room guffawing at something. I thought they were delicious. And then they fell out of favor. Kind of like the spinach dip in a loaf of round bread (delicious & clever!) that always appeared on those same buffet tables. Partly, of course, because they are neither low-fat nor low-carb, but also, I think because the foods we thought were oh, so sophisticated back in the day now seem kind of quaint.

Anyway, quiche is basically an egg pie or a frittata with a crust. I didn’t really use a recipe, but I consulted Simply Recipes for baking times and temperatures. The basic strategy is to pre-bake the pie crust, fill it with whatever you’re putting in it, pour the beaten eggs over top, and bake. Easy!

Quiche

Quiche