Hump day

Sunday breakfast welcoming the spring

Yes, above is the photo of Sunday breakfast, today it is only yogurt and cereal, not worth a photo. Hump day means the middle of a workweek, 2 days gone and 2 more to go, in my case 3 to go, today, Wednesday, is one of the longest workdays for me. I’m starting now at 9 and I go until around 7 pm. And I made the mistake to open my email earlier, and I already saw many extra tasks to crunch into my day.

I’ll try to make today a great day, hope you do the same.

First signs of spring

March flowers in Central Park – NYC

Happy Spring everyone! We are still freezing here in my city in Canada, but last week I saw the first signs of spring while visiting New York City. Those tiny purple flowers on the ground made me smile.

Tanka Tuesday this week is a theme prompt: Fire and Water, below is my poem where I’ve chosen sunshine for fire and icy for water. Hope you enjoy it!

midday early spring
sunshine warming up my face
the ground still icy
mixed feelings, blending moments
losing the mind between thoughts

Art pages

prompt: Rumi’s quote

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Rumi

Recently I’ve joined an art page on IG. It was great to explore a little bit of creativity using images and quotes. The top page was inspired by one of Rumi’s quotes. His quotes/poems are always so peaceful. The image I’ve chosen shows the lightness of the feathers and the happiness in the woman’s smile. It reminds me of freedom and the butterfly represents transformation, changes we need to work on to adapt our minds and environment towards freedom.

prompt: William Wordsworth’s quote

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

William Wordsworth

No better teacher than Nature. I used to say that doing nothing by a lake is great, but now I say that being by a lake is an act of self-care, so I’m taking care of myself when I’m by a lake.

prompt: green

Green means spring/summer time here in Canada. We have bare trees and greyness from November to March, so when the green buds start to show up it is a sign of warm weather on the way. 😊

green

journaling in my living room
blue and yellow blast
i'm lost in a field of dreams
edge of the abyss

i look at my hands
the tiny emerald ring
roots me to the earth
it's time to grow and renew
the grass dancing with the breeze

Is anyone else feeling at the edge of the abyss? This winter has been so long and the creativity muse has left. Finally, this week the outdoors grey is giving some space for the sunshine and I’m starting to reclaim my creativity.

Tanka Tuesday this week is colours of the rainbow, green. My poem, consisting of a haiku and a tanka, intentionally doesn’t have the word green in it, but it has ‘green’ all over it. Hope you enjoy it!

Abhanga :: the supper is ready

spiced Indian eggplant
crisp chickpeas, delicious
mangoes are nutritious
chai, just perfect

This evening I cooked garlic Indian eggplant for supper. It was delish, I didn’t have time to take a photo. The recipe is super easy: Slice a few Indian or Chinese eggplants into rings, roast in the oven with a little bit of oil until golden. In a pot, saute garlic in olive oil, add the roasted eggplants, and spice up with salt, black pepper and turmeric, you can add a little bit of lemon juice too. It’s ready to eat with rice or bread. it’s so simple, nutritious and delicious. And very affordable too, this supper cost was less than 10 dollars for 2, me and hubby.

Tanka Tuesday this week is to write a poem using the Abhanga form that originated in India, Colleen describes it: We write Abhanga in any number of 4-line stanzas with 6-6-6-4 syllables each. L2 and L3 rhyme. The end rhyme scheme is abbc. It is customary to title your poetry.

I love Indian food, but I can’t eat most of their dishes because of the spice, so I created a few variations of it at home, like the spiced eggplant where I added garlic instead of spices.

Hope you enjoy the poem and the recipe 🙂