One Is Just A Number

For 46 years for me and 95 years for her, February 22 was just my Grandma's birthday. Yes, she shared it with George Washington, but the significance ended there. It was just Grandma's birthday. Then 11 years ago today, it became the day that X told me he wanted a divorce. It went from Grandma's birthday to one of the worst days of my life, forever marked as a terrible day to be mourned every year. But what if I turned it into just another day. I will always remember it as my Grandma's birthday, turning to fond memories of her and wishing I could still have celebrated with her these past 22 years since she's been gone, but what if it was again, just that - Grandma's birthday. Is it healthy to mark it has one of my worst days? What if it was just the thing I needed? I'm not saying that the heartbreak was a good thing but there are plenty of sayings that indicate that it is in the breaking that we are healed. What if it was the day that I was...

About a month ago, I made a trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. It is 250 miles south of the Artic Circle at  62.4540° N, 114.3718° W. That's way north. It took me 12 hours of traveling to get there. I was terrified. I'm not afraid of flying, I was afraid of going all that way by myself. Of navigating 3 airports, of finding a hotel shuttle, and visiting a new city on my own. But I did it and look at how my bravery was rewarded. I saw the Northern Lights. For the most part, I did just fine navigating by myself. I did take a wrong turn in the Calgary airport when heading to the gate and was met with locked doors and the fear of missing my plane but I took comfort in the fact that 3 other people had done the same thing. I also survived being the first on the agenda of the conference for earth science editors, the purpose for my trip to Yellowknife.  I had some of the best fish and chips of my life, twice, in this place called Bullocks' Bistro. ...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at  http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Park. This is Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. when I was in Portland for my friends' wedding, I really wanted to see the Portland Headlight but the person I was traveling with had been to Portland several times and had no desire to see it again and everyone else I knew at the wedding had left town already. So I did something out of character and called a cab, told the driver to take me to the park, and I found it myself. And I called the same driver, had him pick me up, and bought myself a nice lunch to celebrate. That simple act of calling a cab and getting to a destination on my own was so empowering. Most of the time I would have just let the fact that no one wanting to go with me keep me from doing something. I would have just taken a safe walk in a straight line ...

This is my cookbook collection, It may seem weird to talk about studying cookbooks but I want to cook more for myself. I've talked in other posts about how hard it is to cook for one person . One of the ideas I have had for this blog was to help me and others learn to cut down the number of servings of recipes and match ingredients used for one recipe to another recipe so that cooking for one isn't all about fixing one dish on Monday and eating it for the next three nights. I don't know about you but I can't eat the same thing four days in a row. So I want to study these cookbooks and find recipes that are similar but enough different that you can have variety in your diet. For example, find a recipe that calls for one can of tomatoes that you can be cut in half and then find another recipe for the next day that will use the rest of that can. I have lived on frozen dinners for awhile. Even when I was married, if my husband and I were eating dinner at different ti...

I think one of the hardest parts of being single is cooking for yourself. For a long time, I lived on frozen dinners but you can only eat those for so long. I craved made-fresh food.  I developed one recipe that I named Saturday Shrimp that is a great summer meal. And I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can get back to perfecting my steak cooked on a grill. I had a plan one summer to do this but then a burn ban in my city ruined my fun. I vow to take up the cause as soon as the temperature cooperates. Until then, pasta seems to be the easiest thing to adjust for one. The dish that I made tonight is cheese tortellini with pesto. The pasta came from the refrigerated section of my grocery store and the pesto from my freezer. At the end of the summer, I made a batch of pesto and put it into an ice cube tray until it froze then put the cubes into a freezer bag. I knew I wouldn't keep my basil plant alive through the winter (I performed last rites on it around Christma...

This dish has become a Saturday tradition for me and it makes me happy every time I eat it, (1) because it's tasty and (2) because I invented it. I've named it Saturday Shrimp and it's the simplest thing in the world to make. The ingredients are things that you can keep in your pantry and freezer so it's an easy go-to meal and it's a one-serving dish so you aren't eating it for the whole week.  Start off by boiling some water for some pasta. I use 1 cup of bow tie pasta but any shape will work. While the pasta is cooking, drizzle some olive oil in a skillet and turn the heat on. Add some red pepper flakes and garlic to the oil and cook until fragrant. The measurements of these ingredients can be to your liking - I usually do a handful of red pepper flakes and put four garlic cloves through my garlic press. Once the garlic and pepper are fragrant, add some herbs to the mix. I use fresh rosemary and oregano because that's what I have growing in my ...

I often joke that in order to hear God, I need something obvious like a burning bush. I pray and pray but I'm no good at listening. But today, God stopped me in my tracks with a song, one that came up randomly as I listened to iTunes at work. I've been feeling very low since a friend made some seemingly innocent remarks about something she'd seen on Facebook regarding X. In a few sentences, she set back my recovery to the point that I've struggled to get out of bed the past two days. With her words, she took me back to feeling worthless, unloved, hopeless, and alone. Out of 3300 songs loaded on my computer, this one played exactly when I needed to hear it. I stopped where I was in my office, my breath catching in my throat. As tears streamed down my face, I heard these words: To the one whose dreams have fallen all apart And all you're left with is a tired and broken heart I can tell by your eyes you think you're on your own But you're not al...

I’m getting better about not getting stuck on dates. I don’t dread approaching days for their significance like I did in the early years of my separation and divorce. That’s why when I realized the significance of February 13, 2013, I was surprised it hadn't dawned on me sooner and a little proud of myself that I hadn’t circled the date in black on every calendar I owned Twenty years ago on February 13, X asked me to marry him.   It was 8 months to the day of our first date and he thought, “If I give her an engagement ring on the 13 th , I bet I won’t have to buy her anything for Valentine’s Day.” We had talked about marriage but he hadn’t proposed formally. He kept telling me that he was still saving for a ring. So when we drove to the golf course where we’d shared our first kiss, I had no clue that once we climbed the fence, he would pull a black velvet box out of his coat pocket and tell me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. X and I traded emails on that ...

Happy New Year everyone! I have a good feeling about 2013! I have a tendency to think I'm not worth the trouble when it comes to cooking nice meals for myself. There's also the element of cooking for one that seems to make good meals less appealing. I decided to change that and celebrate New Year's Eve with a good meal. I had some shrimp in the freezer so I set out to find a recipe that called for shrimp and linguine. I found one on Martha Stewart's website that was for one person. Perfect! I started my meal with some dill harvati and crackers and ended it with some chocolate bread pudding. My recipe for bread pudding is perfect for one person - it makes two individual cups and the second one saves for another day very easily. I've also tripled the recipe to feed six. I wanted to share the recipes with you all and I thought photos would be nice to go with them. Please excuse the amateur quality of the photos - I'm still getting the hang of this blog thing. ...

Today I was hunting around on my company's payroll website to found out how many vacations days I have left for the year. I clicked on the link for emergency contact and there was my ex's name and beside it spouse. It started with a lump in my throat and moved up my face to tears stinging my eyes and as I sat at my desk, trying not to cry, the song playing on iTunes was Lifehouse's "From Where You Are". The chorus is I miss the years that were erased I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face I miss all the little things I never thought that they'd mean everything to me Yeah, I miss you and I wish you were here After 5 years, it's the simple things that sneak up on me and make me so incredibly sad and longing for the life I had planned.

Living on my own is an exercise in trial and error, even when it comes to a task as simple as cleaning a shower head. There's something about the water in my city that clogs my shower head frequently. Cleaning the clogs is as simple as soaking it in white vinegar but it's getting the vinegar into the tiny holes that can be tricky. I used to have a shower head that was easily removed and I could just take it off, put it in a bowl of vinegar and I'd be back to comfortable showers in no time. That one had to be replaced for a reason I can't remember and the new one is a bit trickier. The screw doesn't seem quite long enough to make putting the head back on an easy endeavor. It's like playing the game Operation with your eyes closed and tweezers made out of cooked spaghetti. The first time I did it, I was extremely lucky and it all went without a hitch. This gave me a false sense of confidence and no fear of doing the task again. The second time did not...

A couple of years ago, I had to go to Kalamazoo, Michigan on a business trip. I was less than thrilled about the destination but then I discovered that to get there I was going to need to fly through Chicago and an idea was born. I contacted some people who lived there and they offered me a place to stay so on the way back home to Oklahoma, I spent a long weekend in the Windy City. I was so nervous. Even though I was going to be with people all weekend, it felt like it was the first vacation that I'd taken on my own. As I sat on the banks of Lake Michigan after arriving safely at my friends' home and having a great lunch on my own, I felt so proud of myself. And the feeling continued the next day when I got off at the correct L stop, turned the right direction, and found my way to the Art Institute of Chicago. Basking in my new navigational skills, I found my way to Wrigley Field, walked around it, and got back on the correct train to get back to my friends' c...

On my way back to work after lunch, I encountered a detour that wasn’t there when I went to work this morning. I was so frustrated. I had to weave my way around my downtown’s one-way streets to get back to the office. Once I got to work, I realized that detour was a metaphor for my life. The path I’m on right now is not the one I would have chosen. I had a nice straight path to happily ever after planned. I did eventually get back to work and I can also get to that happily ever after once I’ve been through this detour of brokenness. And that happily ever after waiting for me could very well be so much happier than the one I had planned. However, just like my frustration in the length of time it took me to get back to work, this detour of my life is taking way longer than I would like.   I believe with all my heart the words in Jeremiah 29:11. I believe that God has plans to prosper me and not to harm me. That He plans to give me hope and a future.   It’s the timing of tho...

Today should have been my 19th wedding anniversary. Instead this is the fourth-year I'm marking this date without my husband. The end of my marriage was not of my choosing. I can't even explain really what happened, that's how far out of my hands it all feels. I know what he told me the day he said he was moving out, I have emails and notes on conversations we had after he left but I still search for the reasons why he decided he didn't want to be married anymore. I have my theories and others have offered their theories but at the end of the day, it simply comes down to this - I am on my own, trying to make a life out of the brokenness.