Great Wall of Vegetables

The final tally (in number of more-or-less-serving-size packages):
9 lettuce soup
10 curried carrot turnip soup
6 roasted Hakurai turnips
6 roasted purple-top turnips (half w/ garlic & ginger)
18 roasted butternut squash (some roasted w/ honey & ginger)
12 blanched spinach
6 blanched kale
2 blanched broccoli stems
7 blanched broccoli florets
5 sliced and blanched kohlrabi
10 roasted beets
4 blanched chard

The beets were roasted in a little water, but everything else was tossed with a little fat (olive oil, butter, or a combo), sometimes with honey, ginger, maple syrup, or garlic. The only things left in the fridge are cabbages and leeks; there are some potatos in the back closet, and a bag of onions from the store in the fridge as well, plus odds and ends of onions and garlic on the counter. So, with some grains--pasta, bread, rice, farro, barley--and some cheese (which I just bought in moderately mass quantity), I can get by with a very low grocery bill for at least three or four months, maybe more.

My stand-alone freezer is full to the gills, and I ended up having to use the freezer on top of the fridge as well (which I try to avoid, because it's frost-free and therefore wreaks havoc upon frozen foods). I still have half a bag or so of AP flour, plus whole wheat, white whole wheat, and a variety of specialty flours with which I will not bore you (spelt, anyone?), so I can bake, too. (Did I mention that sourdough is magic??)

I wouldn't say that I'm battling depression, because this time of year always sucks for me, for such a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the relative lack of sunlight. I'm beginning to recognize that I really do need a plan, or a Plan, for how to spend my days. The past three weeks have been a whirl of creating the above pile of packages in the freezer, plus doing long-overdue cleaning tasks, with the occasional social occasion thrown in, but there's no order to it. That's the thing about being unemployed that I hated last time and don't want to recreate this time: the long days that end up being filled with a lot of nothing much, each livend with a dash of fear and a pinch of anxiety. I can spend hours (no lie) thinking that I Should Really Go Work Out--and by "go" I mean "change clothes and walk to the back bedroom"--and never actually do that. I can berate myself off and on for a day about how I should just get on the yoga mat--and never actually do it.

And, frankly, that cycle annoys me more than anything else. I recognize that it comes from the acres of time that stretch in front of me at the moment; when I'm most busy is also when I get the most accomplished, because I make schedules and I stick to them. When I'm just hanging out, I don't have a specific time to accomplish something, so I just . . . don't. This will make me insane if I don't find a way around it.

That, however, will have to wait for another day. I need to pack my crap and head off to the land of cheese and Packers fans. Enjoy whatever holidays, friends, and family members cross your path.