The Chronicles of Janie

Music and vocals by Erin Szalapski, and lyrics by yours truly. Voyage of Fantasy

I have been toying with the idea off and on for about a year. I want to give it a try, but I worry that it will just be a waste of time. I worry that I'm just being presumptuous - that an ordinary person like me is not really capable of writing anything worthy of publication. Yes, I want to try my hand at publishing some poetry. I know that my prose is not up to par, but what about the poetry? Of course, my poetry is totally unlike most of the verse that is published these days. It has a bit of an old-fashioned ring to it. Would that be a help or a hindrance? Would anyone enjoy reading it? I suppose there really is only one way of finding out, but I shrink away from taking that step. What if I poured a bunch of time and effort and possibly money into getting some poetry published, and then no-one cared to read it? What if it was just a great big loss? And how on earth would I even get started? So the quandary continues. I debate 'round and 'round with myself. One of these ...

It was a day of great rejoicing. I finally perfected my recipe for an amazing Pour 1 and 1/4 tea mugs of water into a small saucepan Stir in: 1/2 tsp. sugar 1/4 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. sweetened condensed milk Add 1 teabag Stash black chai spice tea (available at your local Wally World) Bring tea to a rolling boil, and (try to) keep it there for 5 min. while listening to  Cup of Brown Joy  to get into the perfect tea-drinking mood. When the 5 min. have expired, perform the obvious next step of enjoying your lovely cuppa. Notes of caution:  Watch your boiling chai carefully. If you don't, it has a nasty tendency to sneak out of its pot and coat the stove top with brown stickiness. Don't catch the tag of your teabag on fire. It can happen quite easily. I know.

It was Monday, so Uncle Greg had to go back to work, and we females were left to our own devices. The devices we were left to were fixing a nice supper for Uncle Greg. The kitchen was barely large enough to accommodate Mom and Aunt Kelly, so I was kicked out to Facebook, blog, and offer moral support from the sidelines as they endeavored to convert Mom's roll recipe to suit the high altitude. When as much pre-meal preparation as possible had been done, we decided to head into Boulder and explore the Pearl Street outdoor walking mall. We started out following directions, which soon proved to be completely unhelpful. So, we threw the directions out the window (figuratively, of course), and proceeded to find the way on our own. I was extremely thankful that I'd had the foresight to bring only a small amount of money with me. If I hadn't limited myself, I could easily have squandered my slim savings in some of the mall shops. There were lots and lots and lots of stores staff...