blink

When things unravel or the glass breaks, etc.~it's easy to forget that there are also marvelous things that happen to us.

 

An excellent read.

scene while rushing to work

how do you spell schizophrenia?

In the space of a few hours, we've gone from lying in the park in 79 degrees to 16 degrees and not being able to walk down the steps because they're so iced over.  (and I'll just add not salting/sanding things to the list of my new management company's inadequacies.)

While I adore baking (and it must be said, baked goods), I generally avoid yeast-based doughs.  Having killed too many bowls of yeast.  But.  I was craving good pizza and the store did not have any fresh dough, so I bravely waded back into yeast-filled fray.  SO very pleased to say that it puffed up nicely and created a silken base for fresh basil and mushrooms.

 Made sauce by roasting tomatoes and garlic together~with this came with a scented option.

And even though I'm decades past college, I maintain that cold pizza is still quite possibly the best breakfast in the world!

boomerang

It is very hard to go wrong when serving food encased in pastry & I was delighted to finally go to this local eatery in honor of Australia Day.

They had a children's pie eating contest and these are the men lining up to vie for a year's supply of free pies.

The owner explaining the rules~the man in the black tank and pink shorts won with a time of 21 seconds.  Impressive.  But I will stick to savoring my little pastry full of 'shrooms.

no waiting

snowpocalypse, well Austin style snow

Never dreamed that I would need to salt/shovel my front walk in Texas.

My little car~certainly had more snow dumped upon it during the Jersey years, but am guessing that it is as shocked as I am to have snow here.

 

Relieved that I didn't give in to my itch to plant herbs last weekend when it was in the 80s. 

And with incredible timing, some snowmen socks arrived in a care package!!

Texan snow

Okay.  All right.  It's not that dramatic compared to snowy climes.  But.  This is TEXAS.  And we just had a snow day in Austin!!!

My tomato pots, collecting a dusting.

& it's morning

I am a part of it

 To know that the atoms
of my body
will remain

to think of them rising
through the roots of a great oak
to live in
leaves, branches, twigs

perhaps to feed the
crimson peony
the blue iris
the broccoli

or rest on water
freeze and thaw
with the seasons

some atoms might become a
bit of fluff on the wing
of a chickadee
to feel the breeze
know the support of air

and some might drift
up and up into space
star dust returning from

whence it came
it is enough to know that
as long as there is a universe
I am a part of it.

"It Is Enough" by Anne Alexander Bingham.

just sayin'

what if?

Intriguing article.

becoming the dance

"What gives the Duino Elegies their visceral potency is Rilke's determination to cherish life in direct confrontation with what robs us of life.  In the face of impermanence and death, it takes courage to love the things of this world and to believe that praising them is our noblest calling.  

Rilke's is not a conditional courage, dependent on an afterlife.  Nor is it a stoic courage, keeping a stiff upper lip when shattered by loss.  It is courage born of the ever-unexpected discovery that acceptance of mortality yields an expansion of being.  In naming what is doomed to disappear, naming the way it keeps streaming through our hands, we can hear the song that streaming makes.  

Our view of reality shifts from noun to verb.  We become part of the dance."

back street/seat driving

Pretty sure I need a megaphone to use while I drive to instruct the moronic drivers around me.

for which we give thanks

There have been four people in my circles in/out of hospitals this week.  That is four too many.  Fortunately, the patients are/will be all fine.  And for that?  I give thanks.

Grateful for sunny walks this week.

And grateful for another sweet note in the mail with a darling little Christmas photo.

why getting dressed can take awhile

Factor in 50-degree temperature swings & it is a miracle that I arrive at work in a timely manner.

there once was a girl in Texas

Love getting personal mail in the post; this fun little story about a girl in Texas completely made my month!!!

 

Ms Soli, the Seattle Sprite.

a thousand mornings

Still very much enjoying my new volume of Mary Oliver's poetry~felt compelled to share this one. 

A Thousand Mornings

All night my heart makes its way
however it can over the rough ground
of uncertainties, but only until night
meets and then is overwhelmed by
morning, the light deepening, the
wind easing and just waiting, as I
too wait (and when have I very been
disappointed?) for redbird to sing.

strength & courage

back for seconds

My friend J and I have declared 2014 to be the Year o' Fun.  And in that quest, we went to Ginny's to hear a smokin' fiddler and band play some fun covers and Cajun music.  The Pissant Farmers

provided some solid toe-tapping fun.  And you gotta love a band with a weird name.

everything really is better

Ms. Julia Child would be exuberant over this news.

a change is gonna come

 

 

 Try not to resist the changes that come your way.
Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

~Rumi

the ants go marching

A new-to-me Texan bug spotted on the walk today.  This critter is about 2 inches long~no idea what it is.

Update: my friend Chris sent me this link and now we've got a name.

as my college boss would say

'Time will tell.'

the exploration continues

The touring of local legendary places continues~this weekend took me to Ginny's to hear a very fun trio perform.

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Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs played a wide range of styles and helpfully changed hats through their sets so as to clue the audience in to which style they were covering.  (I guess just in case you missed the music/rhythm/beat/lyrics.)  Anyway, very fun outing.

adieu holidays

The last gasp of vacay today~knew I needed to do a fun outing and as it is free museum entrance on the first Sunday of every month, I finally took myself to the Bullock Texas State History Museum. 

 The local papers/ads have been touting some enormous mammal exhibit, but I found it to be a bit meh.  The rest of the place was well worth the afternoon of meandering.

 Drove homeward in the whipping winds that are plummeting our temperatures and making it feel like the 12th Day of Christmas.

Farewell, Christmas break.

a woman's place

'Nuff said.

surprise yourself