MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk
Notes from the Homefront -- Theresa Jarosz Alberti, writer and mother... http://sapphire.albatross.org
Yesterday I was so doggone down in the dumps, no fun at all. I didn't seem to be able to motivate myself to do much, at least that's what it feels like when I'm in the eyes of the storm. I feel absolutely sluggish and worthless and bleah. And yet, when I look back on the day, I wasn't comotose at all. I did manage to cook dinner and drive kids around and motivate kids to do homework and some laundry and stuff. I wasn't able to attack any of the growing clutter, though, and that has been getting me down.
Okay, now for the good stuff. Today I'm sitting at my desk and able to get some writing done, AND I just got an offer from the educational children's book publisher I've written two book for to do another book! Yay! Even before that good news, I was feeling lighter and brighter, and just able to sit down and complete a task. Is it just a matter of my self-talk and how much lighter and brighter that is today, compared to yesterday? Or are my neurons just firing better today?
Depression not only sucks, but it is confusing. But for today, I'll take the reprieve!
I recently discovered chicken and dumplings. I'd never really had them-- mom made chicken noodle soup, but dumplings were just something I read about in books. I'm not sure what came over me, but on Sunday I remembered that I had a recipe for chicken soup with dumplings in my Chinaberry cookbook (a very good cookbook made from recipes that people sent in, and then were tested by the staff to ensure they really were great recipes-- check it out at www.chinaberry.com) and decided to make it. I was looking for something cozy and comfy (since it was so bone-chilling outside) and different.
The soup part was easy, a basic chicken soup I made with a 2 lb back of boneless chicken breasts, onions, carrots, potatoes, celery and chicken broth. When it was all cooked up, I added the spoonfuls of dumpling mixture (a basic Better Homes & Garden recipe of flour, milk, eggs, baking powder and oil) and cooked it for about 15 minutes. Pretty easy!
It was a heavenly dinner-- wonderfully chickeny and filling with those firm dumplings. Very comforting! I took the leftovers and added more broth and made more dumplings for dinner last night.
The only thing I need to work on is the way some of the dumplings seem to decompose into the broth, which does make a nice thick broth, but I'd rather have more of the dumplings hold together. Perhaps the trick is to remove them once they are cooked to keep them whole, and add them to the serving bowls.
If you haven't had dumplings, I heartily recommend them. It was a nice breakout from the cooking rut I've been in.
Okay, maybe it's cliche, but when in doubt, talk about the weather. At least in Minnesota it holds true... you can always engage a complete stranger in the bonding talk of weather, especially at its extremes. Today it is currently -7 degrees, -24 degrees windchill. I don't think the high is supposed to get above zero. It really doesn't seem that bad when I've gone outside in the dash between house and car. Our van heats up pretty fast. But in the house is where I'm noticing the cold most. I'm not one to crank the thermostat up, the Scrooge in me liking the frugality of 66 degrees during the day. I was raised during the energy crises of the 70's, with the "just put on a sweater" mentality. (Somebody else in the house has been playing with the thermostat, though, I sometimes see.) Yesterday night I piled up blankets on myself while I sat down to watch a movie, and in the warmth of it all, promptly fell asleep. Well, I am still fighting off that cold.
I've been in a funk this week and had a good sit down with myself and my journal while younger DS had his gymnastics class at Hamline. It was very good for me to be introspective, to take the time to think about bigger issues in my life. Like why do I still always feel so bad about myself? And what do I want to do with my writing-- do I still want it to be the focus of my life? I realized looking at the college kids at the university yesterday that when I was their age, I felt bad about myself and I still do today. A lot of messed up stuff from my childhood, but when I started to think about the things I feel badly about myself, then and now, that none of it had anything to do with reality. It was a lot of perfectionistic, judgemental thinking with no understanding of the reality of who I am and what I do. It is hard for me to break away from the negative thoughts about myself. But it really did help me to think about myself 20 years ago, and today, and I realized I do not want to feel this way still 20 years from now!
I'm going inward right now, thinking about stuff. My writing is something I still want in my life, but I realize that I've been very outward focused with it, tied in with my perfectionism, and focusing on publication has really given me a huge procrastinatey block. I spend a lot of time running away from my writing. The outward focus, the wanting to prove myself to the world, just takes me away from the real joy I feel with a notebook and pen, writing and expressing myself. So that is what I want to get back to. Not to say I won't ever try to be published. But I need to really really write for me, for the joy of it, for the discovery, for the fun of telling stories. It's a shift. And I hope it helps.
Probably not the best time for me to write-- quit reading here if listening to someone else's grumblings isn't your cup of tea. Speaking of tea, how much have I downed in the last week and a half as I try to recover from this neverending cold? I am feeling lots better than last week, but the tickle in my throat, the cough, and the damned incontinence while coughing still remains. There is a whole new section of the feminine product aisle I've been visiting lately... one that I thought I wouldn't have to worry about until I was at least 60! I sure hope this embarrassing condition will retreat as my cough goes away. Sheesh!
And now, probably linked to the above-mentioned condition, now I have a urinary tract infection. I started to feel like I was getting one this afternoon, and now I'm sure of it, uncomfortably sure. Hey women, you all know what I'm talking about. I've taken Tylenol and am drinking lots of water, but I'll be heading into the clinic for the antibiotics tomorrow. I can't wait!
And I'm feeling a bit down in general right now. I've been trying to deal with my food issues and the connection to feelings, because I really don't want to be this weight anymore. But I keep trying and staying stuck, and it's not just as easy as "go on a diet" for me anymore. My eating is a real defense mechanism that I need to get to the bottom of. I'm still pondering this one.
And now it looks like we're heading into very cold temps here in Minnesota for the next four days. They are talking 40 below, and are predicting we won't even reach 0 degrees as a high on some of these days. They say it hasn't been this cold here in 11 years. Wow! We've been spoiled! We'll see how this goes...
'Nuff grumbling. Thanks for listening.
Some days, simple things are enough and oddly satisfying. Today was like that-- nothing big, no big outings. We went to church, where I actually got to attend the service instead of teaching the 6th grade class. They had a wonderful violinist playing music during the service, a beautiful expressive man playing beautiful expressive music. I do so like the violin... it has such a voice for me. I wished one of my kids had wanted to learn to play-- DD tried but didn't take to it. And the minister who I usually don't care to listen to actually had an interesting sermon. It felt good and connecting to be at that service.
The rest of the day was spent going to Denny's for a very cheap late breakfast (we were all starving), and eating out always gives us a chance to sit down and talk and relax together as a family. And we did chores at home-- kids scraping the icy sidewalks while DH and I took down the Christmas tree and actually putting ornaments away in their labeled boxes, instead of just jumbling them all into an old milk crate like we did last year. And we all tended to laundry-- folding and sorting the clean stuff, putting it away, sorting dirty laundry to be washed. Kids took showers. A tres humble dinner of Campbell's soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. See? Everything so simple, and yet I don't feel depressed or lonely or lacking like I would sometimes feel on a day like today. I'm not sure why. But I'll take it!
DH got me a new computer, some good deal he happened upon, and now I have this super fast system. I'd been used to waiting and waiting for just a Word document to open, everything getting slower and slower on the old one. This one opens everything like lightning. But now I just have to figure out how everything works on this one too. I think I'm getting spoiled. :-)
I'm still recovering from the big cold of the week. I'm only using a fraction of the tissues, drinking a fraction of the tea, but still have a cough and lots of phlegm. Having a bad cold like that really makes you feel grateful for good health when you finally have it again.
Hopefully now that I'm feeling so much better, I'll be getting back to writing again. And more regular blogging!
My first blog of the New Year and I'm sick. Just a bad cold really-- going through tissues fast and furious, the cough that scrapes your esophogas like an ice pick, a constant tickle in the throat and watery eyes. So with the kids off to school, I'm sitting around in my robe and drinking tea, nodding off and just resting. It's funny how I can feel guilty, like I really should be doing something, even though if it was my kid being sick, I'd be waiting on them with tea and toast and make them take at least one nap.
And so the kids are back to school. We had a wild time of staying up way late and sleeping in beyond all reason. Mostly fun, with too much rich food and partying. We finished up having Christmas with MIL, BIL and SIL and her family on New Year's Day. It was a nice time, since MIL is really into decorating and doing stuff up fancy, and spoiling the kids with too many gifts. And she hadn't suspected our combined gift, which was a portrait of all 11 of us, kids and grandkids. She'd been wanting one for ages, and no one blew the surprise! The portrait was taken by Proex, and they didn't do a very good job, with dark shadows on some people and hard to find one good portrait that we liked at all. So my wonderful DH took all the pictures and used his digital talents to make up a new portrait by cutting and pasting the best of everyone into one image. It was complicated but it worked. I should have asked him to whittle a few pounds away from my image while he was at it!
Yesterday was hurry-up-and-get-homework-done day here, all the stuff we forgot to do or chose to forget over break. Honestly, I think the kids spent about 6 hours doing homework, and not that it was all that much work-- just they goofed and distracted themselves so much. I think it will take some adjustment to get back to that school mentality.
We did start off the new year nice, this first morning of school. Kids were actually in bed by 9:30 last night, and even the boys were out of bed this morning by 7:15, and had enough time to eat a good breakfast. We have had such crappy bedtime and morning routines here this fall. I hope we can continue to keep up with this. Made for a much nicer morning!
Back to my tissues and tea now....