What to Be When I Grow Up... Or... My Split Personality Under Analysis...

When it's time to be a stay-at-home mom, at least in my case, there is a brief withdrawal phase from that "other" life of jobs and school and required tasks that are checked off on a to-do list. For me, I always say, this took two years. Two years to figure out what exactly "time" meant anymore.... but that's another discussion for another day.

Anyway, since that time I've discovered that my kind of freedom - I think everyone has a different kind, perhaps I would be more verbose if I were not meaning to talk about something entirely different today - gives me the chance to choose once again what I want to be when I grow up. Usually my choice is that of an author, but I am not very good about sticking to my choices yet.

On weeks when I am very determined about the choice to be an author (like last week) I stay home with the windows and doors shut. (I don't like people to "watch" me write. Of course, they're not watching, but still, it's disturbing that they could. Yes, I am insane. We've already established this.) I don't answer the phone (even more than usual). And I generally stay in my pajamas until late hours of the day. While usually I get dressed early, I write better in my pajamas. If I actually take the time to get ready and change I end up doing other things. So pajamas it is.

I am also prone to writer mood-swings during these times. Anyone who writes knows exactly what I am talking about. These mood-swings are what happens when you go to the bookstore and find on the new release shelf the book that editor was talking about that got published instead of yours. In moments like this you determine that you will chuck everything you have worked on all week into the garbage. They are also characterized by moments when you read some sentence you wrote ten years ago and are fairly certain you're going to win a Pulitzer for it. Yes, extreme egotism is also necessary to writing. Why else would a person sit and create something for hours on end that no one even looks at? It's very important that you convince yourself it's wonderful and no one has ever seen anything like it. Which is why that book on the shelf can cause such a plummet. Because it messes with the illusion you've so carefully created. The illusion that actually allows you to keep writing.

The best explanation I can give of this is in Anne of Avonlea (the movie) where Anne talks about how she flies on the wings of expectation.. blah... blah... blah... and then plummets when the dreams she was imagining don't turn out exactly how she thought. But, she says, it's still worth flying, even when you're plummeting, even when you get a thud. Because in fact, you can't fly without flying high. It doesn't work that way. You have to jump off the cliff to get in the air. You can't just tiptoe into the air.

But that was not the point either. The point is, that there are weeks where that is me, self-described, above. And there are weeks where that is not me. And I am not exactly sure who I really want to be when I grow up.

In those other weeks, I don't want to close the windows and wear pajamas all day.... although I still don't answer the phone. Those are weeks like today. (They are assisted by facts like warm weather, previously mentioned books on new release shelves that are not written by oneself but look oddly similar to the manuscript on one's computer, and husbands that have to come home because of wives that lock themselves in the backyard - yes, I'm talented).

So, today being such a day, I did a project instead of working on my writing. This particular project was inspired by the website: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ (This project obsession is helped by the fact that I always did want to run away and live on a ranch. In fact during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at college I actually got a job working on a Dude Ranch in Montana, but then I decided to take some job at Sports and Dance Camps - where I ended up meeting Justin - and I didn't go up to the ranch-job at all. Yes, I'm rambling. The point is, I've been compulsively reading this blog in order to live vicariously through their ranch life since Saturday when I visited the bookstore. Moving on...)

I will post pictures of my project below, but for pictures of the real thing you should go check out her site. After all, I have not decided that this is what I really want to be. And since I'm waffling between isolated writer and half-capable "homemaker" (cooking, decorating, and all that other stuff) I am not particularly getting excellent at either.

I suppose someday I'll have to decide what to be when I grow up. But for now I haven't the foggiest idea how to do that at all.

But at least E had fun.

Stirring the cake with the frosting....

Licking the frosting....

M trying to lick the frosting... after it had been thrown in the garbage...

"Pounding" the dough into balls....

A few cake-pops before bed....

And the final "best of" mini-cakes. They didn't get sticks in them because I forgot to stick them in before the chocolate set.