Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Great Brain Dump

Try hard not to notice that I haven't posted on this poor little blog for an entire month. If you are wondering where I've been, let me give you a few key words to fill in the gaps:

Reflections

Strep Throat

Cooking on TV twice

Primary

Those words don't seem like much, but they are potent ones. First of all, never ever let me sign up to do Reflections for the PTA ever again. In fact, I may never do another PTA job after that one. It's a great job for an altruistic person who has loads of time to devote to tedium and paperwork and phone calls. Obviously not me.

Secondly, I never knew strep throat could feel like the flu. It does. I was in bed for four days and felt terrible for four more, and I finally got a call from the doctor's office yesterday saying, "Oh, by the way, you need antibiotics." Ah, gee, really?

Cooking on TV is actually very fun for me to do. But it takes a lot of time, a lot of planning, and a lot of cooking beforehand to pull it off. You have to make sure your cute dishes are clean, you have to get your cute apron ready, trust me, there's loads to do. And doing it two weeks back to back is definitely an exercise in committment to your hobby.

I just got called into the Primary Presidency in my ward after being the music chorister for two and a half years. That's a lot of Primary. But I have some new jobs and projects I have to do for that and my brain is full. I'm ready for a brain dump, but I have misplaced my brain handler's manual.

And the fact that I have been writing on my other food blog as well has really taken a toll on my creativity and my ability to string words together without using the words "simmer" and "mix well."

I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine yesterday and we were both talking about our super busy lives and how we are rapidly approaching addiction terms with our need to finish projects and be productive all the time. The mental clutter is overwhelming. I had a thought and told her that maybe this is the only way the adversary can get to us. He knows we aren't going to look at porn or do hard drugs. He knows we won't quit going to church and we'll be kind and loving to our families. The only way he can distract us is with the busyness. The constant strain on our abilities wears us down and makes our spirits dull and lifeless.

Today I have four things on my to-do list and none of them involve watching a movie with my children or taking a nap or starting that new Dan Brown book. It's supposed to snow here today and I love to watch it snow. I don't know why. I hate to shovel it, I hate to drive in it, and I hate to dress for it. But I love to watch it come down, in any case. Today may be the day for the great brain dump.