On Cooking, Accountability, and Being Forgotten

You know what magazine I love?  Despite the fact that it is a 40 page advertisement that shows up quarterly?  The Kraft Canada What's Cooking magazine.  I positively salivate when I know that it will soon be arriving, and I will have another 40 pages of not-so-good-for-you-but-oh-so-delicious-and-freaking-simple recipes will soon be showing up in my mailbox.  Besides, when I'm trying to cook at home more, Kraft makes this waaaaay easier.
To go with this, I have been spending the last few months uploading pictures of my dinner to Facebook.  When I make something new, and to prove that I'm eating at home, I take a picture or 2 of dinner and upload it so that my friend Scott knows that I have cooked again that day.  After giving me a hard time for going to the grocery store and then eating dinner out, I started posting pictures to make a point that we do eat at home.  Now, it's as much for me as for anyone else.  Accountability that makes me giggle is always effective.  So, if you're my friend on Facebook, you often know when I've made something new...but I've been a little lax recently.  I don't think I got the burritos last week...or the asparagus and snap pea stir fry earlier this week.
I subscribed to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food for 5 years, and I make a ton of stuff out of those too, but when I want something quick, tasty, and disgustingly simple, Kraft wins, hands down. Case in point:  tonight's dinner.  I made a crockpot lasagne that took me maybe 20 minutes to throw together, the longest part of it being the browning of the ground beef.  Likewise, when I don't know what to make, the Kraft Mexican Bake Thing is an easy go to recipe.  "Bake Thing" not being the actual name, but the name by which it is known here on the mountain.  It's the only reason I keep a case of Kraft Dinner in the house.
So as I have been getting ready for hosting a wedding shower in June, I started looking for fun, easy desserts in my back issues of What's Cooking.  It was then that I realized that I hadn't received an issue since the Holiday '10 issue with the Toblerone Cheesecake on the cover.
I started searching the Kraft Canada website - had the decided to get rid of my favourite advertisement?  Apparently not, seeing as I could see the cover of the Spring '11 issue, and flip through the digital issue.  In poking around, I discovered that Kraft is "not taking new subscriptions at this time."  But where was my issue???
I was home today, with a Dr.'s appointment smack dab in the middle of the day (I'm fine - just in case you wanted to know, and no, I'm not pregnant) so I decided to phone Kraft and ask politely where my magazine is.
Ready for this?  I was removed from the mailing list for a reason no one can explain.  Um, what?   But it's one of the few things I enjoy receiving in the mail!  So the girl went to see what she could do.  Happily, she readded me to the list.  But I might miss 2 issues...which she's going to make sure get sent to me. 
I'm so happy!  Having stopped my subscription to Everyday Food, this is really my only new source of recipes.  As I cross things off my list (the goal is always to make at least 3 new recipes out of each magazine.  I make a list that is constantly updated so that I know what I want to make.), it's nice to know that there will be magazines and recipes to crowd out the other favourites in my repertoire.
It's the little things, really.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Osteopathy had made me realize something.  I didn't think particularly hard when I decided to become a teacher.  I mean, a music degree in education really qualifies you for little to nothing else, but I'm not sure I truly thought this through. 
There are a lot of cool jobs out there.  Perhaps it's the time of year, or that I'm just *really* tired, but I'm wondering why I didn't consider "gold digger" or "slot jockey" as a viable career option.  Perhaps it's the fact that my husband is unemployed and unable to collect benefits because he's an immigrant that makes me think that he's considering new options and so should I.
It's been a hard couple of weeks at school.  It's that time of year when kids brains turn to thoughts of summer and they become stupid.  Suspensions rise, productivity decreases, and my office becomes a hopping place.  I feel like I've been going non-stop for the past little bit, and we still have 2 months left.  Don't get me wrong.  I do love my job.  It's challenging and always changing, and I get to work with some great kids.  I just sometimes think that there should be more than what I'm doing.
Recently, I've been wondering what I could do from home.  I would love to do something creative.  I would like to do something that allows me to direct my time a little more.  I would like to do something that doesn't make me think, "REALLY?  I went to university and beyond so that I could reason with a defiant and mentally ill child/ explain to a parent why they should call the police over what happened last evening after school and off school property/ convince a staff member why they can't say that over the PA in front of their class."
I actually said to a staff member when she asked me what I wanted to do today "get in my car and go home."  And I meant it.  It's not a good scene.
J and I are working on what he's going to do next, and how I fit into it.  For now, I'll be staying where I am.  But I may be dreaming of becoming the next Etsy mogul.

While it Smacks of Sham...

So I've been going to an osteopath.  It makes me question why I chose my current career path.  Let me explain.
Back in the winter, around the same time that my blood pressure went all wonky, I realized that I was walking around the school with no neck.  Literally, my shoulders were up around my ears and I was walking like Lurch.  It was so wrong.  I spent time visualizing length in my spine and consciously lowering my shoulders; and complaining to the kindergarten teacher about how I felt.  She suggested that I make an appointment with her osteopath, who is part way between work and my house.
"Just go with it,"  she said.  "There's something about it that just makes you wonder."
So at the beginning of February I made an appointment.  Essentially, I went, laid on a table fully clothed, and closed my eyes as the osteo took the temperature of my feet before working her way up and down me with a pressure that wasn't as deep as a massage. When she was done, she said in a calm, soothing voice, "I'll leave you for a few minutes to let the patterns settle."  Um...okay...this is when I began to wonder about what I'd really gotten myself into.

I went back to work and talked to the kindergarten teacher again about how I wasn't really sure about what had happened, and how I felt better (maybe), but wasn't really sure.
"Just go with it," she said.  "It makes no sense, but keep trying."

So I went back in March.  And wondered why I was there.
In April, I went to my next appointment.  I'd been suffering with congestion and mysterious bug bites on my legs (which have since been diagnosed as a minor case of shingles).  I told her about the bites, but didn't mention my nightly congestion.  It didn't occur to me that it was at all important.
I laid down on the table, closed my eyes, and let her go to work.  She spent a lot of time working my outer thighs.  At the end of the session, after the patterns had settled, the osteo said to me, "You're really congested!  I could feel it in your system."  I explained that yes, I was, and that I usually stuffed up in the evening and then didn't sleep well because of the snoring.  She said, "I spent a lot of time releasing your sinuses.  See how you do this evening."
Releasing my sinuses?  Riiight.  Yet, that was the first night that I didn't stuff up and sleep poorly in weeks.
I'm going back in May.