Down 20 Feel Like A Mess

Sometimes I just feel like a mess, today is one of those days where my actuality matches up with my feelings. It is so hard for me to stay motivated. That is why I can never commit to things like this blog, when I literally have to put things like...

-Wake up
-Take a Shower
-Say I Love You

on my mental priorities list, well you can tell how base line I am feeling.

In other news It turns out I lost around 20 pounds this summer. I have been wavering back and fourth between loosing another 10 since I got home. I know I need to commit to my Yoga practice and things will fall into line, but I got so strong this summer and I have lost so much since I got home that it feels discouraging to start again.

I hope someday I will be able to see a turn around here, a place where I became more happy and hopeful, I hope to see a day where I can commit to writing enough to really help people by sharing my life.

If you meet assholes all day...

Recently I started wondering if I was the asshole... for the last 12 months or so I had always had someone who was bothering me in my life. Maybe it was the awful girl from field school who needless snapped at me, yelled at me or called me a bitch. Or it was a hopelessly incompetent roommate whose attempts at "homemaking" always turned sour. But those are stories for another time. Currently it is my internship room mate, who seems to have little regard for what I consider common courtesy. But the common factor here is me and I have to face that.

Do I honestly think I am the problem in these situations? I don't know. In two out of the three situations I have confronted the person and they have basically refused to modify their behavior when I have offered to modify mine. In all situations I have other people complain to me about the person. But my mom recently pointed out to me that I always have a problem with someone in my life.

Not that I am a drama queen, but there does always seem to be something or rather someone to complain about.

Plan for going home

11 more days in South Dakota, and I need to start getting a plan together for returning home. Not for the actual getting there part, that is figured out. I am hoping that living healthy will be easier when I have my own space. A place to do yoga where my roommate isn't constantly rolling her eyes because she perceives it as "too religious". A place where I can easily access a grocery store and a kitchen where I can make healthy and diverse food options. Yes I really am looking forward to going home. The fiance and I have a happy little space (along with our roommate). But of course sometimes comfort breeds laziness. I am planning on doing a stuff detox as soon as I get home, hopefully I will be able to part with a lot of my possessions. I have too much, that is an undeniable fact. I'm hoping with the loss of clutter I will be able to free my mind enough for a more organized life to stick.

 I am just going to start working from the door in, also I am going to set aside my whole fabric stash and anything I don't sew through in the next 6 months is getting donated.Hopefully this will encourage me to get my ass in gear and sew through it but I can let the excitement of the past haunt the excitement of tomorrow. Also I am going to start re organizing my books, I might possibly get some new shelves, after talking to the roommates.

Obligation update

Ok so I have been working on a fitness and wellness plan that should allow me to get the most out of my days and balance a healthy life with being a on the go student.

Mondays/ Wednesdays/ Fridays:

•  9AM- 4PM Classes and study time at the library
• 4PM- 5:30PM Couch 2 5K
• Lunch around 1PM
• Dinner needs to be quick or a crock pot dinner Wednesday and Friday
• Monday is Dempsy's night

Tuesday/ Thursday :

• 9AM- 12:30PM Classes
• 1PM Lunch
• 2PM- 5PM Study at the Library
• Yoga in the Evening

Saturday

• 9AM- 5PM Are productive hours only. Studying first if any is left over from the week and then sewing for the etsy shop.
• Yoga around Noon or in the Morning
• Leftovers for lunch 
• Prepare meal with Sam for dinner
• Study breaks are taken with walks
• Weight training with Sam in the evening

Sunday

• Church or meditation 
• Prep food for during the week
• grocery shopping
• day of rest

Break days:

Once a month I am allowed to take Saturdays off to do something I want that will take the whole day like go to the zoo or a museum. Volunteering at the Museum never counts as one of these days.

Bed time: I will always try to be in bed by 11PM and asleep by Midnight   

What I did today 13 July 2015

Good Things

1. Sculpted, important for relaxing. I truly enjoy making art. Today I worked on doing some scientific sculpting on a Colombian Mammoth Mandible.
2. Cooked myself dinner instead of eating out.
3. Practiced yoga for and hour.
4. Drank Peppermint Tea.
5. Sat down to write about my life again.
6. Cleaned up my room and made my bed.
7. Took time to read.
8. Started laundry.

Not So Good Things

1.  Ate two bowls of Jambalaya instead of the I needed not to be hungry.
2. Snacked instead of having lunch or breakfast.
3. Sat around and watched TV and searched the web.

Discouraged

I am feeling discouraged lately, as is trend with my life, as soon as I started living healthier I began feeling sick. It always feels this way. I feel on top of the world for a few weeks then I end up sick. I feel like I am not able to form a habit of healthy living. I also don't have my support system here to encourage me to push pass things like achy joints.
Maybe I need to start by making one new healthy decision a day....

New Direction

I initially started this blog as a way to showcase practical cooking and baking in your own home. I aimed to gather recipes for college students who didn't know their way around a grocery store or Moms who didn't have the time to care about the variety of food they were serving. I wanted to introduce easy international dishes to people who never thought they could cook regional foods with what they could find at the local grocery store. In this desire I dreamed up "Almost From Scratch". After a few months of little use however I realized I wanted to chronicle more than just the foods I ate but also the changes I am making. This summer I am setting my aims high and my "from scratch" ingredients are my body.

So let me introduce myself...

My name is Sydney, I am 22 years old and engaged to a wonderful man who took this picture for me. I am aprox. 5" 2" tall, and ~ 200pds. I carry my weight through my hips, stomach, and legs. And I wear a size 18 jeans. This is my first step toward working with my body. Being honest about what it is. 

My ingredients...

I do have a few considerations beyond just my weight and age. When I was 16 I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, I have always been chubby to overweight but the diagnosis definitely complicated my life. It is not always the best choice for me to eat the "healthy choice", ie. raw veggies and fruit. 

I also hate exercise, I have always felt like a outsider to those who exercise regularly, like I am missing the gene that makes sweating fun.

But I do have a desire to be healthy. And this summer I am committing myself to building myself back from scratch not only physically, but mentally. I am going to try and keep writing about my progress, success and yes failures. I hope that I can start working toward a healthy life dispite my disease. 

My Motivation...

I love my family, friends and my fiance and I want to be the best person I can be for them. But more importantly I have decided that it is time I begin to love myself.

Fresh Corn Tortillias

For my first project I wanted to start with a basic recipe that is featured in many Mexican and Latin dishes. The corn tortilla. Corn tortillas are an ancient dish that made up a large portion of the early american diet. Tortillas a a kind of flat bread that requires no leavening agent and uses mostly maize flour. The other ingredients could easily be leftover from the other parts of a meal. In addition t masa or corn flour the tortilla maker will need water, salt and a fatty component like lard, butter or oil.

In my modern kitchen I will use butter.

Approximately two tablespoons, if using a semi solid like lard or fat drippings I would add a little extra, The purpose it to bind the masa together so it has a nice elastic consistency before cooking. This allows the tortillas to be pressed thin without breaking and makes them more pliable once cooked. You don't want to add too much fat however or you will get crispy chips when you cook the tortillas.

I used about 1 1/2 cups masa to my  2 table spoons of fat.

 Mix the fat into the masa throughly.

 Now slowly add one cup of water. 

 Hands are your most useful cooking tool, as long as they are clean use them as much as possible.

 Your dough should begin to form together.

 For this part I cheated a little from a true corn tortilla recipe. I used regular baking flour to powder my kneading surface. You can use corn flour to be more authentic but I find wheat flour helps keep the tortillas more flexible after cooking. 

This is where the artists touch comes in, you may have to add a little water to you dough to get the right consistency. Add it in spell amounts as you kneed. My preferred method is to run my hands under water or dip them in a bowl and work the moisture in incrementally.

Once your dough is a nice moist consistency and all binds together. Now you have to let it sit for around 30 minuets to a couple hours. This is a good time to prepare the rest of the meal and clean up your kitchen.

 Next i made a "poor mas tortilla press" with some wax paper and a plate. Divide your dough into 12- 16 balls and smashing each between two pieces of wax paper with the plate.

 With a small amount of oil in the pan cook each tortilla until browned on each side.