OBXMAS 2011

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL

This is what greeted me this morning.

Soft waves.

Blue sky.

Peace.

Quiet.

Okay - maybe the quiet is occasionally broken by the sound of the hot tub on the deck cycling on and off but who am I to complain!?

When life overwhelms you with lemons and the lemonade you try to create starts upsetting your tummy, sometimes the only option is to escape to wherever your 'happy place' is and try to find the center again.  The phrase: "enough is enough" comes to mind.

This afternoon we will head to the National Seashore ( listed in my personal FAQ's as a sacred spot ) where I will be squishing my toes in the sand and dancing along the edge of the ocean.  Meditate and celebrate.  Send the dreck of 2011 out to the ocean and let waves of hope and change roll back to me.  Heavy sigh.

On a different note ..... NEVER have I so joyfully said and accepted the MERRY CHRISTMAS wishes of so many strangers and passers by.  Guaranteed that would not have happened in my own little neck of the woods.  'Nuff said.

Onward .....

Freedom

“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.”

Rollo May – The Courage to Create

Kitchen Witch On the Fly

Well, after yesterday's beautiful full moon and eclipse it was probably best to be prepared for anything! Alas, sometimes I do not heed my own inner radar and got caught out with a bad case of Hubbard's Bare Cupboard when the g-kids popped up for a quick overnight.

Supper was an easy call - literally!  Cue a family vote which led to a phone order/quick pick-up from our fav local Chinese Food Emporium and after dinner snacks were no problem.  Our summer love affair with all things couponing meant we still have a modest stash of chips and dip makings.

Breakfast on Sunday morning though was when I realized the cupboard was pretty sad.

It's my mommom thing to make a real breakfast for these fast food world kids.  Sometimes it's a hearty CBB (country boy breakfast) with bacon, eggs, all the usual suspects.  Other times call for fruit bowls, organic granola and yogurt but my usual default is pancakes.  Big fluffy pancakes.  Chocolate Chip.  Blueberry.  Butterscotch.  Peanut Butter.  You name it and I've probably made it.

Uh oh.  No baking mix like a handy Bisquick.  No flour (already started making holiday cookies).  Not a whole lot of syrup.  Frozen butter quarters.  Hmmmmm.  Think mommom, think.

Hang on a minute! What's that big red box in the cabinet above the pull-out pantry shelves? Why it's a holiday Panettone.  Unusual?  Yes.  Adaptable to many, many uses?  Completely.

And oh look! In the refrig there's also a quart of YUMMY egg nog from a local dairy and a dozen eggs.  I sense a treat coming on.

Before too long, the griddle was plugged in, an egg bath with a sprinkling of allspice and some of that gooey, thick egg nog thrown in for good measure was set up in a  deep bowl and my Panettone was sliced in big, thick hunks.

You see where this is going, right?  Here's a picture of the last slices on the griddle as I earned my mommom points with a delish spur-of-the-moment Egg Nog Panettone French Toast.

As an added bonus - and to stretch the syrup - stirred in a few tablespoons of egg nog and made a creamy, thick, flavored maple syrup to top it all off.  The four year old asked for a swirl of whipped cream on top.  Why not?!

Whew!! Mommom success.  All is right with the world <g> Now who's going to clean up the mess I made? 

What's on YOUR desk?

I sit behind an old, large wood executive desk (totally a hand-me-down) with a left return which at times is so cluttered and piled with work that a space will need to be cleared to get anything done!

Besides the desktop computer with extravagantly huge flat screen monitor [a present to myself] and a wifi all-in-one printer, my work area sports containers for hi-lighters, magic markers, felt tip pens, clips and tape easily within reach.  Yep, I get to create J

Right this minute, here’s a quick list of shtuff spread across my desk workspace:

·         A bottle of Lysine supplement

·         St. Ives Intensive Healing Hand cream

·         A half-filled bottle (20 fl. oz) of Diet Coke

·         A glue stick and a tape runner

·         A small wood plaque which reads Childhood Should Be A Journey Not A Race

·         A battered Texas Instruments calculator (at LEAST 5 years old!)

·         Several Oops! Correction Tape pens

·         My Blackberry (blinking away with messages and mail to be read)

·         Two wooden clothes pins to be used in an art project

·         A wood back scratcher

·         Three quarters and a dime for my vending machine coin stash

·         On top of the computer tower: two speakers, a ceramic smiling Buddha, a plastic Scooby Doo figure, two 16” princess wands with ribbons and glitter (don’t ask!), an origami crane, a small (McDonalds Toy) Madame Alexander Doll, three pencils with Statue of Liberty, Mickey Mouse and a glitter star toppers and a smattering of dust

·         A pile of post-it notes in various colors, sizes

·         Photoshop for Dummies

·         A pencil style pouch full of tools for my Silhouette Cutter

·         A ridiculous stack of catalogs

·         An equally ridiculous stack of notebooks, folders and files

·         And last but not least, a small bottle of Advil.

I burnt the muffins

What is a metaphor after all?


Jog on over to Wikipedia and prepare to experience some minor brain melt in the explanation.


"Her eyes were glistening jewels". Okay.  Is that like "Life is like a pan of burnt muffins.  Some days are hard and crunchy on the bottoms but still have a yummy soft center.  While others are like cinder through and through"?


Where's the metaphor? she asks snickering all the while. Her pan of burnt muffins, or rather her life, was two steps from the garbage pail and turning more stale by the moment.


 Really? That's the best I can do? Where's the emoticon tab? I need a few LOL's and maybe a wink:wink or two!

The burnt muffins metaphor occurred to me while out driving yesterday. Random errands on a bright Saturday afternoon. Nothing requiring brain power. A quiet, albeit unfocused jaunt through late-autumn suburbia. My own private Brigadoon where nothing seems to really change. Well, nothing except the seasonal decorations, a thought which popped in for a visit when I spied a neighbor and a guy-friend climbing ladders and unrolling miles of extension cords for the Christmas explosion of lights and animated blow up lawn displays which have overtaken our tiny sliver of the east coast.

The kids have been needling me to start a blog. Somewhere that I could go to let out some of the thoughts whizzing around in my mind. A place to leave behind the circumstances of the present - hence the burnt muffins.

Which brings me to a big question .... What's in a blog? Am I telling stories? Sharing history? Making stuff up? Re-posting other's work? Who is the audience or isn't there one? Are my muffins burnt because I was so focused on the outcome that I forgot to embrace the process? BTW - there's a college professor named Dr. Bellows laughing quietly somewhere at what I just wrote.

On the one hand I like that this space is something creative and expressive and hopefully, positive. What I don't like or what I don't get is why everything has to be shared and public. Are we such narcissists that leaving a trail of crumbs as we journey along, declaring every burp and wiggle for all to see, has become some kind of pseudo-acceptance or validation in the absence of real interaction? I think too much, right? ::heavy sigh::

For my part in all this, I never was one to keep a diary. Pages dated and time stamped with snippets of day-to-day life. Journaling on the other hand has been a completely different exploration but my journals, like the phases of life, are disjointed with no beginning and no end. Jumbles of free form rants interspersed with specific, focused storm travelogues. If you don't know what that means there's no way I could explain. The "metaphor" either sinks in or floats on by.

So ... journal? Diary? Random? Focused? Silly? Serious? Truth? Make believe? Me thinks it's all good and since the decision to blog or not to blog was made when I created the account, the way forward is simple. Do or don't do. There is no try. (wha hahahahaaaa)
Onward . . . .