Category Archives: Uncategorized

Poetry

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The Band

A knot of white metal,
that sparks and flashes.

A knot tied fast one night
over wasted drinks and dripped dip.

A knot that completed two lives,
no longer needing others.

A knot becoming only
tighter with the tugs of trials.

A knot that even death
could not untie.

A knot forming a fierce circle,
that created my world.

And a bit of fun:

Grocery Shopping Blues

Another week slides by.
Time to fill that fridge again.

Milk’s drained low.
The bread’s but crust.

Ham’s only bone.
good for beans alone.

Saturday is for pushin that cart
up and down those aisles.

Smile at the box boy;
hope he wont crack the eggs.

Tote those bags and boxes.
Only two more stores to go.

Creative Cooking, part 2

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I love the blog, Alimental. Hannah has this way of photographing simple, healthy food to make it look absolutely scrumptious. Today, I’m following her lead. I’m finding the trick is to take time to get the photograph before the meal is devoured. 🙂

Lunch: tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, multicolored peppers, avocado for some good fats sesame-honey almonds for protein, and strawberries for dessert. The only dressing was a sprinkle of sea salt.

healthy lunch
Dinner: a stir fry of stew meat and every vegetable I could find

dinner
Both were completely delicious!

New Passion

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As far back as I can remember, I have loved to string beads with my Mom. I can remember sitting on our kitchen floor before I was school age and stringing patterns of beautiful colored beads. So, this year, I treated my Mom and I to a beginning beading class for her birthday. We each made a bracelet.

Here’s mine:

Bracelet Mom and I loved our class! In fact, we bought the supplies to make several more pieces. I can’t wait to get started!

Creative Cooking

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Today, I had a craving for something fresh. Since I had a few minutes, I headed to Whole Foods and did a whirlwind trip: two packages of grass-fed stew meat, a bag of multicolored new organic potatoes. organic asparagus, an organic eggplant, a red onion, mushrooms, and a handful of green olives.

Once home, I browned the meat in olive oil, red wine, salt and pepper. I added multicolored bell peppers and garlic to my list of ingredients. As the potatoes steamed, I sauteed the other vegetables. Finally, I tossed all of it together, added several diced olives for some added flavor, and served with Romano cheese.

I’d post a picture of it properly dressed for serving, but it’s gone! 🙂

Finally, Some Progress!

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I have attempted the White Diamonds knitting pattern in Leisure Art’s Our Best Knit Baby Afghans at least five times. In truth, it is probably closer to ten. Still, I refuse to give up because I have a bag of yarn dedicated to this particular pattern.

I’m a self-taught knitter and not terribly confident about my skills. So, I sat down with Teach Yourself Visually Knitting this weekend and reviewed basic knitting stitches. I love this book! It helped tremendously in teaching me how to move my hands more effectively. And I’m finally making real progress!!

(This is just a test run. I will probably knit this entire skein of yarn with this pattern as practice, then pull out the yarn I bought originally for this project.)

White Diamonds Knitting

Class at La Provence

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Today, I spent a couple of hours learning the secrets of French cooking at one of the best French restaurants in the Sacramento area with two friends. The best word to describe our class was delightful.

The setting was perfect.

La Provence 1
La Provence 2
La Provence 3

In the class, our clearly knowledgeable instructor demonstrated how to make the 5 mother sauces of French cooking: bechamel, aoili, remoulade, hollandaise, and bernaise.  To his credit, the instructor made these sauces look easy to prepare. I somehow suspect it will not be quite so easy in my kitchen. 🙂

La Provence classThe class ended with a lovely meal featuring three sauces made in class.

La Provence meal
Overall, a wonderful experience.

Interesting Article on Creativity in Scientific American

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Cindi May wrote an interesting article in Scientific American entitled, The Inspiration Paradox: Your Best Creative Is Not When You Think. To summarize, creativity seems to benefit from lack of focus. Therefore, a person’s most creative times are when they are not at their peak alertness.

I wonder if somehow the moments when we are not at our peak lessens the barrier between our conscious and subconscious minds?