• Priscilla Nason Shartle

hearthealthyboomer

~ Living healthy after age seventy.

hearthealthyboomer

Monthly Archives: April 2015

My Leafy Green Garden

30 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by prisnasonshartle in My Leafy Garden

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cognitive skills, garden, herbs, leafy greens, Spirtuality and Health Magazine, Survival Essentials, vegetables

lettuce 1In the April 2015 publication of Spirituality and Health Magazine, Traci Pedersen writes about how eating leafy greens make for a sharper brain.  She states, “A new study has found that eating leafy green vegetables – such as spinach, kale and mustard greens – can have a dramatically positive effect on our thinking abilities. In fact, older people who eat one to two servings a day of leafy greens have the cognitive skills of a person over a decade younger.”  – See more at:  Spirituality and Health.

I am most pleased to be reading this.  My garden is based on the plants we like, and each year we add more raised beds and include new and different plants.  This year our son built raised beds in his backyard.  Being a vegetarian, he was most interested in choosing quality seeds and so ordered them online from Survival Essentials.  They claim that their seeds are, “the finest Non GMO, Non Hybrid Heirloom Seed Bank anywhere on the Earth!”  In fact these seeds, if placed in an airtight glass jar in a freezer, have an expected shelf life from 10 to 20 years.  And he got enough seeds to share with us.herbs

In addition to our kale which survived summer heat over 100 degrees and three snow storms and temperatures below 10 degrees this winter and our two rosemary bushes that never die, our flat leaf parsley, curly parsley, lavender, sage, and mint all came back or survived the winter.  We had to replace the spicy oregano and sweet basil in the herb garden and added amaranth; however we are now ready for our leafy greens to sprout.

Returning are Crowder peas, okra, cucumbers, yellow squash, green squash (zucchini), sweet bell peppers, tomato plants and lettuce.  But this year we planted red-tipped romaine, butter crunch, and Prizehead lettuce.  We also planted arugula, beets, radishes, and not just for the vegetable but also for the greens.

lettuce2For fun we created a corner for strawberries.  But the first rainfall we realize the runoff from the neighbor’s yard runs directly down the center of the strawberry patch.  We laid some small gravel and that didn’t work so added a stone wall to guide the water away from the strawberry plants; so far so good.

In total, we have sixteen raised beds.  Waiting for the ground to be warm enough to plant was hard because it was only a few weeks ago when it was close to freezing at night.  But having a garden filled with leafy greens is worth it.  I’m not sure if it is the work involved in taking care of a garden or if it is eating the leafy greens that keeps an older person young, but I’m willing to keep on enjoying our garden and all of its bounty.  Eating healthy and liking what I eat and having the cognitive skills of a person ten years younger sounds great to me!

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Good for the Soul

22 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by prisnasonshartle in Good for the Soul

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God, Joni Bishop, joy, resonator guitar, Spirituals

Singer/Songwriter Joni Bishop sings, “I want to live so God can use me anytime, anywhere….”  This song as Joni said is hard to forget.  For me it reminds me to be accountable for my actions.  She uses a resonator guitar which reverberJoni Bishop CDates out into the world with such joy. Invented in the 1900’s, this guitar could be heard over the sounds of the outdoor spirituals.  Today, Joni’s sings her song with the same joy as only Spirituals can sound. When we talked, she told me this is one of her favorite CD’s that she published.  I can see why. Originally spirituals were sung in the call and response style.  And like her song, God calls me and I respond with the same joy; this is hard to forget. ~ Pris

Temptation

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by prisnasonshartle in Tempting Foods

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baking, chocolate pound cake, healthy eating, LSU, mother-in-law, ZTA

Today I baked a cake.  Not just any cake but my sister-in-law’s very own “Deluxe Chocolate Pound Cake.”  Delicious beyond measure, it is hard to pass up, but I will.  Not because I don’t like it, but because it will make me sick.  Not literally but emotionally.  I am addicted to foods I should not eat and there are probably over a thousand calories in one slice of this cake.  And because my diet is based on eating healthy foods, (without butter, eggs, and sugar), I’m pretty sure I could not stop at one piece.

I baked this cake for several reasons.  One is that I love to cook and baking is just as fun as making a big pot of bean soup filled with garlic, onions, flax seeds, and kale.  The other is that it brings back such great memories. When I was a young mother I got this recipe at a ZETA alumni party.  Our alumni chapter at LSU made cookbooks and sold them to each other at the “Kandy Kitchen” fundraiser.  My sister-in-law, Wesley Anne submitted the recipe and so I baked it as a treat one Sunday when her mother, my mother-in-law came over for dinner.

We sat at my kitchen table, drinking coffee, listening to my oldest son, Brian who was three play outside in our backyard.  We had a fenced in yard with a swing set and patio for him to play on.  He could hear us talking as we could see and hear him playing.  The smell of the chocolate cake was just like it was today, wonderful.  Finally, after the required one hour and twenty-minute bake time, I pulled the cake out of the oven.  It was a mess.chocolate pound cake

I looked at my mother-in-law and could not tell if my face was red from embarrassment or from the heat of the oven.  We just looked at it – a crumbled, uncooked glob of chocolate.  I carried it the table and together we tried to figure out what went wrong.  With the recipe card, she started calling out the ingredients to confirm I had indeed not left anything out.  But when she got to five eggs, I hesitated, checked my refrigerator and sure enough, the eggs were still in the carton and NOT in the cake.  However, it was not a loss.  For you see, how can you go wrong with rum, butter, coconut extract with chocolate, butter and sugar?  We sat and ate our cake with a spoon and enjoyed every minute of it.

Temptation – to desire or crave something; I have the power to say no to eating this cake, but that won’t stop me from baking it or sharing it with those who can handle its delicious treats.

 

Finding Wholeness

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by prisnasonshartle in Finding Wholeness

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balance, body, harmony, healthy, inner Being, mind, Rev. Kelly Isola, vibrant, wholeness

Rev. Kelly Isola writes in Rediscovering Your Wholeness, “When you experience harmony in mind, you experience harmony in body. And when you have a sense of well-being and peace within your body, you are at peace with your body.”

I like that.  Harmony is my friend.  If situations in my life feel out of sync, I pause for a moment for prayer.  I am reminded that, “All things work together for good.”

Many times when I feel out of sync it is because my body is not responding the way I want it too.  My goal is to find a sense of peace and well-being with the food I eat.  I seek balance and find wholeness. And as Rev. Isola goes on to say, “Connecting to our wholeness is the cornerstone to a happy, healthy, meaningful and abundant life.”

It does not matter how I choose to enhance my body – regular exercise, eating nutritional food, spiritual practices, meditating, yoga, or daily walking; if I don’t connect with my inner Being and focus on how I can express individually as I AM, I’m wasting my time.  This means I must have thoughts of wholeness fill my mind to create the healthiest and most vibrant person I can be.

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