A Day of Shinny Things and Vegetable Goodness

Last Saturday the Lady and I joined our friend at Beadfest.  Beadfest is a huge bead and jewelry making convention.  It was a lot of fun and they had ton of pretty beads and doodads.  I mainly went to hang out with my Lady and our friend as beading isn't currently my medium of choice for making things (I'm a words and yarn sort of guy at the moment).  Our friend is the one who's big into the beading.  This is a recent development  and now she is all in.  It was a lot of fun to see her lose her mind over all the booths selling things. 

It was great to spend time just the three of us like back in the old day.  We used to hang out all the time the three of us.  But now our friend has a kid and the Lady and I are dating, so we don't really have as much time to hang out just the three of us.  I want to make a more concerted effort to find opportunity for the three of us to hang out.

After the show and we said good bye to our friend I made us dinner.  The Lady is mostly a vegetarian.  Sometime she will eat meat, but some time the idea of eating an animal just weirds her out a little, which I totally get.  Knowing this I wanted to make her a delicious meal I knew she would like no matter if she was in the mood for meat or not.  I came up with a meal of Pan Seared Asparagus with Tarragon & Lime glaze, Jasmine Rice, Old Man Mitchell's Carrots and Pear chutney.

Pan Seared Asparagus with Tarragon & Lime Glaze

This Recipe is based off of one I found in Cooking light's April 2014 issue.  It's originally for green beans, but had an asparagus variation.  I took that variation and made it closer to the green bean version.

What you need:

Sunflower oil
8 ounces of asparagus
1 teaspoon of butter
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
2 teaspoon of fresh tarragon
large skillet

Directions:

• heat pan over high heat for a minute or 2
• coat the pan in sun flower oil
• add asparagus to pan and shake till the asparagus forms a single layer
• without stirring let sit for 2 minutes or until asparagus in lightly charred
• lower heat to high medium and cook for another 3 and half minutes, tossing them from time to time
• turn off heat and let asparagus rest for 1 minute
• add the butter and toss till asparagus is completely coated
• add lime juice and toss till asparagus is completely coated
• cover with tarragon and toss till asparagus is completely coated, you can adjust the amount to taste

I have publish the other Recipes before and you can click on the link to get to those Blog posts:

Old Man Mitchell's Carrots

Pear Chutney

The only difference in the chutney is that I substituted pears for apples.

The meal was a tremendous hit!  The Lady loved the food.  It was also nice for me to cook for someone again.  It was the first time since my last relationship that I was able to cook for one person while they waited.  I didn't realize how much I missed doing that.  While I might not always have the highest option of myself and can be downright mean at time with the self-criticism, one area where I actually think that I excel is cooking.  I like to show the person how much I can about them by pouring those feeling into the food and the fact I can execute it at a high level is really nice.

I want to thank everyone who commented with such nice words on the last blog post.  It really means a lot to me.  I hope that my sharing my own experience, both good and bad, it can help people who are struggling with some of the same issue as I am.  Ultimately this blog is about making things both in and out of the kitchen, but as creative people so much of ourselves goes into the work it only seems right I share myself as well as my work.

Besides making tasty food, I'm currently working on the follow up to my comic Dangers of the Road.  It's still in the early stages but it will feature Sophie and her cohorts.  My goal is for it to be a an ongoing bi-monthly (eventually Monthly) comic that sells enough copies to be self-sustaining.  The time line would be to launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first issue late summer/early fall, then publish mid fall.  Right now I'm doing a lot of world building and an early draft first issues script is with my editor.  The kick start will not be launched till the first issue is nearly done.  Even if I don't get the funding, this book will come out; it just might take a little (or a lot) longer without outside funds.

I'm also working on a short prose piece based off a writers prompted I did with my writing group.  It's still a number of edits from being done, but the first draft has been complete and once it is done, I think I'm just going to post it one line for free.

That's all for now, go make things.

Depression Event Horizon

I really do hating starting off these posts with why I haven’t written.  The answer is almost always the same Depression.  Over the last few months I feel like most of my energy has been to struggle to keep myself from falling into the black hole that is crippling depression.  I've been right at the edge of the event horizon, right before where I would be stretched into pieces, what is called Spaghettification.

I have tried to write blog posts.  I have a least a half dozen half written one still on my computer.  Each time I get part way thought and voice that says, this is boring, no good and no one cares shouts me down.  The post gets saved away with the promises that I'll come back to it and fix it.  A promise as you can tell I rarely keep.

And it doesn't matter that good things have happened.  It doesn't really need a reason.  I can be having a nice day, things going smoothly, and then out of the blue, I'm gripped with this general melancholy.  This sadness with latch on any kernel of worry or anxiety I have and grow.  It becomes an anchor around my soul.

I have finally decided that I needed to call in for backup.  As much as I love and need the support of my friends, who are wonderful, I needed and still need a professional.  For the last couple of months once a week I talk things out with a therapist.  I was reluctant to go to one, because I have tried to enlist professional help before, with mostly limited results.

Over the last 10 years, this is the third time I have sought professional help.  I never really clicked with the first guy I saw.  I soon realized that the stress of coming up with the co-pay was more stressful and a more of a hardship than the depression I was fighting.  A few years later I tried again.  Again I found I didn't have3 a great rapport with the therapist.  Worse than just not clicking with her, she was very forgetful.  Every visit I spend haft the time repeating what I had told her in past visits.  The final straw was when she double booked me.

Luckily it seems that the cliché is correct this time and the third time really is a charm.  My current therapist Heather is much more attentive and remembers what I have told her.  While I find the hour to be a little tough at time and draining, its been very productive.  I think we have found the root of some of my issues and anxiety.  It's going to be long slog to get a handle on these thing, but I think in time, I will be happier and healthier.

I'm also learning to focus on the positive things in my life.  Here are some highlights since the last time I posted:

• I have started dating a good friend of mine and things are going great on that front.  I Have never dated someone whom I was really good friends with first.  We had been friends for almost a decade before we got together, so all of the getting to know you stuff is out of the way already.  The best way to describe it is to use a drinking metaphor, odd for a teetotaler I know.  My past relationships were like doing shots of Jagermeister.  It was all good times and excitement, woo-who, Spring Break!! Than out of nowhere you find yourself feeling awful and there are some fussy bits about how the night ended, but you know it didn't end well.  What I have now is more like a nice glass of wine you drink with a fine meal.  You feel a little bit of a buzz and just sort of warm inside.  It's nice.
• I've been going to the gym lately.  In fact i have gone every week day for the last three weeks.  now it's just been 25-30 min on the bike so far, but I'm hoping to start lifting again soon.  Getting these workouts have been a big help to my mood.  Now if I can just start eating right.
• To bury the lead, I published my 8 page comic!!!  You can buy it here or here or on freaking amazon for your kindle.  Of course as soon as I released it I was caught in a powerful wave of depression and did little to no real marketing.  But it is awesome that it is one the shelf at my local comic shop, Comics and More
• But this does not mean it was a failure as it has gotten me a bunch of lettering jobs.  Including a story featured in an anthology coming out later this year.  Once it's out I'll share more details.  I also have set up a page full of samples of my work.  Please take a look and I'm open to feed back as to things I could do to improve my technique.  I'm still learning as a letterer.

I learned a lot doing the comic and these lettering projects.  I hoping to take that knowledge and applying it to a continuing bi-monthly series that is a follow up to Dangers of The Road.

OK I think that's enough blogging for now.  I hope to have some more post for you soon.

T.