It's needless to explain that I haven't been much for blogging...for a while. Since The Staff Sergeant returned, I have fallen more deeply in love with cooking for the 567,436th time in my adult life, and that has taken up more of my creative time than I would like to admit. It's probably my truest north but like everything else that I love deeply, my passion for it ebbs and flows like the tide. Since my sudden infatuation for growing fresh veggies in the spring, my interest in seasonal and organic cooking has grown exponentially. Here are a few of my latest cookbook recommendations. Despite a large library of others, these have found homes all over my house in easy to reach stacks. Their luscious photos are like food porn--really.

I don't have the patience or the focus to write. It certainly isn't that I don't have material. Turn on the news--I have LOTS of commentary. I have traveled to both ends of America this summer. And now that my personal life is slowly settling down, while the world is keeping it's usual, tumultuous pace, I just can't find the desire to express myself in words. The Middle East has temporarily made me a reader instead of a"writer."

Day 6: Hwy 1 pit stop

NoCal. Jealous?

soakin' up some rays

...in hopes of some natural bleach action. These beauties were the $3 deal of the century at a little antique shop nearby. They are each cross stitched, by hand I'm sure, with the brightest and cheeriest colors. The only problem is typical vintage yellowing, which I'm trying to take care of with last night's 24 hour water and vinegar bath and now the first glimpse of sun in days.

the silence [i] keep from [my] head

I try to look happy and somewhere in my heart I must actually be happy for them, but mostly I'm the same kind of jealous as every other summer of my adult life when the engagement announcements come pouring in. I just learned that one of my oldest friends is getting married. I think I knew him when he was three years old. It's hard enough to believe that we're so much older and that I think we should all be so much more experienced, so much further aged than we are. And then the childish tears well, the whiney phrase, "not fair" finds use, and the pacing begins and I can no longer look around the elephant in every room. I think to myself, "well, wouldn't it be nice..."

This time it has very little to do with someone else being in a place that I am not - metaphorically speaking. Instead it has everything to do with the volume and obstacle of oceans and continents, this goddamn war, the lushness of spring versus alien deserts. We've talked about "taking the plunge" but...a voice is a delay is a phone call is lacking. This is neither the time or place and that is precisely the notion that throws me off balance. Life on pause is worse than life remodeled, is worse than living like the hours are mine. I can lose myself in a frenzy of recipes and organic vegetable seeds and cold brewed coffee and local eggs and manual mowers and prayers and mantras and clean plastics, but only until I remember:

I want him to come home.

I want him to come home.

I want him to come home.

the span of my happiness...

...is from my kitchen to just beyond its back door, and then all the way to the other side of the earth where a soldier keeps my heart safe with his.

working toward the upgrade, a few bedrooms and some acreage. We all have dreams that breach the hold of Ben and Jerry's and Rachel's Yogurt, though they are few. Roll call: (from left to right) sweetie tomato, sweet pepper, straight 8 cucumber, beefsteak tomato

Wild irises, the complementary Nature Feature. And all along, I swore they would be tulips (evidence of my not-so-green thumb).

The teens: patio tomato and his entourage of marigolds, lavender, echinacea, chamomile, marigolds pulling security, the zucchini squash - we'll name him Flash, lazy sweet onions, a few more marigolds, and my little runt of a summer squash. [it's really obvious that this has become too much a part of my life, right?]

English muffins - Maiden Voyage. Rating: 6 out of 10. Better luck next time. Less wheat flour, more of something that will keep them airy.

I'm seeing how long I can go without buying wheat/bread products. It's all a part of the same itch needing to be scratched. On Sunday morning my mom called at 9:30am, asking about the "little homestead." While she mocks because she thinks it's cute, I am realizing that in all of my other lives, I never would have been gardening at 9:30am on a weekend or any other day for that matter, nor would I have been contemplating the right recipe for English muffins because I refuse to buy them. (well, I take that back, there was that one time.)

I'm turning into her. It's really quite frightening.

On the agenda for sometime this or next week: another attempt at a sandwich loaf, tortillas, and wheat thin crackers. And this weekend, the seedlings spread their wings and test out the real world that lies on the other side of window sills.

i saw a modest dream, the kind that can't speak up

There is a story to tell, though it hasn't found its way through me yet. It hasn't formed the words clearly enough. They are still unfolding and forming into cohesive groups as I type. I work in phases like my father - life becoming a series of desperate love affairs quickly burning down the wicks that bore them until there is no more fuel. Maybe that's all this is too, a thing to keep me warm at night, an exciting idea whose end is deliciously unknown. Or worse perhaps, this is my True North.

I am a product of a swarm of things, but as my dad reminded me the other day, "I guess you can't take the country out of the girl." Part of me cringes and withdraws from those words, the part that still lusts after a tiny, 1000 flight walk-up in Manhattan, the bustle, the peace-like-waves of hurried traffic, the need for human life tucked closely around me. And yet time and time again, no matter what my heart is most currently fixed on, I arrive at the question: Why are my loves and inclinations unprofitable desires? Ah, the prompt.

[and as I proof what's written so far, I can see a difference in my headspace, that I like very much]

Let me tell you about the limbs that grew before me. My mother. One of my earliest memories is picking peaches with her before I tortured the tree with my need to climb it, and it died and rotted. Making cobbler in the kitchen with brown perpendicular linoleum rectangles and her hair, curly. She would spend what seemed like days in her gardens, always in that lavender terry-cloth get-up, shorts and tube top connected, slender work gloves and sun visor. In those memories her hair is also curly. Her bounty would be bright roses and okra, bell peppers, tomatoes, summer squash. Cooking the harvest promoted such blissful Southern staples as fried green tomatoes and fried squash, and fried okra for that matter. And when it wasn't gardening season I would still watch her move in the kitchen. No matter how many hours in the week she worked, dinner was always relatively homemade. As I got older she developed an affinity for figs, and soon we had numerous fruit bearing trees growing along the chimney side of the house. She made preserves, although I can't recall this being an intensive process, so there may not have been bundles of them. Nevertheless, this was very normal in my existence, not critical or praised like faith from the stem or from the hands, but performed like rituals with great reverence and joy.

My late great aunt, Mom's side. Influenced by The Depression, she developed a need to horde, cultivate and feed. Another dated memory is being put in a highchair hooked to a diner table in her self-named restaurant. She manned the register and the kitchen simultaneously, along with several acres of row gardens heavy with everything: grapevines, cherry trees, vegetable plants, nuts, fruits, leafy greens, etc., etc. And canning was an event, a near daily event. I still have jars in my pantry waiting for the right rainy day to make peach pie with her filling, and green beans that rival anything store bought. She did it all even until the end. After a partially paralyzing stroke the walker accompanied her garden work, and the kitchen was never empty of something earthy and quaint in its conception, but radiantly and perfectly full of Home. She served humanity from the ground and from humble hands.

These are the only ones that I know or have known. I hear that my mom's mom was quite thrifty as well, and my dad's mom had the chickens that I want now. Maybe he's right. Maybe some things are so vital to a person's make up that they can't be denied. This somehow seems to edge up awfully close to a vast pondering of the meaning of life. My "mother in law" asked if I expected the economy to get bad enough to warrant all of this simplifying, which caused to me to look at my motives. The economy was never behind it. I answered that part quickly and with ease. That explanation is a part of the story that hasn't quite formulated. There is something crucial feeling in watching a seed grow or kneading dough that will become the foundation of sandwiches, and in knowing that if all the world fell down around us, I would, in some small capacity, be able. And besides, it's in my blood. This, whatever it is becoming, feels like faith and purpose, like joy.

30 of 31: back home

My alarm, or rather my army wife friend's alarm spun up a Keith Urban CD at 5am. I woke up somewhat rested, which only furthers my belief that my mattress is dunzo, took a shower, got dressed, packed almost everything (except the black wedges I left behind) and headed for the airport. By 9:45am I was back in my driveway, ready to watch Baby Girl before class.

New Orleans was a great little get away. Friday night I was welcomed with an invitation to her sister's house for a crawfish boil. Very interesting, very tasty, very local. Saturday we got coffee and bagels, pedicures, did a little shopping, lunched in the French Quarter at Pat O'Brien's, went for a walk by Lake Pontchartrain, had dinner at Jacque-Imo's and passed out in her living room while talking. Sunday was a little less busy. We got coffee again and went walking in a park near Tulane, hung out at Borders for a while, killed ourselves with a cardio kickboxing dvd, lounged at a neighborhood bar on the patio with sunshine and strawberry Abita beers, ate leftovers, read a bit, stopped by TCBY and watched Twilight at her sister's house. The movie was terrible, but the weekend was quite relaxing.

When I walked in my house, it had assumed the temperature of the flighty Spring weather, a delicious 34 degrees. I quickly turned up the heat and checked on my seeds. Many are still little containers of dirt, but my spinach is sprouting into delicate green tendrils. It was an incredibly exciting discovery, which says a lot about my increasing level of dullness. I can't wait for The Staff Sergeant to come home. I'm probably not actually super interesting, but he makes me feel so much more substantial. At any rate, I've got spinach in the works. I'm still holding out hope for the other veggies and herbs.

I also took a walk today, found a recipe for a homemade facial toner, picked up organic potting soil from a small local hardware store and went by the grocery for a few things I needed to complete my dinner attempt at Dahl with brown rice. I still need to get some poetry homework finished before spending tomorrow with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and I have my fingers crossed that I'll get a call from a certain soldier before the day is done. Right now I'm going to finish my wine and chocolate covered soy nuts before mixing up my rosemary and apple cider vinegar toner. Hopefully today's high spirits and productivity are telling for the pace of the week.

26 of 31: getting away

I continue to be amazed at how quickly the numbers are climbing as I sit down to title my daily post. I'm also a little surprised that I've been able to stick with this post-a-day business without missing one or two, and a part of me will be glad when it's on a feel-like-it basis again. Until then, I'll press on.

I'm sitting on my little side porch, sipping on a glass of sauvignon blanc, paying bills, and trying to get Beth to move from a very awkwardly rigid position - oh, there she goes. Relaxed on her haunches looks less terrified. She and I just planted another egg carton's worth of herbs. I found the ones that Lowes didn't have in their organic repertoire while I was in Nashville today: lavender, poppy, echinacea, dill, chamomile, sweet pepper, zucchini squash, and sweet onion. As you can see, I'm a complete idealist in everything that I do. Try a couple of seeds? No, no, no, Molly Gardner here fears nothing. Start small? Small-shmall. By next week, the first batch should be showing some activity. Again, that's only if I haven't over-watered, planted too deep, planted too shallow, not watered enough, or uttered the wrong prayers of cultivation to Mother Earth.

I also stopped by Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for the grocery items that we here in Army-ville are not sophisticated enough to keep stocked. [Hello, Kroger, you're Greek yogurt has been bare-shelved for almost a week!] I scored a gorgeous-delicious pair of stuffed Salmon filets and four cups of Fage, for when Kroger tries to punish me in forms of yogurt deprivation again next week. It would have been a better trip if my purpose for going wasn't follow-up-doctors-visit related. It was an easy appointment and fine, a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of thing. Back in six months and maybe a second biopsy. Gah. Unfavorable cells don't really fit into my schedule. Hopefully they're already aware.

And lastly, I escape again tomorrow! I'm headed to New Orleans to spend a weekend eating the best food on earth and relaxing with an army wife friend of mine. One thing I love about this lifestyle is how quickly you can breach the boundaries of acquaintance and adopted family. It will be undoubtedly wonderful.

25 of 31: a breath of fresh air

Now that Spring seems to be less hesitant in its arrival, I am full-swing into Spring Cleaning! I'm also a whore for Amazon, and books in general, really. These are the latest purchases. I'm all about detoxing the house and my body and my lifestyle. I tend to be fickle in things like this so I just hope that it sticks this time. There was once upon a time that I wanted a little coop with chickens in my backyard and fresh eggs mere steps from my kitchen door, a big veggie garden, self-sustainability, and that was a little bit before it was cool. I had the garden and the bounty and the drive until about mid-July, when I decided that I liked air conditioning more than home-grown tomatoes. That was a classic example of running out of steam. I threw up my hands and let the sun scorch the rows of cucumbers and squash and eggplant and peppers. It was a beautiful patch. I was 20.

So I'm biting off something a bit less ambitious with what I hope will be an equally beautiful container garden. The chem-free stuff just seems to follow suit with taking better care of myself, and eventually The Staff Sergeant, too. I'm also developing a slightly obsessive addiction to the idea of urban homesteading, a more ambitious version of the aforementioned goals that does include my lost-dream-chickens. It probably won't be in this house, but if the vision holds, maybe at the next one.

Full of non-toxic cleaning recipes and tips on how to be more eco-friendly with the less replaceable cleaners

Notes on food, home cleaners, personal care recipes

Hailed as the best of the best in vegetable container gardening. I'll let you know how it turns out, that is unless my seeds rot in their little starter homes and never sprout...

16 of 31: giving (props)

I'm happy to report that the sun and I are no longer estranged, though I hear that this time together is predicted to be short. Figures. I still feel like my body is trying to get sick but my "mother-in-law" suggested some vitamin C and zinc supplements that I quickly picked up. I really need to curb any other possible reasons for lethargy and an overall lack of motivation. I've got those short-comings manned in full effect already.

In an attempt to exert control be pro-active with Spring presumably underway I have convinced myself to integrate a few positive changes into my routine. I scheduled a...photo sitting last week for mid-April which has prompted a new campaign to trim off those few pounds that I love to curse while jumping up-and-down to get into the death-grip of my jeans. I swear by counting calories when I'm actually watching what I'm ingesting. 1500 per day is much easier than I've been telling myself and I haven't been hungry once today. I'm weening myself off coffee, drinking more water, and tonight I actually turned off the television to read for class on Wednesday. Kudos to me. Now I'm off to bed early so I can get up early to tackle all that must be done. I'm thinking St. Pat's brownies for tomorrow night's class. What's more inspiring than booze and chocolate? I mean, really.

14 of 31: (tired of) "giving"

High-fives to my latest over indulgences: 

• Fiction Family - Fiction Family
• The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
• Rage Against the Machine - Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium
• Muse - Origin of Symmetry 
• Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
• Brandi Carlile - The Story
• Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
• Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
• Emerson Hart - Cigarettes and Gasoline
• The Fray - The Fray
• Erin McCarly - Love, Save the Empty
• Flogging Molly - Float
• Radiohead - In Rainbows

8 of 31: giving (a glimpse)

...of the weekend so far.  No matter where I go, Murphy's Law follows.  That's a long blog waiting to be written once I get home.  In the meantime, here is a brief version in pictures:

The [excruciating] hour of practically stand-still traffic that we sat in on the way to Atlanta 

The view from hotel room number one

The reason for hotel room number two

The unchanging but chic hotel lobby

The temple of holy home decor.

Where we had breakfast on Saturday morning [SO YUMMY!]

Dessert - dark chocolate soft-serve fro-yo.  It's ok to be jealous.

The shopping loot

The bounty unveiled [notice orange clearance stickers!]

6 of 31: giving (proof)

Here it is folks - signs that Winter is losing the fight!  And not a moment too soon:

This post is the last thing on my list before loading the car and getting the hell out of Dodge.  I need the break.  I need the distraction as I am fending off tears right now while I write these words.  I'm feeling very...I don't know, unfulfilled in the moment.  I can't help wanting more than is rationed for today, for this week, for Us.  And what better way to avoid the reality of dealing with it than to escape?

What's that behind you?  

[I'm slipping out the door while your head is turned.]

4 of 31: giving (myself a break)

I have never in all my life been so excited about spring break.  

Never.  

I'm pretty sure we all felt the same way in class tonight with the windows open to filter in the optimism of changing weather.  There were a number of laugh-till-we-cried moments, specifically during a sloppy reenactment of Arthur Miller's The Crucible.  

Thursdays nights were marked for gut-busting episodes last Fall and sadly they don't occur nearly as much as of late.  It was refreshing, though, to feel young and loopy and to laugh and laugh without reserve...at jokes that only us English nerds find funny.

It's been a while since I've felt entitled to double over, silly with joy, glad to just be alive.  My skin and my bones are voracious with a craving for sunshine and breezes that don't make your limbs scream with pain before going numb.  

It isn't all in the air.  I'm also glad to feel grateful again for a good man and a community of army wives ready to stand-in for my backbone when I don't have the wherewithal to hold a steady posture.  I feel like this week's low spot, while it was dim, allowed me to get to know a few ladies better.  I'm grateful to be building stronger relationships with The Staff Sergeant's family, as we are all stretched by the sacrifices he has to make for his convictions.  But there is something to be said for the bleak outlook cast by dreary Winter, and the new vision that is brightened by Spring.  

It takes a village to decorate my house

I was wondering what you think of this chair...

in this fabric [with bright red piping]...

I'll tell all about the teaching experience tomorrow.  Right now, though, it's off to bed with The Dutchess. It's been a loooooong day.

a meditation on pilates

I have almost decided that my bi-weekly Pilates-at-the-Apollo is an intolerable waste of time. There simply must be a better soundtrack for working out. Laying on my back breathing through The Hundred while Whitney-Houston-or-whoever-the-fuck gets her groove back channels more hostility than motivation. As my arms bounce rhythmically at my sides and I'm huffing through each set of five, I am also imagining taking aim at the pretty white Bose speakers that hang from the ceiling and pulling a trigger. The bullet moves too quickly to track the motion and then they shatter and fall to the floor. There are no more slow, soulful leg circles and I can suffer through plank position in peace.

I haven't totally written off the group fitness idea, I'm just saying that the playlist could really use revamping, and the instructor could use some instruction, and the 18-year-old majority could use some serious maturing.  Other than that, it's going great.  The backs of my thighs are still a little sore from Monday's class.  

I really miss my pole dance fitness classes.  I do better in a setting where there are concrete goals to reach.  I get bored easily with monotony; luckily the pilates instructor finally decided to change up the routine after several weeks.  I'm sure she's a really great health science major but perhaps it's possible that she isn't a born leader.  I would like her to once explain the importance of posture, breathing, or for the love of lean muscles, to tell us to "pull our bellybutton into our spine and lengthen."  

The road to Domestic Goddesstry continues...

I've had a new burst of domestic inspiration in the last day or two, most of which followed the great triumph of taming my dining room.  It wasn't that it was waiting, packed in tidy boxes, but instead that the whole house had been unpacked in that single room and never again touched.  But now I can breathe easy and walk taller.  It has been rescued from disaster.  

My focus has now turned to streamlining it's beauty.  The bar needs to be stained and I'm hunting down a mini-fridge for mixers and white wine; it will fit just bellow the bar/counter/recycled IKEA shelf.  I took some art to Hobby Lobby to have it framed for wall accessorizing, picked up some silk Gerber daisies for the table, and the super cutest best part - big gold letters in his and my first initials with a swirly "&" to go between them.  I think they will have to hang above my bar-in-progress, the pièce de résistance.  The Container Store (online) is next.  I need to find some hardware for holding bottles and barware.

But before that, I wanted to share these recipes from this morning's Rescue Chef.  This menu most certainly screams, "Welcome home, Sweetheart!" especially since I don't eat red meat.  It will reappear for a certain homecoming-to-be later this year-- 

• Flaming Filet Mignon with Chive Butter
  
• Pan-fried Asparagus with Shallots
  
• Potato Gratin "Boome-style"
  
• Molten Chocolate Baby Cakes
  

your head will collapse if there's nothing in it

Tonight is going more smoothly than the last few.  It seems to be helpful when I move faster than my brain can follow.  If there is no time to dwell then dwelling is bypassed.  Simple.  

That said, I'm glad to be typing from the comfort of my very spacious dining table, which has finally been cleared of moving debris.  I made it my mission to tackle the dining room tonight instead of vegging in front of the television, a wise decision made in rare form.  It took several hours to shovel boxes and lost trinkets and plates and glasses into more appropriate spaces, but it's done.  My once very lonely vintage china hutch is now full and ready for entertaining.  My poppy arrangement is a wonderful focal point and coordinates with the new drapes just as I had imagined. 

As for the bar idea, I'm going with something a little different because I am a limited-income grad student and because I found an old IKEA shelf that has already been purchased.  It just so happens to be the perfect size for the designated wall and has been left raw, a blank canvas open for any kind of finish or paint I choose.  I'm contemplating its destiny with each glance-over this nearly completed room gets.  I will be sure to post pictures once it is painted, hung and complete.

During other episodes of Friday's frenzied productivity, I got Valentine packages sent out to the The Staff Sergeant's mom and brother and a plain 'ole care package sent to him.  Actually, it held a sack of potatoes so I'm not sure it can claim any titles of "ordinary".  I'm sending potato guns through Amazon to the guys he's with, thinking that the long days and nights could use some comic relief.  I'm fairly certain the box from me will arrive first and with it a likely, "WTF?, why the hell is she sending potatoes in bulk?!"  

I might have also included the specs on a certain eye-catching piece of jewelry - super nonchalant...thus proving my prior point (see above reference to "the rarity of wise decisions").  With that recap in brevity, I'm off to bed or rather to read Kate Northrop's Back Through Interruption [since I didn't last week].  

Oh yeah, and there's this:

1. What were you doing before you started this post?
Snoozing my alarm

2. What is the last thing you read/are currently reading?
About a half dozen plays, poems, essays and books of poetry.  (That's English Grad School)

3. Do you nap a lot?
No.  Naps make me feel disoriented and like I'm missing something.

4. Who was the last person you hugged?
Baby Girl

5. What is your favorite TV series?
Currently I'm hung up on TLC - Jon & Kate Plus 8, What Not to Wear

6. What was the last thing you said out loud?
I called my dog into the living room

7. What websites do you always visit when you go online?
E-mail and my site meter

8. What was the last item you bought?
2 white summery tops, a light weight gray sweater and clover boxers for the St. Pat's care package, all from Gap outlet (yesterday)

9. What is your most challenging goal?
being content in the now

10. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished- anywhere in the world, where would it be?
A big-ass apartment in NYC

11. Favorite Vacation spot?
New York but I would settle for any big city.

12. Say something to the person who tagged you:
Tania, thanks for offering so much support and positive energy!  

13. Name one thing you just can't resist no matter how bad it is for you:
Chocolate

14. What is your favorite item of clothing?
Trapeze dresses 

15. What would your American Gladiator name be and why?
Is there a formula for this that I didn't get?

16. Name one thing you can not live with out:
This pretty little MacBook

17. Has a celebrity's haircut ever influenced you on your own hairstyle?
Right now I'm sporting something close to the VERY short Katie-Holmes-bob

18. What is your drink of choice.
Water or something caffeinated with as few calories as possible.

19. What would you eat for one meal, if you could eat anything and not gain the calories or fat grams, etc?
Macaroni n' cheese, Southern cornbread dressing, black-eyed peas, and fried chicken.  Yes, I'm a Southern girl.

20. What are you wearing right now?
An old high-school t-shirt and pale green flannel pj pants

21. What's your favorite room in your house?
My dining room, if I can ever get it unpacked

22. If you were to have a baby boy and girl tomorrow, what would you name them?
"Veda Love" for a girl and I'm not sure about a boy's name...