Chicken Roll Ups

At least that’s what my friend calls it.


He mixes cooked chicken, a couple “cream of” soups, some shredded cheese and a some veggies in a bowl. Then he makes dumplings by wrapping the mixture in some crescent roll dough. He pops them in a casserole dish, pours the rest of the mixture over the dumplings and sticks the whole thing in the oven.

Low heat for a while. You don’t want the dough to stay tacky. You need it to dry out and cook through.

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He made this for me the first time around this same time last year.
We were learning how to be friends. We were eager to spend time together. We enjoyed cooking together.

I have a picture of what it looked like. I have another picture with our faces smushed up together, both of us with silly, happy grins on our faces…like life had all of the sudden opened up a surprise box and we got to pick whatever we wanted from the choices inside – and we chose each other.
Those were good days back then..before a lot of the growing pains crept into the relationship; the easy days. And I wouldn’t lie to you and say that I don’t miss them, but we’re in a good place now too…it’s just different, more complex.

Our most recent experience with Chicken Roll Ups was on the day before Valentine’s Day. He made dinner and I brought a gift. I finally put my money where my mouth is and handed him a love letter, instead of just posting it to a public blog. He received it warmly; he received me warmly. It was a small step in progress of moving beyond the growing pains…

I feel like we’ve been friends for life, instead of just the year.

I want to share the light...

There's a light that exists in my room in the peak of the afternoon...

It washes my room in a burnt-orange-rose-colored glow. Everything is hazy and warm, and I want to share this light with you.

Let me usher you into my room around 3pm, so that you can see what I see, feel what I feel. I want to see how your skin reacts to the colored light. See how your smile looks heated by the sanguine-like passion in the air.

I want to run my hand down your bare chest and feel whether the light creates a difference, an added tenderness to the moment of my eager fingers touching your firm body.

Let's wrap the light around us as we enjoy the different perspective this light gives.
Come with me.
Breathe in the rose-air and feel the heat of it burn your chest with the desire.

----

This light whispers its own desires to me.
It asks me to share it with someone I love.
It taunts me with stories of what it - if given a body - would do.

It challenges me to see things differently; to be bolder.

Let me share this light with you...
So you too will know of its desires.

your memory vs. my body

He's got you on his shelf dusted with care. You're out - front and center - you can't be missed. I see you clear as day and can only assume he means to keep you close in that way. A memory honored until the bitter end.

He's got me in his bed, moist and ready for his attention. I'm present, but packed up and hidden; a kind of embarrassing truth to his current existence. I'm kept at arms length - just close enough to feel some warmth, but not close enough to feel the commitment of his arms around me.

I look in the mirror and wonder who he loves more...
your memory or my body.

Sometimes, Beauty Can't Travel

I recently roadtripped to Teaneck, NJ to visit my dad. He took me to Costco to shop for some of the lil man's favorite foods, so that we would be properly stocked for the weekend. It was a kind gesture. It's always nice to have some familiar foods on hand - a comfort-thing, I suppose.

I saw this orchid - and it stopped me in my tracks.
Now, I am not usually an orchid kind of girl, but it was lovely. And, keep in mind, it was only one in an entire display of them. It's beauty was powerful, overwhelming.

My dad noticed that I had fallen behind. When he looked at me, I am sure that he saw stars in my eyes. I felt like I had been hit with some kind of beauty-potion, a character paused-in-play until it would wear off.

"Let's get it. You can take it home," he said resolutely.

His words broke the spell...and in a way, my heart.

"Are you kidding?! This is beautiful. It would not be once I got it home. It won't survive the roadtrip back to NC. I promise."

(I have a small Saturn. It's usually packed to the brim with things to distract the kid en route.)

"Are you sure?" He really wanted to get me something. My birthday was close coming, and I could tell that he wanted to spoil me rotten.

I looked at him. I was sad. I would have loved to have admired this beauty for as long as it would survive under my care. But, 9 hours stuffed in a crevice in a car with a looney and careless Latina and a clumsy-though-well-meaning 6 year old. I sighed deep. It had no chance.

"I'm sure."

I snapped this picture to remind me of the beauty that exists in places that I cannot be...beauty that cannot travel with me.

Dutch Gouda Cheese Biscuits

Dutch Gouda Cheese Biscuits

In a bowl, mix Bisquick and a generous amount of shredded cheese (any is fine). Add milk until batter is a thick paste. Spoon onto nonstick surface. Bake at 400 for approximately 15mins.

You want to talk about EASY yummy-goodness. Do it, people. Super easy! 

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No, I don't particularly think this recipe is dependent on Gouda cheese. Any kind of cheese biscuit is a good thing...that is, of course, if you like cheese. If you don't, well then, this recipe isn't really for you then, huh? Sorry about that.

Me? I wouldn't normally have Gouda on hand.
I am normally a Cheddar kind of girl. But my dad, as a parting gift, packed me an $11 wedge of Gouda and some crackers...with a plastic knife. Not really the easiest thing to manage on a road trip from NJ to NC being the only driver, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Anyway, I used a decent chunk of the wedge on these biscuits - DELISH!! 

living with the ex

Did you know that I was living with the ex?

Yea. It's true.
Let's talk about how that's an interesting pick up line. No...really, it's not.

Most people don't really let it process when I say it...and when it finally hits, "OMG, you're living with your ex-husband?!" - their eyes get big and a bit panicked.

At this point, a month into this project, I can chuckle; but only because I've wrestled down the dirty monster of panic.

It's a delicate, mixed bag of tricks:

I've started and invested just about everything I have - time and money - into my new writing career. The time came when I had run out of money and needed to make some big changes in living arrangements (i.e. I couldn't pay rent any longer).

I am thankful to report that I really had a lot of options...people who would accept me into their homes, even with the little man in tow. But they're all out of state. Which means that I'd be uprooting the little man, mid-year, and starting the IEP process in an unknown environment; or that I'd be giving his dad 24/7 parenting responsibilities. Either option wasn't really an acceptable option for me.

And...

Even though I asked my ex to remove my name from the mortgage 2 years ago, he still hasn't managed to get that paperwork completed. And this is with the incentive of 100% of the financial gain - I told him that I would forfeit any portion of the equity at resale, all he had to do was remove my name.

He tried to complete the paperwork over this past summer, but come to find out, an appraisal is required as a part of the process. He didn't want to schedule a meetup for the appraisal, because he hasn't been taking care of the property.

(The neighbor told me a story...
The Girl Scouts came around selling cookies and asked her if it was safe to visit the house just because it looked so bad on the outside. I responded that if they thought it looked bad on the outside, only the things of horror-stories lived on the inside. Sigh.)

And so...

The choice became clear. I would move back into still-my house and become the property manager, moving towards the final solution of getting my name off the mortgage & deed of the house and surrounding property. It would be the almost-best solution for the kid. And it would give me a little more time to get a successful marketing campaign up and running for the books that I had just published.

I would just have to live with the ex...

So, I've done what I always do...
I've started a blog: livingwiththeex

Enjoy the insanity! 

let's pull up our own pants

Okay...so, I find this interesting...

There's a faith-based (Christian) spoken word video that has over 3+ million hits. The description is...

"Marriage today is struggling. Divorces, adultery, misconceptions, etc are plaguing not only the marriage itself but products of those marriages (my generation and the next). My hope in this poem is to highlight the most frequent and problematic issues marriages face today while also pointing to Jesus as the ultimate healer, redeemer, and restorer of every marriage. Whether single or married, my intention would be that this poem would allow you to look more deeply to Jesus to either better your current marriage, or prepare for your future marriage."

And I am pretty much good with all of that...really.
The faith part isn't what's interesting. What's interesting is that the video owner has enabled ads in order to generate some capital (via Google AdSense, I think)...and the current video ad that's running before his message is of popular movie clips that show couples in different stages of love and kissing (Fox Movies: "Own The Moments You Love") and all I can think is none of these movie moments support what I am about to listen to...

And, so, I am distracted away from the heart of the message even before I can begin to listen to it (being raised in a Christian environment, I'm pretty much up to date on what he's going to say, anyway...I'm only checking in to hear the beauty of his word play, the passion in his delivery, the hope in his expression)...

My underlying question(s):

Does the video owner not care about the fact that the video is showing -- in a positively sexy these-are-awesome-movies-and-you-know-you-love-them-no-matter-your-beliefs kind of way -- clips of relationships that are built on the "frequent and problematic issues" that create the marital problems that he is, in fact, about to highlight as really serious no-nos.

Is he not paying attention?
Not that I'm fussing. I wouldn't want to check my video each and every day to make sure that I supported the message of the ad that plays before it.

Is the temptation to make a buck from G Ads too tempting to worry about what the ads are marketing? The argument being..."people usually click 'Skip this Ad' anyway, so those who don't probably aren't paying too close attention anyway" (running to grab a drink in the 60 seconds that are available...or maybe their Bible to confirm any actual Biblical passages that he may use...)

------

I'm just wondering.
Because, if I believed in something so strongly and wanted to get the message out; if I was representing something sacred, a faith-based message that was super important to me...

Then I'd pay attention to what ads were running; or, I'd cut my losses with AdSense, remove the ad option from that particular video and proclaim my faith without the hope of collecting.

But that's just me.

And, while we're talking about it anyway...

The issues that plague marriages today and the consequences of how those problems are dealt with are indeed a serious problem. Hell, basic relationships are riddled with a myriad of issues that partners can't seem to deal with appropriately...we can't even get to the committed marriage part these days.

Being selfish, having sex and throwing in the towel are "easy" things. No one seems to want to do the hard work that it takes to make a relationship (or a marriage) survive.

Faith doesn't even have a fair chance anymore, because no one seems to have the basic characteristics required for long-term relationship maintenance: patience, concern for another, self-discipline, fill-in-the-blank with some high moralistic personality trait that betrays integrity and long suffering, etc...

Wait. Strike that. We have them in abundance as along as we're happy. The moment things get hard or uncomfortable, the moment we're sad, we seem to run fresh out of anything that would count for vulnerability or selflessness with/for our partner.

And true, the younger generation "suffers" from seeing inappropriate patterns in their elders, but if we (can I still say we? - another birthday is coming up this Saturday) could just pull up our own pants for once instead of always blaming things on "how we were raised" maybe we could fulfill 1 Timothy 4:12.

Imagine: Taking responsibility for our own actions. Finally working as hard as we play, in order to revel in a moment of genuine accomplishment; to really understand, to own the reward of earning something.

(Wow. What a novel idea.)

We reap what we sow, people.
If our relationships, our commitments really (REALLY) mattered to us, we'd do the work and stop bitching about it, because we'd understand that there are sacrifices involved in sharing our lives with someone else.

And, yea, if faith (if Jesus) is going to help you "deny yourself" and walk the road less traveled, then by all means, look more deeply to him for guidance and help for your day-to-day life. But by golly, all I'm saying, is don't use him as an excuse or a crutch.

Own your life. Honor your faith by putting in a little effort.