Late Morning Musings

I tried to get up before the noise of the day. Because of my lack of sleep it was hard to get out of bed. I tossed and turned through the night, and every sound woke me. I was not in pain, I was just restless. Today was to be a good day, with a visit from a friend on the schedule, a healthy lunch to prepare, and some scones to bake off in the morning before she came over.

I wanted to get some writing in this morning, in the dark with my candle and a small lamp behind me lit just enough that I would not squint. The words would not come. I typed and typed, and deleted and deleted, the stories that I thought that I would write about just would not come fully to the surface. I imagine there will always be days like that. So instead of getting frustrated I just got in the shower, and then dressed for the day.

While I was showering my friend wrote me that she had a terrible migraine that kept her up all night and although she tried to drive over, she had to turn back home. Of course as disappointed as I was I understood completely. I wished her well and asked her to text me when she got home, and was back inside her house.

Truth be told as much as I wanted her to come and for me to be the perfect host, I was wishing that I could just go back to bed. I did not go back to sleep, I stayed up made coffee and got on the computer with my co-writing accountability buddies over on London Writers’ Salon and here I am. I am here for 50 joyful minutes while I read the Monday morning essay and listen to the Soul Sparks from Beth Kempton’s Soul Circle, a subscription only group on Substack that is amazing. Each Monday we have a new essay for the week to dive into. She is also hosting a free course for anyone who would like to learn more about Substack- Write for Love, Write for Money February 2-9. You can sign up on her website and for more information about her and her other courses.

Somedays, we just need to wake up slower, and get into the day in our own way. Without a clock to dictate when we should rise. We are in Winter after all. A time of rest as it should be. Today on Instagram is day 4 of #tinywinterpoem and today’s prompt was Pudding.

While I was in bed still I reached for my phone and in the notes I typed this.

Pudding

Butterscotch

Chocolate

Vanilla

Rice

Mom made on repeat

One type for the whole week!

One Cake

And one pudding

To last 7 days

Dessert in the 60’s

Family of 5

#tinywinterpoem

When I was fully awake I read it again and laughed. We used to get a choice ( not Dad of course he got both everyday!), if we wanted pudding or cake for dessert. I remember Mom painstaking cutting us a sliver of cake, or giving us one of the pretty glass pudding dishes from the fridge that was barely 1/2 full. Sometimes she would give us whipped cream on top and other times not. The cake was made with Dream Whip, plus she always used boxed mixes and frostings in a can. Something that I never did or do even now. I always make everything from scratch but those days making a cake from a mix was quick and easy, plus everyone was doing it. I just looked up the ingredients of Dream Whip and cringed as it contains Sodium Aluminosilicate. Not to mention that fact that EWG (ewg.org) overall score breakdown lists it as a 10.0 being the worst score! While I was in Germany I kept seeing these scores on all the foods everywhere. In the produce section nearly everything was labeled a 1.0 which was the best and as you went down the aisles you would see less desirable numbers for consumption. And remember in Europe most of our processed foods are banned, or made with less harmful ingredients.

In my first year of college, I think I have mentioned this before I hung out with a group of people who believed that we should never eat anything in the aisles of grocery stores. That we should go back to growing our food, and making meals with all fresh ingredients, and only purchase meats from local farms. So, I did. Then as the market allowed and Certified Organic foods became the rage I was already on board with all of that. At first the things I purchased were cheaper because less people wanted to deal with making fresh vegetables when they could purchase a case of canned ones and never worrying about them spoiling in the fridge. Even today as Americans, we throw away about 30% of what we purchase due to spoiling. I too am guilty of throwing away things but not 30% I can assure you of that. In fact I use an app called TooGoodToGo almost daily to see what is around my area of food that I can “save”. The food you get from a bakery for instance is leftover from the morning that they cannot sell the next day. I use the app for my local grocery store and I get things that are going to expire within the next few days that you either have to consume, cook, or freeze to use later on. For me it is a win-win. Besides it keeps me creative with my cooking.

I guess I did have something to write about after all. Enjoy your Monday!