Baby Anaheim Chile Pepper plant
Kyle’s chocolate Easter bunny–The Professor. He is reading a book!
Centerpiece with daisies from the yard
A not-so-good picture of a delicious dinner–herbed pork roll, roasted asparagus, risotto.
I wish wish wish I had taken a better picture of the best dessert I’ve ever made. The perfect strawberry cake, for real. Very proud of myself.
ETA: Oh my gosh, Kyle, get me this! Or this or this! Hooray!
Kyle’s newest TechTarget article is up: Data center consolidation, virtualization: Ultra-dense server deployments.
I have no idea what that means. Still, proud!
ETA: Also, this one: Lights out management: How to administer servers from the Bahamas. As far as I know, Kyle has never been to the Bahamas.
My husband has started referring to me as a happy person. I don’t think of myself that way because I used to be sort of unhappy, but I suppose these days, it’s true. Especially lately. Things are going well with my career and personal life and it fills me with joy (no pun intended).
As far as emotions go, they don’t get much better than joy. It is an extremely deep emotion, unlike happiness, which can be more fleeting and shallow. But joy is the counter-balance of depression, a combination of contentment and peace and happiness all at once. I believe it comes from God. It rocks.
One thing that is making me so happy is a steady flow of new projects that I’m interested in–articles about poetry, articles about writing, book reviews, and even a book contest that I have been asked to judge. I’ve never judged a contest before. Meanwhile, there are my own projects: My never ending novel, other possible book projects, short stories, essays, Word Pirate stuff, etc. Even my rejection letters are nicer than they’ve ever been with editors commenting to me personally about the quality of my work or idea and their regret at not being able to use it.
On top of that, I’ve been much more focused as a writer lately. Something happened to me about two weeks ago and I had a day where I was filled with a calm euphoria of concentration that kind of blew my mind. Although the feeling went away, it’s like I learned something from it and have been able to focus ever since. I’m not so jittery and inclined to goof off. I’m getting things done, and that makes me feel accomplished.
I’m starting to think that I was right in January when I decided that 2007 would be different from 2006. I allowed a lot of things to weigh me down last year without realizing it, and in December, I cut some things away and changed some bad habits. It is great to be reaping the fruit of the seeds I sowed back then.
Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom, golden in the green grass
This life can be.
Common as a dandelion-blossom, beautiful in the clean grass,
Not beautiful
Because common, beautiful because beautiful;
Noble because common, because free.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay
(Photo taken by Smicksy, who also made this awesome corset.)
Happy Easter!
Last night, Kyle and I went to Underwood to celebrate his signing a contract to write an update of Knoppix Hacks for O’Reilly. We sat at the bar and had a piece of chocolate layer cake and talked about my work, his work, and politics.
Underwood is a swanky place with an elaborate bar. As we were eating our cake, an exuberant and drunk guy came in with his buddy and ordered a stiff-looking drink. He was a farm worker or blue-collar worker with a dirty green sweatshirt and unwashed shoulder-length brown hair. After a little while, an older couple came in. They were in their 60s, well-dressed and refined, but with those little details that lets you know they were hippies back in the day–the man’s beard, the woman’s flowing skirt, her handmade fair-trade purse. They ordered wine and salads.
At some point, the drunk guy tried to engage the couple in conversation, but they were distant. So he held up his drink.
“Cheers,” he said.
They held up their drinks to toast him.
“Here’s to your snob and your attitude,” he said.
The old couple was not taken aback–they continued the toast.
“It’s gotten you pretty far, huh?” the guy said.
“Yes,” said the old hippie. “It has.”
The guy shrugged and began to talk to them about the Moody Blues and the Beatles and basically babbled about that until their salads came. Throughout the rest of the evening, he toasted them twice more and finally hugged them at the end of the evening before leaving. He was subtly horrifying them the whole time.
I don’t know what that guy was trying to do, but I think he won.
On Friday, my landlord butchered the fabulous quinces outside my office, turning them into nubs. Why? I don’t know. But he reminded me why I need my own house and my own yard.
Nevertheless, I gardened this weekend. I planted spinach and red poppies and chives and cilantro. I hung a hummingbird feeder on the window in the hopes of watching some hummingbirds while I write (so far no luck). I dug up half of the soil in my garden and turned it over so it would be ready when I plant the rest of my garden next week.
I also continued my battle against the swarm of aphids already taking up residence in the rose bushes. A couple of sources said that aphids don’t like the oil in citrus skins, so I boiled lemon skins in water and put the concoction in a spray bottle. It seemed to work–when I sprayed the lemon water on the roses, the aphids fell right off, and haven’t come back so far. And it smells kind of nice.
Despite the quince debacle, at least some nature is left in my yard. I turned over a bag I’d left out and discovered a reddish salamander underneath. I haven’t seen a salamander since I was a kid, so I was excited and had Kyle take a picture.
Salamanders are a lot more like baby snakes than I remember. They are also kind of slow-witted. He didn’t even try to get away. I put him in back in a moist place.