Grilled Chicken Penne Al Fresco

1 BULB garlic
2 C grape or cherry tomatoes
3 C uncooked mezze penne pasta
3 C chicken broth
3/4 C dry white wine such as    …more

Ingredients

12 ounces frozen fully-cooked beef meatballs (about 23 meatballs)
1 jar (12 ounces) beef gravy
1 can (8 ounces) stewed tomatoes, undrained
3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 package (16 ounces) frozen vegetable mixture (with potato)

Directions

Combine gravy, tomatoes, 3/4 cup water, thyme and pepper in large saucepan; bring to a boil. Stir in meatballs and vegetable mixture; reduce heat. Cook 10 to 15 minutes or until meatballs are heated through, stirring occasionally.

Thanks Hen House.

Life as been busy. Finding a new job in a new city an exploring my new environment. Life in the ‘burbs is different. Sometimes I really miss the natural silence.

Oh, there is the natural silence here, I just have to get up and go find it. It’s no longer I matter of stepping out the back door and settling on the porch with a cup of tea.  Now it’s get in the car, and drive out-of-town to find it. Oh, well that was then… time to forge ahead.

When you’ve been on vision quest for a long time, the transition back can be startling if you don’t do it right, and the insights you gained come trickling back. Thank God/Goddess it’s not coming in a giant rush all at once.  That would probably be quite disturbing.

I’ve been at my job for a year, and I’m thinking about the future. what is it that would cause me to change? Yes, there are somethings that need to change: First would be the attitude. I find I have very little tolerance for whining, complaining, gossiping, and  blaming. I know there was time in the past, i would have all over it. right in the middle of the fray. I am glad that is over.

Now I want to encourage others to give up the blaming, gossiping, etc. You know you would be amazed at how good you’d feel when you stop doing those things.

I think though, what really, needs to happen is to get back on the horse.. as it were… Continue my spiritual questing, and journalling. Find my true calling. I guess that is what you are suppose to do when you realize that 50 is right  around the corner.

Ask, listen, and follow your heart.  It is time to  create your own dream.

Witch doctors, medicine men, shamans, wise-women were the healers of our past. They were the doctors and pharmacists that everybody went to for their aches and pains. They knew all about the natural world. They could heal almost anything with a few herbs, roots, and blessing or two.

Today medicine seems to forget that we it hold its roots to the old ones. It seems pharmaceutical companies are always trying to come up the new drugs for new illnesses. Sometimes I wonder though, which came first the new disease or the new medicine for it.

It is my personal opinion that we should pay more attention to nature to heal our bodies and less on synthetic drugs. Have you read the list of side effects that some of these medicines have? Sometimes , it seems they are worse then the original disease. Of course it does lead into a vicious cycle. Because then you need more drugs, to cure the side effects, and ah, more horrific side affects, more drugs.

Yes, there are side effects to using herbs also. So why not learn. Early medicine did. Willow bark became aspirin. The first diabetes medicines were based on things like cinnamon and other spices that will lower blood augur. Digitalis, which is a flower is still used in heart medicine.

So really, were the old ones really so “Hocey”? It is also found that the power of the mind can do a lot for healing as well. So, I say the next time you need to take a pill, say a blessing or a little prayer, it might work faster.

We’ll talk more about mind power later.

Many of us today are in jobs we hate, because we don’t think it is a good time to do anything else.  At least for the moment, we have some security, or illusion there of.

I would like to share a poem by one of my favorite classic writers.  It’s kind of famous, but it still speaks volumes.

it is called

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

I think it is perfect for even these strange times.

Peace

Kimberly

The city is a little overwhelming in that there are lots of cars on the road and they all drive really fast.

Lake County, CA had a population of about 55,000. The KC metro has closer to 2 million, and they are spread out over two states and what 5, 6 counties. WOW!

It’s a lot for a country girl.

Oh, there are jobs here. There are also a lot of hungry unemployed. I think there are about 10 to every job. If lucky enough to get an interview, that’s a real bonus. Get a job… keep going.

So now what?

I feel I have applied for several dozen jobs, made several phone calls, and so far it has netted me three interviews. Three! Yuck. I am not bad candidate; it is just that there are sooo many candidates. This does not help lift the depression though.

So, what else is out there? I could follow the online gurus and sell things online. I could find out what it takes to get a SBA loan and open a business. (I do like to cook-even blog about it. Cooking with Kimberly, but no one reads it. So how do you make money when no one is looking in your direction?

Trying to keep a positive mental attitude is difficult when the rent is due and you have no money.  Whine, whine, whine.

I’ve noticed that the blooggers that I follow also seem to be a little grittier, a little grimmer these days.  I do get tired of those who are selling glitz, and sunshine. That’s not real life. A lot of them –internet marketer- remind me of those used car salesmen that used to be on late night TV when I was a kid. Who had the biggest gimmick, who had the loudest voice, who had  the jingle, the loudest suit, the biggest hat… these guys would trip all over themselves trying to make a buck. We hated them, and yet their back…. only

Now they are on the internet. They try to act a little more sophisticated then their fore-fathers, but they are the same.

There is a funny post at Tremendous News about them.

Anyway, I’m still here trying to figure out the chaos and the noise. I don’t think it was a mistake to want to change my life; it is just taking longer than I thought it would

It is interesting how the light and the landscape changed as soon as we crossed the state line. 

I 40 rides along, as smooth as glass. Black top glass. The freeway looms shooting out to the horizon like long ribbons. Still no trees. No grass. This is scrub land. Stark beautiful. There are plateaus in the distance and all around. The ground here has life.  The earth is different the AZ. Here it is more yellow then red. And the sunset was more orange then pink, but still the purple darkening sky. 

Just seem to ride on mile after mile. 

I got the impression that there may be a friendly rivalry between Arizona and New Mexico at a gas station on the NM side of the line. We were teasing the clerk about cactus juice. And he clearly and teasingly explained to us that cactus grew in AZ not in MN. And we travelers should just keep going. The exchange was pleasantly amusing.

The heater in my room makes a constant hum kind of like the sound of a jet engine. It is kind of hypnotic.

One sees all kinds of cars and trucks, and plates from all states. I remember Gram and used to name as many as we could when we would travel that part of 40 that runs through Arkansas.

I sometimes feel I am getting a little nuts hotel hoping. I will be relieved when we finally get settled.

My ideal location would be some place tranquil, but urban enough to stay busy, employed and have enough interesting material to continue to write.

Am I  like Jimmy Stewart in “Grapes of Wrath” only in reverse? Really like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” trying to find that place over the rainbow, and ending up about to die at the hands of the wicked witch. Gads.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch? What has that got to do with anything? OK, I’m a good witch, and I’m following which road to Kansas? Ain’t no yellow brick road here. For now I only have I 40. That black top ribbon that stretches on and on….

Of course it is just one of the states to travel through in the next days. I haven’t been out of Northern California in three years. As the north coast is beautiful and raw in its own right, there is just nothing like the southwest.

I always wondered about the pioneers and the natives and how they learned to adapt to life here, because, let’s face it, this not a tame place. Blazing hot summers, super cold winters, very little surface water for drinking and bathing.

I wish I could paint what I could see like Georgia. I loved her landscapes, but that was New Mexico, and this is Arizona. Deserts and mountains that seem to stretch on for days, and yet there is Flagstaff- right in the middle of a National Forrest.

How many days on the road now? Left No. Cal, Saturday night, First night in Williams, 2^nd in Bakersfield, 3^rd, in Barstow,4^th in Kingman and now the 5th, in Holbrook. Tomorrow will be in Albuquerque.

I 40 is an amazing piece of human engineering. It stretches from Barstow, CA to Wilmington, NC. 2300 miles long, 4 lanes of black top through mountain and desert, planes, grasslands….

By the way, why is that barren landscape in Southern California known as the high desert, when AZ and NM are just as arid, and yet higher in elevation?

Why write this epic? Why travels have way across the country? The answer is to make a fresh start. California is in trouble. Its politics are a mess, the economy is way down, no jobs to speak of, not even seasonal help again this year. My former home has an official unemployment rate of 16%. What some don’t know is that number only represents the people who get the unemployment insurance. This number doesn’t represent the number actually looking for work. So in Lake County, CA, I my guess am that it is closer to 25% out of work.

I don’t know if KC will be any different, but jobs are being posted and the various job boards there, housing costs are lower, and moving back to a more populated area means more and hopefully better services. At least we will have a more choices in restaurants when we have money to go out to eat.

The sun is setting now; the light is changing from gold to golden pink to purple. Yes I will miss  the western sky…

Faith is a funny  thing. It means different things.  You can have faith in yourself, another person, society. a Deity, an idea or concept.

There is faith in governments, corporations, and so on and so on.

And the real question is how can you keep your faith when your way of life, when everything you believe in is being challenged, made to change?

There are still families going through foreclosures, living in tents and shelters, and unemployment through the roof. It is in my part of the country.  It’s unofficially close to 20%.

So what is a body to do? How do you hold out when nothing else works?

All I know is that we can not get by on business as usual. The real truth has to come out.

At this point, I think that the only real faith is in ourselves and in our deity. our true God, the higher self… When we can change ourselves… Society should take notice, and maybe we can have some real progress.

thanks for listening. Yes, I will be going somewhere with this. Just hold on and have faith.

Kimberly

http://thebishopscandle.net