OMG IT DIDNT RAIN!!!!

Ive been determined to not let this wet & gloomy weather get me in a funk. I have seen a crap ton of somewhat justified bitching on the interwebs about all the muck outside and had no desire to take part in it. I get why parents would be hating this shit - my dogs have been all stir crazy not being able to get outside so I can only imagine the level of suck when its small humans all wired for sound and able to actually speak and stuff - but more or less its weather. Bitch all you want - its not going to change so suck it up is generally my feeling.

But I was off this weekend on a fluke. And for the first time in MONTHS it didnt rain. ::knock me over with a feather::

A couple weeks ago I decided to fuck Mother Nature and her bipolar temper tantrums and go ahead and plant all my herbs, tomatoes, window boxes and porch planters. They all looked fabulous. But there was still this black hole of overgrown SUCK that was going to take some time & energy to deal with - and some dry - it was a freaking SWAMP in the garden.

Last year we tried a vegetable garden - and it was moderately successful...if you define success as getting to harvest like 65% of the veggies before they were eaten by fuzzy woodland creatures or rotted, having the whole area go until almost August before it was over 50% weeds or that I was able to get it all cut back before winter so it wasnt a TOTAL wreck this spring. (I am rather generous with my definition of success when it comes to gardening) I, again mind you, made it abundantly clear that I have not inherited my parents' green thumbs and have been left asking the question, again, as to WHY I keep trying. Im sure The Mister asks himself that question, too, but he gamely goes along with whatever harebrained scheme I concoct for the yard each spring. I havent decided if he does it to humor me, if he harbors the same delusions of farmerhood as I do or if he realizes the futility of arguing and pointing out the insanity of my desire to garden. I guess it could be all 3, really.

So this year started the same. I AM GOING TO HAVE A VEGETABLE GARDEN DAMMIT! And I planted all the little seedlings and got them under a grow light and watered them, read them self help books to boost their confidence and all that bullshit for about 5 weeks then did what Mindy's almost always do - one night I said Id water them the next night. The next night I said Id do it in the morning. The next morning I forgot. The next evening I watered them all so much they almost swam away. The next night I figured Id watered them so much the night before they really didn't need the water....and so on and so forth until these poor seedlings were in need of vegetable therapy due to abuse & neglect.

UNCLE! I admit defeat. Plans changed. I decided that I needed to own my complete inability to stick with a gardening regime. That instead of trying to make myself be the farmer that I feel I should be for some unknown reason I need to just  deal with the fact that I am not ever going to grow zucchini like my dad, that the idea of having to "weed" anything 3 or 4 times a week is more of a commitment than I am willing to make and that the CSA we signed up for and a few farmers markets will give me all the veg I need minus the complete feeling of failure when I pull up to my house and see the sad sad sad patch of land I called a garden.

So with no further ado I present to you...BEFORE

Those spikey things in the front right are asparagus. I kept those, just trimmed them down. And that monstrous green thing in front of that meter is cilantro. Yeah. Seriously. Cilantro. And there are some mutant strains of lettuce and the weeds that thrive in my neighborhood. Its it lovely? My window boxes and herbs are all up there too, so from the porch side it looks happy - but from the street ~ train-mothereffing-wreck!

And then the sun came out. And the ground became less swampy. And I wasnt at work. And neither was The Mister. Angels sung!!

So we spent the weekend ripping shit up. For the first time since I have had a yard every single perennial (and annual) that i have bought has been planted, in its home, BEFORE it has wilted and died.

I know! Right! The ones on the wall are to go under a hose on the side of the house, but everything else is planted, the mulch is down and my house looks nice again!!!

I still have to trim that stupid carpet piece I keep forgetting about and will probably add some more plants as the season progresses - I already have homes picked out for some mums I havent even bought yet and some ground cover pieces that I want for under the dwarf Japanese Maple, but holy hell it looks like a different house to me!

I just want to go sit in it.

This was 1 of 2 bitch projects outside this summer. The other one isnt one that I can help much with ~ The Mister has to tear down and rebuild a retaining wall that holds up the patio. I doubt it will be much fun, but with the birth of this garden I was able to move the 3 big azaleas that were in that planter so when it is done I can plant it with strawberry plants. Oh yes - homemade strawberry jam FTW!!

Which reminds me I am going to post a Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake recipe here in the next day or so. It was so good my mouth is watering just thinking about it. And it was EASY.

Aside: Yesterday was week 6 of non-smoking. Yep folks. SIX Weeks! I am taking the pills when I remember too, but that isnt all too often. Still dealing with the occasional want to have a smoke, but they are fewer & further between than before and ever so much easier to dismiss.

I am LOVING this summer start so far...rain or no rain!

My Current Whereabouts ;-)

So I really should be working on menus for the mock service in 48 hours...but I'll get there eventually. Its been awhile and after a truly shitty day I had an epically awesome day and wanted to share.

I'm in the midst of opening a new restaurant.  Its not mine by money, but it is by job title.  I'll be fair - I'm loving this. This is the part of what I do that I dig. There are parts of it that blow goats, and parts that are an adrenaline rush and parts that put me in a blind rage...and I LOVE it. I am constantly moving, I am organizing, overseeing, bossing around, training and dealing with it all.  And I am good at it. Very good at if I may say so myself, and I think if you asked anyone who has done it with me they would agree. I dont freak out, if I am unhappy you know why and exactly what must be done to fix it, its the only place in this world that I can juggle (i can barely walk & chew gum at the same time in real life) but there I can juggle a gazillion things.  Ask anyone who has ever been in charge of a restaurant opening...there is nothing like it. There are so many things that must be perfectly conducted with so many people the stress is unreal...but in my opinion healthy stress to a point in that its see a problem solve a problem stress. Either way I love it. So as miserable as I have been over the last year and as far behind as I am falling with the other 4 restaurants at the moment and the bullshit HR shit awaiting me at the end of this opening I love it now, and thats enough for me.

So about 2 weeks ago the boss handed me the reigns. It was my turn to do my thing. Hence I haven't been around a whole lot.  Through the course of every project there is the first month or so that is his. Its his job to get it built. He has to provide me a space...and I am very involved in the development of the space - it just do it via the walk into a meeting and say "yeah I dont like that, move it over there and give me one more fryer, that isnt enough burner space and that oven is ridiculous.  Get me this oven, add this over here and move that to that wall to make this flow better." along with gems like "thats hideous and there is no way we are using that fabric on booths" & "well I can understand why you would think that is a good idea but as the human responsible for making that happen i disagree and think we should....." and with an amazing designer he builds me a space.  About 3 weeks out he starts to back off and let me turn it into a restaurant.  He gets to keep playing with the contractors & builders, I have to get the staff, stuff & rest of it all together.  I handle everything but the bar menus.  And we are 48 hours from our first Mock service....KAPOW!!! We haz a restaurant!

And I'm excited. The Wizard let me go a direction with the menu that I didnt think he would.  Its not a complete departure from our menus, but it is definitely a departure.  I opened up the vegetarian & vegan options a lot which I think is great, I cut back the boring pizza menu & dressed it up, I took traditional yinzer salads & made them more yinzer-chic with some less traditional options and changed our more normal meat/starch/veg entrees for a more tapas style-small plate with the majority of it being chef driven and rotated out often with fresh, seasonal, local items.  The menu is markedly smaller than any of the other restaurants and tends toward a more foodie feel while still maintaining our core.   I couldnt believe he took the first draft and said great...fix some formatting issues for me and we are good. I was prepared to have to work for this drastic of a change; The Wizard is nothing if not stuck in his ways generally. But he liked it. And didnt make me do much tweaking to it at all. Stunned. Still. And the damn things are printing as I type. I think we are going to knock his socks off. And I cant fucking wait. He did the same thing with some of the smaller pieces of equipment. Whatever I wanted I was allowed to get. Granted I didnt take severe advantage...but I got a ton of really nice pots & pans and a few toys for the kitchen that make me happy. I almost wish this kitchen was mine. Almost.

We start our first service Friday at 2pm. We are having 4 invitation only mock-service seatings on Friday & Saturday, we are closed Sunday and open for business Monday at 11am. 98% of everything will be perfect (Frigging cable company is refusing to do the install until next week. Thanks Comcast...way to make it easy to do business) and we will be about 10 weeks from demolition to opening the doors. I am sure Ill take some pics, or have the Mister anyway, over the weekend.  The place is beautiful. It takes the best features of our last 2 stores and combines them in a beautiful space. With but 1 exception. And anyone who follows me on twitter knows about the fucking chairs. We are going to have a lounge area in the front and these hideous pink floral apolstered ugly ass chairs appeared there that are a part of this furniture grouping.  Im unhappy with just about every piece of furniture in that area.  There is this awesomely tacky 70s gold couch that is so awful its fabulous...but everything else is total garbage. I had my tantrum about it. I blatantly called it all ugly and just ridiculous. I plead my case. I got mad...I laughed at him. Didnt matter. I know when to stop, so I agreed on a compromise. We would revisit the area in 6 months. Hes afraid we are going to need it for additional tables, I disagree.  If it is going to stay a lounge we pick out some new pieces, if its needed as tables we get the tables. That was the only compromise I was going to get...so I took it. I apologize to everyone who has to look at this furniture...but it really wasnt my fault.

Ill prob post some pics after the dinners. I'm nervous...its always nerve racking for me to make a new menu and have to deal with the feedback. I've eaten it, I know if it is good or not...but its still trying on the self assurance those first few nights out of the gate. I think my KM is going to be a bundle of nerves, I think hes going to freak out a little...I can fix that. I think my GM & AGM are also going to loose it a bit, but they'll snap back, they both will just be reminded that what we are doing is the easy part...running restaurants is what we do, and I picked them to do it because they are good at it. All the getting ready shit is the hard part...and then they'll remember and we will trudge through the questions & confusion. Honestly cant wait...this is the pay off for all the work...seeing it all work the way it is supposed to.

Oh what a crazy trip the last month has been...but its almost here.

We also have one hell of a garden rolling at the moment....Im gonna have to remember to post some pics of that too. We haz a broccoli!!! And tomatoes, brussel sprouts, peppers, basil, lettuces, asparagus, garlic, shallots, potatoes, cauliflower, a bunch of herbs....its a very happy garden!

Hope you all have a great weekend...Ill be hollering myself hoarse & loving every minute of it I hope in a busy restaurant kitchen! Woot!!

Why married people don't have sex...

Such an excellent Sunday! They said yuck weather ALL day & they were wrong...yay!!!

Me & Mister made an early pilgrimage to Lowes to get a buncha crap that we needed to make the garden LIVE! Mission accomplished!  We got a bunch of fencing to keep the dogs & other wildlife away from our veggies, some mushroom manure and got the whole thing planted.  Seems that I over estimated the room we would have in the garden, so the majority of the for real veggies are going to live in the garden, the shallots & garlic now have a happy home in a planter on the patio and the horseradish does too.  Thats probably best only because all 3 are perennials and have the tendency to take over their areas after a year or 2 so they can have the big ass planters and grow away.  It looks a bit sparse at the moment, but its new so it'll get better.  Im hoping our fencing is enough to keep critters from eating everything.  It should be, but critters can be conniving little fuckers. I can tell you this, the Puppy, she does NOT understand why she isnt allowed to go into where all the dirt that shes loves so much is. She just seems perplexed that there is so much that she wants just right over there and she cant get it. Its terribly amusing. The Old Gal...well she could care less outside of the fact she now has to walk AROUND this inconvenience to get to HER yard...but she's old, so its somewhat expected. Well that and she really could care less if we ever ate vegetables. Her favorite vegetable is cow.

We did suffer some casualties in the seedling department, but I think that our basement is just too cool & damp to grow happy seedlings.  Next attempts are going to be relocated to our office, which is rarely used to do anything but put shit I dont want to look at for a looong time, and its sunny and much much warmer.  I think that'll make for much stronger seedlings.  We live & we learn!

So a new problem is that there was little to no room for the herbs that I seeded in the garden.  This requires a Plan B. I didnt really have a Plan B for this situation.  Im thinking I may just get some planters and plant them in those.  That will be easier to keep weeded for sure. I really dont know, going to have to do some research and see what strikes my fancy.

Also got under our dogwood dug out so I could transplant some phlox that are in another planter.  They had grown to be wicked huge & healthy but the Mister has to tear down the walls and rebuild them so their only chance of survival was being moved.  So we got it all dug out & I moved them so now there is a gorgeous mound of phlox laying under my dogwood.  Strange note about the dogwood - it was almost completely split in half during the snow storms, but it budded, so I zip tied the 2 pieces together and it seems to be doing well.  Thats pretty awesome, but quite weird.

So now to figure out where I want to move the 3 azalea shrubs that are in there too.  Two of them are doing really well, 1 has been the victim of the sand slipping behind the wall.  Its not dead, but its not very happy either.  Hoping a relocation will render it beautiful again...it just needs some healthy dirt.  Not sure where I want to put them yet, but I'm thinking maybe against the fence we just put up on the far side of the garden. We shall see what the Mister thinks...

Once he finishes the wall reconstruction I have 20 strawberry plants to plant and if there is more room I might go get some other berry shrubs to go in there too.  I know I wont get much this year, but next year I should get enough to make some jam and thats the why I'm planting them in the first place.   If there isnt room I am already developing another place to grow some berry shrubs.  There's a pretty sweet spot down by the dogwood that wouldnt take too long to turn over and could use something to take the eyes away from the abandoned garage that is slowly decaying back there - see photo above. (I thank the borough for its continued existence...one of these years maybe they will tear down the hazard...maybe) I will need to do more research to see if this is a feasible idea or not...Mister tends to get a tad irritated when I say things like "Hey Mister! You need to make this happen" when its going to be a pain in the ass. I have to at the very least KNOW if it will be a pain in the ass before I ask to have it done...

I also got my planters on the porch loaded with begonias and some other purple thing I cant remember the name of at the moment.  Next up is the hanging baskets but it's not quite time for that just yet. 

The Puppy is standing guard of the newly moved Butterfly bush and the Asiatic lily & freesia bulbs I planted today, too.  I really think if she had a vote we would play outside in the dirt all day every day...unfortunately she has not acquired the manners of a non-asshole puppy so its less fun for me & Mister.

All in all one hell of a productive day...and I was showered & relaxing before 5pm. 

So this is the answer. This is why.  Married people dont not have sex because they dont want to...its because they get married, buy houses and all of a sudden have a gazillion tons of bullshit they have to do that single people...renters...dont have to do.

...but the flowers are gorgeous and the veggies will be awesome ;-)

ISO: Anwers!!!

Well I hope everyone had a fantabulous weekend!  I was actually off both days, took only a very few work calls that were necessary and relaxed enough that I slept through the night last night into today...thats actually a pretty epic score. Generally speaking I spend Sunday night lying in bed, trying to sleep, getting myself all properly stressed out for Monday...cuz ya know starting every week tired & strung out is always a great idea! Well at least this week I am not tired....well mostly.

Good news?!?! Oh yeah I have some good news! So me & the Mister almost finished the retaining wall that we need to have in so we can plant the garden.  We will have to go pick up ONE more load of bricks from Lane Block to complete the wall then we need a truck ton of dirt so I can lay out and plant.  I got some more veggies & strawberries too! All told this is going to be a pretty ambitious project/garden seeing as I haven't ever in my life sincerely tended a garden. My parents have like 10 green thumbs between them...I on the other hand dont seem to have any.  Its a running joke with the Mister actually that I can kill any plant I am given.  Lucky for me I have stepped to the challenge and have successfully kept alive a rubber tree, spider plant a few miscellaneous other things for over a year so I am feeling pretty confident that I can pull this off with Mister's help.  Its not a lack of ability, it that I forget to care for the little buggers and they die.  Either way I am excited as hell to have this project for the summer.  I have about 20 different little started plants to get into the ground and I should have one hell of a take this summer & fall.  I do love the Farmers Markets but there is something to be said for growing it all at home yourself! On a side note anyone who needs or wants to buy good block for a project like this I highly recommend Lane Block in Carnegie.  They are a bit off the beaten path, but are 1/3 the cost of all of the big chain home improvement places, super great to deal with and make good products.  This thing would have cost us somewhere in the ballpark of $900 if we had done it at Home Depot or Lowes, it has run us less than half of that with all materials AND you support a local business instead of a national chain....that alone is enough for me!

So this is also Mister's last week at his current job with me. He put his notice in a few weeks ago and is going to be moving on to an easier gig for the moment that will give him some time to regroup after working with the Wizard for this long.  I have very mixed emotions about this move.  Mostly I am really happy for him though, and just amazingly sad for me.  I am happy for him because I have already watched this job just about destroy him, our marriage & lives once and knowing that it isnt going to happen again makes my heart feel good, just seeing how much happier he is after making the decision and DOING it makes me ecstatic for him, knowing that there are great things on the horizon for him in the future and that he will accomplish them because he isnt going to be so beaten and defeated by this job is a huge plus for him and us....all of these things are reasons to be excited for him and looking forward to moving on and taking our lives back from the Wizard....

But the other side of this coin...Im still here. Im still dealing with the Wizard. I get to continue to smash my head in the car door trying to make it all fit for my delusional boss.  I know. Its my choice, and one that is weighing heavily on me at the moment. This sense of obligation I feel to fix this for the Wizard and make sure he is ok is ridiculous. I have no idea where it comes from. I am going to blame my father, actually. I inherited his infinite martyrdom and its why I have such a hard time doing things for me when I feel that I am needed.  I thrive on being needed, its a very large part of who I am and what makes me good at what I do...but at what cost?

Ive been wrestling with this since Mister gave notice. I would fuck the Wizard if I left. Would it be the end of him? Hell no...this place existed long before I got here and will continue well after I leave...I know no one is irreplaceable. Would it level a crippling blow? Oh most definitely.  The kids have been pretty quiet about Mister's exit.  There have been some rumblings, but they all know that he has been majorly unhappy...my exit would raise more eyebrows for sure and probably start an exodus as folks looked for new jobs.  That really isnt my problem though.  So to decide....do I stay here? Do I keep fighting for my people? The ONLY reason I am even having this much trouble is that I feel obligated to keep at this for my people. The people who work for me, the people who suck their shit through a straw, keep up with his absurd micromanagement, keep showing up, working hard and making my restaurants run. The people that I respect, like and would jump in front of a bus for because they would do it for me in a minute.  A lot of us have been together for years now and there is a large part of me that feels like I am abandoning them with the Wizard and leaving them to fail, and thats the part I am having trouble stomaching.  I KNOW they would all understand, they see what I do how thin I am spread and how difficult it is to do the 3 jobs I do and they help me all they can and I dont think one of them really gets why I keep doing it. They are why I do it. I do it because they do it and we are a team. But I dont think that is good enough.

So I have a decision to make. And Ill be honest rarely does it take me long to make any important decisions...weigh the facts and make a call, but this one isnt so easy.  Money I am not worried about. Its just money. I work hard and can find a way to make it work.  We have been broke before and its not the end of the world.  Jobs in this industry are easy to come by and I can always find a way to make some money...even if its less than I'm making now. Budgets can be reworked and we will muddle through this.  My problem? This job saps the life out of me and makes it very hard to be excited about anything else...which makes completing a business plan and finding money to open my place almost impossible. It literally just sucks the life out of me...emotionally, physically & mentally. I know in my heart that the only way I get my own  place is to leave here. That I am not going to get this off the ground with or without investors as long as I am beating my head against a wall in this place.

Oh I wish it was as easy as making a decision. I wish it was as easy as just doing what I want to do and selfishly doing whats best for me. I wish I was better at being selfish about things that really matter. I wish that I could just say fuck it and mean it and walk away without feeling responsible for all of these people. I wish I wish I wish.....but wishing isnt going to fix this bullshit mess I call a job.


What to do...the question of the ages. How long will I make it without Mister here? Do I have the ability to not get fed up with the shit storm Im about to face and NOT walk out at some point? Oh I probably do...I am nothing if not strong enough to stay standing and stupid enough to keep taking it in the face...but the real question is do I want to?  The answer is NO - I do not. 

Now to decide do I keep at it until the Wizard is stable and the new place is open or do I do whats best for my mental & physical health and walk away? This is really the struggle. I do not want to fuck him over...sincerely I do not. Part of that is selfish, my name has been attached to this place and him for almost a decade, I dont want the house of cards to collapse and have my name associated with it in any way and make me look bad. But on the other hand I know in my heart & mind that if I dont just make the call and do it that one thing will roll into another and 1 year from now I am going to be sitting here trying to figure out how another year went by and I am still doing the same damn thing I was doing a year ago. We will never be optimally staffed because the Wizard is a cheap fucker and we will STILL be perpetually hiring the wrong people because that is all we can afford.  There will always be an event or some other hullabaloo that will need organized-set up-executed. There will always be the next big thing on the horizon. There will always be a reason that I will be needed, and a reason to back burner what I want, and a reason to not jump.

I had at first thought it was fear...but I am not scared to fail. I know that I wont, thats just not my style. Then I thought it was fear of HIS failure...and that is a large part of it.  I have invested years of my life, quarts of my bloods, gallons of my sweat and tears into these places and for it to fail after all that is just infuriating. But I think when it comes down to it that the only thing holding me back is obligation & a sense of responsibility to a boss who only has his own best interests at heart and a staff who has followed & supported me for years. I dont want to screw my peeps over...but I do every day anyway because of how tightly he's got my hands tied and how thinly I am spread.

My questions to you dear readers.....are my perceived obligations to the Wizard & my staff genuine? Is it wrong of me to cut & run after this many years and this far into a new project? Granted I prob wouldnt go until the opening is all secured, but notice would be given and I would be out soon there after. Am I deluding myself via my sense of obligation and is it really this is just me too scared to jump off the fucking cliff and leave my safety zone? These are but a sampling of the questions that spend their time bouncing around my skull...and I am genuinely interested to hear outside opinions with what limited knowledge you have.  There is something to be said for unbiased opinions...and I am definitely actively searching for some.  I am not real good at selfish...but I think it may be time for one of those big 'ol "Fuck you man! This is for me!!!" moments....

Another HAPPY NEWS!!!  Perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe....and THAT makes me happy as all hell!  Another recipe locked down after much trial & error. SMILES!!

I hope you all are having a far less trying Monday than me...or at east one with more answers than questions anyway.

FUNK!

I totally should have written this yesterday while I was off...but I didn't.  Instead I spent my day screwing around with the pups, running a few errands, gym-shopping-dinner with the Mister then sleep...all in all a nice day off really and I made this bumpin marinated pasta/veggie/feta salad for dinner that was kind of healthy when topped with some grilled chicken tenders in a tangy red wine vinaigrette. Pretty delicious!

I've been having a FUNK week. Actually probably more like 2 weeks.  Ok, realistically it's probably been more like the last year, but the last 2 weeks have been pretty brutal.  Its been the kind of March that pretty much makes me want to curl up in a ball somewhere and weep or (and this is definitely more my style) start shooting and ask questions later.  Lucky for all I am not a truly violent person & I have learned to control my homicidal urges...

So I finally went to the doc about the excessive neck & back pain that I was chalking up to stress...i NEVER have a shortage of that and in the last couple months its been bad. Turns out that after some xrays & an MRI I apparently have some kind of cysts on the nerve endings near my neck that are the cause of this pain. Stress definitely wont help the situation, but its the root cause as far as I know...thats kinda good news!  I'll be honest here, I've been entirely too chicken to Google it. Im sure there is a wealth of information out there that I could acquire, but Mister hasnt sent me any links & Ive always taken a "it's probably better if I dont know then I wont have to worry" attitude in situations like this.  Yes, I am painfully aware this is somewhat stupid, but its not like I can fix this with the Google & I really dont need to be obsessing about what kind of cancer I have until JUNE 14th (yes thats right, JUNE 14th) which is the soonest I could get in to the neurologist my doc referred me to. Three months. Yeah, fuck the google...id really rather not drive myself batty in the next 3 months worrying.  Side note- I am working on trying to get it all moving faster, so I will try some other neurologists if I cant get this one to bump my appt. I cant be in this kind of random pain until June. Nosireebob!

Work can basically suck my ass.  I can honestly say that for the first time in 9.5 years with this company I sincerely had to talk myself back into my office. I'm not a quitter by nature, but it really and truly took all I had to convince myself that I was going to FUCK myself hardcore if I got up and walked out of there last Tuesday. Even my most reliable, in the voice of my mother of course, nagging about my responsibilities and obligations did nothing to stop the myriad of justifications I had for just disappearing from my desk never to return with a simple "Sorry, I cant take this bullshit anymore. Gone NUTSO! XOXO Mindy" note on the desk.  There were 2 things that made me stay. Two. 9.5 years at this place and I could only think of 2 reasons to not walk. 1) Health Insurance. With all the shit going on with my back & neck and knowing that there may possibly really be something wrong I cant afford not to have it and cant afford to pay Cobra $400 a month to keep it. That fucking SUCKS. 2) I dont know that I would be able to look myself in the eye knowing that I did that. That I walked away just like that. That it beat me. That I quit. Ive struggled with quitting this job for a long time, and even though I plan to do so at some point this year a very small part of me still feels like it is because the place and job beat me. I KNOW in my head that it hasnt, this is just not what I want out of my career/life, by in my heart it still feels that way. I also know in my head that admitting that the job beat me isnt the end of the world and is irrelevant in the grand scheme...but I also HATE that it may have beaten me, I dont really get beaten at things that matter, at least not thus far... I will wrestle this into submission, knowing that the job may not have beaten me, but the jackass I work for, in all of his infinite wisdom and confusing-makes-no-sense bullshit, did. And that for some reason bothers me a lot less. The most apt comparison I can make is that working with/for The Wizard is most often the equivalent of working for The Joker (preferably the Heath Ledger version if you please). He is an agent of chaos, there is no logic to how his mind works, no consistency to his actions and no stop to his frustrating games. You cant beat this kind of person mainly because the game changes on a whim...and that I do understand in my heart and my head.

We are planting a garden this year!!! Mister has the walls we need to put up roped off, the little seedlings are all planted & growing quite well and Im excited.  We are going to have a ton of fresh veggies! Tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, snap peas, japanese radish, carrots, a shit ton of fresh herbs and a bunch of other things Im not remembering. Cant wait to get it constructed so I can map it out and get it planted.  I always liked gardening with my dad, we shall see if I remember what he taught me and if I can grow my garden as well as his will be...shit I might even try recruiting a little help ;-)

Im filling in on line this weekend at one of the restaurants (this was item #27 that almost made me walk Tuesday) so that should be entertaining. I dont have to do that very often, and when I do I am usually pretty amazed at how quick it comes back, the flow, movement, pace...and I enjoy it.  Its the kind of work you just have to do, not THINK about it. And I think thats the kind of work I can get behind about now.

The Ever Illusive Sleep Monster

Its 3:30am. I am still awake. Thats a tad irritating to tell you the truth. I cant tell you why Im still awake; possible 1 too many diet Dr Peppers, maybe the cold I feel coming on a little bit, maybe too much on my mind and its not quite ready to go to bed yet...who knows. If I knew the answer to why I was awake Im guessing Id probably be back to sleep. So I figured that if Im going to be awake at this unreasonable hour I might as well do something with myself...well that and I could totally find nothing interesting to watch on the TV & the internets at large werent capturing my attention.

So I'm laying in bed trying to talk myself into going back to sleep...that was a fail.  But I did have some sparks of brilliance & inspiration...

I made my first attempt at homemade granola today and was mostly disappointed.  I liked the ingredient combo but the sticky stuff meant to hold it all together didnt work exactly as I had anticipated.  I made a dried cranberry & semi-sweet chocolate.  It tastes really good, but its more crumbly than sticky and I want to make chewy granola bars.  So I think I know what I need to do to correct the not so sticky issue & made mental list of some stuff I need to acquire for attempt #2! Agave nectar? Might work well in this application...and definitely more nuts, like more of a variety. Toasted almonds are good; toasted almonds and cashews? Better!

My husband, Mister, claims that I kept him up for a few hours snoring a couple nights ago...turns out Im catching a cold.  I'd apologize but he's a perpetual snorer, and yeah pay backs are a bitch sometimes! He got even tonight. Karma is a bitch, but apparently only to people who laugh about keeping someone up snoring.

I am totally going to take down my christmas decorations this week. Yeah go ahead and laugh...they're still up! Most of the lights have been off for months, I just havent felt like taking them down and cleaning them and putting them away and all that BS.  But this week it will be done and the house will loose all its winter flair.

Im going to have a garden this year.  Me & mister planted 150 little seed thingies today so we can turn the front of the yard into a garden.  There are a few more things I want to get veggie-wise, but for the most part we've got everything started in their little terrariums. I'm excited about a garden. We've talked about it for years just never had a good spot for one, but he extracted some hedges last year & it gets great light now we get a garden.  Nothing tastes better than garden tomatoes or beans!

I saw the tops of my tulips & hyacinth sticking out of the ground the other morning and that makes me smile! Spring is coming...finally! 

Im going to go attempt sleep again...hopefully itll be quieter and the puppy wont have stolen my spot :-)