I'm Ready! I'm Ready?

I'm writing this post because I feel like writing a post, which actually means I feel like doing everything.

I'm ready to do market research for a startup. I'm ready to scrub the baseboards. I'm ready to make posters. I'm ready to finish off my freelance job. I'm ready to write about everything in my head. I'm ready to sew dresses. I'm ready to cook dinner. I'm ready to read real books. I'm ready to make schedules and plans and nail them all.

Or at least I was an hour ago when I planned out this post in my head. Then I got hungry and frustrated with the library catalog. And my heightened sense of self-worth and ability came down just a notch. That's better than yesterday when it crashed altogether. When that happened, I did things that needed to be done, but inwardly hated it.

My desire to change my world is finicky like that, like an old dog raring to catch a ball who realizes there's not enough reward and its legs are too tired already. Every day is a little bit different. Sometimes I can settle on just one thing to do, maybe it's useful, maybe it's not. Other times I want to do everything and wind up do nothing for lack of decision. And there are definitely days in which I will not and cannot do anything other than the barest of minimums.

But some days I feel like doing everything and I do. I clean, cook, create, cultivate, and conquer, even all before noon occasionally. The troubling part is that when I don't, I stop believing I ever did. I might do all on a Tuesday, but by Wednesday, I'm convinced that I am a lazy, no good person. I'm making slow progress in rejecting that belief on my non-doing days.

But one thing is becoming clear: the doing days will return. No matter how little I feel like doing on any given day, the desire to do more will come back. It may take a day or two, but either way it won't show up again because I told my non-doing self that I was lazily and pathetically wasting away. My self-talk can be as negative as it wants, but it can't bring back the drive.

So, I'm learning to trust, cozy up on the couch, and patiently enjoy watching Psych until the readiness returns and I successfully go and do, because I know I will.


As a side note, I can't use the word ready in any context without thinking about SpongeBob. Does anyone else suffer from this same problem?  

Berry Farms of Payson

Yesterday got away from me. But thanks to unemployment, this was no problem. I had plans for job applications, cleaning, and other noble pursuits. But then we realized it was raspberry season.

I whisked a very tired husband off to Payson. (P.S. Payson, your rodeo billboards need some design help and some editing. Call me.) When we picked cherries a few weeks ago, they passed along the number for another farm nearby. This farm turned out to be the best deal.

We walked the path along the grape vines to the wind break and started on the north raspberry bushes. I never realized how raspberries can be kind of hidden. You have to check underneath and below to find them sometimes. We gathered four pounds of raspberries and then two pounds of black berries, which were gigantic, beautiful, and squishy.

Six rows down a father and a son split the singing parts. One calling out: Ba ba black sheep. And the other answering: Yes sir. Yes sir.

Dark clouds rolled in and sprinkled a bit of rain. And the wind changed and suddenly farm life smelled less lovely. A rooster kept crying though it was way past noon. We met an old dog named Cam, and I found a black cat who was napping/hiding.  Fresh flowers for the table stopped with my internship, so we picked sunflowers off the side of the road and brought them home. We started freezing the berries and napped.

And though my usual habits say, "Why don't you get more done?" I think this day was fairly perfect.

If you're interested in picking raspberries and blackberries at $2.50 a pound, give the Phelps family a call. They also have peaches and other good things. 

Late But Tasty: Cherry Almond Cake

I finally finished Super's midterm cake! It was well received despite it's lateness.

True to my own musing, I ended up making the Cake Blog's Fresh Cherry Cake. They use goose berries, which are yellow to add some lovely colors. I originally intended on using bing and rainer cherries to get my reds and yellows in, but we only had red ones by the time I made it. Lovely nonetheless.

The almond whipping cream was truly delicious. I would double it. It looks nice put on sparingly, but when actually eating the cake, it was more tasty and less dry if you dump on an extra serving of whipping cream. Don't feel guilty. Do it for cake everywhere.

Now a confession: the cake fell over as soon as we finished taking pictures. I put it back together like this, and I actually liked that look for serving better.

I don't think you need to fear it falling over if you're using a more normal size of cake pan. I used little springform pans: a wedding gift from my Ever-Lovin' Bethany. They are so cute. I want to make everything in them. I cooked them at 350, as instructed, and they took about 15 minutes. My only trouble with them was that I didn't push them far enough into the oven on the second batch, which led to one side cooking a bit faster. So watch out for that. But truly, they are lovely.

I also now love to grease and flour cake pans. The railing outside our apartment is often coated in a light dusting of flour. I'm just waiting for the day when I drop my cake pans three stories. That will be both tragic and funny, and it's just the kind of mistake I'd make.

I'm glad this post is finally up. Lately I've been loving writing about deeper things, like my unemployment, and I have several posts I'm eager to share with you all next week. Feel free to like, pin, and share any of them.

Spanish Fork Christmas: Just as Good as I Remember

The month is rapidly dwindling down to January (though it feels slightly less rapid after that Mayan thingy). There are still so many great Christmas things we'd like to do!

Luckily, we got this one great one in: the Spanish Fork Festival of Lights! My family and I went to this when I was young. Of the twenty or so years the festival has been going, I attended within the first five or so. I worried I'd be disappointed with the display as an adult, especially since I thought the lights at Thanksgiving Point were lame.

But not so my dears. No lameness here! The Festival was perfectly thrilling and festive. Go while there's still some semblance of snow!

Here's the info. Happy light-loving!

108 for Jake

***Pardon the delay. Midterms ended weeks ago. How embarrassing!***
This semester, my filmmaker has turned into a economic-theory-wielding scholar as well. Three mid-level economics classes means a nightmare of a midterm week in any country's currency. But he handled it with grace and fortitude. He even walked out happy, albeit hungry, from the test that took him (and most of his classmates) four and a half hours.

To celebrate, I took nearly 108 oreos, crunched some into a chocolate cake, whipped another third into a no-bake cheesecake, rolled the rest into truffles, and coated the whole sha-bang in chocolate ganache (a fine ending to any party in your mouth, I believe).

When I first saw the recipe for this cake, I thought no one should ever make it. But then I found myself searching for an event that would justify such a cake. Luckily, Super's midterm marathon was just that.

Once grades came back, we found out he definitely deserved this cake too. All A grades, including the top score in his entire class.

He documented the cake making with these photos. Credit for my genie pants goes to Jenny and her Jerusalem trip; credit for my fantastic Fictionist shirt goes to Fictionist and to James.

Want to make your own 108 oreo cake? Here it is.

Bang!

The fantastic people I used to work with made this lovely video about Sounds to Astound, the acoustics  outreach club at BYU. They put on an awesome and free show with fire, science, and a crowd of cute kids (usually). I've really enjoyed going. It's a great way to teach your kids about sound, fill up your family night with love, or decide if your date is science-savvy enough to marry.

So, check out the video, and make your free reservation for November 26 or 30 here.