A little bit of hope...

Yesterday I went to the library to return some books and pick up a book on Veganism that I had requested. (I'm not planning on becoming a Vegan, I'm just interested in learning more about alternatives to animal products.)

While I was at the library I looked randomly through some books on the shelf and picked out a book called "no death, no fear" by Thich Nhat Hanh. An hour later I found out that one of my best friends just lost her mom.

Saddened by this news and thinking of my kids I opened the book this morning and found this passage,

"Since before time you have been free. Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey. Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek. You have never been born and you can never die."

It gives me hope. I wanted to share it with you.

Can someone please turn off my brain?!

It's driving me crazy!!

Lately I've been a little obsessed with the accident. Obsessed in a really bad way. Obsessed in that I seriously can't stop thinking about it.

Most of the time it begins when I'm driving on a highway. I'm driving along, singing some Gaga and it hits me. I look at how fast I'm going, I look at the side of the road and I start imagining what the accident was like for Kate and Peter. And then I freak out.

I start crying and apologizing to them and praying to someone that they didn't suffer. I go over it and over it, and each time it seems worse. I think, "I NEED to know that they were ok - that it was quick and they didn't feel anything or that they were unaware of what was going on". Then I think, "THEY WEREN'T OK, OBVIOUSLY - THEY DIED, YOU STUPID MORON!!!!"

And then I lay in bed at night and it starts all over again. Or I wake up in the middle of the night. I don't know how to stop it and I know it's not helping anyone.

It's not like I can go back and fix it, though that's what I think my brain is trying to figure out a way to do. It's not like I'll ever figure it out either. So why can't I stop?

Ugh.

One good thing...

Before I begin this post I want to thank you all once again for hanging with me through all of the sadness. Your comments and encouragement mean so much. Hearing that this blog is helping people - instead of just being self-absorbed and negative, as it sometimes feels to me - is very important. As long as this blog is helping people (myself included), I will continue to write.

I promised to write as soon as I found something positive and, thankfully, I have. So here it is:

I'm back in school now (I took the fall off for my wedding) and this quarter is all about baking. I am quite surprised and very happy to tell you that I think I may love baking more than anything I have ever done in my entire life! For real. I mean, I love to cook and I have always enjoyed baking, but seriously, I'm enjoying this class more than I thought possible.

In the past I've tried to not spend too much time writing about food because I don't want Callapitter to turn into a food blog, but right now my life is kind of food-centric so I may have to go there for a little while. I also don't have a fancy camera and I don't know how to take the beautiful pictures you see in other blogs, but I would like to share a few of the things I've made so far.

I apologize in advance if you're on a low-carb diet, or any kind of diet for that matter.

French Bread



Spritz Cookies


Pecan Sticky Buns


Biscuits (They're heart-shaped because I was practicing at home and didn't have a round biscuit cutter. And it was almost Valentine's Day.)


My favorite so far: Croissants



There is a down-side to all of this baking which is the fact that I've been consuming all of these baked goods almost as fast as I bake them. I haven't stepped anywhere near a scale in the past few weeks, but so far my clothes still fit. I'm sure that soon I will have to take measures to counteract all of the butter and sugar ingestion that's been going on. For now I'm just enjoying the fact that for at least 10 hours a week I'm distracted from my pain and sadness and I'm doing something I enjoy.

My sincere apologies...

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am, in fact, still here and I haven't made any decisions to discontinue my blog. I'm sorry I haven't blogged in forever. I know everyone worries when I don't write and I feel very badly about that, but the truth is that I've been a mess lately and I didn't want to write anything that would make people worry more.

I keep thinking that the more time that passes, the easier it gets, right? Unfortunately that hasn't been my experience at all. I don't know why it keeps getting worse, but it does. I just really, really miss them and can't figure out the purpose of my life without them. I mean, I'm a mom without any kids. That kinda makes me, well, nothing - or at least that's how it feels.

I promise that as soon as I feel the slightest bit of positivity creep back into my existence I will blog again. Thank you all for you comments, messages and words of concern. Someday things will be better.