It was a Sunday afternoon last July when I brought my laptop over to my husband and said, "I think I want to blog." About what, was the next question. I said, "Food, vegan food." And then I added, "And about my life." He cautioned to not get too broad in my quest, but to try to keep it narrower and more focused. Then he put on his "tech support" badge and like an angel, helped me set this baby up. Well, for any of you who've stumbled across my ditherings, you must have figured out by now--"focus" for me. . . not as easy as it may be for someone else.
First things first. I have had a bucket load of "stuff" hit me since first laying claim to my little place in the blog world a year ago. I won't re-live any of it here again, but just in case you want the Cliff's Notes on the matter--here's a bullet point list:
- Lost my dad
- Lost a friend
- Lost part of my face
- Lost someone to addiction. . . but got them back
There you have it in a nutshell, my past year. A lot of "stuff" happens in a year. It doesn't feel like a year's gone by. (For us Old People, or folks Almost Fifty--time starts to
literally fly, trust me young folks out there, just
trust me on this one.) The vegan food stuff has been my saving grace through it all. I cannot tell you the amount of relief and distraction (in times of GREAT stress) my kitchen and my blog have been for me. (My husband helps, too--but he also has to leave to go to work). Much of my "pick yourself up by the boot straps" motivation must occur during the ten or so hours he's away. I'm not complaining. I was the one that decided at this stage in my life it was time to step off the corporate role and into a much quieter, homemaker sort of life. I have no regrets, and neither do my gray roots,
thank you very much. We have no children on two feet, however, we have many kids on four feet--my posse--they keep me quite busy. My life would be so empty without them.
The impetus for my blog started with a somewhat compulsive collection of cookbooks sitting on my shelves in my kitchen. (And also in the shelves in my basement.) I love cookbooks: old, new, used, borrowed--I just love them. I love their smell, their heft, their typeface, their paper weight, their colorful photos (or not in the case of MOST of my vegan cookbooks--which I think is sad and wrong and if I EVER publish a cookbook, by god, there will be a lot of good looking photos in between its pages). I have never really counted them all. I sort of round up by tens. So last rounding I landed at near two-hundred, but not quite. Though I'm still not sure. I refuse to take accurate inventory. I just know I like the ones I have--be them vegan or not. I donate those that have an "annoying" quality--those that just send me to the moon when I try to cook from them but can't find a blasted thing to even attempt--after about a year of this search and "not find" recipe stuff--a few will end up in the donate-to-the-library pile.
