August 28, 2009

A minor to do list

Ok. I'm really bad and getting going in the morning. Like really bad. So if my to do list seems really belated, that ok. It's better than no to do list.

Today:

-Completely take apart and wash blender (by hand or in dishwasher)
-Unload and load dishwasher
-Start a pot of soup.
-Jump on the rebounder
-Sit down with a glass of smoothie and my Bible. See if maybe I can find this God I keep saying I believe.

We'll see how it goes. But that's the plan for this afternoon.

Flaky like a biscuit

So I realize that I haven't been posting much on here lately -particularly not much of anything worth noting. It seems like it's part of a general trend lately. My moods have been better, but as I've been in a state of accelerated mental processing it seems like my get up and go has all gone into my head -literally. I can't settle down to anything. I'd rather be talking about something than working on my dishes. It has been a long week though. I sort of pushed kind of hard when my in-laws where in town (all the time saying "it's really no trouble" -liar liar), and once they left I was sort of zonked. Then yesterday (my busy one) I randomly ended up feeling queasy most of the day. Ok then. Today I stood in line for two hours getting my California driver's license. I've done some things, but not too many things, and I'm having trouble getting my ball rolling. I'm pleased to say that this counseling seems to be going really well. At first Allen and I weren't too sure about since it has me driving an hour and fifteen minutes one way to see a male counselor. However, we got the male thing squared away. Leaving the door partially opened seems to appease the gods of propriety, and the drive really isn't that bad. When I leave in good time it can even be quite relaxing to listen to some good music and just muse along to the lyrics. The first couple of times I went I wasn't quite sure how much, how often, how worthwhile these sessions would really prove, but yesterday hit a minor jackpot. I can chatter away for hours about various things -particularly my past-, but he managed to ask a few questions that honestly made me stop talking and think. Although he didn't say it's what it all boils down to, he recommended I read a book dealing with co-dependency. Honestly that's the last thing I would have considered in my own case. After all, I'm the one who broke away and got married. To me that didn't jive with being co-dependent, but then I looked it up and read some of the markers of a co-dependent. Oof. I could see plenty of signs in both myself and my mom. Interestingly (but I don't think oddly) my mom and I have almost entirely opposite tendencies. Where she pushes I hang back. Whereas she seems to feel like things would fall about without her, I am persuaded of the hopelessness of trying to pull things together. And what I find even more interesting is that the symptoms I've thought might be depression seem more likely to be evidence of codependency. It's exciting to finally feel like I'm making some progress in understanding my own behavior and being able to (by the grace of God) change it. Speaking of God's grace, my counselor was also able to draw out some reasons why perhaps I've been ignoring God against my own desires and inclinations. Once he put out there what he saw happening it really made so much sense. Very slowly I can see things starting to change. It might not really look like it on the outside. Goodness knows that most baby steps are bigger than the fractional progress I tend to make. But I really do think that I've got more potential for pushing through some of this and becoming the woman I want to be than I ever did before. Allen's excited too. Things are definitely starting to look up.

August 21, 2009

Family in town!!!

Since Allen's folks had to fly out this direction for a conference they decided to tack on a side trip to visit the newly out of towners. Allen and I got the apartment cleaned up, and we're looking forward to a weekend of visiting with home folks. Today I'm going to show them some of our local California attractions -CA 1, Trader Joes, Apple... That covers most of the big ones. They won't have time to visit Yosemite with us unfortunately. We're hoping though that we can convince them to bring Mamaw out here with them next spring sometime and visit a few parks on the way. Anyway, I still need to change sheets and empty the dishwasher and clear junk out of the car before I go pick them up from the airport. And shower. They would appreciate the showering part I think. Then it's off to Half Moon Bay. I can smell the spicy scent of those wave met hills just thinking about it. There's certainly no smell like it anywhere back home.

Hopefully I'll get back to posting some more writing around here. I've been doing some pretty intense processing the past few weeks -the combined results of meeting new people and starting counseling. Rest assured that things are going well.

August 10, 2009

Pasta for supper

Lately I've been learning to enjoy homemade pasta sauces. Several months ago I picked up a magazine called "Perfect Pasta" put out by Cuisine at Home. I don't know if you can still find a copy around somewhere, but if you stumble across one I'd encourage you to pick it up. It starts out by explaining how to make some of the most basic pasta sauces and moves on to cover most of the classics -including salads and risottos, and I love that it has at least one picture of every recipe and prep tips to make everything come out faster and tastier. So far I've tried making the oven roasted marinara and the bolognese sauces. Both of them were a big hit with Allen. The marinara recipe in particular is amazingly simple. It's posted below along with my modifications (since I rarely leave any recipe alone!).

Oven Roasted Marinara with Summer Squash

The basic recipe calls for for:

8c quartered, fresh tomatoes
1c chopped onion
1/2c olive oil
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1tsp sugar
1tsp salt
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4c fresh basil, sliced thin

To this basic recipe I added:

1med zucchini, rough chopped
1med yellow squash, rough chopped

I also added another cup chopped onion. (I had some large onions.)

Rough chop all the veggies and mix together with oil and seasonings in an oven safe dish. Roast them at 400 degree for 45 minutes until the tomatoes are very soft. After you've roasted everything, pulse the mixture in batches to your desired consistency, and add basil. Feel very proud of making your own spaghetti sauce - I know I did!



Tip: I ended up blending too much liquid in with my sauce and making it a bit watery. If a lot of liquid was released during roasting you might want to hold some of the liquid back -at least until you've blended part of it and judged the consistency.

August 8, 2009

More good news

Found a counselor in the city. Going to go up there soon and see if I can't get a few answers to some of my questions.

August 5, 2009

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Three years today. Pretty soon Allen and I are going to rock it out with some homestyle bbq at one of our favorite joints (ok, chains) from our newly wed days. Good times.


Love you, Honey.