That knowing feeling.

That indescribable assurance that what you are doing or about to do is the right decision.

Where does yours come from?

What faith calms your twittering heart when on the verge of a yes or a no?

I used to rely on my religious faith, based in Roman Catholicism. But – as long time readers know – I don’t find much comfort there these days.

Knowing that God loved me, knowing that I had followed all the rules, knowing that I had been taken care of many times before lent a certain credibility to walking into darkness. I could do it.

See, I think with religion, answers were easy. Or rather I thought that with religion answers *should* be easy. Like, if you are X, then Y is the decision you make. But even that is not right and not good. I threw out that book long ago. Cookie cutters I called them. Bah. Boring. Restrictive. Let me out! I screamed without knowing I screamed it. And when I finally heard myself, it all went… kaboom!!!

Kaboom was fun and freeing and all, but now I feel flag-less. Who am I cheering for? Me? Wow, that seems vain. And yet, who else will do it and who else deserves it?

I’m on the verge of making a decision. I’m scared. I can’t depend on religion to offer solace, I can’t depend on someone agreeing with me, it’s just me. Yet I want so desperately to know that I am doing the right thing. I need the security of being sure.

I have always always wanted to be the good girl. I try to blame my mom for that. Certainly she didn’t make the sentiment any easier. But that idea seems so seminal to who I am and has sprouted again in another generation that it starts me wondering that maybe it is simply who I am.

What a boring life, eh? To always want to be good. What IS good? For you it is surely different than for I. And yet both good.

Wow, to even acknowledge that enough to write it threatens the borders of my mind. And yet life will not let those borders be, events constantly acting as waves against the fences built so high by some strange combination of genetics and environment.

There is some place inside of me that knows.

Maybe all those years, I gave religion the credit where it ought to have been my own back getting the pat.

But if that is true, why does knowing now still seem so frightening? Why do I need someone to tell me its OK? How many books have I read in so many different genres by widely different authors who teach the same lesson over and over? How many blog posts must I write? (Yes, even my little blog is a humble acting out of what seems to be my life lesson.) How many times do I need to hear it before patterns and anxiety dissolve?

I must beat this out of myself. For I must foster a new person, let her grow up without this hindrance, for she is a radiant beautiful thing. And I want her to know it.

There is some place inside of me that knows.

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
— Henry David Thoreau

she told me to…

To Mother

I hope that soon, dear mother,
You and I may be
In the quiet room my fancy
Has so often made for thee, –

The pleasant, sunny chamber,
The cushioned easy-chair
The book laid for your reading,
The vase of flowers fair;

The desk beside the window
Where the sun shines warm and bright;
And there in ease and quiet
The promised book you write;

While I sit close beside you,
Content at last to see
That you can rest, dear mother,
And I can cherish thee.

Louisa May Alcott

I had a vision and have seen it through to completion. Canada wins Hockey Gold. I win a personal victory.

Go Canada! Go me!

It all began at my bridal shower. As a new bride, I would be moving to another country taking very little with me. Instead of gifts, I was offered love in the form of cookbooks and precious family recipes. They were a responsibility and a treasure. I took them in all earnest and with much joy.

Over the years as I’ve searched the net, poured over cookbooks and written out weekly menus, there have been many failures and burnt offerings from my kitchen. But there have also been aromas to draw you inside from all the way down the block. I didn’t want to lose any of those. I wanted to pass on my successes. I wanted to create a legacy.

But where to put them? I looked and searched for the best answer. I started my recipe blog called Mere Recipes but didn’t find enough time to keep up with those posts and – very surprisingly – ran into copyright issues with some chefs even when I was giving full credit and disclosure. So, I kept looking, sometimes despairing, finally rejoicing when I found Living Cookbook.

It’s a personal recipe archive, menu planner, will print cookbooks for you, everything. I don’t know what it doesn’t do. It’s still, after many months using it, surprising me. But most important of all to me, it allowed me the awesome power of capturing recipes from anywhere – friends, online, cookbooks, magazines – and putting them in ONE place.

The only snag was that it wasn’t portable. And I wanted it portable. Especially since Santa brought me an ipod Touch this year. I LOVE my touch! But that’s another post…

Again, I was in search of a solution. I found it in Evernote which – hurray! – does have an ipod app and would let me keep notes offline, meaning I can access them even when not in wifi. (Small warning: You have to pay for the premium service.) Would it be worth it? Could I get everything out of Living Cookbook and into Evernote? Yes, I could. LC let me export every recipe as an HTML file, and Evernote has this neat web clipper that allows me to clip any webpage and save it in a notebook.

Voila! Open recipe as HTML, clip, tag and save to Mere Recipes notebook. 230 notes later, I have a public and portable version of my favourite recipes from ten years of blood sweat and tears in the kitchen.

I share it with you today.

I will continue to post recipes here on the blog when inspiration strikes, but this notebook is my database. Everything is in there, posted or not. And it’s guaranteed to be kept up to date with any new gems that I find.

I’m giddy. Absolutely glowing.

Now I can plan menus when I’m bored and waiting in the dentist’s office. Well, unlikely, but I could… if I wanted! I can search them when I forget an ingredient while I’m shopping. If I want to change my menu, I can. I will never ever print another recipe. My ipod will always be in the kitchen with me, out of spill range of course. My children will know how to cook cornbread without relying on a box of pre-made mix. My grandchildren will know how to cook gumbo, two generations removed from Louisiana as well as know the name of their great-great grandfather who passed on the wisdom of it.

“Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost.”

The Madonna House Community impressed me deeply with this lesson. I’ve never forgotten.

Father, nothing will be lost.

I am the proud owner of a Tim Hortons Refill Mug!

liked the green
like the tree that you can’t see on the other side
REALLY like the idea of not adding to the garbage
every time a pick up a Timmies

ps. on a totally other topic, i’ve added a “poetry” category to my posts and moved all the poems i’ve ever posted into there. i was sad not to be able to find them in one click. much happier now. so far, i have two mary oliver’s. need to pick up a book of hers soon. enjoy loves!

Silly me for listening to book podcasts. They make me want to buy books!

Besides Books on the Nightstand which I love because hosts Ann and Michael are such darn nice down-to-earth people, I also tune in every week to The Sword and Laser, a fantasy/science fiction podcast hosted by Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont. (Btw, LOVE the new website design guys and did ya have to pick such an awesome book as The Windup Girl to read next?!!!)

Between the two, I get stellar recommendations from just about every genre of book out there. And that’s how I read. The number of bookshelves I have on Goodreads continues to grow as evidence to that.

I go where inspiration strikes me, rarely if ever thinking “I just don’t like that kind of book.” Ah, wait a second… I don’t do chick lit. Honestly, if a book is pink or has a stick pencil drawing of a fashionista on the front, it turns me off.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make is that so far 99% of my books are borrowed from the library.

We go probably once a week. It has such a fantastic inviting air to it. The second floor that houses the children and young adult collection is open to air, and the kids take off up the curling Gone with the Wind-esque stairs intent on finding adventure. I take a quick stroll through the adult graphic novels, never forgetting the new fiction and nonfiction selections, usually finding very juicy tidbits to my to-read list, before heading up myself to join them.

Last visit there was a real treasure, the new biography of Louisa May Alcott. If you are a Little Women fan, you will appreciate the context into which Harriet Riesen places Louisa’s whole life, connecting real life events to her fictionalized versions. I’m only a hundred pages in and it’s been extremely insightful and readable.

So, with so much free entertainment, how to justify purchasing new books?

I have to have criteria. Here they are:

1. Favourite authors with a new book and amazing reviews… thinking of The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt which I’ve yet to pick up. Her Possession is such a favourite that the tagline for my blog comes from it.
2. Books I’m highly likely to re-read or reference… like my favourites about writing
3. Treasures that are a real part of my personal journey… too many to pick just one
4. Brand new books I can’t get used. Goodwill has amazing 1/2 off sales which where I found Mists of Avalon!
5. Graphic novels that the library doesn’t have yet… aka Buffy Season Eight
   

That’s a lot of really good excuses to buy books, but I still don’t. I load them up in my shopping cart, drool over it a bit, look to my left at the stack of books I already own there, look to my right at the  latest library stack, both piling up and crowding the computer monitor on either side, sigh a little and try to forget about how something is only $15 online at Chapters.

My hope is to one day have a beautiful home library. The living room or maybe the dining room, besides the master bedroom of course, will be wall to wall bookshelves. (Can ya tell that I’m unlikely to ever be a Kindle girl?) An oasis, a beating heart, a thinking centre for myself and my family. Expanding our minds and thoughts with every word. A great chair or two, comfy pillows, a small desk with my journal. I can think of no greater heaven.

I simply can’t decide whether to keep building now or wait just a little bit longer.

How do you get your books? And which ones do you buy?