Sunday on the Lake

I love Beaver Lake on a hot Sunday afternoon. Actually, I love the lake most of the time, but there’s something especially nice about Sundays.
I like to go out in the hottest part of the day and do just a little yard work. With the weather we’ve had around here lately, there really isn’t much yard work to do. We haven’t even mowed the lawn in weeks because it’s been so hot and dry. But there’s always a few weeds to pull, a couple of buckets of water to dump on the compost pile, some stray trash to pick out of mulch in front. I like to get all hot and sweaty and then walk down to the dock by myself.
Sundays are quieter than Saturdays but there’s still stuff to watch on the lake. One of the neighbors is working on a boat. Somebody’s grand kids are swimming in the cove. Out in the main part of the lake, water skiers and tubers are pulled by and there’s always one sail boat somewhere between me and the horizon.
When we go down to the boat on Saturdays, we drag down coolers and carriers, towels and cover-ups. We meet friends and trade side dishes. Going out on a Saturday is production that’s planned days in advance. I love going out on Saturday and cooking elaborate meals on the tiny gas grill. But I also love walking down the path on a Sunday with just a towel and an insulated mug. I love letting down the ladder on the front of the dock and climbing aboard an air mattress.

From my air mattress I can watch the neighbor working on his boat. I can watch him put up his tools and stop to talk to another neighbor checking the dock. I can watch the tubers gliding on the edge of the own private wakes. I can watch a sail boat lazily tacking back to the marina and listen to the kids I may or may not even see as they celebrate the lake and the wonders of summer.
I suspect the neighbors think I’m a little crazy when I saunter past them all alone with a towel and an insulated mug. Sometimes I leave something on the boat on Saturday so I have an excuse to go down there on Sunday, but even when I know they all think I’m crazy, I still go down. I love Beaver Lake on a Sunday.

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To Write or Not to Write

Sometimes you just don’t want to write. You can try and try to talk yourself out of it, but sometimes you just can’t. You can’t talk yourself out of not wanting to write. How’s that for double negatives?

The problem with writing is there’s always something else you can be doing. Even back when I was paid to be a staff writer, I could always find something else that needed to be done. After all, a clean desk is vital and so is internet research on cutting edge issues like my latest diet. Since I had to drive to some assignments, there were times when cleaning out my car was way more important than writing.  I’d go through the hundreds of pens in my glove compartment to make sure each one would work when I needed to take those very important notes.

Now, as a freelancer, there’s even more important stuff that I can be doing. Right now for instance, I could go out and pull the grass out of the front walk! It’s sunny outside and if I was outside weeding the walk, not only would I be improving the curb appeal of our property, I’d also be improving my Vitamin D levels. And, let’s face it; I’ve been kind of depressed lately. A little bit of sunshine would improve my mood to the point that the freelance stories would be writing themselves! I’d be doing everyone a favor by going outside instead of trying to figure out a compelling lead for a project due next week.

I’m a writer. How come I just don’t want to write?

It’s really not being stuck in my office. I have my desk strategically placed by a sunny window. It’s pleasant place to be especially when I remind myself that it’s sunny and cold out there.

Oops, excuse me while I run to the kitchen and check the tomato sauce simmering on the stove. On the way, I’ll also check my other “work station” where I have my new VCR hooked up to my laptop via a DVD burner. At this very minute I’m burning a very important DVD featuring the 2005 Ballet Westside dance recital. See, in 2005 I paid for a professional video tape of the dance recital and what a shame it would be if I didn’t get it transferred to DVD. I can just picture my future self craving a few hours of watching dozens of kids I no longer know dancing to songs that are no long popular and then realizing I no longer own a VCR. Maybe that’s even more important than pulling that grass out of the walk.

Hmm, did I ever finish that email to a friend I haven’t seen in 20 or 30 years? Another very important task I could be doing right now, but maybe that’s a little bit too much like writing….

I should just go get a Diet Coke.  A little shot of caffeine has got to help, right?

The dog is sound asleep next to me. Every now and then she even snores and I’m wondering if maybe I shouldn’t walk her? It would probably be good for our elderly dogs to have an extra walk since it’s such a nice sunny day. They need vitamin D too. Maybe that’s what I should be doing?

Surprisingly my housework is mostly caught up. Not that my house is ever really clean, but the college daughter was home this weekend so the laundry got done early. She’s already on her way back for a Sunday afternoon practice. The laundry is even put away, but I wonder: Isn’t it time for me to go through my drawers and swap winter clothes for summer clothes? After all, it is March…

I  talked to the other two kids this morning. Too bad, that would have been a good reason not to write. I can’t even call my sister since I know she’s out of town.

I wonder if I’ve totally misplaced those notes so that I really have to wait until tomorrow to do that project.

Time to stir the sauce again and maybe watch one dance as the DVD burns…. Then I can sit down and pound out that story! Really, in just a few minutes.

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Baby Its Cold Outside

Sometimes I really hate my wood stove. Our living room ends up covered in dust, ashes and even little bits of wood – all because of big black stove in the middle of the room. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.
Sometimes I love my wood stove. I loved it during the big ice storm two years ago when we had no electricity for six days, but our living room stayed toasty. We really needed the stove those first three days when the temperature stayed below freezing and we opened the door of the freezer in the garage to keep all the meat nice and cold. But we live in Arkansas, so naturally it warmed up and we let the stove go out and found a foster home for most of our frozen foods. Eventually we even got our electricity back.
The first fire of the year is always an occasion around this house. It always feels so good when that heat first starts radiating and we remove the stove’s door and put on the screen so we can watch the flames. We’ve tried to do that once or twice when we entertained, but that’s when the wood stove works too well and all the guests start sweating and shedding clothing.
The problem is there’s work associated with a wood stove, even for those of us who have never cut their own fuel. It was more convenient when our middle child was a teenage pyromaniac. I could always get him to add wood to the fire and I could even get him to spilt some of the logs into kindling size pieces because he knew he would eventually get to watch them burn. Now that he’s moved out, the wood stove is a lot more work.
It would be nice if you only had to haul wood once a week, but we’ve never figured out a way to get enough wood into the garage to last more than three days. When bad weather is predicted, we fill up the basket in the living room. We fill up the two banana boxes near the back door and then we fill up the garden wagon and wheel that into the garage too, but within a couple of days someone has to go back out to the wood pile. The problem is, in our family everyone suddenly becomes warm when the wood needs to be brought in. They could be sitting around shivering under sweats and blankets and as soon as I mention bringing in wood, it’s suddenly too warm for a fire. This isn’t a surprise to me because this isn’t my first wood stove.
Way back in the B.C. years (before children), my husband and I owned a passive solar home with only a wood stove for central heat. I had no idea what I was getting into. That was when my husband suddenly developed his amazing tolerance for cold which forced me to take on the role of primary wood hauler.
I’ll never forget the Christmas when he gave me my own wheelbarrow so I could haul wood more efficiently. When I unwrapped the giant box I really thought it was a microwave oven to replace a recently deceased appliance. I wasn’t thrilled with a kitchen appliance as a gift, but I really missed the microwave and by then we had been married long enough to not expect much. There was a whole range of emotions when I realized I had received a wheelbarrow from my significant other for Christmas. But in the end I didn’t kill him because, well, I needed something to haul all that wood.
When we sold that house I swore I would never heat with wood again. It was maybe 15 years later when we bought this house with its big, black stove included. But there’s a huge difference between this house and that first one. This one also has central heat!
Today is a good day for the old wood stove but it took years to reach this level of expertise. I’ve learned to let it warm up slowly, building a big bed of hot coals so the logs sink into them without a lot of flames. Sometimes the stove gets so hot, we have to retreat into the bedrooms, but if you can keep the fire at just the right level, keep the ceiling fan on low and put a little window fan behind the stove to force the heat out, it will keep the whole upstairs a comfortable temperature. Then you put a pot of soup of the kitchen stove to simmer and add some moisture to the air, as well as nice savory aromas and you have the perfect place to spend a cold afternoon with a book and maybe even a cup of tea.

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New Year Old Diet

For me, the New Year always begins the first Monday after Jan first and it always begins the same way – with a new diet and exercise routine. Well, actually, I long ago ran out of “new” diets so I have to repeat the old ones. So this year I’m returning to the “Salad and Chicken” diet.
The Salad and Chicken diet is a variation of the Low Carb diet. I’ve been “low carbing” on and off for the last couple of years. It’s a great excuse to eat cheese and steak and regular hamburger instead of diet lean. What’s not to like? Well, actually, I don’t really lose much weight doing low carb. I’m almost afraid to say that because low carb people take their plan very seriously. I’ve been on some message boards where a statement like mine would be fighting words, but it’s the truth. There were other benefits – I felt better and I wasn’t starving all the time, but I needed a faster weight loss so I had to adjust. I call my plan the Salad and Chicken diet because it’s low carb without a lot of the high fat meats like bacon and sausage. It worked for a while last year.
It worked way better than Weight Watchers which I’ve tried five or six times over the years. Some people have a lot of success with Weight Watchers, but spending all that time looking up points and adding, subtracting, substituting and cheating left me completely food obsessed but no lighter. I especially hated the meetings where dozens of middle aged women sat around and talked about the best way to make something taste like something else. I’d leave those meetings so hungry, my car would drive itself to the nearest drive-thru.
I didn’t have any luck with calorie counting either. It seems like it has to work. If you consume X amount of calories and your body needs X+Y to function, you have to lose weight, right? I wish.
One time I ignored calories and counted fat grams, but that was no better.
It’s always the same pattern. You start out all gung ho and count and figure and drink your water and the first week is great! You lose six pounds, maybe. The second week is fine – you lose four or five more pounds. By the third week, it’s harder to stay on plan, but you force yourself. Of course, by the third week, you’re no longer losing. That makes it easier to cheat on the fourth week when you’re sick to death of the diet and it’s not working anyway. I seldom get past the fourth week.
And those ten or 12 pounds I lost those first two weeks. I’d find them immediately when the diet ends. Finally I gave up dieting and just ate a reasonably healthy diet without any special plans. I gained about ten pounds eating healthy.
I’ve tried all the diet foods and all the magic diet cures. I remember when rice cakes were new and tasted even more like Styrofoam. I remember diet candy that was actually called “Ayds.” I think they changed the name when it became a disease. One time I ate nothing but Lean Cuisine dinners to “retrain” my appetite and get used to the tiny portions. I also ate the boxes they came in. Another time I took fiber pills. You were supposed to take five with a glass of water before a meal. They expanded in your stomach so you didn’t have room for food. One time I got one stuck in my throat and I was sure it was going to expand and suffocate me. I couldn’t take anymore.
I have a library of diet books written by doctors like Stillman, Atkins and Dr. Phil. I sent away for a copy of “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and I have half a dozen paperbacks to look up the numbers of calories, fat grams and carbs.
So here it is 2011 and there’s no sense buying anything new. I’m recycling the Salad and Chicken Diet and my traditional New Year’s Resolution. I will lose weight, exercise, and clean my closets. For at least four weeks.

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It’s the season for compulsive cooking

What is it about fall that makes me want to cook? Over the weekend I made two pumpkin pies and spinach dip for a Halloween party. Then on Sunday I made chili, honey wheat bread and acorn squash.  None of those things are on my diet – oops, I mean my eating plan, so we grilled steaks for dinner and an entire family pack of chicken breasts that I’ll eat for lunch all week.

Considering the temptation, I was actually reasonably good.  I didn’t touch the acorn squash or the honey wheat bread, but I couldn’t completely resist the sour dough bread that I tore into bite size pieces to go with the spinach dip.  Even the celery sticks I cut up didn’t help.  I try and try, but I can’t quite convince myself that celery is actually a good substitute for chips and other “dippers.” There were enough carbohydrates in those little pieces of sour dough bread to do a few days worth of damage, but at least I was able to stay out of the pumpkin pie other than one taste of the filling.  You gotta taste the filling just to make sure it’s all right, right?

I wish I could report that the people who got to eat most of my cooking were pleased and grateful.  The truth is, they pretty much take it for granted.  But I guess they’ve figured out that cooking is some kind of compulsion for me.  They didn’t ask for honey wheat bread and I was informed (a little late) that they don’t really like pumpkin pie. 

It’s not the first time I’ve gotten sucked into compulsive cooking. I remember yeas ago when I decided to combat heart disease with homemade muffins.  I don’t remember which celebrity doctor recommended the whole grain muffins, but I fell for it.  For weeks, I experimented with fresh fruits and grain combinations.  Everybody loved the first batch.  The second batch sat around a little longer.  The third batch went into the freezer.  I think it’s still there. Eventually I had to stop making them.

I went through a bread phase that lasted about 25 pounds and then I moved on to soup.  Way back before the kids were born, I made pickles.  I made so many pickles, we would still be eating them except the mason jars were too heavy to move.  There were a lot of mason jars.  I remember when a friend looked into my pantry and commented, “You guys must really like pickles.”  It was like a light went on all of a sudden.  I looked at my shelves of neatly labeled pickles and I realized for the first time, that we really don’t like pickles very much.   

I guess I like to cook and maybe that’s not such a bad thing if  can control my compulsions just a little.  I’ll just have to go find some more low carb/low fat/sugar-free recipes and then lie to the family about their nutritional values.

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