Author: wideeyedwanderingspoonie

Ode to soup – a quadrille

Lisa is hosting our dVerse quadrille challenge with our prompt of “abide”

When I first read the prompt, my mind immediately went to love poetry, not quite my mood today. The winds are fierce and I am practicing a little kitchen witchery with a chicken carcass.  Naturally, I immediately thought of soup. I make soup like my Grandma made, boiling left-over bones down for stock. My kitchen (OK actually my whole house) smells divine on this blustery autumn day. On chilly windy days, we made soup and she would tell me the story of “Stone Soup” ah but that’s a tale for another day.

Soup – a meal in a can?

“Soup’s good for you”, she said
vegetable, chicken or chili instead
served piping hot with cheese and bread.
Canned soups I simply can’t abide
never knowing what may lurk inside
too often thin, tasteless, and bland
so I make my own whenever I can

word count 44

Til next time  ~Peace ~JP

Sunday Stills – Colorful Textures

For Sunday Stills our prompt is Textures

Colorful Textures

Colors of the sky
texture of grass
songs of the ocean
feelings that pass

Colorful textures
changing with time
rough hardened edges
that sparkle and shine

Large amethyst geode on display at Ruby’s Inn – Bryce Canyon, UT
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming — “This means something”
A thorny flower or a beautiful thorn bush? – Pahrump, NV
Robin’s egg found in a nest of stone in South Dakota
The power of water – shooting the rapids on Animas River, Durango, Colorado

Til next time ~Peace ~JP

Spoonie Retirement – Life, love and Autoimmune Diabetes in the time of Covid

Last week I kind of got off the Seasonal Eating Theme due to a holiday-stress-induced philosophizing tangent. *snap out of it JP, Winter is Coming* (pun intended). We got word this past week that Superhubs does indeed have LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) or type 1.5 diabetes. What the heck is that? Good question and not a lot of answers. Type 2 diabetes is more of a metabolic disorder where the body cannot properly utilize the insulin that is produced. Type 1.5 is an autoimmune disease where the immune system kills off the beta cells that produce insulin. Both types develop in adulthood and are slower onset than type 1 diabetes. We meet with the endocrinologist next week and will find out then how or if this affects our dietary plan. Superhubs’ primary care doctor has already started him back on insulin and the results are pretty encouraging.

Anywho, back to seasonal/local eating. Last week’s CBA box (Community Based Agriculture) included a local pasture raised chicken which we roasted up for our Thanksgiving feast. It being just the two of us the bird has fed us for a couple of days with plenty of good broth and bits left over for salads and soups this week. Our CBA box this week included:

*Fresh Produce:
 1 head of butter lettuce from a local hydroponic garden
 1 small head of green cabbage from local farm
*Meat/dairy/eggs
 1 Yak sirloin steak (yes you read that right Yak like the big hairy cow)
 1 dozen extra large eggs from a local farm mixed brown and white
 6 oz local dairy cheddar cheese curds
*dried goods/spices/teas
 1 bag dried apple slices from local farms

The uses are pretty obvious this week. The lettuce goes for salads and taco cups, the cabbage will get fried for a side dish and used in soup. Those beautiful eggs will make wonderful breakfasts and some egg salad for lunch. The cheese curds will adorn my luncheon salads (Superhubs is dairy free). The dried apple slices will be used for snacks and some cooked up with left over raisins from the pantry for a yummy pancake topping.

What I’m watching right now:

Til next time ~Peace ~JP

Happy Thanksgiving – How to Stuff a Turkey

From my polyvore collection

How to stuff a turkey

The plan:
Melt a stick of organic unsalted butter in a small saucepan with the juice and zest of one lemon and one tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves from the garden. Take the giblets out of the turkey and wash the turkey inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pinfeathers and pat the outside dry. Place the turkey in a large roasting pan. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the turkey cavity. Stuff the cavity with a bunch of thyme, halved lemon, quartered onion, and cloves of garlic. Brush the outside of the turkey with the butter mixture massaging gently and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the turkey. Pour a cup of hot spiced wine and relax while turkey cooks.

Execution:
Grab turkey giblets bag and yank out of turkey along with a liter of frozen turkey blood & guts. Swear profusely when the giblets bag hits the floor with a splat and breaks open. Gulp hot wine, burning tongue in process swear profusely. Shove gibletless turkey into sink and grab a roll of paper towels and bottle of spray cleaner. Grab a bottle of chilled wine, pour a glass to fortify your constitution and cool your burned tongue. Squirt leftover lime juice from margarita night into turkey butt and toss in a handful of italian seasoning. Glass another pour of wine. Rub a stick of margarine over turkey, sprinkle liberally with every dried spice you have, shove rest of the butter up the turkey butt. Giggle inanely about “turkey butt.” Another wine of glass get. Ponder meat thermometer and whether or not to shove it up turkey butt. Wrink some dine. Put turkey in oven. Boddle empty, grab another. Remember to turn on oven. Roast self with another winey. Turk the bastey, wine the drink. Cook for 4 hours, remove the oven from the turkey. Fick up the purkey off the tloor, invent new curse words. Grab another wottle of bine, pour a glass of turkey. Turk the carvey thing, set the table. Look around in state of confusion when no one arrives at the appointed dinner hour. Pour cup of hot wine, add ice. Ponder the meaning of “daylight savings time.” Look at phone buzzing in hand, text message “want pizza for dinner? Wednesday night special?” Drop phone.

Til next time ~Happy Thanksgiving ~JP

Sunday Stills – Thanks for the memories

For Sunday Stills our theme is “Thankful”

It’s been a crazy year, that’s for sure. If you feel yourself a bit uninspired in the thanks department this year (and who isn’t), please do pop over to Terri’s site and get yourself a dose of thankful reminders.

Early in the 2000’s Superhubs and I left our home and family behind us. We abandoned the 5 year plan and the 10 year projections and became pilgrims, seekers, voyagers. We became Wide Eyed Wanderers. For the next 13 years our home was a 30 foot class C motorhome christened the SS Minnie.

I am so thankful for that little home on wheels. Ah the adventures, the views, the fun we had with her. Oh the places she took us.

The historic beauty we found in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

the magic spires of Bryce Canyon, Utah

and the places where the Minnie couldn’t take us, Opaekaa Falls, Kauai, Hawaii

Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, NZ

We let her go last year to a new home for more adventures, but I am thankful for the memories. Mostly, I think I’m thankful for all the goodness of life. Let’s raise a song of harvest home, the glass of good cheer, the heart overflowing with joy. I have so much for which to be thankful, so much about which to smile. Chief among those is:

Status board at the hospital after Superhubs first brain surgery

I have so much to be thankful for, al I have is truly all I need. Life has bestowed upon me an extravagance of riches, but still I hope for one thing more. The gift of a thankful heart, a heart that does not forget the blessings I have received.

Til next time ~Peace Peeps ~JP

Spoonie Retirement – Happiness, Holidays and Belief in the time of Covid

digital art from my polyvore collection

Here we sit perched on the precipice of another “holiday season” staring into the abyss of Covid-19. It is “Thanksgiving” week coming up here in the US, time to stop and ponder the meaning of thanks, the meaning of giving, the meaning of holidays, the meaning of family, the meaning of our beliefs. This year there is no gathering of family and friends for us. Covid runs roughshod over the upcoming holiday but still I am oh so grateful. I’m grateful for too many things to put into this post or even into words.

Thanksgiving for me is a celebration of bounty and harvest and the blessings of the good earth.  As one who honors many traditions, who sees beauty and truth in many different religions, I do not tend to assume that everyone (or for that matter anyone) shares my personal spiritual beliefs. This leads me to contemplate, what is it that I do believe in?

I believe in magic. The magic of art; a picture that captures your eye, a song you can’t get out of your head. I believe in the magic of sunrise, the moon, and a good cup of coffee. I believe in magic because it is the only way I can make sense of this insanely mundane world.

I believe in the power of positive thinking, and the power of a thankful heart, and the power of love. I believe that people are basically good, that virtue, honesty, and character are more important that money and power, that good will always triumph over evil, and that true love never dies.

Yes, mostly I believe in love.  If I could leave a message on the sky for all the world it would be “fall in love whenever you can,” Don’t be afraid. Take the leap, if it doesn’t work out you will still be a better person for trying. “What if I fall?” you ask, oh but my darling, what if you fly?

Everybody’s got to believe in something, I believe I’ll have a cup of tea. Til next time ~Peace ~JP

Crimson’s Creative Challenge # 106 – Words on Walls

For Crimson’s Creative Challenge # 106

Words on Walls

words of love
words of hate
written with chalk
written with paint
sometimes with the blood
of the artist’s soul
with anger or passion
too absolute
words written on walls
words written of truth

 

Unattributed photo found on Pinterest and weheartit – quote Jimi Hendrix

Til next time ~Peace ~JP