That’s right! I’m making pancakes. And bacon. And this is sooooooooooooooooooooo NOT Weight Watcher’s friendly. In this mood, I don’t have the patience for counting points or making a ‘light’ version. Oh no. This is Lissa has hit the wall and it’s time to work out that frustration in the kitchen. That means full calorie, full fat, full on everything good and tasty and I’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow.

Now, you may be asking yourself why I’m in this mood. Well, you see, I bought a gift card over the weekend for someone and I can’t find it. I have looked EVERYWHERE. I could have sworn I put it in the box I was using to ship it and other items in, but no, it’s not there. It’s not anywhere. The only place I haven’t looked is in the bags of garbage in the big can outside. I’ve looked in drawers, cabinets, stockings, bags, boxes, desks, tables, counters, purses, clothes… I can’t find it and it frustrates the pure hell out of me and when I get this frustrated…because of course other things have just not gone right today either…I cook or I bake or both.

Later today, I plan on digging out the cookie cutters and going for the sugar cookies. We do sprinkles on our cookies in this house, not frosting. Frosting is saved for cakes, unless there’s a cookie cake involved and then we go all out on the frosting. But in general, it’s sprinkles…

I’m feeling a big bowl of spaghetti coming on too… I do believe I might have all the ingredients though for…nope, nevermind, I’m out of chili powder. I was going to say all the ingredients for Cincinnati Chili, but…sighs. It’ll be regular spaghetti for us with garlic cheese bread. Oddly enough, I only have very lean ground turkey (healthy), no sugar added light Ragu sauce (healthy), whole grain spaghetti noodles (healthy), whole wheat french baguettes (healthy)… The only thing not healthy, will be the serving size.

I was considering Red Velvet cupcakes as well. Have never had them and on a day that isn’t going well, what could trying a new recipe hurt, huh?

This is what I do, though. This is how I cope with frustration that doesn’t have me relying on happy pills. Often times, when I bake or cook a lot, and when I say often I mean 90% of the time, I don’t eat but maybe one bite of each, then I’m off to find the nearest peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The fact that I have to pay attention to what I’m doing when I’m in the kitchen is part of the coping mechanism for me. The routine, the following of directions, or the following of a pattern to get the food to taste right, it all aids in my calming.

A lot of people will exercise or cry or shop or such to deal with frustrating things. I’ve always been the cook or the baker when I’m feeling it…

What do you do when you’re so frustrated, when everything is getting on your last nerve, what eases and calms your spirit?

~lissa

P.S. And I have writer’s block. We’ll discuss that tomorrow…