What are your preferences regarding contents in the RSS feed for this blog?

Do you prefer full posts over excerpts?

Do you prefer to keep certain categories out of the feed? For example, I’m thinking of using this blog as a place to track certain personal goals, and most of the posts in those categories are likely to just be lists of what I ate on a given day, exercise progress, etc. Would you rather I leave those out of the feed and/or give them a separate feed?

Just some things I’m pondering. Responses in comments welcome.

I’ve slacked off big time in paying attention to what I’m eating. Last year I started tracking everything through Weight Watchers again, and got back down to my goal weight. Then a lot of life happened and I’ve gained some of it back. I’m not quite ready to go back to strict tracking of points and everything. But I’m going to take a baby step and try to start paying attention again, making smarter choices with food, watching portions, being aware of when I’m full, etc.

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Raise your hands if you like to escape into a good book now and then.

Now that you’re all sitting there with your hands up looking silly, I’ll draw your attention to the new little widget at the bottom of the sidebar to the right. It’s my Good Reads widget! It’s not very extensive yet, but since I’ve been reading a bunch of new books lately, I thought it’d be neat to start keeping track of them, rating them, sharing thoughts about them, and so forth. And that’s what the Good Reads site is for.

I’ve only added a few books yet, and I haven’t written any reviews yet. So this is more of a “stay tuned” kind of thing. On the off chance that I actually stick with this like I’d like to, I’ll mention that if you go to my Good Reads page, there’s also an RSS feed of my booklist. So you can get updates there as well, if you’re a feed reader type person.

Do you remember the Pensieve, from the Harry Potter series? The last couple of days, I’m finding this blog to be a little like that. I’ve never felt like I was very good at this whole blog thing; partly because I’ve always been a little afraid to just write the way my mind wanders. Too much writing training in AP English, perhaps? While it serves me well for professional writing, it makes keeping a journal or a blog or a diary harder. I keep reworking my thoughts to fit my audience. The last couple of days, my posts have been prompted by a wanting to get stuff out of my head. I’ve been writing for me. Which means I can leave out all the details and say stuff out of context and just get it out of my head however it falls out. I’m not sure why posting is here works better than writing in a notebook, but it does. Maybe I’m less tempted to read back over what I wrote.

My thoughts are more scattered this morning than they’ve been the last two mornings, so the words aren’t flowing as much. But maybe even writing about nothing will help. I’m just tired of keeping everything inside, so even if it doesn’t make any sense, I wanted to say, thanks for listening.

Good morning, dear reader. I just watched the latest episode of Dollhouse, and it has me thinking. There is a certain appeal this morning to the idea of being empty, like the Dolls in their off-duty state. I would not want to have another person stuffed into my head, no. But to be able to suck all the weighty stuff out of my head and put it on a handy hard drive where I could access it later, yes, that has a certain appeal. The danger of course is that in putting that which makes you *you* in someone else’s hands, you give up control over what they do with you at that point. I wonder though… the Dolls lose all their memories and personality in the wipe process, but do they retain that central self that is at the core of a person? What is the purest state of being, and how does one attain it in the real world? How zen. There are theories of enlightenment that suggest that it can be obtained without machinery. I have the desire to pursue that, but not the dedication, alas. Or maybe I just lack the attention span.

The machinery doesn’t exist, and the refuge of other artificial means (hello, alcohol) is a slippery slope I refuse to start down. So I fight back the old fashioned way; stand back up and keep moving, lather, rinse, repeat. Keep on climbing.

But there’s a voice inside my head saying
"You’ll never reach it"

Every step I’m taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose

Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side
It’s the climb

– The Climb, Miley Cyrus

I woke up today with… Actually, that’s not quite right. When I work up today, life sucked. Bitter, heartbroken, sad, after a long night of bizarrely flavored dreams. My poor scattered brain trying to process everything. So I’ve spent the whole morning indulging in it. I got up at 6am, fed the cats, closed the heavy curtains over the window, and went back to bed. Woke up again around 8:30 and watched the latest episodes of Glee and Grey’s Anatomy. Cried a little. Wished I could cry more.

Something started to change in the last half hour or so. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but what I’m left with is a strong desire to toss everything out. The past. All gone. Box it up, take it away. I’m tired of it all. I want my old life gone. To make room for my new life.

I have no idea what that actually means. Well, I *know* what it means, but I don’t know what it means. I feel what it means? I’m babbling here. But this blog post isn’t for you, dear reader. It’s for me. You get to read along because I need to get this out and I’m tired of talking to my cats or the walls. But I’m not looking for answers or discussion.

I’m closing this chapter. Done. Fin. I’m starting a new one. I’m giving myself permission to do what I want with this one. Today is where my book begins.

I’m a fan of squash. I’ve liked zucchini for as long as I can remember, and yellow squash almost as long – probably since I realized it’s almost-but-not-quite a zucchini of a different color. Winter squash, like butternut squash, are a more recent addition. And then there’s the Spaghetti Squash.

If you’ve see a Spaghetti Squash, it’s obvious where it gets its name. Once cooked, you scrape the “meat” out of the inside of the squash with a fork, and it comes out in thin strands that look like spaghetti noodles.

I’ve had spaghetti squash in a restaurant before, but not at home… until today. The squash at the grocery store came with baking instructions on the sticker label, and it sounded too easy to resist.

The end result? Easy to do, and delicious to eat. Here’s what I did:

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While I was cleaning my kitchen, I happened to look out the front window.

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I was lounging in bed this morning, slowly waking up, when there came a scurrying downstairs. Not unusual, living with two cats. But then there were several thuds of things being knocked over, so I thought I should check on things.

Walked out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs and saw Charlie frantically stalking around the bean bag chair in the living room. “Oh great,” I thought, “He’s hunting a roach or something. I’ll just let him catch it.” And then the thing that he was stalking broke free and flew across the house into the kitchen.

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A new heat pump was not what I was planning on buying myself for my birthday.

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