I helped my parents move this weekend… in the snow. They are moving to the Sierra Mountains, up by Yosemite. So we dragged my mom’s paintings and my dad’s tools through the muddy paths lined with three feet of snow. It was unpleasant, dirty, cold, and did I mention unpleasant? I do not recommend moving in the snow if you can help it.

To get to their new house, I took a three-hour drive through California farmlands, through Stockton and Escalon and Oakdale and other rural parts of California. On the way, I passed fields of fruit trees all ruffled and frothy in their spring blossoms. That was the best part of the weekend.

On Sunday, I planted some spinach. It’s probably too early, but the back of the package says to plant in early spring, and everywhere I look, it seems to be spring. The daisies I planted last year seeded and my garden is full of baby daisy blossoms, along with crocus and stock and sorrel. After that, I spent hours pruning the rose bushes in the backyard while listening to an audiobook by DH Lawrence on my iPod. There’s something so satisfying about snipping away dead branches to make room for new growth.

Gawker pointed me to Granta’s list of Best Young American Novelists. Apparently, the last time this was done was in 1996, a list that…

anointed such under-35 literary stars as Jonathan Franzen, Lorrie Moore, Mona Simpson, Edwidge Danticat, Sherman Alexie, and Jeffrey Eugenides, while also selecting a few who slunk into obscurity, and neglecting to select several—including one, A.M. Homes, who was a judge for this year’s selection—who have gone on to critical and, sometimes, commercial acclaim.

The new list includes people like ZZ Packer, Jonathan Safran Foer and wife, and Gary Shteyngart, as well as a lot of people I heaven’t heard of. You can see a short bio of each winner here.

Lists like this rub me the wrong way. There’s just something so elitist and strange about them in general. And I don’t know how I feel about praising people’s accomplishments simply because they are young.

Also, a lot of these people don’t live/weren’t born in the U.S.

Even odder: Most of them haven’t published novels yet.

As part of my continuing attempt to make each writing day unique, I wrote on the roof today. It was warm up there and pretty comfortable. Plus, I like being up high.

Thoughts I had while on the roof:

Wow, neat!

I have no place to set my diet pepsi.

The landlord probably wouldn’t like this.

I could almost pretend that I live in a New England village up here, if it weren’t for that stupid palm tree.

It’s getting kind of hot. I am glad I put on sunscreen.

I wonder if I could sit on the chimney.

The neighbor’s cat sounds creepy when it meows, like someone stepped on its voice box.

If I sat on the chimney, I would be like Fiddler on the Roof, only I would be writing. Writer on the Roof.

I need to blow my nose. Why didn’t I bring some tissue?

If I were a Rich Man… Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

Didn’t Madonna or someone lame cover that song? Oh yeah, Gwen Stefani. What was up with that?

All day long I’d biddy biddy bum.

I really need to blow my nose. How do I get down?

I mean, even if I fell, it’s not like I could get hurt from this height.

Ok, ok, I am not a cat. I got up here, I can get down.

That was fun. I don’t know what it did for my writing, but I will probably go back up this afternoon.

Lately, my days seem sunk in routine and feel like they are running together. So my goal for March is to stamp each day with something to makes it unique and stand out in my head. This can be something small or big. It doesn’t matter, really, as long as it’s memorable.

Today’s thing (don’t laugh): I made carrot soup.

Normally, I wouldn’t make a recipe like this. For one thing, I am not a soup person. For another, Kyle hates carrots, so making this soup means I will be eating it by myself. And on top of that, it’s a vegan recipe, which in my experience tend to be bland and kind of gross. But this soup turned out delicious with just the right balance of flavors.

I got the recipe from Pound, Wendy McClure’s blog. She is on a (vegan) soup kick. Of course, I doctored it a bit and made it non-vegan by adding chicken stock instead of water and I made it more fattening by adding extra peanut butter and I made it bad for your body overall by adding more salt than is called for. The result? Less good for you, more delicious.

My doctored recipe:

Spicy Carrot Peanut Soup

• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• 2 pounds carrots, peeled and thinly sliced (about 6 cups)
• 1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon Italian parsley
• 1 fresh stemmed and chopped chili
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 4 cups chicken stock (you can use vegetable stock or water to keep this vegetarian)
• 2 cups water
• 3.5 tablespoons peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon salt
• pepper

In a soup pot on medium heat, warm the oil and add the onions, carrots, celery, parsley, chili, and garlic. Saute on high heat for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the water/broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft, about 25 minutes.

Stir in the peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, salt, and pepper. In a blender, puree the soup in batches. Reheat if necessary. Serve with lime slices as garnish.

It’s really very good!

What made your day unique?