Endeavor.... to try hard to do or accomplish something.

It seems strangely out-of-place that so many of my thoughts are about you. That I am still spending so much of my time weeping about the fact that you and I will have no more adventures together here in this life; that any new memories I form will not have you in them. That I have days where I cannot seem to bring myself to focus on the matter at hand.

Surprisingly, I do have days where I feel good. Days where I can accomplish the tasks I set forth to do. There is a balance in knowing that while there are bad days, there are good ones too, and I can take comfort in the fact that as much as it hurts, that I can go on.

I have made plans; plans that you would be happy over, and projects started that you would approve of. They will take awhile, but it not only gives me something to do with my time, but some of them are things that I can still share with you.

I am trying my hardest to keep moving forward and not live in the past; to focus on the future, instead of weeping for my lost youth, but its an uphill battle. I have a feeling it is something I will fight against for a long time... but I am trying, really I am.

I love you.... I miss you.... I look forward to being with you again but, until then, I continue to work towards that glad day.

I will be a poet, a writer, an artist.... everything that I wanted to accomplish in this life I will do. I will continue to be kind to those I meet, and help wherever I can.

I will continue to move forward until the day where we can all meet as a family at the end of this mortal journey.


I will not hold myself back...

Little Reminders

I looked down at the old cookbook page; stains from previous cooking endeavors had left colored tints of pale pink and burnt umber across the edges; the remains of delicacies long since partaken and gone.

I hadn’t looked inside this particular cookbook in ages. Mostly because it was so old and delicate, with pages slipping away from their binding even as I had pulled it from the shelf. It was nearly forty years old, and many of the recipes were for strange sounding things like noodles encased in gelatin, and every image showed some kitschy kitchen contraptions in psychedelic colors.

The cookbook was my mother’s, at least it had been, back when she was still amongst the living and the baking.

Frankly, I wasn’t even sure why I had pulled it from the shelf now. It was one of those books that was faithfully packed away with every move, only to be put back on the same shelf at each new residence. Permanently parked between a vegetarian cookbook I had flirted with once, ages ago, and one on baking your own bread; an endeavor I fully intended to take up one of these days.

Whatever my reasons for opening this relic, I now found myself sitting at my kitchen table, gazing at a recipe I had not thought of in years. A recipe for cookies that my mother had baked faithfully every Christmas; a cookie that I waited in anticipation for as the holidays approached each year. Every year, that is, until I turned eighteen, when my mother died suddenly.

There was no joy in that holiday, or in the one to follow. By the time I was able to look forward to holidays again several years had passed, and I forgot all about this tradition...until now, that is. I looked down the page, and was surprised to notice spidery scrawls, made with a ballpoint pen in my mother’s handwriting. “Robin’s favorite cookies” she had noted in the margin.

Tears welled up as I remembered the innocent and carefree days of my youth, and I found myself skimming over the list of ingredients. Surprisingly, I had everything on hand, and found myself pulling bowls, measuring spoons, flour and sugar from the cupboards. I began pouring ingredients, sifting, mixing, and inhaling that rich, buttery smell I remembered so well from my youth.

I followed all of my mother’s notes; changing a teaspoon of vanilla to two, adding an extra egg, and even the quaint-sounding “dash of nutmeg”. Unable to resist, my finger slid along the side of the bowl, scooping out a taste of this confection. A burst of nostalgia struck me and I remembered a kitchen of years ago; Bing Crosby crooning about his dreams for a white Christmas, my mother handing me one of the mixer beaters to lick and my greedy wishes for just a little more dough to cling to that precious metal.

I rolled, and cut, and baked per the recipe instructions, and breathed deep as the air filled with the scent of baking cookies. I could hardly wait for one to cool, and found myself juggling a still hot cookie from hand-to-hand. I broke off one soft edge, and then found I couldn’t eat. I sat down, holding that cookie, as the tears came, hot and fresh. The cookie had cooled by the time I pulled myself together and finally took that first bite.

I looked back at the cookbook, back at that scribbled notation “Robin’s favorite cookies”, and I wondered what other things I may have forgotten. I began to thumb gently through more of the pages, nibbling on my cookie as I went, lost in memory. I found a recipe for a beef stroganoff that, according to mom, was good for feeding a large crowd, and that dad must have really been nuts for pecans, because there were several nut-filled recipes noted with reminders of “try making these for Don” next to them.

I spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over those pages, inserting scraps of paper on recipes she highly recommended that sounded as if they would be nice to try. Some pages mom simply changed an item or two, others were more heavily marked up through her own trial and error. I reached the end and was amused to see dozens of my impromptu bookmarks now jutting out from the cookbook’s I once consider not worth my time.

I carried the book to my office, set up my scanner, and copied those pages before carefully tucking them back into their proper places. Maybe one day I would find a way to preserve the book; until then, I would have to content myself with tying a string around it in order to keep more pages from falling out.

I gently placed the book back on the shelf; this time in a new place, next to the cookbooks I used more often. I gathered up the dozen or so loose pages I had just printed out, and set them in my “most-used” recipe folder.

All except the cookies.

That sheet I pinned to the front of the refrigerator with my favorite magnets…. a gentle reminder of things that were not completely lost.

Dash - Dashing - Dashed...

Today's rambling is brought to you by the word Dash…

We can go dashing through the snow….
and dash away, dash away, dash away all….
Or we could be dashed against the rocks (ouch!)

We can add a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper…..

Mr Darcy is considered to be one of the most dashing literary figures, however, I still prefer Mr. Rochester…
Don't forget about My Little Pony’s Rainbow Dash
Who would probably be good at the 500 meter dash….

With punctuation the hyphen is also called a dash... funny, it also looks like a minus sign…..
I just learned there is a difference between dashes!
There is an en dash - which means single dash
and an em dash - - which means two dashes
And you can use three dashes --- for starting quotations!
(you learn something new every day).
And if we’re talking punctuation there is also that cute little wavy dash ~ we can’t forget about him.

Fighter pilots wear a DASH – A Display and Sight Helmet

Queen Victoria has a dog named Dash
An archeologist named Aurel Stein has named every single one of his dogs Dash (must make it easy to remember when calling the poor things)

It is no wonder that people find the English language a bit of a pill to learn…. When one little word can mean several different things, its easy to be confused.

The short, pointless end of Winifred the spider

Based on a true experience of my sister...sorry sis!


I came in because it was warm. I hadn’t felt good for days now, and I thought no one would mind; after all, the house looked big enough to include someone as small as I was. I would be unobtrusive, warm up for a bit, and while I was certain my time was coming to a close, there was the faint hope that perhaps I would start feeling better.

I guess I wasn’t quick enough, for the owner of the house saw me and freaked out. I’m not sure why, after all, she was miles taller than me. She even pointed me out to her pets and tried to get them to attack me. Thankfully they weren’t interested and I was able to drag myself wearily out of sight.

I heard some camera snaps, but I have no idea why she would be interested in taking pictures of someone as ordinary as I. I was warmer than I had been in days, and now I just wanted somewhere soft to lie my head.

I found it in the bathroom. I laid down on a throw rug until one of the cats found me and started poking at me with its paw.

“You can’t stay here”, the cat told me.

“What if I moved somewhere else?” I asked.

The cat must have noticed how pale I was looking, for she sighed and told me that if I could get out of her reach then there was nothing she could do to kick me out. She then wandered off on her own business, and left me looking about for where to go next.

I noticed a soft towel hanging from the wall, the bottom of which was right above me, and found that this was far easier to climb than going directly up the wall. Maybe I would find a new place to rest when I reached the top and could get a better view of my surroundings.

It took all night, but I was nearly to the top of the towel. I was exhausted, shaking with the exertion, and took a few moments to gather the last of my rapidly dwindling strength before tackling the last part of the climb. From there I could see it wouldn’t be much farther to climb into the windowsill and hide behind the things placed there. Surely no one would mind if I was up there, as the items looked mostly decorative, and not for regular use.

To my surprise, the light came on, and the owner of the house came in. She turned on the shower and didn’t notice me hanging there as she hopped inside and pulled the curtain shut.

I began to climb again, urging my tired muscles to go faster, but it was a losing battle…. my strength was gone. I looked down at the ground far below me and grew dizzy from the height…to my shame I found myself crying at the stupidity of my situation.

The shower curtain opened, and the next thing I know the towel I was clinging to was pulled from its hook and I barely had the presence of mind to hang on for dear life. Everything got fuzzy at that moment as I was shaken up and down and from side to side rather vigorously. My head cleared and I realized that I was no longer clinging to the towel, but was now half in and half out of the girl’s mouth!

I was hit with a blast of hot, fetund breath as she turned towards her mirror and noticed me lying there, limp and unmoving. I’m not even sure she knew it was me at first, for she calmly spit me onto the ground as if I were nothing but a clump of hair. The pain as I crashed into the hard tile was excruciating, and I blacked out for a moment.

I regained consciousness to the sounds of screams, as the girl realized what I was.

I squinted, trying to get my eyes in focus as she pulled away, and from her horrified reaction I worried that her next step would be to smash me.

Honestly, the pain was so intense that smashing might have been a welcome release.

I managed to wave one leg at her, beaconing her closer so she could make it a swift kill, but she let out another shriek and ran from the room, leaving me there on the cold floor in pain so intense that I had never felt its like before.

There was a roaring in my head and I felt light-headed. I knew I couldn’t leave myself on the floor like that for her to find. I felt bad about causing her the problems I had. After all, I had only wanted to die quietly in a warm place… preferably within a wall where I wouldn’t be a bother.

I stretched forth my front legs, and somehow managed to drag myself slowly across the floor. I don’t know where the strength came from, but it seemed like ages before I finally pulled myself under the dryer.

Here I lie. Unable to crawl further as my crushed body finally gave out on me. Here I will stay until I am allowed to die…

..here…..

….among the dust bunnies…..

…….but at least I am finally warm.

Fallen Children

We have wandered far afield from the morals of our youth
Into fields that, from a distance, appeared green and verdant
But were full of stagnant pools and choked with weeds


So what changed
Were we too ambitious to see our path had diverged
Or too enamored with little novelties to see the pitfalls within
So confident in our own abilities that we blind ourselves to the truth
That we are in trouble


And I wonder
Is it too late to reclaim the innocence of our younger days
Turn from those fields, retrace our steps
And find the road we left so long ago
Or perhaps forge new pathways back to more innocent times


Is it possible to leave behind bloodshed and anger against our brother
After all, Cain killed Abel and wars have been fought for as long as we have existed
Maybe we are hopelessly flawed, but I still choose to believe
That we will stop bickering amongst ourselves and try
Extending a helping hand instead of a club


That we can stop with the finger pointing and name calling
To learn to love one another instead of finding fault
That we can once again find the golden days of our youth
Maybe it is only a dream; for childhood is full of bullies and pushing and shoving
Perhaps those days were not so golden after all, but rather tarnished brass


But still I hope

Wandered Away

As a child I used to wander off. One moment I would be standing there in my mother’s sight, and the next I’d be off who knows where, chasing after something that had caught my eye. It got so bad that she purchased a harness for me, as if I were some bad dog that couldn’t be taught to heel properly and now had no freedom of movement.

My brother used to tease me about it…. I still remember him raising his hand and dangling an imaginary object in front of me. “Look Shawna”, he teased, as the made the unseen object wave and bounce enticingly. “Bright and Shiny! Bright and Shiny!”

Oh yeah, he pegged me pretty good there. Sad thing is I wanted to reach out, take that imaginary object and make it mine.

Its been the story of my life really…. I’ll be walking along with someone…. They’ll be talking away, turn and realize that they are talking to empty air. I didn’t mean anything by it, there was just something else caught my attention. If we were at the store then maybe it was a bottle of this or that which I suddenly remembered I needed. If we were out in nature maybe the sunlit shadows dancing on leaves caught my eye and demanded I stop and admire it…. You never know with me.

I wandered off at Disneyland once. We were in the Haunted Mansion and I was following a pair of legs that I assumed belonged to my father. Imagine my surprise when I looked up and realized that it wasn’t my dad after all! I stood there in the entrance of the mansion, looking around, and wondering where my father was hiding in that big crowd of strangers. Luckily he found me… he walked up and reached down, taking my small hand in his large one, and guided me to where my mother and brother waited. I wasn’t scared, because I knew dad would find me.

That’s the way it always is for me…. I know where I am, so I am not frightened. I am sure I have caused my mother a few heart attacks though.

I guess I should be more attentive.... more, well, in the moment. As it is I spend my life with my head mostly in the clouds. There's nothing wrong with dreaming, or distractions, unless they take away from the time spent with those around you. I never intend to slight anyone... it just happens sometimes.

So if you are one of those whom I sometimes "zone out" on, I apologize. If you are someone I have been distracted away from, I am sorry that I made you feel less important. It really wasn't the case at the time.... I'm just....

....ooh, what a pretty bird!

...ooh, smell that autumn air!

...ooh, I should bake banana bread today....

Oops... see.... there I go again....

.....wandering away........