Full Day, Full Log, Full Plant-Based Living: Death & Dying, Spooky Music, PT Approved Exercises, and Zero-Waste Tips
There’s a repetition of love and movement over here: create something artistic every day, craft foods that will nourish the body/mind of the ones I love, soak up time with those souls, learn something new, keep the body active for best health, and appreciate the present.
Not only are these lifestyle medicine pillars important for personal health, they are imperative to model for Q so that when we’re gone he has a framework for how to be his kindest, healthiest self. Kiddos see all and absorb all that we do, and a “do as I say, not as I do” mindset is harmful for all involved. Meditating on that last nugget is part of what propels me forward each day: I’m fully aware that Q has wide-eyes to absorb how we treat each other, how we nourish our bodies, how we keep those bodies moving, how we use our brains for growth/creativity, and how we embrace the precious resource of time/life.
That last part is big theme in this house. We are the sort of parents who unpack everything we can, and we are firmly committed to never lying to him (this is why this household doesn’t participate in the Santa myth), because Q is the sort of kiddo who appreciates scientific explanation. As such, he’s understood life cycles for longer than I can remember (he’s 5) and this helps with explaining any reproductive questions that come our way, helpful for explaining why we need to eat well and keep active, and it is also super handy for anything surrounding death. He has a clear head for the fact that time is finite, everything eventually dies, and you need to embrace what is present while you can. That mindset helped him dearly when our 15yr old cat Malaprop grew sick enough that she needed to be euthanized. Q insisted on being present, “because when we leave our bodies, we should be with the people we love and know how much we meant to them. I love Malaprop and she loves me, so I should be there for her when she dies so she can feel that love.”
I illuminate this background, because his macabre bent may seem off-putting and dark (like yesterday’s ghost drawings) if you don’t know what’s going on in that Bear’s brain. He comes by his love for all things spooky naturally (his father revels in this genre and spends his evenings writing a gothic horror novel), but his appreciation for where that realm falls within reality is a carefully cultivated mindset. :-)
Continue reading if you want some illumination on: love & spook-filled art (and the music that inspires it), a family thriving on growth & lifestyle medicine, how a limited screen-time house still incorporates love of cinema, a day’s worth of plant-based whole-food family feasting, ways to cook as zero waste as possible, a family working on the first stumbling steps of incorporating daily fitness (with a video of a Physical Therapist explaining/showing some safe core workouts), and the simplicity of making zero-waste/plant-based/whole-food popcorn on the stove.
The daily drawing for Q was inspired by his love of Dead Man’s Bones, their song “In the Room Where You Sleep”, and his previous day Barber drawing.
Ian discovered Dead Man’s Bones and brought it into our musical brain space in 2009. It’s Ryan Gosling (yep, that Ryan Gosling) and Zach Shields. Musically, this duo would fall somewhere in the realm of rock, but the background is a children’s choir, and their one-and-only concept album is super macabre: it’s about ghosts, it sounds like you’re in a haunted house dance party, and there’s a song titled “Dead Man’s Bones” with a lyric like:
You should know,
What's really going down, below.
Dressed in their best clothes,
There are rows & rows & rows,
Of dead man's bones!
I'm talkin' 'bout dead man's bones!
Wherever you go,
Take a look at your feet,
& Down six feet deep
There's dead man's bones!
Bones! Bones! Bones, bones, bones, bones!
The album is a spooky, fun delight and it has been a favorite of Quill’s since he entered the scene. You’d think the uptempo ones like “Pa Pa Power”, “Dead Man’s Bones”, or “Lose Your Soul” would be the kiddo fave, but his dearest is “In the Room Where You Sleep”. He loves it enough to request it out of the blue and says, “It gives me shivers, but in a good way.”
With a lyrics like these, I can understand why!
I saw something
Sitting on your bed
I saw something
Touching your head
In the room
Where you sleep
So, inspired by that song and his love of tentacles, he got a ghost octopus lovingly sweeping back his hair. The received beam and “THANK YOU, MAMA!” was good for the heart. <3
Plant-Based Whole-Food Budget Saving Tip: buy dried beans. You will save so much money and waste! Beans are better for your body and better for the environment, their only “downside” is that you’ll have to plan the time to rehydrate them.
If I’m rehydrating beans, I’ll start it first thing in the morning (like these sweet garbanzos), cover them with water, bring them to a boil for 3 minutes, and then let them rest through the day. (We’ll get back to these guys later.)
Participation in making your meals creates more joy in consuming them.
Q loves preparing his breakfast to the point where I’m learning to move aside, because he has a vision he’s going for and my fingers end up in the way. He also likes to control how much flax he gets (he always errs higher than I’d guess because he thinks they taste like candy) and where it is sprinkled.
By letting him take control, I get to see him feel pride for simple crafting and then go off to feast healthfully.
Plant-Based Kiddo Breakfast crafted by Q": peaches, 1tb peanut butter, golden flax, and pink lady apple slices.
Q’s daily post-breakfast art.
David Barber’s Daily Drawing (right): “It’s the pit of Carkoon, and that’s a Sarlacc, and that’s Boba Fett on Jaba’s barge.”
Aria Drawing: Q met Aria when they were fresh three-year-olds starting their Montessori journey. They were fast friends and kindred souls, and there are often slips of Aria art through the week (he took a whole album of flower photos for her earlier in the week). This one is, “a flower holding up a sign to show her how much I love her, and also a bee that I’m about to give some nectar to.”
I spent the morning writing, Q and Ian spent the morning on schoolwork, and then we joined Q’s Pre-K class for their first Zoom meeting. It was sweet chaos and good for the heart. <3
The jangly brain rattle that this is peer-socialization for a preschooler in 2020.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: oil-free refried black beans, black rice, orange bell pepper, quick-pickled cabbage, easy avocado.
We eat nightly meals at the dining room table (same one kicking around since my father’s childhood), but Q and I eat our lunches in the living room. We get 30 minutes to watch something together and this can range from an array of PBS offerings, documentaries, science shows, spooky delights he’s digging (that I can then be present to unpack/explain), or sometimes childhood favorite movies that he may enjoy. If it is longer than 30 minutes, it just gets broken up over several days. I cherish these lunches, because it’s the rare time we get to watch something together, and then subsequently discuss what we watched and why we did so.
The rest of our days are always focused on tasks, crafting (art, food, etc), or movement; and Ian and I firmly believe that if we are working on something, Q should be present to see what it is and not planted in front of a TV. If that was the status quo, he’d think that’s how life goes: you sit back and zap into a TV and the rest of humanity does all the work to support you. [This is why you’ll see him helping me in the kitchen and with us while we work on yardwork.]
I show this because y’all may assume our limited screen-time approach (no tablets, phone usage for this kiddo) mean that he’s completely deprived of screens. His father loves cinema studies and film arts, and I was raised with a mother who LOVED movies and showed us all sorts with the backstories sprinkled in, so the cinema zeal in this family comes out: it just does so through careful and purposeful lens.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: banana, drizzle of peanut butter, flax meal, and cacao powder.
Every year we unearth these stones from the previous year’s ivy and grass growth (see far left), and this year Ian did so through spitting snow.
Ian spent the afternoon cutting back the ivy that likes to swallow up (and further ruin) our already crumbling fence, and Q and I joined him to help bag up the compost.
We’ve been losing a lot of plants to either the groundhog or the skunk living under the shop. This used to be an asparagus plant. Momentarily frustrating.
While Ian finished work outside, Q came in to help me with dinner prep.
Oh hey, there’s those beans again. :-) After they’ve sat around for 8 hours, bring them to a boil one more time and then jar them. They’ll be ready to use immediately or you can store them in the fridge. You’ve just created two quarts worth of protein to fuel you kindly through a week.
Speaking of kind proteins, Ian spotted these at Wegman’s on his last visit and wanted to give them a try. Every Beyond product I have tried tastes amazing, and they are significantly kinder than the animal alternative (environmentally kinder and compassionately kinder to that animal), but they aren’t a whole-food so avoid eating them daily.
Absolute BEST part about these sausages (which turned out to be the tastiest breakfast sausage patty I’ve ever had) is that they are absolutely zero-waste!!! You can throw this paper wrapper in your compost or in your recycling bin.
Back to cooking: the plan was to use those breakfast sausages and have a “breakfast for dinner” night.
One of my favorite time/resource saving tips is to keep using the same pot as many times as you can through the day: don’t line up your sink with various dishes unless it is absolutely necessary.
I quickly cleaned that garbanzo bean pan and then brought it over to use with zero-waste blueberry oatmeal. We buy our oats from Bob’s Red Mill in a big cardboard bag, and these berry bags are resealable and perfect for storing other items in (or blueberries we’ll pick this summer and throw back into these bags).
Again: participation brings joy.
Fun oatmeal tip: there’s no need to bring that water to a boil and then add the oats. Start it all together and you’ll save time and resources (gas/electricity).
As seen, it still comes our perfectly.
Plant-Based Family Feasting: breakfast for dinner night.
Beyond Breakfast Sausages, blueberry oatmeal, bananas, a drizzle of peanut butter, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and a little oatmilk. Serviced with a side smoothie bursting with spirulina and berries.
Cleaned up, started a family movie while moving around to digest the food, and then headed upstairs for a family workout.
I’ve mentioned in the last few posts that we’re setting apart time to work out together as a family, and after doing some research into the stomach-ridge/bulge I wanted to fix, I discovered I had a very common condition named Diastasis Recti, and now I’m focusing on PT-approved exercises (ie NOT crunches) in a hope to heal the damage. This isn’t for vanity, but for the sake of fixing separation and sparing myself a hernia.
In my research, I discovered Dr. Jared Beckstrand and dowloaded some of his free guides and exercises, and will now be following a 21 plan. See below, if you’re interested in free illumination/guidance.
Photo by Q: working out together, even if on separate paths.
When Q isn’t snapping photos (to get out of working out :-D) he’s either mirroring me or Ian.
Last night was a special treat night: popcorn and a family movie.
Until this pandemic (when I found myself ordering stoneground bulk polenta from McEwen and Sons and subsequently bought some popcorn kernels), I had no idea that you could make popcorn on a stove and spare yourself the wasteful nonsense of a specialized popcorn machine or a plastic-lined bag that adds to the waste stream.
Oh hey, that’s also the same dish that held the beans and then the oatmeal. :-)
Interested in a recipe for this soon? It takes one pot, it’s fun to make/watch, it’s delicious, cheaper than bagged version, and you can season it to your heart’s delight.
My favorite way to end a day.
The day ended with learning, and clocked in at 13 hours and 20 minutes of busybody legwork, 40 minutes of accumulated cardio, and 60 scattered minutes of Diastasis Recti Exercises.
What goal was accomplished?
I intended to focus more time on research and application of core exercises, and was able to dedicate a full hour to these quick exercises through the day.
I wanted to get some sunlight with Q and Ian. It was spitting snow and cloudy, but we got some family time together outside while cleaning up our ivy patch.
Even though we had a long and active day, we still factored in some cardio family-time. (Q was able to work his weights while moving his feet for the duration of Fischerspooner’s 5+ min “Emerge”, and this was a big goal for him as he’s struggled to maintain weights for the length of a whole song. <3 )
Despite getting to bed later than usual, I still devoted time to reading/learning at the end of the day.
Path of personal growth for today:
continue with PT approved diastasis recti exercises
some sunlight time with Q and Ian
more reading
in-home Date Night
Below is another informational snippet from Undo It by Dr. Dean Ornish and Anne Ornish.
Want the energy to plow through a day? Want the sort of mindset that is full of all the purposeful things to do and not standstill lamenting? Want to reverse the damage we’re inflicting upon the global environment before it turns into runaway climate change? Want to save yourself from a increased risk of death, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes?
Step away from those animal products and start living your best life.
Live kindly, feast kindly, grow forward.
