And that’s when I know it’s over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it’s the end.
(Junot Díaz)
If this quote has a more profound meaning than something like a new year beginning and an old year ending, sorry, its gone right over my head. You will just have to figure it out for yourself.
I have my own conundrums to sort. Somewhere back in 2016 I lost my joy of writing. I would like to find it again. Maybe I lost the joy in a lot of things and that’s the root of my problem in a rather joyless year for the world in general.
But, you know, who the hell wants to hear about all that all over again.
Today my right knee hurts for no good reason and it’s making me sad. See, this is what I find myself doing. Complaining to whoever will listen (even if it’s only the little voices in my head) about insignificant crap. And if I were to write down these whiny complaints, that would just magnify shit. No one needs shit magnified, do they? So then I don’t write anything at all for a day, or a week, or nearly a month, and that’s easy, and it becomes a habit which gets progressively harder and harder to break.
So here is my brilliant plan for 2017 to blog my merry way to happiness. Because for me, blogging was once joyous. I’ve set my goal at mildly entertaining for now and will work my way back up.
I have created a new category called “2017 Book of Lists”. I will make lists of good things. There are always good things. If I can’t immediately see the good things I will list the bad things, but only as a last resort. And only if they are so bad they’re funny.
Here are some good things that happened today.
- I used up the bag of leftover taco hamburger from the freezer. No one is more surprised by this than me, except maybe for W who is always surprised when I spend longer than 15 minutes in the kitchen. Normally I freeze leftovers and throw them out once I’m not really sure what they are anymore.
- The cheesey potato hamburger casserole I made was edible! No, you know what? It was GOOD. Or we were both abnormally hungry. It could go either way.
- I also used up a bunch of apples that had seen better days by slicing them up and covering them with a sort of cake batter before baking them. It was a nice change from apple crisp. My mom used to make something like it, juicy sweet moist apple cake, maybe called Apple Brown Betty, but also maybe not.
Perhaps I should have called this a list of FOOD things that happened today. Whatever, I am off and running, day one done like dinner.
Happy first day of January, what always seems to me to be the longest month of the entire year. I don’t think filling it up with lists will make it any shorter, but ‘more fun’ is a possibility. Hey, getting blown up by an asteroid is also a possibility, would you rather have that? Yeah I didn’t think so.
So hard to write about all the bad…and I agree, then you just get lost in all of it and writing becomes a distant memory. I am rather interested in trying that apple cake thing, although I am supposed to be nixing sweets. Was it literally sliced apples topped with cake mix and baked? Did you turn it out after in the fashion of an upside down sort of thing, or did the apples just bake into it? This is sounding better and better and so worth experimenting with. Thanks!!!
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Ha, yes, I’m supposed to be nixing the sweet stuff too. I know a cake mix would work as long as you keep it fairly dry, and I think that’s called a dump cake. As in dumping cake over fruit. I am such a chef, hey?? I made my own batter so I could use Truvia instead of sugar. The rest is just flour, baking powder, eggs, oil, cinnamon. Added a little water because the apples were a bit dry. I look for ideas on allrecipes.com and then change things to suit myself. This is why I rarely have things turn out the same way twice. I mean where would be the fun in that?? lol. Happy experimenting.
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She’s alive!! Welcome back! I’m so glad someone else has admitted to tossing out Unidentifiable Frozen Objects, and I’m so pleased to hear about the time you didn’t! And that someone somewhere didn’t throw the ugly-duckling/rubber apples out to the squirrels (which they’d throw back, were it not for their being cursed with having tiny T-rex arms!) (Am I dreaming? Quick, say something else!) 🙂 Happy New Year!
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Yes it is GOOD to be alive! Something I’ve always believed. lol. We got rid of our big freezer years ago and have only the one that’s part of the fridge, foolishly thinking this would solve the unidentifiable frozen objects problem. It’s apparently not solvable.
And our resident squirrel is full of bird seed. I’m sure apples would just confuse him. 😄
A very happy new year to you too❤
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my word, YOU never fail to amaze, amuse and entertain! Taking the drudgery of life… and somehow turn it, twist it into something that makes us all feel just a wee bit better for reading it.
Thank you. Thank YOU! And see, now even I, sore hip, torn up knee, crunched back… am chuckling. 🙂
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Aww, you are so kind. And now I’m sad about your aches and pains and feeling strangely less preoccupied with my own. Hope you feel better soon. ❤
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seriously you make a great writer!
‘old age’ creeping up. LOL all those youthful adventures are now coming into their own full glory. the hip gets repaired next week though 🙂
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Oh good luck with that! Bit of an arduous recovery process but all worth it. I suppose we should be happy we get to experience the aging process, considering the alternative.😊
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I saw your blog after posting mine and wonder if your recipe might work for me, too. Not sure…. but I might give it a try.
Happy new year with lots of happy lists. 🙂
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Maybe I can make a list of reasons why lists are therapeutic….haha. I don’t know if it will work either, but no harm in trying. 😊
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I feel better when I write but go through those times when I just don’t write and I wonder why I don’t. Then I don’t seem to feel the joy — or is it that I don’t feel the joy so I don’t write? Chicken, egg conundrum. Anyway, your humor is a good tonic.
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Yes I always feel better when I write too, and it never comes out the way I had it semi planned in my head, it always goes somewhere else. Often somewhere dumb, but then I read some stupid thing in my archives and think, well, it wasn’t THAT dumb. Unlike this comment….lol. Yes – joy, write, write, joy, chicken, egg – I know exactly what you mean.
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I like your list and your plan. Sometimes we have to try hard, but there is always something good that can be found. 😉
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And you are one of the best people I know for always finding it.❤❤
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Awh! Thank you. 😌
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I love to read anything you write and I’m looking forward to your lists.
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Yay, me too! Most of them are likely to be of the throw-away type like grocery lists, but it’s the process that counts. I will try to convince myself of the truth in that. 😜
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When I saw the title of this post in my inbox, I was worried — “Oh no, the end of her blog and the beginning of something else? And she’s trying to break it to us gently by tying it to the end of the year?” SO glad it was just a old year/new year post. (I won’t say “typical” because they never are!) I am looking forward to your future posts too, like your other readers.
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I think for awhile there I just got tired of listening to myself. Then I made so many lists and revisions of lists over Christmas I decided it was something I was quite talented at and should share with the blogging world. Yes, possibly I had a little too much wine….lol
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I like this new plan of yours, and I’m glad to be getting back into writing just in time to greet you on your own getting-back-into-writing quest!
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The longer you leave it, the harder it gets I think. I’m feeling rusty. Let’s do this!!
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You’re on!
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Oh yay for lists about good things. I’ve been in such a funk lately I need to do the same. May you write your way to happiness!
Alison
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Thanks Alison. It’s already kind of therapeutic, as nonsense often tends to be.😊
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Yay, I’ve missed you !
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And I’ve missed you although that’s not your fault. Will get back to visiting you regularly soon❤
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I think your Book of Lists posts are a great idea. I’m really enjoying reading them.
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