It’s been over a year since we started empty nesting. I have spent the better part of that year resisting the urge to ‘blow it all up’ – I’m not really even sure what I mean by that to be honest. It just seemed that if menopause was going to kick into high gear as our one and only child went off to college, shifting the dynamic of everything at home, in the midst of a global pandemic that
has reshuffled numerous norms in the world, why not change as many things as I possibly could?
I quit my job last month without a plan. In the time since, there have been some changes, with a number of realizations and some self discovery along the way.
Last March, I had four, no five jobs, three email accounts, too many social media accounts to keep track of, worked at least several hours every day, seven days a week. I was almost never not working and I definitely wasn’t making enough money to justify all the work.
And then Covid shut everything down.
Continue readingI watched the new Taylor Swift movie, Miss Americana, with my girl recently. I admittedly am not really a fan, but my girl is, so under the guise of quality time, I agreed to watch it with her. Not only did I walk away with a new-found respect for Miss Swift, I found some of what she had to say resonating with me, specifically, her perceived view that women in entertainment have to reinvent themselves regularly to stay relevant. As someone who has reinvented herself a few times over, I’d say that experience isn’t relegated to women in entertainment, I’d argue it’s something all of us as women either have or will go through at some point in our lives.
Continue readingTen years ago this month, I started this blog. It was more of an experiment to see if I could keep my creative mojo around after one of my more rather alarming dry spells than anything else. The idea was that I’d make it a record of things I made, but somehow, keeping the record became yet another creative outlet for me.
Continue reading
There has been a good bit of life keeping me distracted here lately – nothing terribly worthy of putting out on the internet for everyone to read. Continue reading
Pat and I packed up the dog and headed for the hills last week. Continue reading
It’s officially March and the front yard looks like this:
Mostly dreary, but with crocus in bloom. Continue reading
Tuesday afternoons, I lead an after school cooking program at a county middle school for PB&J Fund in conjunction with the local Boys & Girls Club. It’s my second semester doing this and I really enjoy it. All I have to do is show up and teach the kids – PB&J fund does all the lesson planning and ingredient shopping and I swing by their kitchen on Market Street Tuesday afternoons on my way home from my day job to pick up whatever is needed for the day’s class. Continue reading
My lack of presentation skills when it comes to the tasty food I make is no secret. For example, I will take these lovely feta/pickled eggplant/black olive crostini…
And serve them like this: Continue reading
For a few months now, I’ve mentioned various projects I’ve been working on but haven’t explained here exactly what they all are. As the time has been right for each one, I’ve shared them. This particular one that I’m about to share is probably the biggest one I’ve been working on, but have been the quietest about in this space.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 