what's left in the snack bowl

I have a big bowl in my kitchen cupboard that holds all of my biking snacks.
the GU's, the shot blocks, trail mix bars, and the occasional Payday or Salted Nut Roll. I raid this bowl whenever I'm packing for a ride longer than about 90 minutes. I haven't been much into GU's this season, therefore at least a dozen little foil packets fill the bottom of my snack bowl. and as of today, nothing sits on top of them. nothing.
I told this to bill the other day, and he said, well, don't you replenish the bowl? well, duh, a light bulb went on over my head. I usually do, during cycling season. but since cycling season has been on this long, dragged-out, slowly dying end run, my replenishment hasn't kept up with the riding, and thus my goodies have run out too soon. before the snow has taken over. and I guess I've been on more of a short-ride mentality, not thinking I need as many treats because I'm not riding big long rides.
this reminds me of the well: we need to refill our well if we're going to be pulling from it to get ourselves (and others) through the day.
I have not replenished my snack bowl well.
tsk, tsk.
so treats have been on my mind. thus, I thought I would inform you of exactly what goes into a GU:

Maltodextrin: a complex carbohydrate which is easily absorbed from the gut and provides glucose polymers for sustained energy.

Fructose: the principal sugar in fruit. This sugar works in conjunction with maltodextrin to provide energy. Fructose is absorbed rapidly, but utilized more slowly than glucose.

GU Herbal Blend: a unique blend of performance-enhancing herbs; cola nut (caffeine), chamomile, and ginseng. Caffeine aids in the metabolism of fats for longer-lasting energy. Chamomile has anti-inflammatory properties. Ginseng, Siberian and Korean, has been used for centuries in Eastern medicine to enhance energy production.

Leucin and Valine: branched-chain amino acids, which provide up to 5% of the calories burned during exercise. Endurance activities can lead to deficiencies in blood leucine, which the body tries to restore by degrading muscle. These amino acids also play an important role in maintaining focus and concentration.

GU Antioxidant Blend: a blend of Vitamin C and Vitamin E that is designed to protect tissues by neutralizing free radicals which are produced by the muscle's use of oxygen during exercise.

Histidine: an essential amino acid that acts as a buffer to slow the build up of lactic acid.

Potassium and Sodium Citrate: essential minerals that must be replaced during exercise to maximize performance through the optimal absorption of liquids.

Pectin: a natural fiber without bulk that controls the absorption of ingredients from the gut, helping to minimize the stomach distress many people experience with sports bars, drinks, and other gels.

Sea Salt: a natural source of sodium which includes essential minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, copper, and zinc.

Calcium Carbonate: an easily absorbed form of calcium which plays a large role in muscle contractions.

slightly scary, isn't it?
do you wonder why they're still available in my snack bowl?
my favorite thing these days are Cliff Mojo Mountain Mix bars. boy, that's a mouthful. (pun not really intended but then when I caught it I liked it and left it in.) I like these bars because they're substantial; I feel like I'm really eating something. I hate to waste my calories on things I don't get to chew.

so, I ordered a box of mountain mix bars, and they arrived today, and now ~ phew ~ the snack bowl just might get replenished.

restoration

last thursday night my car battery died.
it died in a most unusual way for a battery to die: it committed suicide.
now maybe this isn't a strange thought for most of you, but for me, it's just not up there in the "what I expect a car battery to do" list.

thursday night I went into my garage to get something I keep stored there. I opened the door, flipped on the light, and immediately heard a kind of a clicking noise. I paused, my eyes and ears searching the garage for what it could possibly be. I saw nothing unusual, but continued to hear this rhythmic sound, which seemed to be coming from the northwest corner of my garage. there were two cars in my little garage, so everything was packed in tightly, and I wiggled my way over to that area, where I listened even more carefully. my ears finally told my brain that the sound was coming from under the hood of my car. hmmm.
now I have to backtrack and tell you about the ghost in my car.
I bought this car (I just can't bring myself to admit it's a minivan, so I will continue to call it a car) four years ago, from a nice couple who had been its only owners. I should say, at the time of purchase I thought they were a nice couple. I have since decided that I need to qualify that statement, and perhaps call them a usually nice couple who were more concerned about unloading the vehicle than they were with being completely upfront about its history. which is probably how almost all of us are when we're trying to sell a car.
I hadn't had the car long before the ghost made its presence known. I was driving, on my way to one place or another, on the freeway. suddenly the electronic locks clicked, locking the doors. then they clicked again, unlocking the doors. then silence, as my mind raced around, trying to understand what had just happened. then, click. click. click-click, as it did a quick lock-unlock sequence. click-click.
then nothing.
I smiled. it had to be a ghost.
to keep to the point of the story, I won't go on and on: suffice it to say, there were numerous times my car decided to unlock itself. or lock and then unlock itself. the ghost in the machine.
so, back to thursday night: my first thought was just that the ghost was just back at work.
and then I opened the door, and saw a feeble little "door open" light come on and weakly flash in time with the clicks.
uh-oh.
I tried the key: dead. nada. muerto.
three males later, we found a fuse that was playing mexican jumping bean, causing the noise. we pulled the fuse, the sound stopped, and I still had a dead battery.

yes, there is a point to this story: when the AAA guy came the next morning, he explained to me what had happened. apparently a battery recharges as you drive. if you don't drive a lot, the battery can find itself living in half-mode: carrying a charge, but never recharging itself completely. the mechanic told me this will ruin a battery. so what the car does when it detects this situation is to set off an event that will drain the battery completely, because a completely drained battery has a better chance of new life than a battery living forever in half-mode. (can you tell that these are MY words, not his??).
so my really intelligent car made this fuse go crazy, in an effort to drain the battery and thus, heroically, save its life.
wow.
and I'd thought it was just my silly ghost at work again.

the moral of today's story:
we humans are just like car batteries. it's destructive and sometimes deadly to live in half-mode. it's not okay to just partially recharge ourselves. we need to engage in activities that fully recharge us, on a regular basis, otherwise we risk living in this dangerous half-mode.
our bodies, like my car, when pushed to that certain point do have "suicide plans," and that's when we end up hospitalized or in some kind of treatment facility. and those are best case scenarios.
I have lived in half-mode. there is a saying about "filling the well," that you can only keep giving to others as long as your well has something in it. and therefore, you must find ways to fill your well. enough sleep, proper nutrition, exercise, laughter, joy . . . all of these contribute to a full well.
but I have reached points where, like my car battery, whatever things were recharging my battery were only doing it partially: I never made the long-enough drive that recharged me completely. and I lived in half-mode. which is an exhausting place to be.

this past sunday morning I went to yoga, and during the warm-up phase our instructor asked us each to set an intention for what we wished to gain during our hour of yoga practice. I thought of a friend of mine who often attends a class called "restorative yoga." I like that idea, and thus I chose restoration. I chose to be fully restored by that morning's yoga class. I had had a run-around, sit-and-watch-my-kids kind of day saturday, and the rest of sunday would be busy as well, so I decided that I would leave yoga class restored. and thus I did.

and these two events are why I decided to write about restoration today. because without being restored ~ check in with any old house you see ~ we absolutely fall apart. in little ways, in insidious ways, and in great ways.

I choose to walk ( and ride ) a restorative path through the rest of my life.