food; Dickens; English; travel: Northern lights; Sweet!!!

Mmmmm.....roasted chicken! I've got potatoes in the oven, roasting right now, with a little olive oil and Mediterranean spiced sea salt on them. This is actually a very healthy meal, if you add some veggies to half the plate. I have some nice organic broccoli in the freezer. I'll zap them in the microwave. I cook in the morning to avoid heating up the kitchen in the evening. I'd rather get all the smells and heat out by mid-day. Then you can just graze and eat what you want when you get hungry. So much better to do that than have big meals. (I'm trying to convince myself of this, as it is hard to stick to a healthier lifestyle!)

Now that the weather is heating up in California, I am committing myself to getting up and walking early in the morning. I want to start my day around 7, which is early for me. So I will walk by 8, then come home and cook by around 9. I should have everything taken care of by noon. Then the rest of the day is for play and exploration. In the afternoon, when it cools off, we can take a walk, my 2 year old daughter and me, and discover new exciting things in the neighborhood. Perhaps Mr. Squirrel will stop to talk with us. Or we will see some flowers, or a cat, or a dog, or the strangest animal of all...people.

I decided that if I achieve my goals for improving my health (there is a long story there and it's not worth talking about, but I have some health problems), then I will definitely take some guitar lessons somewhere fun such as a guitar shop. Until then, I'd better just take care of myself as, most of the time, I am feeling ill and completely mental. I wouldn't want to commit to being around strangers once a week when I still struggle on a daily basis to get up and go.

Last night, when I was giving my daughter a bath, I read to her from a new book I recently bought, "Martin Chuzzlewit" by Charles Dickens. I decided last year, after reading "Great Expectations" that I am a HUGE fan of Dickens because he was absolutely hilarious and had such a command of the English language. I adore him too much. I get a happy glow when I read him and I feel like a rush of warmth in my chest. My husband thinks it is funny how much I love Dickens. He said, when I read him the first page of Martin Chuzzlewit, "Isn't that a run-on sentence?" I adore him, adore him. I used to think that Dickens just wrote these long, boring, dark novels. But no. He was best known for being absolutely hilarious. Most of his novels are extremely funny. But I know he also wrote some dark novels such as Bleak House and Little Dorrit. I will read those someday, after I have read all Dickens' funny novels. Martin Chuzzlewit starts out with a bang. Dickens uses the whole first chapter to write this absurd history of the Chuzzlewit famiy, talking about how noble and refined they are, yet conveying absolutely that these people were horrible and low class. It is simply DIVINE, every single word of it.

So I was thinking last night about how grateful I am to have English as a first language because I adore Dickens so much. I don't know if he would be possible to read by someone who speaks English as a second language. I also got to thinking about how, of all the places I would like to visit someday, the countries I love, they are all English speaking: Australia, England, and Ireland. I appreciate all countries. But these are the places that I feel are calling to me. I don't know why that is. Kinda strange. But I have always loved those countries the best. I also want to visit Canada and Alaska someday, like make a big vacation of it and go really far North from where I currently live. I want to see the Northern lights someday. That would be amazing. I'd listen to Sweet on my iPod while watching the dancing lights in the sky. :-)