updates on several things

I should stop talking about things I'm unqualfied to talk about, so I will just update you on things we've talked about previously.

- A couple of months ago I told you I was going to try out a more intentional meditation practice. I did really well for about six weeks, at least in terms of keeping up with it. I'm sure I didn't meditate every single day, but I didn't miss many days, either. Then a couple of situations happened and things got stressful, and as I've said before, the more I "need" to meditate, the harder it seems to be to find the time.

But overall, this is going well-- the doing it part of it. I'm still terrible at meditation. I used to think it was because I had an unusually distractible mind, but now that I'm using this app (10% Happier) that is sort of a meditation community, I'm discovering that it's that way for everybody. So, I'm still doing it, I'm still terrible at it, and it's still helping with my sanity.

- Oh, Lord, remember the winter vegetables project? That has been a total fail. Partly because I haven't cooked much. We were gone, and then Dean was gone, and we've both had things going on in the evening, and a couple of times when I was planning on cooking dinner, we got a last minute invite to meet friends out for dinner, etc etc. You get the idea. But the intention is still floating around in my head, and since this is Montana, it's still winter no matter what the calendar says, so I may get back to this. After vacation (see below). Although by then, it really will be moving toward spring. I hope.

- Last week I told you I was halfway through The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. Honestly, I picked it up because I knew I didn't have the stomach for the brutality I've heard about in his better known book Underground Railroad, but I'd heard he is an amazing writer, so I wanted to read something by him. And he is. A terrific writer, I mean. Intuitionist is crazy smart.

You could read it as just a standard plot-- young woman gets framed for an elevator accident and goes off on her own to find out what really happened-- but it is also an allegory? satire? alternate reality? with all kinds of stuff happening. It's fascinating. Highly recommended if you want your brain stretched, but if you just want to read a good plot (which is all I'm going to be reading on vacation next week)(see below), probably not the best choice. I will give it this-- unlike most allegories? satires? alternate realities? where the plot eventually falls apart under the weight of The Message Being Delivered, this one really does work as its own story.

- You know, I confess I've had the thought I don't have any friends a couple of times in the last few months. I've been surprised to hear two other people say the same thing recently. People who look as if they have plenty of friends. Which has me wondering, is this part and parcel of the larger changes we're going through? Is there something about the breaking up of cultural expectations that is also disrupting personal connections? I don't know. Have just been thinking about this.

- So here we are at below. I can't remember how much I've told you about our upcoming vacation that starts on Saturday, but I am really looking forward to it. We went to a little town north of Cabo for a week last spring with both kids and loved it. When they were able to finagle the same week off this year and I asked them where they wanted to go, the unanimous decision was the same place.

So off we go. I won't be writing anything new next week, but while poking around for some other stuff I ran across a couple of old posts that made me laugh, so if I have time I'll set them up to repost next week. Otherwise, I'll catch you when I get back. Hope spring is springing wherever you are.

7ToT: I'm on mini-vacation. *waves*

1. I read the first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, years ago. Now there is a whole series of of them, told in first person from the point of view of Flavia, a wildly precocious 11-year-old who solves mysteries using her wits, her trusty bicycle Gladys, and her great uncle's chemistry lab. I liked that first one OK, but I couldn't really connect with the voice of Flavia, so I never read any of the others. But recently I tried the audiobook, and the narrator is terrific. Finally understand why people think these are such great books.

2. Flavia does not get along with her sisters. They torment her unmercifully. Sometimes it amounts to outright torture. My first reaction was to be horrified at how awful her siblings were, but then I started remembering some of my own worst moments with my sisters. I have the best sisters on the planet, and as adults, we get along great. But we definitely had our moments growing up. I used to "cook" my younger sister in the oven as a game. The oven was totally imaginary, but I suspect a therapist would be only to happy to unpack that tangle of sibling rivalry issues. We spent hours playing that game. Did you play awful games with your siblings? How normal is this?

3. PellMel will not be home for Christmas for the first time ever. I've known that for quite awhile, but for some reason the implications just sank in this week. This is a heart wrencher. We are big on Christmas around here--not necessarily gifts, but we have a boatload of traditions, including specific movies to watch, the trip to get the tree, decorations to put up, special meals, music, and so on. *Ouch* We're trying to figure out a way we can get down there to celebrate some earlier weekend in December but everyone's schedule is complicated.

4. It's funny, we quit going back to Texas for Christmas more than 30 years ago, and I don't think I ever once thought that might be hard on my mother. So heartless.

5. I am still trying to keep a revolving door on the books, so that at least as many go out as come in. (spoiler alert: it's not working all that well. My most recent method for freeing up space for new books involved packing away old pre-digital photo albums rather than actually getting rid of books. Don't tell Marie Kondo.) I decided the easiest way to cull books right now would be to go through my cookbooks. I have a bunch, more than 40, which is a bit odd, because as we all know, I'm not much of a cook, and when I do cook, I don't usually follow a recipe. But for some strange reason, I looove to read cookbooks.

Some of my cookbooks. This is the stairwell down to our basement.

6. Also, I have several ancient cookbooks that I keep because of exactly one recipe. Those are actually hard to give up-- they are recipes I've used for years, and I know exactly where they are, because it's the wrinkly page in that cookbook. But really, it's ridiculous to keep an entire big fat cookbook for one recipe. So I made copies of those pages and off they went to our church bazaar. I did not cry.

7. But true confessions: then I bought a new one. I read a review of the new Better Homes & Gardens cookbook (titled, appropriately enough, New Cook Book, 17th edition) that intrigued me, so I ordered it. I'm surprised how much I like it. I tend to use cookbooks for ideas more than for actual instructions, and I've already seen a bunch of innovative ideas, in addition to all the old stand-bys. And also it has loads of beautiful photos. Thumbs up.

Hope you are having a good week.