#Cooking #Persian #HealthyEating #Recipe #Vegetarian
Looking for recipes that are tasty and easy? What are you enjoying eating lately? Here are three great ones! My husband, Khashayar, isn’t just a great vegetarian cook and baker; he’s a healthy one.
Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee.
Time Stamps (where segments begin):
HBT introduction
Today’s topic and about today’s guest 1:00
3 Recipes: Persian Veggie Kabobs, Tahdig, Veg Omelet by Khashayar
My question for you
HBT outro
Photos of these dishes are available at the HBT post for this show. Links used for the HBT blog post of this episode:
Original blog post for this episode at Happiness Between Tails where you'll find the complete recipe, including the list of ingredients.
More of Khashayar’s vegetarian recipes, such as a great hot soup, a crunchy salad, a fruity dessert, an entree, and this appetizer, and this one — and more at HappinessBetweenTalis.com!
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And it remains time to admire nature, beauty, and kindness. All those are wrapped up in Jurgen’s post (he was also linked to in this other Happiness Between Tails post) about Valentin Grüner, whose friendship with Sirga, a lioness, is as cuddly as what I had with Mooshie, a tabby house cat. (More about Mooshie in this video and here.)
Jurgen’s site also offers an excellent example of the joys of using WordPress’ Google Translate widget. It’s free to use and great for anyone with a WordPress blog.
Within Jurgen’s post you’ll find videos and more about Valentin, who is a wildlife activist. In addition, here’s a video of Kevin Richardson, who also works hard to help wildlife.
Food, nature, friendship — that’s how Persian New Year culminates. To thwart bad luck from sneaking into the year ahead, 13 days after the 1st, we’ll go picnic, play, and take walks.
Much as I love animals, hopefully no lions will surprise us. If one did, I doubt I could stay as calm as Valentin and Kevin!
Would you pet a lion? Have you?
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#MentalHealth #Books #Authors #Publishing #SelfPublishing #GuineaPigs
Mental health nurse and author Ashley L. Peterson of Mental Health At Home dot org blogs out of Vancouver, Canada, and writes from both a personal perspective as well as that of a medical professional. She’s written a host of books on the subject.
Have you considered self-publishing, and what's your experience with publishing and building a platform? Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee.
Time Stamps (where segments begin):
HBT introduction
Today’s topic and about today’s guest 1:05
Self-Publishing: It Gets Easier by Ashley L. Peterson 2:00
My question for you 3:30
HBT outro
Links used for the HBT blog post of this episode:
Here’s the original blog version of this podcast episode.
Ashley’s website
Photos available at the HBT posts for this show:
Ashley and her hard working guinea pigs.
Covers of her books.
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/depe9/message
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Now for a story with a moral. The lives of Lucy and Mooshie are Grimm-inspired reminders of how smarts are better to have than good looks (more about Mooshie here)…
What’s your fave book or fable?
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#Authors #Writing #Publishing #Creativity #Covid-19 #Animals
Staying home, as well as animals, inspire fantasy romance author Alice Renaud, a Londoner. Here she also details how she published her award-winning books! How's your creativity going? Share your thoughts, and questions. Record them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee.
Time Stamps (where segments begin):
HBT introduction
Today’s topic and about today’s guest 1:05
Alice Renaud discusses what inspires her writing
My question for you
HBT outro
Links used for the HBT blog post of this episode:
Fantasy romance author Alice Renaud's website that tells about her and her books.
Original blog post for this episode.
About “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat," my novel.
Posts regarding my bout with COVID are here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.
Photos at the HBT blog post for this show:
Portrait of Alice Renaud.
Alice’s photo of an amazing red butterfly.
Tabitha, Alice’s aunt’s tabby, staring at the neighbour’s feline.
Cover of Alice’s “Mermaids Marry in Green; a Sea of Love Novel.”
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/depe9/message
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It started with witnessing utter joy between an orangutan and a hound dog. Youtube videos are pleasant distractions when one is slogging through writing a novel, no? (A bit about the ones I’m working on H-E-R-E.) As you can guess, my fave videos involve dogs, preferably ones that look like mine. Dogs absolute experts at befriending anything and everything…
When I mentioned the video to a friend, she replied, “Me too! I love looking at interspecies romances.”
Is that what they’re called? Now short breaks turned into hour-long procrastinations… add in baby goats and owls and… and so it goes with YouTube… That’s why I’m sharing just one more with you — so as not to impose on your busy day, it’s got five not-so-romantic romances rolled into ten minutes…
Cute, weird, adorable, scary… what a diverse world of creatures we inhabit! Here to show us in real-life terms about the benefits of human-animal relations is Brendan Christoper, a blogger (links to his work h-e-r-e) out of Derbyshire, United Kingdom. Besides writing, he’s a hands-on educator who introduces his wild menagerie to people of all ages at events, parties, and classes. Read on for how even his pets aren’t thrilled with veterinarian visits…
Forest, my cat, is suspicious, so he slinks behind the sofa. Then, spying from a safe distance, he spots me fumbling with a pet carrier. There’s no turning back now.
As I creep towards Forest, I pretend to act casually. But, in one swift move, I scoop him up, place him into the box and attempt to shut the lid.
Somehow, he always manages to leave at least one paw on the outside. When I push that one in, another pops out like a jack-in-the-box. Eventually, we’re ready, and that’s when the drama begins.
To be fair, Forest is usually compliant when going to the vets — well, except for a couple of issues. One involves the journey.
He hates the motion of travel and lets out the most pathetic meow he can muster. This noise sounds like a baby in distress and is designed to wreck my emotions.
Now I’m racked with guilt as I drive. But mercifully, the journey’s short, so I’m spared any lasting trauma.
On arrival, he’s usually calmed down. However, as we cross the car park, the howling starts again because he doesn’t like the instability.
Brendan Christoper’s animal education logo.
There’s just another man with a cat in the waiting area and me. I sit opposite, but the two cat boxes happen to face each other. So, naturally, we humans start complimenting each other’s pets.
Meanwhile, our cats hold a growling contest for no apparent reason. They clearly hate each other even though they’ve just met. I think to myself, ‘it’s a good job they’re on neutral ground and not meeting in a back alley’. (Or perhaps they have – who knows with cats?)
Anyway, as Forest prowls around like a big caged cat, we’re summoned. I place the box on the vet’s table and carefully unleash my feline.
Instantly, Forest makes himself look massive by fluffing up his fur and thickening his tail. However, he fails to intimidate the vet — on the contrary, she finds him cute.
All goes well until its temperature time. At this point, the vet dares to hold his bushy tail whilst inserting a thermometer. Thankfully, Forest is a gentle soul, so he tends not to bite.
Once the ordeal’s over, the vet declares him a ‘good boy’, and I beam like a proud parent.
On the way out, he looks at me as if to say, ‘And I thought I could trust you. Typical human.’
Finally arriving home, I open the carrier, and Forest shoots out. He sniffs the box, glares at me and flicks his tail in disgust — that means I’ve been snubbed. However, as soon as I stroke him (and open a packet of food), he’s back to his loving, purring self.
Well, almost… he gives me that look as if to say, ‘you’re forgiven this time, but NEVER trap me in that cat snare again!’
The only problem is I’m taking Forest for another check-up in six months. Even though I know it’s for his own good, I doubt he appreciates my efforts.
Do you have a favorite animal?
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“Cat Communicating Medical Ailment in a Dream,” by Pamela Cummins
Everyone knows that I am a Crazy Cat Lady with two spoiled cats, Merlin and Rhiannon. One morning I was wondering why one of my furry alarm cats didn’t show up. Then I discovered Merlin sitting on the couch. To my surprise, he growled at me when I attempted to pet him.
Merlin with Pamela Cummins.
He was cranky the whole day. I knew that something was wrong with him; however, to my relief – he did eat a little food and used his litter box. I can communicate with my two cats (and other animals) with body language, feelings, and/or flashing pictures in each other’s minds. Alas, I was too emotional to receive any information on what the problem was.
That night I told Merlin, “If you’re not better tomorrow, you’re going to the vettie-poo.” He gave me a dirty look. Just so you know – Merlin is a vet’s worse nightmare! Which makes me dread his yearly check-up when he’s healthy. How would Merlin behave when he wasn’t feeling well?
Here’s the dream I had right before I awoke the next morning: Merlin jumped up and laid down by me. Then he showed me his spinal cord in an x-ray vision, at the bottom of his spine (by his hips) it was red and swollen.
Upon awakening, I immediately knew that Merlin’s hips were out of alignment! Merlin was lying next to me on the bed, so I asked Merlin, “Does your hippy, hip hurt?” His response was rubbing the side of his face against my hand and licking my fingers. You may be laughing at the way I speak to Merlin, yet he understands a large vocabulary of words! Can you imagine if I didn’t pay attention to my dream and shoved him in his cat carrier for a vet trip? That would have hurt his hips even more! In a few days, Merlin was back to his usual self. Another bonus from my dream was I saved money on a vet visit, hurray!
About the author: Pamela Cummins teaches how to turn the nighttime messages of dreams can be turned into daytime wisdom. Click here for Pamela’s website.
What have your dreams told you?
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Communication is not easy. Whether I’m listening, reading, looking… all my interactions are colored by my perspective that’s shaped by my present and past. Sometimes my simplest, most straight-forward conversations are with my dear doggie.
Who do you interact with most easily? Blogger/writer Bryan Wagner presents workshops on Zen, Tao, and Shamanism. Here’s his take on relationships…
Bryan Wagner and a friend spending quality time together.
Communion is creating and embracing an emotional, spiritual, sharing of each other.
We can enter a state of communion if we are present and each of us has the desire, openness, and willingness to remain so.
We can also use that willingness of communication to build a more intimate exchange that leaves traces of each participant within the other. That is the act of communion. Communion is not just language and sharing. Communion is a process further than language, it is the art of complete communication in the moment. Genuine communion happens when things move between those in relationship that is grounded in the awareness of the moment.
I believe that the sharing of emotional content is important to the state of being in communion. That means to express emotional, non-verbal content, and then allow the receiver to process it in whatever form that action takes.
Communion happens inter-species because spoken language is only a very small part of communion. Some of my happiest moments are in communion with animals. I think in part because they are aware and painfully honest in how they respond. Being with animals has the effect of clearing the detritus and fog from my thinking and reference frame on life. I engage in the state of love so readily with animals!
I honor and value those that I commune with and actively seek out building those relationships that offer that place of intimacy. I encourage people to embrace the idea of communing with others and seek those relationships out in their own lives.
Today I will spend some time communing with Spike and P’nut and a horse named Anastasia. I can’t think of a better way to share life. – Bryan Wagner
Who do you interact with most easily?
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The world is better for having had Mooshie Cat in it.
Dear, dear Mooshie, you are sorely missed. Time with one’s loved ones is never long enough, but how very much I wish I’d had just one more time with you to say goodbye, to thank you for being such an incredible little mate.
You were the spiritual mother of my husband. I know this because you took your self-appointed role quite seriously. That first meeting, you signaled to my soul-mate that he was yours. You reached your arm clear to your armpit, past the shelter cage bars, to swat at him. Repeatedly. Moreover, you sent your angel/employee (who also worked for Southeast Area Animal Control Authority (SEAACA), to urge us that your days were numbered.
You arrived home cuddled in my honey’s arms. You lay in his lap for hours, your locomotive purring tireless. As soon as you made it clear that you were family, you’d stand on your hind legs to slam a hefty (albeit with claws sheathed) kangaroo one-two punch at your sister, whenever your human son would pet her for even a second.
Now your spirit, whether in heaven or reincarnated, must be playing soccer. You’d command your ‘son” (you considered me a lousy player) to lob crumpled paper balls your way, for you to whack-whack-whack them across the room and back to him.
Eventually, you graduated to batting crickets — then mice — then small birds. I doubt our local tiny critters mourns your loss as we do. Your later choice to retire to my mother’s bed must have cause them to celebrate. Not so for my mother’s gentleman cat who you evicted from his formerly cozy stead.
Until all but the last few weeks of your seventeen-ish years, despite your loss of all but one tooth, your appetite was vigorous. From Cheerios and crackers to olives and cucumbers, you enjoyed everything so long as your beloved people dined on it too.
Your long-departed sister, for whom you had neither patience nor fondness, allowed anyone to pet her. You, unlike her, saved your affection for just your intimates.
You made us feel truly special, dear Mooshie. You, our lovely girl, were the most special of cats. Rest in peace, beautiful soul.
Here’s Crystal’s advice for soon-to-be pet owners…
Deciding whether to get a pet? Some things to consider first…
Will you adopt, rescue, or buy it from a pet shop?
How will you get your new friend spayed/neutered?
What is the background of the pet you’re looking to get?
If you have children, will the pet get along with them?
Is the pet trained? Or will it need to attend obedience school?
Will your pet live indoors, outdoors, or a combination of both?
If you rent, does your landlord allow pets?
If you’re getting a dog, what size can you reasonably handle?
Once you decide to get a pet, here are a few things you need to do before bringing them home…
Be sure to take it to the vet to make sure everything is alright.
Make a pet emergency kit for each one.
If you’re getting a cat, for every cat there should be two litter boxes. For example, for one cat, there should be two litter boxes. For three cats there should be four litter boxes, and so on.
Set aside extra money for in case of unexpected vet trips.
If you’re getting a dog, make sure it has someplace to exercise, and that your home is big enough.
These are only a few things you need to do when looking for a pet. I suggest that you either adopt or rescue one, rather than buy one from a pet shop!
Here guest blogger Kalia, from Washington state, writes of the many gifts that come of caring for furry friends…
Blogger Kalia with Ryder.
Hi there! My name is Kalia. I am the founder of frontseatryder.com. Front Seat Ryder is a blog designed to inspire, encourage and empower the modern dog mom to improve her mental health with the help of her doggy companion.
I am super excited to share with Happiness Between Tails — Thank you so much for having me! Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about the benefits pets have on our mental health.
When adopting a pet into your home, you probably aren’t thinking about your mental health. Are you?! I want to talk to you about some of the great benefits pets have on our mental health. These will give you another reason to love your fur babies – as if you needed one.
A pet can benefit you in a variety of ways including:
Mentally
Emotionally
Physically
Socially
While these are all important ways a pet can benefit you, improving mental health is high on the list. My dog Ryder is actually my Emotional Support Animal. He helps me cope with my depression and anxiety.
Pets fill the void of feeling isolated. Feeling of isolation and loneliness can lead to many different mental health issues. Some of which include forms of panic, anxiety attacks, and depression. Those feelings are soothed with the company of a pet.
Having a pet gives you a feeling of true purpose. A feeling that there is someone who needs caring for and tended to. Having a purpose in life gives someone suffering from depression hope. This can make all the difference in someone’s life.
How does your pet make your life better?
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Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 