After several months away from it, I’ve finally picked the book back up and have started a new round of edits. Late last year I got to the point where I just had to stop fiddling with it. I was having no new ideas, and progress was frustrating and slow. But now that I’ve had some time away, I feel I can look at it with fresh eyes, and I’m so excited to be back to work on it. In fact, on the first read-through, I’ve already rearranged some chapters and started hacking away and identifying places where I’d like to add some things. Not any major, life-changing edits, but enough substantial ones to get me excited again.
It is very easy for me to get wrapped up in jobs that have paychecks attached to them. I tend to over-commit mentally and emotionally and time..ly? Time-wise? You know what I’m saying. Anyway, for the past few weeks I’ve been focused so much on my paycheck-jobs that I haven’t been focusing on the book. I have managed to keep the house clean and the food cooked (more on this in a second), and I’ve finished reading a few books, but I haven’t touched anything having to do with coal or any other large-scale writing project. Now, I’m re-prioritizing and remembering and recapturing the excitement I had toward my book. I’m still invested in my “real job” of course, but not to the exclusion of what I’m really passionate about.
As for food, my motivation for MD Take Two is tanking in a major way. I don’t know what it is. I’m feeling great, I’ve got plenty of energy, I’m happy with the food choices I’ve been making. But I have no desire whatsoever to continue with the “forty day” program. I guess because I’ve done it before and feel I’ve paid my penance by going through the first phase again. I don’t know. I just want the flexibility and freedom of being at the end of it, at allowing for “exceptions” (which I’ve been allowing for, here and there, because otherwise I’d ditch the effort altogether). I don’t regret beginning again. I’m just re-thinking my commitment to going the whole six weeks in the prescribed way. Maybe I’ll skip the second phase. Maybe I’ll get re-motivated when I get to the next phase. I don’t know. What I do know is that I would do just about anything for some bread right now.
I’ve been roasting a chicken on weekends and making chicken stock and then chicken soup, and that’s been quite tasty. Other high points of the diet have been the roasted leg of lamb we shared with some friends last week, the goat-cheese-spicy-mustard salmon that used to be a mainstay of our normal diet, and Halloumi, which we recently discovered. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a sheep’s milk cheese (at least the version in our Harris Teeter is) that doesn’t melt when heated. So, you can pan fry it and it gets nice and crispy and tasty. I recommend using a cast-iron skillet. Make sure you eat it hot, though, because as soon as it starts to cool it gets a rubbery texture. I usually fry up two pieces and eat one while the other waits in the hot pan off the heat. Another treat I’ve been enjoying is “Really Raw Honey,” an unprocessed, unheated honey with the consistency of creamy peanut butter. Rachael P. got us hooked on this–she dips almonds in it, and it’s heavenly.
And, because I promised and still have not delivered, a few Christmas pictures. My grandmother (my mom’s mother, who lives in Florida half the year and in WV the other half) gave me her pig teapot after I admired it. She didn’t want it, she said, because it didn’t whistle. I told her pigs don’t whistle. Now if they come up with a teapot that oinks when the water boils, that will really be something.
Here’s my in-laws’ impressive collection of holiday creatures:
And here is Mom making a funny face for the camera. I can post things like this on the Internet because I’m the only person she has given birth to, so she has to love me.
8 Comments
What’s your “real job”?
Maybe your body is telling you that you don’t need to go through the entire forty-day program again. You know, I was reading somewhere the other day about how detoxing can actually be very bad for your body because along with unwanted and toxic materials, you might be getting rid of good bacteria and such. Not that what you’re doing is necessarily detox, but that just popped into my head.
Cute teapot, by the way. So, if it doesn’t whistle, how do you know when the water’s boiling?
I work for a marketing company based out of California. It’s a good job, and I enjoy what I do.
I think you’re right about the detox. I think my body is just over it.
You know, I still haven’t used the teapot! Jesse isn’t a big tea drinker, so I usually just warm up a cup of water in the microwave. I think it just sprays steam or something out of its little nose. I will have to see. (I guess pigs don’t really do that either…)
temporally?
I am a fan of raw honey too. Also, you can get a similar (ish, I think) frying cheese near the ricotta and tortillas and other refrigerated ethnic stuff at Wal-Mart. Not that I recommend any of that for health or environmentalism. But there really isn’t anything quite like hot, fried cheese.
Temporally–I like it. Thanks!
I’ll keep an eye out for that other cheese; sounds like something fun to try. You are right on the money about fried cheese. There’s just something wonderful about it.
I’m delighted to hear that you’re reinvigorated on your book. Yes, the old adage about not quitting one’s day job is relevant in that we all can use a paycheck, but at the same time, it is all too easy to forget about one’s “night” job. So yay for keeping your writing going. I admire that so much.
So for your “real” job you get to work from home? I guess you obviously aren’t working from CA.
You know, I keep learning all these great food things from you and Sabrina. I can’t actually implement most of them right now, but I will have to remember for when I life at home again regularly and have time to devote to culinary adventures. Fried, non-melting cheese! Now even that is something Seth would be happy to experiment with.
And I’ve eaten honey my whole life, but I’ve never encountered raw honey like you’re describing. My local farmers market has a honey booth, maybe I can see if they have what you’re describing.
Other than that, I just want to say that your mom is adorable! I love seeing (or better yet meeting) my friends’ parents. It is a weird little quirk of mine.
I know you’ll have great culinary adventures of your own once you’re in your own kitchen full-time, and then you’ll have to tell us all about your discoveries and favorite things!
I do get to work from home, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that. It really is an ideal situation.
I like seeing friends’ parents too–it’s always fascinating to see what resemblances there are. I think my mom is just the best. She’s been through quite a bit in her life but is a positive, passionate, hilarious person. She’s just a lot of fun to be around, and everything good that I do is because of her and my dad. The bad things, I’ll take the blame for!
(of course, in saying my mom is the best, I don’t mean that your mom isn’t the best for you! you all know what I’m saying…)
I know what you mean. It’s like, more than one person can have the “World’s Best Mom” mug, and it is still valid. Why else would they sell more than one?