amy rocks, okay?

This past weekend I went up to Metropolitan Market to pick up some ingredients and splurge on a 10 inch cast iron casserole dish that appears in 80% of Julia Child’s recipes. It was an awesome morning, Adam had brewed a pot of coffee and I drooled over recipes before settling on a chicken, mushroom cream entrée of some kind. I have been spending a fair amount of time reading the Joy of Cooking and when I realized that this pan was called for in so many dishes I thought, okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it! And it was a good excuse to go in one of the most beautiful grocery stores I have ever laid eyes on. It’s closer to our home than Safeway and it makes me wish I hated money so I could go there any time that I needed something. They have this section you can see from the street that’s full of kitchen accessories, so I knew that this amazing French dish had to be sold in there. Oh, and it was. For $180. Total bummer. I stood there holding on to my Adam-brewed coffee, dawning my ...

As I walked out of the gym today and across the lobby on my way up the stairs back to my desk, I passed by a woman I have seen around the office many times, but today it sucked.  There she was coming down the stairs at a fairly slow pace, wrapped in her floor length parka and holding on to a cane. She has never had a cane before and didn't typically walk this tenderly. Enter thought process "Aw, bummer deal, she must have had an injury." Right-o my good, Watson and/or thank you Captain Obvious. As the glass door opened between us I was readying myself to offer my sympathies and perhaps inquire as to what happened - she looked like she needed a friend. What I was greeted with was nothing short of a scowl and look of disapproval. What she saw was a skinny, fresh from the gym, high on life, in-shape girl.  What she didn't see was the injured, pained sad person who is struggling to even get to the gym, let alone put on a pair of running shoes, because when she ...

Ice Cream Edition When life gets you down, the way I see it, you have two roads to choose from. You either face it head on or sit down on the curb and cry for some ice cream. The problem I have found myself in is that I convince myself into facing it head-on because that’s the noble thing (and sometimes only option), when really all I want is to sit on the curb and have some ice cream. But, what happens is you get sad sitting on the curb with your ice cream when you don’t have anyone to sit with. So, instead of feeling sorry for yourself on two accounts, you chin up and carry on with it. Which truly works fine for the time being - I quite like it! But then a few months pass by and those feelings you ran through, quite literally, come creeping back when you’re supposed to have moved on. And now you really don’t have anyone to connect with on the matter, because the rest of the people in your life not only assume you’re past it, but they’ll wonder what’s wrong with you when they fin...

Okay. Okay. I can do this. I always have heaps in my head I want to write about and now I have a full month dedicated to writing 500 words a day. November is  National Novel Writing Month , and doubles as a non-profit dedicated to inspiring novelists in today's world and giving some direction to help people achieve their goals in 31 days. I'm not here to write a novel, but am using this to hold me accountable because I say, "Ohhh, how I wish I wrote as much as I used to" so many times, that I'm getting tired of hearing it. So, onward! But, I want to make this beneficial! And productive. It's hard to draw the line because I used to do an exercise as part of The Artists Way called 3 pages, where you sit in the morning, first thing, even before brushing your teeth and you write a non-stop, uninhibited stream of consciousness. There is no stopping or editing your text as you go and it's quite liberating. So, I naturally go to that form but I realize this is ...