Employment Update, Day 9: So I finally broke down and called the hiring manager at 3pm yesterday afternoon. She was on the other line so I left a message. I left work at 4:50 (my building closes at 5:00 during the holidays, so I have to shuffle out of my office a few minutes before) and get to work this morning to a message she left for me at 4:59pm yesterday. So I call back at 9am today and hear a message that she is out of the office until 2pm today. God love it. You know, I just about want to scream. All of this whining and pouting must sound pretty petty and silly, but I have been turning myself inside out for the past week. I seriously may have an ulcer forming. Maybe they'll just go ahead and hold out until after New Years to help me battle those holiday pounds. Anxiety burns mega calories.

In other news, I've finally decided to put down the mixing bowl and turn in my baking rights. I can finally admit it, I just can't bake. I am stubborn, can't follow directions, don't like to measure and hate to have boundaries when it comes to working in the kitchen, so baking is naturally a disaster for me. I tried to make fudge over the weekend and ended up with a thick gooey grainy mess. Not even my husband would eat it. We both wanted it to taste good, but after going back a fourth time we decided it had to be laid to rest. Baking and I just aren't meant to be together. Now I absolutely love cookbooks, but I look at recipes as starting points, as a basic guide which I am free to liberally alter. I can add an extra ingredient on a whim, or leave out something if I so desire. Now, if you pull the old switcheroo on ingredients or amounts while you're baking, you end up with crap. (Nothing can substitute for baking soda, that Splenda sweetener is not a good replacement for the real thing, and canned pumpkin is not a good additive to sugar cookies.) My last two attempts at making sweets have been miserable failures. There is a reason there are no recipes for pumpkin cookies, so I should not have tried to make one up. And I don't know what went wrong with the fudge. Of course, I tackled a complicated recipe for my first attempt at fudge making, so maybe that was the problem. Start with the simple, work up to the complex. Didn't I learn that when learning how to throw pottery? Why can't I apply it to baking? Oh well, my loving husband will just have to be the baker of the family. I'll stick with savory meats, veggies and starches. I will make you a feast, and Craig can make you the dessert. (Unless it's apple pie, which is the only thing I have ever baked well, and will continue to make until I die.)

I love the kitchen, and the kitchen is usually pretty good to me, though some gremlin is let loose when I open the sugar jar. Well, no more I say. I'm giving up on something, only for the second time in my life. (The first time was a chemistry class in college. Maybe these two failures are related?)