Chickens or a disposal

So….how are you?  I have 45 minutes until Game of Thrones, there’s nothing else on TV at the moment (I mean really who watches Big Brother?),the dishes are done, the floors are cleaned, so I have a couple of minutes to say hey.

Hey.

Life is moving along, as life tends to do.  I have a big event this week, New Faculty Orientation, which is me using a bunch of my meeting planning skills.  So it’s all good cause I know how to do that.  I’ve been working a lot getting ready.  I’ve gone in the past two Saturdays but it’s fine because so far weekends are loonnngg.  I’m not particularly sad about the looonngg weekends, which are long because I have absolutely nothing to do, but I would rather stay busy so I don’t mind going in on a Saturday as needed.

Perhaps you think, why Lynn you could go to the beach, couldn’t you?  And I could, and I do…sometimes.  Last week I went to New Smyrna beach.  It’s an adorable little town, cute beach houses but it’s deceiving cause when you park on the cute little streets, in between the cute little houses and walk on the cute little walkways you get to this clearing and the beach is HUGE with all those cars on it.  I’m telling you I don’t like it.  I don’t like it one bit.  BUT I do like the ocean. Last week I went to read my book and ended up talking on the phone for 2 hours, but at least I was beach side.  There is a difference, I may have mentioned a thousand times, between the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean.  The Gulf is like a lake, the ocean is BIG.  Well anyway, I didn’t go to the beach today as I got caught up in cleaning floors and then I made myself a delicious quiche for dinner.

See?

Know what’s the most exciting part of that?  It’s a new quiche/pie dish.  I have been living with 3 pans for months – even last summer.  One cast iron skillet, one saucepan and one Dutch Oven thingy.  Well anyway, it’s all I need until I decided I wanted to make myself a quiche.  Mostly I wanted to make it because I can freeze it and take it for lunches…and it’s delicious.  So anyway, my first pie pan.  Now I want to go and buy a casserole dish and make a sheet cake.  But I won’t.  At least not today.  But I feel like it’s a step towards the new me.  A new pie pan.  I love it.  I don’ t love pies but I love my new pie pan.

I’ve been thinking about what I absolutely would want if I had one of those perfect tiny houses, like what would I really have to have…given the option to have what I wanted.  I’ve decided, since I don’t have chickens, I need a garbage disposal.  I try to save most of my scraps for broth.  A trick Jean taught me.  Throw those scraps in the freezer and when you’re ready to make broth use the scraps for flavor.  But I haven’t made much broth lately and my freezer is overflowing with scraps.  Julia, my boss here, has a couple of chickens.  I tried saving scraps for her chickens but it got kinda gross taking them into the office then we were both sure they would be forgotten somewhere and rot in the back of a car.  Well anyway, in Florida there are so many bugs, it’s so hot and I just want a cleaner way to get rid of scraps…a garbage disposal is now on my “have-to-have” list.  See the things you think about when there is nothing else going on in your life?

I’ve also been thinking about funerals…or lack thereof.  As you know Lori died.  To my knowledge no funeral, she’s been cremated and I believe her Dallas friends are going to put together a memorial.  My sister in law’s mother died last night.  It’s sad.  I’m sad for her.  But again no traditional funeral.  They’ll plan something for sure but no funeral home. Jimmy’s uncle just died too. No service was planned for him either, nothing at all there. Not even a memorial planned.  It’s a weird trend isn’t it?  Back in the day it was almost always a 3 day viewing, church service, cemetery.  Even my dad, who was cremated, was in the funeral home for the service, then taken to be cremated, AFTER the service.  There are so many different religious rituals. I think the three-day thing is mainly catholic or Christian and has something to do with the belief in resurrection.  My memory is fuzzy though, its been over 10 years since I studied that kind of thing.  I often wonder how I ended up studying so much death and dying, and then not to remember any of it..but it did lead me to hospice soooo, and as soon as I get this office job into a steady rhythm I’ll get back to that hospice work.

Anyway, I think I miss the tradition of a funeral ritual.  Not that I could fly all over the country to attend the funerals but it’s kind of nice to have the option to think about whether to go or not.  It’s something I grew up with and it’s a way to get closure, give support to the family and be with friends.  But times they are a changing.  And a new tradition is perhaps emerging.  And then there is what is a life worth business my brother and I were talking about today.  Like when your grandmother dies, or your mother who lives in your grandparents house lets say, and you have all these boxes of pictures that were somebody to someone at one point, and dishes, and letters and the next generations come and throw it all out because they have absolutely no connection to it.  My mother, my blind mother, got a little upset because I moved a piece of Lennox that she had placed on a table, that I was afraid would get knocked over, and she couldn’t see anyway, and I put it in the china cupboard and she was upset because I moved it. But some old old relative gave it to my grandparents for their 50^th wedding anniversary (and I was there for that anniversary) and it obviously meant a lot to my mother.  One day soon it will end up at the Goodwill.  And that’s just sad.

That’s why you should buy your cookware at Publix and not Williams and Sonoma because it’s going to end up in the Goodwill anyway. LoL…How did this take a turn to the depressing so fast.

And that’s about all that’s on my mind these days.  Work, death, bugs, beaches and new cookware.  And now it’s time for Game of Thrones.

xoxoxo