A Little Bit of Joy!

17 Aug

It’s a quiet morning in Austin Texas. I am still here tending the fires of my long term house sit and being the steady caretaker for the bevy of plants, trees flowers and grasses all urgently needing my attention in this Texas heat and drought.

I began my day with the regular cast of characters – my daily Reiki practice, a morning meditation with one of my favorites, Lee Harris, and a healthy morning smoothie filled with goodies like organic wild blueberries, kale, banana, hemp and spirulina.

I just read the astrological guidance for the day from beloved astrologer, Maria Shaw. It’s Wednesday and she assures that today is a day to let your imagination see what life could be like and to let the worry and any decisions that need to be made wait for another day. I can do that!

As usual, I’ve been having fun with food trying new healthy options and possibilities. It’s truly fun for me to care for my health with nurturing food, supplements and other natural remedies that resonate for me. It’s a childlike joy to be inspired and try new ideas feeling like somewhere between Julia Child and a Mad Scientist.

Over the weekend I headed out to the Buda farmer’s market. Buda is a small community just outside of Austin. I haven’t spent much time there but appreciate the old rustic Texas vibe with a fresh dose of new and modern entering the scene.

The regular farmer’s market is celebrated each Sunday at the Buda City Park underneath their giant pavilion. It’s a great market filled with music and healthy goodies and options. Lately one of the downsides to this market and all the markets in the Austin area is not much and sometimes no produce. With the record number of days over 100 degrees and the weeks and weeks without rain, it’s been super challenging for the farmers to grow anything.

When I was at the Buda market there were a few suspect clouds lingering in the sky. I paid them no mind as I have been fooled by them before in recent weeks. But then suddenly a hearty burst of rain came plummeting from the sky. We were all protected and dry at the market underneath the pavilion. A heartfelt applause arose from the crowd. It has been a long time since we’ve seen any rain.

I was chatting with some local growers of microgreens, Munchie Micros, at the time. I learned that a small box of sunflower microgreens has as much protein as an egg. We talked about some great ways to use them including blended in smoothies, on salads and sandwiches, even in sauces (but don’t heat it for more than a minute or two or it loses its nutrients). Plus another great idea of theirs is to use it in pesto.

They had me sold as I am excited and interested in having more whole plant based protein in my world. They freshly snipped some of the greens and tucked them overflowing into a box. I was happy and good to go.

Today for lunch I whipped those microgreens into a vegan pesto. I did a variation on a simple recipe that I have used before. Here’s what it looks like. I plan to serve it with a little bit of salmon, some roasted Brussels Sprouts plus greens and avocado.

♡ 1 cup sunflower microgreens and 1 cup kale

♡ 1/3 cup of loosely packed fresh basil

♡ 1/2 cup olive oil and a squeeze of lemon

♡ 1/4 tsp of sea salt or Himalayan pink salt

♡ 1/3 cup of raw green pumpkin seeds (or walnuts)

What about you? Any other lovers of whole plant protein out there? If so what are your favorite goto recipes and ways to add it to your world?

Wishing you a happy healthy Wednesday filled with a dose of the things that you love whatever that might be – nourishing food, time in nature, time with friends. And if you like, join me in a little bit of imagination and possibility of the good things in life now and how things could be different in a way that feels good, fun and interesting.

I’ll end things with a quote from one of my favorites contemporary intuitives, Lee Harris. This is a message from his guides talking about joy.

“Often people think that joy is hysterical excitement, and it truly isn’t. Sometimes it can be, and it can be fun to be hysterically excited at a party or dancing around your own living room, but actually, joy comes from the root of the energy of peace. Joy can feel like peace, calm, and contentment. Joy and peace are on the same energy scale. So if you are struggling to feel joy because you haven’t felt it for a long time, go a little lower down the scale as you experiment over the next three to six months and find activities, people, and places that bring you contentment, peace, a gentle lift in your mood, your experience, and keep experimenting and seeing what you can do to bring in more things that bring you joy.”