Glad this thing still exists...

Most of my writing is pencil and paper in a cahier tucked inside my bullet journal, these days. But I still read blogs, and I'm not always motivated to write. 

Rather than recap the past year + of events in the most bizarre times of our lives, I'll just launch from here with a little bit o' catch up: 

1 - last year I broke my right humerus and tore up my rotator cuff. A year of PT, and a surgery and more PT later, I'm still recuperating in a way that feels like it's dominating my life. I am simply unable to properly express my gratitude that it didn't happen to my dominant arm! I have just recently become able to knit a little. 

2 - I have thus far managed to avoid catching COVID. 

3 - I'm teaching virtually, and am torn between liking it, and hating it. I enjoy the shorter hours, and the commute down to the clamcave (takes 30 seconds, heh) but I miss the kids and my colleagues. 

4 - Cricket is still with me, 14.5 years old, and creaky and cranky. I love him, and am acutely aware that every day is a gift. 

5 - I'm still meditating, now using the Calm app. 

6 - I've been on a bit of a sewing binge this summer, making a bunch of Sonya Philip patterns and masks mostly. 

still summer, still at it

I have 2 more weeks of my summer break, before I go back to work. Each year is different; I'm getting increasingly restless and tired of teaching ESOL at my school, but P and I ran the numbers last year, and we figured out I could retire in 2 more years, so I'm hanging in there. I may do that, or may work part time; I just know that 2 years from now is my drop-dead time for making major employment changes. This coming school year, I have some goals of factfinding about retirement; how much it will cost to buy back years from other states I've worked in, my social security estimates, what I could be getting from other investments, etc. I'm a bit scared, but I'ma try and do the hard things. So much of my energy gets caught up in avoidance behavior, and I feel stuck. I am trying to work through this.

So summer...bucket list o' fun: 

- get out in my kayak. I haven't done any paddling this summer, mostly due to travel and the extreme heat and humidity, which I haven't really tilted against as in the past. My paddling friends have all seemed busy, as well, and we have just kinda let it slide. But I recall that Det and I used to consciously fight the "August Malaise" every year. Only this year it's become the July Malaise, as school starts earlier in Georgia.

- make some salted lemonade popsicles. Yes. I bought one from King of Pops on Saturday, at the farmers market, and it was mind-blowing. I realize I could figure this recipe out, and I might make mine a lemon-lime 'sicle instead, because we're constantly buying limes and then forgetting to use them before they turn dry and brown.

- visit the Foxfire Museum in Rabun Gap. I was a Foxfire kid, in that I read all their books in high school, and I was thrilled to discover that right here in my home state is the epicenter of Foxfire-ness. Not 3 hours away. I need a factfinding mission.

- find a labyrinth to walk. When we first moved here, there was a stone labyrinth on the property adjacent to our woods, and I used to walk it at least once a week, at all hours of the day and evening. Well, that's changed - the Methodist church removed the stones and sold that part of their land to a developer who threw up 8 houses on way too few acres of land at the end of our cul-de-sac. Atlanta has a number of other labyrinths, in easyish driving distance from here, and I need to go explore one.

- Lake Lanier beach day. Organize a picnic, throw on my swimsuit, and head out to the lake to pretend I'm actually at the beach. Take a book, some mindless knitting, some sneaky wine or beer, and just BE. Go for a swim when it's too hot to lounge...

There's more, but these are the critical ones. Everything else starts to feel like a to-do list that highlights exactly how little household maintenance I have actually accomplished this summer, and I'm trying to address that with a minimum of stress.

cooking and eating

During the school year, I don't really cook. Because P is retired, he has taken over all the cooking and most of the grocery shopping. That's good and bad, because I like to cook, but I hate cooking after a full workday. We make different things, and though I do cook some on the weekends, much of that's meal prep for breakfasts and lunches M-F.

This week, I've made a great recipe for couscous with lemon, herbs, and feta cheese, and a zucchini-chickpea stew. Both recipes were from The Washington Post, and were delicious. Here are the peppers in action:

I changed the recipe a little bit from the one in the Post. I added cumin, a jalapeno and a can of fire-roasted tomatoes; I wanted it soupier to serve over the couscous. It turned out really well, and with the addition of feta sprinkled on top, plus a squirt of sriracha, it was salty and spicy! 

Do you know the Utz Dark Russet potato chip?

 Our old gamer friend Chris (RIP) got me addicted to these on one of my visits to Richmond, and unfortunately, they can't be found in Atlanta, to my experience. I have only found them at the Food Lion about 3 miles from my mom's house, near Buena Vista, VA, and so when I visit, I always bring back a bag or two. They are a food I associate with cocktail hour at my mom's. She makes the onion dip with Lipton Onion Soup mix and sour cream, and we have these chips and red wine, every time I visit. The one rule about this (because my mom and I would have this meal EVERY day) is that the repast is only served when my sis or P, or both are also in town. Anyway, I brought some of the chips home, and wanted to make the dip, but we didn't have any sour cream, so we made it with Greek yogurt. No problem, and while it had a bit of a tangier taste, it was a perfect substitute. 

Today, I'm going to make a cold cucumber yogurt soup, with dill. I've been checking out recipes, and they all have essentially the same ingredients, so I think I'm gonna just wing the recipe. I'm doing it mostly because our fridge is overfilled right now, and I need to not go to the grocery store, but instead, to eat what's there, and this soup will be a cool addition to the leftovers we're drowning in. 

Little else going on. I'm in the midst of making Dr's appointments, taking care of the business I abandon during the school year, watching the Tour de France each morning while I spin along. 

summer break

So just keeping this thing alive here. I came across Measi's blog in my feed today, and I realized that I hadn't blogged in about a year, and I'm kind of on a social media fast right now, wrt Facebook and Instagram, but I missed the self-expression of social media...it's nice to know that someone I read back in the early days of blogging (early 2000's) is still at it, life changes and all!

So. Summer. Not bad at all. I spent June traveling most of the month; first to Cherry Grove Beach, to hang with some cousins for a few days in the most beautiful setting; we had an apartment in an old resort building that was on the point - one side of the place looked out toward the ocean, with the back deck facing a peaceful salt marsh. Relaxing days of swimming, sunning, grilling, and general catching up with family.

I reluctantly left Cherry Grove, with a pound of steamed shrimp and some cocktail sauce made by the cuz (her mom's recipe) and headed up to Lex to see my mom. Spent the next 3 weeks hanging out, visiting friends, seeing my sis, going back to WVA to visit more family, and then P came up with Cricket to hang out for a few more days. All in all, an enjoyable vacation, and now I'm back home.

Looking at the above account, I realize that this is what happens when one doesn't write very often anymore. SO much happened, and yet it was all so huge that I just want to sluff over it and get to The Next Thing. Which of course is the navel gazing that I so love to do. But it's hard to just hurl oneself into this platform once a year and have it be a good outlet for my demons and anxiety closet. I get impatient with other bloggers who do that, so I'll try and slow my roll here and pick one small thing to detail at a time.

Social Media Fast
This sprang from a conversation my cousin's husband and I were having at the beach about the all-pervasive tyranny of social media in our time. How we felt pressure to check, comment, like, respond almost constantly on our respective platforms, and how so often, when we were together with friends, conversations centered around sharing shit we'd seen on Facebook. How it's hard to have an opinion that isn't influenced by someone else in your circle right now, and how original ideas and thoughts are hard to come by. So this was weighing heavy on my mind in June, WHILE I was at my mom's house. My mother doesn't have internet by choice. I have many thoughts about that, and the way she has removed herself, to some degree, from current modern society, but it is damn peaceful at her house, and I always get tons of reading and knitting done there as a result. So it's nice that way.

I came back home though, to the Ravelry ban, (which I support) and to my Instagram account, with a firestorm of posts on both sides of the issue, as well as much kerfuffle about the politics of Pride month, plus the usual barrage of posts about the latest shitstorm out of Washington. (really, 2 1/2 years into this administration has been so fucking exhausting - in part because of the actual events, and in part because of the re-posting, sharing, and reacting that everyone gets sucked into over said events.) I found myself diving down rabbit holes of posts, reading backstories, and in general, wasting hours of my life on the dramas of people I don't actually know. All the while, rattling in my head, beyond the noise, was the echo of the conversation about the noise. I had essentially the same discussion with a friend last week, and I realized that I needed a break, I wanted a break, and that godsdammit, I could take a break. I unfollowed some folk. I took Instagram and Facebook off my phone and logged out of them on my computer. I'm spending less time on the internets, and it feels good. I feel like I'm getting some time back, and this thing could go on for awhile, and I probably wouldn't suffer.

There's the FOMO, of course. And the feeling that there are some friends with whom I am disconnected right now by virtue of my eschewing social media, and I wish it weren't so. But for the most part, I'm working on it, and digging it. TRUTH: I do pop onto FB and Instagram to check messages. I probably will return to posting, at some point, let's say in August, if it feels right.

For now, though, this is my platform.

July microblogging: Sam Gribley, you were my first boyfriend

Yesterday's prompt, which I forgot to address, was to write about a favorite childhood book. My all time favorite book from my pre-teen years was Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain. It's fantastically nerdy, without a shred of fantasy; the tale of a city boy who runs away to the Catskills to live off the land for a year. It sparked all sorts of personal nature study for me, and inspired my early foraging efforts, as I learned about edible wild plants in the area where I grew up. It made me excited about camping and being out in the woods, and probably spurred me on to do things like rappelling and canoeing as I got older.

Now, years later, I discover that this wasn't the only book George wrote about Sam Gribley! I am so getting my hands on these!

Here's some milkweed I came across in West VA, in my cousin's area. No, I did not eat them. Yes, the pods are edible.

July goals: a month of mini-blogs

Following Dianne Sylvan's theme of 31 days of smallish bloggery, I launch here. She has a months worth of prompts. Not saying I'm going to do them all, but there does seem to be blogfodder therein. I'm having a hard time blogging; the book of faces and the instant gratification gram are chewing up my social media time. It's a problem, though.

Here are Sylvan's prompts, should you be interested...

http://diannesylvan.com/archives/5183

July's goals are simple. Enjoy my summer. I am off work til July 30, and I need to do 2 things...clean my crazy house, and figure out some way to set some boundaries around my work life. Because last year was just 180 days of drinking from a firehose, and it wrecked me. This year, far less, and far less stress over it all.

To that end, I'll continue to work at sustaining my meditation practice, and do some enjoyable things. I'm signed up for a qigong class at my church, and am also going to the Dirty South Yoga Fest at the end of the month. So it looks to be a month of mind-body practice, which I desperately need.

Leah's coming to visit in 11 days, and I'm so excited. It'll be good to have witchy company. We are going to the pagan-flavored Mystic South conference - hey, I'm all about the con this year!

But I'm facing the stiff challenge of getting my guest room and office ready to house her. The Clamcave has become the repository of all my chaotic mess from the end of the school year, and it's first on my list to bust a move on, starting tomorrow. I should have begun today, but ended up playing D&D all day at Jessie's so no housecleaning today.

Other goals for July (though I hesitate to make any more, because the aforementioned ones are lofty as all get out) are making a good effort in my brother-in-law's Workweek Hustles on the Fitbit platform, and cooking and eating more at home. How this jives with my newfound love of festivals and cons, and my party girl Leah coming down, I'm not sure...

I'm also doing Tour de Fleece. Clearly I haven't learned anything from the year's biting off more than I can chew, though I really only have to spin 10 minutes a day...

striking gold in the salt mine

It's a deeply rainy weekend, kicking off what appears to be a solid week of the wet stuff coming up, if my phone can be trusted. I've turned a corner, though, and since Imbolc, and a luminous ritual with my Druid group, I've been fairly on the up-and-up. Even the flu, which came this past Sunday, and stayed til yesterday, hasn't really gotten me down. Oh, I took 3 days off to work, and a lot of Tamiflu and tea, but I'm feeling better. Spring, which always seems to pop up in GA in February, is working its magic.

I was struck with a thought about my work this morning. We are deep into ACCESS testing at school. ACCESS is the annual test of English language proficiency, that most of our students take. It pulls me out of my teaching job for 5 weeks, to give group written tests, online tests, and 1:1 speaking tests. Now I don't really like tests, and think we give far too many in our current educational culture. ACCESS is mostly performance-based, though, and isn't ridiculously rigorous, as tests go. I don't hate it, and it does give the examiner a good idea of what the ELL student can actually do, in English. What I realized, though, is that by being involved in testing children, I get to avoid the regular weekly meetings at school where administrators talk about testing. Because the testing schedule runs all day, and doesn't follow the rest of the staff schedule. Win-fucking-win!!!! ACCESS can go on all year, as far as I'm concerned...the entire month of February is simply going to work, testing children, working after hours on my various extra-curricular projects and afterschool club, then coming home to enjoy home life. No lesson planning, no collaborative, data-centric meetings of any kind eating up my nonexistent planning time. It's going a long way to ensure my enjoyment of my job, right now.

Thing is, I really still enjoy teaching, and like the kids, the families, and my colleagues. But our school has turned into a Georgia Milestones-CCRPI-obsessed, numbercrunching score-mill, and our planning periods have been hijacked by time with administrators and coaches pushing one or another initiative down our already choking throats. It has raised everyone's stress level, and to be honest, it's happening in every school in the district, so I can't even escape with a transfer. The one good thing (and really, finding a silver lining in this stormcloud is as a stretch) about it all is that it has caused me to move my retirement plans up a lot. I am planning 3 more years in the field. Slightly more than a Peace Corps assignment, right? I'm just about ready to start counting the days. I never thought it'd come to this. And really, if I weren't so deep into it, I'd just leave, but I do like the money, the benefits, and the dubious retirement potential.

But I am all about finding me some joy right now, and that includes ways to transcend the drudgery.

I have also just registered for 2 pleasurable escapes, thus spending all my disposable income for this month. One is my spinning guild's retreat, to be held in March, in a big rambling house not too far out of Atlanta. The other is the 2nd annual Mystic South conference, coming up in July. Both of these events are serious good times, and feed my soul. I'm hoping a friend from up DC way will come down and stay with me for Mystic South again. A couple of facebook messages, and yes, she confirms it.

And now, my dears, I am leaving this cozy chair for a bit of spinning and Olympics gawking.