new project, new place: TheCottonwoodJournals.com
I’ve changed routes a bit and am now concentrating my efforts on writing. Thus, I’ve moved all of my stories to a new site and will be moving forward from there: TheCottonwoodJournals.com. Enjoy.
valentine breakfast
Valentine’s Day breakfast idea.
A few croissants, 1/2 cup honey, mascarpone + gruyere.
What a lovely way to start the morning.
quick and delicious salads
Gorgonzola Vinaigrette on Roasted Vegetables & Kamut Salad
Gruyère, Fennel & Apple Winter Salad
Some recent work collaborations with two of my favorite food journalists, Sara at SproutedKitchen.com and Ashley of NotWithoutSalt.com. These ladies are incredibly talented and simply lovely.
a home
Home is where the heart is. That’s what they always say, right?
Then let’s put our bodies in a home that makes our hearts sing.
Don’t you just love that pitter-patter, that quick loss of breath and that warm radiance that surrounds you?
photos from: ThatKindofWomen
the scientist & the poet
When I was little, I wanted to be a writer, when I grew up. A journalist and a news anchor, to be precise. Then a song writer.
I remember sitting out on our front porch in the summertime writing songs about life and love, the people I knew and the people I would meet. I wrote poetry. I wrote nearly every day and I loved every minute of it.
Then I found science. And we had a love affair. Biology was beautiful to me. I was infatuated with every lesson, from blood cells and mitochondria to molecules and genetics. It entranced me and I headed down a new road.
Surrounded by life sciences and chemistry at university, writing began to whisper in my ear once again. I started longing for empty days to ponder and admired the lack of certainty that came with artful expression.
Now I am a writer again. I write at work and I write here. So, as one would expect, science as recently come knocking at my door. We’ve chatted. We’ve laughed over memories and frowned at failures.
At 25, we seem to understand each other more. I will always love science and I will always be attached to poetry. And that is what I love about life.
off to the southwest…
Thankful for new adventures, good food and great people.
Happy Thanksgiving.
[photo credit: The Everywhere Project]
the woods
SOTD. Not new, but always a good one.
Just a little inspiration after a long, thoughtful and busy week. One more week until a much-needed trip to the southwest for Thanksgiving. Counting down the days. So ready for that sun. Searching for a little creativity, peace of mind, end-to-the-restlessness. Thankful for another day. Keeping lost loved ones in my heart.
wishful thinking.
Now that autumn colors have come and gone.
I find myself longing for warm summer nights.
let’s be wild: beneath the sea in isla culebra
A natural companion of the mountains rather than beaches, always preferring snow over water and often savoring the warmth of chunky sweaters and winter fires in lieu of shorts and sandals, I haven’t venture to many beaches, therefore have never gone snorkeling.
It was so foolish of me to not realize what I have been missing out on all of these years.
My perceptions drastically changed on a spring trip to Puerto Rico.
On LetsBeWild.com today, I acknowledge my budding passion for snorkeling.
where would you live?
If you could go anywhere, where would you live? Alaska?
On Arthur Pass in New Zealand?
In the rocky Lienzer Dolomites of Austria?
Alone in serene Iceland?
In the golden meadows of Kenya?
Rolling green mountains of Japan?
Peaceful Sweden?
Or closer to home, the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas?
Montana?
Oregon?
Colorado?
On Lake Huron?
It would be grand to live in each of these places for a portion of my time.
I’d eat salmon in Alaska and bath in the hot springs of Iceland.
I’d meet the people who have lived there for generations and hear their stories.
I’d walk the land, learn the sounds of the mountains, the animals and the changing of the seasons.
I’d be grateful and respectful of everyone and everyday.
[photo credit: freecabinporn.com]
weekend inspiration: magic
You know, I do believe in magic.
I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along.
When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.
After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.
That’s what I believe.
- Boy’s Life, Robert McCammon
recipes: autumn ardor
These ladies and these recipes are simply wonderful companions on a crisp autumn afternoon.
Pumpkin & Fried Sage Flatbread
Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies
Spiced Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk
Graham Cracker & Frosting Sandwiches
