Stress

I'm stressed. I know it for a wide variety of reasons and I know the equally wide variety of reasons that are causing me stress. One of the primary symptoms is that I've turned into a cooking tornado. Today alone I've cooked oatmeal (ok, that's pretty low level), a bleu cheese-mushroom crustless quiche, and I just took 2 loaves of banana bread out of the oven. I'm lucky we're all out of chocolate chips, otherwise cookies would be the next project. I've simultaneously never understood and always wanted to be one of those people who stopped eating when they got stressed. Quite the contrary, I not only look for food at every opportunity, but I also take any "justifiable" chance to bake and cook as much as I can. I guess that's a personality quirk that works out well in my husband's favor (although not always so well on the waistline, his or mine). The funny thing about it is that I don't even necessarily want to eat what I've made, I really just like the act of making.

I'm at home on yet another rainy, cold, Santa Cruz winter day - scarfing down tea so that I don't snack myself into an larger pants size. At this rate I'll be so chock full of antioxidants by the time I finish grad school that I'll live forever. I finished one big book (330-something pages) on pre industrial Scotland and I'm hopping into another one to make headway before Mr. Wonderful comes home from racquet ball around 8:30. I've got banana bread cooling on the counter and I'm seriously considering dedicating my dissertation to my dance teacher, the fabulous Lisa Norris, who is letting me crash as many classes as necessary to keep my sanity and helping me fight the battle of the bulge.