Did you ever see the movie; Julie and Julia? It's one of my current favorites. Not just because it's a cute story, I like it because it I rather understood one of the two lead characters, Julie. And for a period of time, in order to take my mind off of a job that was extremely stressful, I too found myself unwinding in the evenings by cooking.
In the early days of our marriage, my husband went back to school. In order for him to do this, to do this, we had to move fairly far away from our friends and family. For work, I had to transfer from a very well run office with wonderfully professional workmates and a great supervisory staff to a hellhole of an office run by a deplorable boss with a terrible temper ... and staffed with a bunch of 'good ole boys' and several people who seemed to get themselves off by making life hard for those who, due to the vagaries life, found themselves out of a job, and having to come in to apply for the the services we provided.
At the Good-Bye party thrown by my old workmates, I had been warned about what I would be facing, but being young and an optimistic thinker at the time, I reasoned that it couldn't possibly be as bad as all that. I was wrong. It was worse!
That is not to say that there were not some really good people working there. In spite of our dreadful working conditions, there were, in fact, some truly kindhearted and admirable people who also found themselves assigned to that miserable branch. And like most challenging situations, that one also came bearing some valuable gifts as well. Had I not found myself working there, I might never have met one of my very best friends.
What does this story have to do with Julie and Julia? It is just that it was because of my difficult work conditions, and our distance from family and friends, added to the fact that when Pete wasn't at school or working at his part time Job, he was usually studying. This meant I found myself with lots of time on my hands many evenings. After a day of working at a job I pretty much hated, I really needed to find something to do in the evenings to de-stress.
Like Julie in the movie, the thing I found to do in my spare time that made me feel happier was to peruse the cookbooks I'd ordered on a book of the month club, and to try out some of the interesting recipes I found. Since I had a lot of time on my hands after work most evenings, I did a lot of cooking.
The recipes i found in Julia Child's wonderful cookbook were not only delicious, but often quite time-consuming and rather complex. Just exactly what I needed to fill the hours when I found myself alone. Every evening, after the we had eaten the meal I had prepared the night before, it became my habit to do up the dishes, and while Pete went off to study, I would cook the next night's offerings.
Like Julie in the movie, I came to admire the genius of Julia's ability to painstakingly teach a novice cook some of the intricacies of French Cooking. And though I didn't talk to Julia as Julie did while she was cooking, I learned a lot about from that unusual lady who also needed something to do while her husband was busy.
I liked the idea that Julie in the movie decided to blog about her cooking every night of the year. It started me thinking about how fast the days are moving for me and how little I have been blogging.
I think this will be a momentous year for me. In August, Pete and I celebrated our 47th Wedding Anniversary. After dating for three years, we became engaged, and were engaged for six months before we got married. So counting up, I realized that Pete and I have been a couple for more than 50 years. Later this month, I will turn 70, which seems like a lot of years, and if I don't start writing now, i may never say what I want to say.
I may not find the time to do what seems to be a good idea right now, but like Julie in the movie, it seems to be a good idea to do something every day for a year. So tonight I think I am going to try to begin to post at least a couple of lines every day even if that just means that I might post one of the many quotations that I've accumulated in my vast collection of other people's thoughts and ideas.
At least that is my intention. If you know when my birthday is, you might realize that I am starting a couple of weeks early to give me some added time to post 365 times in a row. We'll see if I can do it. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
Posted by Judi at October 6, 2010 8:39 PM | TrackBack