Even a Pine Tree Can Dream...

My heart skips a beat for this poem - such a lovely thought.

Jack Brauer  http://www.mountainphotographer.com/



On A Bare Hill's Top...(aka The Pine Tree)

On a bare hill's top, in the North, wild and cold,

A lone pine-tree somewhere stands;

She dozes, swaying, all covered by snow

With a mantel from feet to a head.

She sees in her dreams: in a faraway desert,

In lands where the sun enters skies,

Alone and sad, on a rock's sunburnt lather,

A beautiful palm-tree abides.

By Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov (1814-1841)

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November, 2000

Hello April - It's National Poetry Month!Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing all things poetic here at Calendar Gal.

Are You Ready For Some Poetry?

In a couple of days it will be April. It's a fine month for tip toeing in the tulips and dancing in the rain but April is also National Poetry Month.

In honor of all things poetic, I will be featuring some of my favorite poems here at Calendar Gal in the upcoming weeks.

Here's a preview...one by me.

DEMOLITION HEART

Original Art By THE BOY

Deny

Every tender feeling and

Memory that lingers,

Overthrow Truth, it's only words

Let the past fall away to invention

In spite of

Tomes that remain on

Ink stained hearts. Deny it all,

Over and over again till you believe it true,that you

Never loved me and I never loved you.

                  By Nancy Sima

Working Gal

For those of you who have been following the last few Girl Meets World posts(here and here)...YES, I got the freelance job!

I will now be working 20 hours a week writing copy for an e-commerce website. The realization of it all has been a roller coaster ride - one part excitement and another part screaming fear!!

Was it the right choice?

Truth be told, over the last few months, there have been a number of part time careers I was considering. This was the only one that involved writing and in the end, the only one I pursued.

So why the part time gig? 

Girl Meets World - edition v

Girl: Hey, check it out! I got an interview for that job I was telling you about.

World: Well, well...are you ready?

Girl: Yeah, I think so.

World: You think so? How do you expect to sell yourself with those words?

Girl: Ugh - I don't want to have to sell myself. 

World: Why not? It's the American way...you've got to channel your inner PT Barnum.

Girl: My inner PT Barnum?

World: Greatest salesman there ever was. 

Girl: But I'm no PT Barnum.

World: You don't have to BE him just THINK like him.Say to yourself, "I Am PT Barnum" and really own those words. You will immediately feel a difference in yourself when you speak to people.

Girl: (skeptical look)

World: Oh come one, just try. 

Paper Bag Gallery...A Lion's Day



March is a funny month.
In like a lion out like a lamb....
today feels a bit like a lion's day.



Girl Meets World...Edition iv

World: What are you doing?

Girl: I'm applying for a job and I'm up to the part where I have to describe myself.

World: Whatever you do, make sure you express confidence. Employers like people with can-do attitudes.

Girl: Ok, but it's still a chance to describe all the things that are me, right?

World: Yes and no.

ooh-la-la: 3 things that catch my eye

...you had me at "true".

"My Korean Deli" is a funny and candid memoir by Ben Rhyder Howe, a former senior editor at the Paris Review. In it he recounts time spent helping his immigrant in-laws to buy and run a convenience store in Brooklyn. Literary days at the Paris Review with the famous George Plimpton are now sandwiched between bodega nights and an odd assortment of characters. "Risking it all for a convenience store" the irony of those words alone is intriguing!

Kitchen Confessional

I have a confession to make - I've been slacking on my new year's resolution to create a working cookbook. No one is really complaining but my domestic spirit and palate is suffering for it.

Part of the reason I haven't been inspired to play with recipes is that we've been on the sick track lately. Who has the interest to cook when no on has the stomach to eat? Super Dave has been the latest casualty to the stomach virus.

It'a all gotten very sad compared to my domestic goddess days when I was completely enamored with cooking. Back then I was trying new recipes nearly every week; I was in love with the attempt. Just the act of putting on an apron and propping a cookbook at my side does something to me, a conscious shift occurs.

I've been craving that feeling and decided to go searching for it once again. But while my cookbooks and recipe folders are normally a source of comfort and inspiration for me, today they were only making me feel more inept - so much still to sort through. I decided to go looking instead through some old photos, proof of those fabulous meals and happy days.
  

While I did recover pics of some great dishes, the images seemed flat and not at all as lively as the memories I still had in my mind. This was unexpected and a bit depressing until I noticed something else in abundance.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen but I do not do it alone. Through the years, I've had lot of HELP-ers...

 Here they are - way back when.