Why blog now?

It took me two weeks to clear my head.

That's pretty good, considering how long it took to get jumbled. It was a gradual process. I didn't really notice reality slipping away while it was happening. One day, I was this young person, following my instincts, working, doing artwork, spending time with friends, having babies, building a house, raising kids, doing the craft show circuit, owning a business, raising wonderful teenagers, fighting greedy and misguided developers, becoming a pastry chef, earning a black belt, sending kids off to college and into the world, moving, still being a pastry chef and bam . . .

I joined mainstream America. I got laid off.

Undaunted, I took a temp job with the Census Bureau. Paid better than my old job anyway. Two weeks after that ended, I landed a job managing a cookie/gelato store at a high dollar mall.

Me? The scratch baking queen? Well, it's a weird economy, and it paid decently. I set out to enjoy the paycheck. I've never really enjoyed shopping, but as the summer wore on, we replaced the worn, purple carpeting that was in our bedroom when we moved in. I bought some clothes for my new job. We ate out, took a canoe trip, rented a car and drove to NC for July 4 weekend. I bought my husband studio time for his new CD. Got a hair cut. Tax free weekend found me replacing my obsolete iBook.

The commute was painful, the gossipy company politics unnerving and I missed baking. I comforted myself by spending freely. For the first time in my life, I was utterly mainstream.

And the high dollar mall was highly dead.

I was laid off Oct 4. I was a little surprised, as business was picking back up, but they were behind on the rent and I was the highest paid employee at that store. Too little too late.

The following morning, I awoke early, as I always did for work. I stayed in bed until it was light enough to walk out to the road to get the paper without a flashlight. It was close to the time I usually left, and as I walked down the drive with my dog, I could hear the cars on the road edging the hollow where we live. I wasn't in the traffic. I wouldn't be fighting it on the highway, dodging slow cars and busses on the city streets, waiting at endless lights. Instead, I picked up the paper and made my way back to the house, where I would read it with a cup of coffee, cheese, fruit and a tomato cornbread muffin.

And see if I could find my way back to who I had been. What I found in the next few days was that I spent almost as much time on food prep as when I had been a professional. And slowly. I came back to being me.