Cooking, crafting and taxes - oh my!

Well, spring is certainly taking a very long time to manifest. I am heartened by the fact that all the snow is gone from the front of the house which allows the daffodils and hyacinth to begin poking through the soil in the lawn and the gardens.  Like all lawns along the street ours desperately needs a good raking and dethatching.  It's a little too rainy and a little bit too cold to be working outdoors right now. In fact with Brian's recent cardiac issues I'm a little reluctant to have him do the yard work to the extent that it needs doing...  Angeni will have to help.  She's a good kid but this will likely elicit some episodes of teen angst.  She certainly doesn't like the adventures in the dog poop filled, post-winter minefield that is our backyard.

Over the years I've been very concerned about Brian's post-cardiac surgery diet.  In addition to it being low-fat, low-carb, low sodium, reduced meat and low-fat, it still has to be tasty.  Angeni has not liked a lot of the East Indian and vegetarian meals that I've introduced.  More teen angst.  Brian loves East Indian food and I've needed to learn about some of the more exotic spices.  I've enjoyed learning about them because in my studies I've unearthed the healing properties that the spices contain - like Tumeric and cayenne.  We are all benefiting from the change of diet.  Tonight I plan a rollicking "red beans and rice" one-pot meal. It does have a little bit of meat in it but in the past it would have been the equivalent of a serving of meat for one person, in one meal.  Now this amount of meat is enough for an entire pot of red beans and rice that will be the equivalent of 3 meals for 3 people.  I credit the new cooking channel called "Gusto" with providing an incredible amount of education on food and spice.  It's certainly broadened my food knowledge and expanded our nightly meal repertoire.  Sometimes TV has merit...  Certainly Gusto is better than the wrestling shows I used to watch , but I can't give up my fave paranormal programs.

I mentioned crafting in the title...  Doggedly determined, I've been doing some jewellery commissions, repairs and knitting a couple of interesting shawls.  I've deviated from the series I was working on - it's devoted to bird dodems and is called "Sacred Flight". The last 2 shawls are more along the lines of the visual light spectrum and relate to chakra colours. I'm still using sacred geometry principles as they relate to the mathematics of Crystal vibration, but the shawls are not about birds and more about human spirit.  When something like this comes up automatically in my art I don't fight it or try to left brain analyze it to death; rather, I let the universe flow through my work.  I don't always know what the message is but I know there is a message…  The deviation from the bird series may in fact be due to the psychospiritual development course we are teaching at the moment. We've spent a lot of time discussing the chakras, vibrations, auras, dowsing, crystals and spirits. I think this certainly impacted the direction my art has veered off to this past month.

Well, enough for now...  have a glorious, nearly-spring, weekend!