I’m going to do something different today.

When I was in high school I read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf for the first time. I remember thinking, “Holy crap. This is exactly what is happening to my brain, all the time, and this is WAAAAAAY more interesting to read than 17th century poetry or trying to figure out what the overall meaning of Tess of the d’Urbervilles is.” For those of you who don’t know, Mrs. Dalloway is written in stream of consciousness — or a stream of continuous thoughts. Very little time passes between sentences, chapters, the entire book, really.

It was kind of like blogging in the early 20th century.

So today, instead of structuring my post in the way I usually do — photo, anecdote, recipe, photo, analysis — I’m going to give you a glimpse into what goes on in my sometimes sane, sometimes crazy, sometimes hormonal, sometimes flawed, sometimes creative, sometimes tired, sometimes energetic, all the time whatever piece of mind. (I’m going to put random pictures in here, too, to spice things up.)

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I do things other than eat and take pictures. Though, let’s be honest, living a life with only eating and taking pictures for me would be pretty sweet.

I like to take long walks when my knee is having a good day. Sometimes with Chris. Sometimes alone.

I like planning things. If I’m going on vacation I like to have a rough itinerary of what to do and where to go and what the best things to see are. I have a really hard time relaxing. I always need to be doing something. I can’t sit and read a book for more than an hour unless it’s a real page turner.

I had a really fun time planning my wedding, but I think I’d rather plan someone else’s.

I am currently listening to country music. I’m positive that about 98.9% of you just winced at that. I’m not a diehard country music fan, but I think that this type of music is good relaxing background music. I also may have gotten used to it when I was in high school and college because it’s what my mom and sister listen to. I do not care for the twangy slow songs, but I do enjoy the songs sung about beer, preferably by Kenny Chesney. Speaking of, Kenny, if you’re out there, let’s go sip some beers down in Mexico, because that would be pretty sweet.

I only like the beginnings of seasons. Actually, I only like the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter. I like all of fall and spring. Mid-summer I want to die and probably will due to the cancer my fair skin has absorbed from the sun during my life. Mid-winter I also want to die, but for lack of sunlight and being buried by sweaters and snow. I’m pretty sure I don’t belong in New England, but rather, in Napa Valley, where it’s always 80 degrees and dry. Humidity is the bane of my existence.

I used to write in a Livejournal. It still exists. You can try to find it if you want, but I will not freely share the link to it. It’s pretty amusing, but also incredibly humiliating to read what I thought when I was 15. The fact that I had friends astounds me. The fact that boys were attracted to me astounds me. The fact that I majored in English and Communications really astounds me because I made up half the words I wrote in those entries. I have also noticed that I was overly concerned about my math homework, well, homework in general.

I bring up the Livejournal thing because I was reading it the other day and actually came across an entry about my knee. To my surprise I wrote about my knee frequently. Have I mentioned on here that my knee has actually been messed up since I was a teenager? I was diagnosed with a patellar tracking disorder when I was about 14, and I don’t think it ever went away completely. When I was younger, my kneecap used to slip out of place easily. Over time the condition got better, I think, because my quad muscles got stronger when I became more active. So I pushed my knee problem to the back of my brain, actually quite literally forgetting the annoyance it caused me years ago. But, falling on it back in October royally messed it up and caused my quad to atrophy, and the condition to resurface, in full, painful force.

I think it’s incredibly interesting how memory works, oftentimes to protect us. I also think it’s interesting to compare how two people in the same place at the same time remember an incident or event — they are often drastically different. Chris and I will sometimes bring up memories from our past — many times one of us won’t even remember the event or thing the other is talking about — or details, or even people we remember we were with are completely different. There was actually one time where my father-in-law brought up a memorable scene in a play I was in during high school, but I did not remember the scene, or what my character was, or what the play was even called. It was a surreal moment, because the rest of Chris’s family could recall that play vividly, but I had absolutely no memory of it, and still to this day cannot remember the scene they were talking about. Weird. But I’ll always remember a lot of things — the first time I stepped into Chris’s house, the first time our eyes locked, the day my grandfather died, my Dad squeezing my arm before he walked me down the aisle, the first day of first grade …. the list is continuous and could go on for pages and pages and pages.

The birds always sing. It’s something I notice when I’m in any and all kinds of moods. When I’m happy I think, “oh you dainty and beautiful little birds, you know just exactly how I feel right now!” When I’m sad I think, “at least someone is happy and knows how to brighten my day, you dainty little birds, you.”

Up is not a sad movie. It’s a realistic movie (in terms of love and relationships, not the floating house thing). It’s what happens in life. It’s perfect and beautiful and hilarious and both adults and kids can watch it, relate to it, and love it.

I like the mountains and lakes better than the ocean. This might be because I grew up taking vacations on lakes near the mountains. I like standing next to the ocean on cooler days when no one is on the beach, or at sunset, but crowded beaches in the hot summer sun don’t appeal to me. But I think the desert is beautiful. I loved the dryness and open gentle rolling fields of Napa and would love to go to New Mexico or Arizona and see the sunset on dry desert land….or over the Grand Canyon.

I became an aunt recently (hooraaaaaay!) Creating life is remarkable and magical. I don’t mean this in a religious sense. I’m not religious, and understand that the process is very scientific, but also amazing. Science is amazing.

My nephew has red hair. My family is starting to roll their eyes at the amount of times I have mentioned this with glee, but I am the only person in my family — for generations — that has red hair. My brother is married to a redhead, and I was curious to see whether or not he carried the gene — and ta daaaaaa! Red hair is a unique feature of mine that I have been proud of since I knew that it marked me as different from most people. I was never teased or taunted as a kid for having a different color hair, but maybe it’s because I was so loud and proud about it. I hope he is, too. I also can’t wait until my niece and nephew are a little older so I can stuff them full of delicious cookies!

Sometimes I do not want to cook and it mostly has to do with the fact that nothing appeals to me except for white bread and chocolate. This is bad. There are days I crave vegetables, and that’s easy enough, because then I just eat a plate of vegetables for dinner. But there are days where I hate absolutely every single kind of food in the world, yet I’m hungry. Those days I end up eating eggs on toast, which is completely un-blog-able and frustrating. I also wish I had a large budget — big enough for nice cheese (riiight??? Brie and goat cheese make me really happy). But…food is getting more expensive. I used to budget 80 – 100 dollars a week for grocery items (this includes household goods like soap and toilet paper, too), but the past 6 months I’ve been “overspending” by about 20 bucks each week, but not getting anything different from a year ago. The conclusion here is that I need to cut things, or bump up the budget. It’s frustrating.

Speaking of blogging, thank you for reading. I do this for my avid readers, and only you guys. I don’t do a lot of giveaways or feature/review products on here. It’s done a lot. I like keeping this blog about me and the food I make and the stupid stories I tell to go along with it. Sponsors make things complicated. I like simple.

I like being connected. But I also like being disconnected. I still do not own a smart phone. This makes many jaws drop and loud gasps across the galaxy. There are a few reasons behind this — money being the main one (still pretty poor over here). But I also know that once I get one, there’s no going back. I will be consumed forever. Also, the two reasons I want one are for live tweeting and maps. I can and do live without those. But man, having a map at my fingertips would be really handy for ALL OF THE TIMES I get lost — which is lots.

But really, do you ever notice how unpopular you are after a week of being away on vacation? Once people know you are unreachable, they stop trying to get a hold of you. And you come back checking your inboxes expecting 8 trillion messages…only to find about five….half of them spam…

Diet coke is bad. I’m aware of this. I drink it anyway. Too much exposure to the sun is bad. I’m aware of this. I put sunscreen on, but still not enough, and frequently still forget to put it on the part in my hair. I understand this is bad.

I’m a really, really, really, really, big fan of Patrick Stewart. I’m going to the Star Trek convention in Boston next week (if any of you are going please tell me so we can meet up. If you aren’t, you should. If you don’t like Star Trek, you are missing out.) He’s the best of the captains in all of the shows. I’m extremely disappointed he won’t be at the convention, but George Takei will be there, so that will (mostly) make up for it. This is also my first convention … ever. I’m really eager to meet other diehard fans, and see the costumes. Oh man. I can’t wait to see the costumes.

Why do people eat cheese that smells like stinky feet? I love cheese, but this I don’t understand.

I’m slowly but surely becoming more serious about photography. I even made a portfolio online to showcase what I’ve done (check it). I’ve shot engagement pictures this past year, and am shooting my first wedding in July. This is all very exciting, nerve-wracking, and surreal. Sometimes I shock myself at how my pictures come out. “Oh…I did that?” I never give myself enough credit. I also want to take a class this year to polish my skills. I’m slowly getting more equipment, too — like a real flash. Like I said, I have a hard time bragging about myself, mainly because I’ve had a hard time realizing that photography takes a little bit of skill. I recently met someone who has a knack for drawing, but can’t take pictures. Some people can draw. They can make their hands move in a way where a picture comes alive. I cannot. Some people can take pictures. They can frame something and look at the lighting and look at the background and position the subjects and push the button. It makes my heart skip and eyes flutter. I’ve come a long way since I started, and I’m still working at it. I like knowing that I’m still learning and growing. I think it’s important to do that your entire life.

Why did gluten-free and veganism blow up in the food industry in the past few years? Are we all suddenly allergic to gluten? And why would you ever want to give up cheese? Why!! At the same time, when I go out to eat, a lot of restaurants do not have good vegetarian options. I am not a vegetarian, but try to order vegetarian when I go out because meat doesn’t sit that well with me anymore. But no one is creative. Veggie burgers and sad salads are what they have to offer. Give me more tofu-based dishes or portabello burgers or baked sweet potatoes stuffed with a delicious black bean salad….get creative, people. This is the main reason I don’t go out to eat a lot. That, and the ones that do vegetarian options correctly are overpriced.

I was wondering today how me and my four siblings stayed thin in our childhood even when we frequently ate Little Debbie snack cakes and ice cream and white bread and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then I also remembered that a game we used to play as children was to run laps in our basement. Yes. Yes we thought it was fun to all run until we couldn’t run anymore. The last person running won the game. Maybe that had something to do with it.

I’m pretty sure I would be slightly happier if I had a cat, more importantly, if I wasn’t allergic to them. People keep telling me to get the allergy shot for that…or to move. The allergy shot scares me, and we’re in our current apartment that doesn’t allow pets for one more year.

I just looked at the length of this entry, and though I have more I could ramble on about, I’ll leave it at that.

Maybe I’ll do another one of these in a few weeks

In the meantime, be cool, and stay cool.

Love,

CW