Two rambling Fridays in a row. I don't think I'm dedicating Fridays to non sequitur rambles. At least, not yet, dear friendly readers. I'm afraid to make anything be set in stone about this blog, because once I do that I'm sure to sabotage myself. It's like when I pronounce that I shall lose so many pounds by such a date or start walking the Pacific Crest by such an age. Then, I don't. You would've thought at my age I had outgrown the fear of success. Yes, I said it. Fear of success. Not failure. I'm fine with the knowledge that I might attempt something and fail. I just try again, if it (whatever that is) is something I really want or need to conquer. But, then, you may ask, will I continue to fail short because I won't want to succeed? Good question. Maybe because I'm in the middle of doing it (whatever that is), I'm not spinning my wheels thinking about what may happen if I succeed. Hence,  I make my designated finish line. Wanting and/or

Hanging out at two linky parties today— Wordless Wednesday and Watery Wednesday . Click on the links to check out photos of other bloggers.

Burp. Excuse me. It's past midnight. Dinner was over at six this evening. I am still full. Tonight's dinner was extra rich. I didn't realize it was. Until now. We invited friends over for dinner, and  I wanted to serve something that would be easy to put together and eat because we were going to a meeting afterwards. So, I made fried sirloin beef wontons and shrimp and grits. The grits were cooked with gouda and cheddar cheeses. The shrimps, with a bit of onion and chives, were sauteed in olive oil, and at the last second (freshly cooked) bacon bits were stirred into the mixture.  Fried meat bits. Shrimp. Bacon. Cheeses. Tooo, tooo heavy. I was just not thinking, was I? The shrimp and grits dish was delicious. I followed (kinda) the Smokey Shrimp and Grits recipe at the Whistlestop Cafe Cooking blog. The cook adds creamed spinach to the dish. I didn't. Just as well. Did I mention that we had semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies for dessert? And, that I drank a bottle of F

Yes, indeed. I finished reading my second book for the Cozy Mystery Challenge ! Murphy's Law , by Rhys Bowen, had been sitting in the hallway for almost a year. I bought it after I finished Royal Flush , the last book in Bowen's Royal Spyness series, which was published in July, 2009. Because I was so taken with Bowen's story-telling, I decided to try reading her Molly Murphy series. Murphy's Law is the first in the series. It had won the Agatha, Reviewer's Choice, and Herodotus awards. Molly Murphy is the main character. She is a ballsy, well-educated 24-year old Irish immigrant living in New York during the Tammany Hall times. The story opens with her running away from home because the master's son tried to have his way with her. She had kicked him away and he cracked his head when he fell. Molly got on a train to London and ended up on a ship to America. She took the identity of a dying woman who had persuaded Molly to take the woman's children to their

This morning I woke up with a stuffy nose. The husband stirred beside me. The mama scraped a chair on the floor in the kitchen below. She was either about to eat breakfast or she had finished. "What time do you think it is?" asked the husband. "Time to dust the room," I answered. I got up, picked up my glasses, and headed to the bathroom. As I walked by the stairs, I glanced down at the clock in the living room. 9:30. The mama had slept later than usual. The husband had slept his eight hours. I was lacking again. Oh, well, what does it matter? The three of us have not had to answer to a boss's clock in years. Only our own. My self-discipline comes and goes. There is so much about which to be disciplined. House cleaning, for one. Writing, for another. Finding writing jobs, a third.  Exercising, most indubitably, a fourth. And then there is downsizing our stuff that has been in storage for years now. The list of what I need to work on keeps growing rather than sho

The Octogenarian Pruning Mama I've joined the Wordless Wednesday linky party today. Head on over and check out photos of other bloggers.

Were you wondering what the husband and I finally did on our 23rd date last Friday ? Yes or no, I'm here to tell you. Well, actually to show you some photos of different things we saw as we stopped here and there. Wild chickens are continually crossing the streets in San Juan Bautista. Here's a bee that knows a good thing when it sees it! Taggers will leave their marks on anything standing! Can you see the turtle and the chimpanzee sitting on it? In a fancy boot store in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I peeked at the price tag of a pair of cute ankle cowboy boots. Over $1,000! And, they were not as elaborate as these. I didn't even want to know how much they were. Are those golf balls edible? Probably. Up close, they looked real enough not to eat! Cute handbags. Do you think that arm belongs to the bag or an actual human being? How to describe downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea? Drink and eat, see, shop. Or, coffee house, art gallery, boutique. This is the tallest and hunkiest eucalyptus tree