Daily prompt: Humble Pie

Tags

mad, postaday2013, right, stubborn, thought process, wrong

Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

If there existed a real humble pie, I would have exploded from gorging on so many slices. It always happens when I’m tired and not thinking clearly and I think that I was right about something, but I wasn’t, the part of me that wanted to be right is angry, not because I was wrong, but because I was stubborn over being right. That is where I disappoint myself to no end, why is it sometimes so important for me to be right? I think that sometimes it comes from fear, that my brain is becoming slower, more forgetful, less intelligent with time, I don’t like it. Not that I was ever this illuminating version of intellect, but I had quite a few good working grey cells and there are times that I feel them withering away, particularly when I don’t feel good or I feel extremely tired, and I don’t think efficiently or effectively and I get things wrong, that is when I dislike admitting that I may be wrong. I am mad at my glitchy thought process and this is when I dig in my heels like the stubborn mule that I can be and my hubby is the lucky one who gets to experience this, sometimes the babies, but no one else really. Thank goodness this is a rare occurrence and that I am mostly easy going, but when I think that I am right, look out, stubborn is my middle name, just ask the hubby, he would be more than happy to tell you all about it.

Daily prompt: Keeping up with the Jones’

Tags

consumerism, Jones, possessions, postaday2013, writing

Tell us about the one luxury item you wish you could afford, in as much detail as you can. Paint a picture for us.

I went online to see where the phrase “Keeping up with the Jones” came from and from what I have found, it is primarily an American saying that developed in the early twentieth century. A cartoonist named Mormond developed the cartoon “Keeping up with the Jones” as a social commentary on his previous experiences living in Cedarhurst New York which was part of the five towns in Long Island, a very affluent area of New York where each family was very aware of their neighbors social standing and spending and adjusting their own behavior accordingly. The surname Jones supposedly was picked because of Edith Wharton’s own family, she was born a Jones and her family was very wealthy in the state of New York and within their circle of wealthy friends and socialite’s, each family built grander and grander mansions along the Hudson River near the towns of Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck. As early as the 1850’s the Jones’ had increased their existing wealth by marrying into other families involved with banking primarily as their chosen industry, Banking emerged as very lucrative in the late 1880’s and then again in the 1920’s and when the cartoon “Keeping up with the Jones” came out in 1913, it found an instant audience and remained popular for 26 years afterwards.

I had heard that expression growing up and I found it to be very comical because being a Jones, no one was trying to keep up with us. Growing up, my sister and I don’t remember having a lot of things, the things that we did have, we loved, but the most important thing for my parents was to send us to see our family in France as often as possible and that is what my mother saved for, those vacations and for an eventual house.

Nowadays I am a Nichols, and I am still not trying to keep up with the Jones’ , I admit that I love admiring beautiful things, but I love looking, I don’t necessarily need to acquire them. My two favorite houses of fashion are Hermes and Chanel, I do have a piece of each from years ago and I cherish them, one is a handbag and the other is a scarf. Both, I know will be in fashion even fifty years from now if our planet is still alive and therein lies the rub of consumerism. The saying “Keeping up with the Jones'” has unleashed a consumerism that has gotten completely out of control and today is, ironically in reference to the spirit of this post, Black Friday, the absolute expression of consumerism raging out of control in the U.S.

I have decided to be mindful of the notion that we cannot take anything with us and what is most important is not what we have, but who we are and our possessions do not define us, our spirit does.

So since I am a Jones from birth, all that I need to do is keep up with myself, no one else.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tags

postaday2013, Thanksgiving, writing

I am sitting with a big belly having just finished eating with the family. It was a very lovely meal, we laughed and talked about so many different things. The baby girl’s friends from overseas have just had their first Thanksgiving and they seemed to have enjoyed it a lot, not just the funny conversations but the food as well. Our baby boy invited his special friend and she is very lovely, polite and adorable, she fit right in. Jack is a very happy camper today, between acting like a food vacuum while I was prepping and cooking to wandering amongst the chairs and underneath the table, he is at last satiated, I think.

The menu was fairly simple; chickens from a French breed that I had ordered online from JoyceFarms.com, they were very tasty and I felt good about serving them, the chickens are allowed to forage outside, they live longer and their feed is GMO free. I also made roasted winter vegetables and quinoa with roasted garlic and balsmic vinegar for those who are vegetarians meaning our foreign visitors, I made a spinach gratin and mashed potatoes as well. But before all of this we had a ton of oysters, I believe that the first Thanksgiving had oysters as part of the menu so we kept with tradition.

For dessert I made two pumpkin pies and a galette de pommes or apple tarte. We haven’t gotten to dessert yet because we are all digesting the oysters and the main fare.

I am thankful for everyone in my life, I am thankful for my health and I am thankful for being.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

I did it!

Tags

NaNoWriMo, postaday2013, writing

This morning I uploaded my 50,000 words to my Nanowrimo account and the screen changed a second after showing WINNER. Once Thanksgiving cooking and baking is done, I’m going to print out my certificate and try to put the Nanorwrimo badge on my blog, if I can figure out how to do it, this is my third time doing Nanowrimo successfully and I still can’t figure out how to upload the thing onto my thing. Oh technology, how you defeat me.

I’m mentally tired so this post is to be a short one, writing like this for a month is exhausting, which why brevity is here.

Hooray!!

Food for the soul (and the stomach)

Tell us about your favorite meal, either to eat or to prepare. Does it just taste great, or does it have other associations?

My favorite meal, I don't know, it's hard to chip away the long list of wonderful meals to just the one, but overall within the day, my favorite time and foods tend to be at breakfast time. I love breakfast time, I wake up hungry, I look forward to making myself my oatmeal with skim milk and milled flaxseed, or to have two pieces of rye toast with butter and Bonne Maman preserves, either the peach or the wild blueberry or if it's the weekend, I look forward to my big oversized navy blue mug filled to the brim with Oatmeal squares with a touch of cinnamon cereal soaked in skim milk, either one of those breakfasts, followed by a pot of coffee and I am so very happy. No matter how early I have to wake up to go somewhere, I give myself an extra hour beforehand so that I can have my breakfast time in peace and quiet, especially peace and quiet. I love my breakfast time, it is the best time of the day.

When I am out and about and I have the occasion to have a second breakfast, that is when I go all out for a hearty and filling breakfast, at least for me, and that is two eggs, over easy with two pieces of sausage and two slices of rye toast. That is a lovely breakfast when I'm out and about, I don't make it at home for myself because I enjoy it best when others make it for me.

Daily prompt: Close call

Tags

health, postaday2013, stress, writing

Tell us about a bullet you’re glad you dodged — when something awful almost happened, but didn’t.

I count myself very lucky that even though it has been unbelievably uncomfortable and stressful, that each mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy have been negative for cancer. I also count myself lucky that despite having the most annoying and spastic esophagus, I don’t have alchalasia, which is when the gateway between the stomach and the esophagus no longer functions properly and food doesn’t get pushed into the stomach and instead gets regurgitated, the tests that I went through to find out the good news, took an entire weekend, that alone was a tad surreal, but it was good news nonetheless.

These are just two bullets that I have most recently dodged, I have to say that while you are going through any stressful situation, it just plain stinks, it’s only after the bullet has been successfully dodged, that you can look back and either view it with humor or at least minimize it so it becomes manageable. Either way it is far better than to keep reliving the stress of it all.

I’m happy to see it as more adventures to write about, medical procedures can be awfully interesting, especially if you have ever had aspirations to become a nurse or a doctor and you aren’t queasy around bodily fluids. Thankfully I fit the bill and I am sincere when I say that I am grateful that I am not in the least bit queasy and I have a great deal of interest in medical procedures because that has gotten me through so many.

Daily prompt: Playtime

Tags

baking, Gardening, playtime, postaday2013

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

I try to see most of the things that I do as play, when I’m in the kitchen, I consider it as playtime, playing with different spices and seasonings to produce a desired flavor. The same can be said for baking, especially for baking, getting your hands all sticky with butter, flour and sugar, it reminds me of playing in the mud or playing with clay and then using all of the special tools to make different shapes and forms, how can one not see that as playtime.

I can’t think of playtime without thinking of my gardens, getting down and dirty in the dirt, finding all the worms and other insects scurrying and burrowing within the dirt, digging out the boulders whenever I want to add a plant, I do live on a mountain and mountains are primarily made of rock, that is playtime. It helps to see gardening as playtime because it does entail a lot of physical work and if you didn’t see it as something fun, it would just be dreary physical labor and how fun would that be?

I discovered this mode of thinking quite a while ago, it actually came from my warped anorexic thinking when it came to exercise; for every physical activity that I had to do no matter how boring, how onerous or however monotonous, I was burning calories and that made everything okay. I decided to think of everything associated with cooking, baking and gardening in both ways, first it’s playtime and fun with the results being worth all of the effort and with every movement incurred by these activities, calories are burned and muscles are used, circulation is accelerated which is good for the veins, arteries and your heart.

Life is all about perception, I know that when you are in the throes of depression or things are really not going well, trying to get yourself back to a happier place seems daunting but it can be done. I speak from experience, I know depression but keeping these little mind “games” in play does help keep the depression at bay. I’m always a work in progress.

The baby girl arrives today!

Tags

college students, postaday2013

This week is her Thanksgiving break and she is coming up from Miami, bringing two friends with her, who bringing from overseas, have no one to spend Thanksgiving with, so we have them. The hubby and I are getting ready to do some food shopping to stock up for these hungry college students. We should be very busy today and tomorrow cooking for the guests. Hooray we have our baby girl back home!

Daily prompt: I have confidence in me

Tags

Gardening, improvement, postaday2013, talents, writing

Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at.

The title comes from the Daily prompt because it isn’t an honest reflection of how I feel about myself, I don’t feel that way most of the time. I know that over the years I have become a good cook and I have become a good baker, I truly wish that I had the talent to make the things that I cook or book look beautiful as well so that when you are eating, your eyes are as happy as your taste buds, but that is still a work in progress. The same can be said with my gardening, in this case, I wouldn’t say that I am a good gardener, rather I would categorize myself as a caring and passionate gardener who cares a great deal for her plants. I still have a lot to learn and a lot of work to make my gardens prettier and healthier. Writing; I wouldn’t even try to say that I am a writer, I love to write and it is a relatively new skill that I am learning, I do it diligently every day because it does me a lot of good and I enjoy it so much. I hope that I will become better and better at it. I haven’t given up on my book, I am doing the Nanowrimo challenge and I am at 40,000 words as of today, so my book so far has been through 3 Nanowrimo’s so I am proud that I haven’t thrown in the towel.

I think that the common thread amongst my passions is that they are never static, you can never attain a level and then say I have learned it all, there is always something to be perfected or tried; be it cooking, baking, gardening or writing. That is why I love each of them so much, I am endlessly challenged, I like it that way.

Daily prompt: Safety first

Tags

postaday2013, safety, travels, unsafe

Share the story of a time you felt unsafe.

The first time that I remember feeling unsafe while traveling was with my sister during the summer we went backpacking through France, Italy and Greece. We had arrived by train into Marseilles, a city that my sister and I had never visited before, we knew of it, but not really, as much as any 17 year old or 20 year old would know of a city. We had a plan of course, my sister and I had friends just outside of Marseilles and we were going to track them down once we had found a hotel. It seemed to be a logical plan at the time. So when we arrived at the train station we disembarked from the train and left the train station and we found ourselves in a very eerie and silent part of the city. There weren’t any women outside, only men and they were looking at us in ways that made us very, very uncomfortable. I had no idea that the train station was located in the Arab quarter of Marseilles and we had to cross it to get to the center of the city where we could find youth hostels and other small hotels. I didn’t show that I was afraid, I took my sister’s hand and we walked up the street towards where I hoped was to be the center of the city, I was looking for avenues, boulevards, people, anything at this point. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was this port city was part of the white slave trade and that young girls went missing occasionally, I’m glad that I wasn’t aware right then and there because I don’t know if I could have maintained my composure but I marched onward with my sister and we found the big avenues and the center of Marseilles. We called our friends and they came to rescue us and we had a happy ending, when our mother found out that we had been roaming in the Arab quarter, ahe almost fainted from fright. We were lucky and we were safe.