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Month: June 2022

Running Away From Home

Home, in my opinion, should be a place one wants to be, not a place to get away from. But that’s just my opinion. Reality has no interest in my opinion. Reality, sometimes, actively has it in for me. So yeah. Sometimes, I run away from home. On Mount Lemmon, an hour’s fun drive away, the temperature is generally 30 degrees lower. And there are green things! Mountain air! Fewer people! More deer, bears, coatis, birds! (Especially vultures. Not sure why, but there are a lot of vultures circling on Mount Lemmon.) Anyway. You can see why running away has its attractions. As that’s as much brain as I have for words, I’m already two days late…please enjoy some pictures. These are all phone pics this week. I mean to take my camera up soon. Like…Sunday? That might be good. Since it’s still gonna be ridiculously hot down here… It’s been a rough week. Run away if you need to, friends.

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Gluten-free FTW

So, last month I talked about how I’d switched to a gluten-free diet due to a gluten intolerance. I’d just started it, and it was going well. I wanted to give a bit of an update about my progress. 🙂 For the most part, I’ve been doing well. I’ve either been making actual gluten-free recipes, or modifying my own to make them gluten free. That hasn’t been too hard…yet. Except when you are running late and are starting dinner and have completely forgotten that some ingredients aren’t gluten free and you aren’t sure if you have any gluten-free equivalents on hand because this is the first time you’ve made it since going gluten free. Yeah. That happened recently. Luckily, it worked out. I just omitted the ingredient in question and checked that the other one was in fact gluten free (the brand was, thankfully) and all was well. Thing is, my cooking, since the pandemic started, has been what I call “fast and loose” — meaning that instead of figuring out which day I am making which meal on any given week like I used to, I literally decide the night before. Sometimes a few nights ahead if it’s more complicated. So things unfortunately slip my mind. I’m human. And I’m still adjusting. I’m sure at some point this will become more normal and natural and I won’t have to think, “Oh crap, is everything gluten free?” because all of my ingredients will be. I’m still in transition. Which brings…

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Unexpected Lack of Inspiration

Hi friends! We just returned from two weeks in Scotland, which was a lovely trip. We had great weather, the scenery was fantastic, and there were plenty of ruined (and not) castles to traipse around in. But I did find myself disappointed on one front–inspiration. I thought for sure I would find story inspiration all over the place. I love traveling, and I especially love the way different places’ legends and mythology are tied into their history. And Scotland seemed like inspiration central–the romanticized Highlands, the empty moors, mists and fae. The aforementioned castles. Loch Ness. But I didn’t find it. Maybe–maybe a lot of it–is that Scotland’s history is kind of the general European-centric medieval time period that a lot of fantasy typically espouses. It’s great learning about how castles functioned and who did what, and how, but it also kind of felt like that was stuff I already knew, you know? Part of it may be that this is a major part of my ethnic background, so I was already familiar with the history of the country, so while I was seeing places I’d only read about, I wasn’t necessarily learning anything new. Part of it may be that the Scots don’t seem to embrace the faerie aspects of Celtic mythology as much as, say, Ireland does. While there were places labeled Fairy Glens or Fairy Pools, it was clear that there was no actual mythology linked into those places. Only one castle tour even mentioned ghosts. Don’t…

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Clothes Make the Woman, Redux

This time last year, I blogged about how the pandemic was changing both my style tastes and my size and how I was adapting. This year…well, my wardrobe is still mostly in stay-at-home pandemic mode (as am I), but it continues to evolve… I’m still wearing a lot of athleisure, especially as the days heat up (here in Toronto we’ve had several heatwaves already). Reitmans has a wide size range and a variety of comfy leggings (and jeans); Icebreaker does the best merino t-shirts for both warm and cool weather; Tentree uses recycled polyester in their athletic line. I’m also slowly adding other items to meet my non-athleisure style needs. Really digging loose flowy tops in natural fibres — especially since I’ve at last discovered where to get tunic-length tops that are cut to skim over my decidedly not-pregnant round belly. Shout-out to Blue Sky Clothing! They also have comfy bike shorts in extended sizing. Since I have a terrible time finding shorts that fit me well and don’t pull in weird ways, I’m quite liking this leggings-meets-shorts trend (at least in my own house…ahem). To save my Northern European skin while gardening and walking, I’ve also picked up a couple of lightweight, oversized button-downs in organic cotton from MEC (last year) and hemp from Patagonia (this year). They go nicely with my straw hat. Coastal Grandma style, anyone? And I’m leaning into the colours and prints I love, that bring out my colouring and make me feel great. (Blue…

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Second Chance

Part 4: Manifestation a serial ghost story by Erin Zarro Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 “Oh my God,” Shelley said softly. “I’ve never seen this before.”               The dogs and cats went crazy, but Shelly managed to calm them down. Still, Larry and Moe, the two cats, stood at attention, ears perked, ready to defend us from the intruder.               I was looking at Adam.               Well, sort of. He was transparent, but he had a body. He wore what looked like jeans and a Bon Jovi t-shirt — unsurprisingly. His face reminded me of a ghost’s — his eyes were simply two empty holes filled with darkness. He had a mouth. And he glowed so brightly that it almost hurt my eyes to look at him.               And he was not sixteen anymore. He looked to be about my age. But I did not believe in ghosts. So, what was going on?               I probably should have been scared, but oddly enough, I really wasn’t.               Shelley’s hand grabbed my wrist before I could move closer. As if she’d known what I was about to do. “No, don’t go to him. We don’t even know if this is really him.”               Bubba growled softly as if he agreed with her statement.               Not taking my eyes off of Adam, I asked, “What do you mean? It’s clearly him. I feel it.”               “Lower-vibrational beings can do all sorts of things to make you think they are someone you…

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