Last Sunday, I had the best day ever, not because anything exciting happened but because of how peaceful I felt in my heart. I played with the cats, polished the furniture, carefully cleaned and rearranged my collection of Fiestaware, and hung a little garland of …
October is a magical month here in North Florida. The temperatures are pleasant, the leaves and grass are still green, and the meadows, vacant lots, and roadsides are abloom with yellow and purple wildflowers. After the long, hot, hard summer, the world seems fresh and …
One of my favorite Saturday activities is whipping up a smoothie for myself in the early morning hours. It’s so fun and easy. I use almond butter, almond milk, ripe bananas, and organic frozen strawberries. In the lamplight before dawn, I like to sit with my smoothie and dream about everything I want to accomplish that day. The cats will be dozing all around me, and I’ll be gazing out through the big sunroom windows, watching as the day awakens and the quiet, gray yard becomes shot with gold. My smoothie is always delicious and satisfying; it keeps me nice and full until lunchtime and gives me the energy to garden, clean house, and provide quality cat care all morning long.
2 cups almond milk
2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons almond butter
1 1/2 cups sliced frozen strawberries
Put everything in the blender and blend until smooth.
On Sunday we put up our Christmas tree! Rob came home with the tree that afternoon. It was a nice, tall, straight tree with a perfect pyramid shape, but when we got it in the stand we noticed that its bottom branches had lost most …
Tonight I’m finishing up a rare four-day weekend. It was so much fun and felt like such a luxury! During most of my time off, I worked on a painting of a chubby baby bunny frolicking in a patch of bluets. I took breaks every hour and a half or so. I’d go out in the yard and water plants with my trusty watering can (it’s so dry here right now!) and pick armloads of ripe satsumas (we have three loaded trees).
I also strolled around our three acres with June, our smart little tuxedo cat, on her new harness and leash. She looked so cute walking along beside me through the still-green grass littered with golden leaves.
“She’s doing just as well as a small dog!” Rob marveled as we walked on Saturday afternoon. “June, you’re being so brave out here in the big, wide world!” (June is an indoor cat, so going outside on her leash is an exciting new adventure for her.)
June began practicing her bounding then (she’s so athletic!), and I had to run as fast as I could to keep up with her. After bounding all the way around the house a couple of times, she started rolling on the sun-warmed driveway to celebrate. She was rolling and squawking and just generally rejoicing in being alive. When I carried her back in the house, she was very disappointed.
I always get nervous about returning to work if I’ve been out a little while. Today I woke up with an especially bad case of the Sunday scaries, so I decided to comfort myself by whipping up a big pot of Sweet Potato-Black Bean Soup. It was delicious—full of rich coconut milk and my favorite spices. I ate it sitting in the backyard under a big Moonshadow sasanqua, which was in full pink flower. (Rob had left for Atlanta on a business trip so it was just me.) I watched birds and talked to the trees and pretended it wasn’t the end of my time off but the beginning.
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 large onion, minced
6 cayenne peppers, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons curry powder
3 teaspoons cumin
3 cups water
3 large sweet potatoes
2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes
2 cans black beans
Salt to taste
2 15-ounce cans coconut milk
Heat the oven to 450 degrees and bake the sweet potatoes until they’re soft (about an hour). Let them cool, then peel the skins off and coarsely chop the insides. Set aside.
Heat the grapeseed oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and hot peppers and sauté until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the garlic, curry powder, and cumin and sauté for a few more minutes. Add the water, sweet potato chunks, tomatoes, and black beans and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and stir in the salt and coconut milk. Simmer for five to 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and puree the soup until smooth using an immersion blender.
On Tuesday, I took the day off from work. I really needed it. Tuesday was my day off, but I’m not going to tell you about Tuesday. I’m going to tell you about Monday night because it was even better than Tuesday. On Monday night, …
Over the rainy Thanksgiving weekend, Rob and I put up our Christmas tree and I started sewing some new felt ornaments for it. The cats got busy too—messing things up (lol). On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as Carl splashed in the water in the tree …
Two Saturdays ago, I finished this ridiculous portrait of my teddy bear Cecilia. I spent a pleasant three weeks working on it, sitting at the dining room table in the evenings and on weekend mornings, the cats gathered around me to nap or take very long, elaborate baths.
It can be a bit challenging painting in the company of cats. After about five minutes, June, who is a busybody, usually has to be escorted out onto the breezeway because she gets too excited and starts butting her head against my easel, etc. If I’m not careful, she’ll scamper across my palette and get paint all over her feet . . . and then all over the house. This has happened several times.
The other cats are surprisingly well behaved when I’m painting. They deserve kudos for their maturity. Frankie likes to curl up in my lap on top of a damp, paint-spattered rag that I use to wipe water off my brushes. Softee, meanwhile, will be snoozing on a shelf in a nearby cabinet, where she’s often joined by Becky or the cantankerous Buntin. With the cabinet door open, the shelves look like floors in a small apartment building or residential hotel exclusively for felines–a sort of Barbizon, but for cats instead of young ladies.
Carl likes to sleep on the table inside the lid of my paint box. I turn it upside down so it makes a little cradle for him. He sleeps very soundly in its narrow cardboard confines, lulled by the sounds of Frontline, which I’m always listening to on my phone. I hate having to disturb him when it’s time to put my paints away.
Softee’s spot:
The adorable Carl:
