Leap of Faith

Yesterday we left early in the morning to pick up a suit for C. His suits hang rather loosely on him these days. We wanted to beat the rush and run errands before general conference started. After picking up the suit, we hit the French Bakery, and then the bike store to pick up pedals for C's new bike. Later we hunted for a tailor to take in three of his other suits, but tailoring on Saturday isn't a popular pastime in these parts.

Conference started on the way home, and I ran in for a frozen yogurt on the way. When I came out, C said, "You missed it. They announced a new program where women are supposed to do all of the housework, and there will be a theme for what you cook each month. April is French food. In fact, the food you are supposed to cook this weekend is crepes."

"Crepes, hmm? You mean like strawberry crepes topped with whipped cream?" I asked, noting that we had a box of strawberries in the fridge.

"There are all kinds of crepes. dinner crepes, dessert crepes. All kinds." He said, nonchalantly.

True to form, I made crepes for dinner, even though C later admitted that he'd made it all up (really?). Chicken with diced onion and mushroom, and a low fat roasted garlic cream sauce with lite Jarlsberg Swiss went over very well with my meeting-bound man. I also refrigerated some between sheets of parchment paper for strawberry breakfast crepes.

Sunday morning we slept in (for the first time in many moons) and C chopped strawberries while I warmed the crepes and set the table for breakfast. Kawi and Penny also enjoyed some crepes, and Penny discovered that she likes whipped cream so much that she growled when C took it away. I later made a few loaves of whole wheat banana bread with four bruised bananas, my own recipe, and for dinner I made faces with egg eyes, hash brown hair, and turkey bacon smiles with a strawberry for the nose.

The remainder of the strawberries found their way into a fresh bowl of ganache along with some pizzelles, chilled in an egg-carton lined with plastic. We listened to amazing and inspiring conference talks throughout the day, and I napped between sessions. We later attended to some church business and then picked up the mail at the post office. It was a perfectly delightful day, and restful in so many ways.

I still haven't made my decision about what I am going to do with work. Perhaps I have been drowning my thoughts in foodie glories while avoiding this important decision. I have some very interesting opportunities, and more available should I pursue them. I may just need to take a leap of faith and do something difficult.

An Episodic Epiphany

One of the changes I recently made in my life was to stop letting life run me. In the process I came to a few interesting realizations.

1. The world won't fall apart if I don't get "it" done today. There are very rare "its" in which the world will fall apart, and 99.999% of them are only in the movies, therefore, I can stop living my life like I am in a Speed movie.

2. I am not any more successful at work giving 200% than if I didn't. I just burn myself out and turn myself into a workhorse.

3. There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing that don't involve a computer, and I have been ignoring some of those since school, work, church, and recreation have kept me on my computer a lot lately.

4. It's okay to fail. Sometimes just telling yourself it's okay to fail will actually help you to succeed.

5. I am done giving my very best time and energy to my job. My best belongs to the love of my life, my eternity, my C. I am never going to get anything that really matters from letting a job dominate my life.

6. I like programming. I really do, but I don't want to do that for a job, at least right now. Maybe later, or maybe something related, but I do want to build amazing things with words, whether in code or in any other written language.

7. I like exercising. My body thanks me when I exercise, and I am just cheating myself when I say I don't have enough time for it!

8. I need to be a better cheerleader for C. Even though he is my Man of Steel, he has his Kryptonite moments, too.

9. Sometimes I am human. It feels weird when it happens, but sometimes it does happen.

10. For every experience life offers us, there is a myriad of emotional options to choose from, and we don't have to take the default ones.

11. Once I stopped letting life live me, I started enjoying it again.

NOTE:
The conformity cog in my brain suggested I stop at ten, but then, you wouldn't have 11, now would you?

A Few Words on Balance...

As one who is a bona fide workaholic, my life requires forced moments of entertainment and non-work. As you can see from my recent entries, I am making time for un-work. Often these non-work activities take more energy and effort than work, so does that mean that not working for me entails work...?

This year, rather than stressing about non-work activities, I attempted to plow ahead with them and regularly schedule them into my life. I wish I could explain how hard I am working at not thinking about work while doing these activities. Someday maybe it will just come naturally. While attending the Shakespearean Festival, for example, my sister on several occasions made comments like, "Wow. You are REALLY focussed on buttering that piece of bread." I think I was trying to work through the ensuing conference deadlines in my mind at the moment. I finally told her she wasn't allowed to look at me anymore, but it did make me keenly aware of how un-fun I must seem. 

This happens to be a very busy week for me with the upcoming conference. We will be doing the media release, printing and mailing the flyers, and making the website go live this week. As luck would have it, yesterday I came down with the stomach flu. Who knows, I guess it could be an ulcer, but I am taking cues from my sick sister-in-law and assuming I caught her bug last weekend which is more likely. Even though I worked from home starting at 1:00 AM, I actually slept for four hours today, hung out with Kawi in the hammock while studying, picked up some birdseed for C (bad idea when you are sick, by the way), and am letting down my hair with a blog entry.

Eating was not very exciting to say the least, since C has determined that we should empty the fridge before we leave and since nothing looked good. I finally settled on two slices of turkey which I cooked in balsamic vinegar and turned into bacon, then cooked with the better part of a wilting red pepper. Chalk it up for two less items in the fridge! 

I do hope you are having a lovely week, and that somewhere in your own way, you are managing to balance all of your crystal balls in the air as well (while occasionally letting the rubber balls fall when they ought)!