Tuesday Lunch Time Rambling-Ons

Im sitting in Harrison Street café, I love this place, so inspirational so motivational hmm not sure motivational is the proper word here….I am thinking, first, about Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight series, thinking, hey that could be me, I can write, I could come up with a sappy plot about teenage Romeo vampire meets normal Juliet human girl. But I didn’t come up with this. Stephanie did. I read she is 34 and suddenly I have a clock ticking in my head as though all good ideas, inspirations and will-to-finish will evaporate at a certain point. As though my time and ability in that time to create is limited. I am rushed and panicked. Or am I procrastinating, wandering until I stumble on the perfect conditions for writing. Perfect conditions such as the Harrison Street Café? Vegan menu, delicious ice tea, mild conversation from 20 somethings, and a dark booth staring out the enormous row house front. This place is marvelous. And how great would it be for Harrison Street Café to say “Tiffany wrote that big novel here in booth 24”. I could make this place world famous. Or perhaps their delicious tofu barbeque will do that for them before my fame.

Secondly I am thinking Sarah Palin. She has pulled a lot of thoughts into my head lately. Thoughts that I like McCain, I like his integrity and his war heroism. I like less taxes and smaller government. I like that Palin is a working mom, just like me. But I also feel tremendous pressure to cast my vote carefully for the good of all women. And her pro-life agenda does not support women. It shames them and puts them in situations of desperation. Because the facts are, whether abortion is legal or not, women will be seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies as they have since the beginning of time. We women have such a burden in motherhood, one that society judges us constantly. I don’t know Sarah, I just can’t take the future from women across our country. I just can’t deny them the right to succeed in life. As if our population wasn’t robust enough without unwanted children raised by unwilling, or poor, or young mothers. I just can’t condone any belief that would limit women’s ability to have choices.

This place is dark, dimly lit, and I just heard the word “creativity” and “your making choices when your creating even if your imitating it will always have a different voice”, the top parts of the wall are painted terra cota, low hanging lights, dark wood paneling up to a chair rail, and the blissful light shining in the warehouse tall windows from Harrison Street. Magazines and books for review. Hooks for bags. Low harmonic music. My fullness overcomes me. And it is officially time to return to work.

Sunday Quiet

Right now the children are snuggled under layers of freshly laundered quilts. Chris is watching a TV show about Frito Lay's assembly line. Therefore, I am blessed with a quiet handful of me-time hours.

My first task was to look through the dozens of picture I snapped this evening. Boy did it rain tonight! Our skinny ditch quickly turned into a wadding pond. When the rain slowed, the air filled with a beautiful ethereal light. A green freshness mirrored from tree to tree and then across the street pavement casting a lovely brightness against the dark clouds. A bit of sun helped form gentle shadows of dripping trees down onto the wet grass.

What a sight! So I grabbed my camera and started shooting...the sky, the trees, the water droplets on the deck...I wanted to capture that light. But I quickly realized that unless I master aperture and f stops, I'll only produce black and blurry photos.

Rather then reference the seventeen books that I own with names like "How-To-Use-Your-$1000-Camera", I used my misplaced sense of expertise to determine that a tripod would cure all my photography woes. So Chris and I searched the house For something that would hold the camera steady. We settled on a ladder, which would have been ideal, however one rung was too high, producing pointless pictures of tree branches in the sky; and the next rung was too low, producing what you see below:



Now, this picture isn't going to win me any awards, I posted it mainly because I took 62 pictures and, dammit, I was going to post at least one of them!

Oh I also have to post this picture:





I have to post this picture because of this conversation:

ME: Look honey we've got marijuana growing in our yard!
HUBBY: That isn't marijuana, its a weed.
ME: Baby that isn't just any weed, it's THE weed, mary jane, the good stuff
HUBBY: No it's a weed...now you are going to blog about how we have weed growing in our yard
ME: Of course I am! It's right there!

I have a new obsession. This is scary for me to admit, but I have to put it out on the table. First let me say I rebel against Vera Bradley purses, I mean seriously? Those are totally frumpy. This, too was the way I felt about Yankee candles, but more because the store's smell sent me into mini convulsions. However, I learned that Cracker Barrel (Geez thats another place I swore I'd never visit or be seen visiting) sells Yankee Candles, and on a whim I purchased one. And I burned it for 4 days straight. Thats almost 100 hours! And I fell madly in love with the comforting smell of my house. In fact I fell in love with my house again, because of that $25 candle. Today I am on my 3rd Yankee Candle. This one is called Dune Grass:





Oh it's yummy. yummy. yummy.

Here are two more pictures I retouched tonight of my restful buddha bookends:









Now I am contemplating bed. I am reading "100 Years of Solitude" and I'm at the point where 10 people are name Jose Arcadio Buendia. I'm confused who is the great-great-grandfather and who is he shagging. You know, because it's the parts with the shagging that really hold my attention.

Tomorrow I get to tell my boss I found another job and I QUIT!

Ah, just another day. What a blessed life I have.