AWOL

Okay, yes, I have officially been AWOL from this blog. I do feel bad for leaving it alone for so long. I could blame it on being busy, but I haven't been any busier than at any other time in my life, in fact, I may be less busy these days than usual.



I suppose I just needed a break from the blog...or maybe because I just didn't have much to write about. Also, I have been taking a creative writing class and I suppose I got my writing yang out of me in the class, and had little left for here.



Whatever the case, I'm BACK...



Well, let's see, were to start??



I started running. Was doing pretty good, signed up for a 5K, but I have been sick the last week and a half and only got one run in during that time. I am on antibiotics and have been left with no energy. But hopefully in a couple of days I can get back out there. Andrew and I started running together three mornings a week. We decided to go for our first 5K on the 14th of this month. Now I am really worried about it since I have been sick and will still be on the antibiotics the day of the race. But we decided to do it anyway, even if we don't reach our PR for the day. I suppose as long as we do it...Like John Bingham says, "The miracle isn't that we finish, the miracle is that we had the courage to start."



Finished my writing class, waiting for the next one to start the middle of the month. Looking forward to it, really enjoyed the first one. Still need to work on the daily discipline of writing. I get side tracked by other things and don't always sit down to write.

The following is a tongue-in-cheek, southern humor piece that was revised from a longer piece I wrote for my blog a couple years ago.

Southern Fried Wisdom

I have a confession to make…I can't fry worth a flip.

I can fry catfish, but I do that in a Fry Daddy, so that doesn't really count. When I fry in a pan the batter just falls right off into the grease and leaves the meat totally naked.

I have studied cookbooks and watched Paula Dean on the Food Network, but I still can’t get it to work for me. I took four years of home-economics in high school and as a true southerner my mom fried all the meat we ever ate, except when it was in a gumbo or in a cornbread dressing. Of course, there were my uncle’s famous summer barbeque's and the occasional crawfish boil on the creek bank. But our everyday, down home meals always included fried meat. Chicken, steak, pork chop, squirrel, rabbit, fish, deer, quail or any other poor critter we could find to batter and deep fry. We southerners as a group, do enjoy our fried food.

When I got older I jumped on the health food bandwagon, and now I am more of a bake, braise, boil, sauté, steam, broil, anything but fried, kind of gal. With that said, there are times when frying is just what the occasion calls for, like say, fried chicken for a church social. At those times I really would rather not have to drive to Popeye's, buy the chicken, come home, hid the box and pretend I have labored long and hard frying chicken all day. I really don’t like all of that deception.

A few nights ago I decided to try my hand at frying once more. I knew that somewhere inside this body had to be a frying gene or two passed down from my southern ancestry. With renewed vigor I thawed and wash the chicken, put it into a large bowl of buttermilk. I prepared my flour by adding Tony's seasoning, ground pepper, salt and a dash of garlic powder. Using the trusty cast iron skillet, just like grandma did, I heated the peanut oil. Each piece of chicken was coated with the flour mixture and dropped into the hot oil. After it browned enough on one side I turned it over and let it brown on the reverse side.

The mood must have been just right, and the stars aligned just so, because to my surprise, the crispy did not fall off of the chicken! It looked pretty enough for a picture.

What does this have to do with anything you ask?

Well, I asked myself that very thing when I sat down to write about it. I suppose it means that sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. But even in the mundane, ordinary moments there is an opportunity to learn important truths about living.

Some things in life will come easy and sometimes we will struggle. Through it all we must learn to stay positive, be resilient and willing to try again, and sometimes it’s even okay to eat fried chicken.