Random Thoughts With Coffee

I am happy to report I have stayed on my diet since my last post. Eggs for breakfast and some chicken for dinner, or lunch, or in between. Last night could have been my demise thanks to a no-carb fried pork rinds. Munching happily away a tiny little crumb landed in my throat the wrong way. I choked and coughed and then repeated the same for at least an hour. Now I know why my little Chi Chloe kept coughing after her kibble caught in her throat as she tried to avoid another of the pack eating her food. It hurts. It doesn't go away quickly. But it did, and I am hear to moan about the loss of bread and cake in my life. Seriously, I feel pretty good. I am not weighing, but I have a doctor's appointment to check my blood pressure today. We'll see if my choices to lower my weight have raised my blood pressure. Don't care. I am on this diet to see if I can sustain and drop a few pounds. I don't want to be a skinny me, just a healthier me with less fat on my hip...

I've been missing on my new blog. The everyday posting thing hasn't worked out for me. But on the other hand, I have been working on a new novel. So it's coffee with Nigel the character in my story that takes flight. I also visit Facebook with my coffee. A stalker of other lives. Is there inspiration to be found? A favorite shop posting a photo of an antique I can't live without. If so, I watch the clock until 10 am when most shops open and make a quick call. "How much? Yes. Perfect. Here is my charge card. I'll be in later today to pick it up." Lately, I wake up in the morning, fear at my heart, as I ask myself a simple question. "Did I buy anything online last night?" Like a drunk on a binge, I am out of control at 2 am, up on Etsy, clicking the 'put in your cart' button. I have a thing for jewelry with old tintypes of turn of the century people. "Dead People" I call the creations with photos dangling from chains of pea...

It's not coffee that keeps me awake at night. Somehow my brain activity picks up as the hands of the clock get closer to midnight. Thoughts are more stimulating than anything I can drink. Once an idea hits, I am toast. My mind wanders. Sometimes I write. I wrote my widow memoir most evenings (or would it be those awakening morning hours) after midnight and until four in the morning. Then I would tumble into bed. Too exhausted to sleep. Too tired to stay up. Looking out my windows, the lights against a dark sky, tease me, fill me with a wander lust I rarely have during the day. The first man I slept with after I was on my own did not thrill me as much as the thirty minute drive on the expressway to head back home to my own house. Yes, I traveled to have sex with a man who made me smile, but not enough to stick around all night. Of course, there were the dogs. I am home every night to take care of the hounds. Eight years ago it was two dogs, now it is five. Still, if there wer...

My latest purchases. Two wonderful parson chairs covered very romantically in burlap and lace. Moving into my new antique booth today and these will set the tone for the look I want. Writer, jewelry designer, sometimes antique dealer, dog hoarder. Love to use that slogan on my business cards for my writing life. Today the sometimes antique dealer is upcycling to antique dealer . Taking the sometimes out of the equation. I. Will. Be. Selling. Furniture. Again. Starting today. I've had, and still will have, a lovely spot at Antiques In Old Town, in Lilburn, Georgia, one of my favorite spots to shop and lunch with my friends there. I sell jewelry, vintage and gently used pieces I can't stop from buying wherever I stop on days I need my 'fix'.  Furniture has been on the back burner because of my hip issues, and the fact I am now a wimp who can't lift heavy stuff. A visit to Madison the other week put me back in my furniture game. I am moving into a tiny littl...

Not only do I believe in bacon, I believe in cute illustrations. Here is one I borrowed from the web.     I didn't post here yesterday. Shame on me. Day three I took off doing other things early in the morning.  I had a date with a friend to head to Madison to visit a marvelous farm fresh restaurant and market, aptly named Farmview Market . Awesome sauce. We ate the most wonderful lunch and shopped around admiring all the local produce. Is there anything prettier than a round, fresh, plump off the vine, tomato? (Oh yes, the peanut butter pie!). I bought a few small home made soaps - lavender and oatmeal. Does it get any better? Our plans to continue on to an antique shop kept me from buying groceries that would fry in the stinkin' hot car while we lingered looking at treasures in air conditioning. Farmview Market is  twenty miles from my little cottage in Social Circle, a lovely drive on back roads (which I prefer over the expressway.) I p...

No hazelnut creamer in my coffee this morning. Life is sweet enough. A few weeks ago I made a promise to myself. No more complaining. No more 'what ifs'. No more waiting to move forward. So many things happened in the last year and a half that slowed me down, made me question who I was and what would I do for the rest of my life. Those thoughts kept me bogged down. Don't worry about the rest of your life, worry about today, became my new mantra. And things started happening. Good things, great things. The reason I moved from my home of thirty years to a small community an hour away - change. I needed change. My old life was good, but I wanted more. The house of my dreams, a chance to jump start my creative juices, and find my biggest adventure yet. You know, I am not a traveler, I am a nester, so that big adventure I want will still be outside my front door. Only this time my door is hinged to a wonderful renovated 1906 Victorian bungalow with sweet gardens, tall c...