On NaBloPoMo Failure and Caldo Verde

dear lord this is an ugly picture

I have unsurprisingly failed in my NaBloPoMo quest. This has happened a lot more now than it did before. I think some of it was the encouragement I had when I actually knew other bloggers in Austin. A lot of it is because the seasons in my life have changed and my energy is directed elsewhere. I've been going to data science and machine learning meet ups whenever I can. I've been trying to attend community-building events to learn more about creating a diverse and inclusive culture both at my company and in tech in general. These do not leave much time for blogging, or cooking for that matter. Colby bears the brunt of the domestic responsibilities and I am very glad that he can cook.

I've been thinking about priorities a lot lately. I spend 2-4 nights per week doing after-work extracurricular activities. It's meant that I've been spending a lot of my mental capital on that and not on other things that I used to do (hello, paper crafting). It's also meant that I don't sleep and haven't been to my insanely expensive exercise place in 2 weeks (hello, Crossfit). This results in very quiet weekends. This isn't a bad thing, except that my weekends used to be the most interesting part of my week. Instead, I've been spending a lot of time snuggling with Ramona, watching Bob Ross, and catching up on my sleep.

The best part about quiet weekends has been that it's gotten much colder. This means that snuggling under piles of blankets is not uncomfortable and that soup for dinner is totally legit. This weekend, PBS Create had a soup-centric theme and that was awesome. America's Test Kitchen highlighted a recipe for caldo verde and it was amazing with nothing more than a side of crusty San Francisco sourdough.