What's for supper?

Appetizer

















Main course

















Dessert

















Family Home Evening was pretty tasty tonight.

And yeah, that really is what we had for supper. Rob's choice.

Swallowing my recommended daily allowance of irony

Two days left before we leave for El Paso, and I'm pulling long hours, trying to finish up a mountain of work and make trip preparations. I hit the ground running this morning—shot off bleary-eyed to the track almost late for my walking date, and now I'm home again, about to put my nose again to the grindstone. Bran cereal, rice milk, banana. Rob filled my yellow sunshine kettle with water and made us both some herb tea. "What flavor do you want?" he asked. (I have an herb tea collection that could knock your Birks off. Yogi Tea is my favorite brand.) Agony. Some days little decisions like this are torturous. "I don't know! Eeny meeny miny mo?"

A little later when it was time for our morning study, Rob brought in two cups of Stress Relief—how appropriate. One of the fun things about Yogi Tea is that each tea bag comes with a fortune dangling from its string. Rob's steaming mug warmly reminded him that "Love is where compassion prevails and kindness rules." And what did my cup of Stress Relief say to me?

"Keep up."

That's supposed to relieve my stress?

I do have a few goals, honest I do

I enjoyed a very friendly lunch today with the local bloggity babes, to honor both the birthday of honey b. and the visit of the great and powerful bek. I inadvertently told sue-donym, who has devised a great plan for weekly resolutions this year, that so far I'd set none for myself beyond spending the first part of my year figuring out what resolution to make. Now that I think of it, that's not true. There actually are a few goals I'm already aiming at with some degree of clarity and purpose, if not the traditional new year's rigidity. But I wouldn't go so far as to call them resolutions. That word gives me the heebeegeebees anymore. Gunshy, I guess. So how about:

seven to nine pounds of me gone by El Paso time
shoot a photo (or more) a day, for fun
journal every day (journalling ≠ blogging)
put my face in some scriptures every day, no minimum time requirement
some kind of enjoyable exercise daily—no imposed structure, just shaking it up a little
I'm leaning in the direction of simple health-ifying habits as a general focus for 2008. I feel the need to put my life into better order without being hard on myself. Can it be done? Watch me.

There are some big projects that I must tackle in this first month of the year that are going to take a goodly chunk of my time for as long as it takes me to get them finished. But they are time-sensitive. First, I must compile, edit, and prepare the annual history for my ward, or church congregation. This will be the fourth year in a row I've done this. It's a little like herding cats, trying to persuade and direct a dozen and a half people to turn in histories of their individual quorums and auxiliaries, but I've learned to do it more or less without stress. Second, I have to shoot extensive photos of the entire inventory of Tryst Press books. We just got a new camera, not the tricked-out new Nikon of our dreams, but a decent and affordable D40 that will do the job nicely enough. I'm going to have to set up a little makeshift picture studio to tackle this project. Third, I'll be completely overhauling our fine press web page—it's going to be totally different, and much more focused on our books. I've got about a week to finish #1, and then the other two need to be done yesterday, basically. Rob's been working on designing new letterhead, and as soon as he's done with that, I'm off and running with the web stuff. I will heave such a happy sigh of relief when these jobs are done. I anticipate enjoying each process, but boy oh boy, what a tight schedule for a while. Maybe if I just let myself get lost in this work, some of those extra pounds I want to jettison will naturally fall away. (Oh, don't I wish.)

I almost forgot to mention my new pet project, which is only for pleasure and the sake of volunteerism. I've done my first transcription for a favorite podcast: WGBH Morning Stories. And I intend to do more. Morning Stories is a consistently terrific podcast; if you're not familiar with it, I highly recommend you give it a listen. It's the sort of thing that gets me very excited about radio, about documentary, about personal essays and stories, about all things media-related, about writing, about sharing, about people. It's the good stuff, truly. And recently, a request for people willing to transcribe episodes was sent out to the grateful masses, and I couldn't resist. Like I have time for another thing right now. But it didn't matter; I just couldn't stop myself from raising my hand and saying, "Pick me!" And anyway, it felt right, and who can argue with that? If you also enjoy such stuff as this, maybe you'd like to contribute a little time as well. If you're interested, contact me, and I can tell you where to start. But do try the podcast on for size at least.

I ordered a foot pedal to go with some free transcription software I downloaded to help with this WGBH thing. I know, totally overboard. But maybe not really. I have tapes of my grandmother that need to be transcribed. I have other ideas. Project inspirations. A buzzing brain. Manic thoughts. Get me a prescription, somebody. Help!

I'll tell you what's a lot more like herding cats than motivating ward members to write a few pages of history, and that is reigning in my own impulsive nature. Fluffy bits of me are forever running here and there, scratching, spitting, hacking up fur balls.

Goodnight.

Abbreviated

3BT:

• a new iMac
• the thing I can't tell you yet (but no, I'm not, in case that's what you're thinking)
• the sound of rain

Housecleaning

I was looking through the Bright Street blog files and realized I had quite a few dangling posts, a dozen of them. I thought, in the spirit of decluttering, I ought to weed 'em out and just post what I wanted to keep. Some of this stuff is incomplete, but I mostly left it as-is. One post was far too personal to go up for public view, so I moved that one to a private offline file. Several posts had only titles, no content, so I blitzed them. The rest of the wordage I have linked here, in case you want to thumb through a few tidbits that nearly got missed. Wa. La.

It rolls off the tongue
Playing four-square with Melody
Recipes
Wish list
So much
Post title, no post: Remember your first everything (9/1/06)—deleted
1st quarter 2006 reading list
Post title, no post: Approval is divine (1/19/06)—deleted
Post title, no post: Without compulsory means (1/15/06)—deleted
Handwriting on the wall
still bleeding laundry rob made the yard

Nine days till camp!

Simple-minded

Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. Sometimes, if you've got chaos in your chemistry, you're up and down and up and down with such stomach-dropping force and cheek-flapping speed that you could sell yourself to a theme park. At times like this I find it very natural to want to let go of all sorts of stuff, of clutter, of schlep—both internal and external—and just concentrate on holding on with both hands, and then, once the ride is over, find a peaceful spot to sit till I've got my equilibrium back.

And so I am in eager pursuit of simplicity. The more I get rid of in my life, the more I want to get rid of. I seem to have become addicted to negative space. And that is very positive.

Are you trying to simplify too? You might enjoy these two articles, treasures I found this week.

First of all, here is a terrific list of meal ideas that are fast, easy, and summer heat-friendly. Mark Bittman deserves a 21-yum salute for his compilation, which so far, has tested deliciously. He jump-started my inner Martha, for which my family and I are grateful. I was about out of kitchen inspiration, and that's odd, considering I typically enjoy cooking and eating.

Next is something to help you clear your mind of worry, which I feel certain is another across-the-board sort of need. Rollercoasters and level heads alike all seem to suffer from this brand of clutter, so I hope it will provide a welcome perspective for you.

I'm off now to crank out a Cobb salad in record time.

Overcoming blog atrophy

I've been really focused on personal matters lately. Though I've been journalling furiously in my private pages for over a week, I haven't had much left over to invest in this public blog. I've thought about posting, but by the time I get through with my nightly brain-dump that is not intended for general consumption, I'm ready to pass out and be done for the day. Last night I was whacking away at the keyboard till 1:00am and later, and I had to get up early for church this morning. Sacrificing so much sleep to write was a bad idea. Staying up even later to blog would've ruined this whole day. I'm slow as molasses when I write, though you'd probably never guess it from the end result.

Anyhow, for the moment, I'm enjoying a break from the craziness of the week. Sunday afternoons are usually quiet at my house. Rob's out doing some visits, and the dog's securely child-gated away in the back of the house. It's nice and peaceful. I should take a nap, as this is the best opportunity of the week to do so, but somehow I just can't persuade myself. I'm the kind of tired that makes me feel contrary and irritable. Somebody, bonk me in the head with a rubber mallet, cartoon-style, so I can rest!

Have I mentioned here already, explicitly, that Gram is moving in with us in two weeks? This and a few other concerns are occupying most of my brain space and virtually every waking moment of my days. We are in the middle of reorganizing the entire house, practically, to make room for her. Our bedroom and office both must go downstairs now, into our mostly unfinished basement. Anyone who's ever seen my basement is going to begin praying now, fervently, for our deliverance from evil. Gram will have a bedroom at the back of the house, and next to it, a "sitting room", aka t.v. room, where she can watch the toob as much as she feels she needs to and also entertain her many friends. Being upstairs will keep her convenient to the bathroom and the kitchen, and to my dog, Izzy. Gram adores Izzy like nobody else does. It's going to be a terrific change of lifestyle for all of us, Izzy included.

Other pressing projects include beginning to solicit and hopefully gather and assemble writings and photos for our annual ward history. I've also been asked by our bishop to organize a massive, ongoing oral history project for the ward. The idea is to start with the elderly people in the ward and then find those who have moved away but are still accessible, and get their life stories on tape and transcribed for a permanent collection. I recently turned in a proposal for a system and schedule that will see us through next year. This morning, the bishop approved it. The basic structure is: (1) I teach the instructors about the process of interviewing and transcription. (2) The instructors teach (in both english and spanish) short classes on interviewing and transcription to individuals, small groups, or families chosen for the work by the bishop and myself. (3) The interviewers contact the persons who have been invited to share their life stories, and the interviews and any necessary follow-up interviews are conducted. (4) The tapes are brought to me for duplication, and I stash one copy safely away in the perma-files. (5) The tapes are delivered to the transcriptionists who prepare a written record of the interviews. (6) The written records come back to me for inclusion in the annual ward history (and possibly other places as well). This cycle will repeat quarterly, and near the end of the year, the idea is to have a fireside or banquet honoring those people whose life stories we gathered, and to encourage everyone to get involved in personal and family history. I think as the process gets going, I will submit appropriate excerpts from these oral histories to the monthly ward newsletter, so people can feel more excitement about the project all through the year.

I've got a whole lot of work to get done by year's end. Never mind getting ready for Christmas.

I'm determined, though, to enjoy the Christmas spirit this year, and not give in to the seasonal schlock and pressure and commercialism. I'm going to keep it a simple affair and spend my energy on the parts that matter: loving and feeling thankful. I refuse to be distressed by the herds of electric reindeer that have already started invading our valley.

Monday before last, I went thrift shopping with Gram and found a five dollar Christmas tree. It's not bad! Okay, it's bad in the sense that it's not a real tree, but our money is even tighter this year than it was last year, thanks in large part of to the onslaught of surgery bills, and last year we decorated our sickly Norfolk Island pine tree a la Charlie Brown. As resourceful and charming as that was, I'd like to be prepared with a somewhat more attractive option this year. I guess whether or not my five dollar thrift store tree is more attractive is debatable, but anyway, it made me feel better to bring it home. Now Gram will move in after Thanksgiving, and after we get her properly snugged in we'll be all set to go on our first home project together: gussying up for Christmas 2004. That ought to pre-empt toob consumption for a while. I can hope.

On that same shopping trip, I found a pair of knee-high lace-up boots, brown, Eddie Bauer, for another five bucks. They reminded me of some boots I saw in the latest issue of Vogue Knitting; they were worn by a poncho model wearing a fabulous handmade recycled jeans skirt, and carrying a guitar like it was an accessory. I'm not convinced yet that the boots I found look better than, say, wrestling boots on my particularly curvy calves, but they're great boots anyhow. I guess if I eventually give up on them, or on my calves' compatibility with them, they'd be good candidates for selling on eBay. Hmph.

I'm supposed to be taking part in a talent show/dinner for the women in my ward this Tuesday. A nice girl named Angela called me today to ask what I would be performing so she could list it in the program. Me? Perform? I had a good laugh over that one. Angela was content with a commitment from me to produce some kind of display table that the rest of the group could enjoy before and after the meal and show. So, what'll it be? What should I put out there for general ogling? Knitting. Marbling. Photography. Sewing. Maybe if I get brave, a writing sample. What else do I know how to do that's worth displaying? I'm taking some food too to add to the pot luck meal, and I'm planning to swim upstream on that one and make something spicy and vegetarian, maybe an indian curry. That's my subversive talent on display, I suppose; I feel compelled to kick against public meat-and-potatoes sometimes.

I've been blogging a while now. I think it's time for a nap.