Beauty in the Small Things

There were the most beautiful fall flowers at the market this weekend.

And now I am hand-grinding some black peppercorns for my latest obsession - homemade chai. Side benefit: really good stress reliever. 

La Cocina

Now that I have a new job and it feels like this HUGE weight has been lifted off of me, things are starting to return to center. Things that felt stressful are feeling good again. Cooking felt like such a chore when all my time off was barely enough time to recover from such a stressful job. I was always rushing in the kitchen, rather than enjoying the process - and it's the process of measuring, chopping, mixing, stirring, waiting, contemplating that I so love about cooking and preparing food. That feeling was just not present when I was consumed with work-related anxiety. So it's no wonder with a job that feels more connected to my core values that I am rediscovering the joy in things such as cooking.

I'm loving the color and smell of things in my kitchen. I'm loving taking my time - Sunday I spent hours in the kitchen. I love having music on in the background or preparing a new recipe in complete silence. I am reminded of my time as a naturalist on a bird sanctuary where our most core lesson with the kids was the five senses and experiencing the world with a sense of wonder through sight-sound-smell-taste-touch. This feels alive and well in the kitchen lately.

Yesterday I had this brilliant idea to add chopped up chocolate-covered pretzels to my favorite oatmeal-flax cookie recipe and they are heavenly!

Creativity and joy can flourish when there is true space for it.

Blog vs Journal

So, I haven't really felt like writing lately for ye ol' blog lately. Maybe you've noticed.

I'll come online - to write an update - and I'll stare at the screen for awhile until I decide I'd rather not spend any more of my day staring at a screen. And then I'll turn off the computer and go about my day.

The other day I did a strange thing though: I wrote by hand in my paper journal - a space that has been pretty much ignored since I started this online diary thingamajig.

And, oh wow, it felt SO good.

So maybe I do feel like writing, but not in the way I have been these last few years. To write for an audience (even if small or merely perceived) is totally different than writing for yourself.

Unedited, stream of consciousness, raw honesty - not worried about sounding good or saying the wrong or right thing or oversharing or making people uncomfortable because I'm lonely/bored/uninspired/too inspired/et cetera. I didn't even know I missed that sort of writing, but apparently I did!

I started this goodbyeuglyrobe project to be more intentional about self-care and exploration, but suddenly I am not so sure if I've gotten closer or further away from the heart of the project. Because just thirty minutes of writing by hand - privately, for myself - made me feel closer to myself than I have in many, many entries on here. Cut straight through the BS - even if it did give me a slight hand cramp.

I'll be back. Here and there, when the feeling moves me.

But for the moment, I think I need a little more unedited time just for me.

...



Oh, by the way, my taste-testers told me my green tomato pie turned out perfectly. They couldn't believe it was my first-ever homemade crust. Beginners luck.

There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

A Pie Story - In Photos

It was a beautiful night.

So I decided to make a pie. Obviously.

Check out my first ever homemade pie crust, crimped edges (sorta), and decorative vents!




Drum-roll please............

Thursday Share

Thought this was utterly fantastic!

Daily Mantra

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants.

The question is: What are we busy about?

-Henry David Thoreau

Go into art

"…go into the arts.

I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living.

They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.

Sing in the shower.

Dance to the radio.

Tell stories.

Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.

Do it as well as you possibly can.

You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. "

-Kurt Vonnegut's words, with my spacing.

Remind me to tell you about the time when I was 12 and I went alone to a Kurt Vonnegut lecture in the gym of a nearby college and sat in the very front row in a room full of twenty-somethings so I could get a good look at the man who confused me- and yet delighted me* - completely with Slaughterhouse Five. I left more confused and without my copy of the book signed and a little bit changed and without my parents knowing where I'd been for those two hours.**

*which in itself confused me

**It is also to be noted that sneaking into a lecture given by a prominent literary figure is exactly how an adolescent book-nerd rebels.