Reflections of a Wayward Blogger

Our breakfast destination on our anniversary weekend away

I have missed my blog but I have missed cooking too. You read that right, I have missed cooking. I "gasp" did not even do a meal calendar for May. It has been THAT bad! My entire Spring has been nothing but chaos at my real job and at home. When I got back from Arizona it was like I walked through the wormhole and began inhabiting crazy town on a regular basis versus the life I was so familiar with. I questioned whether I still wanted to blog. I thought does anyone even notice I am not blogging, or care? Do I care? I would sit down to write and 100 other things would come up because I was not dedicating the time. And I was not dedicating the time because I believed I could not spare it. By default, I was not cooking composed meals as much. Our family and work schedules were driving us to eat out more because I did not have meals planned. I did not have meals planned because I believed I was too stressed out to plan or think up a menu that would work with our busy schedules. Then I found myself counting days to our next family events as a way to keep me going at work and just thumbing through the various issues of different cooking magazines I have delivered every month. My heart was not in it but I thought all I needed was to finish my class, and refocus at work and I would be able to breathe. It was a nice thought but even after the class ended, the craziness did not.

Then the other day, I was barely paying attention to an episode of American Idol when I saw the commercial for the new season of Master Chef and I remembered how excited I was about cooking and food. I was so excited that I dragged my friend Kandice to Washington D.C. to AUDITION FOR A REALITY TELEVISION SHOW , to audition for that exact show! I did that and it seems like a lifetime ago. I began thinking about what was different then compared to now. And then it hit me that this person writing this blog gave up because it was too hard. The same advice I give my son "keep trying, don't give up" (conveniently put into a catchy song by Yo Gababa Gabba I might add) I failed to heed myself. I had some opportunities related to this blog and to cooking that fell through over the past few months and I let my disappointment derail me.

The other thing that changed was my perspective which in turn affected my priorities. My paying job provides for my family and as my husband says often "it is what it is" but I have been letting the stress and the subject matter impact my entire life outside. I forgot that planning meals and cooking menus with 50 ingredients is therapeutic for me. I forgot that I cook because I love doing it and I write about cooking because I love writing too. And those two points were critical as I remembered that this blog was created for me to do something I love.

So the Cook Crook has returned once again. I will make no promises about what I will write about or share but I am still always open to readers comments, questions and ideas. I cannot promise I will always have a step by step recipe or repeat an idea or two, but I will continue sharing what I love, food and cooking and every great idea I can snag from this adventure they call life. And if you are new to this blog, consider yourself lucky....you have a writer on hand who now remembers why she writes and plans to do it often.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. ~ Thomas Edison

The Cook Crook returns...for real this time

A good idea can only be seen as such if it's acted upon.

I am either the author of that quote or unintentionally reworded someone else's words but the sentiment is what matters. I believed in the idea of this blog, thought it would be fun, thought I would get other people interested...and then I lost my way. Life happens. Jobs change. Kids get sick. You hate your boss. You love your company. You had free time. You have no time. A knee gets operated on. I could make a list a mile long. But in the end, I came back because I have something to share. I can find a good idea in bad food, good food in 3 okay recipes and great food in a good idea. All I have to do is make sure I share it with you.

So, lets do a Batman Begins reboot of this franchise shall we? Everything from here on out will be what I hoped it would be and hopefully, even more.