Baking is My Outlet

I've been on a baking/cooking jag again.  Yesterday alone I made beef stew, granola bars, and homemade biscuits.  In the past week, I've also made zucchini bread, pizza, roast chicken, chocolate oil cake with super fudgy frosting, and snack mix.  

Hubs thanked me for all the cooking I've been doing.  I told him I wasn't cooking, I was sublimating - wherein you 'divert the energy associated with (an unacceptable impulse or drive) into an acceptable activity'.  (I also told him that's what he gets for marrying a former psych major, a woman who uses words like 'sublimate'.)  

Basically, when I feel like there isn't anything I can control, I bake instead of running through the streets naked.  Screaming.  And on fire.  You know, or choking the shit out of a slew of idiots who desperately deserve it.  Or drinking.  Who knew the world would turn into such a raging shitball after I quit drinking?  

Of course, alcohol doesn't solve the problems, it just mutes them for a while.  And while doing so, it causes a whole range of other problems.  So, no, I won't go back to drinking.  Occasionally, I just long for the days of utterly blanking out when things got shitty.

Hubs has suggested that perhaps I should open my own bakery.  Umm, no.  Oh, I've thought about it.  Then I think about the long days, the slim margins, the overwhelming number of government officials who would be all up in my bidness, and all the joy goes out of the idea.  Also, I remember the time my mom worked in a doughnut shop and how much she hated it.  The smell of deep-frying still gives her flashbacks, I think.  

Nah, baking is my outlet.  Why ruin that?  Sure, it'd be cool to have someone pay me for the effort, but like writing, I don't see that happening in any major way.  I bake stuff.  If I have extra, I give it away.  Hubs eats most of it.  Lucky for him, he has the metabolism to eat it and not blow up like a fat-filled balloon.  If I ate as much of my baked goods as he does, I guaran-damn-tee that I would be HUGE.  

So, if you don't see me on the news after having snapped and taken out 2/3rds of DC, thank the cakes, the breads, the rolls, the biscuits, the pizzas, the stews, the soups, etc.  (Not pies.  I'm bad at pie.  Darn it.)

Thursday This n That

Yeah, it's early (even post time change) and I'm writing this now rather than having set it up beforehand.  So, here I am, after only a few sips of coffee and one cigarette.  Be warned.

:eyeroll: :facepalm: :headdesk:  I just saw a post to one of the book marketing groups on FB.  It went along the lines of 'can someone help me find a publisher or an agent or both or is there a difference?'  I felt bad for her and I thought about commenting that she needed to spend way more time researching the industry before thinking about agents or publishing, but I know how that would go.  I'd say something and I'd be the bitch.  I don't need that kind of crap in my life.  Educate thyself.

Actually that last bit is good advice no matter what you're doing.  The internet holds a wealth of information.  Sure, a lot of it is crap, but there are a lot of good places to educate yourself, too.  Hell, Hubs taught himself how to plumb this house and then did it.  Now, he was already pretty handy, but you can do stuff like that, too.  And a lot of it is free.  Just set your buns down and put in the time to learn what you want to know but don't.

Don't get me started on COVID-19.  We'd be here all day.  Suffice it to say, I had an interesting conversation with a stock dude at Wallyworld yesterday.  He got yelled at by someone for being out of hand sanitizer.  As soon as he puts it on the shelves, it's gone.  It's not his fault - it's the fault of panicky, misinformed people.  And when I got over to the TP shelves, they were nearly empty.  I managed to get a 6-roll pack - cuz, like, I needed TP - but it wasn't my brand.  Bottled water, on the other hand, had full shelves.  Now that I think about it, the cold medicine shelves were full, too.  I didn't think to look at the Kleenex stock.  It's getting ludicrous out there, folks.  Everyone needs to chill out.  And educate themselves from somewhere other than the main-stream media and Twitter.

Speaking of which, I posted about the TP thing on Facebook.  My niece in Virginia replied that her store was also out of cleaning supplies, and she wondered whether people were just now thinking about cleaning their homes.  Personally, as a matter of course, I have enough cleaning supplies already in my house on any given day to clean for weeks.  When I get low on anything, I buy a backup.  I ended up buying enough groceries for a couple weeks - not because of COVID-19, but because I don't want to have to deal with the Wallyworld again any time soon.

Anyway, enough about that.  They've finally started mowing the cow pastures again.  I hope they'll be putting cows back in there.  They removed the cows after that horrible dry summer a couple years ago.  I miss seeing cows on my walks.  The local hawks are jazzed about the mowing.  They've been really circling those mowed fields.  The shorter grasses have to make hunting easier, so I don't blame them.

It's nearly Spring and Randy Roadrunner his singing his sad-puppy song of love again.  Yes, the roadrunner has a mating call that sounds like a puppy crying.  There's now a roadrunner hanging out at my bank.  I call him Rudy.  Not sure if that one is actually male, though.  I haven't learned how to differentiate genders on roadrunners yet. 

The way to tell the difference between a male pileated woodpecker and a female one is by the facial stripe.  Males have red in black and females are all black.  I know you guys really had a burning need to know that one. 

And one cup of coffee and three cigarettes later, that's it for me.  I'll be here all week, folks, and don't forget to tip your waitress.