Getting It Together | M. Suzanne Terry

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Comfort food – Build-Your-0wn Casserole

Posted in Food, Getting It Together, Vegan on August 26, 2014| 3 Comments »

With the world being what it is and kids moving in and school starting and two of my classes for the semester getting canceled, I feel the need for comfort food this week. Sunday at Supper Club, I made chicken and dumplings (that post coming later this week, along with a vegan version that I not-so-secretly think is better). Last night, on what would have been my first night of classes, I stayed home and built my own casserole. I used to use this skill a lot when I was in college because 1) it’s highly cost effective, and 2) it lets you use up ingredients of which you have a freakish abundance.

Enter The Zucchini.

(Guest appearance by the Gosdins’s Swarley. Observe cat-to-zucchini ratio)

The vegetable pictured above is not the actual one I used last night. The one pictured met its fate in the form of zucchini mini-pizzas, each slice serving as the crusts.

That’s right. I have been the possessor of two such items in the last few weeks. My sister and brother-in-law have been equally blessed. This is what happens when a certain someone is retired and has the idea to “see how big they will grow.”

What is one to do when one is in possession of such a gargantuan courgette? Casserole time.

To build your own casserole, you will need a fair amount of each of these things:

a grain
a protein
veggies
something that binds/moistens (somewhat optional – see discussion below)

It’s also a good idea to have something to top it with. This is not essential, but it makes it look pretty. It also adds a little flavor.

For my casserole, I used brown rice, ground beef, zucchini and onions, and shredded cheese as both binder and topper.

I know that my casserole is not anything close to vegan, despite the tag, but the basic guidelines give you something to work with. As I normally have no meat in the house, I usually make vegetarian or vegan casseroles. I will use beans as the protein in a vegetarian dish. If I am making it vegan, I will toss the grain in a couple of tablespoons of oil, as that helps it hold together. Holding it together, however, is not at all necessary. It’s really okay if it all falls apart on your plate. So if there is enough moisture in the veggies (true of most vegetables, particularly if you toss them with some tomatoes), you don’t really need anything to keep it from drying out. Dried fruits and chopped nuts make for a pretty topper for a dairy-free dish.

Because I did not have leftover rice, I had to make it anew, so I started that first. While the rice was cooking, I took my trusty knife…

(shameless plug and full disclosure – if you buy it at this link, you’re buying it from me)

…and started chopping. First, I diced The Zucchini into bite-sized chunks.

It took my large stand-mixer bowl to hold all of them. That is a lot of zucchini. There was just enough room left in the bowl to add one chopped onion.

I browned about a pound of ground beef in my largest skillet (I’ll spare you the picture of that) and then added the vegetables in to saute briefly but mostly to combine the casserole elements.

The casserole is easy to assemble. I just layered the rice, veggie/protein mixture, and cheese twice (i.e., alternating with two layers of each) and baked it. Then it looked like this:

Well, half of it looked like that. There was so much zucchini that I ended up baking a second one in the skillet. I have so much casserole in my life right now.

Casseroles are not pretty foods, but what they lack in aesthetics, they make up for in taste. This one was wildly successful in that endeavor.

So to recap, for those of you who like specifics and don’t want to end up with a spontaneous extra casserole:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Gather – and keep in mind, leftovers make excellent casseroles:

2 cups of cooked grain
2 cups of cooked protein (e.g., beans or meat or your choice)
2 cups of chopped veggies (if frozen, steam first and drain, or your casserole will be soggy)
1 cup of shredded cheese (or 2 T oil – I like to use grapeseed oil) – optional
1/2 cup of topper (e.g., nuts, dried fruits, more cheese, those french-fried onion strips, cracker or chip crumbs, etc.)

3. Mix protein and veggies together.

4. Layer grain, veggie mixture, and cheese as often as the vessel you’re baking it in can hold it.

5. Sprinkle topper after final layer.

6. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

And there you have it! A money-saving, belly-filling, abundance-producing, comfort food meal. Enjoy!

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Getting It Together – The New Master Plan

Posted in Food, Getting It Together on July 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Last year, I started making a cork board out of wine corks. It’s as tall as I am, which isn’t very tall for a person, but it’s an impressive height for a cork board. I haven’t gotten very far on it. I have, however, asked a handful of friends to save their corks for me, and because my friends are outstanding, they have supplied me with many corks. The result of their outstanding nature is that I have several jars of corks sitting in various places around my apartment.

I like the look of these jars. They’re good for decoration. They’re also good at reminding me that just because everything isn’t perfectly finished, that doesn’t mean it can’t be perfectly lovely in the process.

I need that reminder.

I’ve taken the last two weeks off from the Getting It Together project to breathe. It turns out – I’m really good at taking time off. I have eaten sandwiches and raw veggies and fruit salad (minimal prep/minimal dish-dirtying). I have gone out to eat with friends (zero prep/zero dish-dirtying). I did not do my 30-minutes-a-day cleaning schedule. Today was the first day in a week that I washed dishes, and I only did them today because I needed to kill time while the hashbrowns were cooking.

Taking a break from the project completely has been good for me. Not only did I get a little rest, I am also excited to reorganize and start again.

I am also excited to report that, for two weeks of having absolutely nothing productive done to it, the apartment doesn’t look that bad. So either I have become a tidier person who straightens and cleans without thinking about it (which would be AWESOME), or I have very helpful gnomes living in my walls. I’m gonna guess it’s the former. YAY.

A theme that appeared in my journal during the time away was recognizing priorities. I have come to terms with the fact that keeping a neat home, while somewhat appealing to me, is not anywhere near the top of my to-do list. I have jobs to do, words to write, friends to see, books to read, and recipes to try, and all of those things are more important to me than keeping an organized home. And I’m okay with that.

It makes sense, therefore, not to put a stringent time limit on the project. The only way this becomes a workable habit is for it to fit into the life I’m living. I’m not going to try to force ten extra hours of work into a week that does not have ten available hours.

The plan this week is to get back into my daily cleaning routine. That part was working just fine. I’m also going to continue to cook and share recipes as I come across things I think people will enjoy.

After that, I’m going to go area by area until it’s finished. I will keep an update of how it’s going.

Then, on December 20, I’m going to throw a cookie party. Maggie and I did this a few years ago. We baked an absurd amount of cookies (I think our final list was several dozen each of 14 different cookies), we set up testing stations, and we invited pretty much everyone we knew to come over with cookie tins and take some home. It was a lot of fun (for the most part…there were a lot of people there at certain points…we clearly didn’t think that through). Maggie is in Houston now, so I’ll be recruiting others to help, but it’s going to happen. That gives me a soft deadline for getting the apartment to a place where it’s conducive to a sea of people (and cookie stations), even if there is still a little work to be done overall. I think that’s reasonable.

Another thing I decided was missing was a master list of posts in one place so that it’s easy to follow. So here’s that list.

Revamps:

Welcome:

Sustain:

Sustain – the plan

Rest and Regroup

Entertain:

Entertain – the plan

Create:

Create – the plan

Renew:

Renew – the plan

Rest:

Rest – the plan

Adorn:

The Food Posts:

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Real Talk Tuesday = More Breathing

Posted in Food, Getting It Together, Real Talk Tuesday on July 22, 2014| 10 Comments »

For those waiting on the edges of their seats for my next Getting It Together installment…it’s coming. By the end of this week. Probably. I make no promises.

I’m having too much fun breathing.

When I hear that I need to breathe (particularly if this encouragement comes from someone else), I resist. I resist because breathing sounds dreadfully boring. What do you mean, I need to breathe? You expect me to just sit still…inhaling…exhaling…and that’s it?

I don’t make plans to sit still. It stresses me out. I have to really concentrate to sit still without becoming tense.

This week, I tried something else. Instead of physically sitting still, I did things that still my soul.

It involved goat cheese.

And wine (and an amazing dinner that I was too busy moaning over to photograph. Apparently.) with friends.

And fresh summer cherries.

And gifts of a toddler’s treasures.

And making plans to make something delicious.

And before I knew it, I was sitting still without even trying.

Breathing.

I’m linking up with Marvia for Real Talk Tuesdays – come tell us how you breathe!

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Getting It Together – Breathe

Posted in Getting It Together on July 14, 2014| 1 Comment »

I can do many things. I’m not great at multitasking, but I am crazy efficient. I can get more things done – even doing them one at a time – in one hour than many people can get done all day. I take great pride in this ability. I am not a person who requires others telling me how awesome I am (because please – I already know), but I love it when people notice how much I can get done in a short amount of time. Because I KNOW, right?! Recognize.

I tell you this so that you can understand how much I do not want to admit that I cannot complete my Getting It Together project according to my original timeline.

But here I am. Admitting it.

I could blame the sudden acquisition of a summer class that left me with two fewer evenings every week than I had budgeted. Speaking of budgets, I could blame my lack of adequate funding for feeling like I am always waiting on the money to pour in before I can move forward. I could even blame my writing schedule – which I’ve actually been following pretty well this summer – and the two writing classes I’m taking – which are kicking my ass in all the right ways. There are a lot of things – many cases of “and then…” and “if only..” and “but when…” – lots of caveats, limitations, and warnings to others that I could set apart with dashes. I could write a whole post on just these things.

But these things, factual as they may be, do not change the unfortunate truth that there are only so many hours in a week, and that’s not enough hours to do what I had planned to do. I can get into a weekly routine of cleaning (check), and I can get into the habit of cooking so that I have food at home and thus feel less compelled to drive through Whataburger every night (check), but I can’t do that and deep clean and shop and reorganize and write and work and see people occasionally and sleep.

So here’s what I AM going to do.

Step 1: Breathe. Just calm the hell down. Focus on finishing Fishbowl and reading and having a proper summer. Eat more snow cones. Paint my toenails.

Step 2: Recognize what I have accomplished (see: weekly routine and cooking habit). This is how my living room looked last night (filter applied because the sun was down and the filter brightened it up):

Not perfect, but not bad for just your average Sunday when no guests were expected. Behold, the power of routine.

Step 3: Revamp. Later this week, I will post my new plan. There will be an ultimate (soft) deadline, because I can’t bring myself to let it drag on forever, but beyond that there are no time constraints. I have learned that some areas will take longer than others, and that’s okay. Each room will just take however long it takes. And I am happy to let it take its time, because I want to make the apartment home, not just the place where my stuff lives. Well, really I want to move. But while I’m there, I want to be pleased with it instead of having my current reaction, which is something like, “Oh. That mess again,” every time I walk in. Ideally, my new projected deadline will coincide with my December cookie party, but we’ll see.

Step 4: Invite friends and readers (hey – that’s you!) to hold me to this.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some breathing to do.

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Week of Rest

Posted in Church, Getting It Together, Simplify, Story Sessions on July 7, 2014| 1 Comment »

My original schedule for Getting It Together had this week being Adorn – the week I clean out the closet. I decided, however, to switch it with Rest because:

It’s our week of silence in Story 101. We are to have a daily practice of silence – whatever that looks like for us. Traditionally, I would use the week to be off Facebook and Twitter, but that’s not feasible for my work week (both at the workplaces I get paid a salary and my writing/other pursuits). My week of silence will be spent devoting at least 15 minutes every day to each of these restful practices – being quiet and still, reading (this one’s so going longer than 15 minutes), stretching or doing Pilates, writing poetry, and dancing. I’ve put aside specific times every day for these practices. If we’re being totally honest here – this is my favorite week in Story 101.
Life has been stressful lately, and freakishly so, given how easy my summer was meant to have been. Life is really barreling over me. I need relief now.
My bedroom is so full that I can’t really clear out a space around the closet to clean it anyway. It will all be easier and will require less cursing if I just do the bedroom first.
I’ve stopped going to church. Well, not officially. I still mean to go. I really do mean to go, sometime right up to the moment that it’s time to walk out the door. Then I stop. This doesn’t have anything to do with them. They’re wonderful. But my hiatus from church has taught me Sabbath. It has taught me what a day of rest really looks like, and now I require it. I need a day of rest. Before summer started and I began to move things around (read: into the bedroom), I could go to church in the morning and still come home and rejuvenate. My room is in chaos, though, so being home isn’t so restful. I end up stacking or moving or feverishly cleaning. Or I avoid stacking and moving and cleaning but spend the day with the knowledge – that all those things I need to do are lurking right behind that closed bedroom door – hovering over me like a cloud. This, too, is exhausting. I don’t have time for my weekly rest to require more time than it already does. I need to nest.

So this week is Rest. The plan for the bedroom is twofold, because honestly – if I can just get the room clean and organized this week, it will be a miracle. So some of the fancier things I want to do will have to wait their turn.

Short-term goals:

Clear out. Go through all the boxes (some still packed from the last time I moved…two years ago) and get rid of everything that I don’t need or can’t realistically expect to use within the next year.
Organize. Put whatever is left after I have cleared everything out to place. If it doesn’t seem to have a place, reconsider if it’s really something I need to keep.
Clean. Dust and vacuum. Control the allergens that make me wake up stuffy every morning.

Long-term goals:

Make curtains out of the blue sheet set.
Make a headboard, covered with the material from the fitted sheet of that set. I thought about making it to fit in the holes that my dad left in the platform frame, but after searching for DIY instructions on the subject, I ran across this gem. I like the way it looks, and it seems to be a lot simpler to make than one that actually fits the bed frame. So for my first foray into headboard-making, this is the one I’m going to go with. I also like that it includes instructions on how to make your own piping, because I’m totally doing that with an old, holey blanket that I was just going to throw out.
Rearrange so that there is room for my little blue chair somewhere in the room.
Possibly get a chest (more drawers?) to hold linens to put at the end of the bed.
Put up coat rack behind door.

Whew. I could have spent the whole summer just on my room, it seems. We’ll see how this goes.

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Renew

Posted in Getting It Together on July 2, 2014| 3 Comments »

I originally planned to call this week of Getting It Together Cleanse, but that reminds me too much of funky temporary diets that make my sweat smell odd. Renew is a better word for what I want to accomplish in the targeted spaces – the bathroom and the laundry closet – for this week. These two areas generally stay well-organized, but I still want to make some minor improvements.

I say “generally,” because they are a terrible mess right now. The picture of the flower on the bathroom counter (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit died weeks ago and thus is not even there anymore) is the only picture I’m willing to share with you right now.

In the laundry closet:

I want to put up a bar where I can hang clothes straight from the dryer.
I need to take the recycling that has taken over the top of the machines (where I usually stack clothes as I fold them) to the recycling center so that I have a place to fold (on top of dryer) and a place to store my ample collection of coolers (on top of the washer).

My original plan for the bathroom was a new color scheme. It was going to be plum and silver, with varying shades of gray as a backdrop. Two problems arose:

When at all possible, I like to make choices that exhibit ethical consumerism and good stewardship of resources. This isn’t always possible. Sometimes, need + budget restrictions = compromise. I can’t justify that excuse here, though. I don’t need new towels. I already have more towels than I have space to store them, and they’re in good shape. Having matching bathroom linens and fixtures would be nice, but it’s unnecessary. It would be frivolous spending. Now, I’m a fan of frivolity, but I’m also working on becoming less of an asshole, so if I’m going to engage in rampant, needless consumerism, the very least I can do is engage in it ethically. After more hours than I care to admit of searching for four sets of bathroom linens that 1) are the color I want, 2) are ethically sourced (i.e., fairly traded, sweatshop-free, made from sustainable materials, etc.), and 3) are within even the most liberal stretches of my budget, I am sad to report that no such items exist IN THE WORLD.
I don’t own the apartment I live in. So even if I changed everything I could to make a new color scheme in the bathroom, I would still be stuck with cheap tan flooring, brass-colored doorknobs and light fixtures, and plain white walls. This would significantly diminish the effect, which gives me a big case of the why-bothers.

All of that to say…I won’t be buying new towels.

So let’s move on to what I will be doing:

Cleaning and organizing the cabinet under the sink, the medicine cabinet, and the small storage buckets on the counter. This includes getting rid of all expired items and making a list of what needs to be replaced.
Finally putting up the towel rack that I bought the first month I moved in.
Deep cleaning the whole room, especially the shower. I need to clean up as much of the rust from the air conditioner overflow as possible (ongoing saga – the short version is that the cheap bastards refuse to fix it despite it being reported as a problem several times – one of which was a report from the outside contractor whom they had to call to completely replace it because, according to said HVAC professional, the same problem that causes the overflow/leak situation was what also caused the old unit to rust and fall apart) and try to figure out a way to channel the apparently inevitable leak in order to minimize the extent to which it compromises the structural integrity of the property, thus also hopefully minimizing the likelihood that someday I will fall, naked and wet, into the apartment below me.
Replacing the plastic shower curtain liner with a new, rust-free one and dyeing the current shower curtain to mask the rust stain that appeared when the current liner tore. *sigh*

That’s a lot of work for such a small amount of square footage. I need a nap just thinking about it.

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Nostalgia is a Liar

Posted in Food, Getting It Together, Roots on July 1, 2014| 3 Comments »

When I went through my mom’s recipe collection in order to find things to make, I told her, “I want a variety of things – comfort food, desserts, main courses, side items, etc.” I came across the recipe for Western Salad, and I remarked, “Oh – Western Salad – good! This gives me a healthy option, too!”

She gave me the oddest look. I was confused at first, but then I read the recipe.

It started well:

1 head of lettuce
1 cup chopped onions
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 can ranch-style beans

But it derailed from there:

2 cups shredded cheese
1 cup Catalina dressing
bag of corn chips

You mix everything except the chips. The chips are added as you serve, to avoid sogginess. And you end up with this:

I did leave out the onions, because when there are raw onions in something, that’s all I can taste, and I doubled the amount of tomatoes. But I followed the rest of the recipe exactly.

Calling it a salad is an exercise in willing suspension of disbelief. I can picture the creator of this marvelous foodstuff debating whether or not s/he could actually call it salad and get away with it, finally ending with the deciding factor – “Does it have lettuce? Yes! Okay, then – salad, it is!”

So I’m giving in to my nostalgia, deceptive as it might be, and sticking to the name Western Salad. Just nod along, everybody. Be cool.

My memory of this dish is that it was light and healthy. The reality of this dish is that it is the sort of thing one might buy from a concession stand. This explains why Mom never actually served it as a meal but as a decadent side item in an otherwise healthy, balanced dinner.

As I have mentioned before, I am not my mother. Totally ate a large bowl of Western Salad as a meal.

I regret nothing.

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Create – Week (?) of Getting It Together

Posted in Getting It Together, Story Sessions, Writing on June 23, 2014| 1 Comment »

I’m just going to give up counting the weeks. The number doesn’t matter; the plan does. So here we go.

This week is Create – tackling the writing nook. It’s called the writing nook, but its function goes beyond writing. It’s where I read. It’s where I organize and coordinate the schedules of my life. It’s where I store my sewing machine (although I really don’t like it there, so that might change soon). As areas of the apartment go, this is the one that gets the most attention, because 1) it’s where I spend most of my time and 2) it’s where I work, so it has to stay functional and organized. Because sanity. In fact, technically, I’ve already started on this area, because fixing one thing in the living room snowballed into rearranging all the bookshelves in the room, most of which are in the writing nook.

When I sit down at my desk, this is the reminder that greets me:

Equally important reminders, but let’s focus on the larger one.

I have only seen this quote in these exact words on Pinterest and in Aiki Finthart’s The Yu Dragon, which apparently you can get for free on Amazon today, but the sentiment is most often attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche (although here’s a fun investigation into its actual origins, if you’re interested). At any rate, it is important for me to remember that while what I’m creating might not have an immediate, obvious product, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile or that it’s not beautiful. It is important for me to remember that despite input from ambitious, results-oriented friends (which is not a bad way to be…generally speaking), my life and goals don’t have to look like theirs in order to be fulfilling. Maybe this is taking some liberties with this quote, but that’s the reminder it gives me lately.

It also reminds me to keep dancing, both figuratively and literally.

This week is not just about cleaning and organizing. This week is about honoring what the space is meant for – creating.

This week’s plan is:

Get back into the habit of a 15-minute free write every morning. I used to do this regularly, and not only was I more alert and less harried by the time I got to work, I also got more writing done than I do now. And it just so happens that a 15-minute daily free write is my assignment in Story 101 this week. Bonus!
Finish reorganizing bookshelves. The end is in sight. It’s very exciting. I might actually have room to grow (which is both dangerous and fantastic information).
Figure out what to do with the luxurious, newly empty space on my desk, now that I’ve moved the smaller reading lamp (which I never used in this space, as I have a large one right behind the chair) to the bedroom. It seems like that would be the perfect spot for all the different journals I am using, but we’ll see.
File/shred all the papers from the end of the spring semester.
Speaking of filing…figure out something there. I want to have a space in the file for fabric, but first I have to deal with the utter chaos that currently lurks behind those opaque, closed drawers.
Work on my cork board. I am trying to cover the back of my kitchen armoire with wine corks. At first, I was overwhelmed by how many corks that would take, but as it turns out, my friends and I drink tons of wine, so it should be completely covered by the end of the year. My short-term goal is to use all the corks I have by the time I have my July 4/sorta-mid-project party.

I hope your week is full of creative fun as well!

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Entertain

Posted in Food, Getting It Together on June 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

This week’s Getting It Together plan is for the living room.

But first – a little regrouping/housekeeping:

I still want to post recipes that I enjoy, particularly Mom’s recipes. I love writing about food. I’ve gotten back into my rhythm of cooking and enjoying it, due in large part to rediscovering my love of reading cookbooks and foodie memoirs/fiction. But do you really need to see my detailed meal plan and grocery list? I do not think that you do. There are more interesting ways to talk about food, and I am going to explore those ways. You’re welcome.
I have emerged from my miniature vacation feeling revitalized but also recognizing the need to tweak the summer’s schedule. It was actually pretty easy to tweak. Instead of before-and-after posts, though, I’m going to reserve the majority of the reveal for the next-to-last week (Reflect). I will make exceptions when something exciting like this happens:

Before:

Sad books

After:

Happy books

But most of the work will be revealed at the end of the summer.

Part of the reason for this is practical. I have a budget for the summer, but the resources are coming in paycheck-to-paycheck, so while I can complete most of a plan during the week, some parts of some plans will have to wait until the next payday. The main reason, however, is that it’s just too much. My apartment is not that big, and a lot of the changes are not that drastic. Also, I change my mind on some things as I move from space to space, so the official end of a week is never really the end of that week. Trying to write about this project as if it is anything other than the constantly evolving process that it is just wasn’t working.

Now back to this week’s plan.

The apartment layout is just four rooms – bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living area. The living area is roughly the same size as the other three combined. This is good, because I moved here from a fairly spacious two-bedroom apartment, so something had to make up for the loss of my separate media/library/office room. This is also challenging, because I had to figure out how to separate the different areas – living, office, dining – while still pulling the room together as a whole.

The separating-different-areas thing? I’ve got that down. I am happy with the arrangement of the furniture. That will stay the same.

The pulling-the-room-together bit? That’s a different story.

Some days, I walk into my apartment and am overwhelmed by how much is going on in this one room. As you might imagine, this does not have the relaxing effect that one would want coming home after a long day to have. Fortunately, another feature of this room is four identical windows – two on each outside wall. I think the windows are the key to pulling it together.

The room is so large and full that I couldn’t get a good picture of all four windows, but here are the middle two:

I want curtains for all four windows that are not sheer and are the same, solid color. I’m thinking red. It’s a bold choice, but it worked in the other apartment, so I think it will work here, too. This poses a budgeting issue. Matching curtain panels for four windows could be costly, so I will have to improvise. I have accepted that, unless I get freakishly lucky, I will probably not be able to find what I want secondhand. But a quick measure of the windows reveals a wonderful thing: with a few minor sewing adjustments, a twin-sized flat sheet would be the perfect size. I can afford four twin-sized flat sheets. Of course, I will want a test run, so I’m going to use an old sheet set that I already have (and wouldn’t mind destroying, just in case my plan go horribly awry) that fits my color scheme for the bedroom. So if it works, I can use the test curtain on the window in the bedroom that is currently covered by an old, holey blanket (classy, I know).

The living room to-do list:

Curtains!
Declutter – behind the couch, the filing cabinet (both on top and inside), and the black bookshelf (which I realize, now that I’m thinking about it, will entail a complete reorganizing of all the bookshelves in the room, God help me)
Find something simple yet interesting to do with the newly decluttered, usable spaces

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Red

Posted in Getting It Together, Story Sessions on June 16, 2014| 5 Comments »

I don’t have a lot of “signature” things. I have favorites, but you’ll notice that that word is plural. I don’t have a signature fragrance, because I have many favorites – lemon, coffee, caramel, vanilla, amber, apple, coconut, etc. – and I use them pretty equally. I don’t have a signature dish, because I have many favorite foods and favorite meals.

I do have a signature color. Red.

That doesn’t mean that red is my favorite color (if pressed to choose, it would probably be orange. Probably.). It doesn’t even mean that red is the color I wear most often – that would be green (because UNT…and well, let’s just say it – I look awesome in green).

I consider red my signature color because it’s the color that most closely expresses my habits and leanings.

1. My emotions are red.

I don’t always express my emotions, but when I do, they come out red. It’s anger. Or passion. Or when I’m really riled up, it’s both. It’s fiery. I’ve been told that, because I tend to be reserved, sometimes the fire is shocking. I accept that. I mean, I’m in my head, so I know that it started as a smolder, but I can see how it might look like I go from zero to flame-thrower in no time.

2. My environment is red.

Say what you want about fire, but you can’t deny that it’s warm. Red is the color I am most drawn to when I decorate. If they sell an appliance in red, that’s the one I’m going to want. Red invites me. It invigorates me. It defies complacency. Red sparks lively conversation. I try to pour as much red into my surroundings as possible.

3. My life is red.

Red signifies change. For someone who claims to hate change as much as I do, I certainly do a lot of it. My life seems like a constant state of editing, revising, regrouping, reordering, and reevaluating. As much as I like schedules and order, and as much as I value good time management and the reliability of sticking to what I say I’m going to do, there’s something so satisfying about taking that proverbial (and sometimes literal) red pen, slashing through whatever is not quite working, and replacing it with something better.

Today at the end of our launch meeting of Story 101, Elora asked us what we needed to give ourselves permission to do. My gut reaction was “permission to change,” but I don’t think that’s the whole of it. More specifically, I need to give myself permission to view change as productive instead of negative. I need to stop seeing all those red marks as failure and start seeing them as what they really are – fine-tuning. They are the refining fire that burns away all that is almost and not quite in order to leave what is just right.