Livingthedreamwithdiana.com

I made homemade pasta today, for the second time .

I have made pasta once in the past but it was meh. 🫤 It didn’t turn out the way this batch did. It was so easy, I’m debating whether I’ll ever buy pasta again. I don’t eat much pasta, so I’m not sure about the above statement. TBD.

The beginning of

These.

These 4 lovely little piles of goodness have all been frozen, then vacuum sealed in individual packages, just waiting for me to take one of them out, and make it into something special.

I’m probably the only one of you that doesn’t make their own pasta on a regular basis, but now that I know how easy it is, I think it would be foolish to not do it on a regular basis.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I have been enjoying the great taste, not to mention the health benefits of milk, and water kefirs for several years now.

Kombucha too. I haven’t had anything like a soda for at least 5 years, and don’t miss it even a little bit.

I have what I call my “fermentation station”, which holds my kefirs, kombucha, and sourdough starters. I try to keep them all about an arms length away from each other so as to not cross contaminate each other. Let me show you.

The water kefir “mother” (**See note) ferments are on the top shelf, left. The kombucha “mother” is on the countertop in the corner. The quart jar is the milk “mother”kefir while the small bottles are second fermenting, (adding additional fruit flavors) to both water kefirs, and kombucha.

A morning of making water kefir second ferments. I add the pineapple, once it ripens, to the small bottles then add the kefir that’s in the large glass measuring cup. It sits on the counter for a few days, until it starts to bubble, then into the fridge.

If this is something you’d be interested in trying, let me know. I’ve got lots of useless, and possibly helpful information on how to’s, and how not to’s.

**Note: the “mother” indicates that both kefirs on the counters have their grains in the jars, which is what changes the water, and milk during fermentation into an amazing jar of goodness. You can read all about this transformation on Google. The second fermenting is when, having previously removed the grains to make new batches, I add fruit, whole, or juiced to the already fermented liquid in their individual bottles.

Until then, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: Never forgetting the horror of this day in 2001. Ever.

As many of you know, I walk, most days, around the park across from the condo.

Well, along the park is where I start my walk, however, now that my foot is completely healed, thank you Jesus, I have been walking at least 2k most days. Not just around the park anymore, but around the neighborhood. That includes the many streets on either side of the building, though I try to keep within a descent distance, just in case I would need help for whatever reason.

I do walk in the street however, and I’ll show you why. At my age, 71, I’m really not interested in falling, and requiring any type of extended health care, thank you very much. Besides, when walking around the park, it smells so badly of urine from everybody’s dogs being brought there to do their business. Yuck.

I said I’d show you why I walk in the street, and here is why. Living in the city, with wall to wall living spaces, there are trees every where one looks. There are multiple reasons for said vegetation, none of which I’ll talk about here, (that’s why we all have Google 😉), but, suffice to say that with trees come roots. And it’s the roots that are causing many of the sidewalks to bulge, and break up.

This is a perfect example of what happens when trees are not cut in a way that is quite common here, and in Europe, called pollarding. The tops of the trees are cut to about 15 ft high, which keeps the roots from expanding very far. In my walks, I’ve noticed that those areas that pollard their trees, the sidewalks remain straight, and flat. However, even with that, many driveways are heading down to a garage that is below street level, also causing uneven sidewalks.

For me, it’s just easier to walk in the street. I say a prayer every day that I walk asking God for “encouragement, endurance, energy, inspiration, motivation, safety, and stamina”, in that order, every time. (It’s alphabetical so I can remember all of the things I ask Him to do for me. 😉) So far, He’s helped me with each of my requests.

So, now you can understand a little better why I do some of the silly things I do, but falling on a walk just holds no appeal for me.

How about you? What do you do to take a bit better care for yourself that may make others think you’re a bit odd? Let me know. Maybe I can do that too.

Until next time my lovelies, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I’ve gotten rid of the herbs I was growing.

They just didn’t work out for me, and I got tired of beating myself up about their lack of growth. I don’t have a Southern exposure, so they only got reflected light, not the bright, continuous light they required. That, and with the rainy season having started the end of June, they just didn’t grow as I wanted them to.

In fact, I’ve changed the location of almost all of my plants, having distributed them throughout the apartment as the app I use, PlantIn, has suggested. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

In reality, it should help 90% of them to thrive as I thought they all needed to be fried in the reflected light from the neighboring building. Oops.😬

So far, so good.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I didn’t get many responses to my plea for anyone that reads my nonsense to please leave me a message saying so.

I’m not going to let that deter me from my path however. I do, very much, enjoy typing my thoughts onto these pages, so much so that I don’t think I’ll stop again; only take short staycations. Occasionally.

Having said that, I want to thank each of you for showing up, and reading what silliness I get up to in the space of my days. It means a lot to me, as I’m hoping you know.

I will endeavor to, once again, let you folks know what I get up to, any changes that happen, as they happen, and share anything you’d like me to share, (read recipes, patterns, that sort of thing😉).

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

By the way, just because I’m not posting anything at the moment doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about things, and typing them.

One thing that might interest you is that my subscription to Evernote, that I’ve had for almost 10 years, was due to renew this week. Well, you probably don’t care a whit about my Evernote subscription, but let me explain. I decided to open the app, which I hadn’t done for quite a while, to see what I could find.

What I found were some old photos I had downloaded while back in the States, before moving here.

You’ll be happy to know that they are all there, well, most of them, saved for me to show you, over time. The ones I’m most proud of are all of the ones from the garden I had, that encompassed our entire backyard. We had an old wooden swing set under which I planted lettuces, carrots, lots of springtime veg. I even brought home the outer wrappers from the sterile instrument sets we used at work. (Remember, I’m a retired RN from the Operating Room, determined to find another use for the wrappers instead of throwing them all into the landfill. I’ll show you.)

I definitely miss having that garden, but, as I told my sisters, it helped me become the natural food freak I am.

If you stay with me, you’ll read about lots of the different natural foods I make myself; kefirs, kombucha, bread, butter, jams, to name a few. I find it so much more flavorful when I have complete control over what I’m putting into each food item, and knowing that the ingredients I buy I have sourced to be the best, most natural ingredients I can find here in Mexico City. I’ll have even more sources once I get my BMW back to rights.

Until that happens folks, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I know.

I said I was back, but I lied. Sue me.

I’ve decided that, instead of feeling bad about it, I’m going to take every August for myself, to reflect, and remember everything I’ve had, good, and bad.

So, unless anything major happens, I’ll see you all the beginning of September. While I’m taking this time off, will any of you that actually read my posts kindly send me a comment so I know how many readers I have? It will be much appreciated. If it’s only my lovely sisters, well, I can text them. But, having the financial upkeep of this website, if there aren’t many readers, I’m going to stop paying for it.

I hope that doesn’t offend anyone, but those are the facts. I can’t post here for free, that would be amazing.

So, until next month, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: a very happy birthday to my lovely, more wizened sister, Martha. I pray you have many more for us to celebrate.

I think.

I’m almost reticent to say just how good I’m starting to feel again. Whenever I tell my sisters how well I’m sleeping, I don’t sleep that night. When I tell them how much better my foot is, the next day it hurts.

I’m done with that kind of thinking. I’m feeling good, I’ve got my energy level back, I’m eating good again, and I’m back to walking outside. I haven’t restarted my resistance band exercises yet as I’m trying to decide whether I want to delve into Pilates, or not. I did a 3 minute routine yesterday, and could hardly walk last night 😝

I’m just going to enjoy the ride, while it lasts, and not worry, overly, about the future. I am taking care of myself, and not overdoing things. My walks are at a 155 BPM music tempo, so, a nice walking speed. And, I’m not walking such long distances yet, though I will once my birthday is passed.

I have visions of painting different areas of the apartment soon, and will keep you posted on those changes. I’m looking forward to all of it.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

The basil, you’ll be happy to know, have all survived the rude awakening they got last week.

The last 4 remaining basil plants. I think that now I have only these to focus on, I will be able to encourage them to produce as much Genovese basil as I can consume.

I’m praying that’s the case anyway. We’ll see.

I’ve found my ceramic bread baker, bought in the 90’s at a Beaux Arts Festival in Davenport, IA. It is small enough to make a small loaf of bread for me so I can eat 1, maybe 2 loaves of sourdough WW bread every week. Making that bread n the regular loaf pan, it molds before I can get the whole thing eaten. I’ve tried freezing some slices, but, since I have this, I might as well use it. Right?

I really like the results, and am able to toast, better yet grill the slices, to a lightly tangy result. Yum.

That’s about it for updates I think. Oh, my fasciitis needs another week, in my professional opinion, and I’ll be able to get outside, and get walking again. I’m excited to get going. I know it’s been there, I still have a tenderness when I walk before stretching, but it’s only a tenderness. Thank the Lord.

Until next time folks, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Ivan always equated my sleeping habits with The Princess and the Pea.

Of course, that made me a princess, and who can argue with that?

From as far back as I can remember, (which, on some days, isn’t all that far back), I’ve had difficulty sleeping when I’ve discovered something on the sheets, underneath me. A crumb, a coin, (don’t ask), a whatever it happened to be. I couldn’t sleep until it was gone.

That said, you may recall that I bought, and am enjoying, mostly, full nights of blissful sleep, except for the fact that sleeping on the GroundingWell sheet is, for me, like sleeping on an emery board. In the informercials, it shows a woman flinging her sheet on the bed. Me, assuming that meant to put it on top of the bottom sheet, that is exactly what I did. The instructions, such as they were, said to sleep with as little between your body and the sheet. No problem as I rarely wear pj’s.

About 3:30am, two mornings ago, I couldn’t stand it another minute. I got out of bed, removed the covers, the grounding sheet, and the bottom sheet. I put the grounding sheet next to the mattress, put on a clean bottom sheet, (might as well since I’m already there, right?), put the 3 layers of gauzy covers I use, and went back to bed.

Slept like a rock. Seriously. The last 2 nights have been even better in terms of the depth, and length of time I’m sleeping. Now, I just have to stop drinking a glass of water too close to going to bed, and I’ll probably sleep the entire night. Yeehah.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.