Tag Archives: rambling

I Keep Writing Entries in My Head

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Dinner, December 16I keep writing entries in my head, but somehow they never make it to the blog, which is a problem since I actually look forward to Holidailies every year, as a way to recharge my writing. I’m writing other things, of course… working on the collection of cafe vignettes I’m releasing in February, working on a chapter of a story for a private group of people, but mostly, I just feel tired this month, and that’s absurd because I have to real reason to feel tired.

I’ve been keeping up with #MusicAdvent, at least, but that’s a lot easier because I can do that from my phone. Interestingly, it’s been more difficult than I expected because I committed to only using songs that are either cello covers or feature the cello in their instrumentation, and trying to do that while also not resorting to only classical, and stay in alphabetical order, has been more of a challenge than I thought it would be.

But I can do that from my phone.

So, I keep having these ideas for posts, and then I forget to write them down, even in my head, and when I sit down to actually type, my mind goes blank.

I’ve been enjoying cooking up a storm, though. It’s been unseasonably warm, which means I’m trying to balance lighter foods with the seasonal flavors I’m craving. Tonight we roasted yams with herbed sea salt I brought home from Mexico, curry, and ginger, and baked salmon with Mediterranean Rub from Tom Thumb (it’s really good; I use it for everything) and mixed greens. I love the $5 tubs of herb salad or spring greens from the O! Organics line. Most nights we add dressing, but we don’t even bother adding other vegetables.

I baked a metric ass-load of chocolate chip cookies today, because I like to have them to give away. I don’t usually chill the dough, but I did this time because (see above) I was so tired that I napped from four til dinner-time (actually, that was also the hormone-induced lethargy that always hits me really hard at certain times of the month).

It’s 12:04, but technically this entry is for the 16th, because I started it at 11:43.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually write something real.

Holidailies 2015

 

Back Roads

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Back Roads We took the back way to the restaurant tonight, because it was a busy hour and we didn’t want to get bogged down in freeway traffic.

Life here in Outer Suburbia seems so cluttered with housing tracts and strip malls that I forget, sometimes, how much of the area around our town is still undeveloped. It’s only when we drive the back roads that we see the bones of the land, and are reminded that this part of Texas really is prairie, a southern extension of the same prairie we drive through in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota.

I saw a map of this region at a science museum years ago, depicting the inland sea that much of the low-lying land used to be. Ever since then, coming home from Dallas, using Loop 12 and Spur 408, I’ve seen that map in my head, and imagined that we are not driving on a highway, but rather a causeway that crosses the sea and descends into the valley floor.

Once when our marriage was young, Fuzzy and I took the back road home from Minneapolis, driving Highway 14 the whole way. We didn’t have a schedule to meet, or animals to feed, and we stopped in all the little towns on the way, including those from the Little House books I’d grown up with. He watched fondly as I dipped my toes in the remains of Plum Creek, and we ate ice cream cones in Walnut Grove.

All of my life, whenever we moved somewhere new, the first free weekend I would hop on my bike and go exploring, getting myself lost and unlost, learning the streets and shortcuts for myself, even though I was perfectly capable of reading a map.

That’s the thing about back roads.
On a map they look slow and unsavory.

But from the saddle of a bike, or the seat of a car, they become our windows into the past, whether it’s the roots of America or the deeper taproots of life itself.

Holidailies 2015

Soft Focus Rambling

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I took migraine medicine so am too loopy for anything terribly coherent…so I’m rambling tonight.

This morning, I woke to gray skies and dampness, but rain didn’t actually fall until late this afternoon. Even so, it was cool enough to spend the day with the air conditioner off and leave my bedroom window open.

meteor coffee

I’ve had three cups of coffee today. 2 French roast and one Viennese.

I spent much of the day doing laundry, so when I go to sleep in a few minutes it will be in a bed with freshly-washed sheets that have a faint lavender scent, and our medium-weight comforter instead of the summer quilt.

I have this urge to cut my hair short – it’s a few inches past my shoulders and kind of honey/strawberry blonde right now, but tomorrow is Salon Day with Natalie and we’re adding teal (Sonic Green from Special Effects) streaks to it. I will probably ask her to just do a blunt bob just above my shoulders.

I missed seeing The Help in theaters, but just watched it, and it’s really quite lovely. Great cast. I bought the book over a year ago, and then sort of forgot it was on my Kindle, so I’m reading it in between reading books for review at Bibliotica, my book blog, this week.

I’ve also been watching Supernatural on Netflix, but I have to limit it to one or two episodes a day or I have nightmares. Somewhat ironically, films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser do not give me nightmares.

Have read that while the iPhone 5 is cool and fast, there’s really no need to rush into an upgrade since I have a perfectly good 4S. My contract isn’t over til mid-May, anyway.

My trusty red Dell laptop turned three years old three days after I turned forty-two, and is now out of warranty. I’m happy with Dell’s laptops, but I was watching Tech News Today on twit.tv earlier today (streaming on my Google tv) and the comments about Windows 8 have me actually thinking about going to a MacBook Pro at some point. Haven’t decided yet. My last Mac experience wasn’t great, and I don’t find Apple’s computers to be at all intuitive, but I love my iPad and my iPhone.

I cannot be trusted around good cheese. In fact, if I had to give up either chocolate or cheese, I would give up chocolate.

My migraine meds make me feel like I’m seeing the world through a soft-focus filter.