These days I mostly try not to write. My life is so full of work and family and weeding. But every now and then, my brain starts to itch and the only way to scratch that itch is writing. This is where you will find my most recent scratchings.
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Quiet Riot: Home Audit
I’m starting off my Quiet Riot this month with a (very approximate) home audit. If you feel remotely inclined, I do recommend taking a look into your own household’s economics. It’s enlightening, though perhaps not exactly the kind of brain-warp I wanted to spend (several of) the Babe’s naps sucked into. The Riot for Austerity identifies 7 categories– electricity, gas, other fuel (such as natural gas, propane, etc), water, food, consumer purchases and garbage. Sharon lists out average consumption for each category, though I have to say, I found her numbers confusing. Then I did a little research and found…
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Balm
I finally got a new Mary Oliver book from the library. She is a very long time love of mine, I am pretty sure she has gone directly into my soul and plucked out the poems I would write myself, if I had the words. Her poems are prayers, balm. I have been doling out a few of them to myself every morning, to live my day by. Here is one of my first favorites, one of her more famous poems, for every reason. Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on…
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Jungle Weeds
As an Alaskan, I think of weeds as small, relatively demure plants. Dandelion, plantain, horsetail. Buttercups were my hated nemesis back home. Buttercups! What they call “weeds” here in New Orleans, and the speed and size to which those weeds can grow, continues to blow my mind right out of the water. When we moved to our new house, I asked the landlord to give me a tour of the landscaping, so I would have an idea what out of the jungle of overgrowth was an intended plant, and what was eligible for culling. These big tropical plants below are…
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More Ways to Hide, Err, Eat Eggplant
As I’ve said before, I love eggplant. That’s why I planted six plants in my garden. What the fuck was I thinking? I love eggplant, but my family? Not so much. Is this a female thing? My latest bloglove, The Girls Guide to Guns and Butter has the selfsame issue. She posted a wonderful looking recipe for easy moussaka recently, which I haven’t yet tried. I’m still busy trying to hide my eggplant, and subsequently force my family to eat it. Because even though two of the plants didn’t make it, the remaining four are an endless waterfall of purple…
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Bringing the Riot Home
First of all I want to make one thing perfectly clear. My kids have hit a little bit of a stride lately. I find my mothering job getting– not easy by any stretch, the 4yo has re-entered screaming fit territory– but easier. Enough that I sometimes catch myself feeling kind of… bored. The immediacy of survival mode, which usurped me for some year and a half, has abated. I need a project. The Riot found me at just the right moment. I wanted it, needed it. I needed a way to reinvest myself, to assess where I am at with…
calamity jane 