Pots. Food. Book. Happy.

I realize that I have seriously neglected my beans recently, so I'm going to do my best to cover several things in this post.

1. Tonight will be pottery class number three. This is an exciting thing, and I will tell you why. After the first class, I knew I had a lot of room for improvement. This was expected. But somehow, in the second class, after coming away with zip in the first class, I immediately made three different pots. Bowls. Cups. Whatever. Suddenly, I was exponentially better than I had been the week before with absolutely no extra practice. It felt great! So I became a member of the Visual Arts Center for $50, which means I can go in to the studio and practice whenever they're not having classes. After I made my three pots, I went in on my own time to trim them before they dried out too much. It was just the instructor and me in the studio, and he had Pandora on (sounded like a John Mayer station), and it was very relaxing. I like this a lot. And I feel good making things.

2. Speaking of making things, I've made a lot of things recently. First off: soft pretzels. I made them last weekend, and they were the first thing I made in my mixer! I've had Bobby Flay's soft pretzel recipe in my inbox (foodnetwork.com recipe of the day) for months, waiting for a time such as this. Not only did they turn out really well... I also made a queso poblano dipping sauce. This involved roasting poblano peppers myself - which I had never done before. That was fun. Then when I was chopping said roasted peppers, they squirted pepper juice in my eye. Not fun. But the queso sauce turned out to be delicious. Second new thing I've made: Pizza dough. This was the second thing I made in my mixer, and it was delicious. It was very thick, almost like focaccia, and yummy. Third new thing: Bolognese sauce. I'm reading a book right now that is not a cookbook but has a few recipes in it, and one of them is a delicious-looking bolognese. So I made it. It was delicious - and I shared it - but we left it sitting out all night and I had to throw it away. It looked like vomit/poop/dog food the following day. Fourth new thing: pot roast. A few months ago I visited a farm that sells grass-fed beef and bought two steaks and a roast. Haven't cooked the steaks yet, but I used the roast yesterday to make pot roast in my slow cooker, and it was quite tasty. I did not leave that out all night, so we still have leftovers.

3. I am "currently reading" five different books. I am actually, for real, every day, reading one of them: The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn. Remember above how I said I was reading a book that wasn't a cookbook but has recipes in it? That's this book. My mom saw it in the book store and bout it for me. It is one woman's story of her journey through the basic, intermediate, and superior cuisine programs at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I love it. And it feels good to read a book that I love. It feels good to want to read every day. And P.S. the title refers to onions.

4. I am sincerely humbled by the amount of outreach that stemmed from my previous post, "To Stop Hiding." It feels great to know how many people care about me. But you know what else I realized? I didn't need all the people who came out of the woodwork to support me (though, of course, I am sincerely appreciative). I realized that I am totally comfortable with the support system I have in place already. And that feels good. So things have been really good recently - mostly due to said support system and each point listed previously in this post. So thanks. ;)

To Stop Hiding

I started this post yesterday intending to tell you a few highlights about Corbin's and my beach trip. It probably would have turned into a life update, which can tend to happen from time to time with my posts. I don't want that. You don't care that I ate ice cream every day at the beach.  You don't care that we had a delicious dinner with Corbin's parents for his birthday the night before we left for the beach. You don't care about how much I love the boardwalk. And the reason why you don't care is because it's not important. Yes, time off is important. Yes, fun is important. Yes, I understand that you care about me and are interested in how my life is going. But there are much, much more important things than some of the things I write about on this blog.

This is not to say that I won't still provide some updates about things that I'm excited about. When I figure out what will be the first thing I make in my new mixer, you'll know. When I start my pottery class (September 13th!), you'll know. When I eat at a new restaurant, you'll know. But these things do not a good blog make. Nor do they a good person make.

As my friends one by one start to write blogs, I realize what incredible writers my friends are. Andrew spits out heart-wrenching blog after heart-wrenching blog; Brett Baker spins her words into touching anecdotes about life and her marriage; Vince cracks me up with his Italian restaurant antics; Shawn writes his (sporadic) entries with biting humor. I am not any of these types of writers. I do not use this blog as a creative outlet for my writing. Instead, I use this blog as an outlet for my life.

It's easy for me to get caught up in the daily things that happen and when I do my blog posts turn into a reading from Twilight ("This happened... then this happened... then I did this... then he said this... then this happened..."). But there are much more important things going on in my life right now, and I need to focus enough to share them. Remember that blog I wrote a few weeks ago about being afraid? That was big. And bigger things than that are happening. And if I share them here, put them on the interwebs for anyone to see, I can no longer ignore them. I can also begin to deal with one of my biggest problems, which is not being able to share myself with others.

So, in the interest of sharing myself with you: I am depressed. And just like the last time, it snuck up on me. The symptoms of my depression as of now manifest themselves in entire days of eating anything in sight and watching anything I can find on television. I spend more time on the couch in my apartment than I do at work (I work about 30 hours a week). If any of you have known me for a long time, you've known that my weight has gone up and down and up and down. Over the past ten years I've bounced around between 130 and 175. My body, as of the last time I measured it, is about 1/3 fat. This is not, however, just a matter of going on a diet... there's a much deeper reason that I behave the way that I do, and I am in the middle of trying to figure that out. I'm grappling with huge self esteem issues that I didn't even realize existed, and those are completely separate even from my weight issues. They're issues that I didn't even realize stemmed from low self esteem. I've felt for years that I have great self esteem. It is not true... I'm just good at hiding it from myself.

Last time I was depressed, I took medicine. It worked great, and there are times that I'd love to be able to pop a pill and make everything better. The problem is that it won't make everything better. I need to find the sources of the things that I'm dealing with and accept them. That's something I'm learning... that the bad parts of yourself cannot be pushed away or they will grab a greater hold on you. You must learn to accept them, understand them, forgive yourself. Don't suppress them.

I'm currently reading How to Raise Your Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden, which is helping me figure out the roots of the problems I'm experience. I also just started today a book that my sister bought me called Women Food and God. I have a lot of faith that this woman, Geneen Roth, is going to present to me a path to understanding myself that will take me very far.

So that's me, right now. It's a lot of information to just put out there, but I can no longer convince myself that everything is fine. And if you're wondering, Corbin is proving to be more supportive and encouraging in this process than I ever imagined possible. He never stops believing that I am strong enough to get through this, even on the days when I break down, convinced that this isn't possible for me. And for those of you who feel weird reading all of this, that's okay. For those of you who want to say something but don't know how to approach it, that's okay. Don't worry yourself. I know you care about me.

And if you're still wondering how the beach trip was... it was fantastic. Relaxing. Sunny and 78 degrees every day. We ate too much ice cream. We saw a fisherman catch a shark. We shared a 45-ounce pina colada. We played with Ivy. We listened to a lot of music. When we got home, my mixer was waiting for me:

Thanks.