Dessert with a Neighbor

I'm going to admit that today was hard.  I didn't have enough time or support to do some of the things on my list. Other things I could do- I didn't want to.  Oh... I was like an ungrateful kid in a candy store.  Nothing looked good enough.  Where does that leave me?  Baking with my husband at 9:00 at night just to say I did something new.  (Point of the 31 new things challenge wasn't suppose to result in emergency baking and yet there I was in the kitchen, barefoot and clearly showing signs of a baby bump even though the baby is long since gone...oh why am I still baking and eating for two?)  

Luke and I baked Chocolate Pots de Creme for the first time.  I've actually been wanting to make it for a couple of years so hey, now I made it.  Baking with my husband could have been like two bulls charging each other but instead it was like two bulls doing a careful ballet around each other.  That's not true at all.  I was so tired, I did whatever Luke told me and I didn't care one lick that he was running the show. I kept singing Carrie Underwoods song, "Jesus Take the Wheel" but I changed the words to "Lukie take the wheel...." In other news, Our dessert has to chill for four hours so we'll see how it tastes tomorrow.   As I type this, we are on the couch sad that we have no dessert tonight.  

 

I sent an email to some neighbors up the street to see if they would like to enjoy it (or hate it) with us sometime in the afternoon tomorrow.  We haven't had them over yet, and if they accept, that will also be a new experience...and perhaps the one I am most excited about.

It's pretty sad that it took almost five years for me to meet the people on my street.  I kept saying, "ah, city life! No one knows each other."  But that isn't true- at all.  My entire street knows everybody- but us. 

You see- I live in old school Somerville.  People here have raised families of four and five in single 1,000 square feet apartments.  Their cousins live across the street and mom and dad own the unit upstairs.   It's a small community of stoop sitters.   Seriously, in all weather, everyone is always on the stoop until you get to the end of the street where we live.  I don't know, we all seem to be inside watching tv or something.  So after I had Anders, I started walking my street and meeting the stoop sitters.

One day, I felt particularly self conscious.  I was feeling fat and maybe it was a day I hadn't bothered to brush my hair.  Anders drew some attention and I stopped long enough to talk to a sweet lady and her husband.  I honestly felt like saying, "sorry I look like such a mess- I'm not usually one of those moms..." (even though I am.)  Hence picture.  Ok...that's a lie. This is a lemon face.  I drank the lemonade sans the ade.   I digress.  Where was I.... I was talking to my neighbor feeling all sad that she met me on a day where I looked particularly awful (kinda like that photo)

But after a while of some great conversation, my neighbor admitted that she was feeling self conscious about talking to me because of her teeth.  They rotted out of her head because of her cancer treatments.  Cancer has over taken her body.   Somebody slap me for caring about my messy hair.  And p.s. its 104 degrees out...everyone has messy hair.  

Talking to my sweet friend reminded me: I need to make time for my neighbors.  So now most nights I take a walk up our street to see who I can talk to. I'm intentional about meeting my neighbors and talking to them because I feel that is the only way for me to really get to know my community.  Hey, when I wasn't intentional about it, I met no one. 

My blog is called 31plus things because what I do on any given day is just the start.  I made dessert today but it is tomorrow, when I share it with my neighbors, that really counts.