Sitting on the Back Burner

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How many burners does your stovetop have? Four? Five? Ten? Does it have one of those warming ones, a place where you can't boil water, but you can keep something edible for a while?

My physical stovetop only has four (though I used to have five), but I feel as if my own personal stovetop has about fifty of them--or perhaps I have some casseroles in the oven, as well, all baking at different levels of completion.

Ever burn anything on that stovetop? It's a bit easier to do if you have all your burners going full blast, but a bit of maintenance can let you know something's about to boil over, and you can turn down the heat or turn it off completely. I do find, though, that it's hard to make everything cook at the same time without turning something to charcoal or forgetting to turn on a burner at all.

This is where I stand right now. After the rush of NaNoWriMo, I've been shuffling around different projects, including actually finishing the novel I set out to write in November. That rough draft is now done, but I have several shorter things screaming at me, and I find this blog and my other have been neglected because of my time on writing and art projects and on holiday obligations apart from my writing (including a birthday party for my daughter, about ten holiday parties, a children's musical I just finished directing, Zumba classes, end of school activities for my kids, presents, stockings, baking, cleaning, do I actually need to go on with all the other items, or do you see what I mean already?).

In fact, these poor blogs haven't been on the back burner. They've been set on the countertop for days, and now they're growing that creepy white mold in fuzzy spots. Inedible. I need to toss out the crap inside and start over.

That is precisely what I intend to do. I'll be posting soon to let all of you know my plans. My Not Writing blog will be dealing with writing, marketing, evil voices, etc., but I will be working on a more consistent post schedule for it (to go with a more consistent marketing and writing schedule) and my Creative Arts Anonymous blog will be revamped to include far more of the creative arts, from painting to music to theatre. I might even throw in a bit of cooking and other artistic pursuits.

I hope you stay tuned. I'll be back here before you know it, once I've dumped out that moldy mess, washed and sanitized the pans, polished them until they are shiny, and placed them on the burners again. Hopefully I'll remember to stir them enough so that nothing burns on the bottom!

In the meantime, how are your recipes going? Any dish get finished? Did it taste good? Burn anything? Got some mold growing in your pans? I'd love to feel I'm not alone in this... but I think this feeling's pretty common for this time of year. While I'm planning, if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them.

More soon, I promise!