The new living room

The new living room is fantastic. So comfortable sprawled out the couch. I might be even more comfortable if I didnt have the dog shoving me here there and everywhere while he gets comfy. So nice not being squished in by the other furniture. So nice not sitting on top of the tv. Heck I don't even care that it's on some sport channel about the Dodgers going to their 2nd stop in TN. The other dog is snoring and I am going to snuggle in instead of hiding in my room. I so like being in my house again.

Who would have thought such a simple change could make such a difference?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's the simple things in life that make life worth living.

Moving rooms

My husband, like most men, think women are nuts because we are always moving the furniture around in the house. He was happy that I bought big furniture cutting down the possibilities of where furniture could be moved. He was happy indeed.

It's been over two years since I moved the couch from one end of the room to the other. Hubby's was happy. I was going crazy. I had reached my imobility limit. Everything was going to be moved. And it was.

The pool table was moved into the family room. Couches and recliners, entertainment center and end tables were all moved into the now former pool room. I love it. Plenty of room to play pool without using the short stick or hitting the walls. The living area is comfy without feeling squished in. There is room to move without hitting something. The acoustics are far better. No more being blasted out of the house with the tv on full blast.

Hubby misses his fish tank. I'm sorry. At least his wife isn't as insane anymore.


Simple Things Make Life Worth Living

The Book Thief - My heart is heavy.

If I wasn’t depressed before, I certainly am now. My heart is heavy. My eyes have cried. My lungs have sobbed for longer than I care for. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is the cause of my pain. A simple sad story of a young girl in Nazi Germany. Death narrates this story to us and to make sure we don’t find any pleasure in those innocent triumphant moments of  childhood, Death gives us little tidbits of what is to happen in the not so near future. 

This story brings to the front the misery and the helplessness of those who could see the atrocities that were happening to the jews, the consequences to the families when one showed mercy. The horror of watching the skeletal jews marching through town tore at my heart even though I knew this was fiction from a long long time ago. The fear in my heart that it could still happen yet again. 

The Book Thief was a story well told bringing Nazi Germany to your front door. God have mercy on us all. 

Passionless

This is one of those days that I question my soul. Where is my passion? I don’t think there is anything that I have felt passionate about. I enjoy things. I like cooking, reading, photography, walking along dirt roads, open spaces. I enjoy writing. I like knitting and sewing. I like watching little kids self absorption when they are discovering something new. I like dogs. I even like my job as a buyer.

Yet I’m passionate about nothing. I feel like I’m missing something by not knowing where I’ve placed my passion. So far my only near passion is dabbling. Testing the water here and there in different areas of interest.

Julia Child said, “Be fearless.” I’m sure that isn’t to be confused with “Be Stupid”.  My interests are solitaire. I want to hike by my self. I want to drive by my self. That falls in the “Be Stupid” category. I am not at all interested in getting lost or falling off a cliff side and being dead. Besides, it isn’t something I’m passionate about.

I have no interest in charity groups. Save the whales, save the dogs, save the bears, feed the homeless. That’s not passion for me. That’s overwhelming, never ending, depressive turmoil. No! No! No!

Where do I find the passion? Where do I find the object of do or die?

It use to be I would ask my self what I wanted to do when I grow up. That's long past. I guess the question is now, "What do I want to do before I die?"

I have no idea. Nothing speaks to me. That is a shame. I refuse to be one of those old people who have nothing to look forward to. Old people who reject anything new fangled. They are so boring. I will not be boring. People will tell you I'm not boring. I speak with passion about whatever it is I'm currently doing. That's a fact. I keep them quite entertained, but what about me? I'm kind of boring me. I'm disappointing me.

Any suggestions?

Obsession! I am not!

I am not obsessed. I am not. Ok, so I realize that I’m watching the movie Julie and Julia while at the same time I’m reading the cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking BY Julia Child while also watching clips on You Tube of interviews with Julia Child. It’s not an obsession I tell you. I’m just multitasking. It isn’t my fault that Julia Child has so much information out there. I am doing other things. I’m reading books too. I just finished reading a book by Nancy Verde Barr titled, “ Backstage with Julia” while listening to the audio tape “My Life in France” by umm. Ok, it’s by Julia Child as well but I’m not obsessed. I really am not.

It’s just that I’m a bit of a firecracker. I start off so hot. So excited and then pop! The fireworks are over and I’m off to play with something new.

This is a little different though. The cooking and Julia Child. The final crack doesn’t seem to be happening. I’m taking this discovery a lot slower.

I was a kid when I first saw Julia Child’s cooking show. It was black and white and, oh my! That voice! I had the attention span of a spinning top at that time and gave it two and a half minutes before I was flying out the door. I lasted maybe 30 seconds the next time.

Dan Ackroyd’s skit on Saturday Night Live didn’t make me laugh so much. It did make me nauseous and did not endear Julia Child to my heart.

What did endear me was the movie Julie and Julia. The love between Julia and her husband Paul just touched my heart. Her love and her passion for what she did was so attractive. Now that I’m older and have an attention span longer than a few minutes, I can actually listen and open my mind to her message. She, in this short time, has taught me much more about life than just cooking.

What Julia has taught me:

• Be fearless.

• Be curious about everything.

• There is no Try. Either Do it or don’t.

• Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t make excuses.

• Passion is energy

You can’t go wrong with that as a mantra.

There is a section in the movie Julie and Julia where Julie says that Julia hated her. Not really hated, but felt she wasn’t serious about the cooking. I thought it was just her whining and between you and me, I thought her blog was a bit disrespectful of Julia. She whined a lot in her blog. The thing is that wasn’t it at all. Julia Child had a negative response the blob because Julie Powell was doing the recipes just to do them. She was rushing through them. That wasn’t Julia’s way.

• No matter how pressured the situation might be, cooking was always to be careful, meticulous- and fun.

I don’t think Julie Powell was having fun. How is it possible to have fun when you get home so late from working and you are having dinner after 10:00 pm? Let’s face it. Your mind is not going to be clear. How can you ask your self the questions of “what happens if I add this?” or “what if I do this instead of that?” How do you really learn?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disrespecting Julie Powell. I think she did a great job. It certainly isn’t something that I could have done at her age. Heck, I was overwhelmed with the MAFC book and sent it back to Amazon when I first got it. It was a year later before I could sit down embrace the book. I am thrilled that Julie has found her passion in life as a butcher. I wonder if Julia Child would be a butcher if she could come back and live her life again. Maybe then Julie Powell would be her inspiration. Maybe Julie Powell can do for butchers what Julia Child did for French Cooking.

The Day After New Years

Pitter Patter says the rain on the skylight windows. Dark as twilight. And that's as poetic as I'm going to get. I spent the morning preparing a roast for the crockpot, spaghetti sauce for later during the week, bacon for breakfast and then I burned the pie for a second time. Lesson learned. No baking apple pie in the counter top convection oven. Burns the top. Pie was still good but not good enough that I can give it to the person it was intended for. Maybe next week.

I did use the pie dough that I had frozen. I was concerned that it wouldn't be as good as when freshly made but I was wrong. Defrosted a couple days in the fridge and it was fine. Yummy too. Good to know. I'll freeze again so I can focus on the pie and not the making of the dough.

So after all that cooking and cleaning up afterwards, I settled down to watch a couple of movies and knit next to the fire. I can't understand how there can be so many houses where it's really cold and they don't have fireplaces. Yet in southern California, a lot of houses have fireplaces and it rarely gets cold enough to set a fire. Today is one of those days. I'll enjoy it while I can as tomorrow it's back to the day job.

Speaking of movies, I'm currently watching Stepen King's film The Stand. Who had the bright idea to have Rob Lowe's character Nick scream after he finds the doctor dead and has killed Ray? Pisses me off every time. Nick was a mute because he had no vocal cords. He couldn't scream if he wanted to. He couldn't make a sound. It was one of the reasons Ray beat him so bad. The casting of Molly Ringwald, bless her heart, was horrid casting. She was so annoying, she was helpless. Asking Harokd to help her bury her father? No way would Frannie do that! And Who wears a dress when riding motorcycles across the country? Don't get me started. The list goes on. Yes, that is my rant that I will have every freaking time I watch the movie no matter how many times I see it. Maybe they'll make the film again and do it right the next time.

Enough ranting, time to head back to the kitchen to peel potatoes. No garlic this time. Just plain mashed.
Simple Things Make Life Worth Living

Potato and Leek soup

Starting the new year with my first recipe from MAFC. Not really the first recipe. The first recipe was the pastry pie dough which was a magnificent hit. Beyond magnificent actually. Richard was almost in tears with gratitude of the apple pie that I had baked. I even got a hug from him which is no big deal except our relationship does not include hugging. It made me very happy.

Also, I don’t normally like pie crust. I’ll eat the filling and leave the crust as if it was a plate. Not so with this pie crust. I ate every bite. People wanted to like the pie plate. It was that good.

So the recipe for this weekend was Potato and Leek soup. It called for 3 or 4 cups of potato and a pound of leeks. Simple to make. It took me two hours just like the book said it would.

Slicing the leeks is what took the most time. I thought they were pretty clean but all the sand in the sink once again reaffirmed the need to thoroughly clean and rinse the links.

The house smelled so good with the leeks cooking although my daughter would disagree when she and her husband came in from the outside. The scent was really strong.

At the end of cooking, I put everything in the food mill and adjusted the seasoning adding more salt and a bit of pepper.

A pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Yum.

New Year 2011 morning blues

What happen to the bacon? Guess since I wasn't up to make it, it's still in the fridge. I'm feeling a bit depressed waking up. It's ridiculous to feel that way. It's not due to drinking the night before. It's due to watching the final episode of the Sopranos. I knew how it was going to end, but this was the first time I had watched the entire series. I think the last season was a waste of time and yet the ending is lingering on in my soul. I'm sure I'll lose the despair once I get up and running.

I wouldn't even mention it if it wasn't for the goal of writing an entry to the blog for 30 days for NABLOMO. I think that's what it's called. I'm still waking up greeting 2011.

I did have a dream where I was flying. Those dreams always relate to work. It wasn't full fledge flying. I did have to grab on to something like the fire sprinklers in the ceiling but it was still good. I was also 9 months pregnant which is over the top kind of weird. The projects I'm working on are not so fruitful that they would make a statement by dream appearance. That leaves me a bit befuddled.

I hope and pray 2011 moves in an upward motion instead of the downward spiral. We are off to a good start goal wise. A new grandchild is expected. My youngest should graduate with her associates degree and then will start massage therapy or at least that's the current plan.

The house gets a new roof this year. Maybe that's why the pregnancy dream. A lot to happen in 2011 for my family.

I try to do something that I've never done each year. This year it's cooking. Of course I've cooked before but I've never made a soufflé or killed a lobster. The goal is that each week I cook or bake something I've never done before. I'm not sticking to Julia Child's cookbook. Cooking is cooking.

So is shopping which is why I must set the keyboard aside and head my MIL taking her a roasted chicken that I made her last night sans chicken wings cause I always eat those. One to test the seasoning and the other because it is so dang good.


Simple Things Make Life Worth Living