Posts made in February, 2009

The Ballad of (a) Reading Gaol Vacation

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 13, 2009 in Reading | 4 comments

With apologies to dear Oscar Wilde. And of course I mean “reading” and not “Reading” as in “Reading, Berkshire.” Although I would love to visit Reading, Berkshire one day. Barring the gaol, of course.

Anyway. Starting today I am on a reading vacation for the rest of the month. No writing, just reading. This morning I collected, from library and bookstore, a stack of eight beautiful books to start me off—seven novels and 1434 by Gavin Menzies, subtitled “The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.” Who could resist that?

Stay tuned for reviews and comments.

Fortune Cookie Fortune

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 12, 2009 in Fortune, Life | Comments Off

Tonight I had yummy Szechuan chicken with vegetables and brown rice. And a fortune cookie. The fortune read:

“A romantic mystery will soon add interest to your life.”

I have tacked it to my bulletin board and decided that I believe fervently in fortune cookie fortunes.

The Cloud Moon

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 10, 2009 in Moons, Stargazing, Weather | 4 comments

The February full moon was last night. As you can see, the February stargazing score is now clouds two, Elizabeth zero—all I saw was a fuzzy-looking disk (no, that’s not the camera, it’s the clouds) high over the gables of our house. This full moon is usually called the Snow Moon or Hunger Moon. Colonial Americans called it the Trapper’s Moon and in medieval England it was sometimes called the Storm Moon. The Chinese refer to it as the Budding Moon (and some of our trees are already budding—it’s in the seventies today, although we’re under a tornado watch at the moment) and the Celts called it the Ice Moon. This year I’m calling it the Cloud Moon!

Garden Dreaming

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 9, 2009 in Gardening, History, The Five Senses | Comments Off

We’re in “zone 8” here along the Elm Fork of the Trinity, which means our last frost-free date is in early April. Time for me to start thinking about my garden for 2009! I do love my garden, although I’m not quite as intense about it as Isabella was about her pot of basil!

I always start with a salad garden—tomatoes, red and gold peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. The garden plot is a twelve-foot square divided into four quarters: one quarter for the tomatoes, one for the peppers, one for the cukes and one for the lettuce. The cukes and the lettuce I’ll grow from seed. I’ll buy plants for the tomatoes and peppers. Mmmm—tomatoes fresh out of the garden. There is nothing like them.

I like to plant herbs in containers, in nooks and crannies around the yard, and in the salad garden between the vegetable sections. This year I want oregano and a couple of types of basil, dill and mint, Italian parsley and cilantro, some thyme and sage and mint and lavender, plus chamomile and lemon balm for teas. I have to admit that I don’t cook with fresh herbs as much as I probably should, but I love growing them because they’re so fragrant. And they’re infused with so much history. When I pick leaves of thyme and sage and lavender and breathe in their scents, I feel as if I’m part of a long, long line of women who’ve grown and used herbs back to the dawn of time.

So a “Blue Period” Might Not be Such a Bad Thing…

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 6, 2009 in Creativity, The Five Senses | Comments Off

Ran across this in my travels around the Internet this morning:

Color Me Creative

Now they just have to start testing more colors, like, oh, fuchsia, or chartreuse, or (my favorite) turquoise.