We’re in the final countdown to our closing day on August 1st. Even though the big moving truck day isn’t scheduled until the middle of August, most of our stuff is packed up and our apartment is looking, well a little bare. We plan on moving a few things here and there over the next little while and that includes anything left in our fridge, freezer and pantry. We’ve avoided doing any major grocery shopping in the last half of the month and have finally resorted to consuming all the cans of soup we had hidden in the back of the pantry.
Last week, I had found myself standing in front of the kitchen wishing for a snack to magically appear when I opened the cupboard door. Since I haven’t had the chance to bake in the last little while, the lack of snack food has slowly, ever so slowly, become more apparent. Nothing is more annoying than craving cookies and realizing that I can’t bake because I’m out of flour and my cookie sheets are packed away.
Enter Nairn’s Oat Crackers and Cookies! When I received an email to sample seven of their oat cracker and oat cookie products, I jumped at the chance. Getting mail is like Christmas Day, but getting food mail is like Christmas Day plus a week long vacation in your favourite destination.
What’s a girl to do when her life is packed away in boxes and she is having trouble navigating her own living room? Why, eat chocolate of course!
One of my most popular recipes on the blog is my Healthy Chocolate Avocado Muffins, but due to my obsession with eating them on everything (veggie burgers, pasta, smoothies, a slice of toast), I don’t always have a ripe avocado on hand every time a chocolate craving hits. Up until recently, I’ve resorted to eating handfuls of the frozen milk chocolate chips I keep finding in half-open bags the back of our freezer. I’m convinced that in doing so, I’m helping to clean out the freezer, so the guilt hasn’t set in yet.
Moving is a lot like working in the film industry. For both, the paperwork side is completely insane, there always a lot of people and deadlines to keep track of and by the end of the day, it’s just a big game of hurry up and wait. Our closing date for our new place is August 1st and I swear it’s so close that I can almost taste it. Right now we’re trying to do all the paperwork of organizing our finances, scheduling movers, and transferring our services (internet, etc) to the new location. We’re also in the middle of purging and packing everything. We put in our 60 day notice on our current apartment last week (we’re doing a slow move-in in August) and now that that is finalized, it seems all the more real that we’re actually leaving.
Let me just start by saying that baking ruts are the worst. THE. WORST.
I originally started this post as a top 5 list of things I was doing to avoid the fact that I am dealing with a baking rut (title was lengthy and obviously tentative). However, I couldn’t get passed the 3rd point without running out of ideas and thinking that I was sounding like a whiny 5-year old. Not my intention, but understandable once you realize how frustrating being stuck in a rut like this can be.
SO FRUSTRATING!
The few things I have had time to make have not been very exciting. Flat raspberry muffins that were so moist we had to store them in the fridge and eat them within 3 days because I was scared they would go bad. Breakfast cookies that don’t taste like anything and I’m still trying to finish off (Trevor has already given up). It can be a little bit discouraging, especially when my inspiration to bake has completely disappeared with all these set-backs.
But I am still around and I know that this rut I’m stuck in will pass. I know that it doesn’t help either that a) it’s summer, so our apartment is currently a million degrees and b) we are in the process of planning a move for August. I was going to do a reveal post about moving sometime in the next month, but I figured that I would just throw it out there now and maybe do another write-up later. Like about how I’m thrilled to finally say good riddance to the ancient, malfunctioning stove my landlord refused to replace and saluting the not-quite-brand-new-but-still-an-awesome-upgrade oven in our recently purchased condo. Or the fact that we will have air-conditioning at the new place so turning on the oven will no longer be an ordeal when the weather is slightly warmer than 20 degrees. Oh, and the fact that we will have, wait for it, our own washer and dryer. Stuff like that.
So here’s to a summer where hopefully I can shake myself out of this rut and dig out my camera under all these moving boxes. Oh, and my inspiration. It’s probably packed somewhere around here too.
Last week, I found myself in a bit of a baking and blogging rut and at first I blamed it on the weather. With the sun out until almost 9pm every night, the last thing I wanted to do was stand in front of a hot oven or type hunched over my laptop. It also didn’t help either that our apartment oven was acting up again, but the biggest reason was even if I wanted to bake something, I was at a loss for ideas. My to-bake list was uninspiring and for most of last week, just the thought of trying to make something sounded exhausting.
Luckily, this feeling passed. Usually I make a conscious effort to post a recipe or something once a week, but sometimes things come up. Plus I think its good to take a break once in a while rather than try to rush out content that I’m not particularly proud of.
Canadian food blogger, baking and eating her way through life. Musical theatre fanatic. Personal finance nerd. Sometimes runner/yogi. Green smoothies are pretty amazing.
