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.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
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:
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.
Monday, July 8, 2019
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.
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.
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