Half Full or Half Empty Does It Really Matter?

 

Daily Prompt

My special drink of a half glass of Hildebrand chocolate milk this morning.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

Spring has been trying to bloom and the tulips finally made their presentations so I have been busy taking their pictures from above.

Little Thinks In Life

It is the little things in life that then to make life so special. I believe I was given a special gift many years ago from a elementary school teacher called Miss Fujikawa. Her lesson in life was the importance of understanding fear and prejudice but to  maintain self-control and discipline. This was very hard for me since I had such a temper. Miss Fujikawa was a product of the Japanese American internment when her family was relocated to a camp in the California desert from Hawaii. It would had been so easy for her to show and emulate hate and unjust but she did not do so. 

“I don’t want any of them [persons of Japanese ancestry] here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty… It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty… But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map” [1] [2]

I believe she was teaching us Gaman which most likely helped many of us during our young years in the area we lived which was a lower income and mixed neighborhood in the Los Angeles area., Later in life when faced with difficulties and prejudice we had that lesson to fall back on. Prejudice is often considered a non-white issue but most of us are often faced with it at some time or other, Prejudice shows up in a lot of other areas in life. It can be age, sex, ethnic, religion or the neighbor you live. When I was in a twirling group I can remember being told I would not become anything from the other girls in the group who lived in the other town,they came from another town to be in our group which was middle class. They told me everyone from where I came from ended up to be thieves and undesirables. While it is true in some respects the city had a number of individuals that have became more violent (gangs) and violence among other social issues (less that 50% high school graduates). It was not everyone. It became my goal in life to challenge them. I believe it was my driving force to get a college degree . Later in life I did achieve that goal.   

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami  you saw a lot of  resilience, civility and did not see or hear anything about widespread riots and looting. This can likely be  attributed to the gaman spirit.

Maybe the Japanese are on to something that Americans could learn from.

1. ^ Fred Mullen, “DeWitt Attitude on Japs Upsets Plans,”Watsonville Register-Pajaronian, April 16, 1943. p.1, 
2. ^ Testimony of John L. DeWitt, April 13, 1943, House Naval Affairs Subcommittee to Investigate Congested Areas, Part 3, pp. 739–40 (78th Cong ., 1st Sess.), cited in Korematsu v. United States (Murphy, J., dissenting), footnote 2.
   

Blog written for Daily Prompt:The Little Things

Limit Your Meat Consumption

If you search the internet and books you will find a lot of ways to reduce your consumption of meat and people who have a variety of reasons do do so. I do so mainly to reduce costs and for health reason. I try to get as much vegetables and fruit per day and limit my consumption of dairy, meat and wheat products. It has nothing to do with the any save the world philosophy because personally do not agree with the vegetarians view that you can grow more vegetables per acre and save the world be eating only plant products. Cattle is usually grown on  the marginal agricultural land because of water, rocks and other environmental reasons.

If you look the internet around you will see the vegetarian Mondays and all types of tofu burgers, tofu steaks and other soy based fake meats. I feel that you should not use fake meat to reduce the amount of meat you eat. For one thing many of the products and recipes do not taste all that good and truthfully who are you kidding, You can tell it is not meat due to the  taste and the the texture.  I do not think all that soy is good for you.  Tofu is the best of the soybean products because it is fermented as is natto, tempeh, and soy sauce. Americans have been hoodwinked and manipulated into believing that unfermented and processed soy is good for you. A small amount is good but do not eat these soy products as part of your main diet.

 Anyway, why torture yourself. I do think vegetarian burgers are and can be good if that is what you want. I like the Boca burgers do eat them once in a while as a sandwich meal. However, I am eating for a veggie sandwich and not a burger.

I also believe fish are also an item we need to watch eating. Fish around the globe are being over fished and in many areas you just cannot get fresh fish. Here in Kansas you can fish but you should limit you diet to one serving  per week due to mercury, lead, cadmium and other contamination. I will pass. 

Portioned beef roast and ground beef for meals.

A easy method in my humble option is to treat meat as a condiment. Use meat for flavor and let the vegetables, beans, legumes and grains be the main items in the food. I have found that reducing the amount of meat in a recipe is very helpful in reducing your meat consumption. I start when I get home from the grocery store. I will take the meat and cut it into portions for meals. Depending on the meals I will cut 1/4 pound to 1 /2 pound portions. I do this by wrapping the portions in wrap and then placing them into a large ziplock freezer bag.

When I am making a meal I take out a portion. This evening I am having a stew with beef portion cut into small pieces. In the stew I will add what vegetables I have on hand and potatoes. Right now I have the stew started in the slow cooker  with the meat, broth, spices, beets, handful of red lentils (they tend to get mushy when cooked long so are perfect for thickening) and a handful of barley. I will add other vegetables later. Potatoes I usually add the last 1/2 hour before we eat. As side dishes I will  either serve a tossed salad or fruit. With the meal I will also serve fresh biscuits.

Sometimes I get to the point where I want a chicken breast or steak or real juicy burger and I will enjoy but not everyday. 

Gardening For Health and BMIs

Recently an article was published in American Journal of Public Health ”Health Harvesting More Than Vegetables: The Potential Weight Control Benefits of Community Gardening”  It was a small study of 198 community gardening participates that did show the gardeners had significantly lower BMIs that the general community. I believe there is more to just gardening that created this differences such as more physical lifestyles and better eating habits but I believe gardening can be a great source of exercise that can be fun and easier to maintain that structure forms of exercise. I would like to see cities create more garden oasis that give people this options. Large greenhouses for winter activities would also help create more of a year round benefit. 

Inuvik Community Greenhouse http://www.cityfarmer.org/inuvik.html

Groundswell http://groundswellnetwork.ca/index.php?page=Community_Gardens

The blog Rolls On

Today the daily prompt is having you explore the your own self-expression and creativity vs. writing to attract readers. The explosion of the internet has lowered the hurdle for expression  for the general  public for just about any content. Blogging is was one of the first one line self-expression that I believe really became popular because it is basically just  click and write. There was very little knowledge  needed to set up a site. The problem is trying to find something to write about. Most bloggers struggle some and many people either close their blog or just let it sit idle because of this.

Shirley Tulip

I hopped on the blogger bandwagon quite a few years ago. I believe it was 2006 when I first started blogging. I started as a way to share some interesting recipes I have found and adjusted. I also had a blog I shared many topics. I have seemed to navigated mainly to these daily prompts and to sharing information about gardens and micro farming with some recipes here and there or a photo. If I am lucky enough to be able to go somewhere I will share it. I am not a tell all type of person. It is highly unlikely I will tell about my family or something that happened in my life. I am just too tight lipped to air personal and family laundry and is why I feel some daily prompts just ask too personal information. Although I will share some informational if I feel it will help a blog I am posting.  My blog is more for expression of my favorite topics.things in life.And I an ready for another cup of coffee. 

Art As Art Is

Typically when we look at art it creates an emotion. The viewer becomes aware of the artist  intentions and the life of the artist. It is possibly impossible for most people to give objective appreciation unless you have enough information. You will either like or dislike the art. Many times with art the more we know about a work, and ourselves in relation to the work, the more it means to use and the greater appreciation we gain. 

I would personally not want many of the famous work of arts in my home but can appreciate the message, technique and reason behind their art expression  This is why I enjoy going to museums to enjoy art in controlled environment. 

 

Blog was written in reference to this question. Do you need to agree with an artist’s lifestyle or politics to appreciate their art? To spend money on it?