Random thoughts, random images

Reminds me of the bonfire

I have a bunch of leftover images and thoughts from the past week, and thought I’d see if I can string them together randomly in a way that makes some sort of sense.  Or not.  Who says a blog post has to make sense?

Or maybe a Bird of Paradise

I am 55 days into my meditation commitment.  The thing that stands out the most right now is how present I’m becoming within my own body.  I have a tendency to live in my head a lot, time traveling between the past and the future.  Grounding myself in my physical body allows me to fully experience the present.  It’s not as if I didn’t know that before, but… I didn’t really live it.  Meditation allows me to soar while bringing me back to earth.  I cannot explain how that can be.  It just is.

Broccoli must be in season or on sale somewhere.  I’m getting a lot of searches for “freezing broccoli without blanching” again.  No.  No.  No.  You gotta blanch it.  Period.  End of story.  Stop trying to get around this important step.  Your other option is one I’ve been doing a lot of lately:  roast it.  It’s yummy.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Cut the broccoli into spears and place the beautiful spears on a baking sheet.  Drizzle some olive oil over it all.  Use your hands to make sure the broccoli spears are well coated.  It’s good to get in touch with your food.  It doesn’t hurt to give a little thanks while you’re at it.  Food you are grateful for always seems to taste better.  When you finish admiring the broccoli and saying thank you, grind some salt and pepper to taste over the whole batch.  Bake for 30 minutes.  You won’t need to freeze it because you’ll end up eating most of it before you could bag it up and get it in the freezer.  It’s that good.  You can also drizzle a little lemon juice and grate some Parmesan cheese over it after it’s cooked.  Double yummy.

M and I have been having some cooking adventures, trying out new recipes.  Some have been excellent (stuffed acorn squash) and some have been utter fails (Mashed Root Vegetables).  In fairness to Bon Appetit, I made the Mashed Root Vegetables without the bacon.  I’m not sure it would have helped.  I think it was the copious amount of mustard seeds called for and added that gave it a bitter aftertaste.  I had high hopes for that recipe, too, because I am a big fan of German potato salad, something I make without bacon and it’s still quite delicious.

I came back from my walk yesterday to find a message on the answering machine.  The phone has been so quiet since the end of the election cycle that I thought it might be a real phone call.  It turned out to be someone laughing.  Not a good laugh.  A maniacal laugh.  Freaky.  It gave me a bit of a chill, the “someone walked over my grave” sensation, a saying I don’t understand since I’m hardly in the grave just yet so how could someone walk over it?  (I looked it up.  It appears this 18th century saying is part of a folk legend that a sudden cold sensation means someone has walked over the place where your grave will be.  That makes more sense, or as much sense as possible for an old wives tale.)

It’s beautiful here in the Bogs today.  Sunny and warm for this time of year.  According to the weather prognosticators, it’s going to stay that way for the next ten days.  I hope this doesn’t mean another mild winter.  I’d really like some snow to play in this winter.

It’s been a great day to hang out the laundry and to work in the garden.  I did the former, but not so much of the latter.  I can’t seem to get myself motivated to do that necessary clean-up of the asparagus bed.  Procrastination is a terrible thing.  Tomorrow I will just do it.  Unless something More Important comes along and needs my attention.

Well, I think that’s about it from me and from the Bogs for today.  Thank you for joining me on another ramble.  Wishing you a delightful weekend!

Be good, be kind, be loving, just Be.  🙂

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