Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Awhile back, I posted about feeling the need to write poetry. That need hasn't let up, and I frankly don't know where it's coming from as I'm definitely not a poet. I am first and foremost a short fiction writer. Maybe what I'm feeling is just the need to write and it doesn't matter what form that writing takes. Whatever the case may be, this is the poem I've been working on. Night Ride Hushed voices drift on the dark, like the bobbing blink of a firefly first close to the grass then out of arm’s reach then back again. The heavy thunk of water bottles against their cages, the click of headlights switching on, illuminating the pebbled asphalt six feet ahead, signals go time. Under cover of darkness, the crunch of tires mingle with muted yawns and complaints of lingering sleepiness. Moving through quiet streets, I follow the red taillights of those in front,  the ones unafraid of that which  the darkness hides. W...

A friend sent me the link to this poem after reading the "My Body Rocks" post. I love it so much, I wanted to share. Enjoy.

While I don't watch much TV these days, mostly just watching the Purdue men's basketball team consistently lose, there is one commercial that I really like. The Jessica Simpson Weight Watcher's commercial. The two lines that strike me most in this commercial are when Ms. Simpson says she loves "this body that made two amazing little human beings," and "I love this body and what it's capable of." I know exactly what she's saying though I don't always keep this in mind like I should. There are probably far too many of my days that I am unhappy with my body. And frankly, I really have no reason to be unhappy with it at all. My body produced three wonderful, funny, inspiring individuals, two of the three without an epidural, with one of those three weighing in at 9.4 pounds, the last of those three weighing in at 10.9 pounds. After each birth, my body rebounded within a few months, and I was pretty much back to pre-birth me with no health issue...

With the last few days warming up, and all the rainy thunderstorms that moved through on Thursday, most of the snow has melted. On one hand this is good in that the streets are clear of the packed down, slick as ice snow covering and I can now ride my bike again. On the other hand, this is bad because the ground is frozen and the run off has flooded some streets as well as basements. Thankfully our basement, as nasty as it is, hasn't flooded, but a friend of mine is working hard to stay ahead of the water trickling into his. The sun shining, along with the warmer temps, spurred me to take the bus home yesterday after work. Hubby had texted, saying just let him know when I needed to be picked up, but I liked the idea of the bus followed by the short, just-shy-of-a-mile walk from Uptown Circle. Since I can ride the bus for free, it just makes sense to use the service. And the walk was definitely needed after several hours of meetings. I could take a second bus that would drop me of...

I'm going to make a confession. I no longer "wash" my hair. I stopped using shampoo and conditioner nearly two months ago, opting instead to go the baking soda/vinegar route. The first three weeks, I kept wavering, almost returning to the shampoo because I didn't like the waxy feel to my hair. Many of the testimonies I was reading that specifically targeted moving away from shampoo indicated this might happen and suggested staying with the new routine a bit longer. These testimonies declared the waxiness will eventually go away once the hair adjusts to not being stripped of its oils every single day. I was skeptical but thought what the heck, I'm three weeks in, so what's another week or two? If my friends noticed how awful my waxy my hair was, they never said anything, which could be because they were (maybe still are) just being extremely nice. Whatever the case, I stuck with it. Now, nearly two months in, my hair has lost the waxy feeling (now I have "...

For the last, oh, I don't know, seven or eight years, I've been saying I want to move out to the country. I want a couple acres to have chickens and some sheep. I want to grow my own foods. I want to be able to see the sunrise and the sunset. I want. I want. I want. Because of my wants, I troll an online realty site, searching for properties that might match up with what I envision for my desired self-sustaining lifestyle. Not long ago, I came across what appeared to be "The One." "The One" is a small farmhouse on 3.35 acres. One picture shows a red barn. Another picture shows a garage/workshop "complete with concrete floor." The property has apple trees, cherry trees, and peach trees. The garden space is right behind the house, close to the little red barn. My entire being feels a pull towards "The One," and I regularly check in to see if it's still available. Today when I checked in, I saw the price had been lowered by $12,000. It...

Today I cashed in my Christmas present from Hubby and spent nearly eight hours learning about bees. I am now of the opinion that bees are the coolest insect ever. From their five eyes to their pollen basket, they are honey-making machines and hive engineers. The bee truly is an amazing creature. Come May, I will have my first hive in place, my first colony hopefully settling in and building their combs. I set off early, right at daylight, because of the unexpected snowfall yesterday that left nearly 4 inches of mess. I wanted to be sure to give myself enough time just in case the roads were still iffy. The highway had some icy spots starting off, but the farther I got away from home, the more the roads improved, so I finally relaxed, turned on the radio, and made my way towards Long Lane Honey Bee Farms just outside of Fairmount. The only rough spot I encountered was the road Google Maps told me to take just outside Oakwood. This road hadn't been plowed. This road called for 4-wh...

I got to thinking today about some of the changes I've made with what I eat, well, more like don't eat any longer, and that led to thinking about the amount of calories in a cola. Which led to how many calories I had been drinking when I was consuming a 16 ounce cola each day. Every. Single. Day. I pulled out my handy, dandy calculator, punched in the numbers--240 x 365--and my jaw dropped. 87,600 calories. I then divided 87,600 by the amount of calories in a pound. 25. That's 25 pounds worth of calories I was consuming each year while I was drinking colas. Talk about sabotaging myself and my desire to improve my eating habits. Part of me kept saying, "Oh, it's okay. I exercise every day, so one cola a day isn't going to hurt." Yeah. I was duping myself for a very long time. Now, into my third month of being soda free, I feel like I've taken a huge step forward with my journey to better health. While giving up sodas may not seem like a bi...

So that French toast I said I was going to make for breakfast? Effing spectacular! Much like my search for the best pancake recipe, I've been on a quest for years to acquire the best French toast recipe. I finally found the Holy Grail of French toast recipes, and when I made a serving for Funny Delightful Son, assuring him this French toast was going to blow his mind, the end result was him saying, "You keep cooking like this and I'm going to become obese." Yeah, it was that good. What I've found in my very short cooking life of a month and one week is that the really tasty, delicious, make your face contort in pleasure foods are those that throw out the idea of don't eat this or that because "it's bad for you." For years now, I've allowed myself to not eat, to beat myself up over eating, and to try one way of eating then another way of eating because whatever way of eating was "better" for me. When I made my resolution to make th...

I broke one of the rules I set for myself this year: not to begin a new book until I'm finished with the one I'm already reading. I just couldn't help myself, though. The title reached out and wrapped its warm homeyness around me. I couldn't wrestle free from its hold. I cried, "Uncle!" and hit the buy button just so I could catch my breath. As if that wasn't bad enough, then, when I was about to go back to the book I was already reading, the darn new book worked its way outside the touch screen of my tablet and forced my finger to tap on the cover of the book. It even skipped all the introductory pages and went straight to the first page of chapter 1. I was under some kind of spell because no matter how much I wanted to not read that page, the following page, and right through to chapter 2, I couldn't stop. I could only stop when I reached the end of chapter 2, with the last line, "Preferably on a picnic blanket, with your mother." A melan...

Another 7 inches of snow. Another day of canceled classes. Tomorrow is supposed to bring another dip in the wind chill, the kind of dip that can bring on frostbite within ten minutes to exposed skin, so most likely, we're looking at either another day of canceled classes or a late start. Sigh. I'm really okay with not having to get up this morning. For years and years I've been getting up at 5:30 am, but the last year or so, I've found it more and more difficult to rouse myself when the alarm wakes me up. I set my clock 15 minutes fast just so I can snuggle under the covers for a bit and prepare myself mentally for starting my day. Even after 15 minutes, I don't feel ready to face the world. It's not like I don't get enough sleep. Since going caffeine free, since going soda free, since reducing my refined sugar intake (an area of my life I'm quite pleased with--it's been tough, slow going, but I'm making progress), and since getting back to t...