a new chapter, for real… for good.

heya.

sorry i’ve been so scarce. i’ve been percolating. reflecting.

getting married.

i started a new blog, a new chapter for me. i hope to be there for a really long time. no more site-hopping. i have finally dug in my heels and made a home for myself on the internet.

www.mrsthor.com

i truly hope to see you there.

xo

amelia

a few words about weight loss.

i am following weight watchers, and have been since the end of july.

and i have lost over 30 pounds.

and, mercy me, have i consumed chocolate. and cookies, and pizza, and pie, and fudge, and pancakes, and chips, and kettle corn, and cinnamon rolls, and whoopie pies…and ice cream.

and i have eaten at texas roadhouse three times.

sometimes, when i consumed the aforementioned foods, it was carefully planned out and accounted for in advance. sometimes, i lost control and ate too many servings. sometimes i ate when i wasn’t hungry.

but every day, whether i freaking felt like it or not, i got up and tried again.  sometimes i only made it to 10 AM before the wheels fell off again.

but i tried again.

i am wildly paraphrasing my old boss, who once said that this is the way to victory: string the small successes together. line them up, and just make one right choice at a time.

that is all i can focus on. one choice at a time. the choice to have clementines as a snack while i watched football. the choice to pack my lunch for tomorrow. the choice to go to bed on time. the choice to drink my water.

it is not easy and may never be easy. but i have to say that today, with a few successful days behind me on the new weight watchers program?

it’s kind of fun.

Working on the follow-through.

I’m currently listening to a woodwind quartet play “Don’t Stop Believin’” and it’s possibly one of the most bizarre two minutes of my entire life. Strike that. Based on the warming up I hear right now, they are about to play “The Final Countdown.”

So. It’s after Thanksgiving. My sugary haze of gratitude is beginning to clear a bit as I knuckle down and get to the realities and the day to day tasks of Moving Forward.

Come to think of it, maybe this bizarre little out of tune quartet soundtrack is just right for what I’m currently going through (“Sweet Caroline,” by the way.).

I am trying to work on getting serious about writing. I haven’t done any writing other than the occasional blog lately. Or, I guess, for the past five years. Once upon a time, I actually wrote things. I used to write poems and short stories. Somewhere along the way, I got the message that I couldn’t do it. Or that it wasn’t important. Or that I wasn’t actually that good at it, anyway.

Little by little, I’ve been trying to rework my internal landscape. At some point, some unauthorized events transpired in there. Streams were filled in, mountains were leveled, and trees were chopped to the bare earth.

A few months ago, I picked up my copy of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. Shortly after that, I checked out Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird from my local library. Six weeks ago, I started a creative writing class. The class has now concluded, but after my brief research about the craft of writing and myself as a writer, I have learned the following essential information:

I can actually write.

And so today, I am sitting in Barnes and Noble with the goal of practicing my craft. I am fortunate enough to have reconnected with one my old teachers from middle school through the aforementioned class, and we are here for a writing date. Hopefully it’s just the first of many.

Hopefully, for once, I can keep it up.

giving thanks.

so, here i am. thanksgiving morning. i am working on a reheated coffee. i have the macaroni and cheese ready to bake, then to pack and take. my makeup is done. the cookies are packed and ready, and have been since about 7 AM. i’m trying, really hard, not to eat any before we go to my aunt’s house for The Meal.

i am sitting at my little writing desk in my dining room with a peppermint candle burning to my left.

this year, more than anything else, i am thankful for my place. my home.

of course i am thankful for my health, my family, eric, our jobs, and the fact that life in general has actually been kind of cooperative lately.

but i haven’t had a home in years. i have been in and out of other people’s homes, on both good and bad terms. i have been trying to cram myself into one bedroom since august of 2001.

i am the kind of person who carries her world, her heart, her experiences, her hopes and dreams and stories. i carry them with me everywhere i go. and so, at the end of the day, i desperately need a safe place to lay them down. i need to live with people that i trust. i need space. i need alone time.

lots of it.

sometimes i need to let stuff pile up on the dining room table.

i have been pining for a home intensely since i moved back to new york in 2007. i have put off everything. eating well, making art, writing, baking, cooking, and moving forward. i just felt that i didn’t have enough space. enough freedom.

but at the end of june, eric got a job in corning. and we found this weird apartment on an alley. we had nothing. no furniture, pots and pans…nothing. we ate dinner on the tiny little desk i am sitting at right now. i assure you, it’s a one-seater.

i don’t know what it is about this month, but i finally feel like it is home. i am here. i have finally let the stress of looking for this place melt away. i am here. and i am so thankful.

i’m home.

cooking and burning.

possibly against my better judgment, today i decided to tackle a cookie recipe that infuriated me, nay, nearly unhinged me, last month.

have you ever read a recipe and looked at the accompanying picture and thought, “awesome, no problem, i got this.”

and the universe laughs.

and you cry.

i have the first “second attempt” batch in the oven right now. the problem before was completely unmanageable dough. it stuck to everything. and i mean everything. i tried metal spoons, plastic spoons, and my hands. i think i actually threw the dough away after baking one batch.

yes, it is in the refrigerator. yes, it was in the refrigerator for over an hour before i tried to scoop it. and still? it was a bit uncooperative.

i have already burned my middle finger on the inside of a 325 degree oven. want to see? just kidding.

and does anyone on god’s green earth know how to get the degree symbol to show up here?

it’s a new season.

© amelia 2010

my cutting board earned its keep today.

things that were sliced, diced, or just plain chopped by me:

red onion
white onion
1/2 lb red potatoes (diced)
red pepper
1/2 lb red potatoes (wedged)
green beans
a whole bag of carrots
cucumber
tomato

i made corn chowder, steak dinner, tuna casserole, and after all that… lunch for tomorrow.
what a fun day.

waiting on the world to change.

this morning, as i was driving to work, i passed a field of sunflowers just as the song “waiting on the world to change” came on the radio.

it was early, before 8:30. the sky was a new york standard – foggy and gray with a small amount of sunglow peeking through. not even enough to say that the sun was shining.

but there they were – the sunflowers. i found myself looking at an entire field of backs of sunflower heads. their faces were turned to the east, toward that dim, weak, filmy sunlight.

is that all it takes to change direction?

a slim haze of light, a crumb, a scrap, a breath, a barely-there thought in the foggy morning.

© amelia 2010

help, i’m down here!

i’m here. i moved. i am internet-less until next weekend.

and may i just say.

it is so nice to move when you have more than $163.50 to your name, which is how i have done it every time i have moved except this one.

not that i’m rolling in it, but i can afford groceries and TP and stuff. like a grownup or something.

wow.

anyway, i’ll be around more in about a week!

© amelia 2010

boy, i tell ya.

last week, i spent the entire week having my brain sucked out of my head with a straw participating in a CI event at work.

while i was doing that, ERIC GOT THE JOB.

whee!!

so, over the weekend, we found an apartment, signed a lease, and plopped down a big chunk of change. and then i cried. and then my bank account cried.

and then, this week? another brain suck. three words: internal auditor training. three clause-filled days of it. oh yeah. you want to BE me!

don’t you???

anywho. in my infinite wisdom, i scrambled around this afternoon at work so that i will be able to take tomorrow off. somehow, some way, i gotta get my brain back.

so, tomorrow i will be scrubbing cupboards and putting down shelf liner and unpacking dishes and pots and pans. and then maybe? i’ll cook something! in my own kitchen!

or, i might just melt into a puddle. i’ll have to take it as it comes.

© amelia 2010