Friday Five: My Favorite Macrobiotic Blogs

I haven’t done a Friday Five in a while, but it’s definitely time for one.

When I embarked on Macrobiotic March, one of the first things I did was look for new macrobiotic blogs. Here are my current (new) favorites.

Maggie’s Favorite Macrobiotic Blogs

1. Macrobiotic Magic in the Kitchen. This is mostly a recipe blog, and with recipes like Winter Stew and Pumpkin with a Maple Miso Sauce, who could resist? Well – who can resist pumpkin ever? (Certainly not me.)

2. No Dairy No Sugar. This is a simple, pretty blog with lots of ideas for macrobiotic meals. I want to try her Quinoa Amaranth Veggie Mix.

3. She Cooks Macro. This blog is beautiful and truly professional. I wish I had found it in time to join the Chewathon! (I have been neglecting my chewing, again.)

4. The MacroChef. This blog is run by a natural foods chef who is (I think) based in the Bay Area (my old home). I really want to try his Gingery Peanut Butter Cookies or his Coleslaw Makeover.

5. Food Everyday, Everyday Food! This blog has so many beautiful pictures of inspiring macrobiotic meals. Check out these 4 days of macrobiotic meals. The dishes are so vibrant!

5 Macrobiotic Blog Runners Up (because there were too many to pick just 5)

1. The Macro Veg. This is a runner up because it’s infrequently updated. But I have to post it because there is a recipe for Kabocha Stuffed Stew.

2. Macro Mom. Another infrequently updated blog, but really nice. I want to try the Seaweed Nut Crunch.

3. The Blissful Chef. This blog is actually really lovely, but the recipes are way more complicated than I like to do. She has a lot of really delicious looking (but seemingly kind of labor intensive) foods like Orange and Rose Blossom Cake. (She’s also not strictly macro – there is stevia in some recipes – more of a macro-leaning vegan.)

4. Snackrobiotic. I am such a snacker, how can I leave this one out! I want to try the Carrot Daikon Drink.

5. The Dainty Pig. Last but certainly not least, Jess is a Macro March participant! Check out her Macro Mondays. The only reason she is not in my top five is because she is not a new find 😉

In other news, did everyone hear that Google Reader will close on July 1, 2013? Reading that announcement (via Hacker News, my favorite news source) must have been the saddest thing I read in… well, in at least the last few days. 😉 I have no idea what RSS reader I’m going to switch to. I wake up to Google Reader, I read it when I’m on lunch/break at work, I check in again at night – and it’s the absolute best way to organize my feeds that I have found so far. I never dreamed it would shut down. Even if I do find a good substitute, that just means yet another system to have to log into. I like keeping everything in Google to minimize the number of usernames and passwords I have to remember. Sigh.

Any feed reader suggestions?

What are your favorite macrobiotic blogs?

Friday Five: 5 Ways to Destress

1. Take a deep breath.

Don’t move. Feel the breath go in your mouth, through your throat, into the chest, into the belly. Out the belly, the chest, the throat, the mouth. Breath it into your fingers and your toes. Close your eyes. Listen. Breathe.

2. Meditate for 5 minutes.

If this is hard, try repeating a mantra as you sit, cross-legged, in a comfortable seat. Perhaps sit on a blanket. Back and neck are long. On the inhale, think, LET, on the exhale, GO. Inhale, LET, exhale, GO. Set a timer, or just stop when you’re ready.

3. Accept yourself today. (Or at least try.)

Don’t wait for when you are thinner, are in better shape, get a promotion, accomplish some goal. Accept yourself today, because it’s wasting time if you can only think about the future or the past. Be present, and be okay with you as you are. (This is not to say don’t have goals – just don’t beat yourself up if you’re not where you want to be.)

4. Drink a cup of tea. Savor it.

Be present as you sip your hot drink from the mug. Feel the warmth in your hands. Feel the tea in your belly. Watch when and where your mind starts to wander.

5. Try a sun salutation.

The simplest sun salutation variation I know is this:

Inhale, sweep your arms up overhead, press the palms, look up.

Exhale, swan dive forward, fold over your legs.

Inhale, look forward, flat back.

Exhale, fold.

Inhale, reverse the swan dive, sweep arms up, press the palms, look up.

Exhale, bring hands to prayer at your heart.

Repeat.

5 Friday 5 Links:

Five random Q’s.

  1. What was your first wristwatch like?
    –I don’t remember.
  2. What lately seems to have been a thief of time?
    –My “chitta vritti” – the whirlings and turnings of the mind. I’ve been distracted and unable to focus. Need to reign it in and start being present.
  3. What were yesterday’s quietest five minutes like?
    –Savasana after an Ashtanga practice.
  4. In what way have you lately been saving time?
    –More home yoga practice instead of going to the studio. Good in that it saves time; bad in that I probably am not doing all the poses I should be doing.
  5. We are often charged hourly rates for labor, but we never get to reciprocate in kind when promised completion times don’t match actual completion. If you could bill people for the time you spend waiting, what would be a reasonable amount?
    –This could be like some deadlines in school – for every day it’s late, it’s a letter grade off. I suppose a reasonable “letter grade” charge would that any additional work past the original estimate would be at least 10% off.

Five Things Friday & Fantabulous Friday Five – 09.23.2011

Five Things Friday:

  1. It’s Fall. Officially. My favorite season. I even got up early this morning to do a post 🙂
  2. My yoga teacher training starts tonight. So excited.
  3. Hopefully going out to dinner with my husband tonight.
  4. Can’t wait to spend time with friends this weekend (after my training).
  5. I’m loving on kabocha this week. Got a few perfectly ripe ones. Also introduced a friend to it and she loves it too 🙂

Fantabulous Friday Five comes in 3 parts…

Five things I want to buy

  1. … I’m gonna say nothing. I really don’t want anything right now! Hate clutter. Instead I will do…

Five things I want to get rid of

  1. Old clothes and shoes I never wear
  2. Too many books
  3. Canned / boxed foods in my kitchen that I will never eat
  4. Kitchen appliances I never use (juicer, I’m looking at you)
  5. Old cords that don’t seem to match up to anything

Five places I’ve visited

  1. Hawaii (honeymoon; my favorite vacation)
  2. France (this past summer; also when I was 7 in November of 1993)
  3. Italy (January 2008 – graduation gift to self)
  4. Miami (where my in-laws live)
  5. LA (Guster/John Mayer cruise)

dec 30 2009 006

(Key Largo, south of Miami)

Five jobs I’ve held

  1. Video store clerk (high school)
  2. Call center rep at ETS (one summer in college)
  3. Sales associate at Gap (I think I spent all my earnings at my place of work)
  4. Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve in SF
  5. Software Engineer! (current)

What are yours?