I am an RN, Author, Coach, and Speaker. I write novels about relationships to help people find insight into their own. I guide people to create comfort, clarity, and connection in their lives. By combining metaphysical tools with over twenty-five years of nursing experience, I infuse the 'art of nursing' into my practice by providing partnership and resources help people compassionately honor their health.
Well, this picture may look familiar to some of you! My friend Susan and I went to the Omelette Factory on Rt 1 in Ogunquit recently. She had been there before but it was my first time.
The menu does include things other than omelettes, as you can see!
I ordered a spinach and mushroom (fresh veggies were used) without cheese…and I actually got it that way (why do cooks always want to put cheese on my food, even after I ask them nicely not to??).
The omelette came with a piece of fresh-out-of-the-oven lemon poppy-seed bread and half an english muffin that they baked themselves. We also were offered excellent homemade raspberry jam to spread on it.
The coffee was great and my cup was never more than half empty before it was refilled without my asking. Seating consists of a small, cozy dining room with extra seating in back of that on an enclosed, sunny porch, which is where we sat.
The Omelette Factory is a great place to go for a great local breakfast…in the summer months, at least. I’m wondering if they are open in the winter, and if so , am hoping that porch is heated…(I’m just sayin’).
I decided to cook a big breakfast last Sunday morning, so my daughter and I headed to the kitchen to strategize.
Me: Pumpkin Pancakes?
Izzy: No.
Me: Waffles?
Iz: No.
Me: Bacon and eggs?
Iz: Yes! And sausage!
Well, no surprise there; that’s almost always her breakfast of choice (we do raise chickens, after all!).
I headed to the cupboard for a pan; she headed to the fridge for the eggs.
She brought two eggs over to me for inspection, one of which was a very large egg with a network of funky ridges on it surface.
Now, I had been watching that egg for a few days…often when a young hen first starts laying, she will produce eggs of interesting sizes, shapes, and … textures.
I made Izzy her “tween omelet”: egg scrambled with the mushrooms cooked separately and served on the side.
Then I bit the bullet and cracked the unusual egg into the bowl…and it had two yolks! Now, this wasn’t our first chicken egg that contained two yolks, but it was the first one that I’d ever personally cracked that did.
I was absurdly pleased by this.
One great thing about this egg was how bright and beautiful the yolks were. What was also great was that it was big enough to make an entire omelet from just the one egg!
Note: I put my mushrooms (and spinach!) in the actual omelet, as opposed to the “tween” version with them on the side. 🙂
I am finding that as it gets colder and darker outside, I also am getting colder and darker (of mood). I am going at a much slower pace than I have been used to, and the less I do, the less I want to do.
For example, take exercise–please. I mean, I’ve never liked it, but I would still go and do it. Now, I must have long battles with my inner couch potato to get myself to go to the gym even once a week.
ME: Got to the gym!
INNER COUCH POTATO: No! I don’t wanna go!
ME: You have to go! You haven’t been in a whole week!
INNER C.P.: No! I don’t wanna go! You can’t make me! It’s only 24 degrees out there! It’s too cold! It’s still dark out! I don’t have enough time! I’m too tired! What I really need is another hour of sleep!
(See what I’m up against?)
Then I have to wonder: is once a week doing even one bit of good? It’s a short walk (hey! would that count as exercise?) from one to none, which is what is keeping me going at all at this point, I think.
Well, that, and Bagel Tuesday*.
I think of all of the things that I’d rather be doing than going to the gym.
Sleeping for an extra hour
Cooking and eating breakfast in my kitchen with my family
Getting started writing my 2000 words
Sleeping for an extra hour (See how tired I am! I’m repeating myself!)
All right, so the bottom line is… guess! Did I go to the gym or not?
*Planet Fitness puts out free bagels, cream cheese, and coffee from Dunkin Donuts on the second Tuesday of every month. Can you guess what my one day a week at the gym is? Heh, heh, heh.
If you’ll forgive the tired old cliché, Tangled is a “coming of age story” for Rapunzel, Flynn, and even (in a weird way, a “coming of old age” ) for Rapunzel’s evil, passive-aggressive step mother (who continues the long tradition of evil stepmothers in Disney Movies.).
What’s totally great about Rapunzel is that she is a normal looking girl. This is huge for a Disney movie. They have deviated from whatever mathematical formula that they have applied to prior princesses that make their faces flawless and perfectly symmetrical and give them bodies that are anatomically impossible. You know, like Barbie.
What’s also great about Rapunzel is that she saves herself from Flynn (the would-be hero), when he breaks into her, um… house, and without giving too much more away, she repeatedly saves herself in other situations thereafter. Flynn doesn’t save her; she saves him.
The horse Maximus and Flynn have a comical, sibling-type relationship going on throughout the movie which was so much fun to watch that it elicited a few disapproving “Mom! You sure laugh loud!”‘s from my tween.
This movie also brought to mind a few other clichés: “If you love something, set it free,” embodied by Rapunzel. “If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it,” embodied by the evil stepmother.
The lights that are launched annually recall the tune “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine”, which is reflective of Rapunzel’s optimism in spite of the deck being completely stacked against her…and I mean: Completely. Stacked. Against. Her.
Then there’s the frying pan, which is perhaps a nod to the woman who can “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”. At one point, Flynn asks: “A frying pan! Who knew?” A woman knew, that’s who!
Don’t get me wrong; all of these cliches are comforting, familiar. They help to make the movie accessible, and overall, EXCELLENT. Bring your kids and go see it (but try not to embarrass them by laughing “too loud” at Maximus and Flynn). 🙂
I remember thinking last year when I found out about National Novel Writing Month that I should do it next time.Well, I did. And I met the challenge, finishing the required minimum of 50,000 words a few days early. The book itself is not finished, but I think it’s about two-thirds of the way there. I learned a lot from and about my writing during the past twenty-four days:
Apply math. Once I had the 50,ooo word goal imposed upon me by the higher power (via Chris Baty), I divided it by 25, figuring I may not be able to waddle over to the computer after Thanksgiving dinner, and maybe there would be some unforseen events; better to have a buffer (I’m all about the buffer).I had to put writing the book first. I always said I was going to, but I (hardly) ever did. This month, if I hadn’t yet “written my 2,000 words” that day, I tried not to do anything else until I had.
My family walked the talk: they always said they would help out with household chores if I was writing, and they really did. Dishes, laundry, meal prep…when I was writing, everyone pitched in (well, mostly my husband), and didn’t complain at all.
There is time to write every day, and having a goal helped tremendously. When I read Stephen King’s book On Writing, this was a point he stressed as well. Before the challenge, I tried setting a goal to write 15 minutes a day, but I had trouble sticking to that. Writing 2000 words often took from 2 to 5 hours, depending on the number of interruptions (from kids, meal breaks, etc) but I did manage to stick to that. Go figure.
My friends were and are very supportive. People (you know who you are!) went out of their way to tell me how much they liked reading what I write, and this was tremendously motivating all month long. Thank you so much!
My husband is the best. Bill, YOU ROCK!
Now, the challenge for me will be to see if I can keep up the 2,000 words per day until the actual book, and not just the challenge, is finished.Here’s hopin’. :)Winner!
While driving home from work last night, I was thinking about something
Mom and Dad, way back when
from my past and wondering if I should share it with my kids. Now that my parents are gone, I realize that there are lots of times when I have a question about their lives and am sad because there’s just no one to ask.
Every so often when I was growing up, they would tell me something about their own growing up years, and more often than not, I would roll my eyes and wonder, “Why are they telling me this? Who cares?”
Well, now, having had the same impulse last night, I get it. They just wanted me to know them better, to know them (even a little bit) as real people, instead of just mom and dad.
I wonder if this lightbulb moment I’m having is a function of being in the midlife crisis stage of life. It’s nice to have the insight, but it makes me wish that I had cared a little more about , and had shown a little more interest in, what they had to say when they were here.
Back in 2007, when there was still one believer in the family
I’ve been working on my Christmas gift list recently, and I’ve warned the children that Christmas will be, um, leaner this year than in the past, so they should be prepared. I guess I kind of went a little overboard last year, and am trying not to repeat that this year, especially since the big guy in the red suit won’t be putting in an appearance. This year, we know.
I don’t know what kind of a reaction that I expected from them, but as so often happens, my kids surprised me.
“Oh, okay, Mom.” That was it, from both kids. I guess I expected some questions, at least, but no, they were fine with it. Moved right on.
I guess it’s just me then, feeling bad. This is our first personal “Year Without a Santa Claus”. Last year, right after the holiday my daughter approached me and uttered those words that every mother dreads (but every father welcomes): “Mom, you and dad are Santa Claus, right?”
Sigh.
After I told her to go play and I’d get back to her, I furtively placed a call to my husband at work, relayed the devastating question, asking, “What do you think? She’s only ten! Should I tell her the truth?” and he said, “Of course! She’s ten! We should have told her years ago!”.
And right there, folks, is the difference between fathers and mothers (if I may be so bold as to apply our parental reactions to that of all parents).
I told her the truth.
She took it well. At the end, she said, “But the Easter Bunny, she’s real, right?”
My tween daughter invited a friend to spend the day, and as the 7 hours loomed ominously unfilled ahead of us, I wondered: What the heck should we do?
First, I decided to do something for me: I had a 20% coupon to Kennebooks in Kennebunk so that was our first stop. A quick check of the local paper told me that they were having an Open House that started at 10:30am, so it was just me and my tween for this. When we arrived, there was a kids “author event” so we headed down for that, but it turned out to be for littler kids, so we did some browsing for an hour. I bought a book for a friend for Christmas.
Sigh. I love to be with the books. But I digress…
Next, we picked up the friend and headed for the library. They browsed the shelves, and checked out some books, and then harassed me until I gave up and said, “Okay, yes! I’m ready to leave too!”. While we were there, we found a new cookbook called Betty Crocker’s Just the two of us, and they spied a recipe while flipping through it that they wanted to make. Since we had all of the ingredients already, I agreed.
Lunch was next, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I took the easy way out: McDonald’s was right nearby, and since it was almost 1pm and they were “starving”, we headed there next. In my defense, we haven’t eaten McD’s food in months, so here’s hoping that it didn’t do us too much damage. We drove through and brought it home to eat it (their choice).
Then we made the Double Chocolate Snack Cake.
Izzy and Ivy, the bakers
They did a great job! I helped a little but they were really in charge of the recipe (I was in charge of the oven) and it turned out really great. We ate most of it fairly quickly.
After that, they hula hooped and played on the swing in the yard, fed bread to the chickens, and played a few hands of cards: Uno, War.
Then, they actually read the books that they checked out of the library for a little while.
I had to run to Hannaford’s and they were thrilled to come with me. They got free cookies at the bakery, and free samples of cheese and turkey at the deli. They even watched the cart full of groceries after I realized that the most important thing that I went there to buy, I had forgotten, so I had to go back and get it and run through the cashier’s line again. (Hey, at least I remembered before I got back home; I figured that I was ahead of the game!)
When we got back, I made them spaghetti for supper, and after we finished eating they had another little bit of time to play.
They watched a little TV: one episode of iCarly, and one episode of Drake and Josh. Then they played some songs on the electric keyboard for a while.
When it was time for her friend to go home, they had even picked up after themselves!
It was a great day; I even was able to get my 2,000 words written in between everything else. Life is good!
These are all of the things I didn’t do today on my day off from nursing, wife-ing, and mothering.
Read. Well, okay I did read a little, but only the local newspaper, briefly, while I was eating my minestrone soup, with a cup of coffee and a gingerbread muffin chaser.
Knit. I have a hat that’s 3/4 of the way finished, calling to me from the jumble of bags in the Sterlite storage bucket in the entry.
Visit the ocean. I didn’t go. I wanted to go, but every time the thought presented itself, I had to push it away, and concentrate on what I was doing.
Bake. I have a perfectly good recipe for whoopie pies right there on my kitchen island; I can see it from where I’m sitting. “No! Focus! You can bake later!!”
Shop. I have a (large) pile of newspaper clippings, coupons, flyers, and circulars for amazing, limited time only sales on the presents that I need for upcoming birthdays, not to mention Christmas.
What did I do instead? I wrote 2,243 more words of my book.
(Okay, full disclosure: I didn’t have the day off from houseworking. Does anyone, ever? I did four loads of wash, made butternut squash soup and baked a loaf of bread to go with it, took care of the chickens, and boiled potatoes for home fries).
My book in progress!
Last year, I read about National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano) coming up in November, and thought, What a great idea! Maybe I’ll do that! Of course, I did not. Instead, I thought, next year…I’ll do it next year. Well, next year is now this year.
Oh-oh. Time to walk the talk. If I was going to do this, I needed a plan. NaNoWriMo waits for no woman. The premise is that you write a 50,000 word book during the month of November, beginning at 12:00AM November 1 and ending at 12 midnight on November 30. Somewhere in the world, the writing powers that be decided that 50,000 is the minimum number of words in a book for it to be considered a novel.
I figured out that if I wrote at least 2.000 words every day, I would finish my novel by month’s end (or at least 50,000 words of it). November would come and go either way. Last November came and went and I had no book to show for it.
This year will be different.
As of right this minute, I have written 42,139 words of my 50,000. I can see the finish line.
Since I’ve hit my 2,000 words for today already, hmmmm…maybe I’ll do a little shopping after all… 🙂
In reviewing some of my past posts, I’ve noticed a date night trend toward Dinner and a Movie; this night is no different. The movie was “”What’s the Story?’ Morning Glory”, viewed at the Wells Five Star Cinema. It almost couldn’t be bad, with Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford, right? Rachel McAdams was the real draw for me though; she’s been great in all of the movies she’s been in (that I’ve seen) and was in this movie also. The first half of this movie was a little slow, but the lightning fast second half more than made up for it. Also, I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. It made me nostalgic for Broadcast News with Holly Hunter and William Hurt (the latter movie was a little better).
Dinner was at Mekong Thai in Wells. Our choice of restaurant is often based on being short of time and proximity to the theater, and tonight’s choice was no exception. That said, Mekong Thai has probably the best service of any restaurant I’ve ever been to.
When we were younger (in the late 90’s and early 00’s), when we had a little baby (and littler discretionary income) our dinner and a movie date night happened at home. We watched Dinner and a Movie on TBS with Annabelle Gurwitch and Paul Gilmartin. It didn’t even matter whether or not I liked the movie; I enjoyed watching Annabelle so much that was enough. I still have the apron with the Dinner and a Movie logo that my husband gave me one year for Christmas.
It is poignant to me now that the child that was sleeping in the crib in the next room is now babysitting our younger child so that we can have dinner and a movie out in the real world.
Dinner and a Movie (with different hosts) is still on TBS; My Cousin Vinny is next up on December 17th, with Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei (back when she still was keeping her clothes on for the camera). 🙂 Enjoy!
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