The Saturday Morning Post: Compost and Creativity

Compost takes time to create, you pile in organic plant materials, control the level of water, let the bugs, and worms feed and garbage breaks down and creates rich and fertile compost. The raw materials of vegetable peels, lawn clippings, prunings, fallen leaves won't work as fertilizer until given time to compost. They have to have time to biologically and magically transform. You can speed the process of composting, but you can't skip it. 

The ideas that we use are artists and creatives also needs time to compost.  The inputs that we feed our creative beast with, morph in our brains into ideas we had no idea existed.  When we try to create based on what we just saw, read, heard, smelled or tasted, we create a copy of what we have experienced. Sometimes a very good copy, but still a duplicate of the works of others. When we give this input time to compost, to break down, and reconfigure in our creative spirits, we create our art, our work, our writing.  

Creating those copies may help us digest what we have experienced, practicing and developing our skills.  The wisdom of age, if there is such a thing, is really the product of long term input, composting in our minds to create our ideas. It takes time for our brains to find the connections between seemingly unrelated input, in the mash of composting we will find it. It takes time to make compost, the compost of creativity needs time. And creativity needs that compost. Keep adding to your compost pile this week. 
 

Foodie Friday: Beef Pie

I had pastry in the refrigerator from the mini quiches I made a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to use up.  I had stew beef, and veggies so the logical choice was a beef pie. 

1 - medium onion chopped

3- stalks of celery chopped

6 - medium mushrooms chopped

1- pound, more or less of cubed beef 

1-2 cups red wine 

1-2 cups beef stock

2-3 medium potatoes peeled and cubed

3 carrots peeled and sliced 

butter

flour

seasonings 

Pastry 

This one take a while, start like three hours before you want to serve. 

Saute the onions, celery, and mushrooms in a little olive oil,  add the beef to lightly brown, salt, pepper and any other seasonings you want to add. Add red wine and stock, cover and put in a 350 (f) oven to braise for about two hours. You want the beef to be fork tender. 

After about two hours: 

Steam the potatoes and carrots until tender. 

Remove the beef, onions, celery and mushrooms from the liquid with a slotted spoon and set aside. Make a roux with butter and flour, add the about 1 to 1.5 cups of the braising liquid to make a very thick sauce. 

Leave the oven hot. 

Combine the beef, onions, mushrooms with the steamed potatoes and carrots, and add the sauce to make a thick mixture, allow to cool partially. I put it in a stainless steel bowl, with a slightly larger stainless steel bowl of ice under it. You want to get this down to about 100 (f) or so, or it may melt the bottom layer of pastry. 

Put in the bottom layer of pastry, fill with the mixture, put on the top pastry, seal the edges, and bake for 45 minutes at 350 (f). 

I baked this in a flat shallow dish, the filling was only 3/4 to 1-inch thick. Slice and serve.

Variations?  Add different veggies; peas, sliced green beans would be good. Add shredded cheese to the filling.  Make it with pork, veal, lamb, or chicken instead of beef. Very hearty food for a cold winter day. 

The Thursday Ramble: Arriving At This Point

As I get older, I think about how I have come to be in the place that I am. Of all of the Ups and Downs my life has taken. Of how far I have come from where I was born. The house I came home to as a baby, is still a mile and half from the nearest paved road - and I am living in a world capital. 

I didn't take a traditional route through education. My parents started "snowbirding" aka going south for the winter months, when I had 5 years of basic education left to complete. I changed schools ten times in those five years.  

College was suggested, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to study and settled that going to college, just to go, would be a waste of time and money until I sorted that out. I started college for 4 or 5 years later; working full time and taking a couple of classes at a time. In a way, I had a major advantage over many of my classmates, because I had worked, filed taxes, bought and sold homes, and traveled. It was easier for me to connect what I was learning, to what I was living. 

My early 30's were a bit of a mid-life crisis. I was unhappy with the work I was doing, and unhappy in a relationship that didn't work. It was time for drastic changes. I busted out of the closet, found my Sweet Bear, moved 800 miles away, and went back to University for an advanced degree. Lots and lots of bold moves, and undoubtedly a few people wondered what I was doing and why.  The year I turned 40 I started an entirely new career, one that carried me forward to retirement. 

Along the way, there were the deaths of grandparents, my one and only Aunt, my parents, and SB's mother. A second marriage. A decision to never hide my personal life from my work life (after being let go from a job after being outed by a friend.) Some periods of prosperity and some periods when I wondered if I would remain solvent. A lot of travel, much of it amazing and life changing, and some of it a lonesome drag that had to be done. 

Every up and down, changed me, rounded off my rough edges, helped me to understand what I wanted in life, and what I didn't want. Helped me to better understand the broader world, including understanding that if I don't understand, it is better to remain silent than speak up and expose my ignorance or prejudice. 

I talked with a friend recently whose oldest child - a young adult - recently came out as transgender. The parents have had different reactions, one has had a hard time accepting, the other is accepting and really deeply concerned that their child finds happiness and acceptance. And the young adult, is struggling a bit. A college student, with slipping grades. Things that worry parents.  With luck the family will navigate these ups and downs, and be shaped by them. The ups and downs of the journey, will lead to the point they are meant to be. 

My World of Wonders: January 21, 2026

Where have I been this week? The National Gallery of Art - I needed a nice wander and to get out of the house. Aldi for a little shopping. The Library for a stack of books that I have read half of already. The pool, the gym, the community center, and an Arts meeting. The Kennedy Center for an NSO performance. The community center to vote in a special election to fill a seat that came open when our state representative was appointed to a state cabinet position by the new Governor. Out for a long walk in a local shopping center (it is cold out, and I wanted to get out of the house.) 

What have I been up to in the kitchen? A quick stuffed pasta, chicken soup with veggies and noodles, Shepherds pie. A pork curry. 

Who have a talked with this week? Saturday morning was an annual open house for all of the programs and communities at the condo. I spent three hours talking with Amy my co-chair, and neighbors from across the community, Dian, Jon, Joan, Rebecca, Kevin, Charlie, and Bonnie (who made me blush.) 

Why did a blush? I was at the community organization expo on Saturday representing the Arts group. She came up to talk, and after a minute said, "oh I know you, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on." I know her from the unofficial Monday and Wednesday water aerobics group, we had always seen one another in the pool.  And then I told a story about an encounter with someone I knew from the gym in Florida, who made the same comment, "I didn't recognize you with your clothes on,"and then he had to spend the next 15 minutes explaining that comment to his wife. He was a Navy officer, build like a brick chicken house. 

How has the weather been? Cold, hovering around or below freezing, rain on and off, a few snow flurries. It is the dead of winter. I bought a pair of fleece lined slippers to keep my toes nice and warm. 

What am I reading? A book on walking as a political statement. It is not what I expected, a little too political for me but I will finish it.  

What made me laugh this week? There was more snow in Florida, than here in the Washington DC area. Snow in Florida just makes me smile. 

Where am I headed? Wednesday I am going into DC for a few hours, the condo is doing maintenance work on the water supply, and the water will be off for several hours.

Will I delete a comment?  Yes, if it links to a commercial page that has nothing to do with the content on my blog. (I did this week.) 

What memory flashback this week?  Sometime in the early 1990's, friends of ours were staying in a condo on Sanibel Island, Florida overlooking the water.  We went down for a couple of nights. We went out to dinner, and I went to go to the bathroom, and there were two serious looking men in dark suits standing in front of the door to the men's room. They stopped me, and muttered something about waiting for a minute. About then the door opened and former President George W. Bush stepped out, they followed him. In shock I think I muttered Good Evening, and then went on about my business. The next day I read in the paper that he was visiting friends on the Island for a few days. Living here in DC, I have been at a lunch with then Vice President Joe Biden, a cocktail party with Hillary Clinton, and a reception hosted by Justice Ginsburg in the Conference Rooms at the Supreme Court. 

Travel Tuesday: Wyoming - Opps in Monochrome

I started taking photographs in black and white, I still have a deep love for monochrome. One click on the selection dial on my cameras and they record in b&w. This is really handy when it is what I think best fits the scene, but once in a while, opps, it gets turned by accident, and the hummingbirds of a lifetime are in monchrome. 

 

Monday Mood: Reminders

The key to your future is on the table, grab it up. 

Don't let fear of something new stand in your way, at one time crawling across the floor was something frighteningly new, you survived that, you will survive this. 

When I left behind my first career, and moved forward into uncertainty, Sweet Bear gave me a card that simply said, "Jump and the Net Will Appear." It was on the wall over my desk at home for years, it reminded me to go boldly into the future. 

Be bold. You are Brave. You are Strong. You can Do This. 

The wrinkles, grey hairs, and scars are the proof a life lived. Be proud of them, be glad that you lived long enough to see them. 

Breathe deeply, inhale the essence of life. 

Thank the world that you have this day.

A great link from Angus in Scotland this week:   https://kevinkelly.substack.com/p/how-will-the-miracle-happen-today 

The Sunday Five: Daily Routine

1: What is your morning routine like? 

2: When do you read and comment on Blogs? 

3: Is there anything you do almost everyday?

4: Do you shop with or without a shopping list? 

5: What should you do, that you don't do? 

My answers:

1: What is your morning routine like? I get up, when I wake up and I am sure I am not going back to sleep, after the toilet, I wash my hands and take my daily pills, pull some clothes on, go to the kitchen and start the coffee and make toast. 

2: When do you read and comment on Blogs? As soon as the toast is ready, I eat breakfast at the desk in my bedroom, and read blogs. 

3: Is there anything you do almost everyday? I walk an hour or more almost every day. 

4: Do you shop with or without a shopping list? Without, there is a running list on the refrigerator door, if it is long I will snap a photo of it with my phone, but most of my shopping is sans list. 

5: What should you do, that you don't do? Vacuum parts of my bedroom floor. 

Please share your answers in the comments.