Farmer's market, dinner, gluten intolerance and.. oh yeah, writing

Summer in Florida is Brutal, with a capital "B." Whereas my brethren in the northeast have endured their heat wave with much valor, I can't help but look at our own forecast and see that we are in a perpetual heat wave. Fortunately, the state of Florida is air conditioned.

Which would be fabulous, if the central A/C in this place weren't making me so congested.

Yesterday was spent furniture hunting, running from garage sale to garage sale to World Market (because it's here, so why not?). We wound up with two large picture frames and a drawing of the Eiffel Tower in a beautiful frame, all for $15. My DP (that is, dear partner) is always on the lookout for new frames. We have more frames than we have pictures to put in those frames.

Now we look pretentious. Yes!

I was getting cranky, and food shopping always cheers me up! After being completely disappointed by the price of produce in Florida supermarkets, we did finally get to a farmer's market before they closed up.

7 yams, 6 cukes, 6 squash, 5 peaches. One peach
didn't make it to the photoshoot, it was too delicious
to wait!


This guy was on sale at Target... it's been a long
time since I've had animal crackers, and well, I
needed a cute cookie jar. You can see his foot in
the previous picture!

Almond-oatmeal crusted spicy chik'n seitan
and agave candied yams

For $9.50 I got enough produce to last a few nights ($3 for the peaches, but worth every penny). DP also picked up a jar of hot pepper jelly for $5 from the same elderly couple who sold us the squash, cucumbers and yams. It was delicious, so I'll forgive him for trying to convince me that they use gelatin to make jam.

The yams were candied in canola oil and agave nectar last night as a side dish for dinner, to complement the oven-fried seitan with an almond-oatmeal crust. The gluten certainly didn't agree with me a few hours later, but it was still so tasty. I love making my own seitan; I kneaded some ground chickpeas in with the wheat gluten which kept the inside soft while the almonds baked into a solid crust.

On the writing front, I've definitely been doing some procrastinating. I reached my 10k word goal, but coming up to the final scene I decided I'll be doing a major rewrite of the entire bit and target for a different publisher.

This is why I consider myself more of a pantser than a planner. I do have a pretty good idea of where I want a story to go, by I let the characters take me in a direction that is most suited for them. The scene I wrote last, I had an entirely different idea of what was going to happen before I reached the end. Upon rereading it, I realized I was putting too much of a censor on myself and it was making the characters struggle in their dialogue and actions.

Still on the market for some cheap furniture to get this place set up by the end of the summer. Every day is a search for a desk so I don't have to write from a folding chair with the laptop getting warm on my lap, or from the floor...

Losing the love-scene virginity

Three hours and 1900 words later, I finally sat down and did it.

I set the mood by turning down all the lights. Made myself comfortable, set the mood by playing soft music and lighting candles. Then I dove into it -- I wrote my first love scene!

Okay. So the lights were turned down because all my lamps are packed away. And I wasn't playing music, I had a B horror film on the background that I more or less left on to keep me company while I struggled through this new landscape. Oh, and no candles in this househole -- the cats would set themselves on fire.

Wow. And after all those months of building up this moment, putting it in a mental category labeled "unattainable," and skirting around it, I'm a little disappointed that there weren't fireworks going off when I had finished.

Now that I know it isn't that daunting, I think my Muse may have been stirred up a bit! Keep her working!

Inspiration for today's love scene comes courtesy of Mandy Roth's "Goddess of the Grove." I love Mandy's writing because it is to-the-point, witty and suits my tastes just fine. She paces her scenes extraordinarily well, and I read GotG just before taking on this task of writing my own scene. (I think I borrowed the word "culmination" from her, but that's about as close a resemblance the two scenes share!)

Now it's nearly 1 a.m., time for this accomplished lady to get some rest!

Veggies, Montauk, Running and Writing

Why do people have so much trouble fitting veggies into their diet?


Vegetable market swag today: kale, peppers, grapes, bananas, cherry tomatoes, carrots, apples.

Seemed like a lot to pick up for $12 ("This will last me all week!"), except the entire head of kale turned into this...


Noochy kale chips!

...and I just couldn't contain myself. They were amazing. I don't have a dehydrator, so I baked these in the oven. I found a recipe for these on Averie's blog, and modified it based on the ingredients I had on hand/wanted to clean up after. I mixed together in a food processor:

1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 green pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup water

Threw it together in a bowl to fully coat a bunch of kale (stems removed, leaves cut in half). Spread it on two baking sheets at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, flipping a few times in between. I wish I had more pictures, but it's all gone!

This Saturday I meant to go backpacking, but with rain in the forecast in the Catskills, we decided to take our new car on a long test drive. So we drove from Queens to Montauk. We literally drove there, ate lunch at a fish and chips place, and left. (I had sweet potato fries; it was my partner's birthday that weekend and I went for him, but thoroughly ruined it when I started sobbing at a boiled lobster being brought to another guest.) It was a good test drive for our new car, before Aaron left New York to Florida yesterday morning, and I've never seen "The End" of Long Island.

I woke up at 3 a.m. (or at least that's what my alarm was set for) to make coffee and breakfast (failed) for us to get him ready to go. It was a nice good-bye, and though I'd promised myself I wouldn't cry, I did get a bit teary. On June 12 I'll meet him in Virginia to see his sister's graduation, and we'll drive back up to New York together, but in the last four years we've been apart one other time for more than a week. I like time alone, but I cherish time together! Or at least I need to learn how to!

After he left (and after getting a great pep talk from Ju) I looked out the window at the beautiful rising sun.



Not the best view from my balcony (no privacy either), living on a busy intersection, but all the elements were aligned. The temperature and humidity were perfect, the air smelled crisp, it was a holiday morning (Memorial Day) so it was extra quiet. A great morning for a 6.5 mile run!

Well, maybe not, because today I'm extra sore despite a nice 20 minute yoga stretch afterward.

Running is my meditation. When I need to plot, gain perspective, or just clear my head, nothing does it better than a middle to longer distance run. No music, no accessories, just pure meditative running. I'm a slow runner for longer distance (I have no dreams of qualifying for the Boston Marathon), I run with my breathing; that means that if I want to run a 10-minute mile, then I'll run a 10 minute mile, but if my lungs will put up with a 7:30, then that's what I'll run. I don't time, I don't race other people on the trail. It really is meditation, I'm focused inward.

Which can get rather boring. So partner runs are fun!

And on the writing front, I've procrastinated all day, but I will not stop until my MS reaches 1500 words. I currently have 300.