A Mighty Day.

Omg I did so much.

A little context: I just went on a week-long family vacation to rural Vermont.  (A little more context: Hello!  It’s been a while, Reader!  I took a break from writing because I have a medical condition called Doing Too Much, which has overlapped nicely with the more broad environment known as 

Me for like...a month.

The Current State of the World, and basically I haven’t had it in me for a while.  Vacation helps.)   We are not from Vermont, no one of the clan lives in Vermont, but we have been going there for the last three years and probably will continue to do so for as long as possible.  More on that another day.

Anyway, a week’s vacation is, to me, a long one.  Especially to be away the whole time, not just off work and on your couch in your slobbiest clothes, deciding not to vacuum.  Being away is marvelous, but coming home is a bittersweet joy.  On the one hand, you get to be home—the way I feel when I get off a plane in my home airport is indescribable.  Probably related to the rampant, soul searing, mystical confrontation with my mortality I have every time I get on an airplane, but also related to just being home.  It smells like home.  The strangers on the train look like home.  The traffic sucks like home.  And then when I get home home, I get to be covered in cats, slobbing it on the couch, deciding not to vacuum. 

This is not what it feels like.

On the other hand, your house is a wreck, the cats have peed outside the litter box, there is a laundry situation, and you have to go back to your regular life.

Additionally, if you have recently become obsessed with fermenting things and how their consumption affects your interior ecology, you also have a lot of chores to do—immediately.  Kefir and ginger bug have been resting in the fridge for a week and need some food, warmer temperatures, and quality time being sung to and told how much you missed them.  Kombucha is past due.  Pickles are almost gone- and those take 3-6 weeks (oops).

So I got right to it the morning after I got back at the brisk, efficient hour of noon-thirty.  I had a warm breakfast of ”Oh my god I am too fat to live after last week and will never be hungry again” 

You should take one.  Probably two.
In case of emergency. 

and coffee.  (This is not about how I literally don’t fit in the pants I took with me anymore and am feeling sad about it, this is my body revolting after I needed to try every dessert, every meal, for 7 days straight.  Did you know breakfast can have a dessert course?  Like, separate from and in addition to crème brulee french toast or pancakes with Vermont maple syrup?  It can.  It did.  I regret nothing.  But I wasn’t hungry the morning after I got back.)  (Also having to prepare my own meals again is bullshit.)

I took a look around and decided to make a list.  I am a human being that loves lists.  You may have noticed, Reader: I love tasks, activities, and projects.  I am also flighty and will forget what I am doing right in the middle of doing it.  Real talk, I have to leave the house three times every time I leave the house because I left something silly like my shoes inside.  So, lists. 

I missed you so much,
you tiny Monster!!

My list was mostly centered on getting the household back in swing again, by which I mean taking care of my cats, my ferments, and (ugh) if I’m feeling ambitious, maybe some of that dumb stupid useless terrible laundry.

It is worth noting at this point that I have an avoidance streak of significant proportions when it comes to laundry.  I avoid laundry like people avoid their ex’s wedding.  If I start a load, I leave it forever.  If by some miracle it gets dried, the dried heap moves to the bedroom floor until “Andy” notices mice have moved into it.  I re-wear clothes like cat hair is fashion forward.  I own one thousand pieces of underwear, because being out of clean underwear is the nonnegotiable point of “FINE I will do this DUMB CHORE that takes, literally, ONLY MOMENTS of actual activity to get done; the world is terrible.” 

How I feel about laundry.

Anyway, I get started on not-the-laundry.  I bring my ferments back online, and get them chugging along happily.   I have gotten good at making and consuming kefir every day, (huzzah!!) but there’s a caveat in there.  If kefir sits too long at too warm a temp, it curdles past where you want to drink it.  This happens…often.  I guess my

My breakfast's not weird,
your breakfast is weird.

 kitchen is just too warm for the 24 hour cycle that kefir seeds are supposed to be on.  I have come up with a solution to this though—I just strain out the curds from the whey and make weird tangy farmer’s cheese out of it.  Add some honey and fruit if you’re feeling sweet, some garlic and salt if you’re feeling savory, but it’s yummy and I don’t have to just throw away the overfermented stuff staring at me accusingly from the jar. 

I make more tea for kombucha, and even go back through the fallen soldiers living lonely forgotten lives in my fridge.  I like to make kombucha more than I like to drink it, is the problem.  (Will this slow me down from making kombucha?  No it will not.)  

It's fine.

So I have jars that I have flavored, done the second ferment for, then not finished drinking.  Well, I restrain those suckers and taste them—and a month in the fridge has not done them wrong.  They’re delicious, and now I have remembered that they exist and even consolidated them into appropriately-sized mason jars.  (“Andy” is constantly fighting for real estate in our fridge full of mason jars and tupperware projects of every size.)

I start a new batch of pickled carrots, and start to dream of sauerkraut.  I even get a little swagger and decide to make ginger beer.

This is my third batch of ginger beer.  The first one was terrible—just…real bad.  I did something wrong.  Anyway, I was more precise the second time, and it turned out great.  It only takes a few days to make, and it keeps forever in the fridge, so I’ve been looking forward to the third batch.  I got a little fancy with the flavor this time—does cinnamon go with ginger?  Does basil?  Is the lemon juice that every recipe calls for really that important?  Is this casual relationship with recipes why the first batch was so bad?  We’ll see in a few days!

THEN I decide to be a stupid adult person who can totally absolutely handle her life like stupid adults do and do some stupid laundry.  Not unrelated, other people have also just come back from our week-

"Seriously can you please just get that started?
Please? Please."

long vacation and have their own interest in the washer and dryer and have been watching me doing not-laundry all afternoon, and have subtle and persuasive ways of getting me to actually do the thing.  

This feels like betrayal but only because I am, emotionally, an infant. 

I also get a little ballsy about it and unpack, an achievement that usually takes until the next time I need my luggage, and while I’m at it clean the bathroom.  I am basically a super hero.

If this image is unfamiliar to you, do yourself a favor and spend your time and money here.

Then—THEN, Reader—I did the unthinkable, and went to the grocery store. 

ALDI 4 LIFE!!

Going to the grocery store is a feat that usually requires 48-72 hours of mental preparation to achieve.  I don’t hate the store, and I don’t hate shopping, I just hate going.  Specifically, I won’t go to the grocery store unless 1) it is on my way home from work and I have worked it into the plan of my day far in advance, or 2) it is the Event of My Morning on a non-work day, that I have been working myself up to ever since I ran out of basic staples like eggs, usually at least a week before the actual trip.

This situation has not improved since moving in with “Andy”.  I mean, my food security has—“Andy” is that rarest of creatures who will leave the house after getting in from work, say at 7 pm, like it’s nothing, just for milk.  He will happily run out to get ice cream if he has a particular craving, whereas I have been known to spread peanut butter on a cheese stick for dinner because that’s what we have and it’s better than leaving the house.  If he is reading this right now, he is retching just thinking about it, and probably on his way to the store just in case to avoid the chance of encountering such a display in person, or even knowing it could occur in the house where he sleeps.  So he keeps us in our staples, and I go to the store less.

Who am I?  Am I Rihanna?
(I will keep sharing her until you love her as I love her.)

But that day—I just went.  In the evening.  Unplanned.  Because I wanted to make more pickles, and also I need lunches for work next week, and while I’m at it I can go ahead and get the cat food stuff even though this is not the last possible moment before they starve, and basically I don’t know who I am any more.

And when I got home, Reader, I ACTUALLY DID the things I went to the store to get things for.  Again, I love projects—I think we all know this by now.  But usually actually leaving the house to drive the seven minutes to the store and back is so much of a mental event, I’m done.  But not this time!  This time I got home, made sauerkraut, set up pickled snow peas (yeah, I don’t know either, but it seemed like a good idea), and then even made salad dressing in advance!

My salad is like that.

I have been taking salads in for lunch for the past month.  Not to brag, but I make a mighty salad.  My salads are next level.  But they take a while to make in the morning, and it has taken me right up til today to think of making the dressing in advance so I can save time in the morning.  I am a very smart person.

I even helped make dinner, and got started writing this sweet love letter to you, dear Reader.  It was a mighty day.

"Andy" just reminded me to finish my laundry.