I Am Back, For Three Minutes

And here he is.

If the pictures are blurry, that is just because life has been a bit blurry for the last few weeks.  And the months before that, when pregnancy just went on and on.

But blurry can be beautiful.

We have been leaning hard on our people, who have really been bringing it.  Bringing food. Soups, breads, brownies, covered dishes, lasagnas.  We have been fed by others, which is good, because most days its hard enough just to get food into my mouth, let alone from the store to the stove.

As you can imagine, my ferments have been abandoned  (move over guys, there's a new baby in the house).  More than one jar of milk kefir has over-fermented on my counter, my kombucha jar turned into an extended-stay hotel, my pickling cucumbers are just sitting in the fridge, but I keep trying to make yogurt.  It has not gone well:  I scald the milk, and put it on the counter to cool down.  And then I forget all about it.  One day I heated it up three times without actually culturing it.  Late that night, as I headed to bed with a finally sleeping baby, I saw the cold milk sitting on the counter.  YOGURT!  I said to my husband.

It's over, honey, he said.  Let it go.

I laughed hard, bumping the baby against my jiggling stomach, and let it go.  They say that it's good to laugh hard once a day, just to ward off the blues.

For the moment, I know that if I can't do it in three minutes, I can't do it.  Or, if I can't do it in a series of three minute intervals, I can't do it.  In three minutes, I can move a load of laundry from the wash to the dryer, I can send an email, I can make a sandwich. And in between those three minutes, I will do the rest of life.

My three minutes is up, I hear the baby.  But I will be back, soon, friends, for another three minutes with you.