Almostgotit.com

While I do not love every word written (or philosophy espoused) by Marianne Williamson, I do love these words: 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson

Ten honeymoons in ten days, hoo boy! I’ve just written and posted the last of them for The Rocky Road of Love blog.  While the honeymoons are pretend, every one of these places really exist and really would accept visitors (that was the “rule” I made for myself when researching them.)  Anyway, here are links to the final five. (You can revisit summaries of the first five honeymoons by clicking here.)

 Tree House: Turkish Wedding Soup with Spiced Sauce

A treehouse, a freehouse,
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.

A street house, a neat house,
Be sure and wipe your feet house,
Is not my kind of house at all –
Let’s go live in a tree house.

I was inspired by Shel Silverstein’s poem, then I found a real funky-looking treehouse hotel in Turkey and a romantic recipe to go with it.

Tropical Honeymoon in Aruba: Baked Bananas with Rum Sauce

Guilt drove me to give the couple a brief respite at a more typical honeymoon locale.

The “Baked Bananas with Rum Sauce” recipe seems to have been particularly popular, too.

Gee, bananas. Who knew?

To the (Australian) Lighthouse: Lighthouse Cocktails

In researching this one, I fell in love with the Straviken lighthouse in Sweden, but still felt guilty. (My life.  Guilt.)  This time I worried about sending the lovers to someplace so cold in February.  So I found a lighthouse hotel for them in Australia, instead.

There followed a lively exchange (see post’s comments!) with the Straviken’s owner about whether or not there are polar bears in Scandanavia. 

N.B.: There aren’t.

Honey, let’s play (Spanish) Caveman: Quick Vegetarian Paella

I used my own experience staying in a Spanish cave hotel near the Alhambra in Grenada for this one.

And have been yearning for Flamenco music and sangria ever since.

I also finally figured out a way to cook paella that doesn’t call for a million weird ingredients and doesn’t take all day to cook, either.

(Unlike this post, which is giving me absolute fits, probably because of all the pictures.  Wordpress codemakers have some ’splaining to do!!)

Romance on (Ice Hotels) Ice: How to Make an Ice Bowl

Sam and Harry are due home later today, but I have one last honeymoon fantasy to spin for them. This time, it’s a hotel entirely made of ice.  I wanted to make a hotel entirely out of ice too, but decided to settle for making an ice bowl instead.  It took me a while to work out the directions, finally settling for a sort of “Ice Bowls for Dummies” approach (the kind I’d prefer myself) and was quite pleased with it. 

Here’s a link to summaries of my previous five “Honeymoons”, which I’ve just updated.  Don’t expect pictures, though, because I’m done messing with them!

——

Treehouse Image: Kadir’s Treehouses in Olympos, Turkey
Divi Tree Image: Manchebo Beach Resort & Spa, Aruba 
Lighthouse Image: Cape Otway Lightstation (original photo source unknown)
View of Alhambra from the Sacromonte: Photograph © John Willer and used with permission.
Ice Bowl: Creative Commons photo by EuphoriaLand

Humor and intelligence: one of our newspaper’s AP syndicaters seems to lack both. (I’m referring to the the source of those brief celebrity bits that our local paper always has on page two.. once they had Tony Blair married to Queen Elizabeth, attending an event with their son Prince Phillip. I’ve clipped & saved that “totally dumb Americans” column for all eternity….)

Anyway, they had one today about Mike Huckabee’s Saturday Night Live appearance over the weekend. The paper was crowing about how ironically clueless he is… he was on the “Weekend Update” segment (the skit where they all play news achors) and Huckabee announced he was staying in the prez race but wouldn’t overstay his welcome if the time came to leave. And then the skit moved on but Huckabee wouldn’t get off the stage, despite “repeated cues” from other cast members.

Um… hello? That’s called COMEDY, people???

Over at the Rocky Road of Love blog, I’ve published five honeymoon-vacations-with-recipes in five days and will publish another five over the next week. I’ve found some amazing photos and the food is really good too. The problem is that the writing makes me so hungry!

The “Honeymoon Chronicles” thus far:

• Boat and Breakfast: Salmon Quiche A giant, floating resort in British Columbia’s Prince William Sound, accessible only by sea plane or boat.  A wonderful salmon quiche with a whole wheat crust.  What else could anyone want?
• A Castle in Scotland: Nova Scotia Oatcakes An overnight ride on the famous “Flying Scotsman” train. A castle near Edinburgh where Mary Queen of Scots once hung out.  One of Almostgotit’s favorite family recipes.  Heaven!
• Honeymoon in a Monastery: Cabbage Soup for a Crowd Just because monks are celibate doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t welcome honeymooners.  They’ll even serve them soup.
• South African Safari: Babotie Casserole There are no recipes for “Lion Steak:” I looked.  Babotie is a South African tradition: I won’t give it away, but it’s seasoned with almonds, spices and lemon.  Come see!
• Love in a Yurt: Chocolate Raspberry Napoleons with Raspberry Mascarpone Cream  Five star dining at 8,000 feet, where the food (and the chef) arrive by snowmobile.  Bonus: skiing burns lots of calories, so dig right in!

My 11-yr-old daughter got braces today, and since I am currently the flexible, unemployed parent, I’m the one who took her to the orthodontist. Before taking her back to school afterwards, I took that cute kid and her new mouth out for lunch to try it out.

We found ourselves doing a mother-daughter “Gilmore Girls” act as we tried to guess at the profession of the women gathered at an adjacent table. “They look like plastic ladies!” my daughter whispered. It’s true… though their bodies came in the normal variety of shapes and sizes, they had strangely-colored helmets of hair, strangely-colored orange skin, and they were even shiny. One began passing around neatly bound notebooks to the others, with “Beauty Consultant Success!” printed on the cover.

What the heck is a “Beauty Consultant?” And please: will no one ever make me be one?!?
(more…)

I’m guest blogging this week over at the Rocky Road of Love, where foodies Sam and Harry have finally married each other and are off on their honeymoon. I’ve been trying to guess where they are and what they might be eating. Today I’ve got them staying at a floating resort in Canada, accessible only by sea plane, feeding them a wonderful salmon quiche (recipe provided!) Come by for a visit!

Creative Commons Photo by estherase

Well, that was a strange little interlude.

It seems my predecessor wasn’t quite so eager to resign after all, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem except that the Board of Directors wasn’t quite sure they could do (ANYTHING) without her, either. So I decided they’d have to do without me instead, and here I am.

The “no succession plan” scenario is, unfortunately, far too common in the nonprofit world (most churches require retiring ministers to leave the congregation entirely, for this very reason). Perhaps this Board will do a better job next time; for my part, I suppose I’ll chalk it up to learning how to fail faster; I was just glad I saw the no-win situation for what it was as soon as I did, and got out before there were any actual murders.

My friend Emily has asked me to guest-host her “Rocky Road of Love” blog for the next week or so (starting Monday) while she is in PARIS doing some research (she’s a writer, and does that sort of thing.) I think she mainly wants to see me get off my dark-night-of-the-soul butt, but it’s very kind of her and I think it will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned!

——-
Related Posts:5 strange things I did to get my job
Working for a nonprofit organization
Career or blog in a rut? Find a Traveler