Sunday, February 7, 2010

A different kind of Muse Monday






















The reason? I cannot sleep. I hear beeping. Like yeah! because the snow plows in our neighborhood development are backing up! They woke up the darn roosters here in farmland central Jersey. What crazy person is out before dark, and in their way? Oh yeah, those crazy early morning, who cares if it is freezing and snow is on the ground serious type of marathon runners!

It is Super Bowl Sunday, so I looked for blog posts to read. Blueviolet makes me laugh. So does Bagman.

I need a good laugh right now.I keep thinking about the video I have to shoot today.

So, I could not sleep anyway. Not nerves, but that is how I work. Notes. Notes. Notes. To get it all right. I talked with my chef friend in Atlanta yesterday. She has done television many times before, so she gave me some tips. I have done local Dallas news food prep television a few times, but sat in the background. Never in front of the camera. No one even knew I did the food. The darn Dietitian got the credit for the five stages of cooking the food I dragged in at 4 AM. Oh well, hubby, friends, and I know. Oh yeah, I have the video.

Been working on my new website for my new business venture with Adrienne. Got the temporary website up. We set up shop in our office/kitchen space last week, and finalized how it will all roll. So lots to do and think about. I decided that the best way to roll with the sorry economy in the food business is to recreate a new arm of my business. Stay busy. Busy. Busy. I am sure I will never retire. Also, I have to keep paying for the vacations I love to take all the time. My money tree in the back yard got blight with the tomatoes. Darn blight!

Been writing lots of new poetry, and flash fiction. Sending out work. Reading lit magazines and studying poetry form. So much for my boring life. How is yours?

Hubby came home from his trip safely before the snow hit, and I finally got some of the kids photos put on a disk. It took me ten years to want to look at photos of Anelisa. Sure they sit around the condo on shelves, but she in in my mind, my dreams, and that has been enough. Lots of dreams lately. I shared with Bagman that I had a dream I was running.

Yes. Running. Like the kind where I am in shorts and a t-shirt, and I have my New Balance shoes on! I used to bike 20 miles a day. Run every other day. Play racket ball, and swim any chance I could. I ran two businesses, and had the body of...well, I did not know what I had until I gained weight. I am not giving up believe me! No quitter lives in this body! The last ten years just took more out of me than I ever had to deal with before. When I woke up from the running dream the other night...I fell off the bed. I told Bagman that I woke up and felt refreshed. So if I can run in my mind. I can still run.

















I hope no parent out there ever has to go through with what I did for fourteen years of my life. Then another ten without her.





















Man, did she have skinny legs! So did Aaron. Runs in the family. They used to call me bean pole with chicken legs. Go ahead and laugh, I am.





















Oh this is a good one. Miss Priss (yeah, she did not get that from me), and Mr. Rawhide. Yep, he went through his cowboy phase. Dad would not let him have toy guns though. I had a good laugh when he began running around shooting with his fingers. He showed his dad! Then he went through his 'Bono' phase. He saw me watching U2 Rattle and Hum video, and began mimicking singing with his pretend microphone.

Yep, I was a hairdresser, free thinking seventies woman, and said "Yes, you can grow your beautiful blonde locks to your rear end". Well, I have that pic somewhere, and he is already mad at me for posting these on facebook, so just use your imagination for now. A few years later he  began to play soccer, well that took care of the hair in a pony tail phase. His friends told him he looked like a girl, and he asked me to cut it off. So I did.

Then many years later he came home with a dragon tattoo on his chest that goes down his arm. Yep, they do that. But, when he came home to visit the year before last. He turned 21, and had a new tattoo. This time it was his sisters name on his wrist, along with her birthday, and the day she passed.

We took walks when I was visiting him this past month. We talk about how he runs. One day I will run along side him like we used to do together when he was younger in these pictures.

Baby steps is what I have had to take for now, and I am going to go take a few now, and load up my car.

Enjoy your day. Smile. Wave at someone, and enjoy the pics of my babies.

I did, when I finally dusted off the box, and looked at each one. I cried, but it was tears of joy.

Oh, and Bagman, thanks for the inspiration of this weeks 'Muse Monday'!

8 comments:

Liz Mays said...

Thank you for sharing this with us and for showing us your beautiful angel, Anelisa. (((hugs)))

I had no idea how busy you are. You just have one project after the next going! I'm amazed!!! Have fun today!

Rachel Cotterill said...

Have fun with the TV! :)

Jessie Carty said...

Beautiful post today E. I still have trouble looking at pictures of my Mom. Just wondering about the what if's but mostly I just remember how loving she was in the 17 years she was a part if my life :) hugs to you!

Chef E said...

Jessie- Thanks, and sorry to hear about your mom. My parents also passed four years after Ane, so it was hard for me. Biggest reason I left Texas, I had to start over, and so far other little battles, but I am for the most part happy.

Thanks everyone- her birthday is March 1st, so I begin to think of her till July 14th, and it rushes back...

Just telling it like it is said...

Hey beautiful I thought of you the other day whilst cooking...I hope your good...hugs

farmlady said...

This was a very brave and beautiful post. Thank you sweetie.

Bagman and Butler said...

Great old shots! Good luck with the business.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad that I clicked on your name from Jessie Carty's blog... I can tell this will be a regular stop for required reading.

Food, family, poetry. You write from the heart, you blog from the heart, and I bet you cook from the heart, too.

You've won a lifelong fan on the strength of this post alone. I watched my parents lose a son (as I lost a brother), and I just recently lost my dad. My first book will be released soon, which deals with the loss of my brother, who I only was able to write about seventeen years later. I'm allowing myself to write about my father already (he passed in December).

Our individual responses to loss are unique. I know from watching my parents after my brother's death that to simply to survive the loss of a child is a miracle in itself. One never forgets; one never recovers. One simply goes on, wounded. It's outside the natural order of things. There's no process or formula to deal with it, because it is just not supposed to happen, and no word of support anyone can offer means anything, really. You're appreciative, yes... but only you know what you really feel. So I'll just say this- for surviving - for, from what I see, thriving, bravo.

Not sure where everything I just typed came from... Did your blog turn into the therapy couch? I guess you pulled it out of me... the mark of a good writer.

I'll be back. :)

Best,


Bryan Borland