Signs of Winter

On Saturday night I felt like hell fresh from the nuker. Ever since then I've been achy and dragging, but not sick enough to get out of anything. My boss had this same ailment last week and says I will continue to feel wretched for several days and it will never amount to anything. Great!
All the same I am kind of enjoying the crispy air! I am keeping the house thriftily chilly and not really minding it, but my poor skinny friend Shay was here over the weekend and never took off her scarf. I built a fire in the woodstove last night and this morning I hardly grumbled while scraping ice of my windshield. Its all sort of novel after a year in San Diego!
Last night I opened a chain email that promised me that at 8:33 this morning someone would tell me something I had been waiting to here. I was excited. I could think of all sorts of good news it might be. Well frankly it would have been a little scary if it had happened exactly that way because I was in the shower at 8:33. I am still holding out for a declaration of affection or a generous donation of several million dollars. Hey, miracles happen!

Grey Day Musings

Note to readers who tried to visit links: I entered Jason's link incorrectly at first (fixed now). While I'm sending you surfing, my friend Carl asked to be linked and he is now on the list (at right).
If you want a first hand account of a SoCal fire evacuee, pay my friend Jason a visit at

his new blog

My mattress is oh-so-comfy while you're on it, but I've been waking up with the feeling that a few of my vertebrae have gotten stuck together in the night and find myself doing all sorts of yogic contortions before I pull myself upright to greet the day.
I have been musing about romance and recognition of late and would welcome commentary from anyone who knows more than me, which is quite possibly everyone. I already know that relationships are work, but is getting together a struggle too? Most of my closest friendships are with people who seemed like family pretty much from the get go; am I stupid to expect the same from a quality romantic connection? How many of you had lukewarm feelings toward your mate when you first met and how many of you saw each other and knew: here is someone important to my life?

Lone Wolf

Just when I think I've done everything impressive, I go and buy a mattress by myself. Its one of those chores you'd swear would be easier with company, but after two failed attempts with helpers, I fueled myself with wonder-mocha and headed to IKEA at about 6:30 this evening in a borrowed pickup. I rolled around on mattresses for about 20 minutes, throwing aside pillows and mattress toppers willy nilly to do a thorough comparison. I must have looked like a mad woman, but I had a mission, and if I didn't have a mattress by the time IKEA closed, I was just going to sleep there!
Of course you can't leave IKEA without a couple of trashcans and a laundry hamper, so I sped through to collect them. I found all the help I needed to locate my mattress in self-serve, pay for it and load it into the truck. As I secured the mattress into the truck bed using my clothes line, I thought of my gay cowboy friend Dusty, who said when I told him about camping myself across the country, "and your not even a lesbian!" I felt this evening's mission was a victory not only for my formerly bedless self, but for single straight girls everywhere!

Cleaning Frenzy

I feel like I have written more than once that I have at last become an adult. I guess this is just proof that we are in a constant state of becoming! Anyhow, the milestone this time is that I, the person who once let a weeks worth of dishes fester in the sink on a regular basis, the one who did not put her hand to a toilet brush for the entire time she lived in California, I could not rest tonight until I had reversed the havoc done to my house by a wild family sleepover (take an 18 month-old, 4 adults, and two or three meals, stir well and watch the crumbs fly!). The kitchen has been stabilized, 3 loads of laundry taken in and folded, and I am merely resting my feet before I set myself upon the bathroom.

Check-in

I've been kind of itching to write lately, with no particularly compelling subject in mind, so here's to the minutiae!
I colored my hair last weekend what I thought would be a sedate auburn. I was alarmed at first but have come to love the bonfire that happened instead. Just today I got it trimmed up and I am feelin' fabulous!
I am reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes' "Women Who Run With the Wolves" about the Wild Woman archetype seen in myths and legends and how that deep intuition has been stamped out of our culture over the years leaving many woman feeling they've lost a part of themselves. Having spent the majority of my life keeping the proverbial boat steady this all makes perfect sense and I'm treating my wild hair as kind of an homage to my personal Wild Woman.
In other news, many of you may have already heard through the grapevine that I will be cooking for yet another Kimberton hot spot; the Kimberton Hills Cafe. I am excited as I will be really at the wheel on this job and helping redefine and grow the cafe which has mostly been a well-guarded secret. About 7 years ago in England I was taking a class about figuring out the next step to take in your life and one of the exercises we did was to describe your perfect day ten years from then, including elements like work and home to get a picture of where you'd like to be going. The day I described included my work cooking for the community. (It also included my husband and at least one child, so if anybody wants to help me track THEM down that'd be great.) I've thought passively about that picture from time to time, but I am amazed at how quickly, when I really decided it was time to do it, it all came together. I didn't have to go back to school or get turned down ten times before somebody gave me a shot, it just fell into my open, waiting hands. I guess I'm feeling pretty lucky!