work

Life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness

~ thedailydish ~ 8 Comments

It’s amazing how a day away from things can give perspective. Severed from my electrical umbilical cord, I AM A WHOLE NEW PERSON. Well not really, but it did allow me to put a day’s distance between me & THE DISH.

Part of the reason I had to stay off the computer was so I wouldn’t cave. B/c part of me just doesn’t want to stop doing The Daily Dish. Day in and day out. Forever and ever. Amen. This *part* of me is stubborn. It doesn’t care about ME. It is devoted to others. Their well-being. Their welfare. Their nutritional goals. SCREW YOU, it says. I call it Utilitarian Me, after John Stuart Mill. This part of me is always super determined. Disciplined. Moral. And now. ANGRY.

It is hard giving something up. Doubly so, when a part of you reeeeaaaaalllly doesn’t want to. Even if it’s bad for you or drives you crazy or makes you smell. Which isn’t my case, really, but you catch my drift. The Daily Dish is a good thing – a great thing, even. But it isn’t good for me right now. I am already juggling too much between the website, the kitchen, and my life. And now that summer’s fast approaching, I have been spending an exorbitant amount of time stressing over how I will get everything done with BOTH daughters at home. I shouldn’t be worried about any of that. I should be thinking of all the fun we’ll be having over the next few months. The beautiful weather. The hot days full of adventures and memories and time together. Instead I am thinking about the stupid website.

My daughters are, and have always been, my first priority. I gave up my career to stay home full time and I’ve never regretted it. I should feel no obligation to maintain a website I created out of the goodness of my own heart. And yet, I do. OF COURSE YOU KNOW I DO. But WHY? When I do it for no pay and it is becoming too taxing for words, that’s a bad thing. Lately I’ve felt like a fox in a trap, wondering whether I’ll have to chew off my own leg to save myself. My urge to maintain the status quo is almost too strong for my own good.

For now, it’s necessary to take a break. The website will remain as it’s been. I am not taking it down. I have avoided even changing it from the Memorial Day page, for fear I’ll CAVE. For the past year and a half, some part of my brain, sometimes all of it, has been consumed with this website. It’s like a baby. I literally gave birth to it, and it has been my passion. Developing recipes, deciding what to make, how to make it. What to work on, what to drop. I was already crazy about food and photography, but you put them together and I AM INSANE. When I was sick, I kept going. Doing anything dizzy is not a lot of fun. But still I did it, because I felt others were counting on me. When I went on vacation, I worried about my readers. Would they be okay? Would they be cheating? I thought more about them than I did myself.

I cannot tell you how liberating it is, after all these months, to taste FREEDOM. I spent 8 hours today cleaning my house. And even though I despise cleaning, today it felt good. No website. No recipe. As I scrubbed toilets, I thought about how SPARKLING THEY WERE. As I vacuumed, I thought how wondrous a machine a vacuum is, and how glad I am to have one. As my back ached while I bent over mopping the last floor of the house, I thanked GOD that I was finished. I wasn’t preoccupied with getting THE DISH done so I could take pictures while the light was good. Or having to orchestrate cooking of THE DISH so that it would conveniently coincide w/ mealtime. I didn’t have to think about any of that. Now my house is clean. And NOT ONLY THAT. BUT my priorities are straight, and summer is almost here.

So please don’t be sad. I want you all to know that this isn’t the end – it’s really, truly, the beginning. I have the next 3 months w/ my girls. I am SO EXCITED!! We will have so much fun together, and I will be blogging here about it all, sharing everything w/ you, my friends. In the fall, my daughters will BOTH be going off to school. And then – the fun BEGINS. The start of a real adventure for me. I’ve spent the past 8 years at home, being here for my family. Loving them, taking care of them, making everyone else a priority. For good bad & or UGLY, I’ve done it all. But come September, it’s Christy Time. IT’S ALL ME. And then anything is possible. Stay tuned. B/c come what may, I promise, it’ll be fun.

WOW. I just won another contest. ROCK ON!!

~ thedailydish ~ 1 Comment

Dear Christin:

Congratulations! The recipe you submitted to our website, Stonyfield.com, was selected as a winner in our Monthly Recipe Drawing for the month of November. Your prize, a bag full of Stonyfield Farm goodies, is waiting for you! Please reply to this message with a mailing address that we may send your prize to.

We will be featuring your winning recipe on the Get Cooking Monthly Recipe Drawing section of our website and would also like to include your photo and hometown. If you would like your photo included, please send us a digital headshot of yourself when you send your address. Thank you for submitting your delicious recipe. Be sure to visit Stonyfield.com frequently to get new and updated recipes!

Best Regards,

**** ******
Marketing Coordinator
Stonyfield Farm

How one simple thank you can make a whole world of difference.

~ thedailydish ~ 3 Comments

Hellloooo there! Hey!! How’s it been? I am so glad you stopped by. You’re looking good! So, did I just hear you click through from The Daily Dish?? Oh, you did? Why that’s terrific. Wow. THANKS! I welcome you all (*big hugs*) and find it incredibly rewarding to know that there are people out there who find even me (a stay-at-home-mom with a dry sense of humor, bizarre obsession with food and weird disease) interesting enough to merit a minute away from whatever else it is you do.

But I gotta tell you people that – lately, I am just not feeling the love. Yes, I KNOW you’re all reading my site, and downloading the recipes, and spending hours pouring through my photos. But frankly, it’s just not enough. Bet you didn’t guess I have a bone to pick today. Maybe a little axe to grind? Oh, you didn’t? Well, let me explain. You may think I’m great, and I may think I’m great, and my family most certainly does, and maybe that guy who saw my daughter pull my pants down at the supermarket (true story), but I AIN’T NO MIND READER! I have been hurting, people, and no one’s been bandaging my booboos! WAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Over the past days I have become increasingly cynical – well, I’ve always been at least semi-cynical, so that’s not quite what I’m getting at, but over the past days I have noticed myself wrestling with an increased level of stress and sense of dissatisfaction with what can best be described as (if I did work outside the house) my day job. You see, apart from being a fulltime mother and jet-setting entrepreneur, I have also been writing a low sodium cookbook for the masses, which a year ago I converted to electronic format and put online gratis for all the world to see and use. Now you must trust me when I say this has been neither easy, nor fun. Well, it has been sort of fun, but in that heavy work way where you know you shouldn’t be getting paid for having so much fun, but in my case I am REALLY NOT GETTING PAID. Anyway,

I am not nor have I ever been a “computer person.” I received my very first computer of my whole life this year for my birthday – and I am 35 (UNBELIEVABLE SEXY, not haggard and exhausted) years old!!! I didn’t even have my own computer through graduate school – we were still chipping at rocks, scribbling on slate boards and using those ancient overhead projectors and microfiche – not to mention SLIDE RULES for God’s sake. But happily over the past year I have taught myself some toddler-level code and my computer skillz have slowly been improving, but it’s been a grueling uphill battle. And apart from all of the computer blahblahblah, creating all of these recipes, purchasing the food and necessary supplies, cooking them, cleaning up after them, photographing, typing everything up, proofing it, and THEN converting all of it to HTML and publishing them on a website that – although humble and modest in appearance – I built from the ground up all by myself – and all FOR FREE, is DAMN EXHAUSTING. Try doing all of this while simultaneously entertaining, educating, and generally putting up with 2 rambunctious, over-the-top female types and YOU’VE GOT YERSELF ONE FRICKIN HARD JOB!

And yet, I have taken it upon myself to do this, not only for my own fluctuating sanity, but for the betterment of mankind. And all I’m asking for in return is a little thanks. A little acclaim. Yes, I know it’s hardly rewarding when you have to beg – but I’m sore people. I feel used – like that snotty tissue no one wants to pick up cause it ain’t theirs, and so I keep getting tread into the filthy restroom floor till the bathroom cleaner has to come and scoop me up – but you know she’s wearing plastic gloves and feels totally repulsed too!

What I am trying to get at here, people, is that if you love me – tell me so. If you love me, let me know. If you love me, say you’ll stay. If you love me, don’t toss me away! I am feeling NEEDY. I am feeling underappreciated. I can’t do this forever. for no pay and no nuthin. I can get a job you know! I HAVE DEGREES PEOPLE!!!! I know how to count on my fingers – and I’m not afraid to use them. I may be raising one soon.