Eat Your Heart Out, Julia Childs

If it wasn't for nursing, I would most definitely be in the culinary field. I have literally gone from Hamburger Helper whore to Queen of Cuisine in just a mere 2 years. I can't even tell you how it began. Watching Top Chef for the hell of it turned into an interest in Food Network and suddenly, I was Emeril freakin' Lagasse and "BAM!ing" all over my kitchen.



Stacks of Bon Appetit magazines sit on my night stand. Printed out recipes shoot out of my printer on a daily basis. Grocery lists and a calendar of the week's menu is updated weekly and taped to my fridge. I've taken my love of food to a whole new level... and you know what? I'm friggin' awesome at it. Dinners at my house have become testaments to my devotion. I de-vein my own shrimp for my cajun pasta, I make my own sauces, salsas, dips, you name it. There is nothing microwavable in my house right now... and that fact blows my mind.

I have to give credit where credit is due, though. My long-time and amazing friend, Brett (whom I could never in a million years be as good a chef as) is a huge contributing factor for my skills. After thinking I was the shizzle for cooking in my crock pot, I learned all too quickly that there was some real man's work to be done if I wanted to really knock people's socks off. After years of Brett dragging me to restaurant depots and every William Sonoma and Sur La Table in the Atlanta area, I suddenly started catching on to what everything was and how fun knowing what I was doing in my own kitchen could actually be. Once I started, it hasn't stopped.



I take so much pride in what I make for dinner now that I feel guilty for buying anything pre-packaged or in a can. If I'm going to make green beans, I'm going to buy them fresh and trim them myself. Soup in a can? Not in my house. Soup is the easiest thing in the world (and the funnest thing to invent recipes with)! Why betray my skills with a quick fix? I don't even buy marinade for my meats anymore because I know how to make it myself. Don't get me wrong, schedules get tight and there will occasionally be a frozen turkey burger dinner with some chips as a side, but more often than not, I have the time!

Sometimes I wonder how I keep all this random food knowledge in my head, but yet constantly forget where I've left my phone charger. I know the required internal temperature for how Chris likes his steaks and how long I need to broil salmon in the oven without drying it out. I always know how much paprika to use without overpowering the dish and how much heavy cream to put in my mashed potatoes without using a measuring cup so they are the perfect consistency. Once I learned how, the knowledge just stuck.

I guess the trick to learning something is to have a passion for it and I couldn't be more thrilled that I have... and a well-fed Chris will happily agree.

"Your life has affected me negatively in the following ways..."

Man, I love the show Intervention. I've been watching it for years and I've seen every single episode (sometimes the same ones over and over). I watch it for each aspect: the family who is devastated and wants the addict healthy, the different drugs and how the addict chose a favorite, the drama that ensues when they are filmed high, and most importantly, the description of the addict's childhood from bright beginning to slow demise. I've gotten so in tuned to these people's behaviors, their lifestyles, and their families personalities to the point that I can predict with a pinpoint accuracy which drug the addict will choose and what happened to them as a child that resulted in their addiction. It's a very precise equation to me now and I love feeling as though I've not only discovered it, but solved it.

I can honestly say without fear of ridicule that this show is the reason I am who I am right now. Two months ago, I started nursing school. It has been the best and scariest decision of my life. I've never had an interest at all in the medical field (well, maybe aside from childhood dreams of marrying a doctor, of course). To me it was only those who had a love of people that far surpassed their hatred of cleaning bed pans that went into the field. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of those people! But I never thought for a second I could ever do the same.

However, my fascination for the psychology of an addict has increased exponentially. I found myself scouring search engine results for how to become everything from an interventionist to a probation officer, hoping a calling would shout out to me. Finally, it hit me. I want to be right in the heart of not only the emotional aspects of dealing with addicts, but the physical as well.

If you've ever seen the show, you'll notice that the interventionists are not college-graduated scholars who spent their youth studying and staying away from drugs. Quite the opposite. They are recovering addicts themselves. Nearly every single one of them are, from the interventionists to the counselors. In my opinion, they have to be. It's practically the only requirement. They all know what it feels like to not only want a hit, but to take one. They know exactly what the greatest high feels like and the lowest low that follows. It's the only field of helping people, I think, that in order to be a success you've had to been a failure. And that, my friends, is why the calling called.



So, I started nursing school. When I graduate, I want to take my resume to an inpatient drug rehabilitation center and while everyone else says "Look what I've accomplished" I can say "Let me tell you where I've been". I want patients to hold my hand while they go through the pains of detox and know that I mean it when I tell them, "I know how this feels". I want them to tell me how much they hate life and want to find some good in it so that I can say to them "So did I". When I promise them that life can be better, they will be able to trust that I mean it.

It's funny, all these years I spent wondering what I wanted to do with myself and you know what I discovered? What it is that I wanted to do for other people.

Into That Good Night

Chuck Pahlinik once said “Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.”

That quote sums up everything I'm experiencing with the loss of my husband's father. When he died, my immediate reaction was not pain for his loss, but pain for what Chris was feeling. I loved my father-in-law very, very much. It was impossible not to. He was always happy and outgoing and loved seeing us. Even when times were tough and he didn't have much, he was always smiling through it so that we would never worry. When most people would use their misfortune as a soundboard for complaints, he never did. I'm struggling with the fact that he may have been unhappy and that we should have done more. I'm also struggling to remind myself that he may have been happy all along and our doubts are unnecessary. The greatest struggle of all is why I only thought to care about this notion until now, when unfortunately he's gone.

A week ago we could have called him. We could have seen him and asked if he needed anything. A week ago we could have seen him at all. Instead, we assumed he was there. We assumed he was fine and that just being a phone call away was enough. We didn't think about all the amazing memories that made him a wonderful father because there was no need to; they were as prevelent in our life as a glass jar of coins that could be filled at leisure. Accepting that we will never be able to fill that jar again is the most heartbreaking part of all. Every coin has increased in value, but now the jar is sealed... and it's unbearable.

That's why in death, he's become a hero. All the memories of the good times are so much more brilliant. They shine brighter than they ever have. Some stories I was never even around for but have heard about a thousand times are just... better. His love for his children, to me, makes more sense.

The convenience of his existance was taken for granted; that we are guilty of. That guilt makes the pain harder, but it doesn't make his life less valid. No one was wrong for not being the last person he talked to. No one was wrong for assuming he would always be there. No one was wrong for loving him without seeing him. All that matters is that we loved him. What's the difference if we recognize it more now that he's gone?

The love we had for him has never changed, it was just less recognized while he was here. Sure that sounds unfair and even invokes extreme guilt that this outpouring of love wasn't felt while he was here, but the amount has never changed. It's strange to feel as though we love him more now that he's gone, but we don't. We love him just the same as we did, but death just makes us feel as though we never did enough.

I don't know what is going to happen in the next few days, weeks, and years of being without him, but I think Chris' father's memory will live stronger the longer he is gone. As we grow old together, Chris and I will understand better how life can treat us and therefore better understand how his father saw the world. I'm not looking forward to the wake, or the funeral, or the pain in Chris' eyes that may creep in unexpectedly when he thinks about his dad. I am, however, looking forward to the newly found knowledge that I have that teaches me that memories cannot be relied on like coins in a jar. Every coin we do have should be taken out sometimes to be polished and renewed.

And no matter how much time and love we have for someone, they'll never mean more to us than when they are gone. They'll never be more of a hero to us than when we wish they were here and can't.

Wag More. Bark Less.

Today Chris and I were getting out of the car today and he noticed the lady parked in front of us had a sticker on her SUV that said "Wag More. Bark Less". He laughed and pointed it out to me. Being the dog lovers (and parents) that we are, it was very cute to us. He however went on his way down the parking lot and I stared a second longer. As cute as it was meant to be, it actually had a deeper meaning for me. It seemed to very subtly sum up everything that had happened in the last 5 days.

On Tuesday last week, Chris' father passed away of a heart attack very suddenly and without warning. I will post a separate entry of something I wrote after we found out so that you can get a better idea of how it affected me. These last few days, Chris and I have had many conversations of life, love, and making the most of those we care for that we are fortunate enough to have with us now. As most people do after they lose someone close, we talked a lot about the guilt and regret that comes by not having made more time and feeling as though we didn't do enough with the time we had. In the end, we began realizing that it is only human to not begin making plans with someone by prefacing that "we better do it because one of us might die tomorrow". It isn't logical (or sane, in my opinion) to make sure that each and every day you make phone calls to everyone you love on the off chance that they might not be alive to hear from you the next day. We have to accept the time we did have with those we've lost and not feel guilty that we should have done more. Sometimes just being reminded of how fragile life is can be a positive lesson that can help cope with the blow of tragedy. We have to spend more time wagging than we do barking.

So, not to change the subject, but as you can probably tell this is my first entry in my new blog. Starting this damn thing was my number one promise I made to myself this weekend. I didn't want to start out with a normal biography of who I am and what I'm about because it is more important to me that I stay focused on the reason I'm doing this: which is not for me at all. Allow me to explain...

Chris' father's funeral was beautiful. There were tons of pictures in a digital slideshow and scrapbooks and photo albums to skim through filled with old report cards and certificates of his achievements. A lot of people were hugging and thanking me for having so many pictures of him from our reception as it was the last pictures of him anyone has. It made me happy that I could do that, but then I was sad when I realized they were absolutely right. Our reception was in April... and it was July. In the age of cameras and camcorders on cell phones right in our own pockets, could it have really been 3 months since someone captured my father-in-law on film?

It isn't anyone's fault, of course. I'm not a picture taker myself unless something cute happens I want to capture and email to Chris or post on facebook. I despise"posey" pictures like those God-awful Olan Mills memories I know every single one of your parents have of you from the early 90's... and don't even get me started on the horror that is "Glamour Shots". I don't even think I have even owned a camera that wasn't disposable. But seeing all of Terry's loved ones gathered around and smiling through their tears at the bits and pieces of his life that were captured and preserved forever, I knew it was time to make more permanent the memories of my life that I make every day.

So from now on, here goes...