Remembering Summer's Peaches

A Fraction of the Apples

Just One of the Varieties of Tomatoes I Preserved

My First Try at a New Dog Treat Recipe

In the months following my discharge from the psychiatric hospital I became fixated on food. Not on eating food, but on researching prices until I’d found incredible deals, buying frequently used items such as flour, yeast, oil, dried beans, rice, etc. in bulk and learning how to store them correctly, and taking advantage of some incredible produce prices in the summer. I learned a lot about myself through this. I realized that in many ways I express my love for my family through food. I had to let go of the need to please everyone every time and just know that I was providing my husband , myself, and our teenagers with the healthiest, tastiest food I could find while still sticking to the very tight food budget. I was then, as I am now, having trouble focusing on books or TV or my writing. In the kitchen I felt as if I was keeping busy doing something worthwhile. It helped to throw my mind into making applesauce, or bread, or spaghetti sauce. It helped me feel less afraid about not having as much money as we used to. I knew the medical bills would be coming in soon, and even though my therapist had directed me to focus on getting well and not on money (ha!) I felt responsible for the burden I was placing on my husband’s shoulders.

Looking back now at the year 2009 I can clearly see what decisions I had made that led up to the time in the hospital. I ignored all of the warning signs that trouble was looming and continued to work too much, sleep too little, and consume far too much caffeine . I was so consumed with guilt and worry over leaving my children at night and then sleeping during the day. I constantly missed doctor’s appointments and let my prescriptions run out because I was so tired and taking hours  on the bus to go to different visits seemed to be a bad idea because it cut into the small amount of time I had each day for sleeping.

Tonight I sit here, not cured, but accepting of the fact that I need treatment still. I have been doing my physical therapy because I must take this gift of time and strengthen my back. I continue to see my primary care physician as needed and my psychiatrist for medication management. It is quite a process, but I am pushing myself to learn how to take care of myself.

Christmas will come, whether I feel ready or not. All of our utilities are on. We have a roof over our heads.  We were able to purchase gifts for Nathan and Polly. I have taken both of them to the doctor and dentist and they are healthy. For that I am so grateful. Both of them are doing well in school and have friends with whom they socialize happily. Polly managed to pull her math grade up from a D to a B and I am so proud of her, as that was the subject she was really struggling with. I now have more time to spend with both of them and just a seemingly simple thing like having a family movie night at home with a bowl of popcorn means a lot to me.

The time that I spent earlier in the year stocking the freezer and pantry are paying off big time now. Not having to constantly run to the store on foot or bus in the cold and rain is so nice. After being invited several times by my 22 year old niece Audrey to join her book group I shared a copy of the book with her from the library, read it, and went to the book club last Tuesday. I was tempted to cancel because I had a bunch of painful dental work done the day before and I had been informed that the group started with dinner. I knew that Audrey would be disappointed and so I went anyway. I ate mashed potatoes and chewed on one side of my mouth and nobody cared. I don’t know why I was so worried.  I was able to talk about the book with the group. A few of the women I knew from my past but hadn’t seen in years: Audrey’s grandmother, her mother, and her aunt. I was concerned that seeing them might bring up some painful memories for me, and it did. There was a moment during dinner when someone asked some questions about things that I had done in 1985. Poor choices that I had made at the age of 12, immediately following the death of my father. Before I could slowly inhale I felt a sob rising up in my chest. Time froze and I wondered about the correct protocol involving cloth dinner napkins and tears. A woman I hadn’t seen since 1988 rose, grabbed me some tissues, and turned to the inquiring woman,” Stop being mean! This is obviously a painful subject for her, and she was only 12 at the time. Jeez!” I dried my eyes and smiled my thanks. The moment had come, the moment had passed. My initial reaction to flee the house dissipated and I was able to get my breathing back under control. The subject was changed and the night went on.

Having gone made me feel proud of myself. It also made me realize that I can have personal limits. I know that is probably common knowledge to most, but to me it was a good realization. There are certain subjects I don’t wish to talk about with most people. There are certain decisions I made as a child that I am tired of apologizing for.

Last May I felt as if suicide was my only option. Today I am looking forward to what 2010 will bring. It wasn’t easy to get here, and it is still filled with pain and challenges. There are bits of joy mixed into my life too and for that I am grateful.

As an aside, I am a ridiculous perfectionist when it comes to things I bake. I can’t post that photo of the dog treats I baked above without mentioning what I learned from trial and error. The original recipe called for rolling the dough out very thin and then cutting it into squares and baking them for 25 minutes. I followed the directions, except I just cut them into pieces with a pizza wheel, and I will admit that I placed too many on the sheet pan because I was feeling lazy. The ones around the edges began to bake faster than the ones in the middle and I had left no room to move them around. Another thing that had bothered me was the mess. I was looking to save money by making dog treats at home, but the clean up was horrible, as the dough was very sticky and difficult to roll with a pin. The second time that I made them I doubled the batch and after it was mixed shaped it into logs that I then placed in the refrigerator. When the dough had firmed I took a log out, sliced it with a knife and baked them that way. It was so much easier. Yes, I realize that I just wrote a whole paragraph about dog treats. Oh, and my German Shepherd? She loved all of them, even the ones that I thought were too dark. If anyone is interested in the recipe let me know and I’ll post it.

Edited to add that I posted the recipe for the dog treats in the comments section of this post.

Matilda

My mom got a goat, and I spent a glorious day over there last Thursday preparing her chicken coop for winter. I may or may not have stopped numerous times to cuddle said goat.  Just between you and me, I think this goat loves me best of all.

I have tried and tried to finish the post that I was talking about in the comments on my last post. The post about how I came to name myself Sarah when I first started writing and posting online. I am in such a funk; the post sits as an unfinished document on my desktop. If I can’t get the flow of something after this many days I need to wait. I’m sorry. I really do appreciate all of the nice comments I received on my last post.

Cork , who is a man I met online over ten years ago, has never been anything but supportive of my efforts. Even though we have never met in person I consider him a friend. He is an incredible writer; I wish that I could link to him here, but I don’t think he has a website up at the moment. Last year he suggested that I try to do two simple nice things for myself everyday. I did for awhile, and then I got caught up in the hell of working graveyard and struggling with my guilt over sleeping during the day and being a sub-par mother to two kids who really needed me. I am going back to his advice now. I will seek at least two moments of bliss for myself each day. If bliss seems like a bit of a stretch I’ll settle for a little flicker of joy. If you would like to join in, please do so. If you would post your moments in the comments I would love it. We can do this together if you’d like. I already have my visits to my mom’s goat. The photo above was taken with my phone, so it’s not great, but she’s a sweetie. I asked Alex if we could get a goat but he didn’t like that idea that much. He was initially resistant to getting a dog too, but he changed his mind and got me Maggie. She makes me happy everyday.

I have been open here before about my drug addiction and alcoholism, so I feel comfortable sharing my morning here. I got up to my alarm (yuck) got the kids up and off to school, pulled on some sweats and took the dog for a walk without brushing my hair, came back and made coffee and checked the status of the dough I’d mixed up last night before I went to bed and peeked at the sticky buns I baked off last night to see  how many were missing (three) and surveyed the house to see which chore I should tackle first. I was standing in the kitchen when it occurred to me: I hadn’t thought about getting high. It’s usually right there, first thing in the morning, that craving to numb myself. Just last night Nathan and Polly got into an argument and I was trying to diffuse the situation before it escalated further and in my struggle to stay calm when I really just wanted to tell both of them to shut the fuck up and to go to their rooms I kept thinking, “I need a drink.” Instead I finished mixing the dough recipe I am trying for the first time (it requires an overnight sit) pulled the sticky buns from the oven and glazed them, and kept my cool. But I wanted a drink, a scotch, to be specific, a big one, a whole bottle. Instead I tried to breathe slowly in and out and I went to bed soon after. Sober.

This morning is the first in decades where I didn’t wake up with that hunger for drugs and that realization is my moment of bliss number one for today. What was yours?

The Dough Rests But The Baker Does Not

I have been trying to write here, but I can’t seem to finish anything. I set my standards too high and then get disappointed when I can’t make the words dance the steps I choreographed. I have decided to listen to Thursday and Jean and their encouraging words in my comments for my last post. Haven’t read the comments? What’s the matter with you, go and take a look, it’s fun. Join in. Everyone is welcome. I want the communication to flow both ways here. I’m lonely. Christ. I’m lonely.

Yesterday I tried to write a post about anger but I got so pissed off recalling the tale I was telling I ended up furiously weeding in the garden on a very blustery day instead.

That food group I mentioned joining, well, I can get large quantities of apples amazingly cheap and so I do. I did just about everything you can do with an apple and it got a bit nutty, my quest to make sure none of them went to waste.For dinner the other night I baked a beautiful lasagna and an apple crisp. I pointed out to my family that the sauce was from the tomatoes, zucchini and basil from our garden and Nathan said, “Yeah, I don’t really like basil.” and later Alex said, “The next time that you make that crisp could you cut the spices in half, it was way too spicy.” I had to excuse myself to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet and had a little cry because I’m tired and I sometimes fantasize about living alone, leaving my husband and two teenagers here to clean up after themselves and to cook their own fucking meals. I cried because I wanted to be a writer when I was a little girl, and a clown who could make people who were sad laugh, and a photographer, and a sculptor, and the person who took on world hunger, because when someone is down and out and you take away the pain of hunger it means so much more than words like love.  I cried because I want a room of my own with no TV noise in it so I can just sit in peace. I cried because I have been longing to fill this emptiness inside of me for so long, a lifetime of longing, and I don’t know how to do that. I cried because last week I got a coupon in the mail for some crappy chain salon so I decided to take myself down there all by myself on the bus and get my hair trimmed. I asked for two inches of the ends and she chopped my hair into a mullet. English was not her strong point. I came home and tried to brush it into a ponytail and now it won’t go. I found some barrettes and clipped the sides back and Nathan laughed and laughed at me when he saw it and I wondered how he could be so cruel. Polly patted my hand and told me that it wasn’t bad and that I looked pretty and I wondered if she meant it. I know it’s just hair. It’s not about the hair. It’s me, never knowing how to be a wife, mother, daughter, sister and aunt and still have time to do a few little things to feed my soul before I dry up. When is it OK to say, “Fuck it. The garbage needs to be taken out again, the toilet keeps clogging, I have to get some towels in the washer if they’re going to line dry in time for everyone to shower, but I am going to take a walk to the library and spend the afternoon sitting amongst that wonderful old book smell?” Oh yeah, I wanted to be a librarian when I was a girl too.

Moving on now…

***

Jean was asking me about a recipe of her mother’s that she had tried to recreate. She was kind enough to share it with me (it’s in the comments of the last post) and so I will be giving it a try as soon as I can.  I wanted to talk  a little bit about baking here. This advice is general, and not directed at anyone in particular.

One note about the photo of the dough up there resting before I shaped it: If someone ever wanted to hire me to bake for them again I would check the kitchen for wood benches.  In my dream bakery, the one that I fantasize about opening, I have wood benches for dough. It’s the way. I also have the fantasy about taking this city by surprise with the simple goodness of fresh baked goods coming from a woman who, at the age of 36, decided to go for her dream. I just need the financing. It’s a dangerous idea  in this economy, but it’s fun to imagine designing it.

OK. Simple advice for home bakers.

Just because you set your oven for 325 doesn’t mean it heats to that temp. Get a hanging oven thermometer and see what temperature it really is. The piece of shit oven in my house is off by 50 degrees. Adjust! It can make a huge difference in the finished product. If the recipe calls for you to preheat your oven, do so. When your bread, or your cake, or your muffins are ready to go into the oven they need to get in there and have that heat ready. Muffins, cakes, etc. are usually leavened by baking soda and/or powder. When the wet ingredients hit the dry it is activated. With yeast breads and pastries that need to be proofed (allowed to rise) they need to be placed in the oven at the correct time, where they will rise for the final time.

Baked goods continue to cook after they are removed from the oven. Resist that urge to slice into that loaf. Allow yourself the time to gently lean down and listen to the crackling of the bread as it finishes. Don’t burn your ear!  When I first started training new bakers I was amazed at how many of them burned the cookies. You want most cookies to finish cooking on the hot sheet pan after you pull them out. The trick is learning  exactly when to pull them. Practice. You can always eat the mistakes.

Bake times. This is yet another reason why I have trouble training people. Night after night I had people come to me with things that they had burned. They used the same excuse every time, “But the recipe said to bake for 25 minutes!!” The time listed is a guideline. Set your timer earlier than the recipe states. I call this my check timer.  Check fast! Every time you open the oven you lose heat. Sometimes things are done early and sometimes they take longer.

Yeast. Oh how I love yeast. Baking sweets gets old fast, at least for me, but I am always fascinated with yeast doughs. Before I lost my job I was working on developing breads using no added yeast at all as it is everywhere, wild and in our air and water.  Check the expiration dates on your yeast. To test if our Active Dry Yeast is still good use this simple test :

Fill a 1-cup liquid measuring cup to the 1/2 cup level with warm water (110 to 115 degrees F). Stir in 1 teaspoon sugar and sprinkle with 2-1/4 teaspoons yeast (1/4-oz package). In 3 to 4 minutes, the yeast will have absorbed enough liquid to activate and start rising to the surface. If at the end of 10 minutes, the yeast has multiplied to the 1 cup mark on the measuring cup and has a rounded crown, it is very active. The yeast mixture may then be used in your recipe if baking immediately. Adjust the recipe for the 1/2 cup water used in the test. Discard yeast with slow activity.

Instant yeast needs no blooming, or proofing before it is mixed into the flour.  Bread Machine Yeast and Rapid Rise Yeast is instant yeast that may include ascorbic acid, a dough conditioner.   To substitute instant or bread machine yeast for active dry yeast, use 25% less instant yeast than active dry. I have heard this debated by others numerous times, some say the reduction should be closer to 33%, blah blah blah, but I’ve never had any trouble with the substitution and I’d rather get busy baking than stand around debating.

Fresh Yeast, also known as compressed or cake yeast, is active yeast.

It is sold in tiny cakes in the refrigerated section of your supermarket. I have baked with it at various commercial kitchens with success, but I’ve only purchased it for home use once because it doesn’t keep long, and I hate to waste.

A .6-oz cube of cake yeast is roughly equivalent to 1½ to 2 tsp. instant yeast or 2 to 2¼  tsp. active dry yeast. It needs to be proofed in tepid water (80-90 degrees F) before use.

Speaking of water temperatures, I recommend that every baker have a thermometer. I use one of those instant read probe thermometers, but you can also use a candy thermometer. Active Dry Yeast is proofed with water, (or whatever liquid you are using), at 110 – 115 degrees F. Ideally, the other ingredients you are using should be at room temperature. Did you forget to pull the eggs out? Soak them in a bowl of warm water to bring them up to room temp.

Instant yeast does not require proofing, it can be added right along with your other dry ingredients. I will admit to being an instant yeast convert. I use SAF Red Instant Yeast. I found a store here that sells 1 pound for $2.99. I empty it into a mason jar and store it in my refrigerator. With instant yeast you can use cooler water, as the granuales are smaller and they disolve into the liquid much faster.

If you can’t find it at your local grocery store, here is a link to buy the yeast I recommend. 1 lb. lasts a long time and you can save a lot of money if you were previously buying the little envelopes from the grocery store.

There are numerous reaons for bakers to have a thermometer handy. If the liquid you use in your dough is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Yeast dies at approximately 138-140 degrees F. This is yet another thing I’ve heard debated endlessly in kitchens. Who cares! There’s work to be done! Why are you arguing over 2 degrees? After the dough is mixed, the optimum temperature for it to rise is 78-80 degrees F. Higher temperatures will adversely affect the texture of the finished product. Doughs at lower temperatures will rise slower and have a higher alcohol content. It is of course possible and fun to play around with cold fermentation and I recommend trying it at some point. It’s all about letting time do the work instead of kneading. I recommend this recipe.

Teaching people how to learn how long to let the dough rise, how to shape it, how long to let it rise before it is ready etc. takes time. I’ve noticed that certain people seem to have a knack for this. I have always struggled with people who want exact times ie, exactly how long do you let it rise before it goes into the oven? I tried to train a girl who asked me that question every single night. I kept trying to explain that it varied, that she was going to have to use her eyes and her hands. She wanted exact times and there are too many variables. I trained a young man who was a complete natural. Although he had never baked before he caught on so fast it was amazing. When I complimented him he replied, “That’s funny, because I fucking hate this job. I hate baking.” We laughed. One note about training guys versus girls, if you leave the guys alone with the dough they will eventually shape some of it into a penis. I haven’t finished conducting my research on this, but I will, one day.

When to pull the bread from the oven? I finally started training my bakers to probe their loaves to check the internal temperature. I was so tired of seeing so many loaves with raw middles. Novice bakers often pull bread too soon because it is getting dark and they get scared. The internal temperature you are shooting for is another heavily debated topic. Shoot for the 190-210 range and you’re good.

Most of all, relax. Have fun and remember that everyone has flops and failures no matter how long they have been baking.

One last point before I go, things that come out of the oven are hot. I seem to need to learn this one over and over again.

Damn, I had forgotten how isolated and depressed I can feel being a stay at home mom. I am reminded of when I was pregnant with Nathan; I was the lead party chef supervising a small group of women on the graveyard shift. They were always kind to me, and I wanted to be the type of boss who worked harder than her employees, and never asked them to do anything she wasn’t willing and able to do herself. I wanted them to respect me, but thinking back I guess I wanted them to like me too. There was one woman who was a born again Christian. She was a hard working, kind mother of two, and as long as she wasn’t trying to convert me we got along well. Being an unmarried 18 year old, I was nervous about telling her that I was pregnant. I played fat for awhile but it soon became obvious. After I told her about my pregnancy she asked me constantly when Alex was going to marry me.
There I was: broke, 18, pregnant and working for $7.75 per hour with no insurance. Alex was out of work and I was traveling 90 minutes each way by bus to a restaurant where I constantly picked up extra hours out of a desperate need for cash. I had an envelope hidden in my desk at home. The outside was marked Crib Fund. At times I needed to sit down to rest when before I’d been able to work twelve hours straight no problem. I lived on 7UP and those little saltine cracker packets they served with the soup. I hated Alex at times. He hadn’t asked me to marry him. He hadn’t wrapped his arms around me and told me that everything would be OK. I was mad at myself too, and I kept thinking that if Alex would just get a job and I could be a stay at home mom I would be happy and I would never complain ever again.

Finally Alex did find a job, and I was able to rest for a few weeks before Nathan was born. In the beginning I felt OK resting during the day while Alex was at work. I was recovering from pregnancy, labor and delivery. I was breast feeding. Then I started to feel guilty. The laundry piled up, as did the dishes, and I had no idea how to go grocery shopping with a baby and no car. When Alex would get home from work I would have him watch Nathan so I could have a shower. That shower was the highlight of my entire day. One evening as I stepped out of the tub, wrapping myself with a towel, I glanced at my face in the bathroom mirror and burst into tears. This sucked too! I had envisioned myself at home with my baby, making all of our food from scratch, and greeting Alex at the door every evening wearing a crisp clean apron and saying, “Hi honey, how was your day? Dinner is almost ready.” I felt like a complete failure. I knew that for thousands of years women had managed to keep house, cook and raise children, I just didn’t know how they had managed it. I didn’t expect to be bored, and so fucking lonely.

Over the years I have tried being both a SAHM and a working mom. Both options have their pros and their cons, as I am sure a lot of you with children know. My self worth is and always has been tied closely to my ability to earn some income. I am not saying this is good; I am just being honest. I like having a check with my name on it. Another thing that work gives me is structure to my day and a chance to interact with my coworkers. To be honest, I don’t have any friends. So when I need someone to talk to I either talk to Alex or I call my Mom.

My original plan to return to college was something that scared the hell out of me, but I was excited about it. When I was laid off from my job after taking Family Medical Leave that plan was put on hold as I filed for unemployment and then dealt with interview after interview with the man who was deciding the case. I ended up winning, probably because my employers weren’t returning his phone calls. I had documentation proving that I was laid off eight days before my Family Medical Leave ended.

I joined this food buying club in my neighborhood where people get together and order food and since it ends up being large quantities we get the food for the wholesale price. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, as there are several different purveyors offering different things, and there are several different dates during the month when you have to have your order and payment in by or you miss out until the next order. Before I applied for membership I told the head of the group that I don’t drive and she said that she lives close to me and wouldn’t mind dropping off my orders. I have tried to give her gas money but she always refuses. When she asked me what I did for a living I told her that I was an artisanal bread baker and a pastry chef. She exclaimed that it would be great if I could teach bread making classes to the group. One thing about me, I hate training people, even when I am being paid to do it. I told Alex about it and admitted my regret over those words. “Why the fuck didn’t you just say you were a housewife?” was his response. I realized that it just didn’t sound good to me. I wanted to BE SOMETHING. I was ashamed of myself and when asked an innocent question by a woman who went to college and earned letters to place after her name I wanted to at least have a trade to be proud of. Why do I care what others think? Why do I define myself so much by what I do or don’t do for a living?

So, to make myself feel better about not working I have been working extra hard at home. In addition to my fall garden I have been buying cases of tomatoes, apples and peaches. I have a freezer neatly stacked with tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, applesauce and apple butter. I peeled and sliced the peaches and froze them too.  I even made salsa from scratch and tried to freeze a couple of pints of that. I’ve never frozen salsa before so I’ll have to see how it tastes after it thaws. I have been making huge pots of soups and freezing those to have on hand for fall. Sometimes I like to open the freezer and look at the fruits of my labor. It makes me feel good to see everything neatly stacked and labeled. Yes, I do realize that I could have canned everything instead but I didn’t want to mess with it. Plus, Alex won’t eat home canned foods because he read somewhere about someone dying from improperly canned food and he never shakes stories like that. I’ve also been growing my own bread starters and baking at home. It’s fun now that it’s not a job.

My sister called me yesterday to ask if I could babysit her three kids some Friday in October. I told her that I would check my calendar and get back to her. When I did I realized that my calendar is just scattered with various doctor’s appointments and the physical therapy for my back. Ouch.

I always get excited about the mail even though it’s always bills and junk mail. Yesterday I received a letter that read in part, “Recently President Obama announced that people who receive unemployment benefits may receive financial aid to pay for job training or education. You may be able to continue receiving unemployment benefits while enrolled in an approved training program. Studies have shown workers with more education and training have more secure jobs and higher wages.”  (Duh)  It used to be the case that those who were on Unemployment weren’t allowed to attend college because you had to be available for work 24/7.

I am excited about looking into this because school was what I had wanted to do in the first place. Thank you Obama!
Hopefully I will find a job training program. My primary care physician took some new images of my back last week and gave me a stern lecture about finding a new way to make a living. She said something about me ending up in a wheelchair within a couple of years if I continue at this pace and being totally narcotic dependent by the time I am 40. Zipping around on a Hoveround while wasted on Percocet sounds pretty awesome, but I’ll give this job training a try.

Besides, my freezer is getting really full and my kids just want to eat Hot Pockets and spicy hot Cheetos anyway.

In the days since I last posted here, boy have I slipped back down.  It seems like one thing after another. The washing machine broke; we were able to scrounge up the money to buy a used one, and then the dryer broke. Our kids asked when we were going to get a new one and I just shrugged and continued to hang clothes on the line and on the drying racks. Fuck a dryer. It’s been hot here. Our stove is down to one working burner. I just hope that burner keeps going. I have cancelled cable, netflix, and greatly reduced our grocery budget. I have cut down on the cigarettes substantially. I have been baking and cooking from scratch and Alex has been sewing ripped clothes instead of looking for new ones. We have been through worse than this.

I just feel so drained. I feel as if I am just going through the motions. I honestly don’t think I would have lived through this without Alex and my Mom. My Mom stops by and checks in on me. Last weekend I was showing her what I felt like was a pathetic attempt at a garden, my few zucchini plants, a few tomato plants, acorn squash and several different herbs. “Remember Tammy, Fall is coming, and your Fall garden will be great.” I had somehow forgotten about Fall. I started broccoli seeds this week, as well as chard and collard greens. I keep going. I made a lovely pesto out of my huge basil plant, substituting walnuts I had in the freezer for the pine nuts.It was delicious.

Alex is watching me. I know this. Sometimes he reminds me to take my medication, or checks to see if I’ve eaten, as I often forget. He will gently suggest that I get some rest when I am in one of my manic modes and I feel as if I must stay upright to keep doing things around the house or we won’t make it. He tells me to calm down, to lie down, to watch a dumb TV show with him. He knows the exact spot on his chest where I like to cuddle up and press my face against him, listening to his heart beating, his slow, regular heartbeat such a contrast to my own.  I know he is not much for snuggling, especially when it’s so hot, but he doesn’t complain. I wonder why he has stayed beside me for 21 years. I am afraid to ask.

I have been able to spend time with both Nathan and Polly, time that I didn’t have when I was gone 16 hours a day. I can’t believe my babies are 17 and 14. I want to be here to watch them grow and learn. Alex and I certainly had so difficult times over the years, but our children are still excitedly planning about their futures. I long for happiness for them. Sometimes I fear that I may have passed my illnesses on to them. It is genetically linked. I wasn’t thinking of that when I was wanting babies.

I went to my psychiatrist recently for my monthly check in. This is just medication management and a brief 10 minute chat. He asked me about returning to work and I told him I have been going through the steps to attend college in the Fall. His brow furrowed briefly, “You’ve never mentioned any desire to do that in the past.” He flipped through the notes from our sessions. “So, you have a GED. You have a long way to go then. You are going to go for your Associates at a community college then?” That tiny little sliver inside that actually believes that I may have some type of potential answered, “Yes. And then I am going to university until I get my PhD.” He usually pushes me out the door after ten minutes (and then bills my insurance for a whole hour) but this time I stood up to leave. I am on the wait list for a new shrink but it’s a long wait.

I feel as if I can’t go on. I push myself everyday. I have no energy, no appetite. I feel as if everything is falling in around me, yet there is a huge part of me that has shut down, perhaps as a self defense mechanism.

I miss the structure of the daily therapy at the hospital. I sometimes look through the notes that I took while I was in that program for inspiration.

I try to remember my goals and the dreams that have stayed with me over the years. I am looking to hold onto that sliver of self esteem I still have that tells me that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. Onward, forward mostly.

These ten basics are the foundation of the treatment program that I recently took part in at a local hospital. I thought that they might be useful to other readers, so I am typing them up to post here. To hopefully avoid any confusion I’ll type my words in italics, and those from the hospital in regular font. Oh, how I wish we owned a scanner. Here goes.

Good Food: 3-6 small, healthy meals per day help your brain keep a steady pace to support positive impact of medications, ease side effects, supports clear thinking, concentration, memory and problem solving
Do not use alcohol, or other non-prescribed mind or mood altering substances of any kind. Keep your intake of caffeine and refined sugars to a minimum.

Good Sleep: Keep a regular sleep schedule with a soothing pre-sleep routine, no PM caffeine and no naps.

Meds & B Vitamins: Take medications as prescribed. Let your doctor know if you have troublesome side effects, or if, after a reasonable time, the medications don’t seem to help. Take a time release Multiple B vitamin with breakfast or lunch to increase energy and help build neurotransmitters. (Make sure it’s time release, otherwise you just get a single burst of energy that won’t last throughout the day.)

Laughter: Whether you feel like it or not, enjoy it or not- do something that makes you smile or laugh.
Relaxation:  Relaxation is the best antidote to anxiety. Any activity that slows breath, calm the mind, relaxes muscles, and lets your heart rate slow. Guided visualization, slow, calm breathing, listening to relaxation tapes or music, etc. Several times a day, practice the skill of relaxation.

Relaxation: Relaxation is the best antidote to anxiety. Any activity that slows breath, calm the mind, relaxes muscles, and lets your heart rate slow. Guided visualization, slow, calm breathing, listening to relaxation tapes or music, etc. Several times a day, practice the skill of relaxation.

Exercise: 15-30 minutes a day, move in ways that work your heart, muscles & lungs-walk, run, stretch, bike, swim, dance, lift weights, do yoga, etc.

Affirmations/Positive Self Talk (“Cognitive Exercise”): Consciously and consistently give yourself credit; acknowledge the hard work you’re doing, say affirmations. Encourage yourself, catch and challenge thinking errors with rational truths. (Some of the references here are things you would learn more about in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Most of us have been doing what is referred to as thinking errors for so long, and so frequently, that we might not even be aware of it. An example is thinking that you are a failure or that you are never going to get better. An affirmation doesn’t have to be some new agey statement that you cringe while reading. I used, “This too shall pass” when I was having panic attacks or anxiety, or even, “I’ll feel better in 15 minutes”. Putting some sort of time limit on how long I was going to be that uncomfortable helps me. I also used a lyric from a John Lennon song because it was easy for me to let it flow through my brain, even if I didn’t believe it every time, “Every day in every way, It’s getting better and better”)

Spirituality: If religious faith or spiritual practice has ever been an important part of your life, don’t neglect it now. Every day do what feeds your spirit. (I had actually forgotten that I was in a Catholic hospital until this one was read to me. Being someone who went to church 6 days a week as a child and went through 9 years of Catholic school only to run away from the Catholic church as fast as I could when my Dad died I must admit my first thought was ,”Oh Shit!” I thought they were going to get really preachy with us but they never did and I realized that it was OK for me to “feed my spirit” in other ways, so to speak.)

Journal: Every day take a few minutes 5-15 to put your thoughts and feelings down on paper.

Reach Out: Connect with others; resist the tendency to isolate; ask for, and accept, support from others.
Track your progress! Be sure to add anything that is important for YOUR recovery every day, but might not be on someone else’s list of basics…assertiveness, sobriety, etc.

OK. Me again. One thing that I learned to do, even though it wasn’t listed, was to get up and take a shower everyday and prepare myself as if I was leaving the house, even if I wasn’t. I got dressed, did my hair, even put on a little makeup. It made me feel a little bit better about myself and I found I was less likely to just crawl back into bed if I was dressed. Now I’ll be the first to admit that in the state I was in when I first entered the hospital I received all of this information, went home, and promptly took a nap. Part of the program, in the first few weeks at least, is working closely on how to follow the basics. The basics are simply a list of things to do that help you learn how to take care of yourself. Hey, look at me! I am 36 and I don’t know how to take care of myself! Sad, but true.

The list was overwhelming to me and having a morning check in daily where I had to speak out loud in front of a group of strangers regarding how I had done made me want to leave. I decided to start with three of the basics: Good Food, Good Sleep, Meds and Vitamin B. After that it was easier to take a walk, or work in my garden, or to spend time learning how to relax. Laughter came at unexpected moments, such as the morning when one of the therapists asked a new guy how he had done the night before and new guy responded, “Great. I spent the night with my good buddy Jim Beam, and then I passed out in my chair and slept for ten hours.” “Oh, how wonderful”, she responded, “you reached out to a friend and you slept well, two important basics!”

I didn’t expect the laughter, it just burst forward and I had to swallow it down. For the record it’s not funny that he got drunk on Bourbon and passed out in a chair, it was just the way it went over her head and she complimented him for it. Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps someone. I have now graduated from the program and I feel that the daily structure was something that I needed. My graduation was brought about by my insurance company refusing to pay anymore but I am grateful for the time that I had there. I did a lot of notebook journaling both while I was there and on the buses to and from and I’d like to post some of that here to. I am moving onward, to where, I don’t know. I don’t feel as anxious as I was. I am truly trying to take it one day at a time. I am still hoping to go to college. I went over to my sister Maria’s house last week and she helped me fill out the forms for financial aid.
I don’t know what I want to study yet, but I want to help others, that I do know. If I can do that now through this site, that would be pretty cool too.

If you’re not a long time reader you can start here, or not.

After my abysmal fishing performance at the GI Joe fishing school my dad set his mind to spending the weekends taking me to various liquid spots to practice. We went to rivers, lakes, and even to the ocean, where I quickly learned to run out when the tide went out, cast out my line, and then stand there as the water came back in. I exclaimed at the strange sensation of the force of sand meets water under my feet that led me to believe that I was moving, although I was fairly certain I was standing still. “Shh”, I was told. “You will scare the fish.” I envisioned their slippery rainbow bodies, their heads turning at the sound of my voice, ears I couldn’t recall seeing listening to the sound of my chatter.

I always looked forward to these weekends alone with my father. We would head out painfully early; a morning person I never was, but my dad would take me to cheap breakfast joints before the little road trip, anything with a breakfast special of $1.99 or less. He never let me order for myself, and although I tried the tactic of staring longingly at the carbohydrate rich stacks of pancakes with the mysteriously soft whipped butter atop the pile, or the art of the waffle bigger than my head on a plate covered with juicy berry compote and a whipped cream perimeter, passing me by in the arms of the waitresses with the special swing to their hips they all seemed to have as they danced in between tables, he was sensible with my order: eggs, pork of some fashion, hash browns or toast. I couldn’t abide by the runny yolks I tried to choke down with the warm free water. I tried not to watch as he slid his buttered toast across his plate each time, sopping up the bright goo. Once, after hearing him order his eggs sunny side up, I blurted out to the waitress that I wanted my eggs sunny side down. This brought laughter from her, and he placed his hand over mine and whispered, “Over easy.” I was afraid for a moment, but then I saw that unnamed sign is his pale grey blue eyes that signified amusement.

Not once did I catch a fish. I was secretly glad, because although I wanted to please him, looking at the fish he caught made me so sad. I used to whisper apologies to them in my head.

My mom told me years later that at night when she and my dad would climb under the covers and whisper together about what their four children would be like when we were grown he used to say, “That Tammy, she’s going to be a vegetarian.” Hearing that, I was surprised that he had figured that out so many years before I first gave up eating meat for good. I had thought that I was hiding that side of myself from him, but he saw it.

Years later, an adult now as well as a parent, I found myself curious about the restaurants he would frequent in the wee hours of the weekend mornings while the rest of us slept in. Later he would rave to me about the eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and the choice of pancakes or toast. He explained to me that given the fact that he attended church everyday, sometimes several times a day, the first being in the wee hours of the morning; the last being the evening mass and the recital of the rosary, this extreme devotion to the lord earned him the right to eat a nice breakfast at a restaurant.

I started to take my children to the very restaurants he had told me about. Nathan and Polly were always pleased by this. I, unlike my father before me, let them order pancakes every time, figuring I’d fill whatever nutritional deficit later in the day. I ordered all of the foods he had told me about and found that when you pay $1.99 for a breakfast special you really do get what you pay for. The eggs were often cold, never soft and fluffy in their scrambled state, but rather rubbery. The hash browns arrived either in a puddle of oil or dry and burnt crisp. I never ate the meat; I just pushed it to the side of my plate, but it was grey in appearance and suspicious in its origin.

My kids loved these trips with me to various breakfast joints and so I continued on, herding them on and off busses until we had hit every last one of them. Sitting at the counter next to Nathan and Polly, who were once again sliding the whipped butter over their stacks while eagerly eying the syrup, I looked down at the fruit salad I had ordered with such high hopes. In front of me rested a plate with a scoop of cottage cheese and a pile of un-drained canned fruit cocktail swimming together.

There was no other explanation for this; the quality of these restaurants had to have declined in the years since his passing. My father was an extremely frugal man, but he took himself and the whole family out to eat frequently. He was a man who truly loved a great meal. His whole face would light up when he described to me one that was particularly memorable. No detail left unnoticed, the bread, the roast beef cooked to perfection and smothered in gravy that was neither salty nor lumpy.

I glanced around again at this place he had raved about so many times. I saw the aging booths, their yellow now looking dirty and worn instead of the bright sunny hue I imagined they once were. As my eyes scanned the tables they came to a rest on a well dressed man in a large corner booth. His suit was impeccable; his jacket carefully resting beside him. The booth was large, so large he looked comical sitting in the middle of a table that would have held eight comfortably.

He looked relaxed, comfortably reading his paper. I looked once again at my fruit salad; it was getting less palatable by the second. What the hell was booth man eating? Looking back at his table I saw a few empty glasses before him, the ice in varying stages of meltdown. There were no plates on his table. At that moment a lovely pony tailed waitress appeared before him with a fresh drink.  She cleared the other dishes away, apologizing for the delay in a thick Russian accent.

Inside my stomach a lump formed, a lump of sadness, of self reproach for not having caught onto this whole thing sooner. I wiped my children’s sticky hands and faces, helped them slide down from the counter stools, and shook my head no to my waitress’s offer of a to go box for my untouched meal.

Later, while visiting with my mom, I waited for the right moment, or for one that at least felt less wrong, before I blurted out, “Remember all of those mornings when dad would come home all animated and speak of what we had all missed out on by not going to mass with him at 6 am?”
Her jaw has been off center since my dad shattered it in a drunken rage and it never healed correctly. It clicks in and out and I know that it pains her, but we don’t speak of it.

“All of those places serve cocktails”, I say, stupidly now.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No, I thought…” but I don’t know what I had thought. Perhaps I had just been looking for a piece to the puzzle as to why the man I had hardly known had taken his own life. I knew that I mustn’t have been worth living for.

My mom reaches for the kettle for all of life’s moments, the joyous, the saddest, and everything in between. We waited together for the boil, silent, our bodies close, but not touching. She pulled out the fine china teacups and saucers and began to set the table.

I haven’t been able to write anything to completion. I have been writing, but I can’t finish and it feels actually painful to try to force it. I know I’ll get out of this someway, but right now I can’t pull myself up.

The other day I wandered through Whole Foods, a store I rarely shop at because it’s too expensive for most items, and I came across these meyer lemons. They looked so beautiful; I wanted to buy all of them and bring them home with me, fill bowls with them, hold them in my hands and smell their skins, bake delicious things, dry their zest. I stared at them for a long time. They were on sale for $1.99 each. After I began to feel dizzy from the standing and staring at lemons I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a photo. I walked away empty handed, but I no longer desired the lemons so deeply. I set the photo as my wallpaper as I tried to hide amongst the lettuce. When I looked up there was a dread locked man standing in front of me, his hazel eyes warm and filled with a Pandora’s box of things I wanted to know. “Lemons”, I said, flashing the photo at him. He chuckled as he reached for a bunch of carrots, the ones I like with the tops still attached. I knew he wouldn’t take a plastic bag.

50 Greatest Sex Scenes
50 Worst Sex Scenes

I haven’t seen most of these movies, but I plan to use these lists to update Alex’s and my queue from now on. Lately we have been passing off the responsibility of moving a film to the top slot the way we used to try to pass off the next diaper change, especially the ones that announced themselves with unmistakable sounds and/or odors. That was a battle I never did win anyway, because someone had to demonstrate the strength of his gag reflex. Shit loaded diapers, vomiting husbands, what was I writing about?  Sex in movies! Anyway, the only disagreement I had with these lists was Monster’s Ball being on the worst list. I thought that sex scene was hot. I even remember thinking they had to be actually doing it because it looked pretty realistic.

This Operation Feel The Fuck Better has been time consuming lately, because I have been making doctor’s appointments and actually keeping them instead of canceling them in favor of sleep. Things with my psychiatrist are great. He doesn’t talk much; I don’t talk much. I quickly run through how I have been feeling and if there have been any unusual stresses (His words, not mine. I’ve never thought of stress as unusual in my life) and then we chat about should we toy with the drugs I am on or not and I am out of there. At my last visit he asked me if my job was in danger, what with the state of the economy and all, and I explained that there is a pub at the restaurant I bake for and while food sales are down, booze sales are up. My future lies in the hands of the drunken patrons needing a sandwich or a burger to wash up some of that grog.  The other thing I’ve noticed is a lot more people are eating desserts, especially on the weekends. I like to think of this as the “I lost over $100,000 in my 401K, I might as well have a $7 piece of cake” effect. My psychiatrist also noticed that I was sitting crooked in the chair, trying to put more of my weight on the side of my lower back that hurts the least, and he suggested I start doing yoga. Things had been going so well until then. Sometimes I wish that I could be one of the bendy stretchy women who pass by my work in the mornings on their way to the yoga studio as I sit huddled in the cold rain with a pint of ale in one hand and a smoke in the other, but I know that unless I could roll up the yoga mat and smoke the damn thing I probably couldn’t hold the first position, or the second one. It’s a shame though, because without fail, the women who walk by me with their ponytails swinging and their mats tucked under their arm look amazing.

I also had an appointment with my primary care physician and she was wonderful, as always. I apologized for not having shaved my legs and she laughed at that and later she apologized before she looked up something on google. Alex was horrified when I told him that my doctor sometimes looked in a book or went online to check on something, but I think it’s great. First of all I would rather have a doctor double check something before fucking up my health and secondly, doctors probably do it all the time, they just usually leave for a minute or two and then come back. I just made that up, but it makes sense to me. My doctor praised me for slowly taking off weight over the last few years and for keeping it off, which is nice to hear, but not the way I wanted to do it. I know she’s right and all but I want to feel OK in this skin NOW. She then referred me to a specialist for my fucked up back, suggested more physical therapy and YOGA! I told her I didn’t want to stand with a group of people and be the only one who couldn’t  bend myself into this position and then that one, and she suggested a small group, with an instructor who would be willing to modify the poses for me. I don’t want to stand out in a crowd. I like to hide at home. This OFFB (thank you Belle!) is tough.

I went to the specialist the next day, and she looked over the scans of my back and asked me if I’d been in a car wreck. That made me strangely happy because it is a better response than “I see nothing wrong here, it must be in your head.” She showed me some stretches to do before work and throughout the night. She carefully guided me through them until I was doing them correctly and I felt safe and happy in her office, her hands warm against my skin. She casually mentioned that taking off a few pounds would ease some of the pain and I was relieved to be able to say that I had been doing just that, slowly. She advised me to start working in sneakers instead of the clogs I usually bake in, something about having more cushion around my feet. I had all the paperwork to take with me to the physical therapist and she was shaking my hand, saying how nice it was to meet me, when she too suggested yoga. This time I was ready and I told her that I was going to look into it.

I am glad that I didn’t also schedule a dentist appointment this week because all of the time traveling on the bus and sitting in waiting rooms was a bit much.

Other than doctors I spent my days off cooking, baking and cleaning at home. I have really gotten lazy about things, letting chores slip because I am just so tired after work. I have been going over our budget with Alex and we both agreed that we need to cut down on our grocery bill, among other things. A large part of that is the fact that I have been buying more convenience items since I returned to work so that it’s easier for the four of us to eat without me spending hours in the kitchen. Nathan and Polly are both pretty lazy when it comes to fixing themselves something to eat on the nights I don’t cook and I feel guilty every time I hear the beeping of the microwave.

Now it is one hour before I need to catch the bus to work. I am tired, but there are scratch cooked meals in both the fridge and the freezer; I baked fresh bread for us and the house looks great, for now. This must be what people mean by a good tired. I feel productive, on top of things, headed in the right direction. I have a solid idea of the steps I am taking and the ones that shall come. I begin physical therapy next week and my dentist’s phone number is on a post it next to the moniter, waiting for me to call in the morning. I even dug through a box of things I had stashed in a closet and pulled out a few yoga tapes I have on VHS. If I ever get some time in this house when no one is watching me except for maybe the dog and the cats I might give it a try. Just maybe, because you never know.

Enough of my boring life, what’s new with you? Have you been reading but you haven’t introduced yourself? It would be cool if you did. I love comments. Does anyone have any recommendations for journals for me to read? I hope you are all well. Years ago, when I first started reading journals I never really got it when people wrote about how much they loved their readers. Now I do, and it feels great.

A batch of ciabatta I was so excited about I took a photo with my cell phone.

P.S. Don’t stack hot ciabatta like you see in this photo. I stacked it after it was fully cooled, took the photo, and then carefully put the bread away. Ciabatta is made with a very wet dough and if you stack it hot, or even warm, it will smash the loaves.

The majority of my work is a never changing routine of scaling, mixing, shaping, proofing and baking the same things night after night. I take little pleasure in this work, it is a job, plain and simple, and I do it to the best of my ability. The only product I have the liberty to take any sort of creative license with is the nightly baking of the artisan breads. There is a certain amount we need to have for the restaurant, and there are certain guidelines I am required to follow, such as cost issues, using fresh shaved truffles in my dough would most certainly lead to the end of my employment, for example. Other than that I am on my own, allowed to use whatever catches my fancy in the kitchen. I relish this part of my night, the time when I can look not at a set bread formula in a book, but into my mind. Although I could choose to rely on tried and true recipes for these loaves, I don’t. I always start with a pre-ferment that has been made in advance. Sometimes I take the pre-ferment, mix it with the next set of ingredients, and then allow it to sit in the walk-in cooler for a long period of time (this is a cold fermentation process) and other times I mix the pre-ferment with the next set of ingredients and then allow it to sit out at room temperature, carefully folding the dough every hour for three hours before it is divided, shaped, proofed, baked and then cooled.

For those who have no interest in baking it would be impossible for me to describe the thrill I get from this process every single time I do it. Since I tend to be a risk taker with the ingredients (baker’s percentages) I never really know how this is all going to work out until the loaves have cooled and the first slice is before me. I must get a thrill from this because I continue to do it. My results have been mixed, ranging from two batches that ended up in the garbage (I cried the first time, if you can imagine that), to breads that were referred to as amazing by so many people that I had no idea how to deal with the compliments the first time it happened and my every instinct told me to run and hide. I quickly learned that after I had reached that moment when coworkers were continually stopping me to say how much they had enjoyed a particular bread, when managers and chefs alike approached me to offer their congratulations, when servers mentioned positive feedback from customers, from that day forward it was never enough for me to slice that first loaf in the morning, split it in half with my supervisor or another coworker, and have the response be, “It’s good.” I explained to my boss that I didn’t want to make good bread; I wanted to bake phenomenal, amazing, better than sex, eat a whole loaf in one sitting bread that needed no adornment whatsoever. She laughed, but she understood, as this is her chosen career as well.

I still am not certain any of this will express the why behind what I do for a living. The hours are brutal, the nights long and physically exhausting, the pay isn’t great, nor are the benefits. The competition is fierce, and there will always be a group of younger, highly skilled, faster bakers out there to replace me. I know that I am not as good as I was in 2000, or 1991, for that matter. The physical toll is showing more and more in my back, my knees, my feet, and my hands. A day is coming when I won’t be able to lift and dump the fifty pound sacks of flour, or hoist the giant mixing bowls, or carry the bins filled with dough. I know all of this at the same time as I have no idea what else I will do for a living. Pride fucks with my ego enough to want to bow out before I have completely lost the ability altogether. I am not sure exactly where old chefs go to die, career wise. I am sure that I don’t want to find out.
In the back of my mind I will ponder my future during the rare quiet moments. Until then I will carry on as I am, almost content to rarely produce something that feels to me as if it must have been touched by something other than my own hands, something that feels like magic.