Finally, a blog post!

A little splash of color to help dispel the February doldrums!

The last few  weeks have been crazy. Blogging has taken a back seat to finding an assisted living home for my mother, an overnight trip to see my sister, moving my mother, and having my stove and oven completely give up the ghost. Moving my mother was difficult emotionally, as it was an admission that her dementia has indeed worsened. The move itself went so smoothly, thanks to my sisters, children, husband, and a dear friend and her children jumping in and making it all happen in one day. Mom has had a few rough times since moving, such as going to the desk three times in one day and screaming "I have been in a concentration camp and you can not keep me here! I am going home, and you can not stop me!", but I am now only five minutes away from her and so was able to go and calm her down. Since then, she has settled in a bit more, and seems to enjoy daily visits from my sisters and I.

My stove is a whole different story! We had a repair man come and look at it, and he took a good look at it and told us to turn off the circuit to the stove . The stove itself is full of electrical problems, and not worth fixing. At one point, he turned a knob for a burner that had not worked for over a year, and the stove's timer buzzed. Not good. So, the long and short of it is that I will have no stove or oven until late June. We can not afford to replace it right now, and do not want to borrow any more money. The stove is built right in to the counter, and has a down draft to ventilate it, so we need to replace it with a similar model. The ones we priced (and they are gorgeous stoves!) are right around two thousand dollars. I had a moment of panic, as I not only love to cook, but my family (especially those teenaged boys!) loves to eat. Then, when I calmly took stock of the situation, I remembered that I had a whole arsenal of small appliances at my disposal. One large counter top roasting oven, a crock pot, electric skillet, one griddle,  and a very nice rice cooker, to be exact. I have since discovered that I can bake bread in the roasting oven, my rice cooker will also cook polenta and risotto, and my electric skillet can be used to cook up the quinoa patties we are all so fond of. Also? I have a cute little electric hot pot, so I can still boil water to make my morning elixir of life! I am planning a series of blog posts about cooking without a stove, and am already enjoying having to be more creative in the kitchen. That said, I was telling a friend on Sunday that right now, I am feeling excited about this kitchen challenge, but I know the excitement will start to wear off towards the end of April.

So! There is the official update, and this will hopefully mark my return to more regular blogging. I have missed banging out my thoughts for the world to see, and have composed many posts in my head over the last few busy weeks. It feels good to be back at this journal of my days.