Happy Holidays and sorry for dropping off the planet…

I wanted to say something. I wanted to give you all a reason as to why you haven’t seen hide nor hair of me for over a month. There isn’t really one reason, it’s been more of a conglomeration of joys and sorrows that are part of any life. For those of you who just come here to bake and don’t give a damn about my personal life please move on or brace yourself for more than you probably ever wanted to know about me.  

I was sick as you may know, but then the Holidays came. I’m a FREAK for Christmas and had to decorate the house, and bake, and shop for a present for my Mom, and…. Well, you get the idea.

But wait, there’s more… I dropped my camera. I swear, I started balling. I can’t remember when exactly this happened. I was taking a picture of something for the blog and I don’t have a proper tripod (stupid me bought one from this guy for $15 but it didn’t have the plate that’s supposed to be the middle-man between the camera and the tripod). I foolishly left the camera perched on the tripod  and started to move it and the camera came tumbling off hitting the ground. Initially I gasped a sigh of relief because it powered up. BUT, the lens wouldn’t move – I couldn’t zoom in or out, it was stuck. I started crying. I couldn’t/can’t afford to buy a new camera and this is my last ditch effort to try and make a career for myself before resigning the rest of my life to Seven Eleven. But the end of the day I had had a couple of glasses of wine which gave me the courage to do the unthinkable… I twisted the heck out of the lens. Thankfully it worked and the camera seems ok now, but I was kind of thrown for a loop.

This gets to something else. Money. I’m sure most, if not all, of you out there are probably experiencing the same thing. I was laid off in 2003. I was a QA Engineer for a software company and haven’t been able to find a proper job since. This whole situation sucks big time and nearly every second of every day I’m trying to come up with some “get a working poor’s wage quick” scheme. I wanted to have a good holiday and just tried not to think about it too much…until after Christmas. Well, it’s after Christmas. Blogging is the only way I know how to try and get some kind of income coming in, and at the very least it’s something I can put on my resume.

Then of course, there’s the washer. While trying not to think about my dismal financial situation our washer stopped draining. It works, but apparently the pump motor gave up trying to drain the water out since there was a gi-normous ball of lint stuck in it. Yep, because of said dismal financial situation, I took it upon myself to personally take apart the washer AND the pump motor (since calling a repair person would give me a heart attack). I took the motor out twice, or was it three times? I can’t remember. All I know is the first time was with a screwdriver, but thankfully every time after that I had a electric screwdriver which made things go a bit quicker. Things didn’t go any drier though and I got lots of water all over the place drainging the machine by hand. Because my clothes had been sitting in dirty water for three days, I ended up having to wash them three more times before they smelled right. I’m happy to report that I was able to buy a new pump off of ebay for the bargain price of about $56 including shipping. I feel like I’m getting a deal because a new one from a appliance part shop is a minimum of $117. One thing good about this whole experience is that it’s given me more confidence in myself that I can probably fix just about anything around the house if given the proper instructions – THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!

Lastly, another emotional thing that I have been dealing with ever since September is the death of my Grandfather. I’m not sure when exactly we found out, but he had cancer in his back and he passed away on September 16th. Here’s what I wrote in my journal on August 7th,

Today’s baking agenda included Caneles, Pecan Sandies, and a Babka. I’ve gone through over half of my butter already.

I’m baking all of this stuff because my Grandfather is dying.

I’m writing all of this and I can feel the strained non-emotion radiating in each simple, “just the facts ma’am” statements.

I can’t afford to be sad right now. I can’t be sad. I have to hold it together; I can’t express the tempest inside.

This journal is supposed to be about my baking odyssey and this is how it starts. My Grandfather is dying and the only thing I feel I can do for him is…bake.

There’s so much lost between us, but there’s still a part of me that knows a part of him and the only way I know how to connect those parts is through a trail of cookies, pies, and babka.

This is the one and only positive male experience, the only positive father figure I’ve ever had in my life, growing up never really knowing the father I last saw when I was eight and am two years glad to be rid of the abusive stepfather who replaced him.

There was window of time when the relationship and the foundation of things I still try to cling to within myself bloomed between my Grandfather and I.

Thankfully my Mother made my Grandparents an important part of my life and I can remember their presence from the beginning of my memory.

My parents lost their house when I was three and we moved in with my Grandparents. My Mother divorced my father when I was five. I really don’t remember anything of him. According to my Mother he was a kind, beautiful person who was destroyed by alcoholism. To me he was just a shadow, or something that you can’t quite see in your peripheral vision. His absence was never really felt until recently – funny, it took almost 30 years for the loss to surface but it finally did.

All of that is besides the point. The point is that time when our lives were in upheaval the things I do remember were good ones and they were largely in part due to my relationship with my Grandparents, especially my Grandfather.

So that is what I’ve had rolling around in my noggin for the last couple of months. Other than baking, I never did end up having a good talk with him. There was a lot more going on with my Aunts and other family crap which got in the way a bit, but the fact of the matter is I wasn’t that little eight year old girl he last saw when I moved away. And a two week visit here and there doesn’t connect the dots of our lives. So much had happened that he didn’t know about, that I wouldn’t even want him to know about, but I just didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. I baked instead.

All of these worries I’ve been trying to hold together in my head and still have a nice holiday. I just stayed away from my computer and I’m sorry to any loyal readers out there. I hope you all had a great holiday and will have a wonderful new year.

Oh, and the pic is of my Grandfather and me a long time ago, practically in a galaxy far, far away…

Tagged as: Why I Bake