Monday, September 9 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning everyone! It's so dark in the mornings now. With all the rain clouds still hiding the morning sun, it feels like I woke up in the middle of the night, and it's making me want to crawl back into bed for a few more hours, even after finishing this coffee. But little does my body know that it's actually 7 AM on Monday morning, and it's time to roll.

Last night, I tried to make pea soup. It was also cold and drizzly yesterday, and I pictured us sitting on the back porch under the umbrella - maybe under a few blankets - eating hot pea soup. But that never happened, I sort of botched the recipe. For some reason, the peas cooked, but they never dissolved into a puree, even after boiling the hell out of them for the last half hour. I finally declared the recipe edible by 8 PM, but by then I had already lost my temper and we didn't feel like eating outside.

I lost my temper. Still trying to figure that out. I stopped keeping an anger journal a few months ago because I was pretty satisfied with the revelation that I lack patience, and that leads to outburts, but I decided that just knowing the problem is isn't enough to fix it. I need to practice. So I created an "Anger" section in my notes and kicked things off with the great Sunday night pea soup meltdown.

After dinner, I hung out with Marissa in the dining room while she put the finishing touches on some pieces. Today she's sending a bunch of her paintings to be put on display at a restaurant in Rochester. Our dining room looks like a very compact art gallery - all the finished pieces propped up on display.

I tried working on some code. I wanted to play around with setting up a server in google cloud, but google cloud was being stupid, and after getting all wound up over dinner I knew I wouldn't have the patience to deal with it, so I shut the laptop and just decided to binge some cooking videos on YouTube. And I'm glad I did - I picked up a lot of good tips and recipes I'd like to try, including a bacon & asparagus dutch baby. Oh yeah, you heard me right. This is a dangerous for our family. Once we make a savory dutch baby, that opens a door into a universe where we eat several dutch babies per day. In the morning we'll eat a classic breakfast dutch baby, then for lunch maybe a pizza calzone version, and then for dinner, maybe a rustic french style hunter's trilogy dutch baby. Of course we'd make another dutch baby just before bed as a snack. Of course I kid. Tonight we're going to try out this asparagus bacon version. It doesn't get coated in powdered sugar, so it plates up more like a puffy quiche, and that's not a very controversial choice for dinner, is it?

Sip. We're going on four days without a coffee maker. We're scraping by with the french press, but I've forgotten how cold and gritty it gets toward the bottom. Additionally, prepping a french press before going to bed is much less satisfying then prepping a coffee maker.

So what else is going on. Ah, I'm on ticket duty this week. I'm mentally revving up to be very attentive and proactive with helping people today. Which is good, I have some podcasts to catch up on, and that makes the day go by pretty quickly. I haven't checked in on my regular podcasts in a while, but I ran out of music to listen to and feel like changing things up. Last night while doing the dishes I listened to Uhh Yeah Dude. I like the podcasts that are loyal to a certain format, because when you pick them up again it feels like you never left.

Man, this morning I feel like I'm really squeezing my brain to get the words out. I guess I'm having kind of a mentally quiet morning. And that's OK, there's a time and a place for every way you feel. Maybe you're having a quiet morning too, and this morning you don't feel like bursting through the doors at work with a big smile on your face like you're running for office or something. Maybe it's the kind of morning where you'll just grab a cup of coffee, get under a pair of headphones, and get to work until lunch.

No matter how you feel this morning, I hope you have a good day. If you're with me and you're feeling quiet, let's use the time to mentally charge up and reflect. Hope you all have a wonderful Monday morning.