Busy morning!

So I think that every time I have to go to work and I really dislike it, I become exponentially more productive when I'm at home. I truly savor every moment that I have at home to just wander around in my comfy clothes, with my glasses on and my hair a mess, before I've even taken a shower, and get a whole bunch of things done. This morning, this translated into me throwing on a sweater, donning an apron, gathering up about thirty CDs to put on my computer, and beginning three cooking projects.

I have lately become enthralled with folk and classical music, I think because it seems to provide the perfect aural accompaniment to my domestic exploits. So, I went through Momma's and Dadda's music collection and pulled out a huge stack of music to add to my computer. Among the artists I chose are the following:

John Roberts and Tony Barrand

Alison Krauss

The Chieftans

Bob Dylan

Van Morrison

Greg Brown

Taj Mahal

Keb' Mo'

Lyle Lovett

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Boys of the Lough

Claudio Villa

Django Reinhardt

June Carter Cash

Leo Kottke

I also found a couple compilations of Italian classical music and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites, which are one of my favorite sets of crazy classical music.

Right now, I'm in the process of uploading this treasure trove of "new" music and I have a banana/strawberry/polenta cake in the oven and a new loaf of gluten-free bread in the bread machine. Earlier this morning I finished up making the baked nutritional yeast tofu sticks and ate a couple. Once my bread and cake are both done, I'm planning on packing up my overnight gear and heading first to the hospital to hand in my letter of resignation and then back south to Burlington for work at Lund from 2-10pm, then to Matt's for the night. I'm looking forward to all of these things :).

Mmmm...tofuuuu....

So the other day I made my umpteenth trip to that fabulous establishment, Cheese Traders, and picked up even more necessities (question: does something count as a necessity if it's just so damn cheap that I NEED to buy it?). This time around, I'd say my most major purchase, at least in terms of sheer size, was without a doubt the GIANT slab of tofu, priced at a mere $4.99. I'd say this sucker had to weigh at least close to 10 pounds! How could I pass up such a mind-blowing deal? I defy any vegan, vegetarian, or just plain fan of tofu to walk by such a snag!

Anyway, so I've had about ten pounds of plain tofu sitting in the fridge for the last couple days, just calling to me to be cooked in any number of ways, and I decided that tonight, after putting in a painfully boring 8 hours in the ER, I would cook at least SOME of this slab of glory! I looked through some recipes I printed off earlier today and decided on Baked Nutritional Yeast Tofu and a Garam Masala Tofu Scramble. The former won't be actually cooked until tomorrow but I got the tofu in the marinade tonight. The latter I whipped up and sampled between oh, 12:30 a.m. and 1:15 a.m. I'll put that recipe up tonight, since I finished it and tried it, and the other recipe I'll put up tomorrow, after I have a finished product:

Garam Masala Tofu Scramble (found on some blog but I can't remember which one right now):

Ingredients:

Olive oil for the pan

1/2 onion, diced

1 carrot, shredded (recipe called for diced, but I like mine shredded)

1/2 apple, diced (recipe called for 1/4, but that seemed like a lame amount)

1/2 pound firm tofu, pressed in towels for awhile, then crumbled (or diced, but I crumbled)

About 3/4 tbsp. freshly-grated ginger root (I used a cherry-sized chunk)

Garam Masala

Curry Powder

Salt, Pepper

Dash of nutritional yeast

About 1/4 cup coconut milk

Note: The recipe didn't call for the minced garlic, curry powder, or coconut milk, but in my opinion, these were highly necessary ingredients. Also, the recipe DID call for lemon pepper or lemon zest and fresh spinach, but I didn't have these so I didn't use them.

Procedure:

Heat up oil in a pan and sautee the garlic, onion, and carrot for awhile, at least until the onion starts getting translucent. Add in the apple and sautee for a little while longer. Add the crumbled-up tofu and sprinkle with ample garam masala, curry powder, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring fairly frequently, until the tofu starts to brown.

Now, I actually forgot to add the ginger in at the beginning so I tossed it in at this point, and it turned out fine, but maybe it would've had a chance to add a stronger taste to the dish if I had added it initially. Also, at first I considered the scramble finished once the tofu was brown, since that's what the recipe said, and I took it off the heat and ate a small dish, and it was good. But, it kind of was lacking something and I also thought it was a tad on the dry side, as I had envisioned the end result looking more like the tofu scramble at City Market which is kind of moist and sticks together more. I recalled how delicious the curried tofu was that I had made awhile ago and one of the main ingredients in that curry was coconut milk, so I decided to reheat the scramble, add some coconut milk, and let it cook down a little bit. GOOD DECISION! The scramble was much more flavorful and had a much nicer consistency once I did this, so I was happy I remembered about the coconut milk. As I'm writing this, I'm also remembering that another main source of flavor in that original curried tofu was fresh cilantro, of which I happen to have a fresh bunch in the fridge, so perhaps tomorrow when I reheat the scramble I'll add that in and see what happens.

Tomorrow I will also be cooking up the baked tofu that's marinating and may possible whip up a tofu quiche or something similar. Or I'll be looking up whether or not it's ok to freeze tofu, since I have such an overabundance of the stuff and don't want it to go bad. In any event, I will no doubt write about my successes and/or failures in the kitchen, probably from work, where I will be for most of the afternoon/evening.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

I want to quit the ER. I've decided that I'm at a very fortunate point in my life where I can pretty much opt out of this one source of real stress and anxiety, rather than put up and shut up. I have enough other sources of income that I won't miss my ER money, and in reality, the time that will be opened up by removing the ER from my schedule will easily be filled by much more pleasant work.

I think the reason why I want to stop working at the ER is that it's the only time where I don't really get to interact with people. I mean sure, I answer a million phone calls, talk to the ambulance folks (interjection: I always mentally pronounce ambulance as "AM-byoo-LANCE"), and have the nurses/doctors tell me the shit they need. But it's not REAL interaction. I don't get to have any conversations with anyone. I find myself getting chatty with people who call in to get medical advice, which we can't give, only because I'm so isolated at my desk in this whirlwind of humanity. I don't like that. I like being part of the whirlwind, like I am at my other jobs.

I think I also have decided the ER job doesn't agree with me because it's an all-or-nothing gig. Either I'm flat-out with stuff to do, to the point where I can't take a single step away from the desk because the phone won't stop ringing, there are three ambulances out, and every damn nurse and doctor has something for me to do, OR I sit there at the desk and almost literally twiddle my thumbs. I flip through all of the ancient parenting and gardening magazines that are nearby, I check my hospital email, I dick around on Facebook on my Ipod, I straighten, I tidy, I restock paper, I do whatever I possibly can to keep busy, and it's still not enough. I HATE that feeling of being completely idle and knowing that nothing is likely to change for the next five hours. I glance repeatedly at the clock, always assuming that surely an hour has passed, when in reality it's been about five minutes since the last time I looked. I hate that feeling.

So, after taking into consideration these points and bearing in mind the fact that I will soon have at minimum three days a week of nannying, I've decided that I can't not quit. Really, I want to quit now, before I have to work tomorrow. But, that would be highly irresponsible and unprofessional of me and would obviously result in a lack of a good reference. The wise, responsible, grown-up thing to do is to go ahead and give my two-weeks' notice tomorrow and start looking forward to no more ER stress and no more anxiety. And, unless they say, "Aw, to hell with you, just don't come back," or something to that effect, I will have to work the three shifts that I've signed up for and then I'll be done. I'm sure I'll have some pangs and twinges of something that approaches regret or whatever, but most likely these will only poke me when I tell the ladies who trained me that I'll be done soon, because they'll probably be kind of disappointed. I think they really dug me and the fact that I picked everything up quickly and completely. I'm sure I'll have fleeting thoughts of staying put and trying to actually like my job because I want to like it because I like that the people I work with think I'm doing well.

But, the idea of reasonably eliminating basically the only real source of stress/anxiety in my life is just far too attractive. And, the idea of opening up some time to either pursue more hours in the jobs I already have or as I've been thinking lately, to pursue a part-time gig at a place like Healthy Living or City Market, is just too tantalizing to give up. I may never again be in a situation where I have the freedom to remove job-related stress from my life, so I think I'm going to make the most of it and go for it tomorrow. And I will secretly hope that they say I can just be done and not have to come back, though I highly doubt that will actually happen.

In summary, I want my whole life to be just as satisfying, rewarding, and freaking interesting as possible.