Yay for budgeting!
Yay for eating out of the pantry!

That said, this has caused some, uh, more interesting food inventions.
Some dishes, like this Lemongrass Coconut Shrimp Soup, were successful.
Some dishes, like the noodly shrimpy rice noodle toss pictured below, were less so.

But we shall learn from my mistakes, and soldier on.
On to a soup that’s lovely for summer,
easy on the waistline and
customizable enough for the rest of us.

Ingredients
1 pound raw shrimp in shells
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons Lemongrass paste or 3 stalks lemongrass, chopped into 2 inch pieces.
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 shallot, chopped fine
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 cup coconut milk
2 scallions, chopped fine
Minced cilantro and Sriracha sauce to garnish

Directions
Separate shrimp from their shells, save the shells.
Cut larger shrimp in thirds, smaller shrimp in half — set aside.

Rinse the shrimp shells and put them in a large soup pot.

Add 2 cups water and 2 cups of chicken broth.
Heat shrimp shells and water/broth to boiling.

If you’re adding lemongrass stalks, add those now too.
Strain mixture and discard shrimp shells and lemongrass stalks.
Set the broth aside.

In a dutch oven or soup pot, add the peanut oil, heat to medium high.
Add chopped shallot, stir until translucent, about 3 minutes.
If you’re using lemongrass paste, add it to the soup pot now. Stir through.
Add garlic and light brown sugar, stir through for about a minute or until the pot is fragrant and the shallot pieces are starting to goldenify.

Add the strained shrimp broth to the soup pot.
Add fish sauce, soy sauce and coconut milk, heat to boiling.

Add shrimp, turn to low.
Add scallions, stir through.

After shrimp are opaque – about 3 minutes – turn off the heat and serve.
I like to serve it with Siracha and cilantro.
James likes it just the way it is.

If you like these kinds of soups, my Hot and Sour Thai Soup is also a winner. We’ll serve it with Pad Thai or these lettuce wraps (scroll down a bit on the linked page — I made the wraps with ground chicken on this particular night).

Soup win!
High five!
Pantry gold!

Time and time again, I get confused by reality television’s insistence on pitting human against human. That aggressive competition is the opposite of my experience. This sounds naive. I know. Reality tv has been around for years, and I consume the drama willingly and gleefully.

But what makes a reality tv show great and my actual human experience is so far apart, I think it’s time for some course correction.

I should have been more surprised to see the Girl Scouts release a study about the harmful effects this is having on young girls’ development. But there it is, girls, my girls, our girls are growing up believing that they can’t trust people, that they have to compete to win a guy’s attention and that their value lies in their appearance. Ugh.

Every Hale Bopp or so, there’s been that guy in the office who took credit for my ideas – or who openly undermined my efforts, but most of the time, it’s all collaboration. In all the years I’ve held jobs, I’ve worked with 2 of those people. That’s a lot of jobs, with hundreds of people. Perhaps it’s my industry, but there have only been two, two sociopaths for whom those reality tv lessons rang true.

Maybe it’s because I worked hard to join networking groups of people in different circles — tech, wine country, lifestyle — where the whole reason for our collaboration is to  help each other out.

These loose associations have turned into a pillowy soft landing place for when things aren’t going so well. These groups serve as a trampoline to launch me back on my feet. The core value of all of these groups is to belong to a community of people helping each other succeed.

Of the three groups I’m thinking of, each meets once a year, each is roughly about 5 – 10 people strong and each is a continuing professional support system for this new internet.

If not, here are a few tips for starting a group like this of your own.

Figure out what you want
You can’t get what you want if you don’t spend the time figuring it out. It seems silly, but you might not actually want that tv show, that book deal, that singing contract.

Aim high
Ask people you admire. Ask people who have something to offer the world. Surround yourself with people you want to be more like.

Meet in person
One of my groups meets every other month, one meets twice a year and one meets once a year. This in-person meeting is our last resort for trust.

Cap the membership
Keeping it small keeps it focused.

Use great technology
One of my groups lives mostly in an email thread, another in a private Facebook group. Google hangouts can work, Skype too. We have some amazing tools to collaborate big. Let’s do that.

Do you have a group like that?
A sort of professional development group?
A group that surrounds you that cheers you on to aim higher and celebrates hard wins?

How do you keep it going?

Update bound!

My daughters play hair salon.
That hat is the dryer.
Those chopsticks are the scissors.
This is exactly what I hoped having two daughters would be like.

Bocce season starts this week.
We’re playing the Holy Rollers.

***

And oh, hey!
I’ve written some things in other places on the internet.

Here, I wrote about how to avoid mom hair for Style United.
Here, I wrote about shopping after weight loss or weight gain for Style United, yet again.

***

Here is what we’re eating this week.

I’m going to invent a vaguely Asian noodly shrimp toss tonight. Let’s see how that goes.

***

I went to Mom 2.0 in Key Biscane last weekend. I went as a speaker and as a sponsor (for FMP, my day job). I spoke about some of the ways the internet can make you feel bad and how to feel better. I spoke to lots of other authors and publishers about Daily Buzz Moms and Federated Media.

That was fun.

I got to officially meet Tracey and Kristen for the maybe lots of times, maybe first time, doesn’t matter, we’re bloggers, we get to stay in touch.

Seeing Kristen Howerton from Rage Against the Minivan. She has this reasonable energy around her that’s so intoxicating. Intoxicated by reason! 

Sarah from Whoorl.com ain’t too shabby herself, what with her secret, valued, accumulated beauty knowledge.

I always love seeing Heather Spohr. She is a force. A sweet, smart, force. The internet is a better place with her optimism and grounding.

And that’s what’s been going on.

Any ideas for what I should put in that vaguely Asian noodly shrimp toss tonight? That would be awesome.

So step right up, get on in here,
I have tonics, salves, liniments, ointments and remedies for your ails.
Internet related ailment, that is.
I have relief.

See, over last five years
The scale and velocity of story sharing
image sharing and
sharing sharing has increased in a way in our brains and emotions have not.

We humans need to step back and see how fundamentally different human interaction has become since the internet’s adaptation by billions. This onslaught of pictures and stories and potential and the fact made visual that we are all connected to every body

It’s affecting our brains.
We have no choice but to evolve.

In fact, our brains are evolving…

Right now.

We’re in transition.
Most transitions are marked with pain.
When we don’t recognize that transition for evolution, we feel terrible.

Birth,

death.

We’re transitioning right now.
Publicly.
And a little painfully.

We’re
Jealous
Judgey
Unlucky
Alienated
Ignored
Dissatisfied

We’re evolving.
And it hurts.

Thankfully, I bring you
No less than
three tools for feeling better.
Today.

Let’s soothe those internet pains.

We’re going to
Protect your neck
Show you a Jealousy Map
Then use our imaginations to think of tiny scientists.

First up?
Protect your neck

When I sit with the internet during my normal surfing,
I pay close attention to my body’s reaction to the words I consume.

I feel the burning in my throat when someone I consider my peer gets that accolade.
I feel my eyes fill with tears as I take in your pain.
I feel my stomach tense as I share your outrage.
Oh, that outrage.

Becoming aware of these physical reactions is the first step to controlling them.

The second step? Control my feed of information.

What’s coming in that might be poisoning me?
What toxic hate,
Gossip, and
Constant complaining am I consuming?

You have my permission to unfollow that which makes you feel bad.
I don’t care how good friends you are.
If their stream takes away your precious energy, you have a right to protect yourself.

Another way to protect your neck is by remembering these three words, “It’s not about me.”

Your mom broke her hip and had a stroke and your Dad died, but you weren’t close, because you had a bad childhood and I totally understand – and then your kid died and I’m so sorry and every time I read that post I imagine it happening to me because it’s always about me.

Your pain is now about me.
Your pain becomes me.

But on reflection, I realize that I consume this media in isolation so SEEMS LIKE IT’S  about me.
It’s not.

Unless I write it, it’s not about me.
We see it when authors announce book tours, pregnancies, philanthropic efforts

Why wasn’t *I* picked for this?
Instead of, “Good Job.”

Why aren’t you coming to Poughkeepsie?
Instead of, “Congrats on the book tour.”

Well at least you HAVE a baby…
Instead of, “That must be hard for you.”

On the internet it seems like it’s about me, but it’s not.

Pay attention to your body,
control your feed and remember,
it’s not about you.

I’m feeling better already!
Next up?

The Jealousy Map

An epidemic of less than on the internet.
It’s impossible to avoid comparison.
When I’m jealous, instead of acting out, I don’t take your opinion seriously because, well, obviously you have it so much easier.

You’re already well-off.
You have a stay at home wife.
You got there first.

You have it so much better than me.

Thanks to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I now use jealousy as a tool.
I make a Jealousy Map.

Make a grid with three columns. Labeled, WHO, WHY and Now WHAT?,

Start filling it the WHO with the folks you’re jealous of.
Fill in WHY with the reason you’re jealous and fill in the
NOW WHAT? part with the first thing that jumps to your brain.

Some of the “So NOW what’s” come off as so simple they may sound silly.
Don’t let that fool you.
It’s how this tool works.

Oh that familiar jealous sinking in my stomach when I think it means I can’t ever measure up, I take it as a call to action.
Not as the end

Protect your neck
Jealousy Map
We’re on to Tiny Scientists

Our internet is barely ten years old.Its current mobile-visual-branded version –  less than five years old.

When I get all judgey and mean about online authors, I stop it cold by thinking of other authors as five year old scientists.

Would you be as judgemental and mean to a five year old in a tiny lab coat.
(Like one with a little twitter handle embroidered on it…)
As you are (inside your head, of course) to some other bloggers?

I didn’t think so.

Think of all of us as little experimenters.

Sharing news through a personal lens, this experiment is barely five years old yet we consistently judge people as if they should know better.

We’re all just bumbling along in our labs, trying things out publicly.
Let’s use our imagination to appreciate the internet for the experiment it IS.

Since you’re amazing, I’ve decided to share one more bonus tip with you.

We ladies have a unique emotional skill.
We can of add guilt to an already bad feeling.
We slather it on in a thick layer.

It’s like a sad feeling club sandwich with bacon of regret, turkey of self-loathing, lettuce of sadness.
It’s bad enough.
And THEN we try to add this, some peanut butter of guilt.

Don’t put the peanut butter on a club sandwich.

Don’t put guilt on an already bad feeling.

Feeling bad for feeling bad is something our gender that we can stop.
Starting… now!

To sum up:
Our brains are evolving.
Protect your neck and remember: it’s not about me.
Use Jealousy as a tool with a Jealousy Map.
Imagine us as tiny scientists.
Don’t put the peanut butter guilt on a sad club sandwich.

You can find for all your internet ailment relief at helenjane.com and @helenjane.