A Difficult Day

Well,

What a day. In the kitchen, I fabricated (disassembled) another chicken - my third - and it was the worst one yet. I "butchered" it. I've seen three chefs at school - and countless others on You-Tube - and they all do it a different way. I've got to learn to do it the right way before the final. Jason is coming over to spend Thanksgiving with me. I'm so grateful. Chris was also supposed to come, but he's really, really busy with work and would have had to go right back, so I suggested he come see me when the timing at work is better. Jason and I are going to visit a couple kitchen shops because we both love shopping for kitchen gadgets and just looking at what's new. I'm really excited to just be spending some down time with him. We are going to do a Thanksgiving dinner, but I think we're going to do some non-traditional dishes because we can! I'm going to buy a bunch of broiler chickens so we can get this fabrication thing down pat and then I'm giving him the chicken meat for his freezer. Mine is too small for much of anything. I didn't do well on a quiz in my kitchen class; then got a paper back in English that was a mess. I'm going to have the opportunity to fix the errors to better my grade, so that's a good thing. APA citing - grrrr!

So, I'm really wondering if this decision to go to culinary school was a good one for me. I just seem to be doing everything back asswards. You'd think I've never been in a kitchen before. I've never had to do things "exactly right" in my kitchen - I just did it, so I've got lots of bad habits to break. The more I do wrong, the more nervous I get, and the more nervous I get, the less confidence I have in myself.

But, the worst thing today? I found out - by e-mail - that my divorce was final last Tuesday! I had no idea that it went through. I read my e-mail in between classes today and that was a big mistake. It really hit me hard, harder than I would have thought. I'm no longer Mrs. Dan Alt. I'm a Ms., a single...I went to a seminar this past Saturday at my church on "Surviving the Holidays", which was geared towards people who have lost a parent or spouse or child or friend, or are now single because of divorce. I'm struggling with the whole Christmas thing. I was soooo into Christmas...the tree, the decorations, the music, the gifts, the cooking, the baking, the Christmas cards...All of my Christmas stuff is in the way, way back of my storage unit. Do I even want to do anything this year?

I just pray that God will get me through all of this. I feel like I've lost so much; and as a friend told me today, I'm still mourning and adjusting to everything. I need to get my confidence back if I'm going to make it. I pray and just hope that God is listening. I know he has a plan...