Chicken stew - winter warmer

This one has worked out better then I planned. I used home made stock for the base however I did cheat and use a gravy powder. Still, won't argue with results. It tastes yummy!

Ingredients:

Flour (gf if needed)

2 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 cup of gravy powder (again gf if needed)

1 cup diced leek

4 cloves diced garlic

Italian herb mix to taste

Salt to taste

3 medium potatoes, diced

3 carrots, diced

2 parsnips, diced

For stock: 

Reserve of chicken bones and off cuts

Water

Directions:

1) Flour the diced chicken and brown in a well oiled pot (preferably the base of a steamer). Removed chicken from heat and place pieces in a bowl. Keep oils/juices in pot.

2) Place the bones and off cuts in the base of the steamer. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Place the carrots, potato, and parsnips in the second level of the steamer and place over boiling stock. Leave to boil until veggies are soft.

3) Remove veggies and place to the side. Seperate stock from chicken leftovers and left stock to cool in a bowl.

4) Using the now empty steamer based brown the garlic and leek.

5) Add the stock back to the pot with the browned chicken and bring to a simmer on a low heat.

6) Mix the gravy stock with some cool water, blending well.

7) Add veggies to chicken and stock, and then the gravy mix. Add water to cover veggies if needed and then bring to a boil.

8) Add herbs and salt to taste.

Distractions and productivity are not mutually exclusive

I'd like to say 'Another day, Another Dollar' but since I'm on sick pay the days don't mean much either way. I would go stark raving mad at my current lack of activity if it weren't for the fact that my anti-epileptic drugs make me too lethargic to actually give a rat's arse. I meant to get more writing done today, and perhaps even work some more on my CV for when I find a job for occupational therapy.  Then the distractions hit...

Today's distraction...

- Decided to vacuum room. Eventually I actually got to this but only after I finished vacuuming the lounge out.
- Thought meh, may as well vacuum the lounge and realised no one had done the couches and cushions for awhile; two breaks, a washing pile and lunch later this finally got done
- Needed to hang out washing, having remember to actually put it in in the first place.
- Oh, right. Need to take down dry stuff first; but I want to work on this piece I'm writing
- Eh, no milk for me. :( :( Walkies!!!! :)
- Still not wrote anything but sudden epiphany made me put off making bed
- Working through notes on project, hit me that it may actually be easier to time up the 12 pages of outline I have to make the changes.
- Finally manage to write a writing challenge (Called kick her to the Curb), still not started typing up current project

Conveniently I 'forgot' about CV.  But since all I need to refine now is the references and format I think I'm good.  I'm kinda restricted in what I do at the moment anyway and have to consider any job as part of a learning curve. I'm expecting workplace stress factors to affect my triggers.

Actually, dispite the distraction level I was quite productive  ^_^

A poem and a short fic in one day?

OMG I've actually been productive. Don't die on me now. ;) I kicked the day off to a start with The lion and the wolf; a bittersweet poem about mis-matched couples. I took that momentum and carried through with The Blackout; a short piece of rom-com fic in 100 words that was written as part of the Friday Fictioneers challenge. And I'm still considered writing another scene for my current project, a romance with both supernatural and crime-related action elements.

In other news I have given Crazy Thoughts a complete over haul.  How is the new look?

Tragic dreams inspiring poetry!

There are some questions you do not ask yourself in the middle of the night. Your brain will be so caught up trying to give you an answer that it will cook up strange dreams that won't actually be an answer to the question you asked but a response to the emotions behind the question. The brain has a funny way of subconsciously solving this emotion based niggles. The answers are almost always wrapped up in difficult to interpret dream signs that actually cause more confusion then they answer.

What was my question? I was wondering about past lives, more specifically, my own. No this is an area that is best left up to your personal beliefs but my personal belief is in the rebirth/re-incarnation cycle. In fact I feel I have occasional glimpses at that former self - to experience the memory of final moments certain sent a shiver down my spine. That, gratefully, was not what I was thinking about last night. When I dwell on those glimpses I sense that there was a person whom this other self loved beyond all reason; someone for whom they willingly threw their life away in battle for. Of course, it was late in the night and I began wondering if I had met or would meet that person in this life time. This was not a good point in the train of thought to fall asleep...

My dream was sad, I warn you now. It starts of with a man putting a letting a waterproof case and attaching to the bottom of an iceberg. Then I see a family home. My kid (which I have none of) is playing in the background and I am unable to focus on cooking dinner - it keeps going wrong. The man from before begins to play with the kid and offers ice cream although dinner has not been had. Feeling frustrated and sad I open the fridge to discover he has labeled absolutely everything ( including stuff that already out of date). Next thing I know I am watching him leave, not stopping him and shedding not tears, asking the universe if this is how it's meant to be. The next thing I know my attention is call back to the iceberg. I realise that the letter is a representation of what he feels and believes. Then there is this terrible knowledge that archeologist in a distant future will know more about his state of mind then I ever will.

It was at this point that I woke up feeling like an unchangable tragedy had happened.
But I wrote a nice poem as a result!

New year's resolutions, huh?

It's 2:30 am. I am awake. Very awake, and not because I want to be. Ironically, instead of staying up this late playing games or reading or doing something as equally more fun then sleeping I actually went to sleep early (well, fell asleep with lights on but it still counts!)  When I woke up I had some very coherent ideas for the current writing project, which if I can cure the habit of switching projects, will actually be a complete story line (huzzah!) After a very productive note session I'm now in the middle of a brain slump - caused for the first time in ages by actually cognitive work. So now, I brood...

I say brood, it's really just quizzical thoughts on the whole concept of new years resolutions. I did not make any this year - this in itself is fine as they never are remembered past the first week.  My problem this year is that my concerns are very simple, and I have no desire to set goals.  My only determination at this point is to make it too 28 alive. Simple, neh? It would be nice to have an idea of where, or what I want to be by 2016 but at this point it is not possible.  I'm too close to my brush with death; and I have had far to many difficult changes forced on me to know where I stand let alone knowing what I want to do in the future.  In small ways I am already moving forward, concrete 'resolutions' or not.  I am learning how to cope with and, importantly, predict my seizures, and while i'm not comfortable with the need, if only occasional, for a cane at my age I'm just counting myself lucky that I can walk at all.  I'm pushing myself out of the god-awful depression that was pulling me backwards post surgery, and trying to test the new boundaries to physical and mental capabilities. I would like to keep faith in myself at this point, rather then be beat down by others nonsensical ideas.

Overall, I'd say if I had a resolution this year it would be to continue to grow, rather then to let the hurt of the past year weigh me down.