Phase One of a Blooming Career

A little background on me.

At the moment, I have two other blogs that I have started but let rest for the time being. My life has become a little too busy to keep up with publishable creative writing or to remember to write down my favourite quotes. To be honest, I'm so busy I rarely have time to read, which means I can't come across favourite quotes fast enough to write them down. So those blogs are temporarily on hold.

But I still live!

I work full time as a service manager and love it! This does require a significant amount of my time, thoughts, and energy, but not 100% of the time. On my off hours, I create baking ideas and grocery lists, budget for the practical, and then alter all sorts of recipes to make them my-own-tasty! I've done some crazy things with food. And because I grew up as the oldest of 8 kids, I tend to make a lot of whatever it is I make. Even now that I live in my own apartment (just me and my cat!), I still end up with freezer meals for a week and 4 loaves of bread instead of just 1. I can always use an extra freezer.

For instance: I went crazy with pumpkin this fall. In early September, I bought 8 pie pumpkins; seeded and baked all of them; pureed and packaged enough for 11 cups of pumpkin; and still have 4 bags in my freezer. But I made delicious pumpkin bread out of it. I made some alterations: I did have white sugar and half maple syrup. This made it exceptionally moist and flavourful. My family loved it.

I also love gardening. Last summer I began my own herb garden, with basil and mint and dill. The herbs themselves were a success: all the basil went into pesto; all the mint went into jugs of iced lemon water; and all the dill went into a potato dish. The only problem: I had one pot of each, which basically made 3 cups of pesto and 1 large potato dish for a family of 10. The mint wouldn't stop growing, which posed another problem: I planted all three plants in the same pot, and the mint eventually took over.

This upcoming summer I intend on doing things a little bit differently. I have my own apartment with a balcony. Unfortunately it doesn't get full sun, but I still plan on having a herb and vegetable garden. I will document my cooking and my gardening from here on in - as much as time allows. This is my plan. Let's see how well I can keep it up (on this blogspot).