KirstenL4W

I’ve written a couple of times before about my desire to be crafty and creative, but the perfectionist in me has a hard time starting anything because it has to be absolutely perfect, and if I doubt my abilities at all, well, nothing gets done. If I am able to get a vision in my head of what I want to do, I get this major block between planning and execution of the idea. I use far too much restraint. I am unable to just let go and CREATE. As a result, well, there are no results. I don’t do anything except pine away for the unabashed creativity that I wish I had.

Last week I had a total Eureka! moment. I’ll pick up a paint by numbers kit! Yeah, that’s the ticket. I like the retro feel that a lot of them can have, and I do like painting, especially detail. Even when painting a room in my house, the most tedious part for most people is the most soothing part for me - edging in around all the windows and such. Saturday I ventured out to the craft store and came home with this kit. Hey, I’ve collected dolphin paraphernalia for quite some time now, so why not start with dolphins?

I’m enjoying it so far. It appeals to my creative side - to be able to make something and work with paint. It also appeals to my perfectionist side by providing lots of lines to stay inside. My mom can probably confirm that I was the only 4 year old alive who didn’t have a single crayon mark outside the lines in my coloring books. So this paint by numbers hobby seems like a pretty good match for me. Plus, it might be just what I need to segway into trying to actually create something on canvas.

When I’m done, I’ll post a picture of how it turns out.

Over the weekend, I made Mister an English muffin. It came out just fine. No worries, right?

Sunday morning, Mister decided he wanted to have some toast while I was staring at HGTV. He put two pieces of bread in the toaster. A few minutes later, I was awakened from my house-pr0n daze because Mister was using some choice words for the resulting toast. I don’t know how all of you people like your toast, but in the KirstenL4W house we like it a nice golden brown. Not incinerated. After throwing away the two pieces of charcoal, Mister turned down the toaster settings and tried again. This time the smoke alarm went off. OK, now you’ve got my full attention.

Mister started telling me that we ought to get a 4-slice toaster so that we can make toast for the both of us at the same time. It would be more efficient, he said. But it’s hard to justify a new purchase like that when we have a perfectly good toaster at home. That’s when it happened. The toaster suffered an unfortunate accident and ended up with a huge dent in one side. So I just had to drag my butt out of the house and go to a huge housewares store.

I came home with a nice, brand name 4-slice toaster. And it makes the perfect piece of toast.

Last night, I watched a movie called The Holiday on TV. It was about two women, one in LA and one outside of London, who decide to escape their heartbreak at Christmas by taking a vacation. They find each other via a website that facilitates home swaps and set out for their relaxing holidays. Of course, the movie is predictable in that both characters find what they wanted when their hearts got broken, and it’s a sweet chick flick (with gorgeous sets, I might add), but what hit me was the message I got from the movie.

I realized that both characters were open to new experiences because they stepped out of their comfort zones. Sometimes, to find success, we have to shed what’s familiar and get away from the everyday routines that have us operating on auto-pilot. By doing that, you are forced to really take a good look at everything going on and everything you experience. Don’t be afraid to shake things up a bit. Take a class, find a volunteer opportunity, even take a different route home one day, and you will see things that you’ve never seen before.

As my readers know, I moved away from the place I grew up in Massachusetts to come to Las Vegas in 2003. I wasn’t specifically looking for fame or fortune, like a lot of people moving here seem to want. I just wanted something different. Boy did I ever find that here! I also found some great friends and of course the most wonderful man in all the world, Mister. It’s a bit of real-life proof that stepping outside of your comfort zone can lead to success and happiness.

I’ve found that the best way for me to unwind at the end of the day is to read. It’s usually the last thing I do before falling asleep for the night. It helps me get out of my own head so that I can relax enough to fall asleep.

I recently finished reading The Emigrants. It’s a 4-book series about Swedish emigrants who leave their homeland and settle in America hoping for a better life. I was first introduced to this series by a friend from Sweden, who said it would help me understand my own history better. My great-grandparents came from Sweden, though about 60 years later than these books take place, and they weren’t farmers like the Nilsson family in the book.

It took me a few tries to get through the book. I tried when I first got it, and would then pick it up every few years. I think it took me about 10 years before I was able to sit down and really push myself to get through the entire book. Once I did, I wanted to read more. Once I got into it, I really wanted to find out what happened to these characters and how they fared on this journey they embarked upon.

The first book, The Emigrants, tells of the life that the main characters, Karl Oskar and his wife Kristina have on their farm in Sweden. It tells of the hard times they have as they begin their family and are met with drought and the resulting starvation. Karl Oskar’s younger brother Robert, full of wanderlust and not willing to live a life of being anyone’s servant, as would be his fate in Sweden, tells Kark Oskar of a great land called America. After suffering a heart-wrenching tragedy, Karl Oskar decides to move his family to America so that they can have better opportunities. Various friends and relatives hear of the plan and join the party, so early in April 1850, the party of 16 Swedish emigrants board a ship bound for America. The second half of the book tells of the rough journey they all experience.

The second book, Unto a Good Land, tells of the trials and tribulations the settlers have as the make their way towards Minnesota Territory, stake out their land, and start to set up home. It’s interesting to read of the culture shock they experience as they settle into their new homes.

The third book, The Settlers, is about how the emigrants get along after having been in the new land for a few years and the successes and failures they have. Their community begins to grow, and more Swedes begin moving into the area.

The final book, The Last Letter Home, finishes up by telling how Karl Oskar’s children have grown up and started their own families.

Except for a few small facts, which are outlined in the introduction to the books, I’d say these books are historical fiction - the places the emigrants end up in are real, and their stories are the same stories that many other settlers from Sweden have. My family didn’t go west, instead preferring to settle in the NYC area. My great-grandmother’s aunt had a boarding house in Brooklyn, where my great-grandmother worked when she arrived, and where she met my great-grandfather when he rented a room their. They lived in Brooklyn until the early 1920s, when they moved to the Plainfield, NJ area, which is where my grandmother and mother grew up, and where I still have some family. My family didn’t work the land, like the families in the books, but I took great interest in the character’s experiences. I’m sure that the cultural issues outlined in the books were very similar to the ones my family experienced.

Reading these books made me feel closer to my roots, and as my friend told me, they did help me understand my great-grandparents’ experience. Even if you’re not Swedish, or not descended from immigrants, I’d recommend these books just as highly as I’d recommend something from Steinbeck.

I think I’ve written about the mental block I have with meal planning in the past.  If not, well, see, I have this huge mental block with meal planning.  I just have a hard time coming up with meals that 1. make me want to cook them when I come home from a long day at work 2. my husband will like and 3. won’t bother my bland-is-grand stomach preferences.  Oh, and I want to keep mealtime exciting too - not serving the same thing every night.  And I don’t want to use all the pots and pans we own to prepare dinner.  Got all that?

Before I met Mister, I had a pretty boring diet.  I figured I could cook, but for one person who really, really likes pasta and can’t afford much else, I ended up eating a lot of pasta.  Particularly pastas that come in boxes with little envelopes of powdered flavoring.  That suited me just fine.  Once in awhile I’d get a craving for something else, so I’d buy the necessary ingredients and make myself a serving of whatever it was that I craved.  Then I was back to pasta.

After I met Mister, I started cooking more, but I realized that I had no idea what I was doing.  Mister guided me through some basics so that we wouldn’t be eating pasta all the time.  Veggies I can more or less handle, provided it’s something that I’ll eat, but meats perplexed me.  Not only did I not know how to cook meat, I was also afraid of cooking in a stainless steel frying pan.  I’ve chiseled quite a bit of food out of stainless in my day, and I was none too eager to do it again.

So, fast forward to today.  Earlier in the week, I saw roaster chickens on sale at a great price, so I bought one.  I was looking for boneless skinless chicken breasts because I’ve gotten quite good at that particular cut of meat, but the store didn’t have any.  I saw the roasters on sale and figured it would give us quite a bit of leftover options (I’m even worse at leftovers than I am at planning that first meal).  After consulting a few cookbooks and websites, I figured I knew what to do.

Until I realized that all those recipes were for a 2 1/2 - 3 lb bird.  As I discovered at 6:00 this evening, mine was twice that size.

No worries, I said.  Everything will be fine.  Our Thanksgiving turkey cooked a lot faster than we thought. So tonight, after the allotted time, I took the chicken’s temperature and all was well, according to my digital meat thermometer. I took the chicken out of the pan and placed it on a platter to rest. A few minutes later I noticed lots of red juice. I know that when a chicken’s number is up the juices will run clear, so this was not right. I consulted with Mister and after telling him my story, he advised cooking it for another hour. Which I did. Which means that my 5-6 pound bird cooked at 375 for the same amount of time that my 11 pound bird did at 400 for an hour then 325 for 1.3 hours. The same amount of cooking time for two vastly different sized birds.

Dinner tonight was frozen pizza for Mister (thank goodness for 2 cooking racks in the oven!) and a blue box of dinner for me. I had the blues. But I would rather have had chicken.

Maybe one of these years I can cook absolutely delicious meals like my friend Uncommon Jasmine, whose husband must have the happiest tummy in all of Canada. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do something with every ingredient you could throw at me. Maybe someday I’ll be able to effortlessly whip up a cozy luncheon for seven or so people without feeling like I need a nap before the food is on the table. Maybe someday. Today, however, I’ll continue to be inspired by cookbooks, cooking shows and cooking websites as I try not to disappoint with my mediocre skills in the kitchen.