Careers for Introverts

 I did a little google search today on careers for introverts.  It was pretty interesting.  I can't remember the number 1 answer, but number 2 was farmer or rancher.  They projected their income at 70K+.  That must be an average because I know farmers who make a whole lot more and a whole lot less.  While I would LOVE to be a farmer or rancher, I'm short on land, energy, and fellow workers.  I kept going down the list.  I probably would have been a great plumber.  I took an aptitude test in high school which suggested I join the military or dig ditches.  The counselor did not encourage me to pursue either of these options.  My dad, who grew up on a wheat and cattle ranch was solidly against the farm/ranch options, so I majored in nutrition.  I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do with that, but I did know I liked to eat.  I did a short stint with General Mills in their food lab.  It was an interesting job, but I no longer live in Minnesota, and I took a solid 25 years off to raise my children.

So, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up.  I had a solid start on being a dog breeder, but then we sold our property and moved to a much more densely populated area.  One particular neighbor made it very clear that he was not supportive of my vocation in our new location.  My sweet Berners are now in new homes, with lovely people living their best lives.  I think this satisfied my neighbor, since I haven't received any hate mail since they left.  Animal breeding was on the list of introvert careers, by the way, so I as in the right ball park.  I worked for a season (retail season) at Costco.  I'm not sure I can do that until I'm 80.  I did get in really good shape, and met some really great people.  I may go back once I get back from a 21 day trip in June.  It was solid pay, low stress, and I won't have to have a gym membership.  I also worked as a ski instructor this winter.  It was really fun to be outside, teaching little people to love to ski.  It is a fairly short season, and the pay was hit and miss.  I will totally be back up there next season even if it's only one day a week.

Part of my dilemma is knowing how much time I need to be working.  How much money do I need to make?  How much energy can I give?  I am always wondering how long my health will stay good, and will I need to help my parents or children at some point.  I considered going to graduate school to get a counseling degree, but spending 60K at 53, with 2 kids who still need to get through college seems out of reach.  The one career that looked remotely plausible was writing.  I do have a college degree.  I can work on the technical skills of writing.  I am fairly articulate, usually.  So here I am.  I need practice.  I need to work at it.  I need to figure out who needs someone to write for them and how do I get paid for it?

We will see where this goes, but it seems like as good a plan as any.  Rick writes for a living and does very well.  He is much more detail oriented and technical than I am.  He does have me read things occasionally to see if a lay person can understand what he's saying.  I'm going to take this plan to my father and see what he thinks.  I know he can provide abundantly more than I can imagine.  Every now and then people ask if I will write a book on parenting.  I have too many friends who have done that.  I think about it every once in a while.  My latest thought on the subject is how to write a book for parents that encourages them to know that all the trials and stress of parenting is totally worth it.  The honor of raising little humans is less about how they "turn out" and more about showing up and doing your best day in and day out.  I don't want to try to tell someone how to raise their child, I want to encourage them that parenting is important, and hard, and worth every sleepless night and gray hair.  I don't know if anyone wants to read that.  I definitely don't know if anyone would publish that.  For now, I hope I can get some quiet space to write about whatever is happening.  I hope that it gets better and more readable over time.  

Thankful for: Computers that make writing so much easier. Dogs to take on walks.  Rivers to walk next to. Birds laying eggs, catching fish, singing, swimming, flying, and generally being birds. April flowers coming to life.  Snow capped mountains stunning me every single day. A functional kitchen that I got to design.  Clean water that comes out of tap, hot and cold, in my house.  Uninterrupted time to think and write and talk to myself without any judgement.

Curry

 I seem to have lost my curry recipes.  If anyone has my San Juan Classics cookbook, there is a lamb curry in there that I used as my base.  Here is what I would do if I made curry tonight:

Ingredients:

Meat: chicken cut into bite sized pieces, leftover turkey, shrimp, lamb stew meat, pork would probably work too, chops cut into bite sized pieces, or a pork shoulder roast chunked up.

Onions: diced

Garlic: minced

Ginger: fresh grated a couple of Tablespoons.  I buy a root and store it in the freezer

Curry paste or curry powder.  I get mine from Penzey's.  They have a great sweet curry powder.  You can also blend coriander, turmeric, cumin, brown sugar, cardemom, but when you are starting out that's a lot of spices to track down.  Just find a paste or powder you like.

Coconut milk, or cream or whatever you have on hand.

You can add apples cut into small chunks or potatoes if you want.

Tomato paste: I buy the tubes, it makes more sense than opening a can and only using a Tablespoon.  Ketchup can also be used if nothing else is available.

Garnishes: Cilantro chopped, peanuts chopped, coconut, raisins.  Serve over rice or quinoa

Depending. on which meat you are using I would put some oil (coconut, olive, canola if you must) in the bottom of a large frying pan or Dutch oven.  Cook the meat until it's no longer pink.  Remove from pan.  Add onion, garlic and spices.  If using apples or potatoes add them here. Cook for a few minutes.  Add coconut milk, if you are using cream you might want to thin it with a bit of chicken broth.  Add tomato paste.  Put the meat back in the pan.  If you need to add more liquid do, if you are happy with the consistency just cover and let simmer for 15 minutes or so.  Feel free to experiment.

Stroganoff

 Eden asked me for some recipes.  I have not discovered a great way to share recipes with my kids.  I will attempt to put some up here.  I am taking the recipes that I have used in the past, and will write what I actually do when I make them.  Most recipes were written for families of four.  We had a family of 11, and usually had extras.  I don't measure.  I take a lot of liberties with most recipes.  I don't bake very often, probably because baking requires more precision than I typically can muster.

Ingredients:

Meat: can be hamburger, stew meat, round steak cut into bite sized chunks, beef roast cut into bite sized chunks, venison cut into bite sized chunks, whatever you have on hand.  It doesn't have to be a nice tender cut, this will cook for a while so it's ok if it's tough.  If you are in a hurry just use burger.

Flour: a cup or so, seasoned salt (Unicorn salt is great, but Lawry's or whatever your favorite is is fine), paprika, salt and pepper, garlic salt.  I dump all this in a plastic bag with the meat and shake it up until it's all coated.  Like I said, I don't measure spices so maybe a couple of teaspoons or so of each.  Start light you can always add, but it's hard to subtract.

Onions: sliced thin, as much as you like

Mushrooms, sliced. I prefer fresh, but canned are fine in a pinch.

Sour cream

Beef broth

I use a crock pot usually, but a Dutch oven works great.  If you are using the crock pot, first brown the meat in a frying pan.  Drizzle olive oil in the pan and get it good and warm. Shake the meat out of the plastic bag with the flour and spices into the pan.  Let it brown on all sides.  Dump that into the crock pot.  Put the sliced onions and mushrooms on top of the meat.  Pour some beef broth over the whole thing enough to cover the meat. Throw in a bay leaf if you have one. Let cook for at least 4 hours on high.  In the last 30 minutes add the sour cream, at least a cup, more if you like it creamy.  Stir.  While it's warming up make egg noodles or rice.  I sprinkle a little more paprika over the whole thing at the end.  Serve over rice or noodles.

If you use the Dutch oven, you can just saute the meat and onion in the Dutch oven and then add everything except the sour cream.  Put in the oven at 350 for at least an hour, but longer is fine.  Add the sour cream at the end, like last 15 minutes, while you make the noodles or rice.  You get the idea.

Serve with veggies on the side.  I love roasted asparagus or brussel sprouts.

Complete Nonsense

 I'm reading a book, A Church Called TOV, Forming a Goodness Culture that resists abuses of Power and Promotes Healing by Scot McKnight.  The first section is on identifying toxic church cultures, it's not fun reading.  It was all too familiar, and unsettling to read.  I really wanted our family's story to be uncommon, not as in exceptional, but as in I hope this isn't happening to other people.  Apparently we are as common as dirt.

I started into the next section, hoping maybe I would feel a bit more light coming in.  I started reading about empathy.  I remembered that Doug had written something about how awful empathy is, so I thought I'd look it up and see where he was coming from.  Why, why, why, do I do that?  Fifteen minutes into the hour plus podcast I felt all the old feelings creeping up on me.  I hear his words.  I want to believe that he understands the grace in the words he is repeating from the Bible.  His presentation just makes me want to scream.  Why does he think that every relational issue has a true and false side?  We are fully orbed human beings.  We aren't good or evil, we are a healthy mix of both.  When we interact with others there are not right and wrong interactions.  There are human interactions.  There are emotions, and hormones, and perspectives and the Holy Spirit working in all of it.  This world is not black and white.  He is not the judge of every interaction of every person who steps in his office.  I suddenly started thinking about the way he interacted with me as I sat in his office.  The entire time I was being analyzed for the accuracy of my statements.  I was not being ministered to, I was being analyzed and catagorized.  Wow.  Just wow.

It has been really hard to get comfortable in our new church body.  The people seem very genuine.  The pastors are very smart, and seem very humble.  I have appreciated the room they have given us to settle in and figure out our place.  I have not made much effort at really getting to know people.  I have had a few interactions, where I realized I could have explained myself better, but decided not to.  I'm completely fine with being Brant's sister, who seems a little aloof, or slow, or maybe a little mean.  Not mean in an attacking way, mean in a "I don't care if you like me" way.  I tried so hard to fit in at other churches, and I don't actually care anymore.  I know God loves me as I am.  I am not what people expect a godly older woman to be, and I am fine with it.  I love kids.  I love dogs.  I love people, especially people who are quirky. I do not love huge sterile houses.  I do not love loud gatherings where people wander around talking about nothing.  I do not love hiking in the woods with people I don't know.  I do love reading books and discussing them.  I'm strange.

The Bible is full of strange characters, so I feel like I might be ok.  Most of the books I read tend to have strange characters that see things other people don't.  Or they experience things in life that give them insight into things that make them not so fun to be around.  I'm not fun.  I'm sarcastic, dry, thoughtful, opinionated and often dead wrong.  I find David's character comforting.  I'm sure he wasn't easy to talk to all the time.  The women he seemed to like were not like the women Nancy Wilson recommends we all imitate.  They were shrewd and fiery.  They got shit done.  I love to meditate on God's Word.  The Bible is such a great book.  I think it's funny when we preach on certain passages that aren't appropriate for kids.  Really?  Have you watched cartoons lately.  I think we better teach them the Bible in all its fullness or we are leaving those innocent kids in a very dark place.  Especially in the churches that I have been a part of.  Christians that are clean cut, plaid shirt wearing, blond, blue eyed, kids all shiny and clean, make me nervous.  There is something very overdone in those people.  Piety was never my cup of tea, but it is terrifying to me these days.  If I am the strange one, then heaven help us all.