Oatmeal Mornings

I don't know what to blog about, but I really feel like blogging!!!

(side note: I've come to accept that I enjoy using an excessive number of exclamation points!)

I'm drinking really strong coffee and listening to the new Shane & Shane CD that Natalie gave me (it is so great!). Also, I am eating oatmeal that I made with half-water-half-egg-nog (also great!)and then I added plain yogurt (is oatmeal not so versatile?).

I tell Steph I want to open up an oatmeal store and just make different kinds of oatmeal combinations. Wouldn't that be great? I so prefer oatmeal to any other breakfast food...although German cream of wheat has been growing on me...My affections are divided.

Anyway:

Really Good Oatmeal Combinations:

1) Oatmeal, cinnamon, coconut milk, banana
2) Oatmeal, cinnamon, almond milk, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries
3) Oatmeal, peanut butter, honey, banana
4) Oatmeal, cinnamon, a pear!

Pretty-Good Oatmeal Combinations:

1)Oatmeal, coconut milk, pineapple, banana, plain yogurt
2) Oatmeal, almond milk, walnuts, cranberries, raisins
3) Oatmeal, banana, chopped walnuts, greek yogurt (cherries are good too!)

If-You're-Feeling-Quirky Oatmeal Combinations:

1) Oatmeal, nutmeg, almond milk, sweet potato (or pumpkin!), yogurt
2) Oatmeal, egg nog, yogurt (and sometimes marshmallows)
3) Oatmeal, baked apple, shredded carrots

Combinations That You Think Will Be Good...But That Then Aren't:

1) Oatmeal, milk, NesQuick powder (this was TERRIBLE)

So there is my blog devoted to oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of my life-joys.

Oatmeal, reading over breakfast, good lighting---three of my life-joys.

A Word to the Wise

I had an insightful conversation with my sister the other day.

Paloma: “Boys like to date girls who look like their sisters! It’s so creepy! Next time I date someone I’m going to be like, ‘First, show me a picture of your family.’”

I think she has a point.

Is that not terribly disturbing?

So now I'm thinkng that maybe when he said we were 'compatible' and I understood him to mean "Our personalities interact well," what he really meant was "You look a lot like my sister."

Ick.

The Lutherans

Dad: So where are you going to church tomorrow?

Criz: Well there's a Baptist church down the road. And a Presbyterian one too.

Dad (laughs like crazy): What is with you and all these old people churches?!

Criz: What?! What is with you and all this dogmatic approval of the Assemblies of God?!

Dad: I don't know. I just think of all these churches as, like Lutherans and Baptists, as, I don't know...

Criz: As retirement homes?

Dad: Yeah.

Criz: Ha. So when you were growing up was the A/G the cool young people's church?

Dad: Well...the A/G was spirit-filled. At least we were trying to live like Christians.

Criz: What!?

Dad: Well...compared to the Lutherans down the road who would go to church and then the next day sneak up behind me on the bus and slap me on the back of the head with their graduation rings.

Criz: I didn't know there was so much history between you and the Lutherans

Dad: Yeah my friend Paul, he got married at a Lutheran church. I don't think he'd ever gone to church. Except for that once when he got married. One time I invited him to go to Camp Joy with me and when he got there he asked, 'Where are all the TVs?' and I said, 'There are no TVs.' And Paul said, 'WHAT? NO TVS?' and so then he went home because they didn't have TV, and I stayed there at camp.

Tequila

Dad: "She can just take a shot-full and then go to bed. It's either a $15-$20 bottle of tequila or $100 to go to the doctor..."

(Telephone conversation with Dad regarding Paloma's winter cold---here he tried to convince me to buy her tequila, insisting it would burn out the infection and save her a trip to the doctor.)

From the Archives

Apparently I went through a phase where I would write down the most notable events of my day.

Apparently my life is really boring.

Day 1:

-I looked up Antwerp. It is in Belgium.

-I read T.S. Eliot: A poem about a dead aunt, another about laughter tinkling among tea cups, and another about a cousin Nancy who trampled on hills and danced modern dances.

-Talked to NiCole about going garage sailing this weekend. Also thrift stores are to be visited.

-Ate oatmeal with cranberries and raisins.

-Look up: defunctive, inane, the usage of the word digress, miasma, ague, enervate

Day 2:

Today: Mario sang School House Rock’s ‘Conjunction Junction’ while dancing the robot. He then proceeded to flicker the lights in the front office while rattling a folder.

Criz: “What’s that supposed to be? It sounds like an Altoid box being shaken.’
Mario: “It’s thunder.
Criz: “Oh, cool!”
Mario: “It sounds a little more realistic when you use a sheet of cookies.”
Criz: ?
Mario: “A baking sheet.”
Mario: ”So is it cold in Colorado about a fourth of the time?”
Criz: “Mmm..maybe a little more, especially up north.”
Mario: “In Conjunction?”
Criz: “Grand Junction?”
Mario: “Oh, I had conjunction junction on the brain.”

-Looked up ‘bunk’ and it turns out it is short for the Americanism, ‘bunkum’ which came “after the speech in 16th Congress, 1819–21, by F. Walker, who said he was bound to speak for Buncombe (N.C. county in district he represented).”

-Called Biola, left messages

Day 3:

-Crazy 65 year-old man in a windbreaker came into the office to buy a transcript: bushy white hair, bushy white beard, one blue eye, one eye completely white. His name was Eldon.

-Eldon tried to pay for transcript with Turkish currency.

-Eldon also said Social Security is a punishment, or as he referred to it, a rape---a rape because it’s forced on you. Those were his words.

Day 4:

-Listened to Ella Fitzgerald

-Got stressed out from entering too many payments and writing too many receipts

-Ate too many Lindor truffles

-Wondered if today was a day of excess

Say It In Russian

I found this book last time I was home and just loved it too much to not take it with me. Sometimes when I'm bored I just read through the entires and laugh like crazy.



Please do note that this book has over 1,400 up-to-date entries---



Because I send cablegrams regularly.

Also note--these entries are not only up-to-date, they are also practical.



And of course, never go to Russia without knowing how to order buckwheat grits.

Two Tablespoons

This morning I drank anxiety
Without thinking, automatically
I mixed a tablespoon into my coffee
And added another for good measure

I drank it down
Down, down, I drank it down
And now, intermixed
It flows with my blood to my mind, my heart

I couldn’t figure out why I was nervous
Why my thoughts frenzied
Why my eyes tired
But then I remembered

I stirred two tablespoons of anxiety
Into my coffee today
And that is why

So now I know
And now I know
Will your living water dilute?
Will your rivers overrun and engulf?

The Spirit is life and peace
And I am all anxiety and frenetic movement
But the Spirit is life and peace

Determined

This morning I woke up determined to go for a run.

I lay in bed for 30 minutes just thinking about how determined I was to go for a run.

Then I got up and meandered over to the kitchen and ate a banana and drank some Gatorade, further proofs of my decision to go for a run.

An hour later, after checking my Facebook and my Yahoo, I was in my Sauconys and tying my key to my short strings. A run was only a minute away...

I opened the door, and behold: it was raining.

So now I'm writing a blog while I wait for the tea kettle.

C'est la vie.