Zoë's Blog

Running in the snow

It’s been 3 days that I sleep quite badly. The guys plowing the area are coming with their big truck at 3 AM to remove the snow and put salt in front of the door so that we are not slipping when we come out in the morning. That’s pretty annoying because I cannot go back to sleep directly after that…. The storm was strong during the first night with icy snow – or was it hail at some point? – falling from the sky and slapping the windows, that was noisy! But the snow didn’t stay much and we ended up having only 5 to 10 cm of a fine white blanket that still lasts.

The morning after the storm it was cold and windy and I didn’t want to go out for a run. But this morning it was sunny, the temperature increased up to -3 degrees Celcius so I decided to make it. That was fresh but not too cold, and the sun was rising up when I entered the trail. The path was completely virgin for a while until I saw some foot prints, well… I was not sure these were footprints at first: round prints in the snow and all spaced in line… very strange when compared to the footprints of the deer:

Until I could really see the footprints. I think the person came the day before, when the snow was still soft. In comparison, there was a layer of ice this morning, and even running with all my weight (and you don’t know yet how much I weigh!), I couldn’t break the layer easily. I was also wearing additional steel coils under my shoes to avoid slippering on the trail. Here are the footprints, as compared to mine.

Anyway, the 6km run was great, fresh, and kept me energized for the entire day!

PS. Did I mention that the pictures are not edited, at all?

Minimalism

I love the idea.

To rely on only few things, not be disturbed by too much stuffs around you, be able to live with the very strict minimum. It makes life easier for sure! Not to mention avoiding buying, wasting, belonging to this one-time-use society.

However, I am sure I can’t live in an empty environment. I need warmth, colors, textiles, memories. These are carpets bargained in Turquey as a student, bowls found as we moved from Barcelona, drawings made by my children, photos taken when traveling around the world, objects collected on the way, little boxes from my grandmother, cards from friends and family, well, you name it, mostly things that I didn’t bought in a shop.

In fact, owning less right now is not my priority. I wish I could get rid of creating new needs, I only want to “not own more”. So I’ll keep things, what keeps me warm, but I am also working on bying the strict necessary from now on. As I didn’t bring much with me from Singapore, I could basically refurnish an entire home, completely new… So I made few rules to myself: (i) try to live with what I brought, (ii) borrow or swap (I just registered to the local library last Saturday! And I am a member of the local swap facebook community),(iii) if I need one thing more than 5 times, then I’ll see how I can get it (a hand blender!), (iv) do it myself (shelves, posters, decoration), (v) purchase it in a second hand shop (furnitures, glassware, clothes), (vi) or I‘ll study the best deal – I am quite good at looking for ages before bying, so that’s ok.

I am glad I could post this thought. I surely feel better with my approach; I think I felt guilty not to adhere to minimalism, taking into account my anti-consumerism and my wish to save the world (oh lala, what for a task!).

Of course, like many of us I’ve got another big resolution: I will minimalize the shopping for Xmas! Lets see how I’ll manage, this may be another post…

Cooking

I have been cooking a bit every day recently. Our “cantine” was closed at Thanksgiving and I took the time to cook a bit more. With the local radio to listen to the news, or a bit of tango, the time goes fast and I have some dishes for the evenings. I also had few organic veggies found in the local bio-eco-grocery store that I needed to consume somehow. Parsnip, red cabbage, celery, carrots, tomatoes and scallions to name a few. So here are my inspirations of the last days:

Red cabbage in salad with shalots, raisins, and apple cubes, with red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sunflower and chia seeds, eaten together with green grapes,

Another red cabbage salad with shredded carrots, soja sauce and sesame oil, salt, pepper, lemon, and white sesame seeds (that was my mum’s recipe trial – very good),

A parsnips and carrots shredded salad with raisins, walnuts, lots of lemon juice, olive oil, a tiny bit of mayonnaise, salt, pepper, chia seeds, and orange,

Zucchini cooked on the pan with cumin, onions, garlic, salt and pepper,

Fried sweet potatoes with celery, capsicum, scalions and onions, cumin powder and chili powder,

Chick peas (put for 20h in water first) cooked on fried onions, carrots, celery, fresh tomatoe, garlic and ginger in a pan with salt, pepper, and chili powder.

And on the day of Thanksgiving, I made my first pizza… not bad at all! Tomatoe paste, salt, pepper, Provence herbs, red capsicum, white mushrooms, zucchini, fresh tomatoes, and….I just had a small extra with a bit of mozzarella – for a vegan that’s not planned but well, it was Thanksgiving, isn’t it?

Before the storm

Beside the 32 burpies, I also had a run today, the long run of the week. I run on Schooner Head trail then Park Loop Road until Monument Cove and back. It was very calm, quiet, the sun so bright that the temperature seemed not too cold (until I removed my gloves for more than 4 min!), the ocean calm, the sky clear, puddles frozen, it was like everything was suspended in time. Only the animals were walking around (yes, I saw 3 squirrels and one of them looked at me so long that I thought I had time to take a picture, but no.., next time maybe!). Unfortunately it was too cold outside to meditate!

December challenge

We decided, Fidel, Jules, Lea and myself, to engage on a challenge of doing 1000 burpies within 1 month, each of us. Which means that we will do 32 burpies per day, everyday, for 30 days, and 40 the last day. If you are not sure what a burpee is, here is the link of wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise)

And you are welcome to participate to our challenge!

By looking at the right definition I think we are actually doing a combination of the burpee push-up (also known as bastardo), and the jump-up burpee. A bit more demanding…. This is the burpee asked in the Spartan races when you failed in an obstacle. Here is the official demo from the Spartan website (https://youtu.be/uX1IfVFkm6s). I also learned that Mr. Royal Burpee invented it in 1940 during his PhD in applied physiology! Something important is that it is a full body exercise! Allez, lets’ go! Qui nous aime nous suive!*

*Who loves us follow us!, in French

Winter kit

A snow storm is announced to arrive between Sunday and Monday. I planned to attend a conference at 6h drive from here, but this was cancelled, because of the storm. I think I need to get used to it and get some new habits such as booking hotel rooms with a “yes-cancellation policy”! But guess what, they are so used to it that my room will still be reimbursed for weather inconvenience!

One thing that I was aware very soon, even at my interview, is that the winters in Maine are tough. And they must be really tough, because since I arrived I got plenty of messages from all over with tips on how to be prepared: from the Driving license Department, from Management leadership meetings, from colleagues and friends dancers. “Be prepared at home, be prepared when you travel, be prepared yourself and your family”. Quite some people have also experienced hurricans like Catherina and they are all very careful.

Not more than 3 weeks after my arrival this fall, just when Fidel, Jules and Lea came visiting, there was a storm, and electricity went down for the day. So we bought some candels and other oil lamps to be better prepared.

But today I revised my car-kit. And here I am, prepared with the minimum needed:

By the way, it is very sunny this morning, I went to the car and spent few minutes organizing… then realized my hands get very cold…. it is VERY cold! Indeed: -7 degrees Celcius… but it is so bright!

Good morning!

Thanksgiving (part 2)

My day begun with no heat at home – again! Because it was Thanksgiving the team that had to come to repair took a long while, but I am grateful they were working! That was finally fixed.

More interesting, it was snowing (I told you it was announced!)!

And I went for a hike. It was snowing and raining a bit, and it was windy too. But it was soooo good to feel the strength and energy of the natural elements! I met a total of 3 groups of people, walking their dog or digesting their Thanksgiving lunch with the entire 3 generations family.

When I arrived home I dreamed a second about a fireplace…. Instead, I used my super new blender to make my first Maine-made pumpkin soup… Delicious of course!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Consumerism

We want it more, we want it better, we want it cheaper, we want it without worms, we want it faster, we want it year around, we want it for everybody, we want it updated, we want more profits, we want things easier, we want less efforts, we want it all and we want it now.

We got it wrong: our fruits are flashy, round and big and can be kept longer, can be found year around, but without taste and with a ton of chemicals that even a baby has that in his blood before being born; biodiversity is decreasing, animals loose their mind; human biodiversity is getting lost too: clothes, furniture and accessories are similar in every part of the world, people look the same, read the same, watch the same, live the same; the more we buy the less we have dreams for things, excitement to get it and pleasure to receive it, we just dream for the next generation to be released; we are producing more than the Earth can absorb, without mentioning all what we destroy each second of our time… being more stressed… where are we going?

I almost died once from a long and nasty disease, or at least I realized I was not immortal and that nasty diseases can hurt you without announcement… I may tell you about it later. That’s surely one of the reasons why I feel inside that I need to act. And that’s why I am working to go towards 100% green/reuse/recycle/zero-waste/build by yourself/grow by yourself/think twice and be happy (calm down and positivity)! I hope I will be able to make it (I know it may take time!)! One good thing: this blog will help me keep up my efforts!

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving.

Remembering my first Thanksgiving (and the only one for now): it was a great moment spent with friends in Singapore, thank you Emma and Jamie!

This year is another special one since it is the first in the US. I may well stay home or go hiking… cautiously because it looks like the weather will turn to ice and snow, cool! I’ll get a holiday anyway and tell you more tomorrow evening, maybe I’ll write a “Thanksgiving – part 2”!

Thanksgiving was a day of wishes, prayers, sharing meals and friendship. Around me colleagues are definitely spending that day with their family. I was pleasantly surprised that not many of them mentioned the famous Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Because it looks like it is a BIG deal! We are anyway entering the “holiday season” as it is called here…. and I am sure I’ll write more about that consumerism.

A propos*: I announce here officially that I am experimenting during the several months I will be living alone: I will not only try to be vegan, but also tend to be zero waste: buy the minimum, refuse plastic and other non recyclable packaging as much as I can, prefer second hand shops, and live with what I need, only. I hope I’ll post soon about my new habits. That will be hard because I didn’t bring much in my luggage. I admit, today I received a hair dryer and a hand blender, shipped by Amazon. I really tried hard to find them in the second hand shop, scrolled the local Barter and Swap Facebook page everyday, actually brought my hair dryer from Asia but then I realized that it had a different voltage!! The cold weather and my new vegan diet are calling for soups, so a blender was a must. But I promised myself that I will try hard to reduce my footprints.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. And now I realize that I missed to buy the special Thanksgiving pie…. I’ll try next year!

* “A propos” in french, can be translated by “by the way”.

Food for the week

New home, new town, new country, new food… Yeahh! But based on their reputation and on what I could appreciate from outside USA, I didn’t put much expectations on US food.

The “cantine” is relatively good: excellent choice in the salad bar; there are always soups, although quite often sweet; pizzas are good – the crust is homemade, crispy and without sugar or cheese – ; large choice of good sandwiches too. But this is not what I am used to eat daily, so I had to make a plan and bring more food from home. Unfortunately I am a specialist of salads. This was great in Singapore, but I need some stronger and warmer stuff here.

So here it is, my inspiration of today :

a yellow soup with leaks, carrots, turnip, celery, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic and pinch of salt, pepper, cumin, turmeric, chili powder, cloves and cilandro;

a dish made of green beans cooked with kale, mushrooms, a little potato, tomato paste, onions, garlic, salt, pepper and fresh ginger;

Bruxelles’ sprouts steamed with onions and garlic only, slat and pepper (and a little spoon of turmeric powder? I forgot);

and there will be salads, composed, depending on my mood-of-the-day, of a mix of green lettuce, tomatoes, sliced red onions, raisins and walnuts, sweet potatoes, wild rice, basilicum, kimchi, and more seeds…

maybe a miso soup, if I get some seaweed.

Missing something? nope, I am trying to be vegan for a while… I am taking it as a scientific experiment – a clinical trial. Lets see if what’s on the movies these days is real: do we have really more energy and do we really feel better without animal proteins?