I AM A MASTER BAKER!......and I want everyone to know it!

yup! I did it!

I had heard that Sourdough bread was easier on blood sugar spikes than yeast breads so I set out to catch me some critters. I heard that the yeasts had to be spoiled so I lined my counter top with dark chocolate, deep red fruity wine, fresh raspberries. I spoke softly to the air in my kitchen for days. Sweet this's and sweet that's. I opened the door for, what I was sure was hundreds and thousands of the little critters hoping to spoil them and entice them into my mixture of flour and water. I tried to get them drunk. A few succombed to my attempts and the soggy flour began to weep a lovely hooch. I knew I was on to something. I made myself a handy wild yeast net and danced around the kitchen singing like a siren drawing them closer into my magic potion. This, by the way, is know as the "Hoochie Mama Dance". Daily I fed the goo and waited, sometimes patiently sometimes dancing madly about the kitchen and today.........today there was sweet and definite success......Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce.......My Puppy! (every pet has to have a name and I travel way too much to have anything other than a sourdough starter for a pet.)

With my happy puppy I set out to make my first loaf of Sourdough bread with roasted garlic and cheese. I could hardly wait! But with wild yeast, wait you must. It took almost 3 hours for the kneaded dough to rest and double in size and then once I kneaded it again it took a VERY long time for the loaf to double, then as the scent of fresh bread and roasted garlic spread through my house, it was an ETERNITY for it to bake and once it was baked.....yup, had to wait a grueling hour for it to cool.....I just could not do it. Warm bread, who cares what it does to my blood sugar, this is Life and life that I helped to bring into existance. Heven I tell ya. Heaven. And then since I had this warm crusty loaf of fresh baked bread, I had to have a bowl of venison stew that I had previously made. I felt so rustic. I felt so self sufficient. I felt so fullfilled.

"I knead you......I put flour in the bread, you know I knead you........" I sang as I worked the dough.

"Shhhhhhhh....resting..............

The finished product.

I was so proud I had to call everyone. I was so proud I couldn't sleep.....maybe it was a blood sugar spike....should have had another glass of wine, purely for medicinal purposes, of course.

Recipe available upon request.

Rising Above It All.......finally

I got MY life back!!!



Last year, 2008, was an extraordinary year for me, no matter which way you look at it. Gotta great job that makes me a professional airport bum, moved to Houston, mom was diagnosed terminally ill, she died on Mother's Day after a visit with her, I had to take guardianship of my beautiful 96 year old grandmother to insure that she stay safe in a nursing home and not go back to my evil uncle who kept her folded in the bed like a taco so he could collect her social security checks, I catch my breath from that and Hurricane Gustav hit my unsold house in Louisiana, throwing a tree through the roof, while cleaning up the Louisiana house and having the tree removed, Hurricane Ike hit my house in Houston..................and did I mention that I travel 38 weeks a year? It's no wonder my body gave out and I have diabetes now, I have been in Fight or Flight mode for so long. It's not just that I lost my mother this year but in the last 7 years, I have lost 2 brothers and both parents leaving me with one suicidal brother and my Sun left in this world. I don't say this to impress or depress you, life is what it is and sometimes it...well, it just sucks!

Many great things have happened because of this terrific job, the best being that I was only 7 hours away from my mother in her last days and I could spend the weekends with her. And during those drives, the Texas Blue Bonnets lined the road and made the world a little softer, a little more promising. But there has also been a down side to the job. It's hard to start a social life when you are gone all the time. I don't have a strong social support in a new environment. I have not been able to fly my plane cause I have not had the time, now that I am diabetic I have not yet got the medical sign off to fly again. When I was first diagnosed it just seemed like another block to my flight path, I thought maybe I should sell Peg. I spent hours in the hangar laying across the seats and the wing trying to figure out why I would be able to achieve my dream of my own aircraft and never be able to fly it? I decided that it happened that way so that my mother could at least see that my dream came true. She never did get to see Peg, only pictures and the stupid glazed eyes and smile I get when I talk about my plane. She was proud.

It's almost a year now since my mother died. The Blue Bonnets are blooming again and I began to wonder about the promise that I felt last year as I saw them on the way to my mother's. My buddy Craig called to say he was going to fly to Brenham with his girlfriend for lunch, it was time for me to go and see how my plane flew.

Let me explain Craig. Craig and I were in ground school together in Hammond Louisiana. We talked about going into a partnership on a plane but he moved to Houston. I bought Peg and then shortly after that was offered the position in Houston as Product Integrity Specialist...aka Professional Airport Bum. Life quickly got out of control and I was not able to fly the plane. Planes, people, houses, cars, boats, none of them like to be stagnate and unused so enter Craig. Craig pays for the hangar so Peg is sheltered and he flies the plane so that she doesn't sit and take a set in her seals, condensation on her crankshaft and the molecules of the propeller are properly distributed regularly. I fix it when he breaks it. Not a bad deal for him at all.

So we meet at the hangar and I swear that plane smiles when I show up just as much as I smile.

I have not seen Christy, Craig's sweetie, since the year of 2008 began to fall apart. I am so impressed with her. Bless her heart (we say that in Texas over the age of 40 and I am catching on quick) Bless her heart, she gets airsick and yet she still flies with her sweetie Craig. I can't help but love that kind of devotion, that kind of understanding.

We pull Peg out of the hangar (or as we say it in Louisiana, "we pull Peg out the hangar") preflight her and we are off! I can breathe! I feel the tears begin to fill from my heart to the lump in my throat to my eyes but they don't come out, they just sit there and I remember. I remember what it's like to be just me again. Just me and let the world go below me as I rise above it. I am home. My mother would have been so proud. She would have been worried that I had gone so long without being me. My mother would often comfort me by telling me "It's going to be hard to be you" cause I had so many dreams, so many goals and so many obstacles and she would be just as happy as me when I "got there". If she hadn't died of a broken heart, watching me go through this year surely would have done her in.

So we are off. So you can see that the Blue Bonnets from the air are not that magnificent blue that you see from the road but instead it's a strange grayish, greenish hue that resembles mold on a good cheese. I think of that sense of promise I felt last year when I saw the Blue Bonnets while driving to my mother's and how just like when you see mold on cheese you think something is bad, when it isn't always the case. As we come in on final, there waiting for our landing is a massive carpet of Blue Bonnets and Indian Paint Brushes surrounding the runway like a welcome mat. I am home again. It's good to be me again. I "flew" 109,000 miles last year just with Continental Airlines but that is not flying, that is traveling. Yesterday with Craig and Christy, we Flew! We left it all behind, it was gone and I can see now that the white water is settling into a more manageable life. The magic of Christy? ....Bless her heart....she kept chiming in "someone has their life back....." "Who has their life back?" Christy was the voice of my mother, and I don't even think she knows it.

I flew! I soared! I came home! Lunch wasn't bad either.

On the Road again.......

I come from a Navy family. We moved every 15 months when I was a kid. In my adult life, this lack of roots and tumbleweed tendency continued. As an aircraft mechanic I worked away from home half the year....it was the best part time job I ever had! I worked either 7 days on and 7 days off or the wonderful schedule of 14 0n and 14 off....you can get into a lot of trouble on a 14 & 14 schedule!

Now I'm a Product Intigrity Specialist....I inspect fuel systems at general aviation airports. A professional Airport Bum. Best job I will ever have. My territory is the Northwest US. From North Dakota down to Kansas, over to Northern California and up to Alaska. It must be THE best fishing territory in the USA. I am still testing this theory so I will keep you updated.

My mother prepared me for this job. I see that it's taken me a lifetime to get here. It was worth the wait. Just wish my mother was still alive to share it with. My mom, my best friend and the only place on earth that I felt perfect died after my visit with her on Mother's day 2008. I spent my travels last year trying to escape my unmanageable life. After her death I had to take guardianship of my beautiful Grandmother to ensure that she would stay safe and happy from my evil uncle, who lived off her social security and kept her folded in the bed like a taco. Now she happily scoots around the nursing home and occasionally remembers who she is. Then after the court battle for my grandmother, Hurricane Gustav hit my house in Louisiana that I have not sold and it threw a massive tree through the roof. While I was cleaning up from Gustav, Hurricane Ike was brewing in the Gulf. I prayed that it would come finish off my house but instead, it went and hit my house in Texas. 2008 was a rough year. Roughest was the loss of my mother.

So....with all the stress that I was under last year, I thought I was feeling yucky and "not quite right" because of the stress...nope. I am a diabetic. Not a needle needing diabetic and I hope it never gets to that point but it requires that I become basically obsessed with what goes into my mouth. Most times, that's not such a bad thing. Like tonight I realized that 2 potatoes and 3 pounds of crawfish does nothing to my blood sugar....I seriously mean nothing. Life Is Good!!!! and then there are times when I experience death by grilled cheese. It's still new and a learning experience for me. All in all not such a bad thing since I have lost 18 pounds in 2 months, quite smoking (did I mention that I lost 18 pounds!!!) and I walk 3 miles a day. I feel pretty good, far better than I was feeling and with my stomach now flat, I have delusions of beaches and bikini's before the age of 50 hits in a few months. Not a bad goal at all.....maybe one in a cougar print? Yeah, right!

So I hit the road the day after tomorrow and will be traveling till November. Off to a good start too, Las Vegas for a week and I get to stay in the same room for the WHOLE trip! I do the happy dance when I get to stay in the same room 2 nights in a row so I think this is an omen for a good year. Last year I stayed in 98 different hotels, flew 109,0o0 miles on Continental (the other airlines don't count since I don't have elite status yet) and drove 27,324 miles for work. I am a true road warrior. My mom prepared me for this as I said. So many miles on the road as a kid, she taught us road games like "Punch Bug", license plate bingo, and stupid songs like "I see Grass, I see grass" that me and my brothers would sing in chorus, very badly when we were just too bored. My father really liked that one..not! We had bladders that could be synchronized and go for entire states before needing relief, Texas was a bit rough to get through.

So my mom would love this job and would love to travel again. Her body just couldn't make it anymore so I take her with me in spirit. You know it's a good life when your mother truly was your best friend. A priceless woman she was. A loving soul and I swear she had to have been the strength of the world cause it sure fell apart when she left this world. I miss her.

So, come on mom, I see grass, I see grass, I see trees, I see trees, I see cows, I see cows.....