sometimes I make things: chocolate chip cookies

These are my favorite "I want cookies but I don't want to fuss" and "I'd really like them to not be über bad for me too" time tested, best ever chocolate chip cookie recipe (or white chocolate dried cranberry, or walnut butterscotch, or whatever else strikes your fancy. pictured are oatmeal rasin)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup cane sugar

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 cup chocolate chips

2 cups whole wheat flour*
1/2 cup ground flax seed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream together butter and sugars until smooth.
Mix in salt, baking soda and vanilla extract.
Mix in eggs until well blended.
Mix in four and the flax until well incorporated.
Mix in the chocolate chips.
Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet.
Bake for 9-11 minutes, until edges are lightly browned and middle is set.

*alternate: 2 cups oatmeal + 1 1/2 cups flour

And really, these cookies are so easy that I've just tossed everything into a bowl and used a hand mixer to mix well and they turn out fabulously.

while overwhelmed

Right. Apparently if everyone on Earth lived the way I do, it would take somewhere between 1.67 and 3.01 planet Earths to sustain them all. Breaking this down, it means that I flush my toilet too often, I drive too much and I occasionally enjoy a nice steak. On top of this, the lovely moisturizer with SPF that I slather on my face is a mid-level toxic creme sending chemicals through my skin that have been linked to cancer and organ failure. The frustrating part of all of this is that I feel completely used and abused and unable to really make much of the change that is needed to sustain human life on our planet. After all, I'm only one kid!

After the depression caused by information overload was warded off with a good kick of willpower and a glance at my thriving tomato plant, I realized that yes, I am only one kid, but its not just up to me to try to save the planet all by my lonesome and lots of really interesting people are doing really interesting things to help us enjoy living better and living healthy lives.

Section 1:

Have Netfilx? Watch these entertaining and educational shows for FREE! I LOVE the watch instantly option of Netflix!


http://www.sundancechannel.com/ecotrip/
The real cost of living. A British man who looks like a sweater clad Jesus wanders around the consumer industry exploring the environmental impacts of many of our standard products (like a white cotton t-shirt and chocolate bars) and then shows us some amazing people doing it the right way.



http://www.sundancechannel.com/lazy/
This guy wrote a book. And then he made this show. Basically, he finds people in business and education and real life who are skeptics of the environmental movement. Skeptical? This show is for you. Why? Because he makes being a little bit green a little bit easy.



http://www.sundancechannel.com/big-ideas/
Design, Music, Eating, Architecture... thoughts from smart people and examples of other smart people bringing green concepts to everything from designing furniture and buildings to making dinner and recording music. Brilliant.

Section 2:

How did I find out that my lotion could kill me? A fabulous little, well, huge, website database created by people concerned with the use of toxic chemicals in just about everything. www.cosmeticsdatabase.com This particular branch of the Environmental Working Group independently tests as many cosmetics as they can and gives each a safety rating. Be prepared to drop off quite a few of your products to your local Hazardous Waste collection facility - its shocking how much big business gets away with.

Yes, I'll point you Josh's direction again: http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com/products/ How convenient! Want new jeans but not sure where to buy an environmentally conscious pair? He started making us a list. Sweet.

Sustainable Works Workshop. www.sustainableworks.org Nick and I just finished up this class and we miss it. All the information, the passion to live conscious of our environment and ways to get involved in greening up your lifestyle presented by a lovely woman named Nancy - inspiring. If you feel drawn to learn more, are skeptical about the science behind the Green Initiative or think you could squeeze out a little more green in your lifestyle, I highly recommend this class. Trust me, you will enjoy the process of illumination.

Globalfast. www.globalfast.org/gfx/index.php Give up one meal a week and give the money you saved from that meal to help provide water and freedom to those in need. This is just one of a million causes to get behind.

Toms Shoes. http://www.tomsshoes.com Buy a pair, give a pair. So simple, so good.

World Vision. www.worldvision.org It really doesn't cost much to send a child to school and provide medicine for them. I love sponsoring my kids and I'm so thankful for organizations like World Vision that help me give them what they need.

To sum up, I love living on Earth and I don't want to leave anything less than the best for my grandchildren and their grandchildren and I don't want to force them to live on a giant spaceship and get so fat they can't walk, thanks Wall-E.

while gardening

I love waking up in the morning and looking out my window. Outside my window is my vegetable garden. Growing, flourishing, producing, living. This is my first garden as a grownup, and I’m attempting to grow it in Los Angeles. I’m not the only one either. If you take a walk down my street you see grape arbors and mini orchards and a few houses that have ripped up their entire front yards to grow vegetables and fruits of all kinds.

Growing up in the Northwest for me meant every spring we planted a garden and every fall we tried to find and dig up all of last years potatoes, which never happened. Now, as an adult trying to re-capture the essence of my semi-rural upbringing, I have taken a small plot of land and stuck my flag in it, claiming a bit of serenity and simplicity, attempting to sidetrack the disdain I sometimes harbor for living in the hustle and bustle of city life.

As the little plants grow up and start blooming and the little veggies start appearing, I’m just so proud of them. Like they fought the odds and won. I tend take anything even slightly tangible and translate it to my own life, and so my little garden has become a reflection of my own ability to survive and grow. Not that if they die then I too shall wither, that would be dramatic.

Not only am I happy to have a little place of Zen in my yard, I am happy to add to my local Farmers Market produce my own home-grown tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, garlic and herbs, snap peas, string beans, spinach and lettuce and soon strawberries and whatever else I fancy to grow, answering the question of “what should we have for dinner” with a handful of freshly harvested food. Knowing that I’m doing the best I can to live responsibly, both economically and environmentally, is a most fulfilling thing.

Sustainable living has become a popular thought, Prius’ and organic food and hemp clothing being a few of the commercial responses to the idea. Attempting to go beyond pop culture and maybe a bit more extreme than many city dwellers, I’ve made my own granola, hugged a tree and gotten out my thread and needle to do my best to live in a way that my First Nation ancestors would be proud of.

If being human means that I take from the earth to live, I’m going to do it, but I’m going to try to eek out every drop I can from every moment and every item I’m given. And I’m really enjoying the challenge.

while i forget who i am

...and here i sit, staring at my computer screen, hoping that getting lost on facebook will somehow help me fall asleep and drown out the noise of the nagging drama that seems to have taken over my heart.

i have drama about my family. i have drama about my apartment. i have drama about my career. i have drama about parking in los angeles. i have drama. and who doesn't have drama? my real beef with drama is that its just drama, and yet it bears so much weight on my shoulders.

here's how i look at drama: i weigh my drama against that of say, a person who lives in Somalia, a country currently at war. not only is my life so much more privileged, so much easier and so much healthier, if i would just look up from my dragging feet, the going promises to be easier. not merely because of where i was born but because, coupled with the fact that i have some fight in my gut if i could muster it, i can take this negative drama and turn it into something good.

yes, there is sadness and hurt in my family. but as for me, i will not hold onto that and whither and break under that weight. instead, i will take it and learn from it and find joy and hope.

yes, there are many issues with where i live, but with the economy as it is, maybe i'll move closer to the beach and pay what i'm paying 45 minutes away from it. i would love that.

yes, the career i have chosen is a rough one, close to impossible to achieve anything much less pay your bills via singing at people, but the challenges i face in writing music and communicating something valuable are lessons that translate into moments just like this when i feel the weight of my current troubles vying for first place in my mind.

these things are valuable. and i am learning that. although the child i sponsor through world vision has a difficult life, one where he wouldn't have his medication or education without help from someone who lives far away from him, my troubles are also valid and worth investigating, not for shoving away in some dusty corner of my mind in a file labeled "crap". because, regardless of whether or not i picked him out of the thousands and thousands of faces of children needing help, he would have had a wonderful life. he has hope. he has community. because, as oscar wilde put it, "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." and trust me, this kid looks at the stars. as for me, its a clear night in L.A., time to look up.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - winston churchill


www.worldvision.org


photo copyright nick ocean photography, 2008
nickocean.com

while thinking of my dad

this entry is from December 22nd, 2008

my dad died the other day. i have to admit that it affected me more than i expected, though i knew it would happen someday, it wasn't supposed to happen this way. my heart hurts, this i know.

our father/daughter relationship had been severed. its been broken, complicated and painful.

i've wished for many years that we could have a relationship. i wished that we could heal our relationship. more than anything else, i wished and hoped and prayed that he knew that i loved him. to have to give up the hope of this is like taking a layer off of myself.

this is exposing a lot of who i am - my make-up. my dad is a part of my vocabulary. i tell a lot of funny stories about him, add him into conversation often, use him as an illustration. how he wore 70's short-shorts and tall striped tube socks when he played softball 20 years after short-shorts and tube socks fell out of fashion. how he only knew 2 jokes that didn't use curse words. how he used to smoke sweet pipe tobacco in his big brown easy chair and when he was away on business, i could sit in that chair and not feel so far away from him. and how i once told him that i couldn't continue our relationship in the way that it was currently existing and that i would always be waiting for him when he was ready to be my dad again. that time never came.

i will always wish things had been repaired. that he had been able to understand how much i cared about him. that i had never had to watch him walk away on that rainy day not knowing if he'd ever come back. but i'm thankful for the choice to remember him as the wonderful man that he was, not the man that he became. i can leave a legacy for him.

while shocked that its been 2 months already

Sometimes I take a few short moments to actually take in what's going on around me. Most of the time, these moments are paired with a cup of good coffee. I recently read a book entitled "How Starbucks Saved My Life". An appropriate book for a Seattle native to read. Not that the book is about a literal cup of coffee saving someones life but on how the experience of working at a Starbucks branch in New York city changed one mans view of the world and the people that are its make-up.

Ever since my first cup of espresso at 14, I realized that coffee is so much more than a tasty treat intended to wake you up and swig as quickly as you can to get your morning going or re-vitalize you in the late hours... No. Coffee should be a meeting point. A time of reflection. Yoga for the palate. Like tea is for the Britts, coffee is for Americans, which we borrowed from the Italians.

At 20 I took my first step into Barista-hood. I got a job working the mid-shift in a tiny shack of a drive-thru espresso stand supplying the masses of Conway and freeway drivers with the ever addictive stimulant of espresso and a short conversation. I do not exaggerate when I say that in the 2 minutes I spent with these people each day I became the bar-tender to their emotional lives. I knew more about them than their mothers did. Mike, with his iced 20-ounce (that's a Venti for those who only speak Starbucks) Irish Cream Breve, lost his job and I was the first person that knew about it. Mike came at the slow time of day just so that we could chat for a few extra minutes each afternoon. Glenn always came twice a day, brought his beat up Dad-mug and while I filled it with a frothy Hazelnut Latte, he would share his idea's of sustainable farming and give the barista's fruits and vegetables from his farm. He'd talk for hours if we let him, but he always saw when we glanced up to see someone lining up behind him and he would always continue his conversation without pause as he drove off. I never did finish a conversation with that guy. Raine brought her 3 year old daughter with her for a decaf mocha in the mornings and we chatted about life thru the car window. These people have stayed with me and I think about them often.

I always played my mix CD's when I made coffee. I had the "Vintage Mix", the "Smooth Mix" and the "Kick A** Mix". We had a rule at the coffee stand I worked in: No country music, no Rap or hard rock music allowed. I just can't imagine handing someone a cup of coffee thru the drive-thru window at the same time as "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" is floating out the window as well. Gross. I'm sharing life with these people and that life is classy. Oh yes. Ella, Billie, Aretha, Ryan and Bruce. These friends of mine got me through long days and enticed people to share with me. Even now my house is like a cafe. You walk in, I say "Hi! So good to see you! Can I get you anything?", my espresso machine already primed and ready to pull shots - decaf, half-caf, breve, latte, vanilla, chocolate... Long day and need a shot of Kaluah in that iced latte? I'm on it. All the while my favorite artists are wafting thru the house, enticing conversation and pulling at our emotions, creating a sound-track to our lives. Music has a connection to the emotion like nothing else, and caffine has the unique ability to break down the barriers of even the most timid guest.

I feel like the training of attitude and speech that I learned as a barista has infiltrated my every-day life and it is a good thing. In 2 minutes I can get a lot of information out of you and you won't think anything of it and I'll order your drink for you at Starbucks and make sure its just as you like it and as I walk out the door to wherever I'm going, wish your sister better health and tell you I'll see you around. I think we all have that ability in us and many of us use it to our advantage while others say they are introverts or too shy to serve people in this way. Personally, I no longer believe in intro- or extroverts as we think of them today. I believe we are all just people, differing looks, differing opinions, differing lifestyles and political views but still just people. All of us have a story, all of us have something unique to share and often, if we get over our said "shyness" we'd learn a lot from these people that we walk shoulder to shoulder with in the grocery store. As a recovering "introvert" ( I was painfully, overly self-aware), it was always nice when I'd spill a cup of coffee on myself and some "extrovert" would give me a handful of napkins and tell me that I'm not the first person to do that and certainly not the last and to have a wonderful day. I learn a lot from these people. The ones that take the extra 2 seconds to make sure I have a good day despite the coffee stained shirt and 2nd degree burns. And I love them for it. I learned that if it makes me feel this good to have someone care about me, so randomly and so easily, that I could do that for other people and it doesn't hurt me one bit. Quite the opposite.

I have a particular friend, Adrian, who lives and breathes amazingness in interacting with people. I have learned so much from merely watching him say hello. He very naturally yet very purposefully draws people into comfortable conversation and finds a way to connect you to what you are most passionate about, what you need most or who you would identify with best. Quite a few of my close friends I met thru an introduction from Adrian. He purposefully lives in a part of town that has more of the homeless and the urban poor than most communities. It allows him to interact with them every day and learn how to serve them better. Adrian heads up an organization called ServeLA (www.servela.org) to assist the large community of people that, for any number of reasons, struggle to gain what most of us take advantage of everyday; education, food, job, shelter or a place to lie down at night. I am inspired by him to do more than I am now, to be more and to do more to purposefully serve those around me.

I find myself talking a lot about bettering our community, about doing more for the people we live around, about changing the world. These things can happen. Your dream for your life and the lives around you can come true. You can repair a broken relationship. Life may not be like it is in the movies, but I don't know if you've noticed - most of the time great things happen to people in movies because one of the characters isn't afraid to ask the first question, speak the first word, give the first smile or, when the occasion comes along, to save someone's life. We're here for a purpose. I don't know if you know that. You, yes you, are where you are for a purpose. So do something about it.

While in my car

Its an odd feeling when I’m sitting in my car waiting for the stoplight to turn green and just in front of me I’m watching a gas station employee put up the new price for a gallon of gas. It feels like being a little girl again sitting helplessly as somebody takes the change from my piggy bank. The only issue is, I’m sitting amongst 100 other cars with all the drivers watching the same thing. And when the light turns green, we all push our gas pedals and listen as the sound of our acceleration turns into the “cha-ching” of an olde timey cash register and we all just continue driving. I envisioned as the ring of the register faded in my ears, all of us turning off our engines, getting out of our cars and staring as the man somberly took down the 4 and replaced it with a 5… slo-motion and very epic, like an M. Night Shyamalan film.

The feeling hit me again a few moments later. I was in need of a few of those thin plastic garment bags you get from the cleaners when they finish dry-cleaning your shirts. I went to the first mom and pop cleaner I could find and asked for 2 bags. Pop gets them for me and tells me its $2.00. I joke, “Two bucks? You’re killing me here!” as I’m handing him the quarters. Pop apologetically explains, “The gas prices, they go up. The gas prices…”. Yeah, I know. Why do you think I’ve only got quarters to use?

It’s not so much the gas prices or the economy or any of that. I’m struck by my feelings of being stuck, the inability to create and further positive change. I’m the product of youth rally’s and summer camps that encouraged us to be history makers and world changers. Much of my parents generation have been the ones to host such events for us only to tell us when we get home that we should stay safe and keep our heads on our shoulders. It was a confusing time in life. Not that it’s much better now. In what world do our dreams become realities? In what lifetime does our plan for World Aid actually come to fruition? And in what mind-frame do I need to be in to not let my frustrations of my “normal” life side track me from my calling for life?

The predictable reality is that only if we all decide together to be history makers and world changers is the world ever going to change. And, if I get so hampered by the changing of the U.S. economy and the fight over oil, I am never going to join any group of people for long enough to see that change I so desire.

The truth is, we have to live fearlessly. We have to shake the dust off our feet and run toward whatever it is that we are passionate about. If enough of us run in the same direction, the world will be redesigned.