Monday, June 25, 2012

But what about dinner?

I recently overheard two women talking about writing.  I think they were trying to plan a time to get together and write or something like that.  One of them said to the other, "well, I'm a stay at home mom, so I have to think about getting dinner on the table."  And she didn't seem particularly bothered by that fact, but it basically summed up my own greatest current fear about my life: that it becomes completely structured around domestic tasks.

Now that I'm working part time, I feel a lot better about my life than when I was staying home all the time with Anton.  I like feeling productive, I like using my massage skills, I like earning some money.  I've even lost the last of the weight I gained during pregnancy by simply moving more at my very physical job (and spending less time eating out of pure boredom).  But it has become even more of a challenge to find time to read, write, etc.  And although I do enjoy cooking, having to think about groceries and prep time and all of that is starting to feel like a major chore.

My husband suggested that I cook big vats of food less often, so I don't have to cook every day.  I suggested that he help with  the cooking more, for the record...but so far, no dice.  Anyway, I was meal-planning for a while there, and found it to be helpful and cheaper than the last minute dash to the store on the way home from work so I can throw something together.  So I'm trying to get back into that habit.  I've got a new cookbook called The Vegan Slow Cooker, and I plan to try to cook something in the crock pot every other day, and then we'll eat leftovers on the off day.  So far I've used instructions from the book to cook and freeze tomatoes, since my moms plants produced a TON and she's about to go on vacation.  Today I made something not from the cookbook but a blog, a recipe I've been making for years: vegan red beans and rice.  After all, it is Monday!

Hopefully this will free up some time so I can focus more on my writing.  I have been making progress on several projects, but not at the pace I'd like.


I don't think there's anything wrong with centering one's life around home and family stuff, necessarily, but it's a scary thought for me.  I feel like I'm actually a better mom when I have opportunities to do my own thing sometimes.  As much as I care about nutrition and all, I have big goals for my life, which I'm not going to achieve in a kitchen. 

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Summer adventures

So, I've been pretty quiet here lately. Oops!  I've been working more, and teaching theater to summer camp kids (which, though the teaching part is only 1.5 hours per week, involves a lot of preparation...between the prep work and the effort to keep the class from complete chaos I have developed a very deep respect for Real Teachers).

Also, I had a short but sweet prolific writing period last month, when I wrote three short stories: one of fairly average story length, one flash fiction, and one super short flash fiction for a contest, which I just found out I won.  So that was neat.