Now we're cooking

Okay, so I know this seems sudden, but I catered my first event yesterday. In fact, I'm so excited about it I can hardly sleep. It's actually just a few minutes after midnight.

Anywho, I learned during this event that I could really get used to this. I'll fess up that it wasn't a paying gig and the client is my mother-in-law, but her bookclub - a complete group of strangers - ate everything. They each deliberately consumed every morsel on their plates. A few even went back for seconds. That felt good. These weren't friends or family members, these were some women I'd never seen in my life, but they earnestly enjoyed the meal.

What's more important is that I enjoyed doing it. This could be the start of something good.

Wakeup Call

Something happened to me the other weekend. I took a 3-day culinary basics workshop that has ignited change. For months, I've been day dreaming about cooking on a professional level. I do enough of it in my personal life to know I like it and that others like it too. I blog about it, read about it and watch shows about it. Cooking has become my thing. Or maybe it's been my thing all along but I was too distracted by life to realize it until now.

Cooking had become so much a part of the routine that I wasn't even conscious of the joy, the peace, the excitement it brought me anymore. As soon as I became a mother, everything in my life seemed to run on autopilot. I just continued running through the steps: wake up, get ready for work, shuffle papers, head home, retrieve child, cook dinner, bath time, bed time and REPEAT. Everything was so routine, mundane and conventional, with the exception of what I was creating in the kitchen. During the summer of 2008, I became acutely aware of that fullness I was finding each night toiling over my Kenmore. It would return whenever I entertained at parties or took a dish to work.

That's when I began looking for outlets. I toured a culinary school and was consumed with longing. But alas, culinary school costs a small fortune and maybe this is just phase, right? I'd better sleep on it. I did and after standing under the tutelage of trained chefs for 3 days I'm awake!

Phase I of Backyard Oasis is Complete

I finished excavating the land that will soon hold my stone patio. I'll be heading to Lowe's within the next week to collect the necessary pavers and stuff. I'm so proud and relieved. It was some authentic hard labor that took me through a wide range of emotions.

There were good times, like when I found a wheelbarrow for 20 bucks, and when my daughter told me how happy she was making mud brownies.

Then there were the bad times when my hand was so sore from gripping that shovel it hurt to use my mouse, hold my cell phone or use them at all really. I had to put myself on a Motrin drip to keep a steady flow of ibuprofen in my blood stream.

And I'd be remissed if I didn't mention the rain! Who could forget the rain? It came down for 3 days straight, took a day off and came down for 2 more days. But I can't complain. It gave me a valid excuse to rest my weary body and ultimately softened the ground, which made today's digging almost effortless.

And for all that I dedicate this song to my project!