Day 22

Day 22!  Woot!  Half way there.  A successful 22 days of GF/DF/SF.  Some days are just bananas.  (that’s me trying to be funny).  Who knew I’d be mourning cheese or a latte?  I’ve quit coffee and sugar before, but at different times.  The first time I went off sugar I was incredibly fit and my body just didn’t need it.  Actually the taste of it disgusted me.  It’s all different this time.  This time I’ve given up so many things.  So many foods that were part of my emotional coping mechanism.  There is some fear when I think about reintroducing certain foods back into my diet.  I just don’t want to EVER be where I was three weeks ago.

My plan is to remember the goal I set for myself.  Five weeks ago I started taking action to figure out my health and well-being.  I felt I was headed down a dark path and I seriously was not happy.  Just before I decided to purchase Dr. Hyman’s Diabesity Prescription I found this Are You Happy mind map image in my vision board file.  I found this image a year ago when I started Unravelling, and quickly filed it away.  When I saw it again, I thought – NO is not an option.

I just love the simplicity of the image pointing out your choice of happiness.  I love mind mapping.  Ask my friend Jana, the last time I saw her I demanded we lock ourselves in her studio and mind map the entire afternoon around her business marketing.

Out of curiosity I just Googled, “happiness mind map” and looked at the images.  There are so many fabulous ones that appear, which lead me to mindmapart.com.  An entire site dedicated to the world’s finest mind maps.  I searched on Lifestyle – Spirituality and found this beautiful mind map.

I think I need to step it up a notch.  Now I’m completely inspired to do some mind mapping with nutrition, health, happiness, spirituality, relationships.  Are you?  Do you mind map?  What do you love about it?  Has it helped you resolve issues, set intentions or create your BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS (BHAG)?

Continuing on the happiness topic.  My wok.  I think I’ve fallen in love with my wok again, and that makes me happy.  I think it makes Josh happier because he loves stir fried rice.  Last night I decided to break out the old wok and do a shrimp fried rice. My beautiful wok took about two years to get seasoned this well.  It’s a thing of beauty, right?  Sadly, I haven’t used it a lot in the last few years.

I had all the ingredients for this dish in the fridge, and the dish came together quickly.  I found the recipe on Steamy Kitchen.  Her recipes are good, and her food styling and photography is scrumptious.

I’m learning more about my food styling.  I’m sure the photo featured on her site was shot before the soy sauce or tamari was used to season the dish.  Because her dish is so bright and white.  You can also tell her shrimp were cooked separately and placed carefully in the dish before shooting.

My dish is darker, and the shrimp are covered in the rice – making them hard to find in my photo.  I still like it, and am excited to see my photography improve daily.  So excited that on Day 21, I went and purchased new dinner plates – all white.  Stay tuned for more photos of dishes on our new plates.