Sugarless Chocolate Milk?

Sorry I sort of fell off of the blogosphere (can I say that?  I think my blog might be too small...), we had two conventions in a row.  Granted I only attended one, but I did show my art in the other.  Maybe I'll write about them later, but I have a specific topic I've been itching to type out on my mind.

Today I want to write about thyroid health.  Specifically hypothyroidism - what I have - but I think that most of what I have to say could be applied to hyperthyroidism as well.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, I am only sharing my experience.

In the beginning of August I went for a physical, just to make sure everything was in working order.  I guess they do blood work now as a matter of course; maybe they've been doing blood work as a matter of course for a long time, but I'm not one to go to the doctor unless something is wrong and I can't seem to fix it so I'm a bit out of the loop.  At any rate my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) came back at 10.45 or something, over 10 is the main point.  That's pretty high.  In fact, the doctor at the practice I visit has set 10 as the medicating cut off meaning that anything 10 or over gets a prescription.
I found this out when I received my labs in the mail a few days after I had my blood drawn.  At the top of the results was a curt note to me saying, "Jennifer, you are hypothyroid and need to take supplements.  One a day. Dr. _____"
Of course I rebelled, after having a good cry over it and calling hubby.

When I find out there's something wrong with me I generally take to the interwebs.  What I found was a general consensus that TSH alone isn't an accurate test if you're looking to find the root cause.  It works perfectly if you're looking for an allopathic solution (is that an oxymoron?) but I am not, so I decided to try and treat with diet.  A month later my TSH was down to about 6 and I was told to come back in two months to test again to make sure I was actually helping it and the decrease wasn't some sort of fluke.

You should know that a couple of things influenced my decision to attempt treating with diet.  First, I recently had a baby and there is a thing called postpartum thyroiditis.  Mostly it manifests as hyperthyroidism first followed by a month or two of hypothyroidism.  The majority of women are euthyroid within three months of being hypothyroid, some women need lifelong medication.  Second, I can be a stubborn little shit and I am pretty well like an ox about not putting chemicals into my body anymore.  It gets ridiculous sometimes, but that's another story.

So what am I doing?
I am essentially being paleo.  I am avoiding gluten, soy and white sugar like the plague and there is a list of veggies and fruits that are goitrogenic (meaning they promote thyroid inflammation/suppress normal thyroid function).  The list is as follows:

• cruciferous veggies which include broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussles sprouts, etc.
• peaches
• pears
• strawberries
• peanuts

I'm sure there are more, but those are the specific ones I'm avoiding.
I'm also steering clear of caffeine and alcohol.

I drink a glass of lemon water every day.  I'm not sure of the science behind this, but it seems to help.
I eat a spoonful of organic coconut oil (extra virgin) every couple of hours.  I think I'm taking close to 1/4 cup a day because I also put it into my hot drinks and cook with it.  I can't tell you how much this is helping.  If I start to feel icky, I'll take a spoonful and 20 minutes or so later I'm feeling normal again.
I eat a lot of yoghurt (Icelandic cream-Skyr which I make myself because otherwise I would break bank eating as much as I do) and cottage cheese with berries and ground flax seed.
I'm taking a women's multi (one-a-day) and an occasional cod liver oil depending on how much fish I consume that week.  I was taking a thyroid strength, but my body decided against that after a week or two.  I'm going to try an adrenal support supplement and see how that goes, I'll let you know.

To sum it up, these are the most important things I've found to do:

1. Do not eat gluten.  I felt it needed to be bold because holy crap gluten is so mean to your thyroid.
2. No refined sugar.  Again, sugar is evil.  I sneak in some maple syrup once in a while (the real stuff) and I seem to do fine, but granulated sugar is a no-no.
3. Try to avoid fluoridated water.  Seriously.
4. Try to avoid goitrogens when possible.  I read that the food loses some of it's goitrogenic properties on being cooked, but I've still been moderating my consumption.
5. Eat lots of good fats, like coconut oil.  Lots of coconut oil.  I mean it.
6. Probiotics are your friend (p.s. Goodbelly, you suck for adding gluten to your drinks)
7. Try supplements or, barring vitamins, add salt to your food.  Just in case of iodine deficiency.
8. Omega-3 is awesome, eat it somehow (flax, eggs, fish, supplements)
9. Brown rice wins over white rice.  Always

Things I've learned while being stubborn about dietary restrictions:

1. Food tastes awesome without sugar.  I've made a totally paleo cobbler a couple times now and it's amazing.
2. Coconut butter is a thing and you should try it.
3. I feel the difference when I eat gluten.  Not just wheat, I can't eat oatmeal unless it's specifically gluten free now...

A lot of people would say that my diet is crazy, that I'm depriving myself somehow.  I don't feel deprived.  I love dessert and I still eat it regularly, just sans sugar and most grains which does not make it any less tasty or satisfying.  In fact, dessert without processed sugars is more satisfying.  I'll share some recipes in a few days.


I'm going to leave off with a recipe I just discovered for sugarless chocolate milk.  I drink this before bed sometimes and it's amazing!

6 oz whole milk (I use organic, non-homogenized)
1 spoon coconut oil
2 spoons cocoa powder

pour ingredients into a blender and blend for 15-30 seconds.  Pour and enjoy.
This creates an interesting froth on top which is also delicious.  This is for a pretty dark chocolate milk, the measurements aren't exact, just make it how you like!

A Guide to Soaking Nuts.

I started with soaking almonds.  I looked up how to soak them in my Nourishing Traditions book and followed the recipe.  Then I got pecans, and it's a good thing I checked the book first, because I totally assumed that soaking almonds and pecans would work the exact same way.  But it doesn't, oddly enough.

So here is a guide to soaking different nuts!
It should be noted that all of these are for soaking raw nuts.

Pecans
4 cups pecan halves
2 teaspoons sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

Walnuts
4 cups walnut halves/pieces
2 teaspoons sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.
Store in your refrigerator.

Peanuts/Pine Nuts/Hazelnuts
4 cups peanuts, pine nuts, or skinless hazelnuts
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

To peel hazelnuts, place on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees until skins turn dark and begin to crack.  Place in a kitchen towel, wrap tightly andrub and squeeze the bundle in your hands.
Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

 Almonds
4 cups almonds, preferably skinless
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

Cashews
4 cups cashews
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for no longer than 6 hours.
Dry in a 200-250 degree oven for 12-24 hours.

Cashews have such a short soaking time because they contain a toxic oil called cardol between the inner and outer shell.  Before the nuts hit the shelves of your market they are cracked and roasted at 350 degrees twice.  After they have been roasted twice they are marketed as "raw."  Because they are not truly raw, soaking them longer than 6 hours produces a slimy nut with a rather disagreeable taste according to Nourishing Traditions.

Macadamia Nuts
4 cups macadamia nuts

1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

~~~

The reason walnuts are the only nuts that need to be stored in the refrigerator is because almonds, pecans, cashews, macadamia nuts, and peanuts have a high content of stable oleic acid.  This means that they do not go rancid easily, and once prepared (soaking/dehydrating) they can be stored for a number of months at room temperature in an airtight container.  Walnuts, unlike the other nuts, contain large amounts of triple unsaturated linolenic acid and will go rancid much easier.

So there you have it.  That is a list of all of the nuts included in the Nourishing Traditions book.

Happy soaking!

Almonds Everywhere!

Sprouts recently had a bulk almond sale for $3.99 a pound of raw nuts.  I jumped on it, before I learned that you should buy refrigerated nuts because the natural oils can go rancid quite fast and who knows how long anything has been sitting out in the bulk section of your grocery store.  I'm not sure yet if the cheap side of me will win this one; I may continue to buy bulk nuts that are on sale in favor of refrigerated nuts simply because of the price difference.

At any rate, the almond sale means I've been making a lot of things using almonds.

I made almond milk last week that was delicious.  I turned it into an awesome tapioca pudding (I love tapioca pudding!).  I also ate some cereal with it, because sometimes convenience wins - I should just stop buying cereal altogether at this point.

I made almond meal/flour with the ground nuts leftover from the milk making process.  To do that, all you need is an oven or dehydrator to dry out the nut meal.  Once it's dry, if you want a finer texture toss it into a blender or food processor for a minute or so, depending on how fine a texture you're looking for.
I mentioned in my last post that I was going to try making flour-less brownies with it, but what I ended up making was a batch of thumbprint cookies.  They turned out deliciously, I'll definitely be making them again.

I also made a batch of almond butter with the extra 3 cups of nuts leftover from soaking for the milk.  All you need to make almond butter is a food processor and some patience.  I might play around with adding things like cacao powder for a chocolate butter, or honey or something, but you really don't need to add anything.  The only thing you should be sure of is that your nuts are properly dried after soaking.

After making my own almond butter I've decided that I'm never buying nut butter from the store again.  It's so easy to just make your own, and it tastes a ton better.

Actually, all this writing about almond butter is making me crave it.  I'm gonna go have some.

...and in the mornin' I'm makin' WAFFLES!

 Today is post 100!  Woot!

Today I want to share a recipe I discovered recently for super delicious waffles.  I might play around with the flour combinations a bit - I've been playing with pancake combos like wheat, buckwheat, and corn flour (which turned out awesomely).  I'll share some pancakes with you next week.

Lately I've been really into soaking things.  I even tried soaking popcorn.  I've also been really into pairing things with fruits high in vitamin C, especially for breakfast.  So here is an awesome waffle recipe I came up with:

Soaked Strawberry Almond Waffles

1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 Tbs whey
1 3/4 cups filtered water
1/2 cup cooking oil
chopped, soaked (not dried) almonds
diced strawberries

Combine the flour, whey, and water in a bowl.  Cover and let sit overnight.  In the morning, whisk mixture until smooth, add eggs, baking powder, salt and cooking oil, mixing until combined.  Fold in chopped almonds and diced strawberries to taste.
I used almonds that were soaked but not dried and I found that the waffle maker cooks them just right so you have crunchy nut bits in your waffles.  I've used dried soaked almonds as well, and that's good too, but I like the texture the wet ones give to the waffles much better.

To soak the almonds:

4 cups almonds
1 Tbs salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and let sit overnight.  Drain and rinse in the morning.

With the remaining almonds (because there's no way you can fit 4 cups of almonds in your waffle batter) you can make almond milk, or you can dry them in a warm oven for 12-24 hours for snacking awesomeness or to make almond butter.  Or you can do both!

To make almond milk:

1 cup soaked almonds (not dried)
4 cups filtered water
cheesecloth, nut-milk bag, or thin material for straining

Put the almonds and 2 cups of water into a blender (or all 4 if your blender is huge) and blend until smooth (I gave it 5 minutes just for good measure).  Pour the almond mixture and extra water into a bowl lined with a straining cloth.  Squeeze as much liquid out of the pulp as you possibly can.  Enjoy.

Supposedly you can use the pulp for baking after you dry it thoroughly, and I'll be giving that a shot because I'm weird about throwing edible things away.  I'll let you know how that turns out - I'm going to try to make flour-less brownies with it.

Adventures in Soaking Breakfast Cereals

When I say breakfast cereals I mean hot cereals; I've gotten to the point that I forget about cold cereal as an option.  I wish I could say the reason for this is because I know that cold cereals are bad for me, but the actual reason is that I can't have milk on account of the little one's tummy disagreeing with it.

Why soak grains?
I could explain it to you, but Dyno-mom has a wonderful, detailed post about it that says it better than I think I could say it.  Also, I'm feeling lazy today.

The above linked post also explains how to soak your grains properly.

How I soak my breakfast cereals:
I like love hot cereal.  During the last trimester of pregnancy, all I wanted to eat was malt-o-meal.  I knew it probably wasn't the best, but I couldn't get enough of the deliciously creamy, comforting goodness.  I was eating double servings sometimes twice a day (midnight snacks, if I felt inclined).  After having the little one, my cravings for it dropped, but didn't discontinue altogether.  The difference was that now I was somehow more conscious of buying a higher quality version of malt-o-meal which I perceived to be low quality because it's produced by a ginormo corporation.
I decided that Bob's Red Mill (BRM) was a better company for me to support.  Mainly because some of their cereals are USDA organic, and for some reason I trust this company to not be using GMOs.
Anyway, thus began my search for a BRM equivalent to malt-o-meal.  What I found is called wheat farina, or creamy wheat.  Not exactly the same, but delicious nonetheless.  Then I tried oat bran (which I originally purchased with the dumb idea that oatnut bread required it - before I actually looked for a recipe) and that was delicious.  Then came rice farina, or creamy rice, in an attempt to lower my gluten intake.
I never soaked the oat bran.

The wheat farina soaks nicely with whey, but I found I had to tinker with the amount of water I used.
The rice farina is super delicious soaked with whey, but again, I had to tinker with the water.
The proper way to prepare these cereals is by boiling the water and then slowly adding the cereal to the boiling water.  Somehow they turn out a lot thicker that way than if you soak them in warm water overnight, bring to a boil and then simmer.
The wheat farina needed considerably less water while the rice farina only needed about 1/4 cup less.  I never got around to fine-tuning the wheat farina because hubby and I are trying to cut down our grain consumption and I ran out of wheat farina after soaking it once.  Maybe some other day.

A double portion (what I eat) calls for a 1/2 cup of rice farina to 1 and 1/2 cup water.  So, that means I put the 1/2 cup of cereal into the bowl, mix with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of whey (or acid of some other kind, like lemon juice) and then pour in 1 and 1/4 cup warm water.  I generally do this around 7 p.m. the day before, so the cereal soaks roughly 12 hours.

I've been soaking my oats for some time now.  I usually use lemon juice for them, but whey works very nicely also.
 If you soak with lemon juice, be prepared to use a lot of honey or some other sweetener or spice.  Unless you like the bitter flavor the lemon gives to whatever it is you're soaking.
I tried soaking with apple cider vinegar once, but once was enough for me to decide that vinegar was not a good match for my taste-buds.

What is whey?
I didn't know what whey was for a long time, which is why I soaked my oats with lemon juice.  I got this idea that I would walk into Vitamin Cottage and ask, because they're a health store, they should know, right?  Well, the guy I asked looked confused and said, "you mean whey protein isolate?"  To which I said, "no, I mean whey..."  So he didn't know either.  Consulting the mighty google wasn't terribly helpful as the results I got all had to do with the protein powder as well.
Finally I discovered from my mother-in-law exactly what whey is, and how to get it.  I'm not sure why I didn't ask my sister-in-law or Dyno-mom.
Whey is the clear liquid that collects on the top of things like yoghurt and sour cream.  Also, had I actually searched the right combination of words, I would have found this page.

WAPF Pie

With the holidays here I wanted to bake pie.  I had ten mason jars full of puree (from two pumpkins!) so I thought I'd make pumpkin pie.
I've never made pumpkin pie before, so I consulted my Nourishing Traditions book.  I love the crust recipe; the filling was...interesting...so I modified it so that it would have more of the traditional pumpkin pie flavor I like so much.

The first time I made the filling I just used my mixer.  This produced slightly lumpy pie, almost like I put apple pieces in it.  Not only that, but the recipe calls for grated lemon rind, so the pie tasted something like a lemon creme pie with pumpkin.  Maybe I used a lemon that was too large, but the next time around I skipped the lemon.

The second time I made the filling I ran it through my blender after mixing it together.  This pie came out much smoother and overall more pleasant to eat.  In addition to omitting the lemon I tweaked the spices which produced a better flavor.

The third time I made the pie I ran the liquid through my blender before adding the pumpkin and then ran the blender a bit more.  I also tweaked the spices further.  The result was pretty awesome I think.  I didn't have an actual slice of this pie because I took it to my friend who just had a baby boy (yay!) but I baked some of the filling in a ramekin to make sure it tasted okay.

So here's the crust recipe.  The only modifications are the partial substitution of whole wheat flour for the white and the removal of Stevia powder:

1 cup unbleached white flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) frozen butter
2 egg yolks
3 rounded tablespoons cold water

Stir flour and salt into a food processor.  Cut the butter into about 16 pieces and distribute over flour.  Pulse the processor until the butter is broken into pea-sized pieces and is well distributed.  Beat the egg yolks briefly with a fork and dribble over the flour mixture.  Pulse once or twice (maybe three times for good measure).  Turn on the processor and pour water in, stop the processor "at once."  The butter should still be visible in pea-sized pieces.  Turn the crust onto wax paper, wrap up and squeeze (not hard, wax paper tends to split open), forming a ball.  Refrigerate for several hours.
Roll on a floured sheet of wax paper.

For your viewing pleasure:

 This really does work, by the way.  And I found that it was amazingly entertaining to do.  Now I just have to keep a plastic bottle around.

Pumpkin Pie Filling (my modified recipe)

15 ounces pumpkin
3 eggs
90 ml dark brown sugar (1/4 and 1/8 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup piima cream or creme fraiche
2 tablespoons brandy

Oven: 350°

Line a pie pan with the crust above.  Cream eggs and sugar, gradually adding everything except the pumpkin.  Blend.  Add pumpkin and blend a bit more.  Pour into the pie shell and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

If you want a sweeter pie, go ahead and just use 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar (or Rapadura is what the original recipe calls for).  I always halve the amount of sugar a baking recipe calls for.

Also, cream fraiche is like french sour cream.  I like it better than sour cream, myself.  You can find it at Sprouts, or a health food store in your area.

~~~

Okay, so this is me coming up with grandiose plans that most likely will not happen but I'm going to give it my best shot.  I'm going to try and make one recipe from the Nourishing Traditions book a day - or at least one a week.  This is a massive project, but I'm really trying to commit to eating better and I think this might be a good way to start.

Anyway, I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving filled with good cheer and merriment and such!

Midori Days.

Pumpkins grow in trees!

I'm learning about gardening.  This is my second summer in this house, but last summer I was busy with improvements like refinishing floors and repainting stuff.  There will be no refinishing of floors this summer, not while I'm preggo.  So I'm turning my attention to the outside of the house.

My parents made an excellently large bed for gardening when they were here and the soil is pretty well taken care of.  This I know because we had volunteer pumpkins last summer (two plants) and sooo many pumpkins in the autumn.  The vine on the largest plant even grew up the fence and into our backyard neighbor's tree!  If you look at the picture you can see the little green pumpkin hangin out in there.  He never did get ripe; too much shade.

At any rate, I'm learning that I very much enjoy gardening.  Digging around in the dirt is pretty awesome; I think everyone should do it.
I get ridiculously excited any time I plant something too.  Ask hubby.  I'm sure he'll be tired of me asking him to come look at the new plant I put in the ground when gets home from work, if he's not already.  I had him look at the rosemary when I put it in a larger pot outside, and he came and looked at the baby blueberry bush that is now sitting between the corner of our house and the pine tree.  I don't know why I get so happy over it, and I feel foolish telling him to come look at it, because it's really not impressive, but I can't help myself.
I suppose it's because this is a new thing for me, and I'm not confident in my abilities yet.  So every time I do something properly I feel good about it and want to share my excitement with others.  Particularly with plants and gardening, because this is life I'm trying to take care of, it's kind of a big deal to me.  Which is to say that if my blueberry bush dies I will be very sad about it.  Same for the rosemary.
I get attached to things too easily I think.

At any rate, I'm very excited about gardening.  It's a lot of work, but I enjoy most of it, and the rest is worth doing for the results.  I'll let you know what I plan to plant, other than what I purchased already.  I have this crazy thought of planting purple dragon carrots.  I think I've romanticized them somehow.


p.s. if you're wondering about the title "midori" is Japanese for green.  It's also a reference to a bizarrely cute anime.  Not to mention a particularly delicious melon flavored liquor.

Not so New Ideas.

Their aim is, as far as possible, to use nothing which is the product of the factory system or of modern industry in general; for they think these things so iniquitous that every one is more or less party to a crime in using them. . . .  There is certainly something attractive about the idea of living as far as may be on the produce of the land about you: to see in every walk the pastures where your mutton grazed when it was sheep, the garden where your vegetables grew, the mill where your flour was ground, and the workshop where your chairs were sawn - and to feel that bit of country actually and literally in your veins.
Tolkien once remarked to me that the feeling about home must have been quite different in the days when a family had fed on the produce of the same few miles of country for six generations, and that perhaps this was why they saw nymphs in the fountains and dryads in the wood - they were not mistaken for there was in a sense a real (not metaphorical) connection between them and the countryside.  What had been earth and air & later corn, and later still bread, really was in them.  We of course who live on a standard international diet (you may have had Canadian flour, English meat, Scotch oatmeal, African oranges, & Australian wine to day) are really artificial beings and have no connection (save the sentiment) with any place on earth.  We are synthetic men, uprooted.  The strength of the hills is not ours.

-C.S. Lewis

(found in) Joseph Pearce, C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church p81-2

(original source) Walter Hooper, ed, C.S. Lewis: Collected Letters I908-9

I finished this book (C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church by Joseph Pearce) which was the previous month's book club book - I'm a  bit behind - today at work.  I marked the above quote yesterday as I hit a little past the halfway point before having to close up shop: I generally read only at work unless something is so riveting that I cannot put it down, but the thought of having nothing to occupy myself with during the lulls (which are pretty much all the time at my job) the next day usually deters me from doing so.  I had marked it because it struck a chord with me; I agree with Lewis in his calling us "synthetic men."  I think that we've done more harm than we may realize by disconnecting ourselves from the land immediately surrounding us.

This is not to say that I think we should pitch the idea of urban living in favor of the farming life.  That would be impossible.  The amount of land we'd need for such an endeavor would be (in my mind) staggering for the number of people that inhabit the States alone.  Instead, we might try and make a compromise with the limitations of society and farm a decent size patch of back yard. Barring that, purchase as much as you can from local growers.  The farming life may no longer be feasible for the majority of us, but this does not mean we should disregard it as obsolete; without farms, where would we get our food?

What I am saying is that I think it's an enriching choice for body and mind to grow your own produce and/or buy from local farmers.

Also, it was - as stupid as this is going to sound - enlightening, in a sense, to realize that people have been rejecting industrial farming for a very long time.  Most likely from it's conception.

I know that this, being a new idea to me, is not a new idea to others; it was just refreshing to know that it goes farther back than had occurred to me.

As a side note: do read this book if you are at all interested in C.S. Lewis.  It was a fantastic read.

~~~

Good news!

I fixed my desktop computer.  What was wrong was a double whammy: I needed to flash the BIOS (update to the latest version) which turned out to be more complicated than it should have been because for whatever reason my computer refused to detect my flash drive.  I ended up connecting two freshly formatted FAT32 (standard format for flash drives, in case you were wondering) drives to the back two ports of the computer.  When that failed, I loaded the fail-safe BIOS and then the optimized BIOS (one after the other) immediately before entering the Q-flash utility.  Magically this worked (after trying five other times to get the darn things to show up) and my BIOS was successfully flashed...to no avail: I was still getting the "Main BIOS Checksum Error" dialogue instead of the operating system.  So, for giggles, I took a stick of RAM out - I had previously done this in hopes it was an easy fix with no result - and viola!  My computer turned on.

So there you have it, random BIOS failure and random RAM failure rolled into one.

My new 4GB RAM stick is on it's way; it's lame to try and World of Warcraft it up with only 4GB of RAM.  I'll happily take 8GB or more, thankyouverymuch.

Honey Bees and Projection Screens.

Bee Love (redbud tree)

Hubby and I went to Grand Junction for Easter weekend and it was pretty awesome to be out of town.  The weather was beautiful (it was also beautiful in Denver) and we spent some time driving around doing various things.  On Saturday the honey bees found the tree in the front of my parents yard.  Their tree is very similar to the one pictured, but has slightly darker blossoms.  The honey bees love it; they were working from late morning to early evening collecting goodies to take back to their hive.  There were so many of them!  Almost the entire top of the tree was covered in honey bees with about three to four blossoms between each of them.  And the sound.  The sound they made was amazing.  All of those bees working on a single tree created a fantastic hum.  You could hear it form inside the screen door, but if you walked outside it was much louder, and much cooler.  It was an experience, to say the least.

At any rate, today I'm writing about projecting yourself onto others: what I was supposed to write about yesterday, had I not been up at three in the morning.

How many times have you caught yourself expecting others to behave the way you behave?  If you're a parent, your answer is most likely higher than those of us without children.
I catch myself doing this a lot.  I mean, a lot.  I slip into the foolish expectation that someone else will treat me the way I would treat them, or have habits similar to mine.  This is easy to do with a lot of things.  I forget that world view is different for everyone.  Sometimes I think, "well it was easy for me, it'll be easy for you."
I feel like this is an error that a lot of people make.  And I do try to correct myself, though sometimes it's quite a long time after the fact that I realize that's what I was doing.
The mistake of projecting something onto another person is simple to make, and it's hard to understand that this is what's happening in a multitude of situations.  The problem is the difficulty level of thinking like someone else.  Thinking like someone else is next to impossible for most people because you can't turn off the you in your brain (at least I can't).  It's extremely difficult not to perceive something with your own special bias (I'm not using this word negatively here).  Because of this we come upon the fallacy of Relativism. In some respects this theory is true, and in some respects it is false; like anything else, it cannot be blanketed over everything the way people seem to want to use it.

People also project onto animals.
This is why you see dogs that are ill-trained, or animal hoarders.  Someone has projected their emotional distress in some form onto the animal present, and the result is sometimes disastrous.  This is true of projecting onto other people as well.

I'm not saying projecting yourself onto someone else is particularly a terrible thing; what I'm saying is that it can cause problems.

The most frequent example I have of this in myself is my lack of understanding for others misunderstanding.  It is so clear to me why I joined Catholicism and why I'm preparing to embark upon the journey into WAPF, it should also be clear to you, the person I am speaking with.
But it is not always so clear to everyone else.  And in my limitations I get frustrated with those who refuse to even acknowledge that perhaps my choices are right, though different from theirs (I am also guilty of not understanding someone's choice, but I try to be nice about it).  In my frustration I find my articulation suffers and I become somewhat stubborn, sometimes very stubborn.  In the end (if the discussion is particularly irritating) I wonder, "why can't they just see my side of things?"  But who's to say they're not thinking the exact same thing about me?
I have my reasons and I try to explain them, but I rely a lot on the assumption that since they were logical to me, they will be logical to someone else.
The common error of projecting my logic process onto the person I'm speaking with.

It's also irritating to realize that someone else has been making assumptions about you based on their own emotional baggage.  The kind of assumptions that are totally out of left field and really don't make any sense if they actually knew you (or were actually observant).
The "up" side is called rose colored glasses and is a term applied to people who are blindly in love with someone, or just intentionally ignoring their faults.  The "down" side doesn't have a name to the best of my knowledge - I might call it seeing red or something similar - and is the opposite end of the spectrum where someone refuses to see any good qualities in someone.

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I'm sorry for the lack of activity last week.  I'm trying to write when possible, but this eye strain is really kicking my ass.  I should make an eye appointment but I can't do that until after September, when I'm not a pregnant lady any more.  At least that's what they tell me.
Until then I'm going to make my best effort to obtain Hubby's glasses so I can sit and stare at the screen for a while.  The difficult part is he doesn't get home from work until around 7:30 p.m., then we eat dinner, then I'm tired and I want to go to bed so I can get up at 5:30 a.m. the next day to work for 9 hours.  It's a viscous cycle, but I don't think I'd change it.  I'll just have to try and work around it.
And try I shall!
I apologize for the potentially sporadic updates that may follow.

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I leave you with this.  Enjoy.