Food is love even when its meatloaf and a welcome shot of color.

old bishop been gone a few years now but oh how I loved him he had a joie de vivre like no other

Happy Valentines Day everyone. The hubster wanted to send me flowers so I could compete in the annual flower competition at work but I said no no I would rather spend the cash on fixings for a nice valentines day dinner. I guess that's what makes me happiest is cooking for the people I love. Tomorrow is my Dads bday and we will go into Saratoga tomorrow night to cook dinner for him. That's what I give people since I usually am light on cash and to be frank when you get to be older what on earth do you really need. So earlier in the week I told my Dad to think about what he would want for dinner anything he wanted the sky's the limit.

To my mothers chagrin (total eye roll) he chose meatloaf. Now I make a fine dandy meatloaf and in the winter I make one at least once a month but now my challenge is how to make a meatloaf worthy of a birthday dinner. Hmmm time to consult the cookbooks.  But it is actually a good choice there is some nasty weather coming in and meatloaf and mashed potatoes sound just perfect for such a blustery Sunday night. Its snowing as a type and I am watching the birds eat the bird seed I tossed on the driveway (yes too cheap to buy a feeder) earlier I love watching them fly in and out as I sit cuddled up watching cooking shows with the dogs. There are two great big fat cardinals out there what a welcome shot of color on such a day.

Now back to tonight to celebrate valentines day we went to the fancy market to get some fixings for drum roll....smoked salmon on baguette with red onions lemon and caper followed by shrimp scampi over linguine then okay major drum roll please molten lava chocolate cakes with vanilla ice cream. See who needs a dozen roses when you can use the money to make food. Food is love. Well at least it is to me. I remember the first romantic dinner I ever cooked. I must have been 15 or so and my boyfriend Gary was going to college all the way in Arizona and my parents were cool enough (seriously cool) to let me cook him dinner at the house while they went out for dinner with friends. Don't remember all the details but I remember taking a melon baller to potatoes and making a super cute small round potato saute probably with a steak or something and maybe chocolate mousse for dessert. Followed (stop reading mom grandma and anyone else who might be shocked) with having sex everywhere in the house we could think of.  Good times damn straight.

Okay so obviously food as always meant a ton to me its one of my major creative outlets so making dinner tonight is how I express my love and also I am sorry I just really love to cook. Tommy is always saying no no take a break get take out and I cant convince him that I just really love to cook. I love the planning involved trying to figure out a whole menu that makes sense and of course the shopping I love grocery shopping I always have and of course turning some music on pouring a healthy glass of wine and getting the stove cracking.

Happy V day people go cook something for someone you love or hell cook a great meal for yourself and have a glass or two of wine.

More snow Chinese food i'm stuck their stuck is that a helicopter I hear?

Classic snowy night story in the good old northeast. Snow falls all day commute home is worse than the one to work. First plan for dinner was to stop at the fancy food store and get some fried chicken. But the losers closed at 5pm. Closed at 5pm are you mad you are a grocery store in the North Country you don't close at 5pm. Okay okay calm down whats next think girl think. Okay don't want to actually go to the supermarket and do something responsible like shop for the week nope nope I am looking for a quick fix....Light bulb Chinese food.

Acquire Chinese food and text husband is the driveway plowed he says I don't know but Jeff was just here so it must be. Drive 13 miles with Chinese food and guess what driveway not plowed....attempt to bust through and get stuck about 3 feet from the road. Now I can usually get myself out of these type of jams but I looked down at the Chinese food and said heck with the car it stays here till tomorrow and I eat Chinese now. Food turns out to be a major disappointmemt and the dogs score a human meal. Okay so I shake the disappointment off head to the bedroom or as I call it my sanctuary gather the dogs and a large glass of wine and start reading and watching a little tv.

Enter my saviors Scott and Clark my plow guy super hero team. I just hired these guys the storm before this aka just freaking last week and I hadn't called them today because I realized I took the cash to pay them with me to work. Less than helpful. So at 9pm there is a knock on the door and Clark says we didn't know if you wanted to be plowed but we saw you were stuck. Oh MUSIC to my ears. Well they say this to Tommy I was actually sitting in bed in my underwear drinking wine covered in blankets. So up I leap grab a pair of jeans put my fancy english farm snow boots (no socks yes I am an idiot) and off i go into the dark to rescue my car.

We try once to no avail and Scott (Clark is Scott's sidekick Scott drives the truck Clark snow blows and shovels) yells get the shovel and dig her tires out. Then to their surprise I say hey do you have another shovel let me help two will get this job done faster than one. So out we dig the little Honda and out she pops from the yard. Yes I didn't drive into the driveway apparently I drove into the yard. But hey hard to tell whats what with all that snow. So thankfully with visions of my wine glass still frosty inside I pull onto the side of the road and put my hazards on while Clark and I watch Scott work his magic well magic until the magic stopped in the name of getting stuck so bad I feared we would need to get another truck with a winch.

The thing about getting stuck in the snow is that you have to remain calm and not panic. My first thought is always OMG i will never get out I will get fired because I cant go back to work till spring (okay wishful thinking) but you need just to take a breath and you will get there. You might have to sacrifice your cats litter or maybe even your chickens grain (it works trust me) but you will get out. So thankfully after 15 minutes or so out pops the truck and Scott finishes up. I gave them an extra 20 for the late night and for saving my ass. Figure if you are going to through some cash around in a winter like this your plow guy is probably not your worst bet.

Stay warm and dry everyone and if you go out to shovel please remember to put socks on before your boots and maybe don't wear the pair of jeans that are more holes than fabric. And to my wonderful hair stylist Mel who keeps posting pictures on facebook of her fabulous vacation in Arizona which looks to involve more vodka than whats currently available in Russia or Anne my college roommate and her husband Peter who live in the Caribbean who's restaurant was just featured in the NY times whatever people whatever I have snow dammit snow. Lots of lots of snow I don't need your freaking sun tans and fancy drinks....oh who I am kidding if a helicopter touched down right now and someone shouted get in I would. Destination unknown.

Cabin fever and the mysterious man

Not sure about whats going on at your house but at my house a major case of cabin fever has settled in for the duration. Especially effecting the two dogs. Booker and Lulu swing between taking naps and searching for the mysterious stranger that stalks our house. Now you will have to take their word for it because I for one have never yet seen the mysterious stranger. I look for him often every time the dogs start barking at what i think is nothing. I say to myself hey give them a break maybe there is a mysterious stranger lurking outside behind that tree wearing a black cap and a fedora maybe just maybe? So I get up (again) and look and guess what at least to my eyes NOTHING not even a bird braving the cold. But I try to see it their way scores and scores of dodgy people wearing capes surrounded the house getting closer with every step diligence needed with every bark.

They are currently in nap phase. I will keep you updated.

tomate-toe tohmahtoo and a world of possibilities

The view that needs replacing. wont be easy.

I feel myself changing starting towards a new direction and maybe they are right everything happens for a reason. Maybe I have just delayed getting going selling this house until i know where I am headed. The world even the small one around me offers just too many possibilities too many paths to choose. This town that town, in town or the country, to farm or not to farm, to be traditional to step outside the box. So I have been babbling about moving and finding my forever home for almost a year and to be honest we aren't much farther than when we started a few things have been done but not many I really thought we would have been moved by now. But maybe my delay will be a good thing maybe its what I need to ensure the path we end up is the right path for us.

So now for an explanation of the title of this little piece. See I grew up in Greenwich CT and its pronounced grenitch (locked jaw and all that) and the town I am seriously thinking of moving too is Greenwich NY but unfortunately for me they pronounce it greenwitch. Am i destined to move to a town where i will surely mispronounce the name and they take how it is said over there pretty damn seriously let me tell you. You get some really odd looks if you say grenitch. Makes me want to say well we say it like they say it in England but I don't think that will help matters much. I guess I will have to practice and maybe employ a speech therapist wouldn't be the first time, I had one when i was a kid and i still have problems with things that end in "LF" like wolf tends to come out more like wooff.

And to set the record straight I don't just check out a prospective town I freaking stalk it. Yup stalk it. If you live in a town I am thinking about moving to you most likely will see me at the supermarket the local stewarts the wine store the local chinese restaurant tractor supply and the list goes on oh I don't forget pizza you will see me getting pizza too cant possibly live some where with sucky pizza. And I just wont visit once nope I will stop by on my way home from work I will find a reason to visit to maybe catch the town in a lie it cant be that perfect so maybe if I can catch them all unaware I will see whats really going on. Okay no of course not thankfully I am not that paranoid my mind just took a bizarre turn there. Girl stalks town to make sure its right for her catches it unaware one night and town is actually full of zombies. Back on track fingers back on track.

Okay now back to the title again I have explained the whole pronunciation thing now what about the rest? When I first contemplated moving I knew I wanted a farm with an old farmhouse and lots of land. Well unfortunately for me there are none. Or at least that I can afford.  So now I had to broaden my view and say okay only the land is really important as long as there is enough and the view is good I can make the house be what ever i want with a little cash and sweat. So this was my path for awhile until there were none of those left either....So now I switch gears again to just land and hell I will just build a house. Now this opens up limitless possibilities what kind of house big small what style traditional or modern and so on and so on. Now to muddy the waters even further I start watching tiny house nation on monday nights and now my mind is opened up to the tiny house possibility! Why build such a big house and get in debt. One of the reasons for selling this old beauty of ours is to hopefully get out of debt as much as possible. So instead of building big what do we really need how much space do you really need to be happy? Big questions indeed. But guess what now I cant find any land either! But hopefully the low inventory is due to it being the middle of and endlessly cold winter and once spring comes more listings will appear.

Almost reminds me of the books we had when I was little that have different ending depending on a series of choices you made.  Choices choices choices! Stay warm my friends.

Blank canvases, art for art's sake and the path is the goal (still).

When I was a teenager all I wanted to do was be an artist but being practical I knew I didn't have the talent but I still tried the problem with me is technically I'm not so bad but I have absolutely no creativity. Well maybe not any but not enough by any means. But as I get older I realize I was on the wrong path. I should not try to do something to be the best at it I should try to do it for the sake of doing it. One of my favorite sayings is the path is the goal. And if you think about that hard enough you realize that the path should be the goal in just about anything and everything. But it is easy to lose sight of especially in the goal oriented society with live in. If I ever get another tattoo I think that will be it "the path is the goal" maybe with a koi or a Buddha or maybe with something that makes no sense like a picture of a dishwasher. Not sure where that just came from but oh well it made me laugh. My sense of humor likes non-sequitors.

My husband is actually the artist of our little family and I think that has held me back because when he is on his game his talent is INTIMIDATING but the sad thing is that over the past few years due to depression or maybe something else Tommy has stopped doing art. I hate to even think about it really and I try not too because its just all too much. When I first met him about 13 years ago or so that's all he did he was a tattoo artist but even when he wasn't tattooing he was drawing and painting and creating. But a few years back he had a few small strokes that made his hand wobble enough he had to give up tattooing and for some reason the art became less and less until it was non-existent. Now I don't buy the strokes mean he cant do art some of my favorite paintings he ever did were post stroke. Paintings were he left the tattoo art - the dragons, the skulls the women scantily clad with bat wings etc behind and started painting more from nature and man those paintings still blow me away.

I am not sure when it actually happened I don't think there was an exact time or moment but he has lost his muse and his desire to do art. I am sure its due to a major case of depression hes pretty much a classic case poor man sits on his couch and watches the same movies over and over again none of them exactly light- hearted....the shawshank redemption, snatch, and of course good fellas. All great movies to be sure (I hate movies now) but seriously should you see them 3 times each everyday. He has tried anti-depressants but so far we haven't found one that fits him and he is pretty good at self medicating with pot so good in fact he might as well be in a coma. I keep waiting for him to wake up to be the person I fell in love with and I still have hope that one day it will happen. Not that I don't love him now I do it just getting hard. But we are starting to get our heads out of the sand and take a hard look at what is wrong with the help of his doctor and hopefully we will figure out a treatment plan and he can wake up a bit and remember that he is alive.

Not sure where that all came from I haven't really written about it but maybe its time I did.  I hope you don't feel bad for me I don't really its all just part of life there are so many people that have it so much worse every minute of the day its just not optimal but that's okay when is life ever? Oh so back to me today I actually took a step I grabbed an old canvas of Tommy's and gessoed over it so now I have a blank canvas. I think I will attempt a self portrait maybe a bit ambitious after so long but what the hell I have a lot of gesso and I can always create another blank canvas.

Cant help but thinking of the future probably should be focused on the now.

picture of the land i want to buy

So its that time of year again time to start thinking of spring and of growing food. Although I have made the decision to not go to market this year and to downsize the size of my operation in order to get this house in order to sell and find my future home and farm I still cant resist planning a garden.  I just cant. So here I am on a very cold and as pooh bear would say a blustery day in bed with the blankets on surrounded by my dogs Booker and Lulu reading seed catalogs and reference materials and creating the first growing plans of the season.  Doing this i think is one of the only things that gets me through these dark days of winter.

The past few years my garden has been about 120 feet by 60 feet somewhere about about 25-30 60 foot rows of vegetables. This year depending on where I end up I am planning on a plot of about 25 feet by 35 feet for 8 rows of intensively grown vegetables. Trust me it was hard for me to fit everything in. I kept forgetting things and saying oh shit forgot broccoli and that whole family of vegies oh now where am I going to put the potatoes. But I think i have come up with a plan that will work. I need to take a year off from the pressure of producing for a farmers market and figure out how to grow the things I am struggling with (damn you carrots) learn how to control weeds so i dont keep compounding my problems from year to year and figure out how to work smarter and not harder (hate that phrase but it sums it up) so I can be successful farming while I have a full time job and limited time.

I kind of thought I could just stop farming for a year and move on I am not always known for my staying power when I take on new ventures frankly I can be a little flighty.  But I guess at least for now farming in my own small way is still running through my veins and wont be denied. I think one of the main reason I need it because it helps me dream of the future without farming what do i have to look forward to? Going to my job, commuting, making dinner, drinking wine and then going to bed. Farming keeps me focused on a cause thats greater than the day to day monotony. Its a link to the past a link to the old ways where people took care of themselves at least to some extent the days where almost everyone had a victory garden and didnt rely on things that come frozen. The 1950's have a lot to answer for. Life cant always be about convenience sometimes it needs to be about doing things the right way for the right reasons.

Stay warm everyone and keep dreaming of spring unless you ski or something then I guess you dont mind winter!

saying good bye to 2014 and trying to get there from here.

Happy New Year!

I wont say 2014 was a terrible year no one very close to me died I didn't lose a pet or a job but I didn't really accomplish much either besides just going to work coming home having a few glasses of wine watching tv and going to bed. Not there is anything wrong with living like that but I know i just know I am meant to do something more with my one shot at life. So what do I do about being in the rut of a lifetime? Make a plan of course! Every time i get manic i just have to calm myself done sometimes with the help of a wee bit of xanax and say okay what do you want and how do you get there from here. Now granted I have never yet gotten from here to there but I guess you just have to keep trying right?

I have worked in the same job for 10 years and I have been lulled into complacency by a what passes as a sweet paycheck in upstate NY for what I do and knowing that I know my job and am good at it so its been hard to try and break out of the rut of working for money and security and not doing something that fulfills me in anyway except knowing that i do a good job and its sometimes appreciated.  Well until now.....things have changed three months ago I took on a new more difficult role and I find myself struggling a bit outside my comfort zone I am sure I only need time to adjust and learn but my toxic boss has turned her evil sights on me and frankly is gunning for me she told me the other day I wasn't allowed to make a mistake in January. Now if that's not setting someone up to fail i don't know what is. She didn't exactly say what would happen if i did but I think I am going to probably find out.

As a firm believer that every end is a beginning and every beginning is an end I have started updating my resume and begun thinking of things and places I might want to work. Now this might all blow over and her axe might be ground enough to leave me alone but i figured I should be prepared for the worse or maybe in the case the best? My job is over 40 miles away and a terrible commute would it be so bad if i was forced due to being fired to find something else? So with deep calming breaths I go back to work tomorrow to face the music. Should be interesting to say the least.

So what else do i have planned for 2015 well i have to get up and get this house ready to sell if we can sell this house for any decent amount of money I can hopefully pay off my debt for a large chunk find some land in a neighboring county and build a small house we might even join the tiny house nation. If we can accomplish that I wont have to have the big job that pays the big money maybe then I can farm part time and get a few part time jobs now that sounds like fun.

Art and creativity also needs to be more of a priority in my life I have even stopped taking pictures because I cant find the stupid cord that hooks the camera up to the computer now how stupid is that lady its called best buy go get one. So you can see i have fallen into a king size rut on just every level of my life. Now I just have to pull myself wake myself up and get going. Not sure what its going t take an earthquake maybe? Maybe a tornado I dream of those a lot when I get upset. I read in a book that seeing tornadoes in your dreams means you feel out of control of your alot plane crashes too...But I cant take all my dreams literally today I dreamed I was helping Mozart setup a tryst with his gay lover. Period costumes and everything.
life. I dream of them

So those are my thoughts leaving the past year behind and starting on the next. I don't think its an easy road in front of me but that's life right?