Writing thought + driving thought + cooking thought!

cross-posted from Dreamwidth/Livejournal

Although I never participate, I watch a Minute-a-Day writing blog, where they post a trigger to write on, every day. The theory being you set aside one minute to write on that one thing.

They don't always interest me, but they almost always have interesting responses.

Today, the trigger was: If you could tie a note to a helium balloon, and know it would reach someone who had passed away, what would the note say?

Well, if I could direct it to the right person - Dad - it would say: We miss you so much. That was my first thought. After that there was a barrage: Mom is doing okay, pretty good actually, we love you. There are grandbabies! You should see them! I'm doing well. The girls are doing well. Everyone is currently employed, which is a bigger deal than you would think. And.. I could probably think other thoughts, but it struck me that the visceral first thought was "We miss you so much." It would make him feel bad, and I don't want that, but it's true, just the same.

Other thoughts for this brief lunch post:
I think up dumb things in the car. Conversations I will likely never have. Revisited arguments and "I could have said that better, or said THIS instead!" Things I need to get done but am not sure how or when to prioritize. The usual "I think I forgot to turn the dishwasher on when I left the house" problems. And, slightly more productive, recipes.

Today, on the way to get a bad-for-me-junk-lunch, I was thinking of what to do with the leftover jasmine rice for dinner tonight. There will be chicken. There will be carrots. What to do to the rice to zest it up a bit? Well, I think I have fresh parsley and chives in the basket. And some onions. (Although personally? Chives are oniony enough, so I might skip one or the other.) I have chicken-broth-in-a-cube. I have mushrooms! Terry dislikes mushrooms... so I have to pull those back out of the sautee if I do those. But still: sautee up the mushrooms and onions in butter. Add some seasonings (like the fresh parsley and maybe chives... also some sage perhaps), pull the mushrooms back out and maybe the onions if I did them, then brown the leftover rice a bit, add in the broth with some liquid and let it soak it up and we should be good to go!

Sometimes I do this for the whole dinner, in my head, before I get home, but I had to pay attention to ordering lunch and stopped. So I'll probably just do the usual cut-breasts-into-medallions trick and season them and cook them up in the pan. It'll be nice and easy, which is good, because I'm so far behind on house chores it's NOT funny.

Okay. Time to eat, then go vacuum. Cleaning day at work is always so rushed....