Angela Marie Morton: art & illustration

Wow, the last post of the year. I can hardly believe it. The past 12 months have flown by way too fast.  I thought a simple, cozy recipe would be an appropriate way to close out 2024, and this split pea soup fits the bill. I have been making it regularly for the past few months for my husband and myself, and it is one of our favorites, especially at this time of year. My husband is on a restrictive diet for health reasons, and he was so pleased to discover that this recently-introduced dinner option worked for him. As with many of the dinners I make, this recipe, can serve as a template for you to add or substitute ingredients as you like, or can be prepared as is. I’ll provide a few suggestions for additions at the end of the recipe. The quantities of the ingredients I use makes enough soup for us to have at least 2 nights. If there is any left over, I often add a bit of curry powder to it, and pair it with white rice as a simple dal for myself. With that, let’s get into this warm...

A few weeks ago, I was feeling disappointed and unsatisfied with everything I drew or painted. The harder I tried to create something “good”, the more unhappy I was with the result. Even sketching was frustrating. I knew I needed to do something to shake myself out of the funk I was in, besides my go-to standards of long walks and extended yoga sessions.     The first step was to acknowledge that whenever I work on an art project when I am lacking inspiration and enthusiasm, I am always disappointed in the end result, and do not enjoy the process of creating. Once I had accepted that, I knew the time had come for the second step: a break. While I live a quiet and simple life, I find taking deliberate breaks and rests difficult. I am better at it than I used to be, but it is still a challenge. For this particular break, I left the time-frame open-ended, because creativity is spontaneous and I wanted to allow for the flexibility to sketch ideas if they came to me. As it tur...