I’d Rather Drive

Posted on May 25, 2012 by dogear6

This week’s theme for Six Word Friday is “drive“.  For me:

I would rather drive than fly.

Which is particularly appropriate since I am now in Atlanta for the long weekend.  YES!  I am visiting my daughter while my favorite boy toy stays home with the boys.

So pretty! She had just gotten home from a work and was still all dressed up.

It’s not worth flying to Georgia from Virginia.  The time to get to the airport, go through security and wait for the flight, coupled with the round trip for my daughter to come and get me makes the drive only a few hours longer.  I can bring whatever I want, not squeeze into a tiny seat, and not worry about weight, which I use to full advantage since I don’t like to travel light.

I arrived with a trunk full of my clothes for a week, a cooler with frozen herbs that she wanted from my freezer, books to read, my laptop, camera, and some other things.  I often have several boxes of books to pass along to a friend of hers (his nickname is Books and it’s appropriate too), but didn’t this time.

I can’t believe I used to travel regularly for business, anywhere from 25 to 50%.  It was great in that I got to see the country and experience different cultures, food, and work with a variety of people.  The downside was being away from my husband and small child, never being caught up on my sleep, and struggling even more with my weight from eating so many meals out.

Travel wasn’t as bad then as it is now.  There wasn’t security screening at the airport and you could check through several bags without charge.  Of course, the airport shopping now is much better than it was 25 years ago.  These days, I could easily spend a couple of hours shopping in the larger airports.

But I’m glad I can drive and not fly.  My Honda Civic, while small, is comfortable.  I drove with the sunroof and windows open, feeling the air on my face.  When it got too hot, I closed it up, turned on the air, and listened to music from my iPhone.  I stopped every few hours for a break to keep myself awake and not get too stiff.

At the end, it was worth arriving in Atlanta and enjoying this pretty sight as I got ready to greet my child and her dogs.

I was happy to finally arrive. The flowers were an extra bonus.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!  Drive safe if you are on the roads.

Categories: Family, Flowers, Travel | Tags: , , , | 19 Comments

Grow A Good Mood

Posted on May 22, 2012 by dogear6

This week’s theme for Six Word Friday is “grow” – as in my mantra lately:

Grow a good mood by choice.

I’m having an above average number of grumpy days lately.  It’s for many reasons, but the worst one is “just because”.  Why am I in a bad mood?  Because.  Am I achy? Tired? Hungry? Frustrated?  Nope.  Just because.  Certainly those things contribute, but lately it seems like I’m just grumpy for no particular reason.

What an unexpected find last Saturday – La Petite Tea inside the Williamsburg Antique Mall.

I’ve been working on recognizing this and changing it as an act of my will.  It’s not easy and it’s sure not fun, but I’m much more pleasant to be around and if I smile enough, it does improve my mood.

A few weeks back, an acquaintance at work commented that I couldn’t possibly be in such a good mood all the time.  I laughed and said no, it was a choice.  I was surprised that she was surprised by my answer.  I find being in a cheerier mood helps me feel better, enjoy my life more, and has a direct impact on everyone around me.  I can make people happier just by a few minutes of interaction (this is where I wrote about this last year).

Butternut squash & corn soup with a sangria tea (non-alcoholic with unsweetened fruit juice and black tea).

So the next time you feel grumpy, ask yourself – is this what I want?  Or do I want to improve my mood and enjoy my day?  Or do I choose to grow a good mood?

And a half-sandwich for some protein . . .

Sometimes a great way to improve a bad mood is a change of scenery, a pleasure in an unexpected place.  Last Saturday, my favorite boy toy and I went antiquing in Williamsburg.  We didn’t find much and probably won’t spend time doing it again, but in the course of our day, we found La Petite Tea inside the Williamsburg Antique Mall.  It’s not very big – probably only four tables – but it was cute and the food was excellent.

Dessert can cheer anyone up! Especially blueberry ice cream with a small wedge of chocolate torte. I DID NOT SHARE EITHER.

Thanks to everyone for their patience as I get back to blogging.  I still don’t have a regular schedule.  If you’d rather not be checking to see if I’ve published, sign up to get an E-mail notification when I post something new.  The box is just below the header photo, on the right.

Categories: Discouragement, Life Lessons, Tea, Virginia, Williamsburg | Tags: , , , , , | 16 Comments

Bring It On!

Posted on May 11, 2012 by dogear6

Thank you everyone for the kind comments from my post the other day.  I’m still digesting your advice and support.  Most likely I will post about it next week.

This week’s theme for Six Word Friday is “bring”.  Oh yes, one of my favorite statements, but with a caveat:

Bring it on – use with caution

I love seeing it used on the Food Network Channel.  Usually it’s two of the guys with a testosterone rush, like the time that Michael Symons opponent in the Iron Chef requested and received permission to do the challenge with no sous chefs.  Michael Symons couldn’t resist doing the same, saying “bring it on”, although halfway through he decided that wasn’t one of his best moves (he went on to win anyhow).

Bobby Flay did a throwdown with a genteel Southern cook who ran an etiquette school.  He studied up on manners and etiquette as he prepared for the throwdown.  He gets there, wanting to impress her, and what does she yell at him?  Bring it on, Bobby!  It was pretty funny.

I love using that phrase too!  It feels so good when I use it – makes me go all twitchy with an adrenaline rush.  It’s a good one to use on tax auditors.  I don’t do it frequently, but when an auditor gets unreasonable or pushes too hard, I will say it.  Although my employer keeps my department on a tight budget, they’re also not afraid to fund outside attorney’s to take on a taxing jurisdiction.

But this is a phrase to use with caution.  It’s not just a matter of getting your bluff called, which is embarrassing, but it’s also the issue of whether you’re ready to face the consequences of playing chicken with someone.

The Bible tells us that a soft answer turns aside wrath.  It does.  Harsh words can inflame a situation.  Some days and sometimes it doesn’t take much for a situation to become irrevocable.  Relationships cannot always be patched or repaired.  Jobs can be lost the same way.  Trust is hard won and easily lost.

So unless everyone is laughing when you say “BRING IT ON”, think twice before using it.  Make sure it truly is appropriate to the current situation and that you’re willing to pay the price for daring someone to take you on.

I changed my header picture today.  I took a vacation day and went to Williamsburg by myself to take pictures, eat out, and just putter around.  This picture is from earlier this morning.

© 2012 dogear6 llc

Here are some other Six Word Friday posts that you might enjoy:

Categories: Life Lessons, Passion | Tags: , , , , , | 8 Comments

Where Have I Been?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by dogear6

I sit here with a jumble of thoughts and am not sure where to even start this.  No, I’m not giving up the blog.  But I have enjoyed not posting so frequently and doing other things.  I’ve really, really enjoyed it.  But I am concerned that the longer I’m away, the more I will not want to bother keeping it up.

I’ve also not been taking many pictures.  I’m not taking camera each time I leave the house.  I’ve enjoyed a break from the camera, but I’m also missing not taking pictures and looking at them later.

I’m still finishing off my class with Sheila Bender.  I’ve submitted my last essay, and am behind by two weeks in commenting on the essays of my fellow participants.  I’m not the only one that has fallen behind.  The critiques in general have slowed way down.

Mostly though, I’m dealing with a major load of discouragement about everything.

  • Why write?  There are so many good authors out there who beg for recognition already.
  • Why blog?  Everyone’s too busy to be bothered reading them anyhow.
  • Why cook?  It takes 20 minutes to eat, but there’s so much effort to get the groceries, assemble a meal, then clean up afterwards.
  • Why exercise?  I don’t feel better, I’m not losing weight, and it just makes me achy and sore.
  • Here’s a real good one – why do daily devotions?  I’m not much enjoying Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, but nothing is appealing to me for a replacement.  It’s one more thing I don’t have time for – the devotions themselves and finding something else I’d enjoy more.

I can apply that attitude to pretty much everything going on in my life right now.  It’s sucked the joy out of my days more frequently than it should.  I feel I’m back to where I was at the beginning of 2011 when I worked on having more gratitude in my life.  Well THAT didn’t take long to backslide.

I am working though on identifying some of what is making me unhappy.  By identifying it, I can decide if there’s something that can be changed, make it more acceptable, or eliminate the pressure point.

I’ve enjoyed the Sheila Bender class, but I don’t see myself writing a book of essays for publication at any time in the future.  I’m not liking the longer pieces, to read or to write.  I will likely use what I’ve learned in working on some family photo albums, but I don’t think I want to invest the effort into a self-published book of essays.

For the same reason, I no longer see myself working on fiction.  I sit at a computer all day for my job and I don’t want to do the same at night either.  An hour for a blog relaxes me and is enjoyable.  I try to write the best blog posts that I can, but not all succeed.  That’s okay.  Tomorrow’s another day.  At the end of 2011, I had a number of posts to be proud of, many more than to cringe at.  But I’m not writing and rewriting them for hours on end as I would have to do on a book.

I’m working slowly on a how-to book on doing a daily challenge and been enjoying it.  I’ll probably continue with it for now as for some reason, it doesn’t bother me as much as the personal essays or fiction.

Other changes in my routine?  I’m only swimming one day a week.  It still helps me.  I wish I was doing more, but I’m not fitting it in my schedule.  Oh yeah, I’m also working late most nights.  I come home, eat, watch a little TV and off to beddy bye.  I’ve gone back to my walks during lunch instead, especially on the days I think I’ll be too tired or getting home too late to go to the gym.  By not taking the camera, I can do a more vigorous walk and not take as long.

I’m enjoying doing more cooking.  My favorite boy toy is on his art fair circuit, so I’ve also taken back the grocery shopping, but that is only for a few weeks.  We’ve also been enjoying our homemade pizzas.  It’s still taking longer than it should, but it’s been fun doing them together.  I’ll do another post soon on what we’ve been learning.  The ultimate compliment?  A fellow blogger making her own pizza a few days later because mine looked so good.  She did a Chicago-Style Pan Pizza, so check it out.

I generally don’t like to apologize in my blog posts.  It’s a personal preference – if I need to apologize, I shouldn’t be posting it to start with.  But I am sorry to be whining.  So why am I letting this post go?

Because I’m not the only one who struggles with these things or who is struggling with them now.  It comforts me when my fellow bloggers share their problems, discouragements, and solutions.  I appreciate when they identify what they are struggling with and why.  It helps me put my own life in better perspective or try something I had not thought of.

Laughter helps a lot when I’m feeling this way.  So here’s something for you to laugh about.  SOMEBODY missed the lecture on the evils of smoking.  He’s not exactly Fred MacMurray with a pipe, although he’s still a handsome boy.

© 2012 dogear6 llc

Over at A Daily Life, I updated the link to the May Joy Dare from Ann Voskamp, author of the book “One Thousand Gifts”.  The links to the earlier months are also on this post.

Categories: Blogging, Discouragement | Tags: , , , | 14 Comments

My Childhood Home

Posted on April 30, 2012 by dogear6

I mentioned earlier that I was taking a class on writing personal essays from Sheila Bender.  The feedback has been very good, both from Sheila and from my fellow classmates.  A great deal of effort has gone into describing what each of us is doing right and what can use improvement.

The first essay was to be descriptive.  We were asked what person or place do we know well and have strong feelings about?  For this, I wrote about my childhood home:

Picture of my childhood home taken from the bottom of the driveway

I lived nearly my entire childhood in the same house. It was a large brown sprawling single story house, a former farm with a large dog kennel in the back. My parents added more rooms, a garage, a playhouse, and a barn. They put pine paneling in the family room, replaced metal kitchen cabinets with real wood, and enclosed the patio.

Summers were hot and boring. There were no children close by that we could play with – just three boys who my Mom felt were way too wild, especially after they’d tied my sister to a tree to play cowboys and Indians.

Family room where people watched TV and the cat watched for mice on the beams (remember, this was farm country)

My sister and I spent our time in the above ground pool, our bodies getting brown as we floated on inner tubes or put on our swimming goggles to swim along the bottom looking for make-believe treasures. Each day we hiked down our gravel driveway to get the mail, then stopped halfway up under the big fir trees to see if our weekly Scholastic Magazine had come. If it did, we’d sit there in the itchy grass, the sun scorching our necks as we put our heads together to read the latest issue.

Evenings were spent chasing fireflies. There were so many of them in the country – it seemed hundreds lit the night sky. I could scoop my hand through the air and catch them with no effort. After collecting enough of them, I’d watch them through the glass jar, their light winking off and on, before finally letting them loose and starting all over again.

The school year wasn’t much better. I didn’t live in town like the other children and seldom played with them after school. Time after school was spent feeding the dogs or cleaning up after them, doing homework, or listening to my mother and grandmother arguing yet again. The arguments ran a familiar track – too much criticism, jealousy over who got more attention, what my uncle did or did not do wrong this time.

I'm with my grandmother in the backyard

My husband also lived most of his life in the same house, several miles from me. Although he lived in town, he too felt trapped. He didn’t have many friends in school to play with, his parents were busy with one new baby after another, and there was little of interest to a small boy who couldn’t wander too far from the house.

When we married, we didn’t want to stay in the same town and moved 15 miles away. We moved several times the first decade of our marriage, first a small fixer-upper, then a medium fixer-upper and finally a bigger fixer-upper. We saw no value in staying put – it didn’t serve our childhood well. We wanted more distance from our neighbors, more quiet, and bigger rooms to hold our passions.

Then we started moving around the country, eventually living in 8 states and 13 different homes.

Family room during Christmas

I will share in another post about moving so much and how my husband and I made a home wherever we were at, incorporating parts of earlier blog entries.

Categories: About Me, Family | Tags: , , , , | 8 Comments

Homemade Pizza!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by dogear6

My favorite boy toy and I made homemade pizza for supper.  Yum!  We even made the pizza dough from scratch.  We had fun, it tasted good, and it was a nice change of pace for our supper.  Shall I make you drool?

Several  years ago, Mother Earth News had an article with a new idea of making bread in five minutes a day.  I’ve since bought both cookbooks by the authors, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François.  The first one is about making artisan breads (similar to the premium breads you buy at the stores) and the other uses whole grains.  The technique is pretty straightforward, using a “wet dough” that is refrigerated and cooked as needed.

Last weekend, I made up a batch of it to try some sandwich rolls for the spiral ham that we cooked.  I used a whole grain recipe, with white whole wheat flour from King Arthur as a substitute for the whole wheat flour.  Instead of measuring the flour, I weighed it.  The five minutes a day technique doesn’t knead the bread and I felt the weighing would give a better result since there is no “feel” as to when the dough is right.  This recipe used eggs and oil, so it was a bit softer than usual but also very flavorful.

After baking it briefly in the oven, we let it cool for a few minutes.  As you can see, it’s a bit thick.  If we keep doing this, we will have to practice rolling it thinner.  On the other hand, it was no thicker than the thick crust pizzas we get at the restaurant.  I was hesitant to use too much flour to roll it out, which was a mistake.  This is something that can be improved with practice.

Pizza crust cooked briefly and cooling

For toppings, we used a 1/2 jar of pre-made Prego sauce.  We sprinkled on some parmesan cheese, then topped the pizza with cooked green pepper, onions, and some leftover turkey.  The kitchen filled with canine volunteers to see if the turkey was still good to eat.  They were also chased out, much to their disappointment.

We finished off the pizza with mozzarella cheese and popped it in the oven for a little over ten minutes.

Not bad for our first effort in a long, long time!

We let it rest for a few minutes to make it easier to cut and then enjoyed the result of our efforts.  It was delicious, moderate in fat and calories, and blood sugar friendly between the whole wheat crust and the turkey for protein.

Since the oven was already heated up, I made a few more rolls for our lunches.  The first ones I made last weekend were too small and overcooked.  Tonight’s are a little too big.  I’m going to have to experiment with weighing the dough to figure out how much is needed for a decent sized roll.  I also didn’t flatten them enough; they look more like mini-loaves of bread instead of a sandwich roll.  Once again, there’s a learning curve here.  All it takes is some more practice.

I can't wait to try them!

I use an instant thermometer to tell when my bread is done.  Most loaves are done at between 170 to 180 degrees.  That was too much for the rolls, but I don’t know yet what is the right temperature.  Tonight I took them out at 160 degrees.  I’ll find out tomorrow is that worked.  If they’re undercooked, they can be toasted.

Our homemade pizzas are usually on a Boboli crust which is convenient but not very tasty.  This was fun tonight to try a homemade crust and it was so much better too!  It wasn’t hard to do, especially with the made ahead bread dough.  Clearly we need some practice – awwww, we have to make more pizza.  Isn’t that just too bad!

Categories: Cooking | Tags: , , , , , | 17 Comments

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