A Divine Feminine Day in the Life - Common Cold Edition
- Spirit Hearts Song
- 1 day ago
- 15 min read
I felt the prickle yesterday afternoon--subtle at first, just barely detectable.
By the end of the night, I knew I was coming down with something. I'd just returned from a trip to Connecticut for my niece's first birthday, where I was exposed to more people in one day than I've been in one homebody month!
Me with one of the twins and the birthday girl! A baby who shall not be named *did* cough in my face. She could very well be the culprit for giving me this cold!
Baby Fever is the only fever I'd actually like to have. Instead, I write to you in bed with a sore throat and a headache that comes when I try to do too much.
Luckily for me, I've fallen out of the habit of over-exertion and I am relishing in rest.
Here's how the day started
Click to enlarge the photos and read about the sequence of events.
All caught up? Let's talk about this strange charge. I got an email from my bank alerting me of some fishy activity--a $459.38 charge from FedEx of all places. Hun, there is not even that much money in my bank account at the moment, so whomever was trying to scam me did not do their due diligence.
I mean, I hope I have the energy of abundance pouring out of me, but do not be mistaken: every dime is needed and accounted for in this time in my life.
Quitting my job is one decision I don't think I'll ever regret--even though it's made finances a bit tighter than they've been in quite some time. I still have a blessing of a part time gig that gives me enough to cover the basics and the tiniest bit of frills.
Still, not splitting my energy between the work of my soul's calling and that other job has given me something money truly cannot buy: an abundance of time. True peace in my heart and mind. The energy to work on the projects I believe I've incarnated in this lifetime to bring into fruition.
So I'm happy with where I am, tight finances and all.
No scammer could take one look at me and know all of this. I suspect it was the attendant at the gas station in Jersey. The aforementioned birthday party was in a Newark suburb and I had 20 miles dangerously left in the tank when I stopped at the rest and refuel station on the highway. To my Garden State delight, gas was $2.89 a gallon and, of course, they are mandated to pump your gas; it's a passenger princess' paradise!
But I recall feeling that the man had my card a little too long. Who knows--he could have a photographic memory and a brilliant operation to embezzle millions from unsuspecting gas guzzlers.
Well, the joke is on him--or whomever it was that tried to send groceries across the world: the bank rejected the charge (probably first because I didn't have enough money and second because: who in the world spends four hundred dollars at FedEx?!).
Anywho, the bank sorted it out sans issue, and the nice Indian woman on the other end of the line told me I'd be getting a new card within three business days. This little piece of information is important, as my current debit card was deactivated and rendered useless. We'll get to that in a sec.
How much food can one procure with $25?
Wegman's Edition.
You who know me know I'm a huge advocate for buying groceries with PayPal debit.
You load money onto your card from your bank account or your bank's debit card. Then, at the top of each month, you select the category you spend most of your hard-earned coin on. For me, that's groceries.
PayPal gives you 5% cash back on your selected category on up to $1000 of purchases, which means you can make up to $50 just by buying your necessities. Then, you can recycle that money back into your necessities. This is an easy way to feel more abundant in an economy that encourages us to feel the opposite.
After rent, food is my biggest monthly expense. You who know me know I eat 99% organic and I believe this investment is worth every penny.
As I'm feeling under-the-snowy-weather, I decided it was time to make a trek to Wegman's to procure oranges and some more veggies for the chili I started this morning.
I did wear a mask!
I didn't know how much money I had left on my PayPal debit card before I left, as I'd made two online groceries purchases to round out my organic shopping for this pay period; Wegman's only offers a sliver of the caliber of food I need.
Thus, US Wellness Meats got a large chunk of change, as did Azure Standard. Azure Standard charges a processing fee for debit and credit card payments, so I checkout using the bank account from which I pay my rent and utilities.
US Wellness Meats offers free shipping on orders over 15lbs, and they frequently offer 15% off discount codes. I held the items in my cart over the weekend in the hopes they'd send one over and, like clockwork, they did.
I think they offer a discount at least once a month. If you're looking for a high-vibe meat supplier, I recommend.
And, yes, I--a single woman--need 25 pounds of popcorn; I need it, I tell you!
Before heading to Wegman's, I picked up my little sis and we made our first stop at the library. I'd ordered a bunch of books from libraries across the Southern Tier and they'd been waiting for me for close to a week.
In truth, I've struggled to read library books in their entirery these days, but I think it's because the fiction I'm drawn to is just not energetically aligned with where I am. Contemporary romantasy is incredibly dark and I will always be turned off by a book with a morally gray main character. As a romance writer myself, I love a great sex scene, but gratuitious smut is just not enough; I need sacred sexuality or I don't need sex at all.
Suffice it to say, all of the books from this library haul are non-fiction.
Let's dive into the photos to learn more about why I'm adding them to my TBR. But before you ask, Spir, what's with all these baby books?, let me explain:
I'm the kind of person who likes to have information BEFORE I need it. While I don't see myself having kids for a few years (just a week ago I wasn't sure if I still wanted kids at all!), I'd like to feel that I have a firm foundation of knowledge to call upon when that time comes. I'd hate to spend the precious nine months of my first pregnancy cramming like a madwoman.
I recently learned that there are several univiersites in the US that offer Home Economics as a major. If I had known that in high school (and hadn't been so "Ivy League or bust"), I would have taken my heinie to the midwest and studied precisely that.
If I had told my dad I wanted to pursue this path in the hopes of becoming a teacher, he would have supported me. But, alas, that was simply not the path. And it's all in the past now.
In the present, I have the opportunity to fill in the gaps of my homemaking education.
My February TBR
Book 01: The Calm Baby Method: solutions for fussy days and sleepless nights by Patti Ideran and Mark Fishbein. Calm baby? Say no more.
Book 02: 101 Ways to Workout with Weights by Cindy Whitmarsh. When I first began investing in my health in high school, I'd wake up at 5AM to run on the treadmill in our basement or do a video workout on a channel called "Exercise TV On Demand" before school. That channel was simply the best; it had hundreds of workouts to choose from, and Cindy Whitmarsh was one of my favorite trainers. I'm in the phase of my life where I've finally surrendered to the fact that no yoga class is coming to save me. By that I mean: I live in a tiny town in New York's Rust Belt that's an hour south of Rochester and fifty minutes from the smaller metropolitan area of Corning, NY. I tried the Y (which was an absurd $63 a month) and a beginner's yoga class at the top of an old Victorian in town. The consensus: I refuse to pay any amount of money to be forced to workout to Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and P!nk. No offense to those ladies, I just can't accept a world in which I'm paying to have "Dark Horse" blast out my eardrums on a weekly basis. And the only reason I went to the Y was for its group classes. The yoga class in town was too easy for me and, thus, not fulfilling. My favorite workouts are self-guided, but I suppose I'd had a bit of imposter syndrome when it comes to fully leading myself. So a book by one of my favorite fitness experts will certainly help! Plus, I have two ten pound weights that have gone comatose on my living room floor. It's time I start a regular practice of working with them. I think Cindy's tips will help keep me inspired.
Book 03: Yoga for pregnancy, birth, and beyond by Francoise Barbira Freedman. Moving my body is a top priority now and will continue to be when the day comes that my body becomes a literal home for my growing child(ren). It's good to know which poses are safe and nourishing now. You know I like to be prepared.
Book 04: Mudras: yoga in your hands by Gertrud Hirschi. I like to do both self-guided yoga sessions and self-guided meditations; studying the mudras is something I've longed to do for quite some time and incorporating them into these practices will only enhance their potencies.
Book 05: Yoga for healthy feet : practice from the ground up by Donald Moyer. When I was 20, I went to my university's podiatrist with a case of plantar fasciitis and he told me my feet were completely flat. He urged me to buy a pair of New Balance's for I'd been training for a 5k in Nikes, and he detested the brand. I invested in a pair of grandpa looking Saucony's that I bought at Philadelphia Runner, and completed my 5k around the 29 minute mark (yay! My goal was sub-30). It wasn't until a few years later, around 2020, that I began to research if one could build an arch. Six years of exclusive barefoot shoe wearing and I am here to tell you: one can.
Book 06: The most important 60 days of your pregnancy : prevent your child from developing diabetes and obesity later in life by Dr. Pierre Dukan. Okay, how interesting is that?! A personal must read.
Book 07: Twin sense: a sanity-saving guide to raising twins--from pregnancy through the first year by Dagmara Scalise. My older sister gave birth to her first kids--beautiful twin girls--this past November. They say twins skip a generation and it's clear the generation for twins is here. This is one of those just in case kinds of reads.
Book 08: Every woman's guide to eating during pregnancy by Martha Rose Shulman and Jane L. Davis. I truly believe pregnancy will be that much easier if I enter into it with a well of knowledge from which to pull. I am an advocate of true nutrition and I love learning about wholesome, nutrient dense diets.
Book 09: Real food for fertility: prepare your body for pregnancy with preconception nutrition and fertility awareness by Lily Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson. I feel this is important for me especially, because I'm currently 32 and I have no clue when I'll meet The One and when we'll start building a family together. Remember how I said about a week ago I wasn't even sure if I wanted kids? Well, part of my reasoning then was that I simply didn't feel ready. I've never even had a real boyfriend! It's a little scary to think of going from completely single to a wife and mother overnight. The one thing that pulled me out of my spinsterhood imaginings was reading a post on Reddit from moms over 40; having kids older is incredibly common, but not nearly as applauded or spoken about. But reading their stories let me know I still have time. Lots of it, I believe. In the meantime, I am prioritizing my health and well being, ensuring that my body is treated as the sacred vessel it is. I've been working on balancing my hormones these past few years, and I feel this book will be useful as the journey continues.
Book 10: The complete organic pregnancy by Deirdre Dolan and Alexandra Zissu. Remember how I said I eat 99% organic? This book is right up my alley. It was written in 2006 which I find amazing; back then, organic foods and products were not nearly as readily available as they are now. I'm interested to discover what tips these women--two journalists and mothers--can share.
"Now is the time," they say, "to purify yourself and your surroundings." As someone who does hope to have kids, I agree completely that there's no time like the present to align myself with health and equip myself with a wealth of information to make mothering an exciting and play-full adventure rather than a frightening path.
Now, back to the groceries...
I live on the margins of the grocery store. That is to say: I avoid the inner aisles at all costs, and spend most of my time in the produce section and, when I need a family sized bag of peas or corn, the freezer aisle.
Oranges were my first find. I'm blessed that they're in season now and, while the soreness in my throat tinged the eating experience with pain, I will say the orange was perfectly sweet and deliciously juicy.
$7.49 for 4 pounds of organic navel oranges. Yowza! But necessary. When I took my big shamanic trip to Portugal and Morcco in September (I think I'll have those vlogs ready in March), I spent most of the trip oblivious to the fact that I'd gotten Covid somewhere along the way there. My guess is it was on the plane from JFK, where I spent most of it yapping to my seat-mate and eschewing a mask.
I shake my head at my negligence, but I give thanks for it too, for a positive Covid test was one of the only things that saved me from the clutches of a Brazilian F*boy whose idea of a date was oinking and boinking in the mountains of Portugal.
In his sex-crazed defense, I was completely naked, huddled in the sunny, nude-friendly section of public beach. This is probably the last place anyone would expect to connect with a hope-full romantic virgin, comitted to waiting for the one.
Luckily for me he came a-jogging when I wasn't dang near spread eagle.
More on that in those aforementioned vlogs. I do discuss this a bit in Episode 2 of The Divine Feminine Mystique, which you can listen to here :)
When I made it to Morocco on day 2 or 3 of the trip, my symptoms manifested. I thought they were a blend of allergies, malnurishment, and general travel fatigue. I'd completely lost my appetite, but after almost passing out in my Airbnb, I knew it was important to keep my eye out for something that was appetizing.
It was a gorgeous Airbnb. The owner was a Moroccan engineer who was rehabilitating the whole house with his brothers.
As I walked to the Phoenician tombs, I thought about how nice it'd be to have an orange (thank you, body, for alerting me that we needed Vitamin C!). To my great delight, at the entrance to the tombs sat a small cart that served freshly pressed orange juice.
"Asseyez-vous," the elderly man smiled as his younger friend got to juicing. I sat, I rested, I was all-right.
The smile of a woman who thinks she only has allergies...
Hun, when I tell you that juice was the most delectable drink I've ever drank, I hyperbolize not!
I truly hope I just have a cold this time. But even still, I'm arming myself with the mighty force of oranges.
Back at the grocery store...
I went in search of accoutrements for my chili. That US Wellness Meats order I placed is arriving tomorrow and the only meat I had left in the freezer besides liver was pork belly. I've never cooked pork belly before, but I bought it a few orders back to see what I could do with it. Last night, I did a quick search to see if anyone had made chili with this cut and all my searches yielded zero recipes. It seems pork belly is most popular in Asian cuisines, as those were a bulk of the recipes that came up.
Ever the kitchen adventurer, I figured there was no harm in cubing it to put into my chilli. Uncooked, the meat was much too fatty to slice with my Home Goods knife, so I tossed it whole into my Dutch oven and cubed it after it'd been cooking for about an hour.
I am here to inform you that we can indeed make delicious and nutritious chili from pork belly.
I'd already had corn and black beans at home; the accoutrements I bought at Wegman's were:
Kale, cauliflower, and potatoes. The carrots had to be put back. More on that in a sec.
Generally, I prefer to buy kale by the bunch instead of the bag, but look at how wilted the organic kale was:
Completely limp and very much drained of color; that entire section should have been half off. Then I would have gotten it.
I thought about getting organic parsley--which I was very surprised to see they had--until, upon further inspection, I found the conventionally grown parsley was piled up in the organic section.
How can I tell? It's written in the PLU number. Every organically grown produce item is marked with a PLU that begins with 9. Conventionally grown PLUs begin with 4, and genetically modified PLUs begin with 3. Always, always, always check your PLU when you're at a conventional grocery store. You might come home thinking your food is cleaner than it truly is.
After I'd picked up coconut milk (for my organic, low-acid decaf coffee), I felt the intuitive nudge to check in on my little friend PayPal. Remember how I said I'd left the house without knowing how much grocery money I had left in the account? Well, it turns out I had $25. I'd planned on adding more money after my most recent budgeting sesh revealed I had funds that could be redirected there.
But remember when I told you about the scammer's four hundred dollar FedEx spree? The one that got my card shut down and rendered useless? That's the card that's linked to my PayPal. It's the only debit card I have (PayPal notwithstanding). Like Venmo, debit transfers in PayPal happen instantly. Bank transfers need 3-5 days.
I needed my groceries a little sooner than that.
I had $1 in my wallet and twenty cents in my pocket that I found on my morning walk with Hamsa.
$25 my budget would be.
The potatoes didn't have a price, nor did the cauliflower, so I figured my best bet was to go to self checkout and scan the most important ingredients first, going until I'd reached the $25 line of demarcation.
This is a good time to stop and share this event I saw my town is hosting when I was at the library :
A screening of the film "Loving," which tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose supreme court case overturned the Virginian law that banned interracial marriages.
Remember how I told you I live in a tiny Rust Belt town? Well, this town is predominately white, working class, and Republican. Very similar to the town from where I graduated high school, but lower on the socio-economic totem poll. To see that they're screening this film made me think this town is orienting itself, and its citizens, towards a more unified world view.
I tell you this because one thing you should know about me is I detest going to self checkout at Wegman's. I'm unsure if they're watching me extra closely, or if I'm hyper-sensitive to being watched. I usually take my heinie to a cashier who will both scan and bag my items to avoid the internal tumult self-checkout brings me.
But I wanted to work on my own budgeting in peace. Plus, this town is screening "Loving"--that must mean it's on its way to being a metropolitan metropolis, right?
Right?!
:(
The blonde teen swiftly moved from her station at the end of the self-checkout place to stand beside my kiosk. Now, in her defense, I have seen staff posted there countless of times before. And I understand it's their job to watch people. I was also wearing a huge hat that covered half my face and a mask that obscured most of what was left.
But, oh, how I hate to be hawk-eyed.
I pray for a world where peace is not a privilege, but our natural state of existing. One where we are all united in our humanity and not torn apart by false beliefs.
So, how much *can* one buy for $25?
From most to least expensive: 4 pounds of organic oranges, 3 pounds of organic russet potatoes, 1 large head of organic cauliflower, 1 bag of organic kale, and two pieces of organic ginger.
Not bad when you know what to do with what you've got.
I riced the cauliflower, chopped the kale, and cubed the potatoes, adding them into the pot 'til I could add greens no longer. I couldn't even use all of the vegetables I'd prepared. That chili is thicker than a snicker and much healthier, too.
There is nothing wise budgeting and intuitive cooking can't do.
Home is where my heart is
As I sit and write these words to you, I'm cozied up in bed with indie jazz keeping me company. Hamsa's just returned to the bedroom from dinner and is back in the same seat she started the morning in.
I'm wearing homemade 'jammies and looking forward to my post-writing nap. Hamsa's already drifted off to dreamland.
Even with a prickly throat and a Covid test in my immediate future, today has been grand; it's been divine feminine; it's been free.
What's so divine feminine about it, you may ask?
The emphasis on nurturance and the allowance for flow and rest. I didn't plan on blogging this day as I've done, but I'm so thankful I did because it's been so much fun!
Thank you for keeping up with my sacred shenanigans. I love being an open book.
And I love embracing the knowing that I'm still being written.
Write on!
XO,
Spirit
glad you were able to get the Fedex situation figured out! And I hope you start to feel better! February 9th is literally next week-how are you feeling?! Proud of you for following your gut and leaving a place that doesn't serve you anymore.