And I cooked again

Yes, I cooked. Not just in the microwave, which I do quite often. I cooked on a regular stove.

Over the past weekend, I fixed a simple vegetarian pasta dish. It tasted good. Even Larry, who says he’s a carnivore, not an omnivore, liked it and asked for seconds.

It probably sounds ridiculous that a 50 year old person is happy about cooking a simple dish on the stove.

I’ve written about why I don’t cook very often before. If you’ve read about my OCD obsession with stoves, you know that I have had a really hard time in the past cooking on a conventional stove.

Most of my problems with the stove are in the past. This is the way it was:

It was all wrapped up in the obsessions I had about safety. I worried that I was going to leave the stove on and cause a fire, which would hurt or kill my family.

So when the cooking was done, I compulsively turned the stove off and then on again, off, then on again, over and over. I stared at the stove, trying to convince myself that it was really off.

And then there were the contamination fears. I worried that I wouldn’t clean up after the food preparation, and errant crumbs and spills would draw ants and bugs and mice. And then there would be more contamination.

So I compulsively cleaned, wiping the counter over and over, eyeing it from every angle to make sure it was clean.

It was easier to just not cook.

I eventually learned that my compulsive acts did nothing to help me. OCD is tricky like that. Nothing calms the uncertainty for long before more compulsions have to be done.

The real way to break the OCD is to NOT give in to the compulsions, but rather, deal with the anxiety in other ways.

What worked for me was to leave the scene and get busy doing something else. Or I sometimes focused on the anxiety itself.

Whatever I did, I could not indulge in compulsions. In other words, once I turned off the stove, I had to walk away. I couldn’t check it. I couldn’t turn the knob to “make sure” it was off. Likewise, once I cleaned the counter—one pass over with disinfectant and water—I had to leave it.

My OCD has been better over the past several months. And I started thinking about cooking again. Larry and I eat out a lot. Both of us need to eat healthier. I decided that the best way for us to do that was to eat at home more and eat homemade food.

So I cooked Saturday night. I decided I could do it with a minimum of anxiety. And if I did get anxious, I had the tools to push through it.

I turned on the stove, cooked, and then I turned off the stove. I had a little bit of doubt. Then I turned away from the stove. I did OK.

I don’t think I’ll ever love to cook. It’s just not something I want to do a lot of. But if I can cook a healthy meal and feed my husband and myself at home, then I have accomplished something.

Have you cooked anything good lately?

Leaves and light

I have enjoyed trees so much this fall.

The leaves on the trees. The shape of the branches as they empty themselves of this year’s leaves.

But mostly I’ve enjoyed the way the colorful leaves reflect the light. Even brown or rust-colored leaves take on a glow when the sunshine hits them a certain way.

One of the things I’ve learned as I live with depression is to enjoy the beauty in life. To notice even the small things that can give so much joy—if we just take a moment to see them, not just glance over them.

Carrying around a camera--or thinking about taking pictures--is one of the best ways I've found to help me pay attention. 

I’ve been looking at trees all my life. I’m living through my 51^st autumn. But the older I get, the more I realize that a big part of contentment is enjoying the moment, savoring the beauty, and being grateful for it all.

It’s part of my therapy.

What bit of beauty have you enjoyed lately?

My father was a veteran

“On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan bombed Hawaii, and the U.S. declared war on Japan. So after that, the draft was for six months after the war ended. In February 1942, they lowered to age to 20 years, which caught me.

“In March 1942, I went to see a draft board member and asked him whether to start a crop. He said he saw no reason not to, and if they did, to just ask for time to get my crop in.

“On July 25, 1942, I got my notice to be examined on Aug. 12. I went to the draft board and asked for a two month delay and was refused. The draft board chairman said, ‘You will be getting $50 a month. You can hire someone to do it for you.’

“On Aug. 12, 1942, I was examined, passed and was sworn in the U.S. Army the same day. This was done in Roanoke, Virginia.”

“My birthday present on July 1, 1944 was going under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California and seeing the U.S.A. the last time for one and a half years.”

--from my father’s writings

My father and his mother.

My father served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was a medic. He served from 1942 until 1945.

In 1942, he left behind his farming, his family and his life in rural Central Virginia to answer the call from Uncle Sam.

He saw parts of the country and the world that he would never have visited otherwise. He saw horror and pain. He made lifelong friends. He came home and was forever grateful for being able to come home.

Today on Veterans Day, we honor all veterans. We take a day to thank those who served their country.

There will be programs and ceremonies to formally honor veterans. I’ll attend one in my town.

But I also remember my father’s service. He has been gone for many years, but I still have his words, his memories, his thoughts about his time in the Army. I hold them dear.

Falling leaves and random thoughts

Nancy at A Rural Journal has suspended the Random 5 Friday meme for now, but I can’t get out of the habit of sharing randoms on Friday. Nancy is sharing her Random 5 on her blog today, too, so be sure and visit her!

Leaves in the driveway.

Leaves in the yard.

Leaves on top of the car.

One

We have leaves. So many leaves. Something told the trees to let ‘em loose, and down they came and keep on coming. Larry has been busy blowing them to the curb for town pickup, but they are quickly replaced in the yard. It’s a weeks-long chore.

Two

Sweet Larry gave me flowers for our anniversary. I usually have Thursdays off, but I had to go in during the afternoon to do an assignment. He had the flowers sent to the office so I’d be surprised when I went in. Ten years equals 10 red roses and two pink ones to make a dozen.

Three

Notice the cat calendar beside the flowers? Every Christmas, Larry gives me the tabletop calendar that you “flip” halfway through the year. It features lovely photos of cats and tidbits, observations and quotes about felines.

I keep it on top of the filing cabinet in my office so I can look over from my work and see a pretty cat photo. I love it.

Four

It was on such a calendar that I first found this quote: "You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." (I’ve seen the source listed as anonymous and as Colonial proverb.)

I don’t know how lucky Larry and I are, but strange cats just seem to like us.

Thursday evening, Larry and I went to a local restaurant for our anniversary dinner. It’s the same restaurant where we saw a stray peacock back in the spring.

This time, a pretty gray and white cat walked up as we waited outside for the restaurant to open. She lay down on Larry’s feet, and then she came over to me and rubbed against my legs. I reached down to pet her, and she immediately jumped up with her front paws against my leg. I think she wanted me to pick her up.

The hostess told us she just showed up this week. I don’t know if she’s wandered permanently from home or what, but I worried about her being in a busy parking lot. It’s just not the time for us to bring home another cat, but I hope this little one will be OK.

Five

Considering my OCD used to manifest itself through extreme hand washing and fear of germs, it’s nothing short of a miracle—and I don’t use that word lightly—that I’m able to have a cat and make friends with new animals.

The love of my cats helped bring me out of a lot of my OCD fears. I am forever grateful for them.

Chase Bird in a bag.

10 years

Larry and I will celebrate our 10^th wedding anniversary this week.

In some ways, 10 years seems like a long time. A lot has changed in our lives over that time.

And yet, 10 years is but just a segment of what I hope is a much longer life together.

We were planning a small church wedding for January 2004. But our plans changed.

In late summer 2003, I moved out of the house I had rented in Rustburg for a few years and moved in with my mother for the few months before we got married. Larry and I moved most of my furniture and things into the house he already had in Altavista.

One evening after work, I was over at Larry’s and he asked me if I would ever consider eloping.

We talked about it and decided that we wanted to get married sooner rather than wait for January. But I didn’t want to go off and get married with no family there. So we decided to get married at the courthouse by the judge.

We set a date with the circuit court judge for Nov. 7, and that’s the day we got married. My mother and brothers and Larry’s parents and daughter were present.

Larry was sick that week with a really bad sinus infection, complete with a fever. Occasionally, when we talk about our wedding, Larry laughs and says he doesn’t remember the ceremony. So are we really married? he asks.

Oh, yes, I tell him. I have pictures to prove it.

Here’s one of those pictures:

I didn’t get married until I was 40 years old. I was engaged to someone else long ago, before I met Larry.

I’m so glad I waited for the right one: Larry.

A few, small steps

"Gold, Green, Red"

I spent part of this past weekend working on a project that I’ve been thinking about and talking about for a while but not making much progress on.

That project is my desire to start a freelance editing business.

When I pulled out the notebook I had dedicated to this project, I was appalled to see that my last notes were dated April 21 of this year.

That means that for over six months, all I’ve done is think about the project. And the thinking has been sporadic.

I want to start such a business for different reasons. I’d like to earn extra income. I’d like to eventually be completely self-employed and not dependent on an employer. I’d like to do something that fits closely with what I love doing the most.

What I love doing the most is writing. But I’m not looking to become a freelance writer, at least not in the sense of getting assignments to write articles for magazines.

I want to write about things that I’m passionate about and interested in. I’ll always do that, whether I have a traditional job or am self-employed.

That kind of writing, even if I get published, doesn’t always translate into money. And I do need to make some money.

Second to creating the words, I love editing the words of others.

I love the challenge of smoothing out writing, making it consistent in style, organization, punctuation, grammar, spelling, while keeping the writer’s voice in place.

I love the power of words and helping others find just the right ones to convey their meaning.

I love weeding through words, finding the ones that have to be cut to fit a certain word limit, again, keeping the writer’s voice the same.

When I edit, I lose track of time, become totally absorbed in the task at hand.

So why have I held back on moving forward with my business idea?

Procrastination, depression, perfectionism, fear—the same things that dog me in other areas of my life.

I think they’re all tied together. When you’re depressed, you may lack motivation to do much of anything. It just seems too exhausting and useless.

The OCD is a party to all this, too. It’s easy to fall into the trap of obsessing about not doing things perfectly, of making a mistake like not filing taxes correctly, not doing a good enough job at the work, not being able to do the work.

Even with the treatment I have received, even with the improvements I’ve experienced in both depression and OCD this year, they both still have their influences.

But can I edit? Yes. Can I do a good job? Yes. Can I provide a service to others? Yes.

I found that just taking a few, small steps helped. I did some research. Reviewed some information about starting a business in Virginia. Learned some things that made me feel better.

And I decided that the best step to take at this point was to set up an appointment with the certified public accountant that does out taxes and have a talk about the requirements for setting up a sole proprietorship in Virginia. Why worry about what I didn’t know when I had a source of information to begin with?

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll call this week and try to set up an appointment as soon as he’s available.

And I’ll keep taking the small steps that I need to take until I am ready to start my business.

What project have you been working on lately?

Leaves falling: Random 5 Friday

Happy November, everyone! I’m starting the month by joining Nancy of A Rural Journal for another week of Random 5 Friday.

One

The leaves seemed to have changed overnight in Central Virginia. Where there was still so much green last week, golds and reds color the trees and the ground underneath. It finally looks like fall around here.

A tree in our neighbor's yard.

The view down our driveway.

The trees across the street from our house.

Two

Larry did the first leaf work this week, blowing the leaves to the curb for pickup by the town. It was the first of many such chores. We have a large yard and many trees, so we have many leaves in the fall. They would smother the grass if we left them.

Trees waiting for pickup.

Three

This week I read about a study that suggests there are health benefits from keeping busy with lawn mowing, home projects, housework and the like.

Four

I also read about a study that suggests being sedentary too much can be harmful to your health. It got me thinking.

I tend to sit a lot on the job. I also sit for too long at one time. When I get up, I can barely walk at first because of stiffness in my legs and back.

So this week I experimented with setting the timer on my iPhone to remind me to get up and walk around every 45 minutes or so.

I find that I get so caught up in what I’m doing—writing, researching, talking on the phone—that I forget to get up. So here’s hoping a little electronic reminder will help.

Five

The sound I’ve chosen for the timer to go off is a Zen-like, soothing sound. My ringtone is similar. Larry’s ringtone? He picked one he said he could easily hear: the opening bars of “Bad to the Bone.”