Brain Blabber

In light of my recent determination to be more "myself" here, I thought I'd try a stream of consciousness post. I'm hoping to make a series of these, maybe once a month (but don't hold me to that - please, I'm serious, don't.) and I'm calling it brain blabber... because that's pretty much what you're about to get. A whole lotta jumbled thoughts on one page. Are you ready?

Right now there's a whole chicken (yes, a whole f*cking five pound(!) chicken) poaching on my stove. I have never poached a whole chicken before. You know why? Because I don't have a pot big enough to do that in... of course I realized this too late, and I'm just going with it. The water jussssssst barely covers the chicken, and may will probably boil over, but whatever. I'm making chicken soup, and if you wanna make a proper chicken soup, you have to poach the chicken. I don't really know how long that takes though... it's 5:30pm now, so hopefully it will be done by dinner time? Clearly poor planning on my part. I was at work earlier today and decided that I would go home and poach a chicken. I also decided that tomorrow I'm making squash, sweet potato, turkey chili. It's the season for soup and chili, right? If I'm going to do this, I may as well go all out. I bought an acorn squash... I've never cooked an acorn squash before. I don't do cold weather squash. But what the hell - I'm going to try it! Hopefully it's a success and I'll have two new recipes for you soon. (Ha!) I say that every time I make something, right? When was the last time I actually posted a recipe here? Hmm... looks like March. Yeah. Let's work on that.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend and we got to talking about blogs. I told her I'm working on a new layout for mine that I am super excited about! (You guys, I am so super excited about the new layout!!!! I can't wait to get it live! Ahhh! What am I doing posting my thoughts when I should be working on the new layout?!?!) She said she has been wanting to start a blog for a while, but she can't decide on what the content should be because she has a few different directions she wants to take it. I had to laugh, because I don't feel as though this blog has a particular direction... I post about daily life, cats, traveling, and (occasionally) recipes. But isn't that the beauty of blogs these days? There's something for everyone. I mean really though - think of something you want to read more about and I'm certain you'll find a blog about it. And as we were talking, it occurred to me that the blogs I've really been enjoying lately aren't about the content. I mean sure, I read certain blogs for the content, but the ones I really enjoy, I read because of the blogger's voice. I read them because I want to know more about that person, or because the way they write makes them feel familiar to me. It's like... what I'm going to call the Seinfeld-syndrome. They could write about absolutely nothing but I would still enjoy it because of the voice of the writing. I guess my point is, it's not always about the content. And I struggle with that! (That's why I'm writing this post.) I think I forget that it doesn't always have to be pretty pictures and tailored paragraphs. Sometimes stuff like this (this brain blabber) is what people want to read too. Because that's what I enjoy reading! So, I should embrace that.

I turn 29 next Saturday. And I'm excited! And yet, not? I'm just really excited to be that much closer to turning 30. Is that weird? I feel like most people are afraid of turning 30... and here I am all like "Come on, let's get on with this already!". Guh. The last year of my 20's. Am I supposed to do something big? Like one of those 30 before 30 things that people do - you know, that thing where you list 30 things you want to do before you turn 30? Ha! My head is so far in the future most of the time that I don't even think I could come up with 30 things I want to do within the next year. Hm. Perhaps that's thought for food, err, food for thought. I guess I have a little over a week to come up with a list then, hm? Oh goodness, did I just commit myself to this 30 before 30 thing? I think I just did.

You guys. This chicken water thing I have on the stove smells SO GOSH DARN GOOD. If salmonella weren't a thing, I would totally have a taste right now. How do I know when it's done cooking?! Cooking chicken kinda freaks me out a bit - I'm always so afraid I'm going to under or over cook it! I guess that's why I have one of those thermometer stick things...

I am so tired right now. I work Sundays thru Thursdays, 4am til noon. I'm two months into the new job and that early wake-up time is my biggest struggle. Every night I try to be in bed by 8:30pm, and every night I find myself putzing around until about 9:30pm. Which means every afternoon I just want to collapse into our couch for a two-hour nap. And even the nights when I do manage to go to bed early and get at least seven hours of sleep, I'm still tired when I wake up because I'm usually waking up in the middle of a dream. I feel like I just can't win here! But I think it's worth it, because I do really like this job. It's funny, one of the things I like about it is the same thing I don't like about it. It's the same thing every day. I'm so not used to that! Every other job I've worked had variety to it, but this one is the same tasks, same schedule, every single day. And I really like that, because it means I know exactly what I'm walking into every morning. But I also don't like that, because sometimes I need some variety in my daily life. So it's a struggle sometimes... the early mornings and the lack of variety. But I like my boss and my colleagues and I've learned so many new things, so I think it's worth it. I also love that my boss speaks to me in French (because he's French, and I'm French); I don't get many opportunities to speak French anymore, so it has been really great practice for me. It also means we have conversations that the rest of my colleagues don't understand, so I feel kinda special in that way ;) It's funny, my whole life I attributed certain qualities and mannerisms to my parents/family, because I didn't know any French people outside of my family. But now, I realize that a lot of the things I thought were just personal quirks, are actually cultural attributes. Like, oh, my aloofness and directness is actually just me being French. (Maybe that's why people think the French are rude?) That's kind of cool! I wonder what else is a cultural thing? I want to meet more French people!

Okay. It may be nap time. I know I have that chicken on the stove... but I can doze off for twenty minutes or so, right? Don't answer that.... I don't want to burn our apartment down either. I'll just find something silly to watch on Netflix. Got any recommendations? I just finished Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt. Friends have recommended that I watch Chef's Table. And My Psycho Ex-Girlfriend. Oh! And there's a new season of New Girl to watch! Yesssssss.

Pssst! That photo up there is just a cropped view from our balcony... We have view of a few buildings and a parking lot, but I tell Shawn to just look at the trees in the distance and imagine we're living in the mountains somewhere. If you crop out all the buildings, it kinda works!