Crazier (than ususal)

You might have noticed a new item in my sidebar.  The fabulous Mrs. G at Derfwad Manor had a post about NaBloPoMo, and I had to check it out.  

(Hmm, I think I need to update the list of blogs I read....Mrs. G is nowhere to be found there!  Horrors!  I shall remedy that forthwith.)

The idea is simple; commit to doing 30 blog posts in 30 days.  They suggest a theme, but it is optional.  The theme from October was voting, but they haven't named one on their front page yet for November.  I suppose that's because I'm up and playing on the computer at stupid o'clock, and they're probably on the west coast.

My writing has slipped to a low priority of late, and I don't like that.  My dad used to tell my sibs and me all the time that, "Everyone has 24 hours in a day."  Helpful, that.  Tell me something I didn't know.  Within your allotted 24, then, you have to find the time to do that which matters to you.  Recently, the priority has been sleep, what with my insane week at work, eight straight days of 12+ hour days.  Sleep is important.  I'm unpleasant without the proper amount of sleep.  The writing doesn't get done, though. I've been getting in to bed around 7 PM and although I don't sleep in more than 3-4 hour segments, one would think that the approximately 7-1/2 hours of sleep I do get would be enough.  

I don't want that pattern of climbing in to bed so incredibly early to continue.  It does not bode well for the coming winter, when my instinct is to hide in bed anyway.  Apart from the depression making me unwilling to get out of bed, my bed is the warmest spot in my poorly insulated house in the winter.

So I'm giving this crazy 30 posts in 30 days idea a shot.  As I don't yet know what the theme is, I'm not committing to that right now, but maybe I will.

Completely OT and switching gears now, I have a silly story to relate.

I lost my wallet about a week ago.  Genius, I know.  Annoying, too.  I had to replace: my driver's license, the one credit card I carry in my wallet, my debit card, and a whole bunch of 'customer rewards' cards, from Hallmark, the grocery store, the two big bookstore chains in the area, an electronics store, about $6 worth of stamps, my health insurance card, my Sam's club card.....and I don't even know what the hell else was in there.  I never carry cash.  Ever.  I got out of the habit of doing that when I was dating the ex, way back during my sophomore year of college.  A neighbor of his in the dorm was mugged right outside of the dorm, as were a bunch of other people.  I figured if I didn't have any money in it, I could hand my wallet over without too much angst if I needed to.  Such fabulous logic, no?  Anyway, I've never gotten back in the habit of having cash in the 10+ years since then.  

But, of course, when I lost my wallet, there was about $35 in it.  

Naturligt, as we would say in Swedish.

Rhythm

When we wore a heart of stone
We wandered to the sea
Hoping to find some comfort there
Yearning to feel free
And we were mesmerized by the lull of the night
And the smells that filled the air
And we laid us down on sandy ground
It was cold but we didn't care

'Cause we were drawn to the rhythm
Drawn into the rhythm of the sea
'Cause we were drawn to the rhythm
Drawn to the rhythm of the sea

~Sarah McLachlan, Drawn To The Rhythm, Solace, 1991

I've fallen in to a rhythm, a routine with the new job, that feels right, somehow, as if things should have been this way a long time ago. Days fly by. Often, the first time I look up after lunch it is after 4. Weeks have disappeared.

"Busy" would be an understatement. If I could tell you, interweb, all about the neat-o projects I'm working on, I would. I can't. Y'all know I don't ever talk about my current employer. That's danger, Will Robinson, danger!

I'm thanking the powers that be for my OCD, though, because my list-making obession skills come in handy to make sure that I don't forget to do something. I feel like a juggler who is having a partner toss them ever more things to juggle, and as if I'm being watched to see when I start dropping balls. Sort of. I don't feel as I did when working for Ye Olde Evile Bank, where the paranoia knew no bounds...Big Brother? Ha! Try Big: Brother, Sister, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin....around every corner was someone waiting to sabotage you. Rather, I feel like I'm being tested, to see where exactly my limits are. She's handling that? Cool, let's see if this overwhelms her. No? Well, add that.

I hate to even say things like this out loud for fear of tempting The Fates, but so far I feel like I'm passing with flying colors. (Does it count if I type it? Hmmm.)

Each week has its goal, things that need accomplished, and while there aren't Monday tasks, Tuesday tasks, et cetera, there is a certain pulse to what goes on each day. It is an odd combination of structure and ever-changing that seems to suit me, as if it was tailor-made.

I've even managed to become an early riser again, tossing off the lingering after-effects of the Lex. I maintain that it was the Lex which caused the complete alteration of my diurnal clock, changing me from a morning person to a night owl. Despite ANY scientific evidence to support that belief. Whatever. I know my own body, and I know how I felt while taking it and once quitting it. I also know that it has taken nearly two months for that inability to rise and shine to fade. It was beyond weird. I didn't want to get out of bed because there wasn't much point (as I saw it) and that was/is part and parcel of depression. But the Lex made me tired, so tired that I couldn't wake, let alone get up. I'd wake when the alarm went off, and think, "Five more minutes." And the next time I opened my eyes, three hours had gone by. Ugh. That really didn't work for me. Bad rhythm!

This rhythm is more subtle, and more to my liking. An ebb and flow that I don't feel like I'm fighting against. Finally.

The point of most of this rambling was to let you know that I won't be able to post daily for a while in the near future, when things get exceedingly hectic for a few weeks. The rhythm then will be a little more staccato, a little more hurry, hurry. I want you to know I haven't slipped back down that well, that I am, in fact, back among the living. Just crazy-busy.

I mizzes you!

Once upon a time, I kvetched that returning to work full time after being laid off last summer was going to cut into my available blogging time.

And then some!!

Now I'm not only working full time, I'm staying late at work, working through my lunch time, excited about what I'm doing for a living, into a routine that has me not spending any time at all on the 'puter in the evenings. I'm behind on a whole lot of correspondence, both real-world and webby.

I miss my writing. I miss working on the book, which I haven't done since March. That's a whole 'nother story....but y'all know I luurves me a tangent.

My fears of being less prolific a writer when I'm in a better mental state turned out to not be unfounded. I think, unfortunately, that when I'm in a bad mental place, I'm a better writer. There's a fine, fine line between depths of despair and that place where I was churning out 10-15 pages of the novel a day, though. This past winter, I was perhaps more of a mess than I was in the spring of 2007, when I admitted that there was a problem and I needed some help.

Doc gave me an additional anti-depressant this past winter to add to my med regimen, and it helped, but not a lot. I couldn't write, hell, I could barely get out of bed. The days got longer, though, and the sun returned from its winter hiatus. I started to feel better, the job situation started to look like it might change (I think the old job was at least 85% of the problem) and suddenly, whoa, I was feeling like I wasn't worthless any more.

But the creative spark hasn't come back from wherever it disappeared to at the end of last summer. Writing here on the blog has never been a problem. The problem is that the fiction writing isn't happening. The novel writing came from nowhere, and disappeared back into nowhere. I miss that, but I accept it (well, mostly), because I no longer feel so horrible.

I also miss writing a daily update here on the blog. I regret that I haven't had a lot of time for it since I started this new dreamy job. My dad has something that he's said my entire life that I mostly am annoyed by, although it is true. Dad says, "Everyone has the same amount of time. 24 hours in a day. It is about what you choose to do with that time." Lately, I've been choosing to sleep a little more and blog a little less. I like sleep! And I'm managing it without nightly sleeping pills. I do still take them, but not every night. Thankfully, because I think they're more dangerous for the potential of dependence than the anti-d's.

I'm constantly thinking of ideas for blog posts, thinking about ways to turn the things I see and think about into snapshots of life, stories that I can tell. But by the time I get home each night, I'm wiped out, in need of sleep to face the next day. There are posts galore sitting in my mental queue, even a few that I've scribbled ideas into Google Docs, but they haven't been finished. I miss it, I miss reading everyone else's blogs, I miss all of ya!

Still here, doing much better, working! But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you. I am. More soon.

Crazy busy

DH and I are putting a new floor into a room in our house. As a result, the house is a complete mess (furniture from that one room crammed in every available corner) and there are 1000 small things to be done before we put the floor in. Like today's appointed task: paint the woodwork. Ugh. I hate to paint. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

So since I don't have time to be witty and write a scintillating post, check out Blogger's latest toy, which is a mesmerizing look at the photos people are uploading to their blogs at any given time. A fair warning; this is highly addictive.

Click the play button in the middle of the screen near the bottom, and then also click 'show info' to see where the pictures were posted. Stunning photography, art, pictures of people's kids....an amazing mash-up. It is fascinating, a polyglot of languages and images. Enjoy.

Blogger Play

Bloo-berries

I've always said that if I wasn't working full-time, I'd bake and bake and bake, and end up being 300 pounds. I'm not 300 pounds, but I did spend the day baking. After my usual workout, of course, so I'm not too worried about gaining more than 100 pounds in a few days.

It is blueberry season in Oh-hi-ia. I don't like many, many things about living here, but one thing I do like is the availability in the summer time of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. A friend and I visited a farm market last week, and I bought far more blueberries than I actually needed. I'd eat blueberries morning, noon, and night if they were available all the time. So they were about to be past their prime in my fridge, and today I decided to use them up.

I have an old, old recipe for blueberry muffins, from the matriarch of a big clan that my family has been friends with for a very long time. She was 90 the first time I met her, when I was 12. She lived to be over 100, and was a wise woman. The recipe was taped inside the kitchen cupboard of the cottage we used to visit, and one year, I remembered to copy it down before we left for the summer. Over the years, I've not been satisfied with the results, because the blueberries sink to the bottom. I'd like my blueberries evenly distributed through my muffins, thank-you-very-much. They taste great, but presentation is important to me, and so I've tinkered with the recipe, but until today, have not been able to get the berries to co-operate. A friend suggested sprinkling the berries on top after the muffins were in the oven for a few minutes, and I couldn't resist trying just one more time to get it to work properly.

As I said, this is a very old recipe, and so the format is a bit odd. My alterations to the original recipe appear in italics. But bear with me, it is well worth the trouble. Use a stand mixer, if you have one.

Whole-Wheat Blueberry Banana Muffins

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Beat 2 eggs until foamy (I beat the eggs until they doubled in volume, which takes about 5-6 minutes at top speed on a stand mixer. It would take for-freaking-ever by hand.)
Add 1 cup sugar, and combine well.
Add one heaping tablespoon shortening, mixing until distributed evenly. (I think softened butter would work well here, but didn't have any to try.)
Add 4 mashed bananas
Mix in 2 cups flour, (whole wheat) alternating between folding in 1 cup milk (skim) with the flour. Finish by adding 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

At this point, if you're using a stand mixer, remove the bowl from the machine and mix by hand. Fold in 1 cup four-dusted blueberries, scraping the bowl down to ensure even mixing. Fill 12 regular sized greased muffin tins 3/4 full. Sprinkle an additional 1/2 cup blueberries (NOT flour-dusted, they'll look moldy) over the filled muffin tins.

Avoid over-mixing because the finished product could be tough if you do. The muffins will need about 20 minutes in the oven and will get huge, because of the amount of baking powder. I checked mine every five minutes after they'd been in the oven for 10 minutes, my oven runs far too hot and does not heat evenly, so constant vigilance is required. I had over 4 cups of blueberries, so I tripled the recipe, and made some regular size and some mini muffins. They're yummy. The banana addition was because I have about 6 pounds of over-ripe bananas in my freezer. I buy them, I eat a few, and before I know it, the rest are nearly black, so in the freezer they go, with plans to use them for banana bread or....something...but they end up staying in the freezer until inspiration like this strikes.

Whole-wheat flour is tricky, sometimes not working at all as I plan for it to. If you don't like it, at least use unbleached, un-bromated flour. I might also try turbinado sugar, because I don't really care for processed white sugar, but I was out.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I've read all of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which in case you live under a rock was released on Saturday. I plan to write about it tomorrow.

Busy little bee

I have not been updating as frequently this week because I'm still out of the loop on the news cycle. I'll get back to ranting and raving about the Idiot Administration, really, I will. Just not today.

I'm not able to write at all about what's going on in my personal life either, but I will be able to do that soon as well. Hopefully.

I did scribble some fangirl idiocy this week over at MySpace, but that's hardly news, is it?

For now, know that all is well, I'm feeling mentally better than I have in ages and ages, in fact I managed to sleep last night for almost 10 hours. Not uninterrupted 10 hours, but I'm beginning to think that I will never get an uninterrupted night's sleep. C'est la vie.

I should be back for the Tuesday Brain Dump next week. Until then, Glad Midsommar!! (Happy Midsummer!)