Last night I sliced up and sauteed an onion for dinner.  Well, I had more than just an onion... it topped our hamburger patties along with some cheese...  Anyway, when I went to bed I could smell it, the onion not the patties (no, not the panties, either), in our bedroom. The smell seemed to be at one with our bedding.  Certainly a most unwelcome bed partner.  Then this morning I put on my jacket to run an errand in town.  It reeked of those sauteed onions with the added depth and texture of "stale".  So, upon arriving home, I searched the internet for instructions on "how to remove odors from the house".  The one I found, and chose, suggested simmering water and vinegar together with a slice of citrus peel for the pleasant fragrance.  Right now, two hours later, the onion smell is gone but the sharp vinegary, poke-in-the-nose stench has spread throughout the whole house and the citrus fragrance is nowhere to be smelled.

I should have known after all the times I rubbed vinegar on my teenage sunburns.  Each time they convinced me the smell would go away but it always hung around like a  stinking sulfur cloud.

Then there was the time a friend gave us a pound of fresh ground venison with the instruction to soak the meat in vinegar, squeezing out the excess, before cooking, to remove the game-y taste.  We were wild-game babes then, inexperienced.  The awful smell permeated the house. We could have run the venison through multiple extract cycles in the washing machine and not gotten all the vinegar out. Sad to say, even the dog wouldn't eat it.

So, I've had enough of this unruly odor and have replaced the pan full of that odious vinegar mixture with a nice roast in a fresh, clean pot with seasonings and garlic and bay leaves, my current rediscovered favorite, along with a generous splash, or two... okay three generous splashes, of Sherry. Not the cooking stuff, the real stuff, it adds such richness to a good piece of meat.  Now, delicious and tempting aromas waft through the house.  And, thankfully, when Ron gets home from work tonight, he won't have to ask the obvious question.

Has it really been almost a year since I've visited my own site?  Yes, it seems it has.  I must confess, I've been a bit frightened of this new venture, allowing strangers into the secret recesses and dark passages  that comprise the personal world of my mind.
 
It's time, though, to get this show on the road.  I have a plan, to strike out and follow the path set out for me.  I know, in my first post, I talked about this very same thing ~  if I'm a writer, then write.  Okay, so it's takes me a while to get with the program.

Yesterday I had some very profound thoughts but today they're gone.  I wish I'd written them down yesterday.

I sit and daydream ~ the thing I do best ~ and thousands of wonderful ideas float by, like the beautiful blue sky that peeks through the clouds that float across the valley. 

I also want this site to be helpful to those who stop by.  Things like yummy recipes, other excellent websites, thoughtful discoveries about life itself, the ups and downs of gardening and homemaking. And even the exciting adventures I have with my Abba.

So, I suppose this little post is a re-introduction of myself to this baby site of mine. A re-familiarization and a reminder of what I believe I'm supposed to do.

Is that a word, re-familiarization? If not, I'm going to make in one.

Welcome back.