Peter Piper picked a lot of peppers.
A bounty of colorful peppers.
Hot Pepper Jelly. YUMMY
We joined CSA this Fall—Community Supported Agriculture. In case you are like me and this is a new term for you, when you participate in CSA you purchase a share of the farms crops. This purchase gives local farms the means to buy their seeds etc for the subsequent growing season, while you benefit from a weekly haul of produce and other products. It is a risk to purchase a share because there is no guarantee of a return, for instance, if the crops are bad or the weather is destructive. But it’s a cool thing to do because it supports local farmers. We need local farmers to thrive, now more than ever.
A Fall CSA is shorter than the spring/summer version. As you might imagine, the variety of possible produce is smaller too. That being said, this year we have gotten an abundance of food. Lots of end of summer corn, tomatoes and melon, winter squashes, pounds and pounds of potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage….and peppers. OH MY GOSH. So many peppers.
Because there was no possibility that the two of us could eat so many, we made a dozen or so jars of Hot Pepper Jelly. Have you ever had it? First of all, it’s easy to make. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Second…it is DELICIOUS. Sweet, hot, yummy with any kind of cheese (especially cream cheese).
I think we might try canning cranberry sauce next. Stay tuned.
It shouldn’t be this hard.
Create self care habits and rituals.
One more time, I have set my intentions to take better care of myself. I’m very good at taking care of other people. But remembering to exercise, eat clean, and REST continues to be difficult.
Sure, I can go along for a while but then life happens and I get off track. Again. Then I have to grieve the time lost, pull myself up and dust myself off, and begin again.
So, here I go. Making a fresh self-care plan and trying to figure out what I need to do to be more likely to stick to it. I WANT to stick to it. Anyone want to join me? Maybe we can encourage each other.
Start date September 1.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat…
If you live in the wake of the current heat wave, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Except you literally should stay out of the kitchen. Today it was 109 with the heat index. My poor flowers are suffering. Some water today resuscitated them, and we moved all of them to shade in the middle of the yard. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone tended to us like that?
I’ve never been a fast writer, but it’s extremely challenging to write in weather like this. It’s physically uncomfortable, of course. But the scorching temperatures and the New England humidity make it nearly impossible to concentrate. But I’ve made commitments so I keep chugging along. I plan to have a new novella and the final installment in the Living After Midnight series before the summer is over.
Ever hear of the Little Train That Could? I think I can, I think I can, I know I can, I know I can…
Stay tuned.
Grow If You Want To.
A Hosta Prayer Plant we resurrected.
If you know me well, you know that I hate yard work. Mowing, weeding, planting, trimming, bugs, dirt... Every bit of it. The problem is that I love beautiful gardens. I enjoy watching flowers grow. But actually doing the work? Ugh.
Fortunately, my partner loves gardens too, and enjoys working with flowers. However, her back issues prevent her from doing everything she wants to do. Over the years, we have taken on a shared philosophy of gardens: Grow if you want to.
So we do the best we can at planting. (That bleeding heart in the middle of the pachysandra? I planted it upside down.) We buy nearly dead plants on sale because we want to give them love and hope. We let everything grow as wild as it wants to, with the exception of growing ON the siding or roof. We hire a great guy to mow and trim and dig big holes. And I get my hands dirty.
The result is that we have wild blueberry bushes, apple trees, and cherry trees on our small hillside. Our pachysandra is taking over half the yard. Little violets are taking over the other half. It’s lovely.
This year, we are going to try to grow vegetables, and sunflowers. Fingers crossed. Stay tuned.
It's the Ice Cream Man, um, Person!
Since the beginning of the week, the ice cream truck has been driving down our street between 6:00 and 6:30PM. You already know how I know—the music! Oh, that jingle still brings me joy.
I can still remember what I bought. If it was Mr.Softee, I bought a vanilla soft-serve cone with chocolate sprinkles. But if it was the Good Humor truck, oh boy. I got an ice cream bar, vanilla covered in milk chocolate, with this, big yummy piece of chocolate in the middle. You can’t even find that today, but it was extraordinary.
We were lucky. The Good Humor man came by every day at the same time. And my sister and brother always bought treats for us. As I grew older, I learned it wasn’t just about the money. He was dating my sister! Can you believe that?
He should have been giving me FREE ice cream.
A Comedy of Measurements
In a particularly irritating moment of “you gotta be kidding,” two of our televisions died simultaneously. The one in the kitchen lost sound and had lines through the picture, and the screen on the one in the bedroom went black. We quickly realized that repairing them would not be much cheaper than replacing them (as a sign of the times, I suppose). So, we replaced them with slightly upgraded models of the same size.
The exact size, no logistical issues, right? Wrong! The feet on the one in the bedroom were placed differently than on its predecessor, and consequently, they were beyond the edges of the dresser. We spent the rest of the day and well into the night rearranging furniture until we found a table that fit the TV.
Except the table didn’t fit in the cutout space; it just had to fit. Cue the ridiculousness. Picture two middle-aged, out-of-shape women pulling, lifting, tugging, and rolling around on the floor to fit a big peg into a too-small hole.
The bad news: Neither of us is built for that kind of hard labor. By the time we set up the TV and conquered the beast of our destruction, we were exhausted and broken.
The good news is the TV is lovely. Moreover, we’re giving ourselves the gift of slowly putting the rest of the house together so we can redecorate and rejuvenate our space. All’s well that ends with optimism.
It's Always the First Day of School
Today was the first day of the semester. As an educator, the rhythm is the same as it ever was—the year starts in September, the world takes a break during December and early January, and then things wind up again until May or June.
This half of the year is always worse than the first half in academia. I don’t know why. It just is. You can see it on the student’s faces and in their slow shuffle to classes. I can feel it in my bones as my workload gets heavier in a way that eclipses the Fall semester.
But for now, things aren’t too bad. The parking was ludicrous and the copier didn’t work. The students were awake and more engaged than usual on the first day. My first day stage fright persisted. Thankfully, no one noticed.
Do any of you educators still experience getting nervous on the first day?
Did Your First Kiss Defy Gravity?
I'll never forget my first kiss.
It was Christmas Day and we'd had a great food and scrabble-filled time as usual. My mom's best friend aka my godmother had come and brought her children and a relative's kid, Joseph, who was visiting from Israel. He was older than me by a few years, and had the blondest hair and bluest eyes I'd ever seen. He looked like a model. To me, anyway. (Years later my sister told me he was not as smoking hot as I'd thought.)
At the end of the day, as was our custom, we went to the movies while the adults stayed back, as happy to get rid of us for a few hours as we were to leave. We chose a newly released action movie that year, but the show never mattered.
Joseph flirted with me the entire movie. I had no idea how to filrt back, but my heart raced with his interest. At some point, he leaned over the arm of the seats and kissed my cheek. When I turned to look at him, he touched his lips to mine and then he REALLY kissed me.
I remember the two of us levitating above our seats, oblivious to the screen and anyone else in the room. We kissed until the movie ended and we floated down to our seats.
He went back to Israel and I never saw him again. We wrote for a little while but as these things do, it faded after a while. But he will always be the star in one of my favorite memories, and the person who taught me how to kiss.
I hope you remember yours as vividly. I'd love to hear all about it. I'll add responses to my next email (Unless you'd rather I didn't add yours.)
Happy 2025. May we all collect new heart-fluttering memories. In a good way, of course.
Do You Believe in Magic
When I was young, my mom's yard was a paradise. It was lined with majestic trees, lush grass, and flowers. You could just see the love she put into those flowers.
The centerpiece of the front yard was a Mimosa Tree. It was stunning. I spent a lot of time with that tree, doing the usual things like sitting under it reading or playing, or working up my courage to climb it to the first big branch.
I have a secret. I flew under that tree. Yes, I did! You don't have to believe me; it's true. I would grab hold of its thick trunk, and then jump up with all my might! Somehow, my body would stay in the air, perfectly horizontal. I would close my eyes and feel the breeze flow over my body.
When I let go of the tree, I'd stay in the air for a few precious moments before I thudded to the ground. The fall knocked the wind out of me, but I didn't cry or complain. I knew magic when I saw it.
I still do. Clouds are magical. Friendship is magic. Love, true and abiding, is magical. Babies, from conception and beyond, are magical. Heck, sometimes chocolate mousse is magical.
We're going to need all the help we can get as time marches forward. Lots of changes ahead, crises as well as opportunities. We'll need family and friends so that we can wrap ourselves in community.
I'm glad I still believe in magic. Do you?
Winter Dreams
For many years I've had a dream of going away for the winter holidays. There'd be snow on the ground and more on the way. I'd sit on a bench with my sweetie, drinking hot chocolate until our fingers grew cold, then we'd head inside to sit by the fireplace reading.
We thought we'd done it one year. My partner and I traveled to Vermont to stay at the Trapp Family Lodge for a weekend. It was snowy and beautiful. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. A huge storm was brewing back home, and my dogsitter didn't think she'd be able to be with my puppies. We packed up and left in the middle of the night, just beating the arrival of the storm.
My puppies were safe and sound, but I never had the peaceful, snowy, holiday I've always wanted. I'm still aiming for it. Stay tuned.
Do you have a winter dream? i'd love to hear it?
Do You Believe in Magic?
When I was young, my mom's yard was a paradise. It was lined with majestic trees, lush grass, and flowers. You could just see the love she put into those flowers.
The centerpiece of the front yard was a Mimosa Tree. It was stunning. I spent a lot of time with that tree, doing the usual things like sitting under it reading or playing, or working up my courage to climb it to the first big branch.
I have a secret. I flew under that tree. Yes, I did! You don't have to believe me; it's true. I would grab hold of its thick trunk, and then jump up with all my might! Somehow, my body would stay in the air, perfectly horizontal. I would close my eyes and feel the breeze flow over my body.
When I let go of the tree, I'd stay in the air for a few precious moments before I thudded to the ground. The fall knocked the wind out of me, but I didn't cry or complain. I knew magic when I saw it.
I still do. Clouds are magical. Friendship is magic. Love, true and abiding, is magical. Babies, from conception and beyond, are magical. Heck, sometimes chocolate mousse is magical.
We're going to need all the help we can get as time marches forward. Lots of changes ahead, crises as well as opportunities. We'll need family and friends so that we can wrap ourselves in community.
I'm glad I still believe in magic. Do you?
Have an enchanted weekend.
The Universe and Me
Do you ever wonder about the meaning of life? How it all fits together? I am often compelled to think these things when I see a particularly spectacular cloud. It always occurs to me that this magnificence didn’t get here by accident. There has to be some complex plan that allows for these puffs of water and vapor to hang in the sky. And the patterns…artistic master pieces.
And the sea. It is a body you can’t see the end of. Your eyes just travel over the ripples and waves only to find more ripples and waves, over and over until all you have is that virtuals line that touches the sky. It’s a wonder to me how much I am soothed by the ocean, its sounds and rhythms. And it’s to just water. Have you heard of forest bathing. There are actual studies like this one that show that spending time immersed in the forest benefits us physiologically and psychologically. How cool is it that Mother Nature has rigged parts of the world to just calm us and remind us of our place here.
Sometimes, I just get smacked in the head with the beauty and expanse of nature. I'm but a small pebble in the vastness of the universe. Does that make me inconsequential? Sometimes it feels that way, compared to the forests and the oceans and the clouds. But maybe my glimmer, combined with all of the other precious pebbles, is what makes the universe beautiful.
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