2011 Musings

I haven't written for quite some time - a whole 8 days, to be exact, which is possibly a record in the blog's 4 year history. Partially, I haven't posted for holiday-flurry related reasons - I've been cooking, naturally, but also utterly absorbed in finding the (hopefully) perfect present for everyone, organizing holiday events at work, and mailing 40+ work-related holiday cards in addition to holiday cards for our family and friends, that I haven't found a spare moment to actually write about everything we've been cooking!

Also, I've been giving quite a bit of thought to the direction of the blog - after over 4 years of publication, it seems natural that the blog would experience a sort of self-reflection period, a blog's mid-life crisis, if you will. The blog received a bit of a design update, and the theme evolved a wee bit to encompass both health and nutrition information and personal antidotes from the perspective of two medical providers (who also happen to consider themselves all-around spontaneous, creative, passionate, arty, philosophical individuals). In the coming months, I intend to explore the personal aspect a bit more. Never fear, I have not suddenly decided to dissolve the blog into a confessionalistic, sensationalist memoir or a public diary of teenage-esque angst. But I will admit in print that the other, very small reason I haven't written recently is that I've simply found myself without something to say. Certainly not without recipes to share, but without the stories I'm usually aching to tell. I've always considered this a text-focused blog, the creative outlet of a writer and amateur chef with a fondness for self-deprecating humor and dry sarcasm. Years ago I used to write poetry incessantly, documenting an unceasing, unconscious flood of words - sometimes creating poems of ghastly poor quality, which should never be known to anyone else except myself and my pencil, and sometimes creating actual, respectable verses. And then I stopped, suddenly, the inspiration somehow vanished from my brain and my fingertips as abruptly as it arrived years ago. Now, amidst the unceasing hours I log in front of a computer at work, amidst all the chores and projects that await me outside of work, I fear my last vestige of art, my humble blog prose, threatens to slip away from me as well.

I'm still not certain what I will write about tomorrow, or the next day, but I know I will continue cooking... and reading nutrition journals... and I continue to desire to share both of those with you. Some days, perhaps, my words will be brief and plain, but I take comfort in the counsel I have read that advises to keep blog posts short and to the point anyway (a guideline I've always tended to disregard, perhaps unwisely). Some days, I hope to share more of our lives with you, through words and through my (very) basic photography. And always, we're creating new recipes, continually reinventing in the kitchen... and in every aspect of our lives.