Life Getting Back to Normal

Just done a sweep of the pool - darn acacia blossom is competing with the palo verde to fill it! In the course of my duties inspected pots. I have a total of 23 quail eggs in three nests! One may no longer be active but the other two are - flew up and scared the wits out of me - and Hamish the dog.

My huge pot of "what the heck let them multiply pay no attention to them" Asian lilies are about to bloom. Unfortunately it’s in the side courtyard off the study and only visible to me. Well that’s not so unfortunate.  I keep reminding myself that there is no sin in being nice to oneself.  (Is it a generational thing that we grandmothers were raised to be hard on ourselves?) When I moved to this house I dug up a bunch of the Asian lily bulbs, tossed them in a pot and forgot about them. Over the course of a year or so must have tried growing something else in the pot and added soil. Came back from Thailand and found a spectacular mass of blooms - no thanks to me - and so they continue. Not touching them.  Meanwhile the Iris that I slave over are doing NADA big time. I don’t think they like this house. I have divided and begged people to take the corms and every single one I’ve given away has bloomed triumphantly - a sort of thumb their elegant blossoms at me! Right now a close friend  has a stand of about 20 deep purple  and gold blooms, the product of corms I divided in October  - me, a stunted 6” of leaves.

Going to hit the nineties here tomorrow so I guess the AC may have to go on.  Saturday the bi-monthly dinner with close friends  and I'm hoping to eat outside - may be too warm. In the spirit of easy elegance found a BBC recipe that I used as inspiration  for an appetizer - took all of 10 minutes if that and should be good - little ramekins lined with smoked salmon and filled with a mixture of chopped avocado ( lots of lemon juice) goat cheese, flaked crab. They get turned out onto a bed of cucumber and watercress and drizzled with sweet chili sauce - we’ll see.  It worked, it worked!

’Tis the season for Fava beans ( .99cents a pound at Whole Foods ) so am doing a very, very simple pasta of fava beans with ricotta salata ( it’s a ricotta cheese that looks like a hard cheese, not a mush). Toying with the idea of making the pasta but since I only got as far as cleaning the kitchen counter tops and polishing the wood furniture today I may listen to my inner sensible person and rely on TJ’s lemon pepper papardelle.

Mom quail ( or it could be the dads, I read that they are a very liberated species) have returned to the nests so I’m going to lounge  on a lounger and get drunk ----- on the scent of jasmine!  Despite major frosts earlier in the years, the jasmine came through with a bumper crop of blossom this week.

Oh damn and blast. Poured a glass of wine , left it for a minute, came back to find about 40 little black critters  swimming in the glass - I’d forgotten ’tis also the season for them.

Onwards! Oh Say Can You Blog ......

Phew - that was a long sleep! But with temperatures in the seventies, orange tree full of blossom and two hummingbird nests on the back patio it's definitely time to come out of hibernation.

Both Connectionsforwomen.com and our blog site have been subject of much discussion, reorganisation and forward planning ( see, we didn't just sleep all winter - we were thinking!) and moving forward do we have a deal for you. Seriously, we do.

One of the more frequent subjects in emails we receive is along the lines of "I write a blog on .... can you give me any ideas on where to publish" and secondly "I'd love to write articles that I think would interest your market , are you interested in receiving same for possible inclusion...."  A resounding answer to the second topic is yes, we want your articles. And as for Blogs - well, we're turning over the entire Connections For Women to fellow writers and bloggers so come and join the party. If you want to grow your existing blog  what better place to link to than Connections for Women with an established readership.

A few guidelines to keep in mind. Our readers are definitely 40 plus, significant number are Boomers so subject matter must hold interest for that demographic  - think multigenerational housing, caring for aging parents or spouses, travel with ( or without) a budget, keeping fit and mobile, stretching the food budget, perils of dating, second ( third, fourth?) marriages.  What do you and your friends love to talk about? How do you fill retirement?  The possibilities are pretty endless, from a good book suggestion to a synopsis of your own self-published book. 

We invite submissions from men and women both ( guys, women do really think you have something to say!) so connect with us and we'll open the conversation.

Not Dead, Just Sleeping!

Ever been in a funk - a deep purple all enveloping funk? Can't get out of bed, don't know what to wear, lose contact with friends, eat ice-cream and potato chip sandwiches at midnight, can't do a thing with your hair  sort of funk.

Well that's where Connections for Women has been the past year. Mulling change, envisioning change and doing nothing about it! So the snap out of it didn't occur on January 1 but it's February 1 and we are only a month late!

Here's the plan - invite many of the first class bloggers, feature writers, fiction writers out there to come home. Home to the pages of Connectionsforwomen.com   Choose your landing spot - relationships, sexuality, caring, sharing, giving, travel, cooking, gardening, life-style, finance, health, family, a balanced life. 

Tell a good tale, offer something new - we're done with left-overs - bring some sassy advice, sage words, witty musings - and we'll give you a home.  500 word fiction on any of the above topics also welcome. Keep it clean, relevant.  Make us laugh, make us think, make us get up and do something. CONNECT!
We offer a beautifully designed, user friendly website, a solid readership and a the sky's the limit approach to working with you. We'll do rapid turnover, easy access to archives.

Not interested in links to advertising disguised as content, purloined  re-hashes, bland blah, blah.....you can find those everywhere you click. We're looking for fresh, feisty point of views from men and women out of their youth but definitely not "out of it". Come on over - the Connection is waiting.
Gerry

So Many Consultants - So Little Time!

 

Holed up at the cabin enjoying perfect weather and the company of an old friend from way back when days.  Last night over a bottle of very good wine and dinner we traded stories of time  spent in the internet dating pool.  No names mentioned but we both had a very similar experience with the Big One.
 

Being of a certain age - past 65 - and single, I'm widowed, she's divorced - we fall into a far from endangered group of women.  No way even close to prime as far as we are concerned but apparently less savoury than three day old fish to men in the same age range!  To be fair to men, we are both in evolving relationships  at this stage of life, and to men three or more years younger,  but neither of us met them through the the magical matching system of E Harmony.

Despite adherence to the rules, filling in the interminable "matching criteria " questionnaire there seemed to be little precise about the matches sent our way. Both of us have a loathing for extreme religious and political posturing - both of us were sent potential soul-mates spewing extreme point of view and showing little tolerance for anyone who disagreed. We each narrowed down a geographic area yet were were sent matches from the furthermost borders of the country.  And for age range, no offense guys but 92 is simply too old, just as 50 is too young! She's a townie - you have no idea what it took to convince her to visit my boonies far from civilisation - and I will add that she arrived without one pair of shoes suitable for even a gentle off-road walk, and yet she was matched with 'off to the woods and let's survive on what we catch' men. Me on the other hand am a resolute out-door gal and many of my matches had no interest in any landscape not paved over.




And as for the consultants. It would appear based on our experience, that 90 percent of men over 60 list an occupation as "consultant" but give no hint of just what they consult in.

I know I'm exaggerating but come on - someone needs to get real here. Be very interested in hearing from men and women over 60 their real-life experiences with internet dating.  I know the pond is small, especially for women but like the heron and osprey who fish my pond on a regular basis, you've got to have hope of landing a fish to keep you coming back!