My Thoughts

  I know, I know......it's unbearable how long it's been since I was here last.  I have definitely neglected you with blatant disregard.  Forgive me.  It is gloriously Autumn outside; can you sense it?  I mean, like fully, sense it??  This is my absolutely favorite type of day. I am cooking slowly over the week.  I have my tablet on its cute, lil', decorative easel watching "The Price is Right" and enjoying my second cup of coffee.  Autumn scented candles are lit around the house, and I am having pumpkin baked oats for breakfast.  This is the warmest, gooiest thing I've ever eaten, and I fully intend to make this a regular recipe in my life........healthy and yummy. I've thought about you so much lately, and I have missed our times together more than you can imagine.  Well, maybe not more.....maybe you feel the same way. I fear that if I don't make our relationship a true priority, I will wake up at the end of my life and regret its pass...

original date 09/11/2015 There is truly something special about this time of year........I can almost touch it, that beckoning sensation called Autumn.  Each day, it gets closer and closer.  Like a hot and sticky day running crazily from a rain, Autumn seems to wait just outside these last few hot and sticky days of summer, and with patience, the reward will be a cool rush of relief. ****** Like so many other beginnings, this small tidbit from 2.5 years ago has sat in draft mode, uncompleted, waiting to be shared.  I don't even remember writing it, the context for its creation long since gone like the 2 Autumns since it's beginning. A constant is my love for Autumn and the waited anticipation of its arrival each Summer's end.  As Winter begins to fade slowly into Spring now, I know that in a few months, Autumn will once again beckon beyond the hot sticky days, and I will have another chance to enjoy the cool breezes and slower days. *** Sep 2019 and the s...

There was this time in the early 90s when I felt the world was full of potential, especially in autumn when the air was so cool and crisp.  That potential tends to hang at times now,  lurking, almost beckoning - a promise, so right and fertile. The idea of being a teacher in a small town with crisp autumn air, harvest festivals and apple cider -there are just so many images, smells and sounds that bring me back to that potential, to the person I was and to a promise but I haven't felt in a really long time. It is so crazy how that promise of something new is so fleeting. I have often wrote about the promise of something new as being the most wonderful gift any of us can have. Driving to work this morning, it was drizzling; and it was cool outside.  Somehow, the whisper of that promise seeped through the dampness; and I am pulled backward in time to a place where my heart and mind were full of potential and promise.  Forcing all the current worries as...

At the heart of all my desires lies hidden my thirst for companionship, and in all my adult years as I have sometimes desperately, sometimes frantically, often times confused, searched for some ideal - companionship was the one thing I needed and craved the most.  This is not a fact that I speak about often, rarely sharing with others.  Like protected treasure or tightly guarded information, this secret desire can emerge in tangled midnight memories or misty daytime whispers. Hating to be cliched, I suppress and guard this information daily.  I am a fraud. It's ironic that I can see it now more clearly at 46 and then I could at 16 or 26 when I thought I knew it all or 36 when I was raging against the world and the unfairness of it all. Wisdom is like that.  It is ironic also that I am more alone now than I have ever been.  If I ponder that fact too much, it can lead to some dark days. Yet, I am in love with this city; as I drive the streets crowded with...

My daughters are almost grown, and our traditions for Halloween continue to morph.  This year, I decided I did not want to celebrate Halloween as much as I wanted to enjoy Autumn.  This way, I can continue my decorations and cooking ideas into Thanksgiving. With a small twinge of panic, I reminisce about all the years of Halloween costumes and trick or treating that are over for me as a mother. I can begin planning for those grandchildren...........in about 10 years.  In the interim,  I will enjoy having a longer Autumn. Lately, I second guess myself.  As my children mature and traditions morph, I contemplate the past, present and future.  Trick or Treating and dress up have never been a big favorite of the Autumn season for me; but I did not want to deprive my children the experience.  Kaitlyn was the one wanting to dress up this year, and in a panic remembering what she did last Halloween made me say to her too curtly, "I'm not spending m...

Surely, it cannot be said enough that Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year.  Today is the first day of Autumn, and here in Texas, it will be around 90 degrees.  We had a hint of Autumn last week with cooler days and drizzly rain, but this week the temperatures shot up again.  I anticipate boots and scarves, and not with much patience.  As much as I attempt waiting until October 1 to actually begin my Autumn decorating and cooking, these last few days of September offer little excitement for me.  So, perhaps getting an early start is not a bad idea. Since completing graduate school earlier this year, I feel somewhat lost.  Those J.R.R. Tolkien quotes "Not all who wander are lost" on pinterest continue to offer some solice to my fear that I have somehow become a horrible statistic.  Why is it that at this juncture in my life I feel the most lost?  Truly, completing a goal should provide contentment, not confusion.  Yet, I made a cons...

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread This pumpkin cranberry bread is great for a fall dessert, or breakfast. Kids also love a slice of this bread in their lunch box, or for an afternoon snack. Pumpkin Cranberry Bread - makes 2 Ingredients: 3 1/2 cups flour 2 cups sugar 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg 2 cups pumpkin 1 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 2 teaspoon vanilla 1 1/2 cups cranberries chopped (fresh or frozen) 1/2 cup nuts (optional) Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 large loaf pans. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix in the pumpkin, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until ingredients are moist. Stir in the cranberries and nuts. Spread the batter evenly between the two loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Stick a toothpick to the center of the bread, if it pulls out clean, it is ready. Take out of the oven, and let cool. Thi...

written Feb. 25, 2008 The possibility of moving to New York continues to linger in my mind, a far off dream from another time. I think about all the attraction of Autumn in NY and watching the beautiful spring day unfold in front of me out this big window, I know that nothing compares to Spring in Texas. We invariably tie our own dreams and romantic ideas to people. That's what makes us "fall in love" with them………because we are already in love with our own hearts. In my strange Texas Bohemian way, I am in love with New York, and in complete hopefulness, I transferred those amazing feelings to someone, someone who did not embody those feelings. I am trying to get ready for work, listening to music and wrangling with my wardrobe. Harry Conick Jr came on the player and my mind drifted to that place in my imagination where NY lives. Just as Austin has its own place in my imagination, so too does NY live. And when I allow myself to dream…………oooooo. I see Audrey Hepb...