Hummus

A continuation from Chips and Salsa

My new, slower life style has given me time to listen to people and really pay attention. I've always been an avid people watcher and I loved talking to people when I was working. As in everything fast paced, unless I was observing from afar, being nosey, I wasn't really paying attention. Now, I can say, I just might be getting a little too mellow.

I think I have always, well mostly, o.k. sometimes been a good judge of character. After meeting someone, I know immediately if I like them or not. That's it. Now, on top of that, there are some people I get certain feelings from.

Recently I was around this one woman and she gave me this image of laundry hanging on a clothes line. Sheets and towels gently flapping in the wind on a sunny day. There was nothing but blue skies and fields filled with wildflowers which stretched out forever. The odd thing is whenever I used to hang clothes out to dry they would always be stiff and hard. It didn't matter how much fabric softener I used, stiff and hard. It's a good thing my image is sweet or I wouldn't have felt so comfortable around her. Or it's a good thing I didn't have this image around a strange man. Stiff and hard. No, no...it was definitely the comforting, lazy, breezy feeling I got from the woman. She was safe. I wonder why?

Another woman gave me the feeling of homemade chocolate chip cookies. If there is anything else in this world which gives the feeling of coziness and warmth I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on what triggers these visions, but they just come to me. I wonder if I was hungry. I do have an insatiable sweet tooth. When I was a kid my mom would buy the tubes of chocolate chip cookie dough. It was so modern. What a treat! I don't remember making any from scratch, I just remember those tubes. We ate as much raw as we did baked, until my mom told us we would get worms. Is that true?

I was giving a massage to an older gentleman last week and I don't know why, but I got nothing but my dad vibes from him. That's it. My dad. I can't put my finger on what it was. It just was. I have no smart ass remark to make.

O.K. before you go calling me New Age Nancy. I don't really like that. If you are gonna call me a Nancy name, could you make it little Nancy fancy pants.

That's why I picked Hummus. I think of it as a New Age condiment. I mean it's one of the oldest known prepared foods according to Wikipedia. It's so old it's full of spirit and soul. The magical and mystical condiment. Goes great with pita bread, but y'all knew that. Goes great with belly dancers too. How come Belly dancers, unless they are on t.v. or a theme park, are fat? I mean, chunky monkey fat. I'm not judging, I'm just saying.

When I was little I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to be Samantha from Bewitch or Tabitha. The nose wiggle seemed easier than the mouth wiggle. Sometimes I wanted to be Genie, but the bottle was a bit confining. All I wanted was to be magical.
Raise your hand if you wanted to be magical. Did you want to be one of those ladies or for the younger people, did you want to be Sabrina the teenage witch? The ladies from Charmed? The Wizards of Waverly place or the ultimate wizard of them all....Harry Potter! If only we could make things happen the way we wanted when we wanted. Would that be a good thing? Honestly, I think sometimes it would.

If I keep this easy breezy thinking when we build our home on the side of a mountain( I really need to name this house), I think a zip line is in order. It would go from the hill side where the house would sit down to the valley where my horse will be. How fun would that be? Nothing but air and wire.

To recap: I have new powers of observation. They include visions and aromas. I'm not going crazy. I'm not a witch. Well, some might disagree, buy I'm paying attention.

I am an aura reader. Just kidding, well, half kidding. Ha...I think there is a career in that.

Chips and Salsa

Once upon a time there was a man, a stinky bad man who would tell me I was simple. Over and over. It wasn't his way of saying he wanted to ride west and homestead. He was trying to put me in my place. It worked for awhile. His constant belittling would sometimes roll off me, but there were quite a few times when it would take root. I was a new mother of two and to be quite honest I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I did know that once I had my first son, life changed. I changed. The father did not change. It took awhile, but I left.

Everybody has boundaries, some perimeters are just larger than others. My boundaries were pretty darn big back then. I would say the lines ran as far apart as south Florida to Washington state. He crossed it. I wised up and guess what? I rode west and homesteaded, alone with my boys. Things had to get complicated for me to figure out the plain truth. I am simple.

Have you ever had so many bad things, big or little, real or imagined happen for long stretches of time? You acknowledge the problems, solve them and move on but things just happen and happen and happen.

Enough is enough! Well, it seems it happened to me. More than once, maybe that's why I kind of shut down this year. A lifetime of shit caught up. I was at the stage where I don't care what is happening, somebody else needs to deal with it. I denied stuff. I ignored stuff. I pushed stuff off on other people. If one more thing happened I was going to break. NO MORE! Does that ever happen to anyone?

I am heading back to the middle now. My head has been stuck in the sand for long enough and now it's time to kick ass and take names. I guess I needed a retreat to the river denial to learn shit doesn't go away on it's own, even with a good man by my side. It doesn't matter where you go...there you are. Deal with it.

Speaking of simple. My husband and I are slowly but surely starting our dream of the house on the side of the mountain. Last year we had power brought in. This year for Christmas we decided to give each other the gift of a septic system. I think we are having so much fun planning our future life.

You know I found a bunch of blogs on accident of people who are living the country life. The homesteading life. Living off the land. Is this a new trend? Instead of being the suburban Jones people are becoming the country Jones. Although, I think it might be a whole lot harder to be a real and true homesteader than to be the city folks next door on main street, U.S.A. Me, I think we will be somewhere in between.

I think this is enough sharing for me for one night. I feel a little better. I have a lot more to say about the word simple, but I will save it for another condiment. I'll give you a hint. It has to do with clothes lines, chocolate chip cookies and my dad.

I think Chips and Salsa are one of my favorite condiments. It's simple, fresh and delicious. So, if you made it this far through my blog and really don't know what to say, give me your favorite salsa recipe, or pico de gallo recipe. Maybe one day we can share them with a beer on my wrap around porch over looking the land and a chicken or two.