Double the pecans

Here is a quote from a book I'm reading, somewhat unethically in bits and pieces of stolen time at Borders:

"The world would be better off if everyone ate fried foot at least one night a week, and drank coffee you could cut with a knife, and lingered with their neighbors. We’d understand each other a little better, and maybe we’d understand ourselves. Perhaps we’d ponder, over the plastic basket with the grease-stained tissue paper, the need to run so far, so fast—to have, to do, to achieve, to gain, to win—to be all that and make sure everybody knows it. A pecan pie does not toil, nor does it spin, but it sure tastes good, and it makes a fine conversation piece. In the right setting, you can talk for twenty minutes about the merits of a good pecan pie."

It makes me want to be from a small town. The book does, not that quote specifically. That quote specifically makes me want pecan pie. My dad's best-pecan-pie-in-the-whole-world pecan pie. But the rest of the book is a cross between Dancer, Texas, Stars Hollow, and the sappy parts of a Dee Henderson novel. You can understand why it's taken precedence over laundry, and cleaning my bathroom, and getting caught up on work. Not that I haven't been working a lot. It feels like that's all I did last week. And the week before, and the one before that too. I can't quite fathom what it would feel like to only have to work 40 or 50 hours in a week. It's completely beyond the powers of my imagination. I'm trying hard not to complain, because I know I signed up for this and the end is in sight and all that. (Thinking positively was never really a strong suit).

But then I wonder what I would do with all that extra time. Like Laura, I don't really have a hobby that I can call mine, that I can claim as my one excelling talent. Most of my free time right now is spent reading or watching TV. That's not any kind of hobby. I am having a sort of deja vu writing about this, almost enough to make me scroll back through my old blogs to figure out if I've written about hobbies before. Almost. If I have, then the three people who read my blog will be treated to an encore.

In a perfect world, I would have time (and money) to horseback ride, hike, play soccer, play frisbee in the park with my dog, volunteer at kids' sports camps, learn to cook/bake, paint, learn guitar, etc. Right now it taxes my energy to keep the dishes from piling up and having clean clothes to wear to work everyday. But someday...

Someday I'm gonna have my pie and eat it too.