Tag: daily prompt

Life

Cinnamon Rolls

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I started cooking again in the last year.

In order to do that, I had to stop cooking several years ago.

Life’s twists and turns had taken the desire to cook right out me. Occasionally, when I did cook something, digging out an old tried and true recipe, it didn’t necessarily turn out right.

I think it was around last Thanksgiving when one of my children mentioned cinnamon rolls. I used to make cinnamon rolls for almost every holiday. Sometimes for birthdays. Sometimes just because. But I had stopped making them.

So I pulled out the recipe and tried it again. The cinnamon rolls turned out meh. Just meh.

I made them again.

And again.

Something about kneading dough is therapeutic. I’d say that it scratches an itch — but that doesn’t really describe it. It’s the rhythm of push-pull-fold-turn. It’s the warmth of the dough and the way you can feel life starting to happen. It’s such a good feeling.

Then, when that lump of dough rises to double in size, it always feels like a miracle. Little things thrill me — and that’s one that does.

Rolling out the dough, spreading the cinnamon sugar filling, rolling it up again and cutting the neat rolls — well, that’s all fun too.

The dough rises again.

The rolls bake and smell amazing while doing so.

A little frosting goes on top when they come out of the oven, so the frosting melts a little right into the roll.

They are so good.

Last weekend, I made a batch of cinnamon rolls. The big snow was coming. While they were still warm, I brought some to the maintenance shed where I work, where the guys who plow the parking lots and driveways for the facility go inside to get warm.

My co-worker looked puzzled when he saw me at the door there. “I made cinnamon rolls,” I told him. “They’re still warm. I think it’s going to be a long couple of days for you guys.”

His face broke into a huge smile. “I just came inside to get warm,” he told me. “These will be great!”

I laughed and told him to be sure to save some for the other guys.

Then I took about a dozen cinnamon rolls to the county highway department. I told them the same thing I had told the guy at my workplace. They were so appreciative.

It’s a win-win for me. I love making them and I love sharing them.

I’m glad I started baking again.

This post is in response to the last two JusJoJan prompts. Yesterday’s was “cinnamon” and I ran out of time. Today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt was “scratch an itch” — and I thought I could make it work for what I had been thinking about for cinnamon.

I should have taken pictures of the cinnamon rolls last weekend. They turned out perfect!

poetry

True Story

Sally12 Comments

Warm
My lap
Come sit here
Let me stroke you
Let me run my fingers all over you
You nibble on my fingers while I do
Yes, you want more
I feel it
My dear
Cat

This is my response to the W3 prompt and to the JusJoJan prompt which is prompt.

This week’s prompt for W3 is to write a Double Tetractys — a 10-line poem with a fixed syllable pattern.

Theme: something spicy or a little naughty. Keep it suggestive rather than explicit. Let tension, humor, and implication do the work.

A Double Tetractys is made of two Tetractys poems joined together:

  • The first five lines build up
  • The next five lines mirror them in reverse

Syllable pattern (per line):

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 10 / 10 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

Yes, I have a friend with a cat that can’t get enough of me. She sits beside me, on me, nibbling at me. It’s love.

Writing

Football

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Just to be clear, this post has nothing to do with altruism.

Altruism is the prompt for JusJoJan.

True story: I don’t follow American football. Not even a little. Honestly, I’ve never really understood the game. It looks like one people-pile after another. They talk about downs, which are different from people-piles, although it sure does look like a lot of people go down in a people-pile. Then there’s the whole scoring thing: some things earn 6 points, other things earn 3, and still others earn 1, or is it 2. I don’t know.

I coached swimming. The first person to touch the wall won.

My kids played soccer. If they kicked the ball in the goal, they got one point.

Easy and straight-forward, right?

I knew my son and his family were watching some Buffalo Bills game on Saturday night, so I half-watched about 5 minutes of it. Some guy caught the ball, but another guy ripped the ball right out of his arms. The whole thing didn’t look fair. I later told my brother about it, saying (again) that I really don’t understand football and wondered why people watch it.

“You need to watch this,” he said, and he directed me to a video of a guy running back-back-back, pushed by a bunch of guys from the other team, and he throws the ball — a long long pass to a guy waiting in the endzone and they scored.

Running backwards AND throwing accurately impresses me.

All this goes to show that an impressive bit of athleticism impresses me.

Is it altruistic?

No. The fact that I can’t easily find a video that shows this shows how UNaltruistic American sports are.

It’s all about the money, right?

These things happen in a vacuum accesible only to those who sell their souls to something.

I did. I watched some inane advertisement to see that video.

So now the fact remains that I am NOT a football fan, and it has nothing to do with understanding the sport. It has more to do with the $$-wall around the whole thing.

nonsense

Impatience

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Isn’t impatience beautiful? Isn’t it wonderful? Don’t you just love impatience?

Wait — what? You don’t?

What did Kafka say? Really? He said, “There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.”

Why did he dislike flowers so much?

What?

There’s a difference between impatience and impatiens?

Never mind.

Forget everything I just said.

I just jotted this. Like in less than 5 minutes. The prompt today was “impatience.“

Life

Wheesht

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“Haud yer wheesht”

“Yer bum’s oot the windae”

These are my two lines for One-Liner Wednesday. I know, I know — it’s supposed to be only one.

I’m getting ready for my third Burns-ish celebration that I do with the seniors where I work. I’ve got the bagpiper set, haggis in the fridge, and cooking to do this weekend.

These two lines are Scottish. I have yet to go to Scotland, but I love reading about, watching movies set there, listening to the accent, etc.

Wheesht alone means hush, like talking to a child. But Haud yer weesht is a wee bit stronger, like Be Quiet!

Yer bum’s oot the windae means You’re talking rubbish.

I chose those two Scottish lines because I’ve been thinking about one of my countrymen who HAS traveled to Scotland, may even own property there in the form of a golf course or two, who may be abroad right now, who really needs to learn to wheesht because his bum’s oot the windae, if you know what I mean.

Life

In the Office

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I have some regular visitors to my office. I rather like that. I watch them peek around the door to see if someone else is in my office.

“Is the coast clear?” or “Can I come in?” or “Is it all right if I say hi?”

Of course, I invite them in. It’s the best part of my day.

These days, I have a frequent flyer. I’ll call him Stan.

He’s a can-I-come-in kind of guy. “How are you, young lady?” he always asks.

Between you and me, I hate being called “young lady.” I’m not young. I may not even be much of a lady. And he’s younger than I am. Whatever.

“So what did you have for dinner last night?” He always asks that. I tell him. Even when it’s peanut butter and jelly. I think he’s looking for dinner ideas.

When I was cooking for my tribe, the hardest part was the idea.

If someone told me that tonight was meatloaf night, I would make a meatloaf. But coming up with the idea for meatloaf was something that taxed my brain.

So I started writing out a monthly menu.

Seriously.

My very first blog — 20-some years ago — included a page that was “What’s for dinner tonight.” I had a friend that told me that’s what she always went to first. For the idea.

I don’t even remember the name of that blog.

Sad, but true.

Why am I telling you all this? Oh, yeah. Stan in my office.

Stan comes in to talk. About this and that. About nothing, really.

And yet about everything.

“I love talking to you,” he said today. “You’re very honest.”

I don’t know how to be anything but.

“You’re strong,” he said.

I might beg to differ, but what good would it do?

“What are you having for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, honestly, weakly. I really don’t.

I think there’s something unspoken in all these conversations.

I’m not 100% sure what it is, but I think it’s the honesty.

I’m not looking to BS anyone. My life is my life — full of mis-steps and mistakes.

Come into my office and I’ll tell you all about it.

And listen to you talk about your less-than-perfect life.

The coast is clear.

You can come in.

It’s okay if you want to say hi.

Life

Consistency

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I started a post on baking cinnamon rolls and how the baker develops a recognition of the consistency of the dough as it’s being kneaded. Yes, this yeast is alive and doing the thing it’s supposed to do.

But then I second-guessed myself. Few people will relate to that, I thought.

My fallback is to find a quote using the prompt. I forgot to mention that today’s prompt was consistency.

Consistency quotes are, well, pretty consistent. Encouragement to stick with a thing.

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” ~~ Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

“Consistency is the mother of mastery.” ~~ author unknown

“The secret to winning is constant, consistent management.” ~~ Tom Landry

“Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.” ~~ Bruce Lee

“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.” ~~ John C. Maxwell

You get the idea, right?

And it’s great advice; it really is!

But then I read Oscar Wilde’s quote on consistency.

He always was a rebel.

And I really appreciate that.

aging

Morning Reading

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One of the ways that I organize my thoughts each morning is reading. It sets me on the right path for today.

Then, I copy a quote or two into my journal. Writing out the words, I believe, helps them stick in my brain.

This weekend, I am not at home. I could have sworn that I brought a pen with me, but it is nowhere to be found. It’s probably with my glasses.

I’m at an inn, not a chain hotel. If I were in a hotel room, I’m sure there would be a pen or two, a pad of paper or two, and far less charm than where I’m staying.

So, this morning, here is where I will copy the quote that struck me.

I’m reading a book called Aging: Growing Old in Church by Will Willimon. For the past several years, I have focused on one author each year. This year, I chose William Willimon, who somewhere between his first book, Between Two Advents, an early book of his, and this one, he shortened his name to Will instead of William. I’m curious about that.

I also wrote a letter to him, yet to be printed and mailed, asking if I could meet him toward the end of the year. When you read a lot of books by an author, you feel like you know him. My authors have all been deceased by the time I’m bingeing on them. Will(iam) Willimon is very much alive. Maybe I’ll get brave enough to send that letter.

Anyway, today’s quote:

The poet T.S. Eliot lists three ills of aging: ills of the body, ills of the world, and ills of the past… Some older persons are consumed with remorse due to life paths taken and not taken, fractured relationships, and regrettable life choices…. Nearly every Sunday the pastor invites us to ‘confess our sins to Almighty God,’ an invitation for everyone to unburden and leave their regrets at the altar. Jesus commanded us to forgive our enemies, and sometimes our greatest enemy is our vain attempt to live our lives without mistakes and regrets.

I believe that a fundamental secret of successful aging is learning to affirm the lives God gives us in the face of regret that God didn’t give us the lives we thought we needed to live happily.

This post is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: organ. What a great word! When I read it, organize immediately came to mind. Organ could also refer to your liver or kidney, or a musical instrument. Then there’s organic chemistry. And organisms. Even a word like ‘organization’ can go in different directions! So thank you, Kaye, for a great prompt!

Life

Lost

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One of my mother’s favorite sayings when something was lost was, “It’s always the last place you look.”

It’s funny, I suppose. I say it myself these days.

But it’s really NOT funny when you’ve lost something and looked EVERYWHERE. This has been the case for me this past week. I lost my new glasses. I have looked everywhere.

Everywhere.

And yet my mother keeps whispering in my ear, “Keep looking. It’s always the last place you look.”

Not helpful.

This post is brought to you by Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday for which the prompt was “favorite saying“.

poetry

The Cave

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The shadows flicker on the walls

Distorted images, truths, faces, facts
They grow, shrink, grow again, moving all the while

What am I seeing?
What is true?
I must escape this cave…

This song, The Cave by Mumford and Sons, has long been a favorite of mine. When it was in its auto-repeat phase for me, I was fascinated by the lyrics.

What does it mean to “Come out of the cave walking on your hands”? I looked it up. Those lyrics are a reference to both Plato and St. Francis of Assisi, who both sought to understand life.

The song challenges us to look at the world differently.

While not using the word “philosophy”, it IS a response to Sadje’s JusJoJan prompt: philosophy.

It’s also my attempt at a Cherita, the W3 challenge for this week. Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale.

A traditional cherita unfolds in three verses, each growing in length:
Verse 1: one line
Verse 2: two lines
Verse 3: three lines