A clean apartment

Over the summer, while huge and pregnant, Craig encouraged me to try my hand at challah baking. And so, one hot Thursday afternoon, I attempted to make the special bread from scratch. How hard could bread-making be?

Hard. Hard for someone who doesn't often bake and doesn't much enjoying cooking. It's hard because the recipe calls for "4-6 or more cups of flour." What?! Just tell me how much flour to use! And I had to be patient while the dough rose. Boring. And, to knead the dough, I had to put flour on the counter so the dough wouldn't stick to the counter. What a mess!

So, I ran out of flour and switched to matzah meal for the counter while kneading the dough, which made Craig twitch with anger and disappointment, though I thought it was an genius way to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter. And I wasn't sure the dough was the correct consistency. And the egg wash I made to make the challah shine upon baking was messy and I was sure I'd put too much egg on the dough (it seemed as if I were cooking an omelet on the challah).

Hot and hormonal (I was eight-months pregnant), I just felt awful. How could I be a mom if I couldn't make challah right? Somehow, those two tasks were related in my crazed, prenatal brain.

To cheer myself up, I decided to do something that I knew I could do well. Something that would produce tangible, appreciated results. I cleaned the apartment top to bottom. I scrubbed the corners of the floors. I wiped down the sides of cabinets. I dusted the tops of bookshelves. When I was done, I was exhausted, but the apartment shone, and I felt better about myself; as if I'd proven to myself that I'm a total failure at all maternal skills.

This is all to say that I find it therapeutic to clean when I feel down. It wears me out, produces results, and I am good at it.

And so, this afternoon, when I got the call from our real estate agent that the house on which we put a bid went to another buyer, I felt down. All weekend, Craig and I talked about the house as if it were going to be ours. We discussed paint colors and where we'd put our television and ho we'd use each room. And yet it was not meant to be. Disappointed that we lost the house and deflated that we are back to square one in terms of house-hunting, I did what I had to do to cheer up: I cleaned. Belle napped and I swept and dusted the and mopped the floors (the vacuum would have woken and scared her, so I saved that task). I scrubbed the bathroom and tidied the living room. When Belle woke up, I took her to the park for some giggles on the swings (see below).

I am still bummed about the house, and upset that we are are stage zero in terms of moving, but at least we have a clean apartment!

Oh, and the challah turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I ended up baking challah from swatch three more times last summer before Belle came along. Someday, Belle and I will bake it together. And then clean up:)