Finding Joy in Snarkville

Or alternatively, Bah-Humbug!

First, it appears I only can post these days on holidays, for this I’m sorry.  I have something highly stressful going on and rarely can vent without a massive need to talk about it — which doesn’t make me good to be around.  Until this passes (and it will SOON), I’ll look forward to the day when I’m back with you all more often and more snark. Anyway, greener thoughts…right?

Now, I’m going to admit something here that I’ve never said out loud.  As much as I dislike the Hallmark holiday of Valentine’s Day and it’s forced love, I don’t care for St. Patrick’s Day more.  I know that the vast majority of people think this is a happy go lucky little day in which you wear bright green and drink oddly colored beer.  I however do not.  Allow me to outline (in my favorite form) the reasons.

1. I wear a lot of green.  It happens to be my favorite color.  I believe it to be nature’s neutral (look outside — nature uses green as much if not more than browns) and there is a shade of green that looks good on everyone.  Yes, even you in the back row who is scrunching your face up and declaring that green looks horrible on you — you just haven’t found the RIGHT green.  But despite the fact I can be found wearing green most days, it appears that I’m hardwired to be contray and always want to wear red on St. Patrick’s Day.  I also forget this odd rule about wearing green until someone happens to mention to me that I’m not in fact wearing green.  Oh, well.
2. I do not get the point.  Is the point to go on a pub crawl, get incredibly drunk, and act stupid?  Well, then I’ve celebrated a lifetime of St. Patrick’s Days in college (Sorry, Daddy), and I grew up (a little) and don’t find it much fun anymore.  Is the point to celebrate some connection to our Irish heritage, then why is it that I rarely seem to find actual Irish celebrating?
3. What’s the deal with the leprechauns?  When I was younger and learning about these little guys, we were taught how they were tricky and mean.  Why are they now suddenly leaving candy and goodies for kids?  Don’t we really have enough holidays where we hype our kids up on sugary goodness.  Pots of gold are all nice and all, but I’m not building a trap any time soon.
4. So little is actually known about St. Patrick, the man, that we end up celebrating horrible stereotypes and cute cartoon of the Irish people.  On one level it is mildly annoying, on another, it is downright offensive.  At least some part of me is Irish, and I’m not a drunk, a cartoon, or cheap — I do however, really like potatoes — so that’s something, right?
5. Finally, all this craziness means that much of the US is missing the real holiday that is occurring today.  Today is the Queen Mum’s birthday!  She has been forced to endure countless combo birthday/St. Patrick’s day cards, green cakes/pies, and perhaps a pint of beer or two.  The poor woman has suffered enough.  I declare the silliness with a St. Patrick’s Day to end and the celebration of a birthday to begin!!!  Happy Birthday, Mum. We all love you and this afternoon we will have cupcakes together!

Now, in other thought provoking radical ideas.  I’d just like to mention that I happen to hold on of Time Magazine’s “10 Ideas Changing the World” — Idea number three in fact.  In the words of the article: “Calvinism is back.”  Who would have thought that 50 is the new 30; Pink is the new Black; and Calvinism is the radical idea??  (I do love being ahead of the bandwagon.)

You know when you may have lost your mind a bit, you get upset, you move on, then realize that it is kinda funny and you want to share it on your blog, then you write it all out (honestly believing that you have taken the insanity label), and then you get a call that you hurt someone else? Oh, wait, is that just me?

Blogs are funny things. On one hand the blogs I love to read the most are witty and fun loving and well, self-deprecating. Since my own personal sense of humor is rather sarcastic and self-deprecating, I try my best to do the same. The problem is that sometimes I am not all that good at it. On the other hand, blogs are windows into our lives and perhaps pulls back the curtain on how less than perfect we all are.

I’m normally ok with people knowing how not perfect I am. I know this is utterly shocking, but I’m not perfect and I’m pretty ok with sharing my weaknesses and failings — provided two wee points: 1. I’m the one sharing; I doubt anyone appreciates being told what their shortcomings are* 2. I’m ready to laugh at myself a bit.

I write this blog for lots of reasons, only one of which is to laugh at myself a bit. I’m willing to let you laugh at me too while I’m laughing — but I find more often that I’m told “you aren’t the only one” or “that’s not so bad” — so maybe I’m more normal than I thought. The bigger reasons I write is because I love the attention — hey, I’m honest; occasionally I think I have something to say; and perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll find something meaningful in it all.

The final problem is the blogs are public. Blogs are open to people we may not want to know that we are human and have faults. Done right the blog is the window into what someone is truly thinking or feeling when the public world they’d never show it. This is truly sad since we know in our hearts that all are human, but horribly some people in this use our own faults against us (can we say grade school?). Perhaps they think that pushing others down they lift themselves up — but you know someone who is like this. They may not be the top of your party invite list, but you avoid sharing anything that would make you seem less than perfect with this person.

A great case in point is that in a former life I used to work with a woman who I nicknamed “WonderMommy.” She was that mom — her pregnancy was perfect (often speaking of the glories of a life growing inside her); her baby was perfect (smarter than average, better than others, most assuredly better than your child…whatever), and her life was perfect. Well, the thing is after talking to her twice, I began to want to chip away at her all too rosey view of mommyhood. I firmly believe that parts of being a mom suck and her “everything is perfect” attitude made me sick. It became a game and frankly the only way I could speak to her and not want to run away screaming. After some time, I was talking to another co-worker and she summed it simply, “Wow, she must be really miserable to want to make us think everything is so great.”

That stuck. It dawned on me then and I still have to remind myself, that it is because I’m not a miserable person that I can bring up the negative bits of myself. Oh, you could talk about being secure in your own skin (something I really don’t think of myself as being), but I think it is more that I don’t have to convince myself everyday that this is ok; that life is ok. I have found in the years since dealing with WM that red flags go off when I hear someone being too positive or too rosey — even when that person is me. When I’m stressed or things look gloomy, I get in that mode of reminding myself (and those unfortunately around me) how good it is.

So alas, this is a long way around saying I was ok with telling the world that I have a pet peeve or nine, this either makes be highly comfortable in my own skin or totally in denial.  I’m going with the former — since if it is the latter, I’ll never admit it.  Ah, finally a Win-Win.

I missed the class in girlhood where I was supposed to be able to pull together dinner on a nightly basis without wanting to pluck my own eyeballs out with a spoon (perhaps a slotted spoon).  As the Queen Mum says, there is not an instrument created that can measure how little I care about what we have for dinner.  Truly, if it were up to me (and I didn’t have two boys who’d complain) I’d be happy to eat cereal for dinner most nights.  Alas, since Prince thinks his dinner skills are limited to boiling water or microwaving something, I was elected to make dinner.

But, ladies (or chef in your house), you know that ‘making dinner’ is never as simple as ‘making dinner.’  Let’s be honest, it is planning dinner, shopping for dinner, prepping dinner, making dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, setting the table, serving dinner, loading the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher, cussing….maybe that last one is just me.  But for some of us, who have no talent for turning loaves and fishes into a meal, we lather, rinse and repeat this every single night.  After way too many years of this, I have gone on strike.

I no longer want to keep doing something I started out disliking and ultimately have come to hate.  I do not want to make dinner ever again.  But again, I fear that the demanding people in my house will not handle the cereal dinner or you make it yourself plan.  Until I can teach Duke to cook dinner for me, I’ve been forced to find another plan.

After a wee bit of search on the net (oh, interwebs, how I love thee) I’ve found that there are other people out there who are like me.  They too hate to open a cabinet and produce dinner.  They too seem to have demanding people in their house who like eating and thus, they have begun a trend of ‘Cooking Once a Month.’

At first the thought of standing in my kitchen all day from morning until dusk cooking was like trying to imagine water torture or bamboo shoots under my nails.  I could not wrap my head around it — until I heard that magical phrase, ‘the rest of the month is ‘THAW and REHEAT”  Wait, no 30 minutes of prep daily after I spend a  day in the kitchen?  Why, no, why do you ask?  Well, I’d tried the Dream Dinners concept where you prep your food ahead, but you still have to cook it — which was often a multi-step process of dinner making.  The good thing was that at least the meal was chosen.

Well, in my research, I found a step-by-step manual in cooking this way for 2 weeks worth of chicken.  In theory this plan was designed for finding chicken REALLY on sale.  But I wanted to give it a try to see if I could actually do it and if this would work for us.  And yes, I’m aware of the fact, we will be eating a ton of chicken for the next two weeks.

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping.  I had a big list, but with careful shopping I spent less than my normal weekly shopping on what should be about 2 weeks of meals.  I’m excited as I lay everything out last night and note that I’ve bought good for us things I’ve never bought before — like 5 pounds a fresh carrots or fresh veggies at all.  I had 26 POUNDS of chicken in the fridge ready for a big day of cooking.

This morning I woke made coffee and breakfast.  I took a good shower and even put on my tennis shoes for my day at the stove.  I kicked the boys out for a day of fun while I cooked.  I cooked solidly from 10am to 4pm.  While one dish was being made, I prepped the next.  I made my own chicken stock that I turned into soup, I roasted chicken and turned it into burritos, I baked 4 dishes in my oven at once.  I made notes, know what I’d change if I do this set of recipes again — but mostly, I’m sure with some tweeking, I’ve found my answer.

I loved this big cook and while I’m truly bone deep tired, I’m thrilled to know that my freezer and fridge are stuffed with good foods.  I don’t know if we will love all the recipes as none of them are tried and true for us…but it was a proof of concept and a start.  Now I know this is getting long, but I wanted to share a few things I learned today:

1. I don’t mind cutting up large amounts of veggies if I can do it all at once.
2. I need bigger pots.  (In prep, for today, I bought an 8 qt and a 12 qt stock pot.)  But I need to look into larger skillet and saucepans.
3. I have two large sets of large bowls — and I used all of them at the same time.  I know I was shocked too.
4. I need to figure out freezer storage solutions.  Still working on that.
5. An empty dishwasher AND a sink of warm soapy water keeps me sane.  I ran the dishwasher only once WHILE cooking and it is running now for the second time.  Otherwise I handwashed the pots and such as I used them — this really means that other than the fact I’m too tired to put all the stuff away, my kitchen is as clean now as it was when I began.
6. My hands are SO dry from the hot soapy water.
7. Despite careful planning and large amounts of chicken later — I have two leftover chicken breasts that I did not use.  I’ve bagged them and frozen them for next time — but I’ve not a clue what I’m going to do with them.

Now to plan a few meals that have beef, just to stop us all from clucking.  Also, wondering how to tell Prince (who I’ve already told not to buy me anything for Christmas) that I think we NEED a freezer.

Ok, so I know I owe you a post (or four).  But I have too much to tell you that it is taking a bit to share it all.  So, I am going to have to give you snippets… (more…)

How it became Wednesday this week, I have NO idea.  Seriously, last I checked it was Monday morning and I’m not entirely sure how it became Wednesday without me looking.  But alas, it is and that means Knit Night tomorrow night and ever so much closer to the weekend, when I get to eat pancakes, go to a major case-lot sale (is what it sounds like, a sale on case lots of stuff, useful stuff like toilet paper and ziploc bags), and a birthday with Duke.  What happened to weekends of bon-bons and movies? (more…)

There are a few things that indicate that I’m stressed out.  Most of them involve eating, avoiding anything that looks like work, and possibly grumping at the people I love the most.

Now, I have to admit that my stress level is greatly reduced lately, so imagine my shock when in the past week, I’ve have the other great stress indicator — nightmares. (more…)

In my life, I’ve known what it means to be burned out.  I often wonder how it is possible that a not yet 35 year old woman could have possibly been burned out as many times as I have.  It may be that I’ve burned out in some areas of my life; perhaps my own way of forcing me to move on (when on isn’t always forward); or it is further proof that I have the attention span of a gnat. The list is rather endless, but I’ve burned out of several jobs, countless boyfriends (but that’s normal, right?), a car, more craft projects than Prince wishes to think about, and random other things that used to be important to me and now I can not even recall what they are.

Well, I’ve been burned out again recently… (more…)

…like today I know I am truly loved. (more…)

Last year, I went to hear Stephanie Pearl-McPhee speak. She said something that stuck with me and rolled around in my head until finally there is room for the blog post to push forward.

Paraphrase of what she said: “If I hear one more time ‘This isn’t your grandmother’s knitting.’ I’m going to ask ‘How do you figure and why are your insulting my grandmother?’ My grandmother was a damn fine knitter and this *IS* her knitting.”

Oh, there was more about the connectedness of knitting to our past and the importance of it all. But the part that just rolled around in my head is that this knitting thing I do. This pulling string into knots making fabric. This thing IS no different than what my grandmother, my great grandmother and even her mother did. There’s probably a few grandfathers along the way who knit a bit too — but I am not sure. But the part I’m not saying is that shorty after I heard those words, my grandmother passed away. (more…)

I can’t tell anymore.  I’m out of sorts lately.  I am rather sure it has nothing to do with the fact I’ve been working 15 hour days since my return and I still feel (and am) horribly behind. So I thought I’d go through the Good/Bad list, my effort to share the love and joy. (more…)