Staying Cheerful

It’s a tricky thing, staying positive at the moment. I’ve started calling jobs Applications of Joy instead of Doom, giving the whole process a more upbeat feel, but it still doesn’t change the fact the future is as murky as paint water.

The main problem for me is being back at home in my childhood bedroom. It hasn’t changed since I was a teenager. I left the majority of stuff in it when I moved out (Stuff R Us should be the family motto, apart from it sounds less toy shop and more taxidermy than I’d like), and so here I sit, in a room that by and large hasn’t changed since I was 15. It feels, well, sort of odd. It has an air of melancholy, like the young me was pickled in a jar ages ago and is still here somewhere, starry-eyed about the future. Yet here I am, and here I sit, and nothing feels right, not one bit.

You know it is bad when I start rhyming.

But then I try to stay positive, as the good thing is no bills m’lord, and that is exactly what I need right now, at this moment in time. I say ‘no bills’ – well I do pay my mum a bit each month, and then there is the cats insurance, and a myriad of other strange small amounts – but nothing like the big hitters – flat rent, mortgage, electricity - those are the hard ones. So – all good, right? If only moods were so easy!

I can sense my cheerfulness is slipping of late; I get uptight easier, over-react to silly things, more cynical with bigger things. Nothing sits easy with me – I’m constantly thinking about what the hell am I doing? Am I doing enough? Am I letting life slide? Am I opting out? I worry I’m not being a good enough friend, girlfriend, or daughter as I feel so overly occupied with my internal analysing. I find myself doing more childish things – reaching for books I last read while in school uniform, running through old shows and theme tunes on youtube – I’m probably just riding a wave of nostalgia being back here, so maybe I should enjoy it! Or I’m taking comfort in these memories… or of course it could be I am regressing into a small childish blob. *lobs analysis out of the window*

Still – more Applications of Joy coming up, and I promised I’d cook mum and J dinner tonight. This may have been a trifle foolhardy, since I basically agreed I’d make the equivalent of mushroom pasta and know full well there are no mushrooms, and possibly no pasta. So this means a stomp to the corner shop to pick over whichever road-side vegetables look still vaguely edible, or I ask J to buy his dinner in its natural raw state and bring it to me, where I can boil it to within an inch of its life. If you get the impression I'm not a natural born chef I'd say you were very astute.

On not Being a Domestic Goddess

I decided to bake a cheesecake yesterday.

This is such an unusual occurrence in our household that not only did I have to go out and buy all the ingredients, but I had to also buy a cake tin, and please, can someone shout down from on high STOP YOU CRAZY FOOL in the style of BA Baracus from the A Team next time I get a bright idea? I am supposed to be saving money *she wails* especially if I do these life coaching thingummys, but there I go, good intentions in one ear and out the other, blissfully thinking that a £10 cake tin is such a bargain, when I don’t actually cook. The next time this cake tin will be pulled out is when I give it away to John’s mum.

But in the meantime there I was, using a recipe printed from Delia Smith online, and covering the kitchen in biscuit crumbs. The first hurdle was the 50g of butter. I have no scales, so whacked off a chunk, melted it and poured it into the biscuit crumbs. It disappeared, so I repeated the process. A lot. This seemed to work, although it was surely over 50g now. Mmm a nice buttery cheesecake, I thought happily.

The next hurdle was the actual cheese – I should’ve bought two tubs of Philadelphia. Oh well, I thought, it just won’t be a deep cheesecake. It will be a buttery thin type of cheesecake. Into the oven it went, and I felt well proud of myself. “I cooked a surprise!” I told John gleefully. “Great,” he replied, warily. We both looked in the oven. “Is it some sort of biscuit?” he asked.

There endeth my Domestic Goddess career.