Brain Monkey Screams at Me

It is okay not to hit goals. Or at least that is what I tell myself.  Today is the last day in June, and I can without a single doubt in my heart tell you that I did not make my goal of utilizing every single cook book that I own within a year. I made a healthy dent in them, but I am not even close to being done.  I am not going to get through twenty cook books in a single day, and I am going to be okay with this.

I like having goals and when I don't meet them, then the little monkeys in my brain get all hyper active and throw horrible thoughts around.  They eat at  me and I can't help but think what I could have done better, or how I could have planned better. It is one of those things that can throw me in a mental rut until I reconcile the reason for not hitting the goal and what I am going to do to reach it.  I have had an entire month to brood over this when I realized that even if I pushed it wasn't going to happen.

Part of my little brain monkeys scream at me, If I not going to meet and exceed the goal, what is the point of having the goal to begin with! The rest of my brain asks, What was the point of trying to  use every cookbook you own with in a year? What were you  trying to accomplish, and did you accomplish it by not accomplishing the goal?   All the questions float around in my head and demand attention. I am going to address them, so that I can move onto other things and have the little brain monkeys shut the heck up for a little bit.

What was the point of trying to use every cookbook you own with in a year?

I needed a change and a challenge to change. I get stuck in ruts and food is just an example of that rut. I eat the same things over and over again and make the same things over and over again.  I get stuck. Attempting to use every cookbook I owned for at least one new recipe, would nudge me out of that rut and also help me with other ruts that I create for myself out of habit and laziness.

Did I change and challenge myself?

Short answer is yes.  It made me uncomfortable to do things that I have never done before. It made me broaden my horizon not just on food, but also in how I communicate with people.  I have always been the sort of person that will feed a person if I care about them, but this challenge had me talking to people and sharing my triumphs and failures.

What is the point of having a goal if you aren't going to meet or exceed it?

Something that I constantly tell have to remind myself is that a goal is a mark of measurement, but not all things fall with in the same categories of measurement.  I have to be realistic in what my capabilities are and be flexible in what the out come is. If I didn't meet the goal, does that mean it is unattainable, or is there another lesson that I need to learn, or did the goal become unimportant?

While not actually meeting the goal of using every cookbook with in a year, I achieved the result I wanted of challenging and changing myself and broadening my point of view. Just because I didn't make this particular goal, does not mean that I should give up and never cook again. It just means that I need to keep pushing and utilizing all of my resources and continue to keep trying new things and new recipes and learn to be okay with the results.

Missing Pickle

I took an unintended break from writing my blog. I don’t know why. I have things that I could write about, but I can sit at the computer and go completely blank and talk myself out of doing any writing and then I get frustrated with myself.  Then the pickle happened. Or perhaps I should say it didn’t happen. 

Wickles Pickles are the best pickles I have ever had the pleasure of consuming.  There are only a few grocers up my way that procure them, since they are mostly a southern thing. When my older brother was up my way, I gave him a jar and in short order he became a convert to the spicy tangy crisp goodness of the pickled cucumber.  

I did the thing that any good sister would do when her brother is bemoaning the lack of pickles in his life and how his life would be so much fuller if he had pickles or at least his stomach would be.  Procuring pickles is not as easy as it sounds.  I debated on buying the small jars and mailing them, but I have not had a huge amount of luck this year with packages and the postal system.  I had a feeling it would end up in tears, pickle juice and ants.  Then a lightbulb went off and I thought I would utilize the power of the internet.  Surely Wickles Pickles had to have a website and I could perhaps purchase pickles and have them shipped without me getting freaky with bubble wrap. 

Oh. My. Gosh!  I am pretty sure that there were violins playing and birds chirping in harmony when on their website I discovered the giant jar of pickles.  It is enough pickles to make a pregnant lady cry with tears of joy. My brother is not a pregnant lady, but he needed a 64 ounce jar of wickedly delicious pickles that are like a punch in the taste buds, like he needed air to breathe or a copy of every single Army of Darkness comic in existence. It is that extreme and that dire. I had to order the pickles so that he could survive the coming zombie apocalypse, since pickles don’t go bad.  I had to buy him the pickles so that his children would know and understand what a pickle is supposed to taste like and weep when the spiciness creeps up on them.  I bought him pickles so that he would get a tummy ache when he decided to sit down and eat the entire jar.  I am either the best sister ever or the worst.  It is a coin toss. 

In my excitement, I texted him to be on the lookout for a package and then the waiting began.  Every day there was a text about the lack of pickles in his life and how he discovered Wickles Pickled Okra at his local grocer and how awesome it was and how I should try it, but wait I live in the Quaker state, and southern food has a hard time crossing the Mason Dixon Line, and finding okra, much less the possible best pickled okra in existence wasn’t going to happen at my local grocer.  After a week of no pickles, and I emailed them, because I am pretty sure the post office either ate the pickles or my brother was scamming me into sending him a second 64 ounce jar.  Wonderfully, neither was the case. My jar never made it out of the warehouse and that has now been rectified with a quick email.  I am told pickles are on the move.  

The entertainment that I have had over scenarios as to what happened in the first place and how I would feel if a giant jar of pickles just randomly showed up on my doorstep has amused me for hours. My brother suggested that I write a long sob story about the missing pickles and how he and his brood of children would starve if they didn’t get pickles and see if they would throw in a jar of okra. (If anyone from Wickles accidently reads this, don’t do it, he doesn’t deserve the okra, since he is just going to taunt me with it anyway.)There are hiccups in all things, including my brother if he were to drink the juice from the jar and despite the hiccups everything thing turned out all good. Good like the pickle, sweet and spicy all rolled into a crunch.