A Lightbulb Moment

Gentle Readers, although you may not have noticed it I have taken a month or so off from blogging. I needed time to think, to regroup, to decide where to focus my energy.

A fortuitous opportunity to spend some time in airport bookstores and watching a little reality TV with my sister finally made me realize something: pastimes in our culture are aspirational. The things most people watch and read are about who they think they are or who they wish they were. We may laugh at the Real Housewives of Wherever, but they are setting trends and selling products and people can't get enough of them.

And let's face it, my friends, nobody aspires to the life of an old maid with a cat. In fact, most younger people probably laugh at my exploits, but laugh in that uncomfortable "Dear God, don't let that be me someday" kind of way. People my own age tend to pity me, and to make suggestions about how I could be more successful or date more if only I changed everything about myself.

People have been asking me since I was a teenager (usually with a degree of irritation) why I'm so hell-bent on being myself and I have no answer for that. In fact, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to be anything but him- or herself, why they would spend a lifetime searching for that mythological something outside themselves that is supposed to make them feel like they are okay. Whenever I've tried that, the results were very bad indeed.

All of which is the long way of explaining why I'm not updating here very often. There isn't much of a readership for an old maid with a cat, even if the old maid has a wicked sense of humor and still gets hit on by men young enough to be her sons.

I'll continue updating regularly over at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal, but focusing it more on the silly pictures I enjoy drawing (one of which was recently published in the online food magazine Pork and Gin) and less on trying to make it into a Food Blog.  Maybe I'll draw some cartoons for this blog, too.  We shall see.

I'm just an ordinary person whose ambition is to be as kind, as creative, and as happy as I can be on any given day. It's not aspirational, but it works for me.

Dept of Home Economics: Saving Money on Breakfast

When did breakfast cereal -- even the kind you have to make the effort to cook -- get to be so expensive?  That's what I wanted to know the last time I went shopping for steel cut oats.  Find out how I saved big over at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal.

Dept. of Home Economics: Healing Herbs

Did you know that in addition to being delicious, cinnamon does lots of good things for the body?  The next time you sit down to a piece of apple pie, you can call it health food.

Get the scoop at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal.

Fly The Cute Skies

Anyone who knows me well is aware that while I love going to new places, I hate airplane travel.  It brings this introverted old maid into too close contact with the rest of humanity, its noise, its television preferences, and its astonishing selfishness.  I bring lots of reading material, which helps.  A little.

I could, however, get pretty excited about flying if I were taking off in EVA Air's new Hello Kitty Jets.

Dragging my bag and baggage (I always pack too much) through that long line to check in would seem so much nicer if at the end I got these cute boarding passes and luggage tags.

And look what pulls up to the gate!  Not just any jet, a special Hello Kitty jet!  Unfortunately, EVA Air is based in Taiwan, so I don't think they'll be adding a Providence - Tucson run before I take off in a few weeks.  That's disappointing for a lot of reasons, but mostly because flying in one of these jets would motivate me to pack lighter.  I'd need extra space to squirrel away one of those Hello Kitty seat cushions.

Even the food's cute!  Check it out at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal.

Images: EVA Air via cnngo.com.

Dept. of Home Economics: Healing Herbs

 In days of yore, every housewife knew how to treat illness and keep her family healthy with herbs and home remedies.  Did you know that you can make a tea from something that is probably growing in your yard right now that is rich in vitamin C and is good for winter illnesses such as coughs, colds, and sinus congestion?  You can read about it over at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal.   

Dept. of Home Economics: Soup From Leftovers

Here at Old Maid HQ, it's often a challenge to cook fresh vegetables before they go bad, and to eat leftovers without expiring of boredom.  When the fridge gets too full, I make Use-It-Up Soup.  Check out how to make it over at My Life In Food: A Culinary "Art" Journal.

Now you know what to do with the vegetables from that crudite platter everyone ignored on Christmas Day in favor of the potato chips and onion dip.