A Frugal Heart

2012: a list of small things I’d like to accomplish

teacasey — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:04:06 +0000

Find a reason to make punch. People should have more punch in their lives.

Walk more. Walk more places.

Go sledding with the kid. Needed: snow

Try a new salad. Make it myself.

Read a book a week.

See The Notebook. I’m tired of hearing about it and how it turns every woman into a Ryan Gosling fanatic. I need to see it for myself. Even though it is probably overwrought and goofy.

Buy a bicycle. With a basket. Take some bike rides with the family.

Go on at least one decent hike.

Have a picnic.

Take Dulcie to the Field Museum in Chicago.

Buy a house. A house I love.

Spend Christmas in my new house.

Visit Lake Geneva, WI in the summertime.

Write a short story.

Make own veggie burgers.

Kiss more.

Dance more.

Enjoy more soups.

Some Good Things about 2011: a list

teacasey — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:34:47 +0000

Arcade Fire wins a grammy.

A few days spent at The Wisconsin Film Festival.

Meek’s Cutoff

Game of Thrones with Mark

Black bean tacos and margaritas at El Banditos.

Justified

3rd grade!

A.V. Club TV recaps/reviews

The Tree of Life

Breaking Bad

Games Nights (Ticket to Ride, Tichu, Puerto Rico)

10th wedding anniversary spent in Minneapolis.

Community

Parks and Recreation

Divergent

Pumped up Kicks

Sprawl2.com

Sister and her family come home for Christmas.

Dulcie wants (and gets) a microscope for Christmas.

Finally getting to send in the application for my mental health counseling license. Everything is done!

a weekend, gone

teacasey — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 03:13:19 +0000

It was/is Labor Day weekend. We left town for the old hometown. We went from hot to cool. We played miniature golf in the rich suburbs of Chicago and ate well at an Asian chain restaurant. We saw an owl. I think we saw an owl. It was so dark. But aren’t they neat to see? Like gifts from nature. Of course when it took flight I went into protect the dog mode as if some owl could haul Betsy away. Betsy, my roly poly beagle.

It was a long weekend and we were away so I’m trying to be ok with not accomplishing much. With letting the house be a mess a little while longer and not having gotten much more than one load of laundry done. The to do list remains undone. It will be a busy week but the weekend will come fast. Spending time lamenting undone things is wasting time that would be better spent enjoying oneself in one’s short life. We Americans, we feel so guilty for enjoying ourselves.

schooling

teacasey — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:03:10 +0000

Dulcie goes to public school. I like her school. I think it is the right place for her. But I must say, I dream of that really awesome alternative, progressive, smarty-pants, arty, visionary private school for her. I couldn’t send her to one at this point. We don’t have those kind of discretionary funds, but included in that list of The Things I Would Do if I Had the Money (like build an eco-friendly house and travel more often and try more fancy restaurants and get those chairs from Restoration Hardware) is sending the kid to a school where she can get that kind of extraordinary educational experience that most public schools (with some exceptions of course) can’t or won’t provide. I don’t want to dis public schools. I think most of them try their best and I truly believe in public education, I just think they become so limited by rules and regulations and No Child Left Behind and standardized tests and fear and money and and and.

Is it wrong to want my child to go to a school where besides learning multiplication tables she learns to bake bread and garden and shares ideas about culture and the world?

Writing, a journey

teacasey — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 03:27:48 +0000

Things I’m doing instead of working on my book:

eating cereal
reading blogs by writers
staring off into space
coming up with ideas for the book I want to write after this one
reading and contributing to the forums at NathanBransford.com
playing Tiny Wings on my iPhone (damnit if I can’t get to island 7!)
petting my dog
watching House Hunters International
reading YA by other people (who are published because they didn’t procrastinate)
going through old magazines
nothing

Ideas I have for Children’s books

teacasey — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 04:06:11 +0000

A squirrel faces a lonely winter without all his hibernating friends. How does he get through?

A detective fly makes friends with a sleuthy human girl.

The knitting mice club.

The blue heron and her favorite pond. What she looks forward to when it is warm again and she can go back. Does she send letters to her cardinal friends who live there all year?

three minute fiction

teacasey — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:12:34 +0000

Here was my entry for NPR’s Three Minute Fiction Contest, which just ended and named a winner (obviously not me, but it was fun to try).

I’m getting more into flash fiction lately and I like the challenge of parameters. The thing with this was you had to start with the sentence “Some people swore that the house was haunted” and end with “Nothing was the same again after that”.

Turk’s Ghosts

Some people swore that the house was haunted. I never believed that,
but Turk did. He told me stories of faces peeking out windows when no
one was home–white, sorrowful faces. But I know Turk. He wanted to
see those faces.

It was Lacey who lived there. Her family bought the house when they
moved from Nebraska. Was it five years ago? The reason Turk was always
riding his bike by the house was because Lacey lived there and Turk
thought Lacey was his. In his thirteen year old way, he loved her. And
so whenever he could he took the long way home and rode by that big,
ancient house on Cleary street.

The truth was, Lacey sort of belonged to both of us, but it was my
hand she grabbed that night on the way home from the station. We had
seen Turk off to go visit his dad in Chicago. Lacey came because her
mom was playing bridge with my mom and Turk and I talked her into
coming along. That was when we got up the nerve to ask Lacey about her
house. Did she ever hear banging noises or have things go missing? Was
there a girl in a white dress floating through the hallways? Lacey
said she had been scared the first few weeks after they moved in. All
the neighborhood kids had warned her of ghosts. But then nothing
happened, so she figured it was an urban legend. Turk had to ask her
what an urban legend was and Lacey laughed while I rolled my eyes.
There was a lot Turk didn’t know.

Turk didn’t want to go to Chicago. It was only for a week, but being
in Chicago meant a week away from summer in our town, and me, and
Lacey, too. Lacey didn’t belong to us before that. Later she would be
a constant presence with us at the Y pool or the arcade or even taking
our bikes out to the ramp park. In some ways she was just another boy
to punch in the shoulder and make fart jokes with, but I knew Turk
liked her and I knew she liked me and those were hard secrets to keep.

That night after we waved goodbye to Turk and Lacey grabbed my hand
and I let her, we had smiled at each other and I wondered if in her
smile, like in mine, there was a little bit of sadness. I loved Turk
and knew she would too, and if he couldn’t have Lacey then there
wasn’t much else for him in his life. Nothing but ghosts.

And then that day at the end of the summer, when Lacey came over and
Turk didn’t–because I didn’t invite him–well, nothing was ever the
same again after that.

a little life improvement

teacasey — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:30:41 +0000

I visit the website Apartment Therapy pretty regularly, but rarely do I do more than skim the posts and look at the pictures; however, I’m quite enjoying the 20/20 home cure series. I haven’t actually DONE anything in the series–at least not as homework on the day prescribed–but I do find them inspiring and good reminders how much one’s home and environment plays a role in one’s happiness and satisfaction. Clean a room! Get some flowers! Cook a meal! Yes yes yes. Of course. OF COURSE!

Quick Advice from me to you

teacasey — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:44:03 +0000

Here are some things you should not do if you consider yourself a sane, personable, respectful and polite human.

1. Grab food off someone else’s plate. Personally, I think unless you are in a comfortable committed relationship or that person has offered you some of their food or you are under the age of 8, you should just assume that person’s meal is off limits to you.

2. Talk on the cell phone while you are in a public restroom.

3. Not obey the line. If you are in line, be in line. Do not assume standing directly next to me is being in line because you are making me seriously uncomfortable and giving me anxiety that you will try to butt in front of me.

4. Not let me change lanes when I am signaling the intent to. Wouldn’t you want me to do the same for you?

5. Not reciprocate. If I do you a few big favors, the least you can do is offer me one.

6. Never allow me to pick. You can’t always pick the movie, the event, the restaurant. It isn’t fair.

And by “me”, of course I mean the universal “you”. Thank you for listening.

An Ending

teacasey — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:29:25 +0000

from a creative writing workshop:

The Wilkinson family sold their house that Spring to a couple without children. Better that way, I suppose. Those tragedies might somehow imprint themselves on the innocent.

I was most sad about Jean. She had tried. The others tried, in their own way, but only to save themselves. Jean had tried to steer the ship a different direction and she had fallen overboard. Or maybe she was pushed. Or maybe she jumped on her own. I would never know.