And, So

Throwback / Flashback 1978*

There are two recipes, written on yellow index cards, affixed to my refrigerator with magnets.  The intent was to entice my daughter (the professional cook) to prepare one or the other or better, both of these recipes.  

They are: Cajun Deviled Eggs and Apple Cinnamon Chimichangas.  

Both have manageable ingredients lists and steps.  Both tout prep times of. . . well, I didn't even include the prep times on the index cards so I presume both were / are very short. 

Either, both are recipes I could pull off.  While not a professional cook, I've done okay over the years.  I may have mentioned a time or two that I never enjoyed cooking.  It was necessary. I did it.  I achieved some measure of competency through the years.   

I don't have to wait for my daughter, the professional cook, to prepare either (or both) of these recipes.  

But, I will.  

Both recipes will remain affixed to the refrigerator with magnets.  

*art class assignment: zipper study

And Just Like That

Inktober has come to an end.  So many of those who participated in the challenge were professionals who were taking the journey for a specific kind of challenge; re-invigorating creativity, following specific themes (one artist limited themselves to creating in a triangle) or doing animals, portraits, or plants.  Many, like myself were amateurs who were looking to form a habit, hone some skills, learn something new, or simply to be inspired.  Which, is not so simple. 

As the postings over the last couple of days attest, several of us participating will have a hard time saying goodbye. 

I'm overjoyed to have kept up and completed the challenge.  I'm equally overjoyed to be seeking ways to keep a daily practice going.  In addition to following the prompts from the 2018 Inktober I will also be trying a pencil challenge.  Pencilvember is on the way. 

Happy November.


  

A Whole New Month

Since our last meeting, I had an annual physical which included all the annual screenings women my age are advised to . . . endure.

All is well on all those fronts. The mammogram turned into an expensive bit of drama but turned out, ultimately, all good.

In the midst of these screenings, re-screenings, and additional sets of tests, the group insurance changed. The new insurance has 'wellness' incentives called Motion. Within Motion is a taking steps incentive called F.I.T.

The object of FIT is to get up and move. The incentive, earning a buck for each goal hit each day. The dollars are accumulated and may be used toward deductibles and co-insurance balances.

When you sign up for the program you are sent a tracker that tracks and uploads your steps to your profile.

As the graphic notes; The F in the FIT is for frequency. The daily goal is to take (at minimum) 6 brief walks--the walks must be at least 500 steps within 7-minutes. The walks only count if taken at least an hour apart.  This goal is harder than you might imagine.

The I in the FIT is for Intensity. The daily goal is to step off 3,000 steps within 30-minutes. Your 500 steps may be counted within your 30-minute interval if you step off at least an hour after a previous 500 step block. I now know what 3,000 steps look like. I now know what 3,000 steps within 30-minutes feels like.
This goal is even harder than you might imagine.  For me, anyway.

The T in the FIT is for Tenacity. The daily goal to meet the T is 10,000 steps. One would think this goal would be a snap after the F and the I; I mean only another 4,000 steps are needed to hit the mark.
But one would be incorrect. As it happens, since focusing on the F and the I of the FIT I hit the T fewer times than when I was just using a trusty pedometer to count steps and just focusing on 10,000 a day.

However, all that said, since going in MOTION about six weeks ago I have logged over 100,000 steps and have earned about $60.00. Okay, so if you're doing the math, $1.00 for each letter goal or $3,00 a day multiplied by 7 days a week, multiplied by 6 weeks means I'm am well below the potential earnings. But note, to earn one must 1. wear the tracker and 2. get snow boots that are better for taking hundreds of steps in succession.

There are other programs attached to FIT / MOTION getting and staying healthier; eating more vegetables, drinking more water than sugary beverages, getting more and better quality sleep, to name a few. Some of the stated goals are easier for me than others. But to reach the overall top of the mountain, so to speak, I'll have to pull all these things and then some together.

2018 hasn't been a stellar year on many fronts. I'm looking to step my way through this new month, the last of this year right on into the next whole new year.

And away we go.





 

Got Ready

Judging by the display from my neighbors there is no shortage of holiday spirit roaming about.

The decorations are full of whimsy, brimming with joy. 

And while I love seeing them and the joy they evoke, 

I've had a difficult time summoning up my own spirit, my own joy. It isn't so much about being unhappy or feeling down. I don't quite know... muted, low, indistinct might be more apt descriptors. 

Maybe. 

Still, despite not having much 'air in my hair' I am pleased to have spent the day with my daughter (my son is house-sitting) with happy animals, food to eat, and heat protecting us from the brrr outside. 

Wishing everyone reading a happy last Monday of December! 

Peace and Joy

  

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Forty Questions in Parts - Part One

Once again, someone suggested a kind of, "getting to know you" type game. The questions are by-and-large limited in scope requiring mostly one word answers. I played but am calling, "re-do". Welcome to part one:

1. Do you like bleu cheese? I do but within certain limits as in only as one of the components of a Cobb Salad, a condiment included with a Buffalo Chicken sandwich or salad, and bleu cheese stuffed olives (with or without the martini). 


2. Coke or Pepsi? I don't drink a lot of soda but when I do, my number one go to is regular Pepsi or Diet Coke.I prefer colas over any other kind of soda. If a cola isn't available or I'm feeling a little different, I choose Ginger Ale. Soda flavors like 7-Up, Sprite, or Mountain Dew do not appeal. However, these days, nine out of ten times I would choose lime flavored fizzy water if given a choice. 


3. Do you own a gun? The first gut reaction / answer was NO!!! But after thinking a bit I realized I do own guns; glue and staple. In fact, I have two glue guns.  


4. What flavor Kool aid? I don't drink Kool-Aid. I had allergies that limited any intake of foods and beverages with citrus or citric acid. So, even as a kid, not much in the way of Kool-Aid, lemonade, popsicles, or even strawberries, lemons, oranges. I did mix Kool-Aid for my son and daughter when they were kids. The popular flavors were strawberry and grape. My daughter preferred strawberry and my son, grape.  


5. What do you think of Hot Dogs? Three or four times a year, I crave and lean in to a 100% Vienna Beef, a poppy seed bun, yellow mustard (never ketchup) sweet pickle relish, sport pepper, white onion, tomato, celery salt, and kosher dill pickle. And natural cut fries on the side. With a Pepsi. Three or four times a year, the perfect lunch. 

                                      

MORE MONDAY BLOGS! 

Be Still

Pete in the Middle

When last we met Buttah was the featured feline planting himself in the middle of a project. Not to be outdone, here is Pete smack dab in the middle of a different project. Pete, unlike Buttah, isn't about offering any advice or wisdom. His motivations are: 1. feed me and 2. crank up the heat. He cares not what is going on unless he has determined the goings on are interfering with 1 and 2.

Pete, Buttah, and their canine counterpart, Cinnamon impact operations; most every task, most every project. How little or how much depends on the energy emitted into the atmosphere. The dynamic of the trio of fur has shifted in the last few weeks. We are still working through the newest normal. Winter (even unofficially) is not our signature season.

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Friends, Family, Framily

This song emerges from my memories often. A hit, in my 

daughter's birth year (a remake of a previous version 

recorded in my son's birth year) it was one of my 

mom's favorites.  It has taken on a newer life for 

me in recent years. Thank you, Friends. ♥ 

On This Day

Thanks to a nasty cold, I've spent the better part of the last two days horizontal. Sleeping, whenever I wasn't medicating, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose. And as such, have spent little time thinking about the party we hadn't planned, the meal we weren't having. My mom would have been seventy-five today. It is hard to remember the smile that traveled a mile, the laugh that went on and on when the mood struck just right and not be sad that it has to be a memory and not present to experience.

Still, to have had moments of glee, pockets of pleasure in our time together is something to be grateful for and certainly cause for celebration. Someday.

Happy Birthday, mom.

Inauguration * Re-dux.* Welcome to Wednesday

H * A * P * P * Y      (Belated)      B * I * R * T * H * D * A * Y             B * L * O * G 

Well, I just finished a shot of Johnnie Walker Black Label and decided to go for it. I've been pondering this step for weeks now, and well, I've decided with the help and encouragement from some others, to go for it!

I'm supposed to be working on my taxes. I'm not, yet. I will, I will, but not yet. This is the latest that I've ever attacked that particular task. I am just not feeling it this year. My son (24-SR in college, living at home) announced today; "Saturday, you're helping me with my taxes." Never mind that I've done his taxes every year since he was 16. This year, though he had decided that he should take matters into his own grown up hands. I can get with that. I relinquinshed all files and let go. Well, he took the files, stored them in his room for a few weeks, until now, when he announced... I'm more than happy to help. I did have something else to do Saturday, though. Ah well.

Tonight, (this morning actually in CST), I'm choosing to start this blog. 'Tis fitting as the reading and marveling over a number of blogs for the past few months have immeasurably upset a carefully designed organizational flow.

I don't know what tone this blog will take. Obviously, since I'm a mom of two adults living at home, that element will be here. I am also an only daughter (2 brothers) with the whole boy-girl child AND middle child stuff going on. I've got mother-daughter issues as I have a daughter and I am a daughter. Who knows where this thing will go.

I do know that I have been humored, thrilled, fascinated, educated, saddened and just plain interested in the array of what I've encountered in blog land over these past few months.

So, here I blog. Welcome to my rendering of my world. I'm not quite sure where I'm going, but I do hope the ride will be vigorous, entertaining and enlightening.

Wednesday, March 29th 2006  * So, here I still blog. So many changes but some things remain the same. I thought then, that I would enjy blogging--I wish more of the folks I read then were still around, but new bloggers have filled the void.  Thank you to all who visit here. Your presence is a joy.  

Which? Why?

Which life button, pause or rewind?




#Six Word Saturday 

Plan Be(e)

This should have posted very (very) early Sunday morning, but for some reason it didn't. So, here it is now .--I'm dating it for Sunday, 10/6  even though I discovered the weirdness today. 

On this, the beginning of the week of my daughter's twenty-eighth birthday, I'm writing about my son. She will get her time to shine as the date draws nearer, the "birthday princess" shall not be denied her due. Still, for all her presence, he has been very much on my mind. 

The actor has gone through some changes, most good and some, even better. His passion for his craft is stronger than ever and his hard work and tenaciousness is inspiring. He is closer to his Equity (stage actor's union) card and thanks to some screen work he's eligible to join the Screen Actor's Guild. If things progress as planned he'll be able to buy in by year's end. 

He also anticipates moving out (again) by year's end or early in 2014. That is to say (again) if things progress as planned. He's researched some interesting housing arrangements, his budget being what it is.  If a gig he's in line for pans out the budget will adjust UP. In either case, he'll be fine. He's given all of this a tremendous amount of thought and effort. 

It need not be said that I'm rooting for him in every way possible. He has an extremely level head on his shoulders and I anxiously await the show as his immediate and not so immediate future begins to play out in real life as it has in his expertly coiffed head. 

While I will miss our near daily exchanges, I know as well (if not better) than he, that he must move on. He is beyond excited about the prospect and that . . . exuberance is positively intoxicating. 

 . . . and away we go.  

This Week's Weather . . .

Post title courtesy of one of an earlier Chicagoist entry which reminds me yet again, that no matter how bad mine might be, someone else is catching it harder.

Not, mind you, that I needed the minder. I'm faced with that reality each and every day. And on this day, I am grateful that my problems are infinitesimal compared to that others in my sphere face.

On this day, I am grateful for two (Saturday more than Sunday) wonderful weekend days that found me outside walking and riding up a storm, especially as we brace ourselves for a week of craptastic (I can hear the wind whipping and whistling) weather, and the peace being out on those two days created within.

And I am grateful on this Monday for the luxury of being able to lay down nearly immediately upon arriving home after THE. LONGEST. MONDAY. EVER. (ok, hyperbole, but roll with it) to rest my mind, quiet my nerves (which is flaring up the eczema, which is making me want to rip my skin OFF! NOW!) toward recovery for the day, days ahead.

And now, with Tuesday, carry-over problems, and likely newbies to the mix only hours away, I am grateful for heat that will serve to lull me to sleep and for the sound of music drowning out the dreary weather noises.

And finally, to my friend who is feeling overwhelmed by life's offerings at present, I know it doesn't feel like it now, but . . . well, you know what THEY say. Know that my thoughts and more are with you.

Peace.

Easy Like Sunday Morn'

That is to say, I'm trying to take it easy. Though part of me does feel guilty to be wasting what has turned into a near perfect autumn day, I feel it best to stay indoors and as quiet as possible. You see, I had an eczema outbreak on Friday. I worked Friday, but the itching, rubbing, trying to relive the itching, and repeat, made it extremely hard to focus, thus making it extremely hard to power through the list of tasks. I got mostly done, or rather done with the most tedious of the tedious things.

By the time I checked out, half-hour earlier than the usual 5:00, my face felt like it'd been chewed from the inside out. It was hot from having been rubbed raw. By the time I got home to my tea tree soap, cool water, and prescribed ointment it was all i could do to apply and crash.

I haven't experienced an outbreak this bad in a long time, twenty years or so. I don't know what triggered this break. In the past it's been food. Or certain perfumes, shampoos, lotions or the like. I'm not usually affected by fabrics, but maybe that has been a factor too. It was cool this week just passed and I've been wearing sweaters (which aren't new) and scarfs (one of the two, is new) maybe I'm beginning a fabric allergy.

Kmae suggested that it might be stress. And while I don't feel stressed there are things going on that have me somewhat anxious.

Fact is, I don't know what triggered this outbreak. It could have been any one thing or combination of things. Maybe remembering and feeling the memory of being in TN a year ago this weekend. Or maybe, it's like the 17-year cicadas. Maybe it was my body sending some kind of message.

Whatever the trigger, the remedy of Tea Tree soap, cool water, wonderfully effective topical ointment, rest, and keeping clear of . . . most everything, anything that might re-fire the situation has been the order of Saturday and now Sunday. The face chewing itching has subsided and the face is a little less raw, just peeling a bit. Oh yes, a sight.

Monday is back to the grind but today is more of Saturday's plan . . . slow and easy, rinse and repeat.

Spinning

It could be because there is too much coffee in my system as I've just realized that I've downed 1/2 a pot, 6 cups (only half, because I only made 1/2 a pot). It could be because in addition to the 1/2 pot of coffee there was also the two slices of peanut butter toast not to mention the carrot cupcake topped with butter cream icing. It could be all that. But, it could also be this: That little girl in pink with the one finger thrust in the air, posing for the camera, is my little girl. We were celebrating that day the event of her very first birthday. On that day in October it was all about balloons, cake, ice cream, and fun...for her. Today, as we celebrate the event of her 24th birthday it is still about balloons (well, one anyway ::smirk::) cake, ice cream (in the cake ) and for fun her, but it is also about our evolution as mother and daughter, as women. It is also about who we have become individually and as a unit. It is also about how relate and are related.

To say that I love my daughter (or she me) is only the beginning. There are so many layers to who we are as women today, October 11, 2009.

In addition to being my daughter's 24th birthday, it is also National Coming Out Day and as part of that celebration and commemoration, I joined a movement that utilized the automatic fb status update device. The status update:

Deborah Xxxxx is a lesbian. It is National Coming Out Day and I pledge to have heartfelt conversations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.

The status ran for a few days leading up to and then of course, including today. My daughter took a few moments out of her celebratory week to comment on my status:

Danielle Xxxxx U GO GIRL!!! I LOVE AND RESPECT U!!!!! YAY
Yesterday at 8:49pm

Like I said yesterday, my story is evolving and I am beyond overjoyed that my daughter plays an active role in that evolution. My head, it spins.

Happy, happy, joy, joy to my girl, daughter, and friend.

Four Words

I am a lesbian. Those four words uttered to my son and daughter a bit over three years ago released a lifetime of secrets, walls, barriers, avoidances, distances and silences.

I am a lesbian. The power of those four words pushed me toward understanding my truth and empowering me to live that truth from that day forward.

Those four words led me to wonderful bloggers, women who have become allies, confidantes, and friends. Those four words led me to meetings, adventures, and women in my local area with whom I hope and expect to continue building friendships.

I am a lesbian. In the private comfort of my own home, to my son and daughter, to the bloggers I met (just before) and since the reveal, to the women I've met in the last year or so, to the woman I hold near my heart, to these folks, I am a lesbian.

To the world at large, I'm largely, not. However, those four words, I Am A Lesbian the love and support of my family and friends, paired with my own zeal will catapult me even further.

My coming out story is more an evolution. In the words of one of entertainment's most famous divas, "I'm coming out, I want the world to know, got to let it show."

"I'm coming out!"