Compose Yourself!

I've been feeling very creative lately. Yesterday I went to play bingo and while I didn't win. I did walk out with a handful of colorful cards. I don't know why but it just kills me to throw them away and since Big Daddy wasn't there to give me the "are you hoarding bingo cards now?" look, I brought my losers home. (I did linger over someone else's cards that they left on the table but I decided that would be overkill.)

While Papa Grande napped in his recliner, I sequestered myself in the craft room and made bingo composition notebooks. I have a love affair with composition notebooks that spans back twenty years. When I first got sober I had way too much time on my hands and way too many thoughts in my head so I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote creative stuff and journal stuff and I also played this free writing game with friends that was a lot more fun than it sounds. There was a little place called Boxies at Preston and Beltline and I used to go there and order a banana nut muffin and a vanilla latte. I sat at the table outside and I wrote until I couldn't see the page anymore. I filled dozens of composition notebooks and while I thought I was writing in preparation for the great American novel, I now believe I was learning to enjoy my own company. I found composition notebooks for .50 during back to school so I bought half a dozen.

I've been doing a lot of web searching about doodling, visual journals, art notebooks and creative lettering. I am drawn to these forms and have been for a long time but lately the art books seem muddled to me. I enjoy the layering process a lot, but the product sometimes seems bogged down. I love the idea of doodling, but have found that doodles tend to be floral, and while I like that a lot, I've been noodling about using a less girly motif. I'm searching for something, a light switch of sorts, and it's very exciting.

In Praise of the Punt!

As some of you know, I went a little crock pot crazy last year. I got a crock pot cook book called Make it Fast Cook it Slow (and subsequently several other crock pot cookbooks) and I just went a little bananas using this amazing little contraption to make dinner out of bits and pieces. What crock pot cooking reminded me (because I have always considered a recipe a template rather than precise instructions) is the it's okay to punt. It's okay to use chocolate chips instead of raisins (they're both brown after all). It's okay to use mustard, soy sauce and any flavor of jelly to make a sauce for chicken or chops. It's okay to use rotini instead of linguini or rice instead of potatoes. It's okay to leave out stuff you don't like. And above all, it's okay if it doesn't turn out amazing. Sometimes it will.

Take my dinner tonight: I have four little pork chops that need to get cooked today. I have some salad dressing that we got for free at a food show and I have some fresh pears. I'm gonna cook those things together. If the flavor works once the meat is done then I'm good and if it doesn't I'll take the juice out and add some soy sauce or some mustard or some cinnamon to give it a little more umph! I'm not afraid because as far as I know this isn't anyone's last meal. It's just dinner and it might be really delicious dinner or it might be "let's not do that again"dinner and either way, it's going to be okay. So take a few chances. Get out your crock pot and start with some easy recipes (chicken, salsa, corn, black beans--cook, shred chicken with two forks and mix in cream cheese. Eat in tortillas. So. Flippin. Good.) and after you've tried a few of those, have an adventure! Go off the grid! Mix it up a little and feel free to punt! You've got my permission.

I'll be back with the results. Happy creative cooking!