Culinary Misadventures With the Kiddo, Day 3

I was only peripherally involved in today's culinary misadventure since the kiddo is a seasoned veteran at making mac and cheese at the rip old age of 5 and a half. I let him use my "good" Farberware 3-quart sauce pan instead of the crappy old Mirro with the spinning handle, so that was a special treat for him. Plus I still worked in a few lessons about how to really make mac and cheese from a box. For example:

Me (upon observing the boy grabbing his cup from breakfast and starting to pour water into it): Thirsty?
Boy: No, I have to add water.
Me (incredulously): Excuse me? You add water?
Boy: Yeah, Daddy does it.
Me (skeptically but somehow not terribly surprised): He does?
Boy: Yeah, after we add the butter we put in the water.
Me (firmly): Not today and not with me. We actually have milk.

I confronted the husband about the water issue, and he denied it. He said he often prefers not to drain the cooked mac until their bone dry since we rarely have milk. (At least the white variety, for I always have a carton of Quick fat-free in the fridge--and yes, I refuse to call it NesQuick because he'll always be the Quick bunny and it'll always be Nestle Quick to me, by the marinara goodness of the FSM!) Ahh, how things get turned and skewed in the mind of five year olds....

The kiddo is developing quite the stirring skills. His strokes are becoming more fluid and smooth (and if you're not inserting your own off-color humor here, than I'm disappointed in you). He by and large can make mac and cheese like a pro, so he's all set for college. Better send him off now before tuition really gets ridiculous.

The rest of our day was spent (after gym time, of course) sorting a big cannister of change and then counting and wrapping pennies. We managed to bag $11 worth of pennies, and we still have large mounds of quarters, nickels and dimes to tackle tomorrow. The kiddo is sure he'll get to spend all the money we roll and exchange for paper currency, but he's got another thing coming. After all, he wasn't the one who squirreled away all that change over the years.

Speaking of change and money, I now have a job. It's only a temporary gig, mind you, but it's money. I'll be editing the revised and reformatted drug monographs for the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which contracted a third-party firm to code 'em in XML and do the actual revising and whatnot. I get paid by the monograph, and the work looks pretty straightforward. Yes, I will be working from home, setting my own hours and everything. (Yes, I know, that'll spoil me even worse.) I'm just thrilled to be earning money again, even if it is only until early or mid-September.

By the way, fascinating coincidence: One of the last songs on my iPod while I was running (only six miles today--not stretching well Monday and Tuesday have taken their toll) was REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes," my little theme song, if you will, for this latest transition. Was it a sign? Perhaps. Crystal Water's "100% Pure Love" used to work in a similar fashion once upon a time: I'd hear it on the radio and something good always came my way later that day. (I'd go into more detail, but some things are best left private. And yes, I realize that statement is fuel for the perverted imagination, but it wasn't really anything like that.) But I'll just chalk my latest theme's playing on my iPod (the first time for that to happen, actually) and my landing a new (albeit temporary) job as just a happy coincidence.

I'll leave you with the latest Bat-tableau from my spice cabinet. These three showed up in the cabinet in what the husband originally called a family vacation.


Man, don't you hate it when family vacations go awry?


Methinks Batwoman is having way too much fun. Then again, given that grin on Batzarro's face (which is the same one the kiddo wears in one of today's photos, I swear), maybe he's the one having all the fun. Like I always say, you can't keep a good freak down....

Psychoanalyze This

As you can see, I spent a little time yesterday sprucing up the joint. Don't be surprised if in a few weeks or a few months, depending on what rolls my way, I change the look again. During the few years that I had a bedroom all to myself (which, in retrospect, wasn't that long--three, three and a half years is all between when I stopped sharing a bedroom with the little sister and started sharing a bedroom with the guy who is now the husband), I was constantly changing it. One month the bed would be against the east wall, the next month along the north wall, the month after that in the smack dab middle of the room. If I could have gotten away with it, I probably would have been painting the walls quite a bit. But, alas, that was not to be.

While I was busying changing the template, adding some side column tidbits, editing some entries and whatnot, I got an email from the third recruiter this week to evidently track me down through Monster.com. Unlike the first two who were looking to fill a technical writer/instructional designer position at Dell (a job I'm not qualified to do since I lack any kind of real technical training, and a job there's no way in hell I'd take on because I saw what the IDs I edited went through when dealing with service program managers, trainers, purse string holders and other pains in the rump), this third recruiter sought me out to perhaps fill a technical editor position at a firm to be named later. I'll admit to you right away that it's always for me a bit of an ego stroke to be contacted by recruiters because they think I might just have the skills to fill a job rather than me contacting them. Flattered as I was, I eagerly and quickly responded, sending along my resume and some writing samples with a skills statement the husband kindly helped me massage into fine form.

Within moments of sending off the response to the recruiter, I found myself in something of a state. I don't really want this job, I realized. Hell, I don't really want any job. I...I like being unemployed. The FSM help me, but I like having the opportunity to take care of my home and preparing meals and not feeling rushed when I'm at the gym.

Articulating these feelings into an internal monologue was quite a bit of a...well, it wasn't exactly a breakthrough, and it wasn't exactly a revelation either, but there was quite a bit of truth in that effort that made me realize that I wasn't thinking these thoughts out of sheer laziness and sloth. I mean, hell, who wouldn't like just sitting on her or his duff with no real responsibility? Me, that's who. At least not too long ago that was me. Not too long ago, I needed to be outside of my home, doing something productive, primarily for a salary. But with the changes I've made and the transitions I've gone through in the past six months, I....

Well, hell, here's my counterargument: I am being lazy because I'm giving into my old fears. Fears that I'll end up in a job with no flexibility. A job that cuts me off from the rest of the world from 9 AM until 6 PM. A job that's so stressful that I put on 20 pounds. A job that I end up losing in six months, nine months, 18 months due to budget cuts or lack of funding. These fears I accumulated after taking my walk of shame at Dell and getting the hell outta Hell (i.e., the job I briefly had after Dell) and losing one of the sweetest gigs ever (the job I just recently lost). And for as much as I like to think I was rolling with the changes, these fears have clung to me like kudzu.

Since things can't be A versus B with me, here's argument C: I'm just wound up because of the 5K; it's the real reason I'm nervous. Don't be so quick to scoff. Being the high-strung person that I am, I can recognize my little behavior patterns, and I recognize that as the run has drawn closer, I've gotten a lot more anxious. I've succumbed to a bit of nervous eating. I've barked more than I've spoken, especially yesterday. I worked myself up into a right good tizzy this morning over setting out breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen from last night's pizza, all before 7 AM. So, yeah, I'd say there's a damn good possibility my anxiety over the job is just misplaced anxiety over the run.

(This is the point where you and I have a good laugh because, heh, all my years of yoga and spiritual study have done nothing to really help me quell my inner poodle. But who the hell ever said these things I've done should somehow make me capable of banishing anxiety? Of never experiencing tension or fear? Huh? Why the hell should I expect these things of myself just because I've spent several hours on a foam mat and on a kapok cushion?)

What this all probably boils down to precisely is my anxiety about--get this--finding parking for the 5K and making sure that the kiddo doesn't have a whiny, pissy little fit while I'm off running. I'm running my first 5K--which, in my book, is a damned miracle--and yet I'm anxious about my kid having a good time and cooperating so he and the husband can be there to see me cross the finish line. I'm being a bad Buddhist: I'm harboring expectations. I have this glowing little fantasy about crossing the finish line with the husband and kid there cheering me on, the husband armed with the camera to capture that moment of finish in all its digital imaging gory--uh, glory. I haven't fully articulated that glowing little fantasy to the husband (in my bad Buddhist fashion, I expect him to anticipate capturing my big moment in digital imaging glory), and I know damn good and well that if I'm running a race that starts at 6 PM--suppertime for the residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker--the kid's not going to be terribly cooperative, especially since he's doing something that isn't all about him.

Gads, I feel the tizzy stirring within me again. I really should go pop a chill pill.

Getting back to my original quandry of to work or not to work, I can make myself feel a little less guilty by explaining away my desire not to work as simply misplaced anxiety about the run. However, I doubt I'll be all excited about pursuing a possible position that puts me back in the wage slave grind come Sunday morning (or Monday morning, depending on how things go this evening). I do believe that I've transitioned from the person who desperately needed to be outside of her home because said home represented a lot of fears and anxieties and guilts she couldn't face to a person who enjoys being at home because she's faced and learned to deal with the fears and anxieties and guilts that place once represented yet at the same time has embraced or taken on a new set of fears, guilts and anxieties that working outside the home represents.

I seriously need to get out of my head. Say, I've got some celery in the crisper. There's nothing like chopping vegetables to get myself out of my head.

No One Ever Said This Was Going to Be Easy....

After putting it off and putting it off, here at long last is a video of the kitties from almost two weekends ago. If I were more ambitious, not so lazy (and weren't using MS Movie Maker for the first time), I'd take the time to find just the right background music (the fabulous--and now cliched--bit from the big fight from "Amok Time" seems appropriate). But I'm lazy. So just enjoy the kittens at play and hum something to yourself.

Just adorable, aren't they?

Sadly, in the past week one of the grays has disappeared. We're not sure if it's Sambar or Rasam, but since last Saturday, Momma's only been showing up with two kitties. What's even sadder, I suppose, is that the remaining gray has grown so much that we're having a hard determining if it's Rasam or Sambar. But at least we have pictures and video to remember our M.I.A. kitten by!

In other (less depressing news), I had my first interview yesterday. (But now on to the depressing stuff.) It went well, I think, but I doubt I'll be extended an offer, not because I wouldn't be a good candidate for the work the team needs done but because the...particulars of the position aren't right for me. I've been spoiled by my last job because I'm wanting a fair amount of flexibility. The human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker are at a point (and moving every day closer and closer to a point) at which having two adults working outside the home a fair distance from home just isn't.... Well, I hesitate to use the word convenient here, but that's part of it. Practical is another word that might work well but doesn't tell the whole story.

During the hour it took me to get home yesterday from the interview, I realized that I'm going to have to work a lot harder--push myself a lot more--to get freelance gigs because I'm becoming more and more convinced that sort of work situation is going to offer me the flexibility I want so that I can continue to pursue my interests (i.e., keep working out the way I do, play in the kitchen whenever I want) and, once the kiddo starts school, be home for him so he doesn't have to go to after-school care. This realization hit me kind of hard because, well, being a successful freelancer (i.e., contributing in some meaningful way to the family's income) means I've got to learn to market myself, and that's completely outside my comfort zone. And the FSM forbid I leave my comfort zone!

Yet as I'm realizing this and working through my panic over the self-marketing thing, I'm also realizing that I'm not helping myself at all during this unemployment time by not pursuing the opportunities that have come up. Okay, granted, being accepted to write for eHow.com is hardly anything to cheer about because the open topics are for tasks I have no experience with or knowledge of. But I've been sitting on the contract for suite101.com for a few weeks now. Why? Because I'm scared I won't be able to churn out 10 articles every three months. I keep telling myself that's really not that much work given the production time frame. Yet still I can't bring myself to start. So how in the world am I going to survive as a freelancer if I can't bring myself to do this little thing?

Ah well, life's a learning experience. Trial and error and frustration and success, right? Roll with the changes, woman.

Freelancing Fun

Well, it's my penultimate day with my current employer. How am I feeling about it? Honestly, my emotional stability rates a "Meh." I'm not jumping for joy that I'll be unemployed very soon, but I'm not panicking--yet. I had my moment of panic earlier, and I'm sure I'll have many more as my employment search stretches out. But right now, I'm rather ambivalent. I've been here twice before, so I know what to expect by and large. The only thing to do is keep on rolling.

Speaking of my job search, I've been contacted in response to two of the growing number of freelance writing inquiries I've sent this week. Both opportunities turned out to be...a bit on the questionable side. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and waaay behind the times (a dinosaur at 32!), but I don't think submitting my personal information through an online system that's largely designed to capture such information and then essentially spam that person or through a site that requires paid membership (don't let that $3 introductory fee deter you!) doesn't strike me as the appropriate way to handle a relationship with a contractor, even if that contractor is just one of who knows how many freelance writers working for that company.

Am I surprised? Not too terribly much. I'm well aware of the numerous scams out there. With the economy the way it is and the growing number of people looking for either primary employment or supplemental income through work-from-home opportunities, the sector is probably brimming with, well, suckers looking for whatever they can get. But as I told Mom when she asked if I'm filing for unemployment, my family's not in dire straights (yet). The husband assures me (now) that I can take my time and find a position that is right for me.

Aside from taking care of the last few duties for my soon-to-be former employer and sending out queries to potential employers and clients, I've been doing some recipe reading. Here's another transition I've been making since April or so: kitchen outcast to culinary competent. Strange how dropping 35 pounds and essentially transforming your body will make you suddenly very keen on controlling what goes into your body, isn't it?

Well, after a string of relative successes, I did a really, really stupid thing. My pan of pumpkin chocolate chip brownies I made Sunday met an unfortunate end when I failed to refrigerate them while forgoing air conditioning during these slightly unseasonably sweltering early summer days. I went to cut into them last night and noticed a strange smell and certain lines of black on the pan that hadn't been there before. Smeared chocolate? I asked myself. Heh, wrong! So today I'll be trying an orange butterscotch cookie recipe from my Weight Watchers Quick and Easy Menus book--one of the recipes I've been wanting to try for a while but keep putting off to make things for the boys. (Have to stop doing that. Just like I've been taking smaller portions of the protein component of our suppers so they have more of it because the FSM forbid they eat any vegetables!)

But I also managed to snatch a mild success out of the jaws of defeat yesterday as well. Inspired by Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, I grabbed out the leftover green dal (whole, not split) from the pantry along with a jar of tarka masala sauce we'd picked up...FSM knows how many years ago (unopened, of course) and started experimenting. I followed the directions for preparing the dal from another tarka dal recipe I'd found, but I wound up with a greenish-brown mush instead of the "pale...soup like [sic] mixture" described. But that mush smelled wonderful, so I then partially followed the directions on the tarka masala jar and voila! I wound up with a very tasty dish that I'm pretty sure was low in fat and had some protein to it. Pairing it with a wee bit of jasmine rice (not too much--the boys can have as much of it as they like since I really shouldn't be eating too much of it) and the curried salmon cakes we've made before (this time doubling the amount of curry powder, with fabulous results) made for a great Wednesday meal.

And yesterday was only Wednesday. Today is only Thursday. It's not Friday yet. Sheesh.

Transitioning to Being an Unemployed Blogger

This morning I resumed my "normal" routine now that the Memorial Day weekend has passed, which means I got up at the crack of dawn to busy myself with various tasks just so I can feel useful as I make this latest transition from wage earner to employment seeker. After some time in the kitchen, I sat down, popped "freelance writing jobs" into Google and what does it spit out? A helpful site titled Freelance Writing Jobs.

One of the articles/posts discusses why freelancers should have blogs, and I read it with great skepticism. I'd rather be too busy writing for other people and making money than writing largely for myself and not be making any money. But who am I to stand against the tide of this thing called blogging? So what if I was burned in a very bad way by my first attempt waaaay back!

Don't get me wrong: I don't have grand dreams of being the next hit blogger. But what does it hurt to take a few minutes (yeah, right--not for verbose 'ol me) to jot down some thoughts? I've got a lot going on in my life to write about. Why be scared of making it public?

So here it is.

(Plus I liked the article about that fabulous phrase "So what?" and thought I could potentially give this blogging thing a shot. I know most of what I put here will deserve a big "So what?" -- but I'll try.)