I am out of here

I am moving to Wordpress. Come find me! www.bloggingisforlovers.wordpress.com

Asking for trouble

So I'm feeling kinda overcommitted in my life right now, hence the neglect of this sad little blog. A couple of weeks ago I thought, Hey, I should do that NaNoBloMo thing. And then I thought, No way. That would just be asking for trouble. But, I'm only a few weeks away from escaping The Busiest Fall of My Life and then maybe I'll pull myself back together and this blog along with me. We shall see. A couple of the topics (I hope) to come:

• Baking something with the persimmons Fresh Abundance delivered a couple of weeks ago (if they are even still edible at this point, eek)
  
  
• Muggle Quidditch (I'm writing an article about this for the Inlander this weekend, yay, but that's just one more aspect of my overcommittment, boo, but it's worth it, right?)
  
  
• Parks and Recreation, which has totally shaken itself out of the awkwardness of last year and become a complete delight
  
  
• Details about our upcoming bargain vacation to Disneyland! Here's a photo of us in Disney World from our trip to Florida last Thanksgiving, to get everyone in the Disney mood. Brad and I dressed in matching outfits so that our mom could find us easily if we ran off and got separated.
  

Actually, the truth is, we didn't realize we had worn matching outfits until we looked at these pictures. Isn't that adorable?? No. No, it isn't.

A bloggy deal

Here's what I just learned from my blog stats:

• Most readers come from the U.S. The country with the next highest number of readers? Obviously, Brazil!

Searches that have brought people to my site:

• "dressing up for sporting events" (like that has ever happened!)
  
• "zaftig veronica mars" (excuse me??)
  
• "doesn't that sound nice" (there's a nice, specific search, holy cow)
  
• "one year anniversary for lovers" (I recommend Vermont)
  
• "rory logan goodbye" (that might make a nice subtitle for part of the episode, robot)
  

And my favorite:

• "I'm a fembot" (you ARE? So is Francie!)
  

Rings like trees

Well world, I am way into my second produce variety box, and you know what that means: I just ate my first beet ever. I roasted beets in the oven today, how crazy is that? My only real beet knowledge comes from seeing them dying in their own sick bloody juice in salad bars. They have always looked way too disgusting to consider eating. But I decided that I'll try everything that comes in my variety box, so today, it's beets.

The one I just ate was golden yellow inside, and a little bit sweet, with texture kind of like a cooked carrot. It was very pretty and I sliced it into little circles. Also, apparently beets have rings, like trees. Mine was six years old.

(Note: I didn't put my beets in the refrigerator for a few days after I received them, because I thought they should be stored in a cool dark cupboard like potatoes are, but I was so very wrong about that; they're supposed to be refrigerated. So there is a chance that my mis-storage altered the way they turned out. Who can say for sure?! Produce is so exciting!)

I am doing other things besides dedicating my life to local abundance (which is an experiment that may die off at some point, although I hope not). School has started again (and I am taking an EEK SCARY POETRY WORKSHOP, among other things), and this is a really busy time at work, so I won't be blogging nearly as often for a while, although hopefully more than once a week. We'll see.

Muffin man

Last night I spent a few hours as the muffin man, baking about six dozen. Some for my mother-in-law, some for a staff meeting, and a few little baby leftovers for me and Brad. I made some pumpkin ones which were decent, not great, but the others are what I need to share with the world. These strawberry cinnamon muffins are soooooo so so good. Normally, I believe that any food thing with some semi-liquidy food thing lurking in the middle is at best questionable (Cadbury Creme Eggs) and at worst DISGUSTING (Gushers). But these have jam in the middle, and that very jam is a pure delight. I'd also like to note that these are low fat, if you care about that sort of thing. Please, treasure them.

Note: a good blogger would post a picture to really sell you on these muffins. I am not that blogger.

When the living's easy

My brain is tired! My brain! I just started two posts that I then discarded when I decided they were stupid. One was about riding my bike to work. The other was a few delicious recipes. Both of them seemed like a waste of everyone's time after about thirty seconds of writing.

So, instead, what? I'll just say that I love this summer. I've never had such a free, uncommitted, easygoing summer before. Last summer was technically just as free time-wise, but I had just left the bank, and readjusting to a whole different style of life was still overwhelming.

This summer is different. I have loved reading on the front porch, waking up early and running, hanging out at coffee shops with my laptop and attempting to write (sometimes I've also hated that), checking out more books from the library than I could ever read, getting ice cream at The Scoop, biking to work, hanging out with high schoolers, watching Alias, reading and praying and being quiet in the morning times, writing articles about rodeos, and just having TIME to do whatever I want with.

When school starts again in September I know the stress and the pressure will be back, and I'll be short on sleep and generally unrelaxed until June. That's because I'm a perfectionist, not because my program is trying to beat me to a pulp. And it will be good for me in some ways and exhausting in others and it will all work out okay eventually. But I want to remember how restful (even though, honestly, I haven't been sleeping all that much) these few months have been, and how rejuvenating this time off has felt (even though this heat is trying to melt me). It feels good to love life.

Back in August!

I'm going to be in Westport, WA this week, with very sporadic internet access, so I'm going to have to break up with blogging again for a bit. I'll be back in August! Which is coming up scarily soon.

I'm waiting

More details about last night's Harry Potter extravaganza are coming soon! But, I've decided that I am not going to blog again until Danyeal leaves another comment. Posting every day is not all that big a reward in an of itself, as it turns out. I need the feedback of my 1.5 readers! So, I'm waiting.

allow me to mesmerize you daily

I should also say that it is funny that I apologized for not posting yesterday, without explaining that I had decided to post every day. Which is something that I only committed to two people over email. I think blogging every day might help me get in the habit of writing every day. Plus, it's fun, most of the time. Plus, my life is fascinating. Tonight I watched 45 minutes of The Parent Trap.