Not Gone, Just Absent

My kitchen and I could use a few sessions of counseling because we just can't stand to be around each other! I'm only partly joking.

I attempted a tomato basil soup today, sans-recipe - and it was mostly good. Garlic, olive oil, onion, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce. I simmered it for a while, tried to mash it unsucessfully, and eventually cooked up some mini-ravioli to add to it.

I've been in the market for a crockpot for a long time, and it might just be what I need to continue this blog, and not let my marriage crumble under the boooooring repetition of turkey sandwiches.

Maybe we'll go shopping tomorrow.

Seeking Motivation

We have a fully stocked kitchen but without my brother, sister-in-law and pending niece/nephew needing dinner, I'm still not quite up the mountain that is embarking on huge meals.

I did make a good chicken pot pie with biscuits the other day, but it seemed tame compared to my previous adventures.

I had a great morning checking out a nonprofit where I'm going to volunteer. You can read about it on my Gardening Blog: http://unemployedinthegarden.blogspot.com.

On a different but blog related note: a very generous amazing friend reached out and offered me her lovingly-used computer. I am so excited to have a way to continue to blog and spend some of my unemployed hours online.

I continue to struggle with my daily pain but wish beyond anything that it wouldn't limit what I want to do. This unemployment thing would be fine if I could know that at some point in the future I'd have a way of having knee surgery. Yet, at our current rate it would take a miracle, or winning the lottery!

It's Plus One's birthday, so he's getting a boxed brownie "cake" - which I actually know he will appreciate for its fake sweetness more than anything from scratch I could conjure up. I have until he gets home from work at 8, so no rush to get the oven heated up.

Acclimation

I'm adjusting to the new kitchen. Was it silly to think I would just dive right in with my old pots and pans and new countertops? I still don't feel totally welcome, nor inspired, in our new place's cookery. I started with sandwiches, progressed to spaghetti, and last night made Trader Joe's frozen chinese mandarin chicken with rice. I know I will get back into my groove soon. Until then, we're taking it easy.

We went grocery shopping last night to the tune of $150. It still amazes me how long we did grocery shopping via MUNI bus - and the convenience of a real car with a trunk, which doesn't limit us to three bags/whatever Plus One can carry. Once you go automobile, I imagine you never go back to public transportation.

On the employment front, I've essentially resigned myself to a non-working life. I know that paid employment will add stress and further compound my health issues which really should be a priority now. Further, in an attempt to build a life here and resist desperate housewife syndrome, I am seeking out volunteer opportunities. Would you believe that I'm nervous? It's as if these past few months have left me with amnesia about my abilities and intelligence. As if I could truly fail as a volunteer at a nonprofit. I've scaled career and professional mountains compared to this. Yet, memory is short.

I can only try to understand what it must be like for a stay-at-home mom to go back into the workforce after 5, 10, 15 years of unpaid-for-her-work-status. I really have no way to grasp the enormity of it.

Do you have a computer?

My laptop, purchased in May 2005, has died. I am going through the mourning process, and trying to figure out what to do so I can continue to blog, update my FB status obsessively, keep up with email, and google endlessly.

So, what better time than to ask, most sincerely, if anyone out there has an old laptop in working condition that they are willing to donate? I'm not kidding. We can't afford a new one, even an inexpensive model - and I have a feeling someone out there has a computer sitting around that they no longer need.

I will pay you to ship it to me.

The reimbursement will be my forever thankfulness! So, preemptively, THANK YOU!!!

Dirty, dirty kitchen

This has been a very frustrating non-cooking week. I need to make the world's longest story short and say simply that we rented a very disgusting, dirty, apartment for which the landlord does not care and would probably be condemned by the health department if they saw it. We've worked our way through most of the cleaning but its still not done yet. I've put some food in the fridge but have been left feeling defeated by the undertaking. My herbs are sitting unpicked on the window-sill and will probably grow to be the size of trees before I use them.

I do hope it gets better or I don't know what the future of this blog will be!

In other blogging news, cooking or not, I still plan to start a garden in the yard - a huge reason we picked this apartment. I'm looking for blog names and URLs and hope you give suggestions! Thanks!

Stuff Unemployed People Like

Too tired from cleaning to cook, or write, but check this out... people just like me being funny

Even better is this entry: Unemployment ==> Cooking

Enjoy