Saturday, February 27, 2010

Letter to Readers


Readers, I thought I should let you know that for lent I gave up this NYR. Wait, that’s not right. However Readers, I have sinned. You guys know that I recently went through an abridged version of buying a house. Whereas I hear most closings take place in about 45-60 days past first visitation of the house, I, never one do to things slowly, had an intense 16 days from find to closing (on Friday, February 19). Physically, mentally and emotionally drained, on the night of the 19th, after a 4pm closing time and a day spent chasing my down payment down, I….

How can I build this up longer to truly express it’s severity. Readers, this is my first house. My family never owned a home when I was growing up, and I have lived in some of Georgia’s poorest towns and precarious locations. Currently reading Outcasts United (and you should be too), the story of a group of refugee kids playing on a spectacular soccer team in Clarkston, GA, I can remember when I lived in Clarkston too. When it was my parents, baby sister & I in what at that time was a town that could flip either way socially and economically, into the time when it made that flip, not “for the better” to living in that same apartment with my dad, stepmom, stepsisters, sister, half-brother, and step-niece (I add the steps and halfs for story sake), to then visiting in 2000 with the hubs and seeing that same apartment with no front door and inhabited by squatters, one room full of dried leaves from a broken window, what used to be my childhood bedroom.
In high school, I think I was strong because doing the laundry was my chore (actually along with all of them, my mom believing that if she worked and supported us, that I should take care of the house), but we did not have a washer & dryer, and even if we did, the apartments we lived in were not the kind that had hook-ups! So, I weekly walked and carried our laundry, for 4 years, to the Laundromat. That’s why I have these guns here (kiss bicep, kiss bicep).

All of this just to say, the week of purchasing my own home, that’s mine, has been overwhelming. So at 6pm, when the closing was complete, the keys were mine, and handshakes with the lawyers and the realtors were finished. I cried. I was a wreck. I wished my mom could have seen me or my house. I felt like a little of my gutter-rat persona had been cleaned away. It was late. I was famished.
Readers, I literally said, “fuck it, go get food wherever you want,” and I paid to eat out after 50 days. Readers, to make matters worse, it was Choo-Choo’s and it was utterly disgusting! My food tasted (and not kidding, smelled) like a dirty, wet dishrag. I could not finish it. The next day we were lucky enough to have all of our meals provided by the hub’s folks & the UGA parents, and that was all 3 meals which is something to be thankful for! The next day, Readers, I did it again. I can’t even recall what it was and I can tell you it was not worth it, because every time it happened, I kept saying to myself “this should taste better”!

As of Tuesday, I was back on the NYR. I am not trying to make excuses, but I did find the move (and surprisingly so much other stuff going on) to be very stressful and food is my comfort. We have been in the house for an official week now and I still have not gone food shopping, mostly because the previous owners did leave so much stuff/food here!
Readers, I understand if I have failed you, or if you no longer want to follow my blog/journey. I know we are not really given time-outs in life, but I’m hoping that you look at this as more of a mulligan of sorts, continuing to play the green, but giving myself the scratch (I think I confused my golf analogy into a billiards one. I guess too much Warren St. John can do that to a girl). I think that good things have come into my life as a result of this NYR, and I want to sustain those things as long as I can. I still have more meals to learn to make and a kid to inspire (too strong a word, http://katymcarter.com/, please help me think of another) to cook. I think in some way we got this house because of this NYR, we never have money and I don’t think it’s magic (though wouldn’t that be nice!) that we were able to this year. I have a new kitchen to break in, and now that I have all my photo magnets on the refrigerator, I guess I am ready.

Readers, thanks for waiting, understanding, and sending me some good vibes and recipes and I plead with you to keep it up!
Sincerely,
Katherine
PS: I will be bulleting the past two weeks noteworthy food happenings soon.

2 comments:

  1. I think it's perfect that you cheated. Esp. since it wasn't as enjoyable as your memory served. Do what you gotta do -- it's so exciting that you're in your first house -- and get back to cooking when you can. You can't go backwards in this -- not a command from a reader, but an impossibility because you've already learned too much.

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  2. Fast food has no taste after you've been cooking your own for so long, and it is soooo not worth it! Fast food just doesn't have the "cooking with love" thing that home cooked food has.

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