The Week of Eating Fabulously

February is always one of those eating months for me. First you begin with a series of birthdays and then you get the chocolately delights of Valentines Day and now you can get I Love You Peeps – life rocks.

Add in Miseray’s birthday on February 8th, Psam’s Birthday on February 12th and you’re in birthday cake heaven.

Miseray is a chocoholic… cubed. For years I tried to make her cake one step more chocolate than the year prior. I’m up to six or seven chocolate elements and am about maxed out – chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate pudding in the mix, chocolate chunks baked in – divide into three cake pans and bake. Remove from pans to cool and cover with chocolate chips – when the chips are shiny spread them out to create a filling layer. Then I make a French Silk milk chocolate frosting topped with chocolate sprinkles. Sometimes I make a chocolate mousse to swirl into the frosting. Personally it is too much chocolate for me, but she’s in seventh heaven – I’m sure the milk industry feels a spike in consumption during that week. Ducky calls this cake Death by Chocolate but there really is a Death By Chocolate cake that isn't my creation. I have entitled the three layer chocolate be all/end all – Miseray’s Diabetic Coma Cake.

Psam’s favorite cake is coconut. At first it was a cake my ex used to make for me. After he walked she said it was her favorite and I began making it for her. I have to say it’s a great cake – topped with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. It’s a lot of cake.

Now that the girls have made their own homes I still make them cakes. With no cake here Ducky has realized that I never got a cake – hey I’m a mom what can I say with all that cake in the house my butt had no problem growing an extra zip code in February. Monday night I came home to find Ducky hiding in the kitchen with a beautiful German Chocolate cake with a lone tea light lit while he sang Happy Birthday to me. It was incredibly sweet. Then he took me out to dinner for an awesome Cobb Salad. I’d show you a picture of the cake… mit tealight… but I ate it with French Vanilla Ice Cream… the cake – not the tea light.

Thursday night is girl’s night – one week I will meet Audrey for dinner, the next my mom and grandma. We met a Pomodori’s for San Remo Raviolli. Oh mi gosh it’s one of my favorites. Ricotta and Spinach ravioli in an amazing and rich cream sauce with sun dried tomatoes and prociutto. TO.DIE.FOR. They have other great things on the menu – Ravioli San Remo is all my eyes see.

Because I had to work all last weekend Ducky chose to take a drive today. It began with coffee at Pinecone and the Tooth Doctor’s where my adorable sister gave me a new dragon.


She tells me her name is Prunella PenDragon and I adore her.

I first hugged Prunella back in December during Girl’s Day out at the Lane County Holiday Market. I wouldn’t let myself get her because I was suppose to be buying for others and was actually resisting all urges (outside of lunch) for my usual self-indulgence. My sister rocks.

Miseray and the Brit were shopping; Psam had worked last night so she was in a deep sleep. Having eaten breakfast Denisious and Buttman met us for a quick chat and then Ducky took me for Mongolian Grill. See all I did was eat all week.

Then we drove to my next blog and indulged in Coffee Milk shakes. Life is good.

Sith,
Cele

Talk Thursday: Slowdive – or The Fine Art of Time Miss Management

The intent of this topic totally eluded me. I thought, struggled, Googled, thought again and then I read Fii’s Talk Thursday blog for Spin. She is staggering blind in a miasma I know all too well: Crap! Where did my time go?

Easily I can say there is a minimum 9 to 10 hour day awaiting me Monday through Friday at work. My hours are forever evolving – this year it seems to be 8:30 to 5 or 5:30, or 6pm – depending on events even later. Plus I am on call 24 / 7. The length of the hours I work are my doing for the most part, yes I multi task, could you imagine the length of my day if I didn’t multi task? I literally do two airshifts at one time. I use to go to work at 4 in the morning, and I loved the morning shift – now I would hate it – at the time I was also working three jobs. My job also allows me to multi task for myself – I’m writing this while doing my airshift. It rocks. You have no idea how many times I chatted with Psam or Sid while on the air – on the station’s dime – my boss rocks.

But with those hours comes with a loss of time for me, a loss of time for Ducky, a loss of time of other vital things. Tuesday and Thursday nights are mine, Ducky is in the valley overnight taking a break from his long (160 mile round trip) commute. He gets the rest of my time, well the parts that aren’t claimed by work or my garden.

For eleven years I have compiled, Wednesday Links, a resource for writers. I’ve enjoyed creating the list and subsequent database that resulted from those eleven years – I placed a counter on the page and paid attention to the numbers – the numbers have slowed. Once each year I asked my readers to vote for Wednesday Links at Critters / Preditors and Editors, not a big request, to use it as a tool to judge the value of the Links. Last year Links finished at 11, this year at 19. I haven’t done links for the last two weeks reclaiming three hours of my life back each Tuesday night; I’ve not received one post or note asking what the heck happened to Wednesday Links.

While fewer and even less of my favorite bloggers have been posting in the past few weeks (months) I have missed my own blogging as much as my morning cup of coffee and blog time. I used to have the time to check my favorites several times each day, making sure I posted a comment as a show of support – whether a specific post compelled a response out of me (usually the case) or not. I refuse to give up blogging, it keeps me in touch with people I like, it makes me think, it feeds my soul. No! No! No! My blogging won’t go.

I have also noted that having no me time has bent my inspiration and sense of humor. I wrote out my annual “One Hundred Things About Me” list this week. I started writing it on Saturday night, added ten or more so items Sunday, got to number 67 on Monday – reread what I’d written Tuesday night when I wasn’t compiling my Wednesday Links and discovered several things:

1) I’m boring
2) I’m uninspired
3) I’m humorless
4) It took me four days to write 100 humorless things about me, a project I’ve been thinking about for months that usually takes me a half an hour to write. That sucks, majorly sucks. MAJORLY!

I want my me time back, I want my humor back. I want to still be able to hit my crosstrainer, bemoan my yoga endeavors, give Ducky the time he needs, garden, do my job and still be able to breathe, blog, and recharge. I’ve been on a Time Miss Management Slowdive. Slow nosedive is maybe more accurate, but now I know the definition of Slowdive and must become proactive to regain what I’ve seemingly lost.

Sith,
Cele

PS Thank you Sid for the topic, Thank you Fii, my friend, for the inspiration.

100 Things About Me – the 2010 Edition

1) Wow, I’m getting older
2) I’m not bemoaning the fact
3) Each year counted I embrace
4) Because I worked darn hard for each
5) I am looking back, looking forward, and looking around
6) Where I am is a happy place
7) I am loved. I love. I am content.
8) But, mortality is often in my thoughts
9) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of dying
10) I’m afraid of not making the most of my time
11) And fear that I am missing what is most important to give my time to.
12) Lately I embrace the days I get to be lazy
13) Yet, I can’t imagining retiring
14) I love my job, it’s the best job in the world
15) Not that I’m close to retirement
16) I have only been at my job for twenty years
17) But I would love more time to work in my garden without becoming exhausted by it each Sunday night
18) My retirement – years away – would give me that time
19) The other scary part, I have come to learn I am LAZY
20) When I retire – in years to come – there will be tomorrow to get it done
21) Unless I die the day after I retire – in years and years to come – and then it won’t matter
22) There’s about eighteen more years of full work ahead of me
23) So I guess I have time to figure it out.
24) It would also give me more time to blog
25) But would I still be interested in blogging? It seems more and more bloggers are dropping out blogdom and into twits and tweets.
26) Lately I have noticed that the members in my internet life are changing
27) My focus is changing
28) Of late I have lost me time, blogging time, reconnecting time.
29) No one uses ICQ or their MSN anymore it’s all Facebook
30) Facebook is boring, the conversations shallow
31) I want deeper reading than twits and tweets allow
32) I want to see the thoughts and workings behind the events in other people’s lives
33) I miss my morning blog
34) I’m really considering ending my Wednesday Links
35) I’m fairly certain no one will notice – it may be a done deal.
36) It would give me more time for TV, Ducky, and Blogging.
37) My favorite TV show is Big Bang Theory
38) I gifted seasons one and two for Ducky at Christmas so I we could watch it
39) But he loves Sheldon, Leonard, and Penny too.
40) I still love Deadliest Catches
41) Rest in Peace Captain Phil – you passed from this plane far too young
42) I’m finding other TV shows boring, but I am trying this season of Survivor.
43) My Favorite ice creams are polar opposites – French Vanilla and Brownie Thunder… ergo I live for Friday night
44) That is ice cream night in our house
45) Ducky stuck a lit tea light into the middle of my birthday cake sang Happy Birthday to me
46) Tonight is Monday, so I got German Chocolate Cake topped with French Vanilla Ice Cream
47) That is after Ducky took me out to dinner
48) Then I came home to phone calls from my girls, and Pinecone
49) Burp sang Happy Birthday to me in both English and Spanish
50) I was majorly thrilled.
51) Did you know majorly isn’t a word? It should be, maybe I should invent it.
52) Wow, number 52 and I am only just mentioning I still hate snakes, some things never change.
53) With every year’s passing I adore my sister more (Pinecone is no snake)
54) I see parts of me in her, and parts of her in me
55) I see a vivacious woman, where a shy little tomboy used to be.
56) My sister is one of my dearest friends and I’m blessed.
57) I miss having Psam in my everyday life (Psam isn’t a snake either)
58) Major digression, could you imagine having a snake for a daughter? It happens, I’m blessed
59) As much as I miss her I willingly give her to her life and want the best for her and Burp
60) Each moment we get to spend together is divine.
61) Once I bemoaned having a stepdaughter, Miseray lived up to her name, now she is a delightful young lady. Sometimes negative energies morph into butterflies.
62) In the last few years I have noted a refining and redefining in my spiritual and religious beliefs
63) The basis of those beliefs and how I interpret what I believe, where I stand, and how I proceed are more open.
64) And I’m finding while I’m willing to talk about them, I am open to discussion and to change, I don’t have to validate my beliefs to someone else.
65) I revel in the universe
66) Over all, I still embrace my Quaker beliefs.
67) Although I’m a bit more abusive than I use to be.
68) Numerology long ago laid out before me that my life lesson is anger.
69) I do not hit in anger
70) That’s not to say I’ve never hit in anger – that would be a lie
71) But I do slap a shoulder in jest or mock anger
72) That has to stop, I do not accept it as acceptable behavior.
73) Scary this year’s 100 is more serious
74) WTF did my humor go? I like my humor
75) I asked Ducky for a Yoga DVD for my birthday
76) OMG am I out of shape
77) The instructional portion on the first of three disks, you know the one that you take a moment to learn the poses, kicked my ass
78) My gosh I’m out of shape – crap there’s more ahead
79) But worse I don’t think my lower back will allow me to do some of the poses, i.e. Upward Facing Dog
80) And then there is the whole disregard for strength shown by my biceps and triceps
81) Did I mention I’m out of shape?
82) So I jumped on my cross trainer and could only get out a lap. Paaathetic!
83) I will go at it again tomorrow – snakes popping up on the DVD would help alleviate my problems, but I don’t that is likely to happen
84) Early last week I’m fairly certain my father visited me
85) How do I know it was him? I don’t – outside of that place in my heart
86) But I felt him four times that morning. The first two times he sad down on the bed next to me. The other two he tapped the comforter covering me
87) I was comforted by his presence
88) Call me a kook, but we are not alone. Just as Mulder and Sculley.
89) Before that the last time he visited me was in my sleep just a few weeks after he passed.
90) No it wasn’t a dream, he’s been in my dreams, this was different.
91) Music this year, I still adore Jason Mraz, Five For Fighting, and Dave Matthews. Duffy has a new disc coming out this spring, I hope it’s as good as the last. CSN is still my all time fav.
92) Movies, I wanted to go see Sandra Bulloch in the Blind Side but I missed it at the theatre here. I will ask for it for Christmas. There’s really not that many movies I’ve wanted to see in the past year or so.
93) Our trip to Vegas was everything we wanted it to be. This year our focus will be Miseray’s wedding to the Brit. (He’s a keeper.)
94) I watch a lot of DYI network anymore.
95) Because of my gained knowledge from the DYI network I have to pull up the pavers in my hot tub courtyard and re-lay them this summer.
96) Plus we are going to build a pergola over the hot tub. I can’t wait
97) You think I could find Josh Templin or Ahmad Hussin – not. I could always use the knowledge and help… plus their checkbook.
98) Oh and in the past few months I broke my over the counter sleep aide addiction. There are times I miss it, but now I can take a pill – not two – and get a good night sleep on Saturday night if needed.
99) It took me three or four weeks to begin sleeping some what normally.
100. Did I mention my uterus is falling out?
Ah, the fifties.
Sith,
Cele

Happy Birthday, Psam!

Apparently it drives her crazy when I call and sing Happy Birthday to her. Well, I don’t sing Happy Birthday, I sing the Birthday Cake Polka - replete with my own lyrics, because I learned the song when I was five, and that was a very, very long time ago.

My baby turned 4 and 30 years today. The Olympics also started today. When Psam was born I had her name all planned out, I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant that I was having a girl. I worked out a series of names, clashed with her father on potential monikers and we decided to split the difference. If she was a girl I’d name her if she was a boy, it was his call. There are things a mom just knows… her future name was apparently not one of them.

That February night 1976 I lay in the hospital bed watching the Olympics and really not sure what I would name her… and then a German Downhill (or maybe it was Slalom) with a name I’d never heard before hit the slopes and my tv screen in that small Florence hospital room and she had a new name. Sheesh if I’d seen Ryan’s Hope by then she’d have been named Siobhan.

My life has been made forever better with the birth of my daughter. She has been there through thick and thin. Shared my trials and traumas and shared some of her own with me. I cannot imagine life with out my beautiful little girl.

Now she has her own ray of light and joy… and I’m blessed she shares her Burp with me. Happy Birthday Psam… and thank you.

Love with all that I am,
Mom

Talk Thursday: Spinm

Several news items laid the seeds of this week’s topic, beginning with the arrest of 10 Baptist Missionaries trying to – excuse me, regardless of what they call it, it was – kidnap 33 Haitian children on January 29th. Yes, I realize their intent was good, but really how would they feel if a bunch of Haitians came into Idaho and took kids to say B.C.? They would be outraged. I was pretty disgusted at their arrogance, but even more appalled when someone in the group said, “We expect God’s will to be done and we will be released.”

Excuse me? Next I expect Oral Roberts to rise up and say God sent me back to raise that 3 million dollars. Baptist aren’t among my favorite revivalist, this just pissed me off more, the arrogance. Yes, they were trying to do-good, but respect the law, respect territory, and don’t think you are better just because. Yes I realize they will be released, if the devastation had been less, I doubt they’d have their freedom.

Now I hear that Elizabeth Edwards is suing Andrew Young for the demise of her marriage. But she won’t sue if he donates $200K to her foundation. I had some respect for this woman, before, now none. Why? Her husband is the one who had the affair, yes the lackey lied about his role – hmmm her husband’s lie was bigger. Her husband and his “videographer” had not just an affair, but also a child together. Should I go into all the wrong things with the “videographer”? Maybe later, because there is plenty, but excuse me lay blame where blame rightfully lay. Second, can we say EXTORTION? WTF gives her the right to extort money from a liar that isn’t her husband. I say take John Edwards to the cleaners, and don’t blame someone else for his faults.

Spin, Crap in the media we deal with spin everyday, says the woman in the media. I’m sure I do my share of spinning, especially when you consider I like to have a silver lining come out of all things negative. But I watch what is happening nationally and I shake my head in mind numbing amazement. We live in a two party system, as an independent it is a system I am increasingly at odds with. The Republicans won’t play bipartisan, claiming two elections and a defection shows the people are fed up. The Democrats claim they have the pulse of Americans and will pass health care reform. I believe health care reform is a must. But when a political party has to bribe their senators to get on board with the Democratic vision of health care reform, there’s a problem. Earmarks and porkbarrels should not be an option to obtain a vote. When Republicans continually demean, naysay, and talk political smack with out ponying up to the table with a proposed recommendation or solution I say BS. Both parties blame the other guy never owning up to what they are doing wrong or failing to do. My question, “When does this become about the American people?” Spin that.

This week’s bizarre word wise turn of events comes from singer, songwriter, idiot extraordinaire John Mayer, who in one Playboy interview has managed to upset people past and present in his life and probably a slew of people who were potentially in his future. Why? I don’t think it’s because “He’s John Mayer” I think it’s because he’s a tunnel visioned ignorant idiot. And I’m waiting to see how he’s going to spin this. He has begun by apologizing profusely to the people he’s verbally abused and offended. My mom always said, “If you don’t have something nice to say, keep it to yourself,” John you should have taken a note from my mom. I guess he’s really not, Waiting For The World To Change. I figure he didn’t think he was saying anything wrong until the firestorm erupted burning the walls of the microcosm that is his belief and value system.

The thoughts above are the opinions of the management and sounded coherent in my head, I hope they make you stop and go hmmmm.

Sith,
Cele

A New Month - and oh, It's Ground Hog Day

Or that is Marmot day if you are a lucky Alaskan. BTW, Phil saw his shadow in Punsxatawny, so Pennsylvannia gets six more weeks of winter. Buckeye Chuck did not see his shadow, Ohio is joyous an early spring is on it's way, as it is in New York, Wisconsin, and Georgia. BTW the Marmot is just happy Palin's not governor anymore.

A long time friend of mine apparently has had enough of spam-mail and sent me this warning. I thought it totally fitting for Ground Hog Day.

Greetings,
I just want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed in the head now and have little chance of recovery.

I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel or have them put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel...I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking ones nose (although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot).

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of Trans fats and calories I have consumed over the years.

I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St Theresa's Novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually pumped with hormones and will make me fat with huge boobs.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.

I no longer use Saran Wrap or plastic containers in the microwave because it causes cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face.. Disfiguring me for life..I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer eat toast at all as im terrified i will burn it and get cancer.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan ...I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

THANKS TO YOU I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

OH, AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the brown recluse and my hand will fall off. And I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because water splashes over 6 ft. out of the commode.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. Tomorrow afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbors' ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician . . .

Oh, by the way..... A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse...

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

I'm figuring spammail was brought to us by the wonderful fearmongers of the RNC, who bring us their normal daily crap as well.

Sith,
Cele