buying a chicken

One thing that I have decided to do sometime this year is to buy a chicken. I know that this sounds crazy to most folks, but really it is something that I have wanted to do for a long time now. And what really sealed this for me was meeting Jenny, my friend who has had a chicken for a long time now and she had a brutally honest discussion with me about this.

I have researched this for a while now and I need to do the following:
1. build a coop... (dad has a 10X20 ft kennel run that would be great) I need to build an elevated coop to keep the roost off of the ground. I also need to build a nesting box to keep her out of the elements and to provide privacy when she wants it
2. find a poultry farm that sells laying hens... ( I am sure that I can find one through a local feed store) (avg price is $3 per hen)
3. make her feel right at home and if I am successful at this she will provide me with a bounty of eggs (2-3) per day!

I am really looking forward to yet ANOTHER way to instill good values in my daughter and living as naturally as possible is a great lesson!

I will be able to kiss goodbuy all the EggLands best that we have been buying for years now!!! LOL

After watching "Julie and Julia"

Today I took my 8 year old daughter to see "Julie and Julia". It was a cute movie.. but more than that it was wonderful to see my daughter beam as she began an interest in Julia Child.



Prior to veiwing this movie I am sure that she had no idea who Julia Child was. She could not believe that there were wonderfully entertaining Chefs prior to Rachel Ray and Paula Dean! She came home and had lots to tell my mom about the life and qoutations of Julia Child. She is a mini-me. She loves to learn about interesting people.

We have decided that we need quiche for dinner soon! AND who knows, we might just start to cook our way through a cookbook. Does anyone have any good ideas or recommendations?

I have a great cookbook called "Calling all Cooks" it was written by the wives of the early employees of Southern Bell. It is HUGE, and unlike Julie Powell, I do not think that we will try EVERY recipe. Just the ones that look good to us.

I am seriously needing to lose 50lbs A LOT more than I need to cook my way through a cookbook, but I do desperately need something to be excited about.. I think that the weightloss will follow as soon as I can bust out of this rut that I am squeezed into.

Stay tuned and I will let you know if and what we have decided to try!

Ice Cream for breakfast

As many of you know I am constantly fighting the battle of the bulge. I have been doing remarkably well, that is until the past two days.....

As a thirtysomething woman, my hormones seem to be in full swing and currently working against me.

Last week, while swimming laps in the YMCA pool, I noticed how tender my breasts were. I wrote it off as a side effect of being relatively new to excercise. Then came the tell tale hormone headache that I get this time every month. Finally, out of nowhere, I craved ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST!!!!

Ice cream for breakfast is NEVER a good idea, it leaves me feeling like hell for the rest of the day... but today the hormones won the battle.... hopefully I will win the war!

Please keep me in your prayers. I need all of the strength and encouragement that I can get, as I am battle the beast of obesity.

Namaste!

photo credit: QT Luong (source terragalleria.com)

SOS SOS I see the light on the horizon

Is it possible to live your whole life slightly less than content?

I have a lovely daughter, a secure job (if that is even possible today) and so far I have my health. But still, still, still, I look to the horizon. Like a castaway on an island so far from land...I look, I think I see the blinking light of a saviour ship, and I swim..... just when I reach the break, the highest, strongest, roughest waves, I let the first few beat me down, then I turn back to the safety of the island that I have known for sooooooo long. I know the nooks and crannies of my island, I know the coconuts, the palms, the banyans... and it is a beautiful place, an amazing place, but it is lonely and I wonder about the blinking ship. I want the blinking ship...how do I reach it? How do I get past the break??? How do I trust in my own self enough to make it through the rough tide? AND am I scared to death where the ship will take me...???? of course I am!

I am too young for a mid-life crisis, and too old for a quarter-life crisis... what gives.. does anyone else ever come up for a breath and think...WTF, is this it?

I will keep you posted on my journey... for now I am just practicing the swimming and working on holding my breath a little longer every day... training for the voyage...

what's turns you on?

I pose the age old question of "what turns you on?", after watching Vickie Christina Barcelona. In the movie Christina has no idea what she wants or what turns her on... when pressed she cannot reply... all she know is what she doesn't want.

I pondered on this as I watched through the eyes of the Movie columnist that I "should" have been. How easy it is for us to focus on what we don't want, giving soooooo much power to that...

I want a simple life, with simple pleasures... a completely sensual existence.. with delicious smells, sounds, sights, feelings... SENSUAL... not to be confused with SEXUAL. Don't get me wrong that too, has a place in the ideal, but sex is easy. But to be stimulated on many different levels is rather challenging.

My turn ons are :
great light
great wine
even a mediocre massage
a man's cologne... (careful guys don't over do this one)
intellect
a man who is well read
a man who can and DOES cook
openness to the whole concept of faith and serendipity
kindness
skin
appreciation of the arts
travelling
confidence without cockiness
good oral hygiene
waking up early
eating fresh foods
preserving the world around us... even just a bit
the perfect vodka martini
palindromes
ect ect ect ect

everyone's list is different, but be perfectly clear in what you do want, not just what you don't. I believe that Eckhart Tolle is right in that the Universe is receptive to your energy and that it does not understand the "negative intention"... in other words you can't go around thinking "I don't want to be fat", or "I do not want to date idiots"... or you will foster fatness and idiots...because the whole negative is disregarded. You reap what you sow.

God told Adam to "sow, cultivate and protect"... how much of this do we do intrinsically?

So I am writing this blog as a reminder of what I do want.... please let him show up before I am too old to enjoy it!

Namaste!

Approximately 25,000 Sunrises

I was watching tv this morning and saw a commercial that said we all have apporximately 25,000 sunrises in our lifetimes. This was interesting information for me, as I am very analytical in typical virgo fashion. I like the black and white, cold facts type of girl...

25,000 sunrises ...hmmm

This sunrise was very dreary here in the Florida panhandle... lots of clouds followed by subsequent torrential rain. There came a break in the rain around 2:00pm, so I took out the 4 dogs that make up my pack... then noticed that there were several cars at my neighbors house. Cars that I have only noticed in the past 3 weeks coming and going, but never all there at the same time... then I further noticed that the American flag that they proudly display was at half-mass. I concluded that this must have been his 25,000 sunrise.. or sunset as this case may be.

I am sooooo grateful on this day for my sunrise... even if it were so yucky outside. I am so glad to be alive. I have spent many many days in the shadows letting this life pass me by. For those of you that know me, you know that I have just in the past 2 weeks decided to grab the reins of my life. I let myself go over the past 7 years. I think that it started when I was abandoned by shitty boyfriend while I was pregnant, then he became even shittier father. Enter in a few tradgic relationships with men that I really did not want.... days became months became years... and thank God that my sunrises did not abruptly end during this time. I want to live Live LIve LIVe LIVE!!!! I want to keep my eye on the prize... the life and love that I hope the universe sends me.. I am really really putting in the work... I hope to reap the benefits.

I have not done the math to find out what number sunrise I am on, but I suspect that I have a lot more ahead of me.

Thank you for reading... Jules

i am new to this site

I hope that this blog page generates some readers.. I am getting some traffic on my myspace blog. I mean, this blogging thing is totally for me, but there is some narsistic part that enjoys knowing that someone somewhere is reading what I have to say. Also, I need to find some blogs to subscribe to, so if you are out there blogging, let me know... I will read!