In my new agenda, Tuesdays are Home days - except that today I HAVE to get to the grocery store and pet store for food - after Mondays being Neale Woods days. Tomorrow is Joslyn Art Museum day, then Thursday's another footloose/home/whatever day. This Friday I'm not going to let anything stop me from getting to the zoo.

This frenzy of activity (that's a mild joke) is a result of some slow-cooking thoughts and feelings I've been evolving through over the past few months. I think from the moment I realized I'd been nesting, things have been shifting around in the back of my head, or the pit of my stomach, or wherever, and slowly I've been coming back into the world and away from the profound isolation and physical inertia I enjoyed for all those months. And I really DID enjoy them. I'm an introvert, which to me means that prolonged contact with other people, no matter how beloved and no matter how much fun we're having, is an energy drain. Extroverts, in this definition, are people who are energized by human company. It has been tremendously enjoyable, my solitude, all these months. And now I'm more or less recharged, and looking forward to gettin' out amongst 'em a little more.

My years in AA taught me that self-isolation is a dangerous thing for an alcoholic, and so I have been trying to pay attention to whether my inner life feels OK, not afraid, not unwell, or unhealthy in some way. I think I've avoided that, with a little help from my friends and family. I've be re-learning to trust my own instincts, particularly about when the time is right to do certain things, such as, getting rid of a memory-packed object around the house that I really have no other use for. I've found that in such cases when I turn my thought to selling it or giving it away, if resistance rises up in me (I feel it like a wall going up in the pit of my stomach), if I drop the idea and get on with life, eventually - maybe after months and months - the time comes when it's OK to get rid of the thing. To say good-bye to the object knowing the memory will stay with me (and not take up any room in the house!).

This means my house and my life progress very slowly sometimes, but after a lifetime of following other people's rules and commands and requests, I'm learning to follow my own lead now. It seems to be taking me good places so I'll continue. It is taking me a long time to get used to this life of truly being independent. It's a good process, and now I'm enjoying it. I am so very lucky.



Doll picture from

©2000 Denise Van Patten - http://collectdolls.about.com 

My second hike at Neale Woods this morning wasn’t really morning, for one thing. I dilly-dallied around home so much that I don’t think I got there until - well, I got there then:

(Click on the pictures to see a bigger version.)

…And I think I was looking at this sundial upside down but it doesn’t matter because I don’t know what time it was. We’ll come back to it; I decided I’ll take a picture of it at the beginning and at the end of every hike. Some days will be overcast and I won’t.

Anyway, It was nice and sunny, with a light breeze. Weatherspark tells me it was about 86 degrees around the time I got there, and about 92 when I left. Warmer than I’d like, actually.

I spoke with a couple of consultant guys at the start, who were there scoping the visitor’s center out preparatory to submitting a plan to FFNA for replacing the building. Nice guys. I’ll be interested in what FFNA finally does with the place. I’m kind of surprised they’re considering replacing the old Dr. Neale A-frame; I’d have thought the old-timers on the Board might object on the grounds it’s holy, or something, but apparently not. Nice to know they have the means to do such a project, though.

Their trail maps are worthless for estimating how long your hike is, I have figured that out already. I’m guessing I hiked about 2 miles, which is a mighty long hike for me, and oh momma there are some hills in there. Ye gods.

The stairs of Cirith Ungol.

I did surprisingly well, for how out of shape and overweight I am. I didn’t start to suffer until maybe 3/4ths of the way through. Saw some neat stuff:

Two deer - one is on the right and all you can really see is deer-color beyond the thick dark trunk.

I’ll have to try to find out who this belonged to. It's about 8 inches long, and I don't think you can see the beautiful iridescence up toward the tip of the feather. I first saw just this one feather on a nettle bush. Later on I saw several in one place and it didn’t look like a happy ending to this bird’s story…


On my hike today I developed Terry’s Rule of Hiking Photography: No matter what cool things you see on the first 3/4th of your hike, they are NOTHING compared to the coolness of what you will see on the last 1/4th when you are exhausted, shaking, overheated, needing a bathroom NOW, and your camera battery is almost dead. I don't want to talk about it.

The last 1/4th of mine was Frodo’s climb up Mount Doom. I swear, at one point I was actually stumbling along swatting at imaginary gnats and mumbling about “the Eye…”  But at last, I saw this:

Downtown Omaha from Neale Woods

And I knew my long ordeal was almost over. I made it to the sundial, where it was this time (When I got to my car a few minutes later the clock said 2 p.m. Exactly):


It looks like only maybe an hour had passed, but I'm sure that was just Sauron messin' with me. And I swallowed the last mouthful of water in Sam’s my canteen BPA-free sippy flask, cracked open my store of lembas nuts and raisins, and headed the car towards home.

Neale Woods had kicked my ass again, but I have a secret those old hills don’t know: I’m getting stronger.

Took my first lone foray into Joslyn Art Museum today. My lofty goal was to walk into every room on every floor, not focus on any particular pieces, just learn the map. HAH! I headed for the oldest works in the permanent collection first (being somewhat of a linear completist) and I didn't even get to the first room. No, I was stopped by the ancient Greek, Etruscan, and general Mediterranean pottery (and some coins) in the *hallway* leading into the first room. What a feast! What a delight to have all the time in the world to look at each piece from as many sides as possible, to read the explanations, and take notes on the words strange to me. I guess I had a *Greek geek-out*!

THEN I moved into the first room. Medieval and Renaissance paintings. I'm trying to remember if *any* of them weren't religious in nature. Ah well, I admired their talent anyway. From there you can look through a succession of rooms that take you chronologically clear into the Impressionist and post-impressionist periods. These are familiar to me. Yet I still spent a good 45 minutes in the very first room before moving on. Maybe 30 minutes in the next room...THEN I picked up the pace because it was obvious I wasn't going to even get to the other side of that floor before fatigue and hunger would drive me home.

I *did* go downstairs to see the exhibit of the works of Fred Marcellino. WHAT a delight! Unfortunately, the gift shop didn't have the only book of his that I wanted right now, "Ouch!" I'll get it someday.


When I left, I took a tour of the sculpture gardens. Very nice, but will be more enjoyable when it's not 98 degrees outside. 


I'm looking forward to Wednesdays at the Joslyn! The do allow photos without flash, and I'll eventually try to do some sketching but I have nothing to post that's of any visual interest today. 

Been so long since I was here...

I went for a little hike at Neale Woods Nature Center north of downtown Omaha (way north) this forenoon. I'd forgotten how *hilly* it is! Came home knackered. But I'll be returning often. I need the exercise and the change of scenery.

My two best photos of the hike:

That's about as sunny as it got while I was hiking. It was warm and muggy, and overcast. Every time a tiny shaft of sunshine would pierce the clouds and illuminate a charming bottlebrush or sweet cicely, by the time I had the camera on it, it had gone away again. There will be other days.

This is at the end of the hike. The gnomon points directly at 12, but it was after 12 when I took this so I'm not sure how to read it! Isn't that dumb? You'd think it would be hard-wired into our genes by now, how to read a sundial. I like the random rusty metal and the just-discernible etchings.

A change in plans

The three months of self-imposed inactivity and antisocialness ended April 1. Well, I wasn't *entirely* inert, and I *did* maintain a social life, as much of one as I usually have. However, whenever I found myself thinking "I should do this," or "I ought to go there," I clamped firmly down on the lid and held real still until the urge passed. My pattern has always been to kind of dart around from project to project, creating massively convoluted plans and schemes and setting up impossible deadlines for myself. For the first time since my infancy, I had the opportunity to Do Absolutely Nothing, and I worked real hard at trying to achieve that. To just sit, more often than sitting and thinking.

Thinking was done, however. A lot of things gradually became clearer to me. I have learned quite a bit about myself the past four months, most of it not worth posting here, or none of my blog's business anyway.

I did, however, continue with my researches into what I need to do to move to Paris. I dug deeper into the web, and finally found a couple of people's web sites, or organization's web sites, that had some small amount of actual data - I'm talking money here. How much it would actually cost me to live in Paris.  The answers were discouraging. In fact, eventually the "Cost" column passed up my Budget column and the sad, cold fact became clear: I cannot afford to live in Paris for extended periods. It simply cannot be. That dream died.

The first thing I felt was humiliation. I have told EVERYBODY I was going to do this. Everyone was so supportive, and happy for me. Many said they'd come visit me there; many signed up for postcards, lol.  I felt like an idiot.

That phase didn't last long. I didn't sign any contracts. I just blew off my big mouth. No harm done, really. And - after examining the budget and stuff further, it appears that I *will* be able to afford trips to Paris. So there is that consolation.

Thing is, I don't need much consolation. Yes this was a huge dream I've had. Yes it was beyond cool and awesome, it was breathtaking and delightful and exciting - and it gave shape to my actions and thoughts and dreams. It got me through the emotionally tough months leading up to my retirement. It got me to reading lots of books, on the history of Paris, the history of science (which I've always loved) and the history of Europe. My view of the world expanded enormously. So that dream had tremendous value to me regardless whether I got to do it or not. I also don't need much consolation because to be brutal, after my husband died, there hasn't been much of anything that could hurt me very much. That loss has put everything else in my life into a different perspective. Not getting to go live in Paris for two, three years, is a survivable disappointment, believe me.

So very quickly I turned to "So what do I do instead?"

Dear Reader, I created a matrix. It measures all possible options and permutations of what I could do (out of all those things I'd *like* to do), includes economics, emotions, hobbies, interests, plusses and minuses. And what fell out at the bottom as the best move for me at this stage of life, is no move at all. Just stay put in this house as long as I can physically do it. It *is* too big for me; the yard *is* bigger than I can comfortably handle. But I CAN do it (by "it" I mean, maintain the house and yard in a responsible manner) if I apply effort to the project.

This frees me up financially - not only do I already have this place paid off, I won't have the expenses involved in moving elsewhere, either within Omaha or elsewhere.  It frees me up in other ways, too. I can resume a couple of magazine subscriptions that I like, that I allowed to lapse because I thought I'd be leaving the country in early 2013. A miniscule thing, but a real thing, and akin to that are several memberships locally I've been denying myself for the same reason.  The zoo, the historical museum, the nature center, the botanical center, the art gallery, a mystery reading book club at the library, knitting lessons. Because when I realized I wasn't going to live in Paris, the biggest disappointment was that I wouldn't have galleries, museums and libraries to spend my days in for years at a time. Paris is such an incredible repository of art and science, and I was hoping to spend most of my time in those places, drinking it all up. Faced with staying in Omaha, I had to confront my own prejudice and close-mindedness about my home town.

With my sights set on Paris, I was deliberately mentally dissing Omaha. I see that now; and it was deliberate. My apologies, Omaha. Because once I started thinking about it, there were all of the above-listed things that I know and love about this city, and I can do them all. I added up all their annual subscriptions, and they *easily* fit into my budget. And I'm retired now (have I mentioned that yet?) and I can go to any of them, any day. I can just go and look, listen, stroll, I can take pictures, I can practice drawing & painting...

It was at this point that I think I really started coming out of the long, dark tunnel I've been in since Bob died six years ago. The past four months I've felt like I've been slowly emerging from darkness into a place of light and freedom from grief.  The timing, right at the start of Spring, probably helped. I've always had mood problems in the winter.

So my motto now is "Bloom where I'm planted."

I'm done being a hermit. I'm ready to live, and to do it, mostly, in Omaha, and I'm glad.

Good-bye 2011

So everyone does end of the year wrap-ups. I'm not so into those for myself. I will say, for starting out so badly for me personally (fell on black ice and dislocated my elbow Jan. 28th, thus sidelined for 6 weeks), it has ended up significantly better (not difficult, given Jan. 28th). I retired Dec. 16th and am still adjusting to that, but I think it is going to be terrific.

In terms of life on Earth, I don't think it's been a very good year in some respects. We've all lived with all the bad news so I won't bother to reiterate that.

I am however, as always, so grateful for the people in my life. My family, my friends at my former job and from other circles (science fiction friends, writers, knitters, French students & teacher, etc.) and from years gone by. No one is luckier than I. I am a billionaire in friends!

If my hopes and plans develop as I'm intending, 2012 is going to be a major year for me. We'll see.

I don't make New Years' resolutions.

Thank all of my friends and acquaintances for enriching my life beyond measure. I only hope I deserve your love and kindness.

And I wanted to update my States I've Been to  map:



visited 31 states (62%)
Create your own visited map of The United States!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Last Week

And I don't mean "last week" - I mean, I'm coming up on the last week of my fully-employed career-type working life. All kinds of things are bubbling to the surface now that I didn't expect.

I'm a little thick about some things. It wasn't until just Friday that overhearing some co-workers joshing around opened my eyes to the fact that I'm leaving behind that social part of working - daily gabbing, gossiping, teasing, debating, advising, critiquing, and commiserating that is the workday world. At 3:30 next Friday, I will leave that circle, for better or worse. I won't be part of that "us" any more, simply because I will no longer be there for the daily fertilization of the memes, gossip, in-joke, co-worker's family news, latest bureaucratic snafus, that keeps one a part of the group. This thought struck me forcefully, but it didn't derail me. It's something I will miss, for sure. But leaving it is a part of life. Another loss. One must find other things to fulfill some of those benefits. And, of course I'll keep in touch with my friends of twenty years. It'll just be...differently.

Makes me wonder, though, what else I've been a little slow to anticipate as I'm carried along this one-day-at-a-time conveyer belt to retirement?

I DID IT!!! I finished my National Novel Writing Month Novel!

Crossed the 50,000 word finish line about 10 minutes ago. Yowzah!

BOY am I glad that's over with! I'm going to let this puppy marinate for at least a month before going back to it and seeing if it really is worth kneading and stretching and shaping and coloring to try to make it worth actually sending to publishers/agents.

Now I need to get the word count posted, and put my Winner's Badge up!

Here I am, 1,751 words from the Finish Line. I just wrote some 2,550ish of them. But I am just too beat to finish it up. I mean, it's the finish! It has to be given a certain amount of thought, and a special effort, not one dragged down by fatigue at the tail-end of the day!

I'll think about how I'm going to wrap this puppy up all day tomorrow - then get home and have it done by 7 pm. Then to jog across that line, ripping the banner apart with my bare teeth in the world's biggest grin!

Or something. Anyway. I'm going to get it done. Goodness, me.

Yeehaw! I got my 5,000 words in tonight! Now I can sail on in to the winner's circle by hammering out just 2,500 words a night tomorrow and Wednesday night. PIECE O CAKE! AND!!! the story is right where it needs to be to end about then, too.

A. Maze. Ing. I am SO stoked!

40,000 words, and this contest is MINE!!!

Yeehaw, folks, I'm going to finish this! NaNo's word counter tells me I have only to write 2,414 words a day now to get my 50K.

I still don't know exactly how this story ends, but it has done enough surprising (to me), interesting things so far that I'm sure it will end, somehow.

And now, I'm going to bed!

...ETA: Uh-oh, I guess NaNo's counter thinks I've got FOUR days left. Well, it still works out to only 3,219 words a day, and after 5,000+ both yesterday and today, I'm still completely sure I'll make it. No Problem-O.

Hee hee hee!

I'm finding this writing blitz to be much more tiring than I remember it, lol. As a result, I never did the third planned two-hour session last night, leaving yesterday's total a still-respectable 5,000 plus words.

I just finished today's first two-hour session at a little over 3,000 words, also respectable. I'll take a couple-hour break and come back for the last time this weekend. I am pretty sure I can hit 40,000 by tonight. That will leave me with a MERE 3334 words per day between now and midnight Wednesday to get to 50K words, which is QUITE do-able. Victory is SO CLOSE!!!!

Pounding down the words!

In two two-hour sessions today (one more yet to go!) I have written (officially, using the NaNoWriMo word counter) 5,038 words! Woo hoo! Another 2500 in the last session tonight, and I will have achieved today's goals!

I can DO this! 8^D

And just to add to the silliness, I'm posting a photo of the NaNo badges I've earned so far this time:



"Oh, my," you say, "How do you earn such wonderful badges?"

Well, starting at the top left, I earned these badges for:

NaNo Socializing (dragging a family member or friend into NaNoWriMo -- which I consider I've done since I assembled my crack Support Team of five friends and relatives!)

Caffeine Abuse (Consuming dangerous amounts of coffee, tea, or caffeinated soda in my quest for 50 K) -- oh, yeah.

Procrastination (Skipping writing for more than 3 days) -- hang my head in shame, it has nothing even remotely to do with vacuuming (though doing housework instead of writing is one of the ways you earn this badge...if you're not me)

Word-Count Padding (I did the writing out contractions option for this one. It's amazing how many words you gain with one little keyboard trick!)

THE RALLY BADGE!!! I am so proud of this one!!! I got it by having a 5,000 word day (today!)!

And, the Secret Noveling badge, and how I earned this one I'm not going to be specific about, 'k? Thx.

I can't decide whether to iron these badges onto my Camp NaNoWriMo tee shirt, or to leave them loose so I can re-earn them next year. Probably the latter.

OK, I'm over the 30,000 word hump tonight! I still have all day tomorrow and all day Saturday to reach 45,000 - that's 7500 words each of two days. But I did almost 2,000 in a little under...say...5 hours. Heheh. Well, it's going to be a squeaker, isn't it? However, some of that time today I spent working on the plot, and also on some cooking and cleaning (seems to help when I'm stuck on the plot). So - I bet I can get darn close to 45K by Sunday night! And then I'll have Monday, Tuesday and clear until midnight Wednesday to get the last 5,000 words in! That, my friends, is a Piece Of Cake.

I AM going to win this thing this year. There is a shiny, wonderful NOVELIST badge waiting for me to claim it (and according to the rules of NaNo I will be permitted to wear it at every single family gathering from now until the end of time for my relatives to tremble in awe and admiration) AND I will be getting the 50% discount on the price of the writer's program Scrivener, which is turning out to be pretty darned good. Lots and lots of features I haven't needed yet, but which I might someday find absolutely vital, and they provide a ton of video tutorials and forums etc so I'm looking forward to that. (Truthfully, Scrivener is priced *extremely* reasonably so I'll buy it even if I don't hit 50K, but I'd rather get the discount). ANNNNND there are some kind of secret web pages at the NaNoWriMo site that ONLY "Winners" get to see. I'm very curious about those.

But the really big incentive is that I just sent a check off today to Mr. Typewriter for an Olivetti Lettera DL / 33 portable typewriter. This is the typewriter I bought myself in 1968 to take to college with me. It also, as it turns out, was the model that what's-his-name used to write Apocalypse Now. I loved that little typewriter. I have no memory of what happened to it, though. It must have vanished from a yard sale or something. *sigh* I'm getting to the age where I'm vulnerable to this ridiculous kind of nostalgia-splurge. Gonna have to be careful about that.

AFTER I get my typewriter. And it will be much better for my conscience if I've "won" NaNo before it gets here.

Now It Can Be Told

I'm going to retire Dec. 16th. I have plans. I couldn't say anything anywhere to anybody before I told my boss, and I waited until Nov. 15th for that.

I'm going to CA to visit my son and his family for a couple weeks over the holidays, then coming home to Be Retired. Ahhh....

I suspect - I strongly suspect - that the Ahhh... part isn't going to last longer than a couple-three months, maybe. Because I have a LOT to do. I intend to move to Paris (France, not Texas, ha ha ha co-workers you're so funny) around the turn of the year 2012-13. Probably more like Spring of 2013, but you never know; maybe I'll get my house sold sooner than I expect. I'm not looking to make a killing on it, so maybe it'll move.



But in the meantime, I have to pare down my possessions by about 99%. Literally, 99%. Then I have to sell my house. Neither of those are trivial activities. Lots of work.

Anyway, I've been planning & scheming and saving and figgerin' for a long time over this. I need to do it (a big dream of mine, of course, else why would I?) while I'm still young and healthy enough to enjoy it (not to mention, afford it). I'll have to live like a starving student (except with food) -- tiny walkup studio apartment, walk everywhere, scrimp, economize, budget budget budget - but the thing is - it is 100% totally do-able, and I'm doing it.

It's probably a good thing I have so much work and hassle between me and Paris. Otherwise I might just die of excitement!

And, I'm planning to get over there by cargo steamer! Adventure: In for a penny, in for a pound!

Fell behind last week. Took several days off from the novel. I continued to think about it, and make notes, etc. And this weekend I'm on a big push to hit 40,000 by tomorrow night. I'm centering my whole weekend around it - three two-hour sessions wherein I get 3,000 words each session, both today and tomorrow, will do it. So far so good! I made 3,000 this time with 47 seconds to spare! (EggTimer is a very handy little timer program!)

And as is usual when writing, I'm discovering that when I actually hunker down and concentrate and go for long blocks of text, things start popping up in the story that are useful and helpful and all kinds of interesting. Where does this stuff come from? Is there really a troll in my basement who's feeding me stuff up through the floorboards if I just trust him enough to put them on paper for him? And what does he get out of it?

Enough - obviously I need to get away from the keyboard for a bit!

Session One of Six - completed!

ETA: much later: OK, it's a good thing I got that 3000+ in earlier because now I'm pooped. The little chore I'd scheduled to keep me busy between writing sessions sort of...morphed...into something bigger than I'd expected. And I am finding that this writing biz is tiring! So - I will try for the 3 3,000 word sessions again tomorrow! Maybe get an earlier start...

Fell behind a little bit. Took three days off. However, yesterday I devoted over an hour to plotting and planning, so I knew where to go when I sat down tonight. The joint's jumping now! We got explosions and fires and disappearing woman, schemes and nefarious skullduggery all over the place. About time, too, I say!

Boy, is this thing going to need a lot of work when it's done. LOL

Well, to my surprise, I did it! I got caught up to my 2,000 word a day goal tonight! This, after I didn't write at all the night before the night before last, I wrote the night before last, then didn't write again last night. I've been really tired, and my stomach's been burning. I suspect this is all about Week Two of NaNoWriMo. They told me there'd be days like this. However, despite my discomfort and grumpiness, I sat down and hammered out enough words to get caught up again. And I still have two more days of weekend to go! I hope to have built up another nice word-cushion by Sunday night.

I won't say anything about the novel itself because I've locked up my Internal Editor in a deep, dark dungeon many many light-years from here until the book is finished.

I'm using Scrivener to write this thing, and there seems to be some discrepancy between the Scrivener word count, and the NaNoWriMo site counter. Scrivener says I wrote 2030 words tonight, but when I put the total in the NaNoWriMo word count update, and checked my stats there on my NaNo Novel stats page, it says I wrote 1919. That's quite a difference! Oh well, I'll just go with the total number, that's all I care about. And I will make sure that I get well past 50,000 at the end, to make sure NaNo agrees I win!

Much tireds out tonight. I keep waking up at 3 a.m. and never really getting back to sleep before the alarm rings at 4:30 a.m. Bah, humbug.

No new words tonight - I had a plumber in to fix something here, and I bought a couple of ebooks on how to use the writer's program Scrivener, which is one of those incredibly powerful tools that have umpteen functions and layers and all kinds of adaptability etc etc, but which you can also just climb up on and start 'er up - but I spent an hour studying the first ebook. I needed one night off, and I was 1.75 days ahead of the standard NaNoWriMo goal of 1667 words a day, and even using my own personal goal of 2000 words a day, I'm still 785 words ahead. Back to the grindstone tomorrow night! I aim to win NaNo this year - if ONLY to get the 50% discount on the actual Scrivener program (they're letting NaNo writers use it for NaNoWriMo to see how we like it; it doesn't have all the functions and features of the purchased version but ye gods, there's way more than I'll ever use anyway).

So, anyway, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. My imagination will be better for the rest, believe me.

Well, I made something happen in Owl Island tonight. I'm not sure it really carries the story forward, but I had to goose *something* into happening! Thank GOODNESS for re-write!

Well, I"m being a good little NaNo - no second-guessing myself. Got to see this thing through to the finish line THEN worry about rewriting and editing to make it better.

I'm satisfied with my progress for the first week: over 16,000 words! Next up: The Dreaded Week Two!

Another weekend over, *sigh*. But I made my NaNo goal today, and I got MOST of my household To Do list done. One thing I conveniently forgot was that I had intended to put the plastic over my windows this weekend. It's going to be more and more necessary, I'm afraid. It really IS fall -- and knowing Nebraska, winter could drop on us like a ton 'o' snow ANY day. So -- I will try to do a window or two each night this week. Around NaNoWriMo, of course. I do have my priorities straight. *sniff*

What a nice day I've had! My friend Lin took me to see Une vie de chat, an absolutely enchanting short (70 minutes) French animated film about a Parisian cat with two lives, and the little girl and the cat burglar whose lives he enriches. I loved, loved, loved it! Then we went to a bookstore, and then we ate Italian at our favorite neighborhood place. Days don't get much better than that!

And, I have met (exactly, as it happens) my daily NaNoWriMo goal of 2,000 words! Huzzahs all around. Oh, I should mention that Lin treated me to the movie as a reward for reaching 10,000 words last night. Friends don't get much better than Lin! Thanks, Lin!

Made my goal of 10,000 words tonight! Woo hoo!

Thing is, I think a lot of this is going to have to get trimmed in the rewrite. Oh well, at least I'm getting the story down. This is so much fun!

Another good night on the novel! It's coming together, kind of. It's going to take me all this first seven days to even get all the main characters introduced, and it's going to be interesting trying to sneakily start the actual plot while the reader thinks they're just being introduced to characters - but then, I guess that's true of any novel. *slumps* Duh.

Well, it's good to be writing again, and so far, so good! I'm well within reach of my goal for tomorrow night: 10,000 words!

And I've got a bit of a synopsis, finally:

An inner city kid from Omaha, a recent and bitter divorcee from Des Moines, and a disappointed accountant from Minneapolis each reserve a cabin on an island in the middle of a remote Minnesota lake, for a month of rest, meditation, self-reflection, and peace.

They think.

So - another great writing session on the second night of NaNoWriMo. Over 3,000 words! Well, it's been fun so far. I'm going to run with it and build up as much of an extra (over 2,000 words a day average) as I can, because as sure as there's little green apples, there are tough, dry patches to come. But not this first week, anyway. All the experienced heads at NaNoWriMo say so, and my four other experiences bore that out. The first week's a breeze, the second week's a bastard. The third week is hell, but if you can get through that still laying down a decent word count, then the last week is like the Giant Slalom in the Olympics - downhill all the way and thrilling as heck.

In the meantime, one day, at least 2000 words, at a time.

OK! Well! This first night went very well. It feels great to be writing again! Woo hoo!

I blocked off two hours but I'd reached my goal by about 1 1/4 hour. I'm reaching for 2,000 words a session - and two sessions a day on the weekends and holidays. I hope it goes this well all month! Ha ha ha, of course I do.

'Scuse me, I'm going to go eat chocolate now. *g*

Well, here it is. I'm even wearing my NaNo tee shirt. (I've adopted their camping theme from their July and August novel-writing month sessions, because I like it better than what they've come up with this time, well, I like this tee shirt better than the November one.)

I aim to post at least 2000 new (and the first) words on the word counter tonight!

My vacation in New England (now that I've got the NaNo announcement out of the way) was *fabulous*. I'd never been there except for one week a few years ago for a five-day conference; my friend picked me up and we spent about a day and a half during the conference hosting agency's business meetings (they didn't need us non-member attendees) and my friend took me around to a few interesting places. It was October, but I had just missed the peak color week - and it was heart-stoppingly glorious. This time, too, I kept hearing how the trees were so much more colorful *just* before I got there - but I'll tell you, if they'd been any more beautiful I think I would've died of wonder.

This time, we spent time just over the border in Massachusetts (my friend lives in New Hampshire), and the majority of the time in her house on the Kennebuck River in Maine. We ate, talked ourselves hoarse, ogled the sights, shopped, ate, played Scrabble, read, talked, ogled the trees, ate...you get the gist. I thought sure I'd gained 10 pounds, but when I got home it was only 2 lbs, so I was pleased.

I saved up for this trip; I had such fun just shopping my head off! I've got 95% of my Christmas shopping done now! And I bought myself a bunch of fun stuff, too. Old books, new books, note card sets, a beautiful sweatshirt, a deck of cards that says "Pie Fixes Everything" - a geography game! --and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. One book I got that I read that night and just loved was The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen. If you love maps, if you love well-travelled field notebooks with all kinds of sketches and diagrams, drawings, clippings, and comments in the margins - if you love stories about family members trying each in their own way to find their way back into one another's hearts after a tragedy - and if you love science? THIS is the book for you. If you know someone who loves those things? This is the Christmas present they need. That's all I'm sayin'.

And! I get to update my "States I've Visited" map! I get to add Maine and Massachusetts!


visited 26 states (52%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or website vertaling duits?

I got home from New England Sunday afternoon and have now put another week of work into the past. It's the Friday night before November 1, when NaNoWriMo starts, and I have made a few more notes about my November novel, but it's still frighteningly vague. I don't even know what kind of story it is! This is truly scary. I have invested a lot of myself, my money, and my friends' willingness to encourage me, in this. *eep!* I'll be doing a lot of brainstorming over the weekend, that's for sure! Well - I do need to keep in mind it's supposed to be FUN! So I have to mention, there will be map-drawing this weekend, too, and maybe some character portrait drawing, and who knows what else? Maybe writing music selecting...

*gulp!*

Bright & early tomorrow, I fly to New Hampshire for vacation at a friend's of many years. She's got a place in Maine, so we'll be going there, too -- I've never been to Maine. I've visited NH once, for a conference, and managed to squeeze in about a day and a half to spend with my friend -- the first time we met, after oh, gosh, almost twenty years of snail mail and email correspondence. We found each other through the old Prodigy (remember *P?) Letter-writing BB. She's been a terrific friend, through good and bad days, comedy and tragedy, joy and despair.

Here's where I see some people say "The internet is a WONDERFUL place!"

People who have suffered tragedy due to internet connections say the opposite, of course.

What it is, is a human place. Humans made it and it is just exactly as good and as bad as humankind can be. I don't know why that isn't obvious to everyone, but there are those who act like it's Hades' Foyer. *shrug*

Me, I'm on vacation, and my vacation is going to be in New England in the middle of October. If i wasn't bouncing-off-the-walls tired, I'd be too excited to sleep. I just hope I'm not to tired to sleep, instead.

Here it is October again. That, as you may know, is the month before November.

Some of you may remember that I have spent other Novembers unsuccessfully participating (if you can call it that) in that annual global exercise in literary insanity called National Novel Writing Month. (aka NaNoWriMo) You might even remember the exact number of failures I enjoyed. No? Okay, four of them. I started four novels and never finished them. A couple of them got to 20,000 words, the others, I don't even remember but not that many by a far stretch. After the fourth failure I swore off the event. What was the point? I asked myself, and had no answer, so I quit. No more.

Obviously, I've succumbed again else I wouldn't be writing this, would I. * Sigh * What IS the compulsion? I do not understand. They got me this time with their Camp NaNoWriMo theme. This, it turns out (I think), is not this November's theme. It appears (I haven't bothered to do any serious research into the question) they had some kind of practice session/s in July and/or August? And called it Camp NaNoWriMo. But when I found the event's themed products, something snapped in my brain and I went nuts. Volumes of memories of my childhood summer camp came gushing forth. Things I hadn't thought about for fifty years came rocketing out of my deep memory banks and showered me with nostalgia. Hooked? Ha! Before I knew it, I'd bought the tee shirt AND the “care package” and was eyeball-deep in my journal writing down those memories.

So, ahem. This is a 100% self-inflicted misery. I tell my closest friends, poor creatures, and I announce it here, but there's nothing stopping me from changing my mind at any moment. Let's be clear: at this time I have zero ideas for a novel, and only a few very vague notions about characters. I'm hoping I can beef that up a bit before Nov. 1, you betcha.

I dug out the materials I purchased in years past; the book No Plot? No Problem! And the No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit (I'm a sucker for kits, you may have noticed. I also rediscovered the little package of achievement badge patches I bought one of those years, with delight.)

I think for me, it's trying to find the fun in writing again. A lot of life stuff got in my way a few years back, and I just haven't felt the urge to write fiction. But I did enjoy it so, and I sold quite a few short stories to small-press and online markets, so someone else liked my writing a bit, too...at one time, when I was busy writing story after story, it seemed like the ideas would never run dry. No way could I ever write them all. Funny how life stuff can make that all go away in the blink of an eye.

OK, so here's the announcement, ta da. I'm going for the brass ring: a 50,000 word novel in 30 days; between November 1 and November 30, 2011. When they make them available, I'll install a word-count meter here. I'll also try to post little reports, musing, whatever, here, daily but I'm not promising that.

Part of me is going, “Oh crap, here we go again,” and another part is going, “Oh goody goody goody! We're doing NaNo again!”

In French, there's a term “faux ami” which means “false friend,” and it refers to French words that are so close to English words that we can mistake them for meaning the same thing – but they don't. One example, “librarie”: guess what it means in French. Nope – not library, but bookstore. The French word for library is “bibliotheque.”

Other things than words can be faux amies. Well, friends can be false friends, of course. But a host of other things can fool us as well.

The one I'm talking about today is one of my own making. Only very recently has it dawned on me just what a false friend it is. It feels like a wonderful, comforting friend, where I can snuggle down, relax, read, knit, eat, surf the Net, talk on the phone...

I'm talking about my “Nest.”



It's a big old leather recliner (it's too big for me to use the recliner so I shoved the hassock from the other chair in front of it) plus one or, often, two, TV trays parked adjacent to hold plates, or my ever-growing pile of books to be read, or today's mail. It's so big that I've had to stuff a rolled-up wool poncho and a king-size pillow at the back of the seat, and jam the two bolsters from the couch along either side, to make it comfortable.

It's also the oak side table with the reading lamp on it. As well as whatever other useful stuff/debris I allow to build up until I have to clean and reorganize it so everything doesn't keep sliding off onto the floor or into the wastebasket.

I have spent many hours in my Nest. Times too numerous to count, I've thought, "I should get up and do something," but it's so comfy, I let the thought slide on through, I wriggle down deeper into its comfort, and stay put. I love my Nest.

My Nest wants me to die.

Recent bloodwork, and a visit to the doctor, and the evidence of my bathroom scales and the condition and signals of my body, have revealed its evil purpose. Oh, nothing frightful – yet. This is the first time I've had blood sugar above the normal range...the second time my cholesterol has been above the normal range...and my BMI is Obese.

I got to thinking about my Nest, and it occurred to me that everybody I've ever known who had the tragically familiar constellation of health problems: obesity, diabetes, congestive heart failure – all of them had their Nests. Which came first? Probably varies amongst people. But I know for certain that until I had spent a few years developing and inhabiting my Nest, I had perfectly normal blood sugars, perfectly normal cholesterol levels. Since I quit smoking in 2009, I've gained some 40 pounds. That wasn't all the quitting, I'm sure. But some of it was, and some of it was The Nest.

This all occurred to me two days ago. I decided then to go home and take a photo of my Nest, write this post, and blog about it, as part of my holistic approach to changing my eating and fitness habits. But when I got home, and thought about picking up the camera and taking that picture, I felt active resistance to the idea. I didn't want to. I just wanted to get dinner, bring it out to the TV tray, open up the Internet, and bliss out. So that's what I did.

See what it did there? The Nest is evil. I shouldn't call it The Nest. I should call it The Death Trap. 'Cause that's what it is. (Sometimes my holistic approaches to changing bad habits have to back up a few miles and take care of seemingly innocuous little bits of mental debris before I can get to the big stuff.)

So at least, last night, I took the pictures. And now I'm posting this. I have 92 pounds I want to lose before the next Bastille Day (July 14th). That's less than 2 pounds per week. That's do-able; in 1994 I lost 55 pounds in 4 months, so I know it's do-able. I expect all kinds of health and mental wellness benefits to kick in way before that last pound drops off. I'm going to list them in my journal and maybe do some dumb things like put one good benefit on each of a bunch of index cards, and leave them all over the house (especially in the kitchen), to remind me that The Death Trap Is Not The Nest. It is NOT my friend. It wants me to die.

The battle is on.

One of my favorite "Paris" blogs is David Lebovitz's Living the Sweet Life in Paris. He's an American chef/baker/I'm not sure what-all, and his blog is 50 kinds of fun. He features recipes often, of course, and cafes and restaurants and just living in Paris yarns. He also plugs cook books he finds excellent, and I was so impressed with his writing about Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One by Joe Yonan, that I immediately ordered it online. And it's every bit as cool as David said it was.

Tonight I tried my first recipe out of it: I made the Sweet Potato Soup Base and after portioning it out into four containers to save some for another night, I sauteed a four ounce chunk of salmon, broke it up and dropped the pieces on top of a bowl of the soup, added a slice of lemon and a few extra leek shavings, and then - amazing! - I remembered to take a picture!



I was uncertain how good this might or might not be. The idea of the combination of sweet potato soup and salmon wasn't a 100% sale for me, but I figured, if I want to be adventurous, this is how you do it.

Happily, I was pleasantly surprised - it was really good!

So I thought I'd better report it here.

This cookbook has many great recipes and I can't wait to try more of them. It includes over 100 recipes for both weeknight staples and weekend projects. Says so right on the cover.

The landscaping crew came out Thursday and planted 5 Bridal Wreath plants in the empty space out front, and one of them in the middle of the "bird bath" flower bed triangle out back. It would look a lot better if I'd plant some colorful annuals in both places. And scatter some grass seed to fill in the numerous small bare spots in the front (it gets about 100% shade all day long, plus there were two old blue spruces here until about 1995 so there are undoubtedly still anti-competitor chemicals lingering, plus there is the maple tree in the middle of the yard also pumping out anti-competitor chemicals so it's no wonder the grass struggles...but it is definitely doing better than most of last year.) I have already used more energy writing this than I have in actually *working* out there so I'll shut up now since I don't have any intentions of actually working out there.

Really life is almost uniformly uneventful these days, which at my age is just what I like. I go to work, I come home. I putz around the house as needed, outside I water the hanging baskets and the transplanted plants and the new plants, I come back in and read and watch Netflix (I don't miss TV at *all* - anything I want to see, I can wait awhile and see it on Netflix.) I go to bed early and start the routine over in the morning. I'm loving all the reading I get to do.

I'm content - but that's boring to read in a blog so I'll sign off now.

Just what the title says. I was VERY fortunate with my arm; I've got full function back and no pain (just a little stiff when I straighten it hard, which isn't a function anyway). Went back to work March 9. And, finished my first pair of socks last week. I've got started on the second pair but O'Keefe bit through the yarn last night so I have to learn a new skill - the Russian join - to get the yarn back together so I can proceed. That will be tonight's knitting goal.

I had a landscaping expert over yesterday to look at my yard the way it was intended to be (our original drawings and plans from his company, who did the landscaping work in 2007), and how it is now (after two years of neglect by me). This makes me sound wealthy or something, but really I've been saving money those two years, also, and at this point in time I think it's important to get the front yard looking nice again. All my neighbors keep theirs looking nice and I'm ashamed I've let it go this long. There are reasons for it but it's all inside my head and other incentives are shifting into gear now so I'm going to try to do right by my wonderful neighbors AND my terrific house. I'll feel better once it's back in shape.

The first order of business is just spring clean-up. Later we'll replant the areas where the plants failed. After that, I hope to hire them to come back once a month during the growing season to keep things looking tip-top.

This IS stuff I COULD do myself, except that's been part of the problem, I keep telling myself that and then never get around to it. I have to face my shortcomings realistically - I'm never going to become That Gardening Neighbor I had envisioned. I always enjoy mowing, too, but this year, after hurting my elbow, I don't think the vibrations and exertion would be particularly good for the arm.

Well, I haven't kept this up very well...I did drive out to CA to spend a wonderful holiday week with my kids, and drove back without the slightest bit of any kind of problem. I had to rearrange my overnight motel city plans a couple times to avoid horrible winter weather but it all worked out fine in the end.

Almost got through the entire month of January - then on the 28th, I slipped and fell on black ice going to work, dislocated my right elbow (worst pain I've ever had - do NOT do this!!!) and I've been off work since. I start PT today and hope by the middle of March to be back to work and in fighting fettle, if not sooner but that's up to the orthopedic doctor. I intend to keep up my end of the project, that's for sure.

For someone who is constitutionally averse to housecleaning, this enforced sloth (two weeks of not using my right arm AT ALL for ANYTHING) has me champing at the bit for Spring Cleaning. Also, all those months of Not Knitting this winter, now I'm simply frothing to get back to it. Even bought two more skeins of sock yarn and two more books of patterns using sock yarn. And I haven't even finished my very first sock! (That was started, of course before the accident. Um...months and months and MONTHS before.)

I never imagined how hard EVERYTHING is without the use of my "good" (dominant) arm and hand. It takes five times longer and ten times as much energy to do ANYthing. And I'm a huge baby. I have been so fortunate all my life with good health and lack of injuries, that I have just had no end of tantrums (alone, in my house where no one can see my bad behavior) over how frakking difficult everything is. Yet I know full well how lucky I am (not just in the accident, which *could* have just as easily resulted in crushed and broken bones, nerve, connective tissue and blood vessel damage) - I'm among the luckiest million people on the planet, I reckon - good health, I'm able to support myself and own my home, wonderful TREASURES of family and friends and an understanding boss at work - there's no end to my list of good fortune. So now that the pain and disability is abating, I'm trying to keep that in the forefront of my thoughts now.

I love the sun but it does show up the dust, doesn't it? *sigh* Patience, Terry, patience...

Since neither Congress nor the Executive Branch look likely to step up and defend my 4th Amendment constitutional rights (protection against unlawful search and seizure), I will be opting out of air travel this holiday season. I'll be foregoing an essentially "free" airline ticket (paid for out of my credit card "reward points") and instead spending more than half my savings on gasoline and motels in a three-and-a-half day sojourn from here in the middle of the continent, to its western edge. In the dead of winter. Across a major mountain range. In my car. Alone.

This might strike some, at first, as pretty stupid. Well, let me allay your fears. If it's storming on the morning of my planned departure like it is right now, I won't be setting out at all. I want to spend Christmas with my beloved family, but not from the inside of a coffin. I've got Skype; if the continent is torn asunder by winter storms, I can always hook up with my kids via the internet.

My car pooler seems convinced I'm hell bent on committing suicide this way. He's just worried he'll have to pay more for his gas to & from work.

There is of course an elevated amount of personal risk even in good weather, of some 27 hours of driving over 7 hours of flying. It would CERTAINLY be more CONVENIENT to fly, for God's sake.

But I have sat here and watched George Bush and his cronies dismantle our Constitution and the values this country was supposed to hold dear, and done not very damned much. Watched Obama not do very damned much about it, either. I've written a few letters, made a few phone calls, donated a (very) few dollars here and there. Thing was, there just didn't seem to be anything much I could do about any of it.

The TSA and their x-ray nudie machine vs. their jackboot enhanced pat-down routine - now that, I can do something about. Doesn't matter if they do it randomly and if I never got "picked." That they CAN do it AT ALL is what makes me sick to my stomach. In my view it's just plain fucking illegal. Yoo hoo, Congress? White House? Anybody?

Obviously they don't care (at the least, or in the least). I can opt out of flying, so I am. One of the most horrifying scenes I remember from Schindler's List were the people of the newly-occupied towns getting herded and prodded into lines by the Nazis. Told to strip naked, they stripped naked. Humiliated, embarrassed, frightened - they stripped naked, God bless them, and stayed in lines, and got into the cattle cars.

Do you remember that scene?

Does anybody?

So, the 2010 Paris week is over. Two dear friends came over to help me top off the week. Our menu tonight was:

Biftek Sauté Béarnaise

Gratin Jurassien

Navets à L’Étuviée

Pain et Buerre

Dessert:

Panna Cotta

avec

Sauce aux Cerises

And here's the dessert, as promised:

And I'm so tired and full I can't move. Maybe I'll just sleep in my chair downstairs tonight....zzzz

Tonight, my current favorite: Ratatouille! With some plain old biscuits and a little bit of cheese grated on top. Easy and delicious!

Since I've got French class tonight, I made an easy omelette and just heated up the remaining baguette in the microwave. Tomorrow night! The ratatouille!

OK, I have run out of energy before I’ve run out of Paris Week. I’m too pooped to cook ratatouille tonight, or even crêpes. I opened a can of Le Manwich and cooked a pound of le hamburger and I’m making Le Goofing Off tonight. No photo. Too fatiguée even to study any French.

Bah. It’s not good getting old.

I was going to cook ratatouille tonight but the day got away from me. I did my raw crudités, cheeses, and baguette. I had smoked gouda, emanteller, cheddar, and bleu cheeses. Green onion, carrot sticks, whole almonds, raw green beans, a little tomato, and little chunks of turnip. Hot baguette right out of the oven and butter, mm mm. I also have some Paul Newman's Own salad dressing of some kind, to dip things in. See, I've figured out, the thing is about French cooking is that everyday isn't anything fancy. It's just that they have more variety and do more interesting things with them. It can be very simple. Once again, my little ring-holder kitty approved:

So today launches my third annual Paris Week. I make myself simple French dinners all week, to recapture a little of that wonderful week I spent in the City of Light in October 2007. THIS time I'm going to make more of an effort to take pictures of my creations.

Tonight it was something similar to Filet de sole bonne femme - from my memory of the recipe I followed in about 1972 from that era's Betty Crocker cookbook. AFTER making and eating it, I looked in my Julia Child cookbook and online to see if there is actually such a recipe - there are apparently lots. And it turns out I cannot call it "Filet de sole bonne femme" because I forgot to put mushrooms in it. *slump* Oh well, it had real butter, Reisling wine, chopped green onions, a little bit of rosemary and thyme, and did I mention the Reisling wine? That's French enough for me. My version is a lot easier than the other ones I found. It was good, too. I had steamed Brussels sprouts and some bread-machine-made bread & butter. My ring-holder kitty approved:

This week of opulent self-indulgence culminates with a splendid dinner to which I invite two or three of my dearest friends. (They're the only ones I know will still talk to me if my dinner turns out awful.) I have to write the invitations tonight and get them in the mail. Last year we played Milles Bournes after the dinner. I'm going to ask my invitees to make suggestions for this time. I've got the original French "Breathless" DVD, and "Paris, Je t'aime" we could watch... We'll see.

On tomorrow night's menu: Ratatouille and crusty French bread, with maybe some cheese sprinkled on it. Mmm-mmm, I love me some ratatouille!

One year ago today I quit smoking. Yay!

I made myself a chocolate cake to celebrate. Probably not the greatest idea, but hey, it's something. I'll probably end up throwing most of it out.

Today my nephew came over and painted my back yard shed for me. The old color was not nice. That's all I'll say, since it's no longer visible. The new color was scientifically obtained by the paint store lady putting a chip of my house siding into her color-detecting gizmo and coming up with the recipe to make the same color. I also got white for the trim.

I painted a couple of sheets of plywood that I'd had them cut to fit the doorway of the shed; the old doors have rotted out at the bottom due to being dragged across wet grass, etc. I painted them in the garage and when they were dry, they didn't look like the same color as the house, so I hauled one out to compare it right up against the siding. The color was 100% perfect. My eye could not detect any difference. Amazing.

So today as my nephew was painting, it was looking pretty different also. It looks more yellow. Now that it's done, and it's had a few hours to dry, it still looks different. Maybe the south side of my house – the side I got the sample chip from – is lighter than the north side – the side facing the back yard – because the sun beats on the south side all the time and hardly at all on the north side. But I don't care because the new shed color is 1000% better than the old color, and it goes just fine with the north side of the house.

This has taken a HUGE burden off my shoulders. This is a biggie. Thank you SO much, nephew! You're the BEST.

The video problem was that my video player (can't remember which I have now) needed to be updated.

Today must be Two Bafflements for the Price of One Day...

#1: suddenly my Macbook won't play any kind of video - not even the Zazzle.com embedded thingy here on my blog page. ???

#2: TWO people have now bought the Book Lover's Necktie I've got for sale at Zazzle.com. I'm delighted but completely surprised. Hope the recipients like them!

Making ratatouille today. I'm thinking it'll be dinner tonight, then lunches for pretty much the rest of the week...unless I get sick of it, in which case I'll freeze it for later.

Let me just say up-front, especially to my French friends, this is pretty loose-handed ratatouille; I consulted Julia but my version is getting simmered for several hours in a crock pot. If that turns it into mush, then I will have learned a lesson. I added a few things Julia didn't call for, such as marjoram, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves. I also tossed in a fat teaspoon of pre-chopped garlic and a sliced stalk of green garlic I had lying about.

So, first I emptied two 15 ounce cans of tomatoes into the crock pot. I happened to have a can of whole tomatoes and one with stuff in it, like onion and celery. Doesn't matter, as long as it's tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are ideal; but I've never met a canned tomato that didn't measure up. I threw in the herbs, and some salt and pepper and turned the pot on low to warm up while doing the other stuff. (The picture above has eggplant and a few pieces of onion and zucchini in it because I didn't think to take pictures until I was well along in this process.)

Then I chopped up the 1 eggplant and 2 zucchini into pretty large chunks (I wanted more zucchini but I'd already eaten the other 2 in salads earlier this week). I figured since they would be cooking for several hours, maybe bigger pieces would keep them from turning to mush as quickly. We'll see. I filled a big bowl with water and shook maybe two tablespoons of salt into it, and stirred it well, then plunked the eggplant and zucchini into it. I put a pot on top to keep them submerged; eggplant floats - who knew? (The salt water trick is Julia's. I assume it draws out excess water so they don't dissolve while cooking.) Left that there for half an hour and went and did something else - oh yes, I chopped up the other vegetables: a whole yellow onion, a red, a green, and a yellow bell pepper, a stalk of green garlic.

After soaking the eggplant and zucchini for 30 minutes, I put them in my salad spinner and spun them, and turned them out onto a clean dishtowel and patted them dry. I heated olive oil in the skillet at a high-med. high temp until it started smoking, then threw in two cups of the big veggies at a time:

You're just singeing them to seal in the juices so it only takes a minute or two, stirring a couple times to turn each piece over. Once they're showing toasty little brown areas all over, put them into the crock pot.

When the zucchini and eggplant are mixed into the tomatoes and herbs, you then add some more olive oil to the frying pan (the previous vegetables will have soaked it all up) and sauté the onions and peppers and garlic (I added the pre-chopped garlic at this point) until they're translucent and giving off their juices. Put that in the crock pot, add some more salt and pepper, and...

Give it all a good stir, put the lid on and go do other things for a couple hours. I'll stir it again then leave it until 6 pm or so. Some nice hearty bread, some good French cheese - Heaven! Well - I'll let you know about that..

For various reasons, I've not gotten started on the "9 Great Walks in 2009" program yet; the first one I planned got replaced by a trip to the zoo, and since I don't have my calendar here (vacationing in CA) I can't recall if there was another one this month that got omitted, or if there was only the one planned. Anyway, once I get home and back in the groooove, I'll start that delightful "project" and hope to have some nice photos and interesting tidbits to post.

Today's the last day of my vacation. I can't say I'm champing at the bit to get back to work, but oh well, I'm glad to have my job, and that's for sure. I'm sure the yards are knee-high so Wednesday (I'm taking that off, too) I'll be trying to get caught up in the yard work, and then to KEEP up with it the rest of the growing season. Lots I want to do out there...

Today's big project is prepping the milliards of cardboard boxes I've got out in the garage, for carting off by the recycling people. I saved boxes for many many months, while I was selling off my Robert's photography equipment. It's all gone now so I don't need all those boxes any more, and I can use the shelves they're on to organize the stuff I will eventually sell in a garage sale (target: this October). After THAT's been sold, I can use those shelves to organize whatever stuff's left out there (and I'm hoping it will be minimal, just the things I actually need and use).

But a thought occurred to me a few minutes ago: I also need to go through the house, garage, and shed and find all the toxic crap: yard chemicals, paints, thinners, unneeded automotive fluids(?) - whatever; and bundle them up and take them to the City's Toxic Crap site. Maybe next weekend. That'll make me feel a LOT better even though it doesn't really contribute visually to my Clean-Up and Organize campaign.

There's always something, and that's the truth. Owning your home is unending Job Security.

I'm ridiculously chuffed right now. I just succeeded in mowing my *entire* back yard in one straight go. Years past, the first few mowings, I had to take a break in the middle...of course, while taking that break I had to have a cigarette...but I quit that in October...so...Huh. Could there be a connection?

Nah. Probably not.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and sweaty and my hurty shoulder hurts, but by GOD the yards have both been mowed (I did the teensy front yard last night).

I would NEVER have expected to be able to mow the back yard on a week night, after a full day at work (plus about 90 minutes total on the interstate getting there and back). This opens up so much goodness! I haven't even begun to realize it all yet. For one thing, I can do yard work after work instead of workouts! (I've started doing those again. Blegh.) (And I just used the word "work" three times in one sentence. Go figure.)

There's a lot more to do before I'll consider the yard "summer-ready" - and for me, that's NOT Martha Stewart Just-My-500-Best-Friends-Party-under homemade Chinese lanterns ready. It's just *acceptable*, to me.

Anyway, now I can face the neighbors. :)

No walkies this weekend. I think I've got bronchitis. Energy level 0. And, since I have the Envirothon (State level) next Saturday, I'd better not push my luck, health wise.

Nothing else to report, certainly nothing interesting.

Maybe next blog.

When I'm reminded that I'm weird - by me.

Yesterday on the way home I found myself weeping, hard. Why? Because I'd just emerged from an about-10-minute fantasy of me doing a music video to Charles Aznavour's "Dans tes bras" ("In your arms") - me singing and dancing all over the Pont Neuf in Paris, singing it as a love song to Paris. It was a great video, wish you could have seen it.

But, Egad.

Why do I have this deep, painful, incurable yearning for Paris? I almost wish I hadn't gone there, in 2007. I think it just made it worse because now I KNOW what I'm missing...to bring myself back in off the Run Away to Paris Ledge I have to remind myself that one of the things I'm missing is paying $800 a month for a 15' x 15' "apartment" on the fifth floor with no elevator. That's usually a pretty good dash of the old "eau froid."

I do wish I was capable of producing a music video, though. I promise I wouldn't star in it myself.

I haven't had anything really worth blogging about for quite awhile, so I didn't bother. Things were going on – good things. I've been taking advantage of a new program with our health insurance by stopping smoking (last October) – they paid for the patches, and they provide a coach who called me up every 6 weeks or so to visit and touch base. That's about as much coaching as I want or need. I've signed up for the coaching program again this year, this time to increase my physical activity. I've become quite the slug. You look at my rear end and you know what the shape of the recliner in my living room is. THAT much of a slug.

I'm not aiming for weight loss this go-round. I'm just trying to become more active. The season helps (I'm sore from yard work over the weekend, but “it's a good sore.”) And we did have a pretty extended, nasty winter. No wonder I didn't want to go outside and frolic! But it also left me with PLENTY to do out in the yard.

I'm going to put the gym I've got in the basement to use. A nice Tunturi exercise bike (that helped me lose 55 pounds in 4 months in 1994!) and a full-blown free-weight set ($1000 in a half-price sale from a gym equipment store, about five years ago) that's been pretty much gathering dust for five years. My goals: get in the habit of working out every day. That worked in 1994; I'm now 16 years older (GOOD GRIEF!!!!!???) and I don't know if I can do that again. So, I modify the goal to say, on evenings or days when I don't do any vigorous yard work or walking (more on that in a minute), I'll work out. When you start from zero, anything is an improvement.

As for the walking, I'm going to be going out, every other Saturday or so, and doing the “9 in 2009” Great Omaha Walks whose maps and info sheets are found here:

http://www.omahabydesign.org/2010/04/9-great-walks-brochures-available/

And I'm going to take my sketchbook and pens & pencils & things, and try to draw things I find interesting or pretty or awesome or whatever. If they don't embarrass me too much, I might post some of them here. In other words, I'm going to blog these walks. When I get back. When I get my breath back. Maybe after a nap... Ahem.

And then I'm going to look around town for my own “great Omaha walks.” I'll make maps of my own, maybe a list of special features and/or historical highlights, and go give them the blogger's treatment, too. I've got a friend or two who might accompany me on some of the walks. I plan to stop at the Benson Farmer's Market at 8 a.m. On Great Walk days and getting yummy things to take along for lunch.

This is sounding like so much fun, I'm getting excited about my first walk – this Saturday – to Prospect Hill Cemetery. It's a short walk so I think I can make it...

So here we are on the cusp of Spring, and did I get my big winter project, the sewing and assembling of seven Roman shades for my downstairs windows, done? BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Of course not. MAYBE this weekend I shall finish the FIRST one. MAYBE using what I've learned from doing that one, I will rip through the others in short order. But not, my friend, before next weekend, when it really will be Spring.

And now that the snow has melted (mostly) - and I can see my yards for the first time since December, it's apparent that the snow was covering a multitude, if not of sins, then of sticks. Branches. Limbs (of the tree variety, don't worry.) And that it's going to be a real race between getting all that picked up and when the yards MUST be mowed for the first time. So weekend time to work on the Roman shades will be limited for awhile.

Ah well, I'll just putz along as I have always done. It will all get done eventually. And I will be very glad to have Spring back again.

I add more Zazzle products every week or so. Must get some more photos and art work done. In my spare time.