Noury's Creative World…

Do you think one can get ill or sick out of trying to eat too healthy?  Sometimes I ponder on that one.  Maybe my aging stomach resents all this good-for-me stuff.

I know one thing…I am getting tired of cooking, peeling, eating and then washing the dish and pan.  I know, I know…we been through this already.  Just pretend this is new stuff for you.  I am trying to change the posting and put something fresh.  Even I get tired of looking at the same thing all the time.

On another subject matter, fascinating people from eighteen countries (18) got curious enough to stop by and read my thoughts.  I am more international than national.  Not really, it is about even.  Just the perfect amount of people to keep happy.

Oh…yes…the picture…I am on a Quinoa-state-of-mind right now.  Love that stuff.  Prepare like Tabbouleh, and put tomatoes, cilantro, olive oil, extra virgin of course!, juice from a lime, red pepper, cucumber and anything that I have in the fridge that may go with it.  Heavenly!   Keep the cilantro fresh by placing it in the fridge in a container with water, just like you would do with flowers.  Lasts more than a week.

Well…now I feel fresher and updated…so it is another day in my Quinoa side of this world.

What’s next, I will keep it surprise, for you and for…me!

Your Happy and Healthy Contessa

“One should eat to live, not live to eat.”  Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, politician, musician, author, postmaster, and so much more.  17 January, 1706 – 17 April, 1790.

That’s the spirit!  First it was the sonic boom that took half of the electric power out in my condo, then the people next door decided this was the perfect timing to start moving out,   talking loud, a-la-movers-style, and you know the rest.

Here I am trying to get my portion of peace for the day, after saying my thank you to the Creator, I decided it was time to get it on with my meditation.  Yeah, right!

Half of my mind was trying to be peaceful and graceful, while the other half was being really mind-nasty to those movers.  So…I decided to write and get it out of my system, I mean, my mind.

Why the sunglasses in the picture?  You did not believe even for a second I was going to let you see the bags under my eyes?  Imagine a three-pound bag of potatoes on each side of my eyes.  Now you know what I mean.  Oh, oh, now they are singing…, the movers, I mean, not the bags.

So now my timer is calling me to have my oatmeal.  Sorry, international tribe, a girl got to eat, you know, her oatmeal.  When you get older you will know what I mean.

Ta ta….Hummmm….Peace and Quiet!!!!

Your Happy Contessa

“You have the right to remain quiet!”  The meditation police.

Well, it is that time of the year when the moods start to get lighter…we start thinking about gifts…baking…green stuff and lots of red bows.

Let’s reverse a bit…it is that time of the year to start thinking about pumkins…Mama Nature doing her magic again and changing to unbelievable colors…the reds, yellows, oranges…browns…greens (here in  the Florida Peninsula)…then we start thinking of turkey, sweet potatoes, collard greens, pumkin and apple pies…champagne…back that up…I meant…apple cider…candles that make smell the place really good and even here, closer to the Tropics, it is starting to get a bit chilly in the mornings when I go for my walkabout.  I had to put my collar up this morning to protect myself from the winds blowing all the leaves away and making that crispy sound when I step on them…wishful thinking.  Everything is so green and lush that for a moment I wish I could see some colors on the trees.  I think I will have to be happy from the colors I am putting out of my “Fall Decorations” box.  At least I have that box.

The Bakery Department from my supermarket is already offering tempting baked goods, the now very famous and fattening “breakfast bread.”  Do not fear, I am still resisting even the free samples.  My German friend in that department cannot understand that even when the bread is on sale, I am not buying it.  All I have to do is look at the protuberance in the middle of my body, and I just keep on turning the wheels of my cart very smoothly away from that section.

One more day in my so ever exciting, fabulous, glamorous, with a touch of wrinkles and lines life.  Not really, I do love my life.  I do what I want and when I want it.  The fringe benefits of being 63 and 11 months and counting to the big 64th.

Sayonara!

Your Happy Contessa

“It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than life.”  P.D. James, English crime fiction writer.  3 August, 1920.

Look at this breathtaking view…this is what I saw this morning when I started to take my daily walkabout.  The glory of God in full display.

Sometimes I wonder about all of the miracles that abound around us.  Just contemplate ourselves.  Our circulatory system, the neurons that inhabit in our brains, our eyes, our mobility, and so many other miracles, but most of all…our minds.

We do have so many choices…choice to be happy, choice to be miserable, choice to like or dislike a person or a situation…etc…, and it all resides in our beautiful mind.

I decided that with this breathtaking sight as my first miracle of the day…it will only get better, because a few weeks ago, I made a commitment to be happy in spite of the people that surround me or my circumstances.  The only thing I can control, sometimes, is my attitude.  So it is going to be a happy, content and grateful attitude.

So…it was today… a day of singing and bathing in my beautiful sunbeam.

Your Happy Contessa

“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”  Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States and principal author of the Declaration of Independence.  13 April, 1743 – 4 July,  1826.

As usual it has been a privilege and an honor to have The United States of America, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, Canada, Russian Federation, Germany, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Myanmar, Spain, Pakistan, United Kingdom and Bangladesh as part of my international community of viewers for the past thirty days.

Every month viewers from different parts of our beautiful planet Earth come and visit this humble blog, and I really don’t know if it is by accident, by mistake, or by being used to the out-of-my-head-entertainment that attracts so many of you.  Thanks God for that rectangular button that allows a lot of us to translate my blah, blah, blah.

This opportunity to entertain, distract, amuse, shock, and sometimes I know some of you scratch your heads, as if saying “what in the world is she talking about now?”  is what keeps me from committing boredom suicide.  What is boredom suicide?  I don’t know, I just made that one up.

At least, and I hope this is true, at least, I try to be intelligent in my train of thought.  I don’t know about the grammar.  And frankly, I don’t give a hoot.  The last thing when I am on my death-bed that I am going to be thinking about is if I misspelled, misstensed or totally polluted the English grammar laws.  I am sure the English grammar police is going to be nowhere to be found.  Did I incur something out of sequence just now?  You be the judge.

I am on my fifth language now and sometimes my neurons ask and beg for mercy to leave them alone just aging as they should be doing and taking it easy at this stage of their game…but no, no and no again…I am going down hustling those neurons until there is not a molecule of oxygen going into my brain.

There you have it for today, a bunch of words about you, you, and hey, you.

Your humble,

Happy Contessa

“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.”  William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright.  26 April 1564 – 23 April, 1616.

So many, many reasons.  I can only think about mine…

Love to eat good tasting, healthy food…but it takes time to prep and cook, and by the time I seat to eat my pottage, I am  so tired and my back hurting from standing to peel the vegetables, that all I think is “then when I finish…just a few minutes from now, I have to wash the dish, yes, the dish and…the pan.  Yes again, one pan, one dish.  Because I clean as I go.  Very practical seasoned woman.

Hate to eat the crapola that abounds around all the eateries around me and probably around where you live also.  So much fat, sugar and then, the most important thing about this issue, is that it tastes just like cardboard.  You spend good dinero to eat cardboard that has been processed with sugars, fats, preservatives, colors and sometimes human hair, or the leftover organs of animals.  Then, all this is mixed up together to make it look like something we should be eating.

That’s not the end of it…then…”where the heck these five unwanted, undeserving pounds came from?”  Ahhh, it is the addition (had to drop some math here, as I was recently reminded that because I was not good at algebra, I cannot take one of the courses being taught by two MIT eminences), sorry…I went so off the tangent.  Where were we?  Yes, it is the addition of all that irreverent crapola that we so eagerly eat when feeling oh, so hungry.

What is there left to do?  Je ne sais pas.  In the meantime, I will continue to buy fresh, yeah, right…fresh from California, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico; and being held hostage by the powers that be at the food chains that I go to.  Sometimes I feel like a moving target…today they may  kill me…tomorrow they may not.

But, I will lose these five undeserving pounds…I am going back to my plantains in the mornings with the boiled egg, instead of the oatmeal with coconut milk…plus prunes.  No wonder the green blouse I wore yesterday to an outing looked a bit too provocative.  Do not like to show my assets too much.  A bit conservative in that department.

Well…I don’t know what your battle is against our source of survival, but now you know some more about mine.

We cannot live without eating, but eating what is available is what is killing us.

Have a good-food-tasting-day!

Your Happy Contessa

“We cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”  Virginia Woolf, English writer.  25 January 1882 – 28 March, 1941.

Well, enough of me and my bad-hair-moment.  Come to find out, I kind of like it now.  It could be better, maybe next time.

This photograph I took during my North Carolina experience back in the days.  Our daily walkabout.  Remember Miss Raylene?  Those were the good old days, but now my days, and I am sure everybody else’s are probably the even good or better days.  Why?  Because I am still around to fool around and write something about literally nothing.

I just got tired of looking at the picture of self and a bad hair moment.  Need to focus on the present.  Actually re-reading “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle.  Great book!  It helps me to cool my thoughts whenever I get restless.  You know…me and my A+ personality.  Need to stay in the momento.

Really, had nothing much to say on this glorious occasion, just wanted to show you a beautiful moment in my life while visiting the unforgettable State of North Carolina.

I am very grateful for each person, each moment and each place that has graced me during my walk through this marvelous planet.

So…it was today…another day to think of beautiful things and of course, be very grateful.

Your Happy Contessa

“Never hating, never resisting, never contesting, she is simply always learning and being.”  Lao-Tzu, a philosopher of Ancient China.  Lived between the 4th – 6th Century BCE.

$90.  Moved from my assets column to the hair salon’s.  Think about it this way, it could have been $200+ or so, but I decided to go on the cheap side and yes, of course, that’s what I got.  Cheap results.

Let me explain…consultation with the “hair expert,” color, cut and style.  Did she use the brush that people use to fluff hair on dogs?  That’s what my hair looked like when I left the “salon.”  I felt like I was really the grandmother of Baxter Brown, my grand-doggie.  All fluff and no style.  Sorry, Baxter, you do have style.

I had to come home immediately to look at my “colored eyebrows,” now they look like the eyebrows from hell, my new short cut, dark, dark hair and a really bad mood with a topping of lousy attitude.  Where’s the Zen thing?  I am looking around, I really need a humongous dose of it.  How in the world am I going to camouflage this look for the next two months or so, until hair grows and eyebrows look somewhat normal?

I look like those women that I see sometimes on the streets, and then I think “do they have a mirror to see how bad they really look?”  That’s me right now.  Lots of mirrors to confirm how dreadful my new cheap and improved look looks like.

I am starting to save my dinero as I type because next time the hair-slaughter house I am going to try will be the swanky fancy $200+.  Hope that includes the tip, otherwise I may need to take a loan.  Yes…I know some of you may be thinking that even $90 is too much, but trust me, for this area, it is not.  That’s cheap for getting all the “works” I had done.  So…$200+ is about right for a good, happy-to-be-alive-with-hair-do that makes you feel like a million bucks.

Will I ever be pleased with my hair and whomever works with it?  Of course not!

Forgot to mention, my favorite yellow shirt received a somewhat touch of art in black.  There goes my favorite top.  Zen, and more Zen.  I am humming as I type along.  Next month, going back to my boxed hair color, only around $7 and my own self-taught coloring abilities.  Need three months or so to correct the cut, though.

After all, it is only hair, eyebrows, less dinero, and my favorite top.  All replaceable. C’est la vie!

Ta ta

Your Happy Contessa

The main Zen thing is to be in the moment…reminds me of Coach K.

Zen is all about being in the now.  If I am eating, walking, cooking, washing dishes, having an anger moment…fully enjoy each one of those things and be in the moment.  When I am a bit annoyed and feeling not so groovy, I analyze my thoughts and feelings at that moment and then puff…there goes the annoyance, because I realize nothing is really worth disturbing my inner beautiful peace.  It has taken me 63 3/4 years to realize that.

Going back to this beautiful picture I snapped this morning during my holy daily walk.  I was really lucky to capture this beautiful scene.  The sun rising on my right and the moon saying “good day” on my left.  If I would have been preoccupied with my petty little thoughts about moi, I would have missed Miss Moon trying to show me the beauty of our breathtaking nature.

Sharing is also being in the now and in the moment.  I feel good becoming an “in-the-moment person.”

Ta ta

Happy Contessa

“Peace Is Every Step”  Title of a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Master.

I am a force to reckon with…going on my fourth language.  Chose German because I think this will be a tough nut to crack by my ever restless neurons.

I have all the time in the world, (that’s debatable on some days) but I must admit, discipline and structure are not easy things to tame.

Between supermarket, laundry, exercise, meetings, yes I do have those with people who in one way or another have crossed my path… let’s continue…meditation and more meditation, loving Zen, coloring my hair, watching my carb intake…yes, I gave up my ever delicious breakfast bread, full of walnuts, cranberries, raisins and apricots.  The ladies at the bakery department of my favorite hangout supermarket wave at me during each visit, but my ever protruding belly was more powerful than those nice waving.  No way I am going back to all that gluten.  On some days, the gluten was so obvious that I couldn’t take the slices apart.  Now imagine my tiny stomach with all that gluten stuff taking over.  I had it and now the little belly has gone down by 1/1,000,000 of an inch.  Yes siree, a lot!!

Oops!  Forgot to mention one of the most exciting moments of my day…my Spanish novelas (soap operas).  To die for, you know…the guys in those novelas…I mean, so ever irresistible.

Well…had to keep you updated on my ever busy days, yeah…right!

I will leave you all to have a very nice day and I will continue on my belly watch to see the continuous melting of the mount.

Your Happy Contessa

“There is not a spring of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”  Thomas Jefferson, American Founding Father, author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and third President of the United States.  13 April, 1743 – 4 July, 1826.