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Month: February 2023

Birthday Adventures

February is my birthday month. As a child I loved my birthday, but as I got older, it came to mean less. Lately, though, I’ve come back around. Who cares if anyone else is celebrating? My birthday is for me. My birthday, however, falls in the week Tucson celebrates the yearly Fiesta de los Vaqueros–aka Rodeo Break. Schools are closed Thursday and Friday. So instead of taking my birthday off, I’ve been taking the Friday of Rodeo Break, and going camping. Last year was the second time we went to Roper Lake during Rodeo, and friends, it was blinking cold. This year, I decided, we would go somewhere else. A little south of here! A new park, a new adventure, not so cold! I reserved a cabin at Kartchner Caverns State Park, back in August (you have to reserve way ahead.) Then my work adopted a new policy as of January 1st–everyone gets their birthday as a paid holiday, but you have to take it that day. Use it or lose it. You are darn tootin’ I am not going to lose out on getting paid to celebrate my birthday. I went to the desert museum for the Avian Adventure, and met this charming fellow. It was a great time! I will be showing off that picture for a while, let me tell you. Then Friday, I went camping. Poor me, already paid for it, can’t get out of it, sorry to take two days off in a week but…

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It’s Alive!!

…And no, I’m not talking about Frankenstein. Although I could draw some very interesting parallels — stay with me, here. Okay, so let me start from the beginning. Every January (or in the case of this year, February because reasons), I pick a languishing novel out of my pile to start the new year off with. I don’t actually continue working on it, but I give it a bit of time, just to keep it in the background of my mind, refill the well, remind myself that it still exists, and experience the magic again. It’s tradition. Currently, I have three such novels. So I wanted to work on a different one from last year, so I chose Survivor, my oldest work to date. For those of you just joining the madness, Survivor is a psychological thriller/horror novel I started way back in 2004 for a two-year novel writing class I was taking at the time. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It ended up being one of the best books I’ve ever written — and the most maddening, for a variety of reasons. But I love it, believe in it, and this book haunts me. YES. So the goal is to get it published, naturally…except…um…it needs a major rewrite because 2004!Erin just wasn’t as good a writer as 2023!Erin. And well, the book’s in pieces, and — (Frankenstein reference, anyone?) well, it’s been majorly intimidating me for years, but…in 2019 or so, I decided that…

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I Bought a New Water Bottle

Hello, friends. I’m trying to take steps to become more healthy, and the first thing I’m doing (one thing at a time, so as to not overwhelm myself and to make sure I’m actually making new habits before adding new things) is working on my hydration. I tend to be a binge hydrator–not drink any water for hours and then drink a couple glasses at once–which makes me feel sick. Also, I’m likely not getting enough water in general. So, to take steps to remedy this, I bought a new water bottle. It looks like this: You’ve probably seen these before. I’ve been using it for two weeks now, and I’ve got to say, it’s working great. I’ve more or less stayed right where I’m supposed to be according to the markings every day, or if I’ve had to leave it for a few hours, I’m still aware of where I am for the day. And I do feel better. Like, just generally better. More energized. Better mood-wise. Less achy. Like my parts are well lubricated and working better. Step 2 is eating more vegetables, which I’m less sure about how to manage, but we’ll see. Anyway, I highly recommend regulating your water intake. I’ve seen such a good improvement in such a short time. Maybe after a month everything else will fix itself too. Thoughts on vegetables, friends? We normally have them with dinner (and hence sometimes with lunch, which is often leftovers) and I’ve been trying to eat…

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Cozy and Cheeseless

It’s that time of year again…the dead of winter when not much else is happening, so I do a cooking post! Like my other hobbies, my cooking interests keep evolving. Six months ago, I would have said my spouse and I were cheesetarians. We ate pasta regularly, and salads regularly, with plenty of cheese featured in both. Now? Again, it’s the dead of winter, so I don’t feel much like big leafy salads, and for some reason pasta has fallen off the rotation in favour of quinoa. We haven’t even been making omelets. So…next to no cheese. (Except cheesecake. That’s different.) Instead, we’ve been rocking stews and soups, the ultimate in coziness. We bought each other a Dutch oven for Christmas — those are the ceramic pots with an iron core that can go both on the stovetop and in the oven. Which means it’s perfect for browning your meat or sauteing your aromatics (new word for me!) and then throwing everything else into the same pot. Having a new kitchen toy, of course, has revitalized our kitchen game — at least temporarily. Disclaimer I: Those things are heavy (or maybe I’m just weak)! Ours is a 5 qt. pot, and I can only lift it when it’s mostly empty. Disclaimer II: We are not superhuman! We cook something big and ambitious once a week, twice at most. The rest of the time, we order in, or else we eat leftovers or premade food or something else that’s dead easy.…

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