Wow, where does the time go? It feels like just yesterday I was proudly proclaiming, “I’m back! Let’s get to writing!”
Well, clearly I did not write. The Jillian Michel’s 30 Day Shred? Its a butt kicker. Due to my limitations with my joints (or lack of strong connective tissue within), I have trouble doing the full shred. What I typically do now is spend 3 days with the shred level one in the morning and one hour of jogging at night paired with a cycle of each Jillian Michel’s Shred move once. I am really impressed with the program and I believe that next week, I will move to level 2!
I am proud to say that my hips are not popping during lunges and I can make it for around 3.5 miles before they trouble me to slow down. My shoulders are strengthening and the shoulder I severely injured in the car accident is also not popping as much. I have even found myself able to sleep on my left side which for the past 12 years, has left me in excruciating pain.
The body is absolutely fascinating, isn’t it? The way it can regenerate, rebuild, strengthen, or completely break down amazes me. My progress was slow at first, my mind is stronger than my body and sometimes I forget to listen to my body when it says, “Hi Jessica! I’m your left knee cap and I’m going to pop out of place right about….now!” That happened last Monday after a morning run and full level 1 shred before my morning cleaning routine. My knee gave way right as I picked up the mop bucket, I buckled, and the bucket went down.
Now, my first thought was “CURSES TO THIS 80 YEAR OLD BODY!” Then I saw the water just rushing down my hallway, into our 3rd bedroom, almost to our second bedroom, and I wanted to cry. Before I could, I stopped myself. How strong have I become? My body builds muscle really quickly, I don’t have a problem with muscle. I have a problem from my tendons and ligaments being attacked as a side effect to my medicine when I was younger. I started to think of all the major advancements I’ve made in the past year. My feet are so much stronger and haven’t had to be taped in forever, this was really the first time I remember my knee giving way in at least five months, and I had just worked out like a boss for an hour and a half and almost had my house cleaned before 10 A.M.
I tapped into my inner Vish (our sometimes housekeeper when I have too many deadlines looming to be a good housewife and when I don’t want to iron -i.e. ALWAYS for ironing) and remembered one reason why I love Indian apartments as I grabbed my floor squeegee. EVERY room as a drain in the floor. Vish actually cleans our house by moving the furniture and slopping water onto the floor, mopping it around to the drain and then squeegee’ing the floors. I mop the house with a mop and a hand towel like my mom taught me to do in Cinderella fashion, but this time, I didn’t have enough towels or the patience. It was pretty entertaining and just one of the interesting times when an expat realizes how these little nuances in our new houses come in handy.
It was during this little fiasco that I started to feel hungry and think about what in the world I was going to make for lunch. What am I talking about? We eat salads EVERY DAY with protein every three days, smoothies at night, oatmeal in the morning. Boring? No, actually. Its delicious and eating a primary raw diet has given us major body changes in weight, skin, hair, endurance, everything.
But I wanted something….more. I wanted to cook again and I started thinking of Malaysia. Whenever I am super hungry, my mind drifts to Bukit Butang in Kuala Lampur and the dragonfruit smoothies, the noodles, the calamari salads, and then it drifts to those two weeks in Langkawai with shrimp bakes and pineapple rice and everything else that made my pants so tight my husband didn’t believe they were actually my pants.
My mind turned to all of the travels my husband and I do (the longest I’ve been on one continent in two years is 5 months – right now actually). Part of my new blog challenge is to write about healthy recipes I make at home and cooking experiences I have when I travel. But I’m bored of writing about my newest salad dressing and I’m bored about thinking of how many fruits I can cut up into a bowl. I want to learn new spice profiles, new techniques, new cookware, new cultures.
I want to cook a dish from every country in the world.
This week, I cooked Afghanistan, Albania and Algeria. I skipped American Samoa to pair it with Samoa, and I am preparing for next week as we speak!
My challenge is to still craft healthy recipes, but add some flair. The big challenge is trying to find some supplies while living in India. I suddenly miss my international market – Saraga – from back home in Indianapolis! We have international markets here in Pune, but they mainly cater to American and British foods, with a pretty decent amount of Thai and Iranian supplies.
What I realized this week is that this has been done before, and it has been done well. That’s okay with me, though, I want to push myself to become better in the kitchen and learn new things.
I hope you’ll continue along for this journey, and as I say it now, I’m really committing myself to being dedicated with bringing this little piece of the web back to life. It was hard to lose the site to cyber hell after the great renewal disaster of 2009, but, its been three years of fantastic journeys, stories, people, places, fashion and photography.
And I want to share it all with you!
