The Art of Waiting

I'm home alone, which is weird.  I don't think I have been home alone, at least not for more than a couple of hours, since sometime in July.  In the past, home alone was a relatively common occurrence, as my husband was called upon to be away for work days or even weeks at a time.  In the last few years, it has been a more minimal amount.  In the last few months, it has been not at all.  We have been waiting.  A lot.  Not waiting for him to leave, so much as waiting for his next contract to start.

It seems like we get wrapped up in a waiting period like this every couple of years; far more often than I would have imagined when I was younger and considered what the life of a grown-up entails.  In my late teens and early twenties, I was vaguely aware that momentous events would occur in adulthood.  I knew that I might get married, or choose not to...I knew that I would likely move to another state or country...I knew that I could experience illness or the loss of a loved one.  There was a strong possibility that I might change careers, or face the disappointment of not landing a certain coveted job.  I did not spend as much time imagining or planning my future as I now think I should have, but I suspect that even if I had, it would have never occurred to me to plan for how to handle long and relatively frequent periods of waiting for outside forces to ascertain major parameters of the timing and geography of my daily life.

Nice Buns

I can't find a good cinnamon bun in Houston.  It never occurred to me before that cinnamon buns were a Midwestern phenomenon, but I believe now that they must be.  So I finally swallowed my fear and made a batch last weekend.  Truth be told, I am partial to the frosted variety, but in this case, I had to pick a recipe that didn't scare the pants off of me for the first go-round.  This recipe is from Savoring the Seasons, a cookbook produced by the chef of my favorite restaurant in Minneapolis.

I will keep working on them until I can produce a frosted one that makes me stop feeling ornery with the lack of Houstonian baked goods, but in the short-term, we had no trouble eating these.

Big Girl Pants: Conclusion

I recently wrote about having accepted a position as a relocation consultant.  I'm not going to lie; I had reservations from the beginning.  But it's always flattering to be offered a job, and it did not feel appropriate to decline while my husband was between contracts.  I felt obligated, and also curious, but not particularly confident or excited about how the position would fit into my life.

That was back in late January.  Fast forward to April and now I'm sure that this position is not the way I want to move forward.  I fought urges to quit (which occurred almost immediately and then continuously), but kept at it long enough to realize that while parts of it are quite easy, it still wasn't right.  At the same time I learned some important things about what I do and don't want to be spending time on right now.

Closet New Yorker

I'm of the mind that it takes six months to firmly settle into a new space.  Maybe it's just me, but when I review the process of getting comfy in a new home, consistently around the six-month mark, the furniture gets rearranged a certain way, or the kitchen cupboards get permanently tamed...perhaps the pictures get lifted off the floor and hung, which frees up the spare bedroom to be organized.  Something  occurs around that time that makes things click and feel noticeably better.  Also possible is that I have considered these dynamics far more than a normal person, after having set up seven different homes in the last seven years.

Additionally abnormal is that I find few things as soothing as cleaning out a closet or reorganizing a cupboard.  When faced with the unknown, the unruly, the upsetting, or the inexplicable; taking control of an inefficient traffic zone or a dysfunctional office calms me.  Along the way, I find an item or two that can be shared with others, or dropped at Goodwill.  At the end of the day, I have the illusion of being in control of my life, with the added bonus that things run more smoothly in the house.

Sunday Cooking

I did not help my mom in the kitchen very much while I was growing up, unless you count making my own school lunches and learning how to make certain foods that I wanted to eat over and over again, like mashed potatoes and chocolate chip cookies.

So when I was living alone as a younger adult, I soon realized that I didn't know how to cook real food.  Recipes had mysterious ingredients in them, like "stock", and unclear commands, like "cut the butter into the flour".  Obviously I avoided those recipes until I had made all of the other ones with easier instructions.  I even tried once to make soup not only without stock, but also without onions.  I have never liked raw onion, and I hadn't yet realized not only that cooked onion completely different than raw onion, but also that cooking an onion is the beginning of almost everything.

I made a lot of gourmet grilled cheese with tomato soup from a box and relied upon Amy's Organics frozen meals for my lunches at work.  I ate out a lot.  I was not unusual among my peers in this, but I know my parents were confused.  They knew that I should have been on a budget, so my habit of eating out frequently seemed strange to them.  But, that's what we did; as entertainment, as a vehicle for socializing, as a way to feel grown-up, and probably because suddenly delicious food was quite hip.

Big Girl Pants (Not the Maternity Kind)

People have been asking me how my new job is going.  I find myself not wanting to talk about it, for a variety of reasons.

I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  Some of my initial reactions have been quite negative, but since I have a history of feeling that way when faced with a new job in a new field, I have been trying to fight those feelings.  And, since it is not full-time and I have not yet completed very much paid work, I have been resisting the urge to say terrible things about it.  The lulls in the schedule have also provided welcome moments for me to step back, take breaks to do something else when I have wanted to run screaming in the other direction.

I Love Carbs

I have written in the past about how irked I am by the Paleo diet trend.  It seems unsustainable, extreme and controlling, several qualities that do not feel comfortable in my food life.  I should care what other people are up to, but for some reason the Paleo thing gets to me.  Also, I just really love bread and potatoes, so even if the math added up on the Paleo diet, I could still see myself living with the risks of flour, just as people now openly encourage pregnant women to go ahead and have that occasional glass  of wine.

In fact, this year one of my goals is very flour-focused.  After years of hemming and hawing about wanting to make bread after one or two long-ago failed attempts, I have finally made some progress.  I have successfully caused dough to rise, and navigated my way around a packet of yeast.

For my weekly attempts in the beginning of the year, I stuck with one basic white/wheat yeast bread recipe and repeated it several times until it became more comfortable.  But this week, I have cleared a new hurdle: the soft pretzel.