G.O.A.T.

So because I’m chronically behind when it comes to watching TV, I just finished watching the Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time special tonight. If you haven’t seen it yet (even though it aired in January), I won’t spoil it for you, except to say that I was pleased with who won.

But watching this particular special just days after hearing of Alex Trebek’s passing was particularly bittersweet for me. I grew up watching Jeopardy!, and Alex Trebek is synonymous with it for me (and millions of others, I’m sure). While I’m sure his replacement, whoever that may be, will do a fine job…

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Hibernation station

Like frozen rivers,
I am alive underneath
My own icy shell.

I feel like I’ve been hibernating for the past three years. Or maybe not hibernating – maybe hibernating is what I need to do now after the craziness that was the past three years.

I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say here.

I’ve been cleaning things up lately, trying to get organized. You wouldn’t know it if you peeked in my room, or if you peeked in my office. I’ve been organizing my music, most of which is stored on my computer. But because I’m old-school, I also have about a thousand CDs (which is probably a conservative estimate). I have so many duplicate songs as a result that it’s not good if my iPod malfunctions and just starts playing every song on it in order.

I don’t know what its beef with my car is, but it needs to get over its pretentious self.

I’m also cleaning out my email. I’m a bit of an email hoarder, but mostly I think my current lack of Gmail storage has more to do with the ridiculous number of pictures I have stored in my Drive than the equally ridiculous number of emails I don’t want to delete.

I’d love to just stop moving, to hibernate, to let my everything rest. But instead, here I am – calm on the surface and paddling like hell underneath.

I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense because I’m really tired, but maybe the making-sense part is less important than the having-written part. Since I’ve done at least one of those things, I’m going to call this a win.

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Yea, though I know I gaineth…

I ran across this in some of my old things a while back:

The Twenty-Third Pound

My appetite is my shepherd, I always want. It maketh me to sit down and stuff myself. It leadeth me to my refrigerator repeatedly. It leadeth me in the path of Burger King for a Whopper. It destroyeth my shape. Yea, though I know I gaineth, I will not stop eating. For the food tasteth so good, the ice cream and cookies, they comfort me. When the table is spread before me, it exciteth me. For I knoweth that soon I shall dig in. As I filleth my plate continuously – my clothes runneth smaller. Surely Bugles and weight shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will be fat forever.

It’s a thing I inherited from my dad as a teenager. Back then, I found the parody of Psalm 23 amusing. But then I didn’t have issues with weight control because the 16-year-old metabolism is a wondrous thing.

Looking at it now, twenty years later, after being stuck at home for four months with a fully stocked pantry, I have much different feelings about this once-funny verse. How a person feels about their body is a complicated issue, and it’s no different for me.

If only I could be as “fat” now as I thought I was when I was seventeen.

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Pink

Pink looks better
On fingernails and roses
Than it does on my eyes.

Pink feels better on
Fingers and toesies
Than it does on my lips or my nose.

But pink is the best
In the sky at sunset
When it softens the day into night.

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

November blues

How in the world is it November already? I swear it was only March last week…

But then I suppose if that were the case, I wouldn’t be quite so worried about my inability to sleep after watching a scary movie. Unlike this morning, I have to be awake at a reasonable hour tomorrow. Too bad I can’t have an extra hour of sleep tonight, too!

How has your November been thus far?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 25: Magic

There’s something magical about a bonfire.

Whether you like watching that initial blaze as the fire springs to life or you like roasting marshmallows, there’s something for everyone at a bonfire. And after a long, hard day of yard work, it’s nice to kick back with the fam and some good tunes and watch the brush burn.

There’s something magical about the way the flames leap and dance over, under, around, and through the logs. Watching this, I find myself almost hypnotized by the flickering flames. It happens every time. I think I have almost as many pictures of campfires as I have of my children sleeping (and I have a lot of those 😄).

Where do you find magic?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 24: Elixir

Today’s elixir of choice:

Normally I prefer the sweet bubbly fizz of Dr. Pepper, but every now and then I have to change things up a bit. It may not be the finest organic suspension ever devised, and I may not have beaten the Borg with it, but it still gets me through the day. It’s all about the little things, and at the moment, a little bit of caffeine can go a long, long way.

Mmm, caffeine…

How about you – what are the little things that get you through the day?

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 23: Note

Note to self: You hate yard work. Remember that the next time someone suggests it may be a good time.

P.S.: Remember to buy oversized sunglasses so that the next time you have to mow lawn on a windy day, you won’t have to worry about grass and dirt getting in your eyes.

(c) 2020. All rights reserved.

Day 21: Instrument

I adore the flute. It’s my favorite instrument, and I fell in love with it at an early age. A high school girl who went to my church when I was growing up played a flute solo one Sunday, and that was it – I was hooked. I was determined that I would someday play the flute as well. So when instrument try-outs for the fifth grade band rolled around the spring semester of my fourth grade year and we were asked to list which instruments we wanted to play, I listed flute first. (It was followed by clarinet, which my mom had wanted me to play because she and my aunt had also played the clarinet, and then she wouldn’t have had to buy me an instrument.)

There were four…