Gratitude

Hubby and I went to a Parkinson's lecture on "The brain and resiliency." It was part of an occasional series sponsored by Parkinson's Resources of Oregon, a terrific support and advocacy group we are thankful to have benefited from during these 15 years since his diagnosis.

I had one significant take-away, and I am committed to trying one thing: keep a gratitude journal. Now don't get all excited, dear readers, because I plan to keep the record on my separate non-public blogspot. Perhaps I will be inspired to share as I become confident in this new journey.

Here's the background. Research at UC Davis looked at gratitude and well-being.  Participants were placed in three groups and assigned to journal life events. One group was to asked to list positive events, another group was random events, and another was to list problems or hassles. 

The gratituders, if I may coin a term, had huge benefits! Among them:

• More regular exercise,
• fewer physical symptoms
• felt better about their lives as a whole
• more optimistic about the upcoming week
• personal growth attainment (academic, interpersonal and health-based

There is a reference to "daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises)" for which I am dying to get more information. With this exercise, they reported young adults had higher positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). And for adults with neuromuscular disease (yes, that includes Parkinson's), they had great amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality. 

So off I go to blog, and then research the "intervention" exercises.  Then I look forward to sharing with all of you. (I think there might be three...?!?)

Taquitos using rice paper wrappers

Short version: not so successful!

I thought I would be clever and make this taquito recipe using rice wrappers instead of egg roll wrappers.

First problem: rice wrappers are stiff, so they have to pre-soak which isn't a big deal. The soak is just 30 seconds in lukewarm water. But when you don't realize that and try to bend the first folds, watch out! Splinters of rice wrapper shoot everywhere! My version of chinese fireworks in the kitchen, I guess.

Second problem: they don't absorb some of my filling like the other wrappers would have, so the juices leak out in the baking pan. And that would have been fine, also, except I was using a cookie sheet.  M-e-s-s-y.

The results? Well, once the 'things' were cooked, granddaughter "C" and I decided to pull the filling out of the wrappers to eat. The filling was really good. The wrappers themselves were difficult, or impossible, to cut with a fork. And the sections with more than a layer of rice wrapper can only be described as gooey. Like an overcooked clam that you chew and chew and it just won't break down.

Just add water...

You know you are not using the soaking tub (jacuzzi) enough when: instead of cleaning it, you need to dust!

[true story]