The Garden and the Hair

05 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo, Plant Life and Balcony Gardening Tags: , ,

I’m pretty happy that there’s a little life left in my balcony garden here in autumn. It makes a fun contrast to the changing trees. And means we get a few more ripe tomatoes before I pickle all the green ones that are left.



And practicing a classic Princess Leia ‘do for, ya know, an upcoming day that  I might want to wear it like this. I should try it around some kind of form to give it a bit more size. (These are much better buns than my nine-year-old self could muster, though, so I feel a sense of accomplishment.)



We visited my mom’s old house today. It will be torn down and replaced with a larger more modern house. We weren’t sure what we’d find — house or no house, trees or no trees. We held our breath as we got close. 

The house and trees are still there. One rose bush has been dug up along with most of the butterfly bush. Not sure what the builder is doing there. A white pipe is sticking up from the dirt nearby. But there’s one rose bush left, and it’s covered with roses!





And that’s it for Day 5 NaBloPoMo.

NaBloPoMo Day 4

04 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Mom Stuff, NaBloPoMo, Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

I’m working on several posts for the upcoming days but none are finished yet, and I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open right now. I fear that if I close them for a short cat nap then it will be tomorrow before I open them again. I’m only four days in to NaBloPoMo and am not ready to throw in the towel. So here’s something.

Several things happened today other than all the normal stuff like food, laundry, work, and getting my daughter to school. 

I got some paperwork in that has been on my to do list. Always feels good to get something done.

I officially changed calling plan for my iPhone. Verizon has some better deals now than when I first got my phone. For $20 less per month I get 50% more data than I had plus unlimited texts and mobile hot spots. I’m still tempted to jump ship to an even less expensive carrier but giving Verizon a second chance for now.

Unlimited texts would never have mattered to me until September. We got our daughter a nice and nicely priced Andriod phone for her birthday along with a very inexpensive calling & data plan. It’s working well. Thank goodness she has unlimited texts!

I’ve reached my text limit two, yes two, months in a row. Crazy. Part of the problem is that we tend to send strings of short little messages that spread across five or so individual texts. That adds up. We could have put it all into one or two text messages but instead it’s more like this:

“Hey mom”

“I’m done with homework”

“Can we watch Back to the Future II?”

“Can I have pie?”

“R you going 2 b home soon?”

“Kk”

And I answer her in equally short messages. Now, we are both free to send mini-texts to our hearts’ content.

We

Can 

Even 

Put 

Each

Word

In

A

Single

Text

If

We

Like!

Which I probably won’t do because it’s a pain. But, hey.

And I’m excited about mobile hot spot because it means I can connect my iPad mini while I’m out and get more stuff done without trying to read the tiny symbols on my phone as my fingers type a string of typos that I have to fix. Once I figure out how to do it, I can mobile-write a lot more easily (at least I sure do hope so).

Virginia had a little earthquake early this morning. I don’t think I felt it.

Screenwriter Melissa Mathison passed away today. She wrote E.T. She was also married to Harrison Ford for many years. Hello!, a smart, talented writer married Han Solo. That counted for something back in my teen years. I was sad that they divorced, but I’m even sadder to read of her passing.

We’re having an unusually warm couple of days and more tomatoes and peppers are still growing and even ripening on our balcony! It helps that the balcony is on the sunny south side of the building. I think having plants close to the building helps extend the growing season too. It’s November! 

Made a really yummy Tortilla Soup for dinner complete with a few balcony tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. My kiddo had hers in a bread bowl (pictured below) because bread bowls are yummy.

Trying hard to keep on schedule with writing. Every day is a challenge. I like the writing it’s the schedule that’s the tricky part.

That’s about all for now. I’m typing with my phone while leaning on one arm reclined on the couch and my leanin’ arm is starting to go numb. Perfect time to shift and post.

Have a good one, folks!

Tea for Tuesday – Caramel Almond Amaretti Herbal Tea: a mini review

03 Nov 2015 2 Comments

by alightningbug in Herbal, NaBloPoMo, Tea Tags: , , , ,

Tea for Tuesday (should I make that Tea for Twos-day?)

Caramel Almond Amaretti Herbal Tea from Teavana: a mini tea review

If you like cookies, coffee cake, nuts and sweets but don’t want all the calories that go along with eating those yummy things then this might be a good tea for you (and me too). 

Right now I’m pretty tempted to scarf down several more pieces of Halloween candy. There’s a pumpkin filled with candy sitting about eight feet from my mouth. I am trying to be good. I made a cup of tea instead.

Caramel Almond Amaretti may help satisfy the urge to indulge in sweets or baked goods without actually indulging in any sweet baked goods. This ability was my favorite thing about Teavana’s Toasted Nut Brûlée tea which has been discontinued. Caramel Almond Amaretti tastes somewhat like coffee cake to me. 

Unsweetened, Caramel Almond Amaretti has a light nutty fruity taste. I don’t find the taste to be especially of almonds, maybe some candied almonds with an overall nuttiness. 

The color is beautiful! It’s a light red blush. Natural beet root gives it this color. I steeped for about five minutes in good hot water.

The flavor seems a little watered down before adding any sweetener. But adding a little something sweet really kicks up the flavor. It brings out the caramel taste and enhances the sweet nut, cinnamon, and fruit flavors. The good side is that you can add as much or little of any sweetener you like — real raw sugar, honey, stevia, sucralose, agave nectar or others. 

I added a couple of drops of a liquid stevia and monk fruit blend. It did the trick and I didn’t eat any more Halloween candy (for now)!

Teavana’s Caramel Almond Amaretti contains:

Apple pieces, cinnamon, coconut chips, beetroot pieces, and artificial flavoring.

So there is a down side. You may notice that there are no nuts except coconut listed in the ingredients. And no caramel either. That’s where the artificial flavoring comes in. 

I’ve suspected the coconut chips of containing other flavors before in Teavana. In another Teavana tea they tasted like citrus. 

Taste a fresh dry coconut chip from this tea. Notice that those coconut pieces do not have much coconut flavor instead they taste strongly of nuts and some caramel. If you hate the idea of artificial flavoring this may be a big turn off for you. If you’re on the fence, you may not mind. The flavor is pretty good. 

One more downside, I only get one cup of good flavor out of this tea. I can get an okay second cup, but it tastes different. After that it just tastes like beets. While the cost of $7.98 per 2 ounces makes it one of the less expensive teas from Teavana,  it’s still on the pricy side. I’ll drink it as a dessert tea rather than a daily brew.

To some it up, I was looking for a possible replacement for the discontinued Toasted Nut Brûlée from Teavana. Caramel Almond smelled like a good candidate. Dry it smells like cake. Toasted Nut Brûlée reminded me a lot of an oatmeal cookie with cinnamon and raisins. There were several teas that I thought were worth trying based on ingredients. This is the closest so far, though it lacks some of the raisin flavor in Toasted Nut Brûlée. But it does help me satisfy a sweet tooth and that’s a big win in my book.

[Edited on 7-4-15 to add info on price and clarity]

I think I’m going to try to have a new tea review each Tuesday in November for Tea for Tuesday. I’ll try to post them earlier in the day than this one (it’s now 11:28 as I finish this up). The is also a post for my Day 3 of NaBloPoMo.

Zombies, Buns, and More to Come (And NaBloPoMo Day 2 Happens)

02 Nov 2015 1 Comment

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo Tags: , , , ,

For Halloween my daughter dressed as a zombie. It was a creepy look for her until she smiled and these clean white teeth shined out from the gloomy makeup. It made me giggle.

Not sure if she’ll trick or treat next year as she might be getting a little old for it. It was still fun this year for both of us.

I started a Halloween story which is kind of funny since the other story I was working on could, in a way, be considered a little Halloween-y too.

I have been testing the Princess-Leia-buns hairdo on both me and on one of our cats. The other cat would never sit still long enough for this nonsense. This did not make the patient cat especially happy either.

I mean, he didn’t mind me with my hair in buns so much, but I got an elastic set of buns that was made for dogs and tried those on him. It seemed fitting for Halloween and will be handy come December. He, as usual, was adorable. He’s very good at putting up with me. I bring home cat food and am mostly very nice to him.

Zombies and buns is my brief entry for Day 2, November 2 of NaBloPoMo. Hey, it’s something.

More to come soon:

A new review of Teavana tea — yummy!

A review of some seasonal Glade fragrances. This is a new thing for me to post. I’m a fairly new fan of Glade. But I love the autumn scents which are on clearance many places now.

And I may even post a Zombie Apples recipe and make some Apple Butter in the near future. Thank you to (name goes here soon but if I look it up now I won’t get this post done by midnight) for the apple butter idea. I can’t get it out of my head now. I love apple butter and it’s a little hard to find in the stores (not to mention yummy to cook).



NaBloPoMo – Whereby I try to write every day in November and other people do too

01 Nov 2015 6 Comments

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo, Writing Tags: , , ,

I’m going to try NaBloPoMo (National Blogging Po Month?). I’ll have to find out what “Po” stands for. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Teletubbies.

So this is my first post here on November 1, 2015. It’s not a fancy post. I have more things coming for November, though I’m sure some days will be harder than others. Writing everyday is not the worst goal in the word. I already have it has a basic goal whether it involves posting on my blog or not. (Hmm, does “Po” stand for “Posting?” I’ll have to find out.)

I have other goals too. I’d like to participate in NaNoWriMo which is the National Novel Writing Month (aka November). But while I’m going to work on stories I’m not very likely to be able to write enough words per day to complete an entire novel in November alone. I mean, HELLO, November — that’s the month before Christmas and the one that contains Thanksgiving. There’s other stuff to do like cleaning our home and getting rid of stuff. And that whole food and eating and feeding my family thing. Bathing (hopefully). Laundry. Always with the laundry. And more other general getting caught up on stuff that I need to get caught up on. That list is too long.

As a start NaBloPoMo, I’m putting some handy links here because I have a feeling I’m gonna need ’em. I have a tendency to misplace things. I may update this has I find more stuff. Anybody else out there doing this? Yes, I know the answer is “yes,” so “hello and good luck!. May the force be with you!”

DailyPost WordPress: Making It Through NaBloPoMo.

Blogher’s page on NaBloPoMo.

 

D

 

 

 

Smile for Poetry Day 2

23 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Wordpress Writing 201 Tags: , , , ,

Day 2 of WordPress Writing 201: Poetry has long since past, but I’m not done yet. I hope learning never ceases. 

Day 2: Gift, Acrostic, Simile

The prompt is “gift.” The form is acrostic (where you can use the first or last letters of each line to spell stuff or just be alphabetical and such). The device is simile (which my brain usually reads as “smile” until I take a closer look).


Got Smile?

Save me some cake with frosting.

Under here, over there? It’s still a mystery, so …

Riveted by anticipation, we are the headlights that our dear met.

Perfect in size and shape and colors.

Rushing here and there. We’ll make it blossom.

Intent on joy and laughter as our foci.

Seconds to go before you know well.

Everything with love. 


D


I just want to note that under ordinary circumstances, somehow, I always manage to spell “surprise” wrong. Hopefully this poem (along with handy dandy word assist on new fangled gadgets) will help me get it right more often.

Second note: there are a lot of food words that end in the letter “i.”  Now I want some baked ziti and canolli.


Autumn Pleasures

17 Oct 2015 4 Comments

by alightningbug in Wordpress Writing 201 Tags: , , , ,

Day 10 of WordPress Writing 201: Poetry gives us sonnets with a prompt of pleasure and use of apostrophes.

I’m trying hard to get these done, and I finished this on my iPad just as we lost out Internet connection which was very frustrating. I lost most of what I wrote because the WordPress app on my iPad mini reverted to an earlier saved version. So I tried to reconstruct this the best I could. (Also the line breaks are all wonky now because I had to do it on my phone. Not sure how to get the line breaks right on the app on my phone. Maybe I can fix it later.)

Autumn Pleasures

My summer sun is fading.

Fear not, the autumn leaves are bright.

Green ones trading, upgrading, then parading.

Find a candle and a hoodie, winds are cool at night.

Grasshopper, still, in my tomato plant.

Do you seek food? Come, let me throw thee over.

Jump to flee me and enchant.

See you later. There’s more to try than clover.

Air of spices, leaves and cider, apples, homemade pies.

Blue and crisp, blows fabric ghosts and skeleton attire.

Hug me, warm me, carve our squash surprise.

Glows and flickers, marshmallow roasts on sticks afire.

Trees nestle roots deep in the still-warm earth.

Our blankets pay their worth.

D

Copyright 2015 Debora Kapke

Day 6, Face Laundry Found Poetry

14 Oct 2015 3 Comments

by alightningbug in Wordpress Writing 201 Tags: , , ,

Wow, I am really not good at poetry — writing or understanding it except maybe in picture form. Like, “wow, that sunrise was pure poetry.” See, I get that.

But this Writing 201: Poetry thing is really throwing me for a loop. Here we are on Day 7 Day 8 and I’m still working out days 2 through 6 7.

There are three poetry-y components to think about for every assignment. For day 6 of Writing 201: Poetry it’s “Faces, Found Poetry, Chiasmus.”

I’m a beginner here. I think my speed is set to one. I’m still trying to work out what “Chiasmus” means when, all of a sudden, we’re on the next assignment. Now I gotta figure out five new things and fold the laundry in the same day.

Chiasmus means:

A.) Christmas for Chia pets.

B.) Chalupa, a yummy food (topped with sprouted chia seeds?).

C.) Another word for Chupacabra, a scary animal in Latin America that sucks goats.

D.) An inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases, an inverted crossing.

Haiku is my speed. I know what syllables and lines of text are. Yay! But I think I ignored the “alliteration” part of the Haiku assignment. My brain just skipped right over that. I kind of know what alliteration is. I had that in school back in the day. So maybe a little alliteration got into my haiku but it was purely my subconscious brain making itself heard. I think I alliterate by accident a lot.

So maybe going forward with these assignments I can just skip parts of the assignment when my brain wanders off. That is my current plan. Otherwise I’ll be stuck forever in a poetry world that exists only of haiku. (Which isn’t exactly the worst place to be. I like haiku. But I should venture out more.)

Here’s something for Day 6 which involves “found” poetry. It seems a lot easier to just find poetry stuff than to start from scratch. I find unexpected things all the time— sometimes in the laundry.

So I’m just going to Google “face laundry” (as in I can’t face laundry right now), and then I’ll find a poem and maybe eat a Chalupa for lunch. That counts, right?

Dang, “Skin Laundry,” shows up in the first and second spot of my search. What the heck is skin laundry? Do I want to know? I’m just going to use the first few lines of each search result (more or less). OK, then. Here’s my poem.

Face Laundry

Skin laundry. Nearest laundry. Skin laundry stamp. Find a laundry near you.

Shop. Skin laundry.

I tried skin laundry, the “drybar of skincare.”

Express beauty service: Sure, it’s fast, but are the results long-lasting …

Chinese laundry women’s face off bootie: shoes.

New ‘skin laundry’ clinic wants to dry-clean your face.

Chinese laundry face off.

Face laundry, laundry your face.

 

(The last line is my chiasmus. I think.)

 

DK

 

Screen Haiku

06 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Wordpress Writing 201, Writing Tags: , ,

I signed up for WordPress Writing 201: Poetry. Poetry isn’t my usual forte, but I’m looking forward to trying something new. Mostly I’d wanted to do more with Writing 101 and Blogging 201 that I haven’t finished yet. So Writing 201 may be my penitence. No, it’s not that bad — probably not that bad anyway. It may even be lots of fun, so I’m keeping an open mind. I like the first assignment!

Write a haiku on screens — mostly computer screens but other screens like those in windows are okay too. Sun screen? Security screen? Really, I’m fine with computer or digital device screens so here’s my haiku:

Screen Haiku

It glows and it knows.

It may interrupt your sleep.

Ping ping ping, I look.

Bonus haiku!

Not being much of

A poetry type, I like

Haiku since it’s short.

Is there supposed to be punctuation in haiku? I’ll have to look it up. In the meantime, I’m leaving it in.

DK

Flaw Me To the Moon

02 Oct 2015 2 Comments

by alightningbug in WordPress, Wordpress Writing 101 Tags: , ,

I want to remember these tidbits of advice as much as I want to share them. I’m putting these links here so that I can find them on down the road. This also happens to fulfill the assignment for Writing 101’s Day 19 assignment*. (Yay! I fulfilled an assignment!) I may even make a separate page with this stuff that I can add more links and keep it all convenient.

10 Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block by Vincent Mars from his Boy with a Hat blog:
http://vincentmars.com/2015/09/06/10-ways-to-overcome-writers-block/#more-8560

I especially like number 3, Reject Perfection. 
We can strive for perfection — always trying to make our writing and ourselves better. That’s good. But the quest for perfection can lead to paralysis too. We can be so afraid of making mistakes that, instead, we make no moves at all. Nothing. In all likelihood, most of us will never reach actual perfection. That’s fine. Sometimes it’s better to just DO. Write. Let it happen with all it’s beautiful flaws. We are supposed to be flawed. Aren’t we? I’d rather have 1000 words period, than to have felt like it none of it is good enough and end up with zero. I can find “flaws” in some of my very favorite books and blogs. I still love them! (In the for-what-it’s-worth department, I don’t really like overly perfect teeth, so take that.)

Actual Writing Advice: Online Presence, Blogging by Melina Moore on her Enchanted Spark blog:
http://enchantedspark.com/wordpress1/2015/08/24/actual-writing-advice-online-presence-blogging/

That entire post resonated with me. 
I often feel pangs of inadequacy when I see some new blogger with 5000+ followers. I’ve been blogging for over five years now, and I don’t have that. But I remind myself that I didn’t start my blog in order to gain followers. I started it to give me a place to write. I love my followers and commenters (heck even just a quick Like is appreciated), but ultimately the writing is why I’m here. I love visiting other blogs too. In fact, I’d like to read more of them. Most days I’m lucky if I can manage a quick fly-by of other blogs. Hopefully, I’ll get some free time at some point and focus on the process. (Is what I say to myself more often than I’d like.) 

Sometimes I also spend more time blogging than writing my stories. I do the reverse too. So I want to be more conscious of where I spend my word counts. I love blogging and writing stories, but I don’t want to wake up with way too much blogging and no finished stories.


*If I actually managed stay on top of Writing 101 like I thought I was going to do, then I might actually have had a guest blogger here. I know some good ones I could ask. It could be fun. Did I manage that? Nope. 

I’ve been letting stuff like laundry, leaky aquariums, helping my mom move, and a sizable list of other stuff fill my time instead of hitting those alphabet keys in any kind of efficient way. It’s really good that a lot of that other stuff got done — very important even — but I’m still hungry to get more words down (not on paper). It’s kind of like doing my nails — been meaning to do them for over a month and still have pathetic, naked nails. I did manage to shave my legs and shower. That’s something! My nails are not just bare but in need of a trim now too. They click on the keys as I type. I feel like a stray dog that escaped from a groomer before the job was done.

According to Writing 101, Day 19, directions I can do the next best thing to having a guest blogger. That is, I can publish a roundup of great reads and share some blog posts that resonated with me. That is what this is. I’m excited about it too because I’m afraid I might forget where I read a few things and I want to keep these links handy. 

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