All posts by Alnic730
College Football
As a Florida girl and a Gator girl, college football has an extra special place in my heart. While I didn’t attend as many Florida games as I wanted to… hindsight you know how that goes… I was graced with the access to see Tim Tebow and the boys win in all the orange and life glory they were.
As I sit here watching the Sugar Bowl, ironically on a come down high from the Georgia- Oklahoma Rose Bowl, I get a sense of the special deep pride these Bowl games give to the students who continually add to the bevy of successful graduates these amazing school bring.
My brother is a very proud UCF Knight, and their epic superior win with the perfect season was truly remarkable. I was so proud to be even tangentially associated with the proud Black and Gold.
These players are doing this game for more than just playing. They are carrying a century of successful alumni along for this ride. They carry years of hard work, ultimate integrity, generations of passion, and literal blood, sweat, and tears of millions of fans. To say the pressure’s on is a blatant understatement, for the pressure is releasing at that moment. This is it for them, they have to let it all OUT! Blow off all the steam from the semester, catch every ball, and leave it ALL on the field.
I LOVE BRUCE LEE
See above.
Bruce Lee is Force. He utilized his able body to exude Force. While his time here dwindled down quite too soon, his message was and IS loud and clear:
BE YOU. DO ALL YOU WANT TO EXPRESS YOU TO THE FULLEST. NO ONE ELSE IS ABLE TO DO WHAT YOU DO.
Just…MOVE
Move your body in anyway that you can. Do movement all day,
Work in the yard, plan and pay bills while standing, play with your kids, your dog, your husband or wife! Dance around for no reason other than because you CAN! Move and jump and enjoy your beautiful working synchronous muscles!
Are Kind Bars Healthy?
Yes, and they’re delicious too.
Six months ago, KIND Bar company was asked by the FDA to take the word “healthy” off of the packaging labels. On December 1st, 2015, KIND Bar CEO, Daniel Luetzky, challenged the FDA to reconsider how the word “healthy” is defined by the end-all-be-all rule meister to USA food regulations. The company, in a sagacious ever-growing state of knowledge, revamped their understanding of healthy foods while encouraging (admonishing) the FDA to do the same.
Whole foods, that is, WHOLESOME foods are indeed a healthy food source. How about an established definition of what a “whole food” is:
whole food
NOUN
Personally, my friend and I got into a kick with Clif Bars as a mid afternoon convenient snack to go with our venerated Starbucks coffees of choice. One day, she looked at the (dreaded) nutrition label…
NOOOOO don’t ruin it for me!
It turns out Clif Bars (as wonderful and delicious as they are) have about 5-10 grams more sugar than the average KIND bar. Hey- no hate on Clif Bar- they are an AMAZING company with phenomenal leadership and a vision that impels them to be the best. I love my Clif Bar snack and always will try their new flavors, but unless I am needing a good dose of sugar, backpacking the Appalachian Trail, or doing fieldwork in the forests of Tanzania, Clif Bars might not be the most conducive to my personal sedentary workdays.
Herein lies our new coffee-pairing infatuation- le KIND bar! Like a kid in a candy store we want to try each flavor! But lo… wait… kid in a candy store? So are these treats just as gleefully migrated to as Wonka Bars are by Charlie Bucket and his pals when they traipse to the local confectionary? Who can make the sun riiiiiiise?
~KIND BAR NUTRITION FACTS~ For example, I’ll use a personal favorite KIND bar flavor… Almond Cashew with Flax + Omega 3…the cravings are real!
Here are the Nutrition Facts as reported on the Kind Bar Website:
Serving Size 1 Bar (40g) Calories 190 Fat Calories 100 Total Fat 11g (18% DV) Saturated Fat 1.5g (8% DV) Trans Fat 0g Cholesterol 0mg Sodium 0mg Potassium 130mg (4% DV) Total Carb 20g (7% DV) Dietary Fiber 3g (12% DV) Sugars 11g Protein 4g
Check it: Sugars 11g- not too shabby now! Some delicious protein included in this treat! 4g! All right!!! With 4:1 carbs to protein ratio as the measureably preferred post workout refueler, 20 g of carbs is a great 5:1 CHO to Protein ratio when compared to other convenient snacks.
Keep in mind I’m purposely emphasizing the fact that KIND bars are a convenient snack. Although I’m guilty of using it as a meal replacer or constantly eating one for post workout fuel (everything in moderation now), this is a great form of wholesome energy to power through your day. In that respect, in lieu of all the other quick foods to grab and go when your stomach starts to grumble, the KIND bar is QUITE a good option!
So what is deemed “healthy”? This word is so vague, just like culture, and gender. It appears KIND bars are of a “healthier” option than many quick snacks you can by at the local gas station, grocery store, or Starbucks. The fact that I can SEE the WHOLE NUTS in each bar makes it a “healthy” option because I know what is in this food… and it’s just a mash of almonds stuck together with date syrup, give or take a few other nuts and dried fruit. The great thing about KIND is that if I want an “unhealthier” chocolate fix I can choose to buy the chocolate peanut butter flavor, but if I want a more balanced fruit and nut whole ingredient snack I can opt for the simple cranberry cashew option. KIND promotes “Ingredients you can see,” so while these ingredients might be calorically higher, you know these calories are coming from a whole almond with coconut flakes or crushed up pecans and dried cranberries. With a little adhesive made from glucose, plus natural flavors and soy lecithin…
…Soy lecithin you say… aye?
Regarding soy lecithin — lecithin is a vital nutrient that protects cells, reverses liver damage, improves brain function and memory AND the best source for that is egg yolks. While soy lecithin is a waste product coming from soy oil production, it’s not usually a problem, even for people allergic or sensitive to soy. It’s probably more important to avoid soy protein and soy oil than the occasional product with soy lecithin.
Thanks to Marlene Merritt, DOM, LAc, ACM, for this comprehensive information.
…these snack bars are considered a healthy option in my book. In the realm of all foods I’d give it a solid B, in the realm of convenient snack foods you can buy and eat on the go, I’d formally give it an A+ (+).
So, KIND, fight the good fight and prove your truth. FDA, pick on someone your own size… unfortunately there are a few companies just this size who could use a stern talking’ to.
(Disclaimer: sometimes I just want a freakin Clif Bar and will NOT deprive myself of the deliciousness of the Coconut Chocolate Chip or Carrot Cake… mmmm… I just drooled. Clif Bars were made for the adventurer and these bars are amazing to replenish glycogen reserves! I’m just saying they have a tad too much sugar for my everyday consumption. The texture of Clif Bars is like no other, PLUS I want to support their company, PLUS my school puts them in vending machines… WINS FOREVER!!!)
Intrusive Thoughts
So, you’re going about your day, having a great pop in your step, and you see something that triggers your brain to connect neurons in a pattern that results in DETRIMENTAL THINKING. What happened? You were just fine, juuuust fiiiiine, and then all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, your mental narrator goes off the book on tape and starts reciting something from Eeyore’s Diary.
What happened, really? You were good, you saw something, then this parasite of a thought just flooded your brain with negativity. Why? What? How?
Enter the intrusive thought.
Intrusive thoughts are
An intrusive thought is an unwelcome involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate- Wikipedia (I know, wiki source, but it’s the best concise definition)
Most of us get them… all of us get them! Our brains spit-fire neuronal triggers daily and who knows, some thoughts may appear without our need for them.
For me, many of these intrusive thoughts are akin to the deadly… debilitating…. destructive… doubts.
If we could all keep it simple like Homer that would be grrrraaaaaaayyyyyyyyyttttte.
How to cope with the lurking, silent spider creeping into your bathroom in the middle of the night? Do you stay or do you go with this immediate preponderance? How can you decipher if it’s a worthy thought that deserves attention, or just a random neuronal firing?
Well, GIVE it some attention! Hear what your brain is saying. Rationalize: is this really worth my time and energy deliberating about this thought, or is it just some… kind of… CHALLENGE? If we view the world as a game… a literal GAME… we tend to restructure life’s borders and impositions to make it more conducive to sheer enjoyment of the moments. An intrusive thought is just a test to see how firm you are in your self, or how easy it is to become derailed from your self-made plan. Let the thought come and go as it pleases… BAH HAHAHA! I say! Play this game and learn the rules. Then, learn how to break them!
Hitting the nail on the head…
In my mind I say it with such poignancy and conviction that I figure it will translate into written English verbiage with sieve-like fluidity. Yet, even as I type, I catch the grammatical slips and questionable subject-object-verb orders (that may or may not involve any errors at all) in order to get it ‘juuuuust right’. Inside, in my echoing rhetoric, I hear things stated into words about the acute observations I see throughout my day. Compulsively, I want to write about it and about it I want to right, but as it goes from abstract communicative linguistics to visual and tangible letters, words, and sentences- it loses something.
It loses the wondrous intangible essence. Just as an empyreal ray bellows through a stained glass window only to be greeted by a thick, “Halt, who goes there?” light is refracted into gentle weakened hues instead of the magnificent wave of strength. The words now get confiscated by the English language. They’re sifted by the great humpback whale and enclosed in its egregious body cavity. Socrates had a point about not writing his locutions.
As with all things, balance rides alongside, and so these words gain affection too. They consequently gain purposeful actuality by becoming understandable and reliable diacritics that conglomerate to become meaning in another’s head. Internalized lectures can now be shared with the masses and everyone has a share in the matter. Once it’s out on paper, it becomes something infinite and permanent, even a shredding or crumpling of the paper does nothing to its existence. Ephemerality of words evaporates; it was created and so it remains in this plane. Immutable in this existence. Plato accounted for Socrates’ unencrypted ways, and for the benefit of many over two millennia.
The words that circulate in my agape mind and body like a swirling energy trapped in an ornate Egyptian sarcophagus need to be radiated outward, and yet the minute they are released into the void they inhabit these claustrophobic letters, numbers, and symbols of conventional enscriptions. They don’t even begin to encompass the golden glow resonating so dutifully inside the incubating womb. These words do emerge and with it they envelope the sensations of something that is… There. But trite as they are and as grueling as I might, the orb of truth and meaning is not enraptured in these texts.
Maybe in a different language, maybe in a different world, maybe in a different sense, but here and now … NO… to my chagrin… I’ll still try to convert these energies into understandable diagrams so others can hear me through my skin. In words their brain eats and letters their nerves can digest.
Individually Free
Because I am free
I mind my own
Self
In the dew of auroral mornings
To the crepuscular waning of the day’s sun
I am free
To not have my choices determined for me
I am free
to walk across the stage
I am free
To gallantly traipse into arenas
I am free
To implode my deepest thankfulness
Into a tethered notebook
Reaching from my heart
It beats
The beat
As it is free to do so
I am free
To run in the day or at night
Or in the afternoon
I am free
To do as I shall
and be as I can
I am absolved-ly
Free.
Why I Chose to Live at Home after College or Why I am Still Sleeping in the Same Room.
I’m lucky! No, really, I went to a Tarot Card reader and my cards read that I am lucky. See? This is one lucky girl…
Okay, okay, really…
I’m living at home. I’ve been living in the same room I grew up in for the past… six years. In a way, I do embrace my luck because I have wonderful parents who have graciously allowed me to live at home again! Thankfully, we’re in the same house too! How awesome? Some of my fellow high school friends have moved far, far away from our hometown… never to return again. This is a beautiful city to raise a family. But for the early- to mid- to late 20-somethings… this place is SOOOO BORING!
What was that you said about luck?
I am still living at home, and for those of you who can relate. I tip my hat off to you.
When I first moved home from four years of glorious freedom and self development, something new happened that had never happened to me before. I woke up one morning and saw that my mouth was bleeding. Wa Wa Say WHAT?! My gums were actually bleeding and I could taste the metallic iron all up in my oral cavity. I’ve been lucky (hey there’s that word again) to have decent enough teeth where I never needed braces and hadn’t even had a cavity yet. BUT BLOOD???
I was grinding and clenching my teeth at night so hard that all four of my first molars cracked and my gum muscles were working out for eight straight hours a night. No wonder I had constant headaches and my jaw hurt every morning.
So… this was new!
It was stress, look, it’s stressful to come home after you’ve began developing into your independent self. And I wanted OUT now!
But, six years later, here I am!
Why?
Six Reasons I Am Still at Home (and it’s okay!):
1. I really am saving money and stymying the black hole of debt I created. I have a couple of pretty cool parents who are okay with me living at home as long as I keep the career momentum going. I’ve found some odd jobs and some really beneficial jobs and have been able to save a nice stockpile of money while I pay loans and car insurance, among groceries, dry cleaning, cell phone… I’ll stop there although the list seems to expand like a quadratic.
2. I help my parents with finances and errands. My parents both work full time jobs. My schedule as a graduate school student is a little more lax than theirs. My hours are not 8-5, they’re more like 10-10, nevertheless I can do much of my work from home which gives me the lovely ability to intermingle my day with work-laundry- work- dishes- work- grocery shopping- work- make dinner.
3. I embrace any negative things from my past. I mean, I am literally living IN the past. I see it, (re) live it momentarily, and GET IT ALL OVER WITH! Growing up while admitting past deficits is wholesomely therapeutic.
4. I am finding new niches in my hometown… and beyond. This place is much cooler now, and crazier… but that’s all part of this region. Where else can you catch cannibalism at it’s finest? Are those two men picnicking? Is that a man tanning on the Miami highway? IS THAN MAN GIVING THE OTHER MAN CPR? Oh no, it’s just a local high on flakka nbd…
5. I am traveling more! My passport has never been stamped so many times! From Ecuador to Missouri and countries to visit on deck, now’s the time, eh?
6. I am humbled. I am seeing my parents in a new light. I don’t see them as these “uncool” rule makers who just “don’t understand me.” They are people, they were my age once and probably living a very different life than I am now (Vietnam War, disco era… oh yeah they weren’t living at home for sure!) I see the day in and day out begrudging work my parents put in to their days. Waking up early, coming home to robotically do dishes and laundry, I am truly seeing and appreciating all the years of WORK they put in to raising a family without complaining (out loud). When you come home after a day where customers are just up your butt and your boss is in your face, you start your second job at home. It’s humbling, to say the least. Family time is so amazing. The older I get, the more it is really sinking in that family is forever. I am so lucky (ding ding!) to live near the majority of my family in South Florida.
Maybe you can still be their little baby, but with direction and focus, less rampant hormones, and more respect. How proud they will be seeing you ‘adulting’ right under their roof! Plus, knowing them means knowing yourself better, too.
Bottom line: self adulations can commence- we’re doin fine! Soak it in and keep your mindset headstrong in ANY forward direction you WANT. Get your mind into it, let your heart swell around it, soon you’ll be looking back appreciating the time you spent reconnecting with your young self and once-so-uncool-now-incredible-parents and understand humility in a way only this experience can teach you. I really do see how lucky I am.
A View of My Own
