Desert Magnolia

As weekends go, this last one flew by. Flew. Highlights... A hard run on Saturday morning. It was cool, it was beautiful, I needed to work off some nervous energy. Making Caprese Salads for a gathering Saturday night using GG's tomatoes and basil..and fresh mozzarella. Visiting with friends and taking pulses..(radial pulses)...for a Diagnosis class I'm in..we have to take a lot, and we have to keep a journal, which gets turned in.. Making Grandma Gin's Lemon Chiffon Cake, using my trusty Joy of Cooking...as always. Making Grandma's requested dinner of Chicken and Dumplings, and serving that with Caprese Salads...(can't seem to get enough of those delightful summer salads...) Having a lovely meal and dessert with Grandma. She's doing fine- is complaining that she feels like she's slowing down a little, which is annoying. The whole 92 years old thing? She's ok with it in general, but some days...she feels old, though less now than before her...

Hot hot hot, that's what July has been so far. Fortunately our monsoons are beginning, which means some days we're fortunate enough to feel raindrops fall from the sky, wash the dust from the air and cool us down a bit. Some days, though,  those monsoons get a little carried away and stuff starts to wash away... One time when I was a little girl, maybe 10 or so, I saw a VW Bug floating down an arroyo...just bobbing along. Apparently they'd tried to cross running water that was deceptively shallow looking in a dip in the road, but in which the water was surging with enormous force and speed.... Everything turned out ok. Nobody was hurt, but that was a strange sight and represents the kind of weirdness that happens when heavy rains fall in a desert like ours. Anyway, it's hot. This summer has been a blur of activity, mostly good, but some not so good. A litany follows.... -Daughter came home to visit  (as I've already mentioned in an earlier post but stil...

At some point in the far distant future I will have completed my Oriental Medicine study, and, the good Lord willing, will be licensed and actually practicing. Yes, I realize this is a really long way away, but when you're me, and you're as jazzed about the prospect as I am, you decide that when you finish that very long journey? You're gonna want a vanity plate on your car..something kind of clever, but mostly, just fun. The list so far: QiMover MovinQi AhQi! QiDoc Balance QiHa! As you can see, late night studying and extra work stress have done nothing for my clever, but it's fun thinking up this stuff! Feel free to add, or comment, at will! Stevie

Hair. Long, short, in between, highlighted, dark, shot with gray. No matter what stage it's in, or its current tone, it can make me very very happy or make me want to stab myself in the eyeball with a dull instrument. Maybe a butter knife. The 'logic' goes something like this, on a bad day: Hair, being its strong-willed self, decides to be both big AND in my face, which is a bad combo even on a good day, let alone one when the demigods of hormones have been partying in my bloodstream and emotions for a few hours...and I'm feeling crabby and fragile and mostly like no matter what damned stage my stupid 'do is in, I just want it to comply. On some level. Which guarantees absolute chaos. And makes me text Erika the Fierce and Wonderful stylist who is not afraid of either my hair's nor my moods, which means she is a keeper in the most fundamental sense of the word. Erika knows to ignore said text, which flew at 6 p.m. after a long, hot day fighting with...

Last weekend was full, ok maybe overfull, of events. To the point where I wondered where in the heck the whole thing had gone..somewhere around 1030 on Sunday night. It went something like... Early Saturday morning yoga session.  Breakfast. Saturday morning walk/jog. Shower. Golden Anniversary party for our neighbors at El Pinto, a local Mexican restaurant that served up the absolute largest bowl of guacamole we'd ever seen. Mmmm. And the event? Lovely. As my hubby and I approach 25 years of wedded bliss with a sense of purpose and happiness, these two absolutely shone in their Golden glory. Really they did. They've been through hell and back, those two. But here they are, still standing, and in fact, dancing and smiling and embracing and looking into each other's eyes with that 'You are my person, always have been, always will be' look that inspires. Me hustling off to the store for a couple of Father's Day needs, then back home to focus on some dome...

You know that feeling when you've just begun the fastest, most hair on fire part of a roller coaster ride? And you're going at what feels like Mach 3 with your cheeks pressed into your cheekbones and your eyes watering and your hair flying straight back? That's me, 24/7, these days. It's not terrible, but I have to say, there are very few days when I don't wish for at least a few more hours just so I can catch up with myself! Daughter was home, and that went super fast. She was here, she hung out with friends, she ate some good meals with her 'rents, she repacked her suitcase and she was g.o.n.e. She's back in RI now, training, working, being a pre-Junior in college....some days I want to BE her..ok, many days. Son is planning to come home for a short visit in the near future, and I'm hoping to be able to spend a little quality (read NOT working or at school ALL the time) with him while he's here. Because once he's gone, we'll be apa...

I miss you guys. I miss regular posts and I miss keeping you abreast of my life and I miss..just having enough time to breathe and contemplate topics to share and generally just...be...at all. Right now..things are as we might expect given all the factors in play. School rocks. I love it. Every single day I sit in class and listen, and I read and read and read and talk with my fellow students I realize how very right this path is for me to take. It's hard to overemphasize how wonderful I think this is. Work? Well, let's just say someone has injected our normally frenetic pace with some kind of an alien steroid, which is causing extreme pressure for all, and is making me take deep breaths and yearn for a modicum of perspective, which, of late, I've lost more often than I care to admit. I know, I should be able to control the forces at work, or more importantly, manage my perspective on it all. But I haven't. And it maddens me. So I'm working on it. Seriously...