Etofufee

It's the little things sometimes.

I made my first roux tonight.  Actually, I should say, "we made our first roux" because I had a lot of help.

Mari was my assistant chef, and yes, she stayed and stirred almost the entire time.  She has always been the most interested in the kitchen.

That said, for most people I would not recommend your first experience with a roux be a double-barrel roux duet.  I seriously would have probably burned them both without Mari's help.

But I'm pleased to report, it worked just like it's supposed to.  Got brown and thick and chocolate-looking, and when the veggies went in there it just turned into a brown, buttery, sticky gooey mess of freaking deliciousness.

Why did I have to do two?  Well, because my wife went vegetarian a year ago...and I like a challenge.  Thanks to Ivy's Feast for the recipe idea, adjusted for our family.

Soy sausage and tofu for Steph

Chicken and Andouille for the rest of us.

Let it not be said that she hasn't tried to love it, but Steph just can't get past the texture of tofu.  I get it.  It's not my favorite, but I've made it a personal mission since she went vegetarian that I won't cook her anything I wouldn't eat myself.  

The flavor of everything was fabulous, but Steph wasn't keen on the tofu in there.  I tried it, and it really didn't seem to fit with the etouffee but it was okay.  Steph has since told me that she would be happy just loading the darn thing up with veggies - I'll do that next time.  The meaty one was great, though.  And Mari was so proud to have been such a big part of our first attempt at cajun cooking:

She even helped make dessert - a family favorite, bananas foster.  She has always loved helping cut up the bananas.

This part is my job, though:

I hate that picture.  I look like someone took my head off and then reattached it too tight.  The point is, however, if you look close you can see a little blue flame going on.

Anyway, a fun night in the kitchen.  And fun to have a child who is so interested in cooking.  There's hope for us yet.

Matt

Another day

Steph has survived the first day of school and is doing fine.  And I have survived not having a first day of school.

Have I mentioned how amazing and wonderful my wife is?  She's being so kind and patient and helping me through the maze of emotions.  There are obviously good days and bad, and while I do feel pressure to pull things together sooner rather than later, I can assure you that all that pressure is self-applied.  Steph is showing the patience of a saint in helping me deal with the loss, and I will never be able to repay her.  I know if I was forced to deal with myself, I'd have been fed up long ago.

So I'm back into the mode of keeping myself busy.  Cooked some Moroccan tonight.  Things got crazy at the end, and I'm not used to being in food blog mode, so I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but it was definitely a keeper.  Recipe can be found here:

Quick Moroccan Tagine

First time working with leeks.  Nothing to worry about.  They're kind of like giant green onions with no real flavor.  All the kids liked this meal, with the exception of Mari who simply will not accept chickpeas as the gift of heaven that they really are.  But they all loved the sauce which is great, because it was definitely exotic for them.  This one will be making more appearances at our house.

Which brings us to the next point.  I'm officially going to have to surrender my man card, because I'm starting up on Pinterest to help me keep track of recipes.  Yeah, that sentence has layers.  But seriously, I don't use cookbooks - who needs them when you have the internet?  But when I try to remember which of 25,000 spinach lasagna recipe I used 5 months ago, it's getting ridiculous.  So I need to get it all organized.  Steph will be helping me with that too.  I am not a choice cut of masculinity.  Ah well.

Progress

I am happy to report that things have calmed down since my last post.  I made it through the first assignment, and was able to find at least a couple of intelligent things to say.  I was also comforted to find out that several others in the class had the same sort of difficulties I did.  Knowing you're not alone helps quite a bit.

In the meantime, I continue to adjust to my new life.  Being back at grad school and walking around campus with all the young people makes me feel weird.  Training for a non-musical-non-teaching career feels very foreign still.  But it is making connections with enough parts of me to tell me that this is still probably the best option available, that there just may be a latent skill that I can market buried somewhere in here, and that this may be something I can enjoy.  In some ways I am glad that the classes are progressing slowly, but I also want to really have a chance to see what this is all about and stop discussing the theory.  The sooner I try my hand at the real thing, the sooner I know if I'm cut out for this.  So I'm trying to be patient.

I am also adjusting to having assignments and homework, and having 4 kids.  Time is at a premium.  And it's very hard for me to get an assignment on a Tuesday and know that I likely can't even touch it until Friday.  I am the opposite of a procrastinator.  I hate that feeling.  If it were up to me, I'd come home, get the assignment done by 3 in the morning, and relax the rest of the week.  I can't do that.  It's difficult for me.

As far as the emotional side...I've had talks with several people lately, and the fact is, I am only getting through the emotions by not thinking about any of it.  Not the healthiest way to deal with it but I'm afraid it's what I have right now.  I don't have the luxury to think about a Plan or a path.  All I can do is look straight down and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I can't look forward and I can't look back, one is too scary and one hurts too much.  All I've got is the present, and the present is actually okay right now - ironic that in previous posts I've lamented being stuck in the present.  Now it's saving me.  

I know that time heals, but I've never had to heal this big a wound.  I'm getting used to the idea that it might never actually heal, but that I'm going to simply learn to live with it.  There's a sadness that lives at the edge of my awareness and I can't see that anything is ever going to defeat that.  There was so much lost, stolen, given up...and really none of that can be replaced, ever.  Again it's funny how life has flipflopped.  I would say that teaching as a career is a collection of miserable moments that add up to feeling good about what you do.  Now, I'm entering a time of my life where the moments themselves aren't that bad at all - my day to day life is pretty pleasant.  But it's not going to add up to much.  Nothing is going to be as rewarding and satisfying as the last 13 years.  So again, I'm focusing on the moments.  The moments are all I've got.

I know this all sounds pretty grim.  Maybe it is.  All I know is that I'm managing the sadness, and I will continue to do so.  It should also be said that this blog has again become the repository for the negative feelings.  In some sense I have to vomit the sadness all over the screen here so I can function in the real world.  Exaggeration?  Hyperbole?  For sure.  But a kernel of truth.  Just accept anything you read here with a disclaimer that it's going to skew to the hopeless and is not a fair representation of my mental state at any given moment.

The fact remains, that life should be enough.  I may never again be as rewarded and as satisfied as I was previously, but I'm still alive, and that's a gift.  I will continue to try to remember that.

Matt

Someone talk me off the ledge

Oh.  My.  Lord.

It's been a long time since I've been in grad school.

Forget for the moment the fact that some punk working at the UC Bookstore called me "Sir" yesterday.

No, let's deal with the fact that I just got my first set of readings for my "Intro" class.  I read them. Or I think I did.  I remember starting them, and then there was a momentary blackness, after which I saw a stack of pages laying face down next to the page I was staring at.  I think I read them.  I really do.  But I'm not really sure what I just read.

Now.  Let's accept the fact that I'm coming from a vastly different discipline and career path than the rest of the class.  Let's accept the fact that even when reading about minutiae of musical subject matter, my head spins.  Let's accept the fact that I've never really been able to process these sentences that twist and turn and end up devouring themselves.  Accept all that and I'm still freaking OUT!

I just tried to explain it to Faith and Mari.  No, not explain the content, but explain why it was so hard.  (They think it's funny that Daddy has homework now.)  I told them that it would be like a person hearing them talk about the finer details of the various incarnations of My Little Pony throughout the years, when that person not only had never seen the show, but didn't actually even know what a TV show or even a pony was.  Then, that person would have to write 2 pages on what they had heard.

Nod and smile.  Nod and smile.

I've now had a couple drinks and am going to try again.  I have called in help from my friend who went through this program - hopefully she can provide the one thing I need right now...CONTEXT!  I am praying that things will turn slightly less academic soon - but I'm going to go down swinging either way.

Ugh.

Matt

From the GRE to Hawaiian history, all in one post!

Tomorrow I have to take the GRE again.  I'm a little nervous.  Don't get me wrong, I'm good at standardized tests and all that, I just feel a little old and I'm worried that my mind won't be as sharp as it used to be.  I just took a little mini-online practice preview - went okay, although I am TOAST on the math part.  But hopefully the writing program won't be too interested in that.

Otherwise, things continue.  The big girls are back in school now and Mari is adjusting pretty well so far to being at school all day.  She's been a little grumpy I suppose but nothing too intolerable.  Steph is gearing up for the start of her school year, and for the first time in a long time, I am not.  Friday would have been my first day at the part-time job I left.  I thought about it a couple times, but there are no regrets.

That's the one thing I think you can say about me.  I don't look back in regret.  Once a decision is made I commit to it and don't wonder about what could have been.  Doesn't mean I can't change my mind later if I think I made a mistake, but it's always about moving forward for me.  And while I consider it a strength of character, I suppose I can be a little bit extreme in my abandonment of the past.  And maybe that's a defense mechanism - I know that getting too close will hurt so I stay the hell away.  I've taken lately to, whenever I witness a poor musical performance, saying "It's not my problem anymore."  Which is a loaded statement.  On one hand, it's just my way of being flip and reminding myself that I'm something new now.  But there's some more depth to that statement.

It turns out that I had a lot more pride than I thought in being somehow 'officially' affiliated with the music world.   I have the same knowledge now that I did when I was still a music teacher, and I perform in more groups now than I did then, but somehow I now feel less qualified to speak on anything musical.  (I never really did feel qualified to speak too much about the education world, which again is telling.)  And I've never looked down on amateur musicianship or somehow felt like I was superior to anyone because of my title...and yet I feel like I have no business saying a damn thing any more when it comes to music.  I know that what happened was out of my control, but it's impossible to shake the notion that somehow I failed.  And I feel like if I go offering any opinion or advice, someone would have every right to question its worth.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's ridiculous and snobbish.  But I can't deny that it's there.

And there is also the temptation to sell the trumpet, trade the iPod for a Kindle and walk away from it for good.  But I know that's goofy and I'm taking steps to prevent that kind of attitude from taking hold.  Fact is, even though there are now times when I just prefer silence in the car, there are  an equal number of times I drive home from work, singing awfully along with a beautiful song and end up wiping tears from my eyes at the beauty and power of music.  Music is, and always will be, an addiction for me, and at the very least, a bad habit.  I can't stop.  If things ever did get to the point where I gave it up completely, I really would be killing more of me than I could ever hope to recover.  I'm not to that point yet.  There may be an awful lot of me that could do with a soul makeover...but I think there's still enough time to salvage what's there.  I'm going to keep trying.

And I'm going to keep trying my hand at creation.  A long time ago, there was a story.  As part of that story, King Kamehameha told me (don't ask, it's way too complicated) that I was not a creator.  I was a compiler, an arranger, an appreciator of what others create.  I was not an artist, I was an art critic.  I was not a composer, I was a listener.  That was my role in the universe, that was my essence, and that true happiness would be found by following that role - and that there was no shame in that role.  Of course, there was also the fact that my attempts at creation were so flawed that they endangered the very fabric of space and time.  But there are things I want to say and I'm going to keep working on ways to say them.  So far the results have been underwhelming.  But...no rips in reality yet, no temporal or spatial anomolies, so I think I'm going to keep on trying.  Maybe, just maybe, I can create something beautiful, instead of relying on others to do it for me.

We'll see.

Abort, retry, fail?

Well, never mind the added family member.

On Sunday we drove to Southern Indiana to pick up a rescue Boston Terrier.  We named him Mango and tried to integrate him with our family.  There were problems however.  He bit Hannah, bit the vet, and snapped at Robby.  Clearly this wasn't working out, so we had to take him back yesterday.

Now, only a 'dog person' can understand how I can say all that and then follow it up with "He was a sweet dog" but the fact is, he was.  He clearly wanted to please everyone.  In the days he was here he spent most of his time sitting loyally by one or another of us, or rolling over to have his belly scratched.  He was quiet as could be when he was crated, and clearly had had some degree of training before.  But he also had some previous issues and was very edgy with sudden movements or people coming up behind him.  There were extenuating circumstances behind each incident (our vet even apologized to US for what happened) but the fact remained, that this dog, sweet as he was, needed a calm, quiet house to work through his issues, and this is the one thing that we simply could not give him.  Hannah and Robby are just too young and excitable and we'd have been constantly worrying about what the dog would do.  We wanted a safe, comfortable family dog that we wouldn't have to worry about.  This was not the match we wanted.

He went back to his foster family who are wonderful, so we feel good about that.  But it was sad.  Faith especially really was very mature around him and very interested.  She'll be a good one to train the dog we eventually end up getting, whenever that is.

So, on to the next set of crises I suppose.

Matt

A few changes around here

Someone complained about the old pic, and about the color scheme, so I made a few alterations.  Probably I'll tinker with the site some more in the next few weeks but this is a good start.

The main pic is from a photo shoot we did in Hilton Head this summer.  "Can of worms" does not do justice to the act of trying to get all our kids to look in the general direction of the camera at the same time, let alone trying to get a few smiles out of them.  "Can of worms strung out on meth" maybe comes close.  So the fact that we got lucky enough to manage a few really good pics is a small miracle.

Might as well post some of the individual pics here too, because they're really good.  I'm a bad father because in the midst of this mess of my life, I haven't taken the time to pay attention to the fact that I have 4 beautiful kids.  (Admittedly part of that comes from the fact that they have not been behaving so beautifully of late...)  So for a moment let's celebrate the fact that somehow Steph and I created some adorable human beings.

Faith.  Like me, smiling on command is an awkward, unnatural process for her which produces mixed results at best.  Since I know her so well, I can tell you about this look.  Notice the eyes.  They're not really looking at the camera.  She's looking back at her siblings behind the camera, because SOMEone is getting to do something that she's not getting to do right now.  Something not fair is happening, and it's taking every ounce of self-control she has to not blurt out the injustice of it all and storm away from the camera.  God bless her, she still managed to put on a decent smile and look cute.  So....she's coming along.  Faith's obsessive concern for fairness and justice may very well lead her to a career as a superheroine.  I love her.

Mari.  Much more able to effect a natural smile.  Clearly that gene comes from Steph, not me, as witnessed by my expression in the main blog pic.  Mari has a very expressive face and I pray for the young men who may fall under its spell ten years from now.  Mari's eyes are right on the camera, because this is far more her element.  At home, she likes to put on plays and fashion shows where the strangeness of her movements is eclipsed only by her priceless sincerity.  She may look like she's doing avant-garde performance art, but in her mind it's graceful and fluid.  And with a face like that, I dare you to tell her otherwise.  I love her.

Robby.  Similar to Mari, I think he may leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake at some point.  If, that is, he can find something to talk about besides Mario.  I suppose it's my duty as a father to teach him some new subject matter that the ladies will find more interesting, but thankfully he's still very disinterested.  Robby also inherited from his father the unfortunate 'smiling when in trouble' gene.  Poor guy, it's not his fault.  I can remember the same thing.  This picture is not the best one of him, but I chose it because of that smirk.  Imagine how frustrating it is to be angry at this guy while he pulls out this look.  But still, I love him.

Oh Hannah.  Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.  She's the oddball in a family of oddballs.  I'd say she follows her own path, but that would imply some kind of direction.  She pretty much just goes.  This is her version of a smile.  We call it "Line Mouth".  Her other version of a smile is a ridiculous display of teeth which cause her eyes to squint shut...and for some reason it is usually accompanied by a 'thumbs up' which blocks the rest of her face.  So...Line Mouth works better for the pictures.  It saddens me to say that as I look into those eyes, I have no idea what they're thinking.  I haven't figured her out yet.  Other than to say she's just weird.  But I look back on the weird kids I remember from school, and most of them I thought were pretty cool.  So I think she'll be all right.  I love her.

And these guys.  Well...yeah.  This is the reason for it all.  This is the reason I get up in the morning.  I'm a lucky man.  I've got what I can only describe as a kick-ass marriage.  We should give seminars and charge lots of money to teach people what's common sense to us.  We're making it through this mess together.  And...we ARE going to make it.  I love her.  I love us.


Meanwhile....


Stay tuned for more big news.  Our family is going to be getting bigger....








(Umm, don't worry, it's not THAT!)

Note to self

Next time I make a drastic career change and decide to go back to grad school, don't wait until all the deadlines have passed to do it.  I have made things complicated by not thinking of this a couple weeks sooner.  Just trading one set of stresses for another - but these stresses are concrete and workable...and distinctly temporary.

Hard to believe that two weeks from now I'll be on my way home from my first class in around 7 years.

Not much to say tonight, exhausted from the warehouse job and have another 10-hour shift tomorrow.  Getting too old for this.  I feel like the "Time to make the donuts" guy but instead of making donuts, I'm filling boxes with construction paper.  Not as tasty...but high fiber, I guess.

Matt

Help me name this dish

I cook.

Pretty much, I'm relatively handy in the kitchen, but I can not claim to be a "composer" of meals in any way. I am an arranger.  I need a recipe.  I don't know enough yet to putter through my kitchen or wander through the produce section and have a dish assemble itself in my mind.  I'm good at recognizing a quality recipe, and I can add touches of my own to what's already there, but I just can't start from scratch.

But I'm improving.  I'm learning things.  I'm finally figuring out which ingredients I need to measure meticulously and which ones I can eyeball.  I'm learning which substitutions are acceptable in a pinch.  And I'm getting solid at the techniques I need to do all the basics.

However, this dish I sort of threw together myself a few months ago and it's become a staple.  Pretty simple.  Loads of veggies, doused liberally with olive oil and dotted with butter, roasted in the oven until they're soft and browned up.  This time I used zucchini, squash, onions, some peppers we roasted earlier in the day, some carrots, and some peas.  Broccoli would work too, or anything you like.  Throw some garlic in there too, hit it with some of Colonel De's Washington State Solar Evaporated Sea Salt, and some Italian seasoning of your choice.

Yum.

Boil up your favorite pasta, and top it with a heaping gop of the veggie mixture and some parm.

Kids love it.  Hannah even asked for some extra veggies without the spaghetti.

So, the question is - what do I call this?  I want something catchy, more exciting than "Veggie Spaghetti".  Any suggestions?  I'll give you a writing credit....

Resolution

I have been on a series of wild mood swings.  Understandable, of course, but it's time to grab that pendulum and pull it to the center.  I'm determined to stop being such a pain to deal with.  I am blessed with a wonderful wife who will support me to the ends of the earth, and she'd never dream of showing her frustration, but I know all this is wearing on her.  It's time to stop letting the things that are out of my control continue to affect the things I can control - being a good husband and father.

I love you, Steph.  I'm taking charge of my moods and giving up the simpering and whimpering.  What the hell good does it do to turn a corner and start down a new road if I'm still looking back?  I've been taking advantage of the fact that you'll always listen to my wallowing. Just because you'd listen to it as long as I need it doesn't mean I should keep expecting it of you.  Please understand that I'm cracking down on my own whining, not because you can't handle it, but because I just can't stand to do this to you any more.  Our old life is gone, but there's a new one ahead, and it's time for me to embrace it and let it start, for the love.

My issues have gotten ridiculous.  You've waited over a year for my life to come together.  I can't make you wait another day.  I want to give you something good to talk about.  The new me starts now.

Matt