Blood, Glass, and Savory Pies
I don’t think I’m knowledgable enough to make a grand statement about life. I can’t say, “Life is a series of cycles!” because I don’t know that for sure. I’ve been prancing around this world for 26 years now, but I feel like I’ve only just started to get a grasp on what I’m doing in the past year or two. I’m learning how to interact with people and how your actions impact those around you. I always kind of knew that, but it takes time to really see it happening sometimes. I think living with someone teaches you a lot about love and how difficult it can be.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I’m going through one of those things in life that has a word, but I don’t know what that word is. Phase? Transition? I think it’s transition. Basically, things are about to change. Bill is nearly done with his dissertation (I don’t think that’s how he would put it – there’s still so much work to be done). Completing his Ph.D means he moves on to another chapter. One that he hasn’t seen and doesn’t know what it will be about. It’s a new chapter for both of us. But even before that, he’s taking on some teaching in the upcoming semester. He will be teaching AND writing and completing his dissertation. Sounds super scary and hard! But he is so good at this. He can absolutely do it and do it well. I just need to do my part to help him and make sure he eats and sleeps. So, we’re embarking on a new journey already. Once he starts the semester I’m going to start spending more time at home to do tasks he doesn’t have the time for anymore. Cooking mostly. Which means I need to learn how to cook! We unfortunately can’t eat cake for dinner every night (or can we…?). We’re excited. I’m VERY excited to have more time to do housework and photography work. Despite being a bit of a messy person, I’m actually somewhat organized. I love a clean and organized house. We keep up with housework as much as we can on the weekends and after work, but it’ll be nice to have an entire day to just CLEAN. Don’t tell anyone, but I’d be super happy to be a housewife.
I learned one of those lessons the other day that makes you think, “Huh, I must not be an adult yet”. One of those things I probably should have known, my mom would have known, but I don’t often use my energy to think to hard. I don’t go stomping around, guns blazing, jumping into whatever sounds fine at the time. I do think ahead, and I think I’m pretty intelligent about my choices. But, I trust my intuition a lot of the time. I’m alright with reading people and situations, especially when it comes to feelings, so sometimes, I just DO stuff without wondering if it will turn into mush.
And they did. When you freeze fresh raspberries and then thaw them, they are just a mushy mess. I had seen them thaw and melt and morph into this sad blob, and yet, I just chucked them back into the fridge when I was done with them (I have a lot of hobbies – cleaning up after a project is not one of them).
Well, the next day after work, I had just started the dough for my handpie dinner experiment when my husband opened the fridge and found sticky red juice all over our produce. Oops. Not one of the best (or worst) things I’ve done. He quietly removed all the food and the drawers and shelf and began a good wipe down. He’s precious. I felt loads of guilt, but he never blamed me for doing something dumb that resulted in him having to use his free time to clean up my mess. No, he wasn’t happy, but he didn’t direct any of his unhappiness towards his slightly harebrained wife.
And it’s a real good thing he didn’t feel any animosity towards me, because that was just the beginning of the next two hours of clean up. While trying to clean up the bottom shelf, the glass sheet exploded and shattered into a firework of a million pieces. On the floor, on the counter, in the sink and the disposal… There was red everywhere from raspberries and blood from my husband’s hands.
I don’t deal very well with this kind of tension. I just kind of stand around in silence hoping someone will laugh so I know it’s not a disaster.
I made sure he took a moment to relax and clean up his cuts before he jumped back in to clean up the explosion. There wasn’t much I could do otherwise. I cleaned up some of the glass, but our kitchen isn’t very big and I would have gotten in the way. So I mostly continued making handpies. Is that what a wife is supposed to do?
Well, after cleaning the juice and blood, the counter and floor, the sink, disposal, toaster, and vacuum, the handpies were out of the oven and on my set for shooting. I left a couple on the tray in the kitchen and let him know I wouldn’t be needing them so to feel free to munch. I’m not a very experienced cook. Although I do a lot of baking, I’m not so familiar with the stove top. The hand pies were a nice transition into the savory world since it involves pastry so much of the process was done in the oven.
When I went back to the kitchen after shooting, the handpies I had left were nearly all gone! And my poor husband that had just spent all evening dealing with explosions and injuries and messes was so happy to have eaten them (and was patiently waiting for me to finish shooting so he could eat the rest).
He said, “You’re going to be making more of those pies” and excitedly began listing off complimentary meats and sauces and cheeses that would all work well in a handpie. Since savory foods aren’t my forte, combinations of foods does not come naturally to me. I’ll need his help mixing ingredients together to produce a cohesive flavor. But, something tells me he won’t mind at all.
This new food adventure is a little daunting. But seeing how good food can make my husband so happy, despite the circumstances, makes me eager to continue with my experiments.
