{"id":8250,"date":"2022-01-22T23:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T04:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=8250"},"modified":"2022-01-22T23:00:15","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T04:00:15","slug":"stir-crazy-gitts-crazy-and-just-plain-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2022\/01\/stir-crazy-gitts-crazy-and-just-plain-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Stir-Crazy, Gitts Crazy, and Just Plain Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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BETWEEN OMICRON<\/span><\/strong> and Oh-My-God-It\u2019s-Freezing-Out, there is some serious winter-itis going on around here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out hibernation is not all it\u2019s cracked up to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m getting restless. Frankly, stir-crazy. I have no right to complain \u2013 I am warm and cozy in my house, and I can take a nice walk (in the 30 mph wind and zero windchill) any time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not like I don\u2019t have plenty of work to do. But there\u2019s just something equilibrium-swallowing about Covid winters. Winters<\/em>\u00a0plural \u2013 that in itself says it all. Plus, we are, um, on an Island. Which is never exactly hopping in the wintertime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The evidence of my scattered state is everywhere, strewn around the living room in seed catalogues, piles of magazines and garden books, bags of old clothes I\u2019ve rounded up, oversized graph pads and pencils. Colored pencils. Collage glue. Pieces of fabric. Paint chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bounce from one project to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have been reorganizing my pantry (aka rickety shelves in the basement), starting with grains and legumes. Someone gave me a lot of arborio rice and red lentils in bulk, so I have an excuse there\u2026but where did all the rest of this stuff come from? I guess I buy grains and beans every time I go to the store. Oh well, it\u2019s very satisfying to package them all up and label them and arrange them in orderly rows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I “redesigned” the kitchen (on paper) \u2013 again. This whole kitchen renovation will probably never happen, but I will be ready with multiple versions if it ever does! This time I took my stepson\u2019s advice and co-opted the space where the downstairs bathroom is now and added it to the kitchen. (Yeah, we won\u2019t talk about what that means for the bathroom\u2014and the rest of the downstairs\u2014just yet.) Playing with this bigger space kept me entertained for three nights running while the Wolf Moon prevented me from sleeping.\u00a0\u00a0(I’m sorry the scribblings are barely intelligible.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this new (paper) kitchen I have lots of light (check); the range goes against the outside wall for venting (check), there is a nifty floor-to-ceiling shallow pantry (check), a small second sink (check), a smallish Island (check), and no corners (I hate corners). Who knows what the next iteration will look like?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I finally sat down with all the seed catalogues. I\u2019d been avoiding them because I have so many seeds from last year and I wanted to be fiscally responsible. But my new husband\/old live-in partner (who should know better) said, \u201cDon\u2019t skimp \u2013 how much can seeds cost?\u201d Ha. Ha. Ha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We now have 17 varieties of zinnia seeds (among other things) coming in the mail. (This, in addition to the ones we grew last year, below.) Once I started I couldn\u2019t stop. Did you even know there were 17 varieties of zinnias? Well, there are even more than that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course, I\u2019m not giving up on dahlias<\/a> either. But I have been super restrained, only ordering five new tubers \u2014 so far. They are Labyrinth, Sweet Nathalie, Break Out, Crichton Honey, Rip City, and Kharma Gold. Oops, that\u2019s six. Plus, I got Otto\u2019s Thrill and Thomas Edison at the end of last summer (discounted!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they join Bumble Rumble, Jowey Frambo, Andrew Charles, Parkland Glory, Omega, Gitts Crazy, Hamilton Lilian, Noordwijk\u2019s Glory, Bishop, Brown Sugar, Bluetiful and Maarn from last year. (Photos below are from last summer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Last year\u2019s tubers are all stashed in the basement in bags of peat. Every so often I go down to check on them and wind up doing something else. The basement is a mess, so it\u2019s easy for me to forget why I went down there in the first place once I start restacking prop dishes, moving suitcases around, breaking down boxes\u2026It\u2019s not a good place to go for someone like me with concentration problems. But it\u2019s better than the garage, which is a whole other story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This problem I have with jumping from one thing to another is not new. I\u2019ve never been able to sit still for very long. I was nearly thrown off the set of Romper Room \u2013 my first TV appearance! \u2013 for refusing to stay seated in my chair. Apparently ice cream was used to bribe me (why does that not surprise me?), and I managed to last the week and get my Good Doo-Bee certificate.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But these winter willies feel different, and unsettling. I think maybe it’s because life seems extra precious these days. Two very kind and good people I knew died this past week, both in their 60s. Another friend is having cancer treatments. Friends are retiring, moving, downsizing. The news makes one wonder what life in this country is going to be like in five, ten years from now. I don\u2019t know about you, but I tell myself that I\u2019m letting it all slide off my back, but that\u2019s not really true. In the back of my mind linger the same questions all the time \u2013\u00a0What should I be doing with my time? Am I making the most of my life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The only way I could think to calm the jumpies today was to call my Dad. Conversations with my Dad are never short, so they force me to get in a comfortable chair, relax and be present. There can be no better use of time than talking to this interesting and smart and amazing man who I am so lucky to still have in my life. I always learn something from him and hopefully absorb just a thimbleful of his wisdom. Every time I hang up the phone with him I am filled with enormous gratitude.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to remember that gratitude answers a lot of questions. Especially about what one should be doing with one\u2019s time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now if it could only stop my head from spinning!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LOOKING FOR RECIPES?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit cookthevineyard.com<\/a> and sign up for the free weekly newsletter<\/a>. (Something I do as part of my day job.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BETWEEN OMICRON and Oh-My-God-It\u2019s-Freezing-Out, there is some serious winter-itis going on around here. Turns out hibernation is not all it\u2019s cracked up to be. I\u2019m getting restless. Frankly, stir-crazy. I have no right to complain \u2013 I am warm and cozy in my house, and I can take a nice walk (in the 30 mph […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[168,181,149,163],"tags":[178,219],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8250"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8266,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions\/8266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}