It has been surprisingly blustery here the past few days. It's cruel. You get a week of 70 degree weather, all the windows in your house are open, and you think, "Finally! I can shut off the heat!" Then the next day you wake up and walk into the living room and it is FREAKING FREEZING! The sun is out, which means the 45 degree weather may climb a few degrees, but YIKES.

So I'm considering trying my second attempt at pho tonight - it's a lovely, brothy way to warm up. Once the broth has simmered to its full flavor, it's easy to throw in meat, onions, and rice noodles - then you're good to go. And as I sit here hunched over by my computer, with a fleece tucked around me, I can think of nothing but it.

The weather may be different where you are. (Especially since it's MAY.) So, what's for dinner?

Okay, so I've been mysteriously absent from cyberspace. I didn't miss it - I probably check my un-updated blog more than anyone else.

The truth is I've had a tough couple of months. There's been money stuff, diet stuff, BIBS stuff (that's Body Image Bull S**t for those who aren't up on my super cool acronyms), and audition stuff. All of the above also lead to depression stuff, which is something that I have been fortunate enough to avoid for the vast majority of my life. When it shows up, however, I'm never quite sure how to deal with it. It's been overwhelming, and even though I've not ever been at a loss for what to talk about, every time I sat down at the computer everything rushed together at once and clogged the pipes.

I finally figured out that over the next couple of months, I have some seriously good things to look forward to. I'm going to have the opportunity to travel - two festivals at the Oregon Coast, two weeks in Salem, and my beloved Gold Coast festival in Los Angeles, with enough good friends and good music to get me re-energized for the coming year. I get to see some of my dearest friends in a little less than a week. And with the downtime over the summer, I am planning to take in some serious nature. Not to mention that a little less than a month away marks a year of marriage for me and T. We're also planning to travel that day and zip up to Seattle for a baseball game.

I need to remind myself that I've made it through lean summers before, and I've found several low cost activities that have kept me busy: reading, hiking, practicing, cleaning, knitting, cooking, and attempting to learn a little more HTML to feebly keep up my web savviness. Plus I'm managing to poke out some vegetable plants with my balcony garden... they will get a lot of love as well.

So onward and upward! And pretending that the rain outside is not happening and that we're just reliving that week of sunshine we had last week.