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Showing posts with the label grief

Christmas Without Key Limes

  My dad is limes. My memory of a perfect Christmas is a recipe for key lime pie. The limes are all gone. For most of the year, I don't really need or crave limes. Sure, there are times when I think limes would be good, or I particularly miss them, but there are so many other things that fill the need for limes. On a day to day basis, a lack of limes does not affect me too much. Christmas though...Christmas was the time for limes. They are, after all, the key ingredient in a key lime pie. How can one have Christmas without them. There is nothing I can do to substitute limes and still come up with a key lime pie. I have all the ingredients in the world, except for the one that makes it work. No matter how hard I try, I will never have key lime pie again. Does that mean I still can't have something tasty? No, of course not. It just won't be key lime pie. It'll never be key lime pie.  It's kind of a hard thing to accept. Every year, without fail, the craving for key li...

Ice Cream Interlude and Further Ruminations on Grief

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Ok, so first of all, no, not all of these posts will be about my dead dad. This is just a special sort of weekend and it coincided with my idea to start blogging more, so here we are. Second of all, yes, this is supposed to be about stuff I cooked and/or baked and I did NOT make ice cream, but hey, my blog my rules. See above for special weekend. This is also a sort of filler post until my next one, as the food I am making for that takes a while and won't be ready until tomorrow at earliest. That out of the way....here is a picture of the completed cinnamon rolls from before that I didn't add to my last post because it ended kinda abruptly: They were as ugly as sin...namon. See what I did there? I will see myself out... Grief is real weird, y'all. Also kinda dumb, if I am honest. Did I say that before? Don't know, and too lazy to re-read what I wrote. But really, it is dumb and weird. Earlier this week, while at work, I became overwhelmingly sad. For no...

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls, Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats, and Grief.

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Recipes used: Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls from The Perfect Loaf Pumpkin Dog Treats from Spend with Pennies Here we are, one week away from the worst day of the year. Time to distract myself with baking. It's like procrasta-baking, but with more denial. With procrasta-baking (procrastinating by baking, if you didn't know), you are trying to make yourself feel like you accomplished something even though you know you have to do the other thing you are putting off. Distraction baking is all about pretending you DON'T feel what you actually feel and give yourself a false sense of happiness. In this case, I am pretending I don't feel the soul-crushing weight of my dad's death. Why cinnamon rolls and pumpkin dog treats? Well, one I have been experimenting with my lovely sourdough starter that was gifted to me from a coworker. It is from the 1800s and has been passed through her family for generations, so it is pretty fancy. So far I have tried two sourdough bread rec...

I can't be mad at him

I can't be mad at my dad for choosing to die. My dad was diagnosed in late July with CNS lymphoma. He had a massive tumor in his frontal lobe and surgery was only able to remove part of it. It was the first day of what was supposed to be a vacation in upstate New York. We had noticed him acting a little strangely the week before, but he stubbornly refused to go to a doctor until we were in Syracuse. I remember when they said he had a brain tumor the floor fell from beneath my feet and I felt cold all over. It couldn't be happening. He had his surgery in New York and we left for home (Kansas, driving) a few days later. He was back in the hospital almost as soon as we got home. He had an infection, which necessitated more surgery. But he also had diabetes, so they had to get his blood sugar under control before they could clear the infection. He was in the ICU for almost a week I believe, mostly not responsive. After another week or so he was transferred to a different hos...